The formula for financial freedom is indeed frighteningly simple: get the documents → open an account → invest regularly in QQQ/VOO → wait for compound interest.

But what destroys this formula is never its complexity, but human nature.

VOO has an expense ratio of 0.03%, with a 10-year annualized return of 14.55%; QQQ has an expense ratio of 0.2%, with an annualized return of 19.61%. The data is there. You could beat 80% of retail investors by investing with your eyes closed.

But the vast majority of people can't do it. It's not because of a lack of money, but because they can't endure.

When the market drops 20%, you'll doubt if you're a fool; when it rises 50%, you'll think you're a genius and want to add leverage to trade contracts. The most counter-intuitive aspect of regular investing is that it requires you to keep buying when you're most panicked and remain restrained when you're most greedy.

What's even more brutal is that this path requires you to first have the qualification to "go out." Without a passport and an overseas account, you don't even have a ticket to enter.

The great way is simple, but easy to know, hard to do. The real barrier is not IQ, but the taming of human nature.