Stop relying solely on a salary! 9 steps for ordinary people to achieve "financial freedom"

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Original: hooeem

Compiled by: Yuliya, PANews

If you’re tired of the 9-to-5 life and don’t know how to break out of this cycle, then this article is for you. This is not a scam about cryptocurrencies or get-rich-quick scams, but a real guide to financial freedom.

From how to turn your work into your springboard, to finding your passion, to navigating the attention economy, building community, diversifying monetization, and smart investing, this article will provide you with a clear path from ordinary to extraordinary.

1. Work

Believe it or not, young people need money to support basic lives, such as filling their stomachs and providing shelter. Work is not a constraint, but a boost to financial freedom. If you can’t stick to a 9-to-5 job, you may lack the motivation to achieve financial freedom, let alone accumulate enough income.

The 9-to-5 job is not only a means of making a living, but also creates more possibilities for the “5-9” time period after work. Instead of being busy until retirement only to find out that your health is damaged and you can’t enjoy life, it’s better to work hard to achieve your personal goals when you’re young, energetic, and have fewer responsibilities. Although the process is not easy, it is the hard work of the present that can pave the way for the future and achieve a better life.

2. Luck (non-essential accelerator)

If you are lucky enough to have family support at a young age and live at a lower cost, you will build wealth faster.

Use your advantage: This is not necessary for success, but if you have this luck, it means you have a better hand than others. Don’t feel guilty about it, take advantage of it without reservation.

Turn adversity into motivation: If you don’t have this luck, then turn the “bad card” in your hand into a powerful fuel that motivates you to move forward.

3. Enthusiasm

What is your passion? What do you really love and understand? This is the core of your career.

Find creative sources: Think deeply about the topics you’re willing to create on every day, whether it’s football, fashion, movies, cryptocurrency, economics, travel, food – anything can be.

Find the intersection: If your passion is unclear, make a list of all the things you like and look for their intersection. For example, someone likes AI, cryptocurrency, robotics, privacy, and finance, where the intersection is technology and market. This way, he has a steady stream of content to create.

4. Attention economy

If you’re reading this on your phone, laptop or tablet and have an internet connection, you already have the tools to connect to the world economy.

In today’s world, attention is money. The world’s most successful businesses now use attention to sell products, and you can sell anything that provides value to others.

How to control attention? By building a community.

How do I build a community? By providing value for free on social media.

To sum it up: You have a job, a passion, and the tools to connect with the world. Now, the real challenge begins.

5. Build a community from 0 to 1

Step 1: Get started

Precise positioning: Choose a niche that is familiar with and can produce content for a long time. If you have clarified your interests and hobbies, then your subdivision is basically determined.

Professional image: Choose a username and nickname that is concise, recognizable, and highly relevant to the content domain. No one will follow a featureless account. Your username should clearly communicate who you are, what you do, and be professionally consistent visually and semantically. Additionally, use eye-catching and high-quality avatars to reinforce brand recognition. The avatar can be a real photo or an AI image with a unified style. But it must be clean, clear, and aligned with the content theme, ensuring instant recognizability in the flow of information.

Value statement: Write a clear, value-focused bio that clearly states what problems you can solve and what results you can create for others (avoid too many personal details). People only care about what you can offer and are not interested in your private life. The homepage header image is kept concise, professional, and highly relevant to the core positioning.

Step 2: Create a list

Search for peers: Now, you need to do some “homework” in your field. Search social platforms (e.g., X/Twitter) for keywords related to your passion. To find active accounts in the field (which is easier if you probably already follow them), you need at least 100 or more active accounts.

Hierarchical management: Then, categorize these active accounts based on the number of followers (e.g., 0-5k, 5k-10k, 10k-25k, 25k-100k, 100k+)

If you don’t understand why you should do this, here’s an explanation:

The first category is your initial social and cross-promotion audience. You’re in a similar stage, have similar interests, and when you frequently provide valuable replies under their content, they will follow you (don’t beg for attention), and you can grow together.

The same is true for the second and third categories. As you grow, you’ll be noticed by accounts with a larger follower base and further cross-promoted.

Categories 4 and 5 are used to reply to their quality posts instantly. They have a large fan base and a highly relevant audience for you. If you don’t understand why this matters, understand this: you’ll have the opportunity to get your account in front of hundreds of thousands of people. All you have to do is respond quickly to their content and provide high-quality, valuable insights. Don’t just reply “good”, no one will click into your homepage because of this kind of reply; Don’t use AI to generate responses, which are easy to spot. Be sincere, be yourself, offer your experience and thinking value in a particular field, and watch your account continue to grow.

Step 3: Grow your account

From 0 to 5,000 followers: Post at least 15-20 feeds per day, including 3-5 original content, and make at least 10-15 high-value replies to accounts on the list above, the more, the better. Make the reply thoughtful and engaging, and avoid generalization. Repost your top-performing content to get more exposure.

From 5,000 to 10,000+ followers: Continue to maintain 10-15 (or more) replies per day; increase original content to 7-10 per day; Start using automation tools to schedule posts while you sleep and keep your account active.

Step 4: Create quality content

Use short, easy-to-navigate text (avoid large chunks of text).

Use lists, line breaks, and keywords to make your content more visible in the timeline.

Retweet high-performing content to get secondary dissemination.

Use threads/long posts to present list-style content.

Write articles to provide in-depth, engaging content.

Step 5: Avoid pitfalls

Don’t rely on “interrelation” strategies.

Avoid overusing hashtags and misusing @mentions.

Don’t plagiarize, keep it original, and add value to your field.

Step 6: Scale

Draining yourself with valuable replies;

Increase conversions with a clear homepage introduction and powerful pinned content, and people will check your account because of your value;

By interacting with high-quality accounts, you can get the same quality of attention and further dissemination;

Leverage automation tools and a newly established network of contacts to further develop a cross-propagation strategy.

Case study: Drizz

Some people question whether this set is effective, you can look at an application case.

Starting point: Drizz had only 24 fans at the time.

Action: Focus on macroeconomics. As the FOMC approaches, publish an FOMC-related article.

Result: Followers grew from 24 to 157.

Follow-up: Later, the account reached 527, but because it was not sent frequently enough and there were not enough replies, the growth did not reach a higher level than possible.

Since then, the account has admitted that it sometimes wants to give up and doesn’t stick to it. That’s okay, this path is not for everyone. But to really stand out, you have to treat this as your “5-9” career, not just a “hobby”.

6. Commercial monetization

If it cannot be monetized, then all previous efforts to build a community are meaningless. It must be clear: building a community is difficult, not impossible, but extremely time-consuming. This means that after finishing the 9-to-5 work every day, instead of lying down and watching dramas, you will continue to write content, dismantle problems, and continue to output value around enthusiasm.

Fortunately, you can use AI to help with ideation, but AI can’t write for you. If people can easily see through AI-generated content, you won’t be able to make the connections you need to scale and succeed with your community.

Of course, you may receive advertising shares from some platforms to earn some pocket money. But our goal is financial freedom, right? Here are a few compliant and long-term effective monetization methods.

Path 1: Advertising sharing of the platform (“Musk’s money”)

Once you create your account, you will earn a share of the platform’s ads. The core of the X platform’s profit model is to attract high-quality users, rather than simply pursuing the number of fans or superficial data. Platforms are more inclined to reward users who truly create value rather than those who complain about the algorithm. Platforms only care about one thing: attention that converts. The X platform aims to attract users with purchasing power, interest from advertisers, and a willingness to invest in the platform, such as those who subscribe to the Premium Blue Label. The platform algorithm is not aimed at individuals but is more inclined to promote content that is attractive and convertible.

Key factors for monetization: Your earnings depend on the quality of your audience, not the quantity.

Geographic location: Fans from the US and EU drive more ad revenue.

Paying users: Fans with premium membership are ten times more valuable than regular fans.

Content Type: Some topics earn a little while others are substantial. You need to enter areas where advertisers are willing to spend money for eyeballs, such as finance and cryptocurrency.

Sustainability: Stable output is more important than explosive models.

How do you really get paid? In addition to audience quality, you should also focus on:

Replies, retweets, and quotes that reflect real interactions.

Dwell time:This silent metric determines the fate of your content.

Long-form content that grabs attention, such as articles and videos longer than two minutes.

Online Q&A events (AMA Spaces) to enhance community cohesion.

Master these, and the platform transforms from a mystery into a predictable machine. To get paid, you need to meet the following basic conditions: be at least 18 years old, enable two-factor authentication, verify your email, have 500 followers, 5 million impressions in the last 90 days, and have a Premium subscription. Once you connect to Stripe, you can start earning passive income.

Way 2: Sell “skills”

People are happy to pay for:

Methodology

Dismantling and reviewing

Research system

Template

Workflow

Here’s a complete guide on how to do it:

Choose skills that people are really willing to pay for: instead of keeping a diary, you’re packaging a solution. First, make sure you have a deep understanding of the field, pay attention to people’s difficulties in that area, and evaluate the real value of solving the problem. In addition, it is necessary to observe whether there is obvious demand online. Whether it’s market analysis, design, writing, fitness, cryptocurrency, programming, or productivity improvement, it can be a worthwhile direction as long as there is demand and knowledge can create results.

Define transformation: Every successful product accomplishes only one thing: take the reader from point A to point B. Specifically, two questions need to be answered: What problems are readers currently facing? And what will they be able to achieve after reading? If this transformation cannot be articulated in one sentence, the product will be difficult to sell.

Build a clear framework: People don’t just buy raw information, but rather buy structured content. Therefore, it is especially important to translate your skills into a clear process. An effective process can include several key steps: understanding the basics, setting it up correctly, executing core skills, avoiding common mistakes, and scaling or optimizing results. Such a framework can not only help users quickly master skills, but also enhance the usefulness and value of the product. It is important to note that users should be able to implement the guidelines on the same day, and if they are unable to do so, such a product can hardly be considered premium.

Writing eBooks/PDFs: Sharp language, no nonsense. Use simple language, short paragraphs, direct instructions, enhance clarity with screenshots when necessary, give examples only when needed, tools are available in Canva or Google Docs, and the layout is clean, readable, and brand-consistent. No designer is needed, what is needed is clarity.

Packaged products: When promoting products or services, focus on the conversions available to users rather than specific content details. Users are more concerned about saving time, reducing uncertainty, avoiding errors, getting clear guidance, and having a proven plan. Therefore, when introducing a product, focus on what it can help users achieve rather than the specific number of pages or modules it contains.

Build authority through content: Content is the core driver of product sales, and publishing high-quality content daily can help build authority and attract user attention. Provide clear and valuable information through the sharing of insights, lessons learned, how-to guides, failure cases, screenshot presentations, framework analysis, and quick solutions. By consistently outputting high-quality and useful content, it is very helpful to make users feel that free content is already very helpful, so they are naturally willing to buy more in-depth paid resources, such as PDFs.

Build a sales infrastructure: Setting up a sales infrastructure requires only a few key tools, including Gumroad, LemonSqueezy, or Payhip. Pair it with a page, a buy button, and clear action guidelines.

Post it right: When publishing content, don’t just throw out links, but create anticipation: you can ask questions, show parts of the guidelines, explain who your target audience is, and share some user reviews or early feedback. Additionally, pinning posts with main content can also help increase exposure. People are more attracted to content that is full of energy, confidence, and articulation, so pay attention to conveying these qualities when posting.

Iterative upgrades: Through customer feedback, products can be continuously optimized to improve user experience. Adding clear examples, templates, checklists, extra pages, and updated strategies can make your product more engaging and useful. These improvements will not only help users better understand and use the product, but also make it a long-term competitive choice for a long time.

Build an ecosystem: When building an ecosystem, a single guide is just a product, while three guidelines can make up a business. To achieve this, it is recommended to create complementary assets, including beginner versions, advanced versions, domain-specific versions, as well as kits, cheat sheets, and templates, among others. It’s not just about making a PDF file, it’s about building sustainably accumulated intellectual property.

Repeated cycle: every skill mastered can be made into a product; Every product is a revenue stream; Each buyer may become a repeat buyer. The path is: learn, package, sell, optimize, expand, circulate. Simple, efficient, and highly leveraged.

Way 3: Sell “convenience”

Understand what convenience is: Convenience is about removing barriers that help people get results faster, skip painful processes, reduce choice costs, save time, and avoid confusion. If the product eliminates the “right friction”, it will go from valuable to indispensable.

Identify what people hate to do: Convenience comes from frustration. Look for tasks that are shunned because they are boring, repetitive, time-consuming, technically complex, or emotionally exhausting.

