Can you really escape from the rat race? Or are you destined to be trapped by your job, mortgage and lifestyle? If you really want to escape the rat race, can you? What is the “rat race”? The rat race is a metaphor for a modern way of life based on competition for money, power, and status.
The “rat race” is usually associated with a repetitive, exhausting lifestyle. It’s a constant work cycle that leaves little time for relaxation, enjoyment or play. Ask yourself honestly, are you in some way competing with others for status, power or lifestyle? Are you “keeping up with the Jones’s”?
Escape The Rat Race Scam
Often it’s only in the midst of this cycle that you actually notice you’ve fallen for the scam! You have the car, the house, perhaps the family. Your outgoings are spoken for every month. Now you must continue to work in your job to keep the wheels of your life turning. Perhaps you even have some debt? Now you’re paying interest on the money you borrowed to live to the “max”!
You look around and wonder how you got here. But there’s no time for wondering! Your life is now filled with work, work and more work. Your job takes up most of your time. Is it worth it? Or have you been conned? As time goes on, you fall deeper and deeper into the trap, spending more to squeeze some satisfaction out of life! This only further entrenches you in the rat race.
Escape From The Rat Race – The “Dream” Job
When I was in my early 20’s I was jumping from job to job with no real direction in life. The jobs I did were poorly paid and I had no real future. I met a stuntman and this gave me hope! I could escape the drudgery of working life and find my dream job! So I began training to become a stuntman. In 2002 I joined the British Stunt Register in the UK!
I thought I’d “made it” and rewarded myself with a trip to Germany on my credit card to celebrate! (How little I knew back then)! Still, some stuntmen I met got months of work straight away. This gave them false comfort in the industry. They got themselves in trouble financially when the work dried up.
Escape From The Rat Race – My 1st Paid Gig
It wasn’t until 2 years after joining the Stunt Register that I eventually got a paid gig as a stunt performer. Over that 2 years I drove a taxi. As time went on, I did pick up work as a stuntman and at times I thought I’d made it in life! It was a great story to tell at parties, of course. But by the time I was in my late 30’s I realised I was in another trap.
I wasn’t working often enough to make a reliable income and so I juggled multiple other jobs to make ends meet. The dream job, wasn’t so much a dream job anymore but another trap! I had fallen into the rat race! Driving up and down the country, it was much longer hours than a typical 9 to 5. Added to which I had sidelined much of “real” life to live this “dream” lifestyle! Who needs relationships, marriage, mortgages or holidays when you have your dream job, right?! Mmmm.
The Status & Money Trap
The trouble was that by now I was entrenched in my “story” of who I was! I had some identity to keep up! I was a “stuntman”! This is what I told myself of course, when I couldn’t afford my rent! It was a cover story to bolster my ego! I had fallen for one of the rat race traps – status! The other one is of course money. The money I received from a stunt job was like a month’s wage from any other job I could get. So again, it was another trap. I “had” to keep doing the work, because if I didn’t, I was no longer a stuntman (status). To earn the same in a normal job I’d have to work full time 9-5 Monday to Friday! No way! The longer I was in this trap the lazier I became too!
I knew I needed to get out. But I was trapped. I was trapped by the money, trapped by the status, and a few quirky stories to impress people I didn’t know! The stunt work meant getting a full time job was difficult. I’d had a few full time jobs over the years but the stunt work always created a conflict with employers who, understandably, didn’t want me leaving for a week at the drop of a hat!
The Escape Plan
The escape plan was an online business which I found in 2014. I had tried a few other ways to earn online before eventually settling on affiliate marketing. I even spent 2 years learning Forex marketing. But I eventually threw in the towel after blowing my funds several times! With affiliate marketing you sell other people’s products online. You don’t need products of your own, but you need to learn some marketing skills. It seemed like a good addition to the stunt work because I could pick it up and drop it when I pleased.
You can get started with affiliate marketing here.
