Recommended preface to "Getting Rich in Pictures": Use a picture to create a system that will make you money, and also draw a picture of a life you are willing to do over again.

*▲ Getting rich is not just investment, financial management or passive income, but value, choice and freedom beyond money. When you are willing to draw the first picture for yourself, your life begins to be rewritten. *

Text/Zheng Weiquan, columnist of “Economic Daily” and “Technology Island”

I still remember the first time I contacted Yilin in September 2018. At the time, we privately messaged each other via Facebook.

At that time, illustrations were not very popular in Taiwan, and not many people were willing to take the time to draw complex knowledge one stroke at a time. But Yilin is one of them. From reading between the lines of the messages, I could sense his seriousness in visual recording.

In the years that followed, I watched him grow from a slasher who helped people make graphic records, to later devoting all his energy to the School of Graphical Power. He was doing more and more things, but one thing remained the same: he was still drawing, and he was drawing more and more deeply and systematically.

In this era where trends come and go quickly, people who can continue to work on the same thing for nearly ten years are actually very rare. I not only admire it, but also feel that this slow but constant persistence is a lesson worth learning for all creators.

Therefore, when I received the manuscript of “Getting Rich with Illustrations, I was very happy for my readers. Because this is not an ordinary illustrated book, but a book that he drew (written) again after dismantling and sorting out all the blood and tears he had spent over ten years.

Written for you who once thought you had no choice in life

In his preface, Yilin honestly wrote about his three low points: when he thought he could retire in a non-profit organization, he was forced to leave home by a personnel order; when he arrived at the new company, he realized that seven or eight years of experience could not bring anything with him, because those were just stories, not knowledge; until he woke up one morning and suddenly lost hearing in his left ear…

I read that paragraph twice.

It seems calm, but I can understand this feeling of being in a dilemma - having a job that looks good to outsiders and a stable salary, but also having expenses that make you breathless every month… So, you tell yourself: “I have no choice, I can only do this.”

But Yilin tells everyone very gently and firmly in the book: “It’s not that you have no choice, but you still don’t know how to choose and act?”

Well, this sentence is worth chewing carefully.

He redefined the word “get rich”

In recent years, there have been many books on the market about getting rich, but most of them stay at the level of investment, financial management or passive income. Yilin brings it back to a more fundamental place - it is value, choice and freedom beyond money. It is whether you can live a life in your own way that you are willing to repeat again?

I very much agree with this definition. I had a similar experience when I read Hao Hsu-lieh’s “The Right Way to Spend Money”. I once talked about it in “[Spending money is never a math question, but a multiple-choice question] (/blog/money-is-a-choice-not-a-math-problem)”: The true dividing line between rich thinking and poor thinking is not how much you earn, but whether you regard money as a stock to be maintained or a flow that can create value.

Because over the years I have transitioned from a magazine editor to a one-person company, running content and teaching people to write, my biggest realization is this: real wealth is never the number in the account, but whether you can wake up every morning and look forward to what you want to do today? It is a sense of security that the control is back in your own hands, a sense of clarity that you know what you are accumulating and where you are going. This is also what I have always wanted to convey in “I Watch “Playing One Person Company"": Use interest-driven to make people live the way they want.

In this book, Yilin teaches you step by step how to turn this sense of solidity from an abstract desire into an executable daily routine.

Why diagram? Because the brain needs a map

The most unique thing about this book is that it provides multiple illustrated templates. Each picture corresponds to a key node in life and career.

Many people think that illustrations just turn text into beautiful illustrations, but this is not the case. The real power of diagrams is that they force you to structure vague ideas - when you have to draw something, you can no longer use vague language to perfunctory yourself. This process of forcing yourself to see clearly is itself an extremely rare thinking exercise. I have previously talked about it in “[I read “The Lazy Man’s Illustrated Presentation Techniques”] (/blog/i-read-the-lazy-mans-illustrated)”. The essence of illustration is to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, simplify the complex, and turn complex knowledge into content that can be understood instantly at a glance.

The great thing about Yilin is that not only can he draw, he also breaks down the way of thinking about drawing into a template that everyone can imitate. You don’t need to be able to draw, as long as you are willing to pick up a pen and fill in the blanks according to his guidance, your own value flywheel diagram will slowly emerge. This visual exercise of “seeking something first, then seeking good” is the same as what I did in ""Doodle! It can be said that the spirit advocated in “Using Visual Templates to Turn Your Life” Recommended Preface> coincides with each other.

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A picture is a promise to oneself

“Your life should not just be “making do."" I was deeply impressed by what Yilin said in the book. The weight behind this sentence can only be understood by those who have actually gone through that journey.

If you are there too, if you have ever asked yourself late one night, “What have I accumulated? Am I really valuable?” - I would like to ask you to open this book and try to draw from the first picture.

Drawing a picture doesn’t take you much time. But the moment you are willing to draw the first picture for yourself, you are already telling yourself: “I don’t want to make do anymore. From today on, I will draw this map of life by myself!”

Going back to that Facebook private message in 2018 - if you ask me, where did that young man who was chatting seriously about illustrations end up? I would smile and say: Well, he has reached the peak and is still going forward.

I hope that after reading this book, you will not only have a few useful templates in your hand, but also feel more confident in your heart. Yes, you can always choose again.

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