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The short answer is yes.  We are socialized from infancy to follow rules.  Most of us spend a couple of decades in school submitting to authority and doing what we are told.  When we go out into the job world nothing changes.  We believe we are being paid to be told what to do.

“Most of us feel screwed, and many of us feel helpless to change it.  We have become slaves to our infrastructure – to business’s controlling tools, procedures, and mandates.  Something’s got give.” –  Bill Jensen and Josh Klein

If you put as much time thinking creatively about how to hack your work as you do dreading and complaining about it, you would be a lot better off.  Bill Jensen and Josh Klein have written a new book called Hacking Work: Breaking Stupid Rules for Smart Results.  I gave it 4 out of 5 stars, but all other 7 reviewers have given it 5 out of 5.  If you are interested in getting more out of your job, I think it is a worthwhile read.

Some of us, myself included, are natural born rule-breakers and having been doing it all our lives.  However, my observation is that the vast majority of people follow the vast majority of rules.  The world has changed and the top-down dictatorial business approach is a hold-over from an era that is long gone.  The tools and procedures provided by your company cannot keep up with the rapid changes going on all around you.  Who hasn’t lamented the fact that the software and technology they use at home is far ahead of what they are provided at work?

The simple fact of the matter is you should be looking out for yourself when it comes to your job.  Individual people in your company might want to be loyal to you, but the reality is they can’t.  The world is a very flat and competitive place and if they can improve the bottom line by getting rid of you they will.  A career of following inefficient and bureaucratic rules will not save you.  You will get ahead by producing results.  Blindly following the rules and being a “good employee” means you will lose out in both results and your personal growth to those who chose to break them.

You shouldn’t cheat your company.  You shouldn’t do anything unethical.  You should produce the results you are paid to do.  Outside of that though, I think you owe it to yourself to be the most productive you can be, to exercise the most control over what you actually do, and spending the least amount of time possible to get it done.  Don’t follow rules simply because they exist and because everyone else is doing it.  Within the limits just described, how you get your job done should be up to you.

You are investing an enormous amount of your time, personal resources, and frankly your health in your job.  You absolutely owe to to yourself to get a return on that investment and any company who thinks otherwise isn’t worth your time.

I’m convinced that most people have far more control over how their work gets done than they believe.  Most people have simply accepted the rules by default.  They don’t realize how easy it is to work-around most of them.  Even if they do realize it, they are paralyzed by fear.  What you should be afraid of is becoming irrelevant or outsourced to a cheaper rule follower.

You can usually work different hours, use different tools, and bypass most procedures if you will only take charge of your own job and empower yourself to work differently.  If you wait for somebody to empower you, you will be waiting a very long time.  There’s an old saying that it is better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.  I wholeheartedly agree, but going even further I think you mostly don’t have to ask for either.  If you produce results and do great work, you usually don’t have to ask for anything.

What do YOU think?  Leave a comment and join the conversation.

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If you have followed me for any length of time you will realize that I am NOT a proponent of doing things that make you miserable.  I do not recommend staying in a job you hate or any other life-killing behavior.  However, on the assumption that at the moment you are in a circumstance or situation that is making you miserable, and that at the moment it is the best alternative you have in front of you, there are some things you can do to improve your experience of it.

This article is focused on work, but the general principles can be applied to any circumstance you turn into misery for yourself.  The following are some of the things that work best for me and I think if you put them into practice they will work for you as well.  I’m going to use the example of a job you don’t like for much of this article, but the ideas can be applied to anything.

Accept That You Don’t Control the Universe

If I could snap my fingers right now and be free from having to earn a living, be transported to a beautiful white sand tropical beach in front of a lovely glass-fronted home, and be waited on by beautiful half-naked girls in grass skirts, I would snap my fingers.  But alas, the universe doesn’t work that way.  Instead I will continue to write this article.

You control your actions and sometimes things go your way, but mostly they do not.  Even if it is possible, whatever it would take me to get to the home on the tropical beach with the grass skirts would not be worth it (and after a few months it would lose its impact), so here I am writing this article happily.  When you accept that you control your actions but not the outcomes, you automatically become much happier and thus less miserable.  Stop continually focusing on the gap between where you are and where you want to be and your misery level will drop dramatically.

Accept That You Choose Your Actions

If you say you have to go to a job you don’t like, you are speaking a falsehood.  You do not have to do anything.  You are choosing to do it because you believe it is the best alternative you have at the moment.  I know people who don’t work, who don’t have an income, and are overweight.  Somehow they have shelter and eat more than they need without going to a job they hate.  And they have consciously made that choice.  When you truly accept that you are choosing your actions, there is an immediate and significant change in attitude that improves your outlook.  You chose it so stop wallowing in your self-pity.