Multiple Streams Of Income
I also opened a kung fu school in 2010 and had built up a small class by the time I started the online business. With the skills I learned from the online business, I started promoting my school and building my numbers up! I now had 3 income streams – one from the kung fu school, one from the stunt work and one from the online business.
I believe this is one of the main things that people do to escape from the rat race. They build up income streams from multiple sources. If you’re only earning income from one source, it makes you very reliant and dependant on that source. If there’s a conflict, such as with your boss, it can put you in a difficult position. You can’t quit if you’ve built everything on the back of one income source and you’re completely invested in that particular source of income.
Shiny Object Syndrome – Controlling Your Desires
Shiny object syndrome is a phrase known in the affiliate marketing space. As a beginner in affiliate marketing, it’s easy to jump from course to course looking for the next “shiny object”. You know, the course which is easy and lets you make money without much effort! But shiny objects, in general, are also a massive waste of your time, energy and money.
In Thomas Stanley’s book Stop Acting Rich, he shares that millionaires often choose very low key cars. Toyota’s are the preferred cars of millionaires apparently. You might assume that they would drive BMW’s and Ferrari’s but no. They prefer low key because they know their money is far better in investments earning money than it is in a shinny object which makes them look rich, but fundamentally makes them poorer!
In The Richest Man in Babylon, by George S Clason, the advice to “control thy expenditures” means to live below your means and spend less than you earn. This is one of the “Seven Cures” for generating wealth and money that are shared by the fictional character Arkad in the book.
If you’re aspiring to become “rich” and drive a new shiny car, consider that this very aspiration is perhaps making you poorer. It’s robbing you of your limited time and resources. The truly rich know to make money with their money through investments, rather than relying on trading their time for money in a limited way.
Making Your Money Work For You – To Escape The Rat Race
To truly escape the rat race, you will want to have your money working for you, rather than trading your time for it constantly. Generally once you’re set in the trap of a working habit, and living well beyond your means, you entrench yourself in the working trap. Those who escape the rat race know this. They live beneath their means and put money aside for savings, emergencies and opportunities.
They invest in income generating assets and remove liabilities. Anything which costs money can be said to be a liability. Anything which brings money in can be said to be an asset. Robert Kiyosaki talks about this in his books Rich Dad Poor Dad. He explains how many people assume their car is an asset, because they invested in it. Whereas in reality a car is a liability because it only costs money to keep it.
Shifting Your Mindset
Escaping the rat race doesn’t just mean acquiring your dream job, or getting that promotion. It means really truly escaping the trap of needing to work for a living. While most people assume that they must wait until retirement to escape their jobs, in reality, if you prepare for retirement, cut your costs and live below your means, you can acquire more opportunities to build wealth through businesses and investments. If you learn to reduce your desires, and see through the “keeping up with the Jones’s” trap, you can save a lot of money you would otherwise spend on “trinkets” which prop up your social status and nothing more.
This is why the truly wealthy don’t spend money on sports cars. They know this money can be better spent making them more wealthy through investments.
Summary
So, can you really escape from the rat race? Or do you need to join in a little in order to get ahead? Some of the best books written on escaping the rat race are books like Thomas Stanley’s Stop Acting Rich, and George S Clason’s The Richest Man In Babylon. These books stand the test of time because they address the human condition of want.
By controlling our desires, and living frugally, while earning a living in a meaningful way, we can ultimately escape the rat race simply by removing our emotional attachment to the things we have been conned into wanting. By aligning with these time tested principles in such books, such as living below your means, saving money, investing in opportunities and reducing our desires, we can actually get ahead financially and remove the necessity of working solely to continue leaning into more desires.
We might still have to keep our jobs, for the time being. But if we can detach ourselves from a state of desire and want, we are already stepping away from the masses who we’re trying to keep up with (who are also completely lost!). Perhaps this is the first step towards escaping the rat race – changing your mindset and deciding what is truly important in life, whatever that is for you!
If you’re ready to start an online business from scratch you can get started here!