Packaging solutions into effortless products: convenience must feel instant. It can be packaged into templates, checklists, automated scripts, AI prompts, plug-and-play systems, and more. If users can pick it up and use it within 60 seconds, it’s often easier to sell.

How to get results quickly: The most important question for users when choosing a convenience product is “how to get results quickly”. To meet this demand, developers need to focus on improving product efficiency, removing redundant content, and optimizing usage processes. Specific measures include: providing simple and clear operation guidelines, clarifying how to execute each step, and adding screenshots to assist in explanations if necessary. At the same time, the task is broken down into small, repeatable actions and a simplified one-page how-to guide is provided for quick use. It is important that product design avoids theoretical teaching and instead focuses on providing direct and effective shortcuts to help users achieve their goals quickly.

Make the offer irresistible: The convenience of buying is not because of the low price, but because it can significantly improve the efficiency of time utilization. The appeal of products and services lies in their ability to help users save hours per week, simplify complex learning processes, reduce stress, provide clear solutions, bring a competitive advantage, or directly provide off-the-shelf solutions. By demonstrating time saved, reduced effort, and avoided frustration, the value of the product or service can be effectively communicated, thereby better impressing users.

Sell with demonstrations, not persuasion: Show before and after to show how much steps and time your method saves. Let people “feel easy”, and the product will sell itself.

Build authority by tackling tiny questions every day: Every piece of your content should be saying, “I make your life easier.” ”

Repeat the cycle: find obstacles - > Remove barriers - > Packaging solutions - > sales results. Convenience is a near-legal “cheating” in the digital economy.

Way 4: Sell “high-level communities”

People are willing to pay for:

Get unique resources

Get mentorship

Define your goals

Strengthen the sense of responsibility

Provides a sense of direction

Promote action

Surround yourself with like-minded people

A truly high-level community has its own culture: values, tone, language, standards, common mission, etc. People pay for a sense of belonging.

Provide clear value: Clearly state what you will get after joining and how your life will improve. For example: daily analysis, workflow guides, live Q&A, opportunities to communicate directly with you, as well as utilities, templates, and shortcuts.

Provide change, not content: What truly makes members feel valued is their own growth and change. Every member should feel like this: “I’m not the same person I was last month.” This transformation requires a clear direction, a clear structure, effective accountability mechanisms, daily motivation, and a constant sense of progress.

Opportunity to engage with you is at the core: your presence, guidance, and attention are the premium of the community.

Build structure to stay engaged: There needs to be weekly themes, fixed events, challenges, milestones, etc., so members always know what to do next when they log in.

Create a quality environment: Set rules to eliminate noise, spam, and low quality. A clean community with 30 loyal members is better than a server with 3,000 “zombies”.

Community Optimization Enhances Brand Strength: The community acts as a living organism that continuously improves the experience to enhance overall performance. Optimization methods include streamlining channels, adding new tools, bringing in experts, rolling out new templates, hosting meetings, and updating systems. At the same time, pay attention to listening to members’ opinions, and each improvement will have a cumulative effect, making the community more sensitive.

Expand rhythmically: Don’t rush to chase the number of people on a large scale, but chase “density”. Community growth comes from consistency, transformation, word-of-mouth, results, and member wins. When a spontaneous “must join here” referral arises, it enters a virtuous cycle.

Other monetization methods

Revenue Sharing Tool: Earn commissions on referral links that promote other digital products.

One-on-One Support and Assistance: Similar to paid communities, offering personalized service.

Merch: Sell merch if the product is cool and fits your niche.

Important: Don’t over-market. Maintain a balance between content and sales (at least 5:1 recommended), or you’ll quickly lose the trust of your fans.

7. Balance and save

When incomes start to improve, the most common risk is that the cost of living rises rapidly, and you get into debt for a “more refined life”, only to be tied to the system for longer.

What needs to be done is to save and divide cash flow clearly:

Use your 9-to-5 income to cover living expenses(It was possible before, and it can be done now)；

Save with the extra income you bring from the “5-9” time slot after work.

Sure, go on vacation and enjoy good food, but don’t be too extravagant and squander all your earnings. You need this money to truly achieve financial freedom.

8. Investment

Don’t trade, don’t gamble, invest and save to let your assets grow to outperform inflation.