If You Are Going to Do It, Get Something Out of It

This is one of the most neglected methods of finding the positive in something you don’t like.  I guarantee you there are a huge number of opportunities in and at your work to develops skills that will improve your life.  You can learn peaceful well-being at a job you don’t like and you will thereby gain a huge benefit that will last the rest of your life.

Ignore what you don’t like about your job and instead focus on your skills training.  Screw the job and enroll yourself in The University of Self-Growth – your employer is paying your tuition and providing the classroom.

• When you walk into the office instead of telling yourself how much you don’t want to be there, enthusiastically and with a smile greet the people you see.  Start your day off with a bang and practice an optimistic outlook.
• Practice not gossiping and talking about other people negatively.
• You can literally spend all day practicing being in the moment, not being affected by what happened five minutes ago and not worrying about what is going to happen tomorrow.  An incredible skill-building opportunity!
• Work on building personal and professional networks.
• When you write emails or other documents, practice your written communication skills.  Work on a crisp, clear, style of writing that is perfect for emails.  You can also practice presentation skills and computer skills.
• Take any training offered that gets you away from the job and lets you build useful skills.  Ask for training for anything you can relate to your job.  You will be surprised how often it is allowed.
• By definition if it is a job you don’t really like, you will have tremendous opportunity to practice the skills of remaining calm in stressful situations, detaching from outcomes, looking for the bright-side of things, and being happy no matter what your circumstances.
• Work on improving your negotiation skills.
• Practice the art of listening.
• Practice the art of understatement.
• Practice being engaging and witty.
• Stay alert at all times for opportunities to grow in some way.  You will never run out of them.

To get the benefit, you have to stay aware of consciously building specific skills.  Otherwise, you’ll just fall back into the “I hate my job” habits.

Reflect on the Positive

Take some time to deeply reflect on the positive benefits of whatever it is you are choosing to do that you don’t like.  And I mean some time to reflect deeply.  If you go to a job you don’t like five days a week, then spend 30 minutes any time you feel down reflecting on what you get out of it.  I know people who say they don’t like their job who use that job to obtain:

• An active single social life at trendy places
• A beautiful climate-controlled home
• Travel and Vacations
• Nice cars and clothing
• A wonderful family who is well clothed, fed, and schooled

The list is endless.  Reflect on the fact that probably most of the people in the world would snap their fingers to have the life you you have.  Think about the other joys you have in your life that the job you dislike makes possible.  Think of that beautiful smiling child you are taking care of by doing what you are doing.

Whatever it is you are doing, reflect on why you chose to do it and focus on those positives and do not dwell on what is making you miserable.  I’ve done this and it works wonders for me.

Don’t Take The Train Ride of Misery

An architect was building a magnificent cathedral.  During an inspection he passed three workers toiling away in the hot sun doing the exact same task – smashing rocks with a sledgehammer.  He asked each what he was doing and why.  The first man answered “I’m breaking rocks because I get paid to break rocks.”  The second man answered “I’m making small stones that will go into the wall of that building and I do it to feed my family.”  The third man answered “I’m helping construct a wonderful cathedral.  People will come from far away to gaze upon its marvels.  I’m doing it so I can learn how to build a cathedral.”

When you are starting to do whatever it is that is making you miserable, you have a choice and it is truly your choice.  It is not being forced upon you.  You can chose to hope on the train full of miserable complaining people and join in all the wallowing, or you can skip it and take a nice pleasant walk instead.  This was a very hard lesson for me to learn, but I finally learned it.  I spent years talking myself into frequent misery and joining others on the misery train.  I still fall into that trap sometimes because I am human.  As often as I can remember to make that choice, I talk a pleasant walk instead.

If There Was Ever a Job For the 80/20 Rule

If you can get 80% of the results with 20% of the effort then this is the time to apply it.  If you don’t like cleaning the house then don’t try to make it spotless.  Get in the moment and spend a small amount of time happily making it look decent instead of a lot of time making it look perfect.

Apply the 80/20 rule at work every day.  On the least desirable tasks, spend 20% of your time getting most of the results and then move on to something better.  Most people have far more leeway in their job than they believe.  If you will simply get the courage to take control and empower yourself you will be surprised by the results.

You can’t work intensely and enthusiastically for hours on end without burning out.  Besides if you don’t like your job you’ll never be motivated to work like that.  So what most people do is a half-assed, hit and miss, watching the clock, wallowing in their misery job.  So consider an alternative win-win that you can feel good about.

