Book Review: 'The Ordinary Person's Path to Financial Freedom' — 3 Key Steps for Influencers to Monetize Their Traffic

Rating: ⭐⭐

Money and Career Success Are What Everyone Wants

This book is basically the story of how an influencer became successful. Everyone’s success comes with its own set of opportunities, but speaking of this book, at the time I just wanted to put into practice the reading principles from 10x Efficient Business Book Reading — speed-reading through books on the same topic of financial freedom.

I was genuinely curious: what exactly are all these books writing about?

The Unfortunate Reality of Translated Books

Most of these books come from the United States, and this one is no different. After reading the entire book, I realized that the scenarios described are pretty hard to replicate in our Taiwanese context. The methods might be the same, but different environments make it impossible to implement.

Of course, we all know that success might follow a certain logic or come with corresponding methods.

The author of this book actually has a story very similar to Taiwanese influencer success stories. It’s kind of like Bailingguo (百靈果, a popular Taiwanese podcast) publishing a book — similar concept. (I’m not commenting on Bailingguo itself; I’m only discussing the logical steps in the book and how they relate to real-life scenarios.)

This Book Basically Says You First Have to Be Willing to Get Famous

Many things aren’t something everyone wants to do, even if they’re money-making methods. Just like the book mentions — you need to set a grand vision. I remember when I first started listening to Bailingguo, they had this line about “tearing down the walls of capitalism.” That’s exactly like what the book says about setting a grand vision. Then you need to find your strengths, create your avatar, choose your platform, and find your mentor. You’ll notice this path looks a lot like the journey Bailingguo went through (I don’t know the details, but I’d say it’s very likely similar).

They must have also figured out their strengths through trial and error. The name “Bailingguo” itself is their avatar. Their chosen platform is podcasting and the internet. I’m not sure if their collaboration with Fan Chieh-fei counts as having a mentor, but if you look at the process described in the book, you can pretty much draw parallels.

I Happen to Run a Podcast Too

While reading this book, I happened to be running my own podcast. But the business model described is completely different from what I had in mind. I think the commercialization in this book is pretty intense. While many people do everything with the goal of making money, I’ve always felt that if you measure the success of something solely by how much money it makes… the meaning isn’t all that great. I’m not saying this because I don’t need money — I definitely need money too. But the key for those of us who need money should be working hard to earn better compensation while also enjoying our work and our lives. That’s the real essence of financial planning.

In Short, This Is More of a Practical Entrepreneurship Book

If we look at this book from a financial planning perspective, it reads more like an entrepreneurship how-to rather than financial planning content. The “financial freedom” and “passive income” mentioned in the book all come from the traffic revenue generated after becoming famous. The book essentially doesn’t touch on investing or financial planning.

If you’re interested in entrepreneurship, go check it out yourself.

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Further Reading

The Lazy Conclusion

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金融科技新創 CEO | 獨立財務顧問

Nothing succeeds without effort, and not everything succeeds just because you try.

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