Depending on your region, find the best investment method that reduces capital gains tax (e.g., ISA stock and share accounts in the US).

Here are five portfolios with their volatility and compound annual growth rate (CAGR) expectations, as well as expected returns over 5, 10, and 15 years.

*Note: NFA, DYOR.

1. Very low-risk portfolio

80% S&P 500 (S&P 500): Invest broadly and diversified in the U.S. stock market, providing stability, low volatility, and consistent performance over time.

10% TSMC (TSMC) and ASML (ASML): These two companies are at the heart of global semiconductor and AI production, with deep moats and high demand.

10% “Quality” Businesses: such as American Express(AXP)、Visa(V), MasterCard(MA), Moody’s(MCO), S&P Global(SPGI), Ferrari(RACE), Hermès(RMS)etc., with lasting competitive advantages and predictable returns.

Combination indicators:

Expected CAGR: 6.7% - 8.4%

Volatility: 12% - 13%

2. Conservative portfolio

60% S&P 500: Core defense foundation.

15% of the Big Seven in technology (MAG7): Invest in the world’s strongest technology companies at a manageable scale.

10% TSMC and ASML: Critical semiconductor infrastructure.

10% “Quality” Enterprise: Reliable global compounding machine.

5% Bitcoin: Small position allocation for asymmetrical upside potential without distorting overall volatility.

Combination indicators:

Expected CAGR: 7.5% - 9.3%

Volatility: 14% - 17%

3. Balanced investment portfolio

40% S&P 500: A solid foundation for stabilizing your overall portfolio.

20% Tech Big Seven: Key engines of long-term technology growth.

15% TSMC and ASML: Monopolies in AI and semiconductors.

15% “Quality” Business: Balanced, predictable cash flow.

7% Bitcoin: Provides long-term convexity.

3% Robotics: Invest in emerging innovations with small positions without over-risking.

Combination indicators:

Expected CAGR: 9% - 11%

Volatility: 17% - 20%

4. Aggressive investment portfolios

30% Big Seven: The world’s strongest technology platform and AI leader.

20% TSMC and ASML: Key AI infrastructure.

15% Robotics: such as UBTECH(UBTech), Xiaopeng(Xpeng), Yushu Technology(Unitree)etc., high innovation is also accompanied by high volatility.

15% “Quality” Enterprises: Provide high-quality ballast stones during market downturns.

10% Bitcoin: Significant asymmetric upside potential.

10% S&P 500: Reduces volatility marginally.

Combination indicators:

Expected CAGR: 12% - 16%

Volatility: 25% - 32%

5. Extremely high-risk investment portfolio

35% Robotics: Cutting-edge technology with high dispersion of results. UBTech, Xpeng, Unitree.

30% Tech Seven: Continued dominance in AI, cloud computing, software, and global digital infrastructure.

15% Bitcoin: A macro asset with a high beta value with a huge historical long-term appreciation.

10% TSMC and ASML: Provide structural technology exposure and a strong moat.

10% Coinbase (COIN) and Robinhood (HOOD): High beta fintech stocks directly related to the next generation of investors and traders.

Combination indicators:

Expected CAGR: 15% - 22%

Volatility: 35% - 45%

About risk: The less responsibility you take, the more risk you can afford. It is recommended to start investing when the market is in extreme panic (e.g., when the fear and greed index is low, but asset prices are at historical highs, they will always crash at some point), and then start investing in dollar-cost averaging (DCA). You can also choose to go all in when everyone says Bitcoin is a failed experiment. There are many options here. You need to invest to outperform inflation.

Simulation deduction: If the process of “obtaining attention→ building a community → successfully monetizing” is followed, it may take up to 2 years; If successful, it should be able to achieve at least $2,500 per month of “investable income”(Not used in everyday life)。 Based on the CAGR of each of these portfolios, the expected returns over 5, 10 and 15 years will be substantial.

9. Financial freedom

Financial freedom becomes within reach when individuals can invest around $1.5 million to $4 million. At an annualized yield of 3%, you can earn about $45,000 to $120,000 per year in passive income (equivalent to $3,750 to $10,000 per month). If you add personal brand and long-term product revenue, this means that the overall monthly cash flow can reach $10,000 to $30,000, and there is almost no pressure, no employees, and no complex operations. And this mode is completely online and can be run anywhere.