What is self-discipline?

It’s dangerous to be that consistent—no slacking off for 365 days straight. Otherwise, you’ll turn into the hawk-eyed, wolf-glancing Sima Yi.

Your uninterrupted work means you’re deeply rooted; you’re harder to replace. But it also means the difficulty of monitoring you rises exponentially.

When it comes to continuity at work, capital always holds the upper hand over labor.

No matter how much overtime labor puts in, they still get a long vacation. Capital doesn’t have one. There’s something you can’t avoid: checking the books and watching people every single day. Only by patrolling daily can you keep subordinates from pulling the wool over your eyes.

If you skip court for three days, they’ll inevitably hatch rebellious thoughts—you’ve left them enough time to conspire. Daily morning audiences and daily audits leave no room for rebellion; they’re too busy to plot against you.

Checking the accounts daily is unavoidable. A standard rich person’s life: it’s both grueling and easy, depending on how you look at it.

The hardship lies in the fact that you must audit every day.

If you’re the chairman, you need to review your assets each day—whether they’re still secure, which sectors they’re distributed across, whether global shifts could impact their safety or growth. You also need to assess whether the people handling important matters, like the general manager and executives, remain competent, loyal, or if there are signs of defection or independence.

This process is exactly like an ancient monarch holding morning court: after waking up, you first hold a meeting—report any harvests or disasters, address border threats or banditry promptly. Urgent messages delivered via eight-hundred-li express need immediate attention, even if you have to be woken from sleep. When someone with golden hair in America suddenly makes another move and sends global financial markets into turmoil, threatening your wealth’s safety, you’d have to get up in the middle of the night to handle that emergency report.

Could you possibly skip three days? Impossible. After three days, your empire—and your fortune—might no longer bear your name.

So here’s where the rich person’s exhaustion comes from: theoretically, you must hold morning court daily and personally patrol your castle. Otherwise, you’re unsafe.

Why does an ordinary employee get over 100 days of vacation a year, while a chairman often works 365 days without a break?

The reason is simple: the castle belongs to him, not to you.