The Happiest Competence Structure

At the end of last year, I distilled some reflections into simple formulas.

On happiness, my earlier understanding was:
Happiness = MIN(Meaning, Health, Relationships) × Presence

But recently, I’ve arrived at a new perspective—one grounded in the architecture of personal competence, illustrated here:

How do we interpret it?

The happiest state occurs when:
Cognition > Capability > Wealth > Desire

In other words, when each higher-level element can “govern” or “channel” the one below it, the system becomes stable—and generative.

Conversely, when cognition, capability, or wealth fail to contain desire, desire takes over. That’s when people suffer: anxiety, confusion, even depression intensify.

As shown in the diagram below:

This also explains why money earned through luck is often lost just as quickly. When wealth vastly outpaces one’s ability to regulate desire, that wealth tends to vanish—not from bad decisions alone, but from desire’s unchecked momentum.

So the sound principle for growth is twofold:
→ Reduce consumerism (to manage desire reasonably)
→ Cultivate creatorship (to expand cognition and capability)

What lies beneath this is a fundamental energy balance:
→ Tightening the output end (desire)
→ Expanding the input end (cognition)

The same applies to children: encourage creation over consumption; emphasize process over outcome.
Because cognition accumulates through making, not through acquiring. When we obsess over results—especially in a consumption-oriented way—we inadvertently cap our cognitive and capability growth.

A Sense of Control

Happiness doesn’t stem only from “MIN(Meaning, Health, Relationships) × Presence” or from a balanced competence structure.
Another vital dimension is a sense of control.

Happiness correlates strongly with perceived control—the belief that you can meaningfully influence important events and outcomes in your life. This feeling significantly boosts well-being.

When people feel in charge of their lives, they experience less stress, greater self-confidence, and higher life satisfaction.

Crucially, happiness here depends not on how “good” external conditions are—but on whether you feel like the author of your own story.

There are two kinds of control: outward and inward.

Outward control—shaping environments or influencing others—is a double-edged sword.
It may offer fleeting security, but over-pursuing it usually backfires: the world is inherently uncertain; others have their own wills; systems follow their own logic. Excessive control-seeking erodes relationships and traps us in a paradox: the more we try to control, the more we lose control.

Inward control, by contrast, reliably lifts long-term well-being. Examples include:
→ Learning to regulate your emotions
→ Choosing where to place attention—and how to interpret events
→ Building foundational capacities and character traits
→ Cultivating healthy, compounding personal habits

Letting go of excessive outward control—and turning attention inward—often brings unexpected freedom and calm.

The Value of Data Processing

Qichacha has filed for IPO. Its prospectus is publicly available here: link


Key highlights:

  1. Exceptionally high margins: ~90% gross margin, >40% net margin—signaling high-value, knowledge-intensive service
  2. Revenue CAGR: 16.89%; Net profit CAGR: 35%—driven mainly by rising ARPPU (average revenue per paying user)
  3. Over 150 million registered users; >80 million monthly active users; >1 million paying users—and C-end growth continues
  4. C-end accounts for >70% of total revenue; within membership products, C-end contributes 88.5%–91.4%

Qichacha’s foundation rests on China’s National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, launched by government authorities in 2014.
All enterprise data it displays is, in fact, freely accessible via that official portal—anyone could retrieve the exact same information, given enough time and patience.

Most people simply won’t.

So what Qichacha does is take raw public data—and repackage it with friendlier logic, better presentation, and smarter workflows.
Beyond the National System, it also integrates data from Credit China, China Judgments Online, China Enforcement Information Network, CNIPA, Trademark Office, Copyright Protection Center, Ministry of Civil Affairs, and more.

In essence? It scrapes public data, then adds layers of processing: cleaning, labeling, mining, visualization, and intelligent analysis—before delivering high-value, paid products.

The barrier to entry seems low—which is why competitors abound: AiQicha, TianYanCha, QixinBao, QichaMao, and others.

Yet people consistently overestimate the value of raw data—and underestimate the value of processing it.

Qichacha’s real innovation isn’t data ownership—it’s value-chain reconstruction:
Raw data (free) → Collection → Cleaning → Labeling → Mining → Visualization → Intelligent Analysis → High-value product (paid)

From this view, so-called “data moats” may be shallower—or far less durable—than assumed.
What truly matters isn’t hoarding data, but how it’s applied: how it solves real problems, and delivers tangible value to users.

Practice Is What Matters

“The only true measure of intelligence is whether you can get what you want out of life.” — Naval Ravikant

Clarity about what you genuinely want—and the ability to create that result—is the mark of real wisdom.

True intelligence doesn’t live in books, speeches, or clever-sounding thoughts. It lives in action.

And yet, practice is where many stumble—repeatedly. Here are eight common, costly pitfalls:

  1. Perfectionism: “I’m not ready yet.”
  2. Analysis paralysis: Endless research, zero execution.
  3. Consensus trap: “Everyone agrees—so it must be right.”
  4. Idealism: Over-optimistic assumptions about outcomes.
  5. Sunk-cost fallacy: “I’ve invested so much—I can’t stop now.”
  6. Opposition trap: “Everyone’s against it—so it must be wrong.”
  7. Attention trap: Too many ideas, too little focus.
  8. Comparison anxiety: Obsessing over others’ pace or achievements—derailing your own rhythm.

These errors don’t operate in isolation. They form a reinforcing psychological network—each feeding the others—until action grinds to a halt.

The key to breaking free? Recognize that there is no perfect starting point. What matters is beginning—then learning, adjusting, and iterating in motion.
A flawed action followed by reflection beats flawless planning that never leaves the page.

The Difficulty of Speaking Clearly

The challenge of saying something clearly may be greater than I’d imagined.

  1. Clarity begins in the mind—not the mouth.
    Forming coherent, logical thought is hard enough. Our thinking is often fragmented and associative; translating it into linear, intelligible language demands extra cognitive effort.

  2. Speaking is encoding; listening is decoding.
    You compress complex ideas into words; the listener must reconstruct them accurately. The gap between intention and interpretation is wider—and more error-prone—than most assume.

  3. Backgrounds differ wildly.
    Knowledge, experience, mood, culture—all shape how someone hears the same sentence. You may think you’ve been crystal clear—only to discover the listener heard something entirely different.

  4. Attention is scarce.
    In today’s overloaded information environment, holding focus—and cutting through noise to deliver precise meaning—requires deliberate skill and effort.

Because miscommunication is more common than we realize, a core principle of effective communication is simple but non-negotiable:
→ Stay present and listen deeply
→ Confirm understanding by paraphrasing and asking questions