Work intensely and hard, really getting into it for a period of time; say 30 to 45 minutes.  Then alternate that with a break; even a longish break.  Take a walk, take a nap, meditate, listen to some music, read a book, surf then internet, go into the coffee bar, or whatever you can get away with.  If you do this throughout the day, your employer and you will both benefit.  You will contribute more to him and you will get more out of it than doing it the miserable half-assed way.  You will probably be many times more productive than you were before.  I can also guarantee you that the time you spend working will be more enjoyable as a result.  Forcing yourself to go with gusto for a period of time is much easier and more enjoyable than sloshing through a whole day.  Don’t feel guilty or feel like you are cheating because you are not.  It is a win-win.

Focus is the Key Point

You are miserable when you focus on the things that are wrong.  You are happy when you focus on what is right.  Focus on what you can learn from whatever you are doing to help you in the future.  Focus on the moment and not the miserable past or your worried future.

In A Word It’s “Attitude”

I could go on and on, and perhaps I’ve gone on too long already.  I wish I could explain it in 200 words, but I can’t.  Ultimately it’s something you have to experiment with and work out yourself.

The bottom line is you can choose a positive or a negative attitude about whatever you are doing and in that choice lies the difference between joy and misery.

What do YOU think?  Leave a comment and join the conversation.

Get Free Updates to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or via a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you on board.

Note from Stephen: This is a guest article from Jonny over at thelifething.com .  You should check out his blog.  It is a unique perspective and he has a different sense of humor that I really enjoy.

Ok, I have never really been one for math. It wasn’t that I couldn’t play the system to get high grades through school or bribe the class geek to help with the trickier bits of fluid dynamics at university, it was just that I couldn’t see the real life application of what we were learning and there-in lay the problem.

The School System Teaches You To Throw Up

The School system will teach you to regurgitate facts, life will teach you that this has very limited application in the real world and to get ahead you have to get creative and sometimes downright sneaky.

There are three key life skills that should be taught in school but are not because everyone is far too busy learning about Pythagoras theorem and the history of the Tudors.

You will forget Pythagoras and his theories and all about the Tudors 5 minutes after leaving your school gates for the last time and will probably only use what limited knowledge is left once more in your entire life….and that’s if you are really lucky.

If you are serious about getting out of the Rat Race then it is worth having an idea of the lessons that were swept under the educational rug during your time in school so that you can use them to your advantage and get finally make your break.

Neglected Lesson 1: Basic Finance

I say basic finance because I am not talking about being a stockbroker or investor or FSA. There are far too many complex systems made up by some seriously bored people in the financial game to worry about, and most of them cause serious problems down the line anyhow.

Good basic finance is understanding your Personal Cash flow, The Dangers of Debt, What Compound Interest Is, Good Saving Principles and How Pensions Really Work without being reduced to to a puddle of tears on the floor.

I am in no way the best person to speak at length about personal finance mainly because I have a monotone voice that will bore you to death, however there are two fundamental ideas I would like to illustrate, if you would allow me, which I hope will be very helpful to you and your financial life.

Dead Fish Economics:

It is handy and simple to think of your personal finances in terms of a fish. You will be either of three different types – A happy Fish, An Unhappy Fish or a Dead Fish.

This refers to whether you live inside your means, on your means, or outside of your means.

Living inside your means, or spending less than you earn makes you a Happy fish and is the best possible way to live. It is like a fish living IN water.

Living on your means, or spending as much as you earn, makes you an Unhappy Fish and is not the best way to live but you can survive as long as there is money coming in. This is like a fish living “ON” water. It can survive but it is not ideal. You just have no buffer zone of savings should circumstance change.

Living outside your means, or spending more than you earn, makes you a dead fish. I don’t think I need to point out that being a dead fish should be avoided. A fish is DEAD when it lives out of water just as living outside your means in pretty fatal. The happiness you achieve from the extra stuff you buy is short lived but the stress levels of compound interest and debt remain. Best to try and avoid if possible.

Compound Interest:

Compound interest is a sneaky little blighter as its math can get a little confusing. In laymen’s terms you are paying interest on interest so over the long time this can become very substantial, especially if you are paying interest monthly.

Before going into debt or getting that new credit card it might be worth remembering this little picture to remind you of the dangers of compound interest growth.

Compound interest is like a snowball rolling down a hill. It starts small but very quickly gets exponentially larger and very soon can get out of control causing serious damage to your neighbors greenhouse and prized vegetable patch, which is bad news for everyone involved.

Editor’s note from Stephen: On the other hand making compound interest work for you in your savings is like a snowball of money rolling down hill towards you.

Neglected Lesson 2: People Skills

Life is People. Business is People. Success is People. Hobbits are people.

The so called “soft skills” that are not taught in school are probably the most valuable lessons you can learn. Being able to get people to like you, to work with people effectively, to build teams and to communicate with people are essential to your personal success.

