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Pathfinders: Extraordinary Stories of People Like You on the Quest for Financial Independence—And How to Join Them
From “The Godfather of Financial Independence (FI)”, a follow-up to his international bestselling personal finance sensation The Simple Path to Wealth!
Pathfinders brings together scores of amazing and insightful real-life stories from real people on the journey to financial independence—providing practical encouragement and inspiration for anyone who wants to join them.
Lighting the way in the real world to The Simple Path to Wealth, these are fascinating, heartfelt, often surprising
- of struggles overcome and the rewards that followed
- of enterprising solutions to unexpected problems
- of sacrifices made and the kindness of strangers
- of surprisingly simple steps—and the amazing places they can take you
and much, much more.
Author JL Collins accompanies these readers’ stories with reflections on his “rules for the road”—as well as a candid conversation about the journey to financial freedom with his daughter, the inspiration for his original international bestseller.
Pathfinders is the ultimate companion for your own journey to financial freedom—and the true and lasting wealth that lies at the end.
Pathfinders brings together scores of amazing and insightful real-life stories from real people on the journey to financial independence—providing practical encouragement and inspiration for anyone who wants to join them.
Lighting the way in the real world to The Simple Path to Wealth, these are fascinating, heartfelt, often surprising
- of struggles overcome and the rewards that followed
- of enterprising solutions to unexpected problems
- of sacrifices made and the kindness of strangers
- of surprisingly simple steps—and the amazing places they can take you
and much, much more.
Author JL Collins accompanies these readers’ stories with reflections on his “rules for the road”—as well as a candid conversation about the journey to financial freedom with his daughter, the inspiration for his original international bestseller.
Pathfinders is the ultimate companion for your own journey to financial freedom—and the true and lasting wealth that lies at the end.
- GenresFinance
331 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 31, 2024
4 people are currently reading
126 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 15, 2025
This is hardly a book. It has 9 chapters on various themes related to Simple Path to Wealth. JL covers a few pages with his view which is followed by a sequence of random disconnected „stories” of his followers.
The problem with this book is it feels like a half assed effort done based on existing popularity and praise of Simple Path which is a fine read in contrast to Pathfinders.
I can’t fault the people submitting the stories they are not writers. But they are often convoluted, with little context, and very generic and simply too short to really relate.
You can get the same information as the stories by reading FIRE reddits. You can hear more in depth stories on FIRE podcasts where host gives a guest an hour to talk.
Now JL should have done something more than just providing them one after another often completely inconsequentially. There is hardly any flow in the book and it doesn’t feel like one - it’s just a collection of random stories.
There are two stories that are memorable which is the submission from a Russian and an Ukrainian, it’s pretty humbling to learn their circumstances and their will power to overcome the serious difficulties most of us will never face.
However those two can’t salvage the book. Pathfinders is not even one. If you want to learn about Simple Path read Simple Path to Wealth and skip this one. It adds very little value.
The problem with this book is it feels like a half assed effort done based on existing popularity and praise of Simple Path which is a fine read in contrast to Pathfinders.
I can’t fault the people submitting the stories they are not writers. But they are often convoluted, with little context, and very generic and simply too short to really relate.
You can get the same information as the stories by reading FIRE reddits. You can hear more in depth stories on FIRE podcasts where host gives a guest an hour to talk.
Now JL should have done something more than just providing them one after another often completely inconsequentially. There is hardly any flow in the book and it doesn’t feel like one - it’s just a collection of random stories.
There are two stories that are memorable which is the submission from a Russian and an Ukrainian, it’s pretty humbling to learn their circumstances and their will power to overcome the serious difficulties most of us will never face.
However those two can’t salvage the book. Pathfinders is not even one. If you want to learn about Simple Path read Simple Path to Wealth and skip this one. It adds very little value.
November 10, 2025
Pathfinders is a collection of stories covering each stage of Financial Independence journey.
These stories are real life experiences of people who have followed the path.
So many different perspectives combined into one amazing book.
I read the stories and contemplated over it while reading the book one chapter at a time.
These stories are real life experiences of people who have followed the path.
So many different perspectives combined into one amazing book.
I read the stories and contemplated over it while reading the book one chapter at a time.
December 28, 2024
Money grab by the author, pun intended. Nothing uniquely novel or helpful in this book. Only giving it this high a rating because it's consistent and has clear advice for folks who are new to the ideas.
December 15, 2024
Just read the simple path to wealth if you are interested in FI. It’s better
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews