Recently, I came across another story about Duan Yongping. This investor—worth hundreds of billions—lives a daily life that’s so simple and so direct: hamburgers, golf, and sleeping. At first glance, it looks like “lying flat,” but in fact it’s a different kind of state of mind.

I’ve watched many of his interviews and found that real billionaires all play the same game of logic, but most people understand it the wrong way. It’s not that they’re stingy; it’s that they’ve seen through it long ago. The sense of identity that consumerism gives you is nothing compared with the thrill of “I’ll do what I want to do, and I’ll refuse what I don’t want to do.” Buffett drinks cola every day, and Zuckerberg always wears a gray T-shirt. This isn’t frugality—it’s conserving mental energy for what truly matters.

There’s some interesting data: a Harvard study shows that 63% of young people would rather have time autonomy than a high salary. ByteDance also ran an experiment with a “four days on, three days off” work schedule, and efficiency actually increased by 40%. So what does this tell us? Real wealth upgrading isn’t about buying more expensive things—it’s being able to say “no” to the 99% of ineffective socializing, ineffective meetings, and ineffective decisions.

Duan Yongping’s net worth reaching this level doesn’t hinge on the surface story of “only doing three things.” The key is what he gets right when it’s time to decide. His energy is always under his control, never drained away by trivialities. This is the real “dimensionality reduction” attack: while others are upgrading their consumption, he’s upgrading his decision-making power.

Many people interpret “simplifying life” as lying flat, but they’ve got it backward. Simplification is the result, not the cause. Real wisdom is knowing when to go all out and when to wait patiently. Duan Yongping’s three things, which look like inaction, are actually a higher level of action after knowing how to act. This focus and patience have never been about avoidance; instead, they are the highest form of competitiveness.