Many people think that making money is hard because they are not smart enough, don't have a high enough starting point, or lack good opportunities. But for most ordinary people, the real difficulty has never been in the method, but in the execution: knowing they should save money, yet unable to resist spending; knowing they should invest long-term, yet wavering amidst fluctuations; knowing a simple and effective path, yet always tempted by complexity and "quicker success."

Today, I'll be reviewing a book about wealth accumulation titled "The Simple Path to Wealth." This book discusses precisely such a counter-intuitive reality – that the path to financial freedom is actually very simple, but very few people can stick to it.

This book brings back to your attention those principles that have been repeatedly verified yet often overlooked: saving, discipline, long-termism, and a redefinition of "freedom." If you have also struggled repeatedly in the dilemma of "knowing what to do but unable to do it," this content is worth your serious read.

Background of "The Simple Path of Wealth"

The author of this book, J.L. Collins, is not an inherently gifted investor. He entered the market in the early 1970s, earning ten thousand dollars a year, starting from a cheap apartment in Chicago. He spent a full 25 years dabbling in individual stocks and active funds, paying 25 years of tuition.

His most painful lesson occurred on October 19, 1987, a day known as "Black Monday," when the stock market plummeted 22.6% in a single day. Collins panicked and liquidated his holdings, selling at the lowest point. The market then rebounded quickly, and he chased it back when it was near its peak. He later called this experience "the most expensive emotional moment of my investing career."

What truly "enlightened" Collins was a fact that took him nearly fifteen years to accept: buying low-cost, broadly diversified index funds and holding them for the long term is more effective than any carefully selected active strategy. He defined his biggest investment mistake as "being too slow to embrace index funds."

The birth of "The Simple Path to Wealth" philosophy stemmed from a more personal story – he had a daughter, Jessica, and from the age of four or five, he began to instill investment and financial knowledge in her, which backfired, and his daughter lost interest in anything related to money.

After his daughter went to college, he decided to organize this knowledge into a series of letters for her. A colleague saw them and suggested he post them on a blog. In 2011, his blog went live.

He had no idea that this blog would attract nearly twenty million readers worldwide, nor did he expect to be crowned the "Godfather of Financial Independence." As he self-deprecatingly noted in the book: if his daughter had actually listened to him when she was young, none of this would have happened.

When people among the twenty million global readers started writing to him, saying "I did it" — a former immigrant child laborer, a couple of public school teachers, a 44-year-old middle-aged person who had lost everything after divorce — Collins compiled these stories into a book, letting them speak for him. These are the Pathfinders, people who have already walked this path, turning back to tell you where the path is.

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