I still remember the first time I played Blue Prince—that strange mix of excitement and dread as I stood at the entrance, staring at those three mysterious doors. It was a rainy Tuesday afternoon, and I had just received another rejection email for a freelance writing project. My income streams were drying up faster than I could replenish them, and I felt stuck in what financial experts call the "feast or famine" cycle of freelancing. Little did I know that this peculiar board game would teach me more about building sustainable income than any business book ever had.
The game begins with you positioned at the bottom-center square of a 5x9 grid, faced with three doors—much like how we face multiple potential income opportunities every day. Each door leads to different "rooms" representing various financial paths. Some rooms are dead ends, others are straight pathways, while others only bend and twist unexpectedly. In that first playthrough, I quickly learned that just like in real life, you have limited steps—crossing each threshold costs you one of them. I remember thinking how perfectly this mirrored my own financial journey: we all have limited time and energy to explore different income streams, and every choice we make carries an opportunity cost.
What struck me most was the game's central objective: carving a pathway using these interlocking pieces to reach the Antechamber where Room 46 awaits. This isn't about rushing through doors randomly—it requires strategy, foresight, and sometimes backtracking when you hit a dead end. I failed my first three attempts spectacularly, either running out of steps or choosing paths that led nowhere meaningful. It reminded me of my early attempts at diversifying income, when I'd jump at every "opportunity" without considering how they fit together. The game's design forces you to think about how each piece connects to the next, creating a cohesive path forward rather than a scattered collection of random rooms.
This is where the concept of "Money Coming Jili" truly clicked for me. In the game, jili represents the strategic momentum you build—the efficient pathway that maximizes your progress while minimizing wasted steps. In financial terms, I've come to understand Money Coming Jili as the art of creating multiple income streams that work synergistically rather than independently. During my fourth attempt at the game, I started mapping out potential routes before making moves, considering how each room could connect to future options. Similarly, I began approaching my income strategy with more intentionality, asking not just "can this make money?" but "how does this connect to my other income sources?"
One particularly memorable game session taught me about calculated risk-taking. I was five moves in and faced with a choice between a straight pathway that offered guaranteed progress and a bending room that might lead to a valuable shortcut or could waste precious steps. I took the riskier option, and it paid off spectacularly—the bending room connected to two additional pathways I hadn't anticipated, effectively giving me more options with fewer steps. This directly translated to my financial life when I decided to invest 15 hours into creating a digital product that could generate passive income, rather than taking another low-paying freelance gig. That product now brings in approximately $387 monthly with minimal maintenance.
The most profound lesson came when I finally reached Room 46 after numerous failed attempts. The satisfaction wasn't just in reaching the destination but in understanding the journey—how each choice, each room, each connection contributed to the final outcome. Similarly, building multiple income streams isn't about suddenly striking gold but about consistently making strategic choices that compound over time. I've since developed what I call the "5 Proven Strategies to Boost Your Income Streams" framework, heavily inspired by my Blue Prince experiences. These aren't get-rich-quick schemes but systematic approaches to income diversification that have helped me increase my monthly earnings by 63% over the past year.
Strategy one involves what I call "pathway mapping"—just as you visualize potential routes in Blue Prince, you need to map how different income streams might connect and support each other. For me, this meant recognizing that my writing skills could be leveraged not just for client work but for creating online courses, which then led to consulting opportunities. Strategy two is about "resource allocation"—in the game, you have limited steps; in life, you have limited time and energy. I now carefully evaluate how much time each potential income stream requires versus its likely return, focusing on those offering the best ROI. The other strategies involve everything from creating "income synergies" (like how different rooms in Blue Prince can create unexpected connections) to building "safety corridors" (multiple pathways so if one income stream dries up, others can compensate).
What Blue Prince and my financial journey have taught me is that building sustainable income isn't about finding one magical door that leads to wealth. It's about understanding how to navigate multiple doors, learning from dead ends, and creating a pathway where each choice builds upon the last. The game's elegant design—with its interlocking pieces and limited steps—perfectly mirrors the real challenge of income diversification. Now, whenever I face financial decisions, I imagine myself back in that 5x9 grid, considering not just the immediate room behind each door but how it might connect to rooms I haven't even discovered yet. And that perspective has made all the difference between merely making money and truly building wealth.