Here are a quick few starters for instant people skills.

Smile: Ridiculously easy and underrated but the results are drastic for breaking down barriers and engagement, just make sure you have brushed your teeth first, don’t want that bit of spinach on show.

Listen: You have two ears and one mouth. This should say something about how much you should listen compared to speaking. Listening, really listening to someone and not just waiting for your chance to speak will open doors that you never imagined and will substantially increase your ability to make friends. Good listeners are very attractive people.

Use their name: A person’s name is the most beautiful sound to them in the world. Forgetting someone’s name is worse than dating their grandmother. If you are not good with names then now is the time to learn. Try association techniques or yoga, anything that will help you remember a person’s name. It will increase your social life considerably.

Neglected Lesson 3: Creativity

If success in life was based on how many Shakespeare plays you can recall then life would be a whole lot easier. As it happens this is not the case.

Life is fast paced, constantly changing, wildly unpredictable and constantly at the mercy of the whims of 8.6 billion people.

Thinking you can control life is like reaching for that itch right between your shoulder blades, it just isn’t going to happen.

What you can do though is get creative, get innovative. See a problem and solve it. Draw from multiple experiences and create a solution. The people that do this are the people those that get ahead in this world. The future is only going to get faster and more unpredictable so why not focus on being able to adapt and create just as quickly.

Thanks for reading and I hope it helps. If you are familiar with my blog then you will know that if I feel that a blog hasn’t been spiked with enough humor or I happen to have come across a particularly good joke I always end with one.

“A man and a friend are playing golf one day at their local golf course. One of the guys is about to chip onto the green when he sees a long funeral procession on the road next to the course. He stops in mid-swing, takes off his golf cap, closes his eyes, and bows down in prayer.

His friend says: “Wow, that is the most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen. You truly are a kind man.”

The man then replies: “Yeah, well we were married 35 years.”

What do you think?  Leave a comment and join the conversation.

Get Free Updates to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or via a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you on board.

To get out of what?  Any box, trap, prison, chain, or handcuff that is causing you pain, discomfort, boredom, or anything else that you don’t want or like.  It could be your dead-end job, an unhealthy relationship, a failing business, a commitment you no longer want, or a blog that is going nowhere.

Everything you do has a price.  Everything you don’t do has a price.  There is no free lunch no matter what many in our modern world think you can get for free.  You pay a price to change and you pay a price to maintain the status quo.  The price you pay may be in the form of money, time, stress, health, a confrontation, loss of friendship, loss of material things, or anything else for which you have value.

The price you pay to stay imprisoned in your trap is usually much more expensive than the price to get out.  If you choose to leave your dead-end job you will pay a price, but you are paying a price to stay in it.  You are paying the price of wasting your life on something you don’t enjoy.  You are paying the price of foregoing other opportunities that you don’t have time or resources to undertake because you are using them up in your current job.

You are paying a price to stay in an unhealthy relationship.  Many people are afraid to end a relationship because they are horrified by the imagined price they will have to pay to get out.  What they don’t truly see is the horrible price they are paying to stay in it.

To me the best approach is to just rip off the band aid – pay the price and be free as quickly as possible.  Take the temporary and possibly intense pain of the rip and get out.  Then you are free of the slow burning pain and free to get on with your new great life.  Prolonging the problem by refusing to pay the price will cost you far more in the long run.  People stay in bad jobs or relationships for years and the price they eventually pay to get out is far worse than the price they would have paid earlier.  They’ve also lost the opportunity to build something valuable in the meantime.  Don’t make that mistake!

How to Pay the Price For Freedom

Identify the the trap

Whatever is holding you back, there is always a way to get out of it.  Some common examples of these:

1. A job you don’t want
2. Unhealthy relationships
3. Poor Health
4. Commitments
5. Debt
6. Urban congestion
7. Burdensome relatives
8. Clutter
9. Previous investments
10. Lack of discretionary income
11. Guilt
12. Boredom
13. Fear

Calculate the price to get out

If you want to be free from debt so you can unlock the golden handcuffs, then figure out what you have to do to be debt free.  You may have to sell your home or car and take a loss.  You may have to dig into savings.  The price may seem horrendously high to you but then what is the price you will pay to stay chained to your mortgage for the next 30 years?  What about the pain of that price?

If you want to be free from an unhealthy relationship, you may have to suffer the disapproval of relatives, the drama of a breakup, the pain of child-support, or the pain of the loss of a long-term relationship.  It may seem horrible, but what is the price you will pay to stay?

Whatever the case, get clear in your mind exactly what it will cost to gain freedom and what it will cost to maintain the pain.

I don’t dispute that there may be times that the price is too high, but those cases are the rare exception.  It is almost always case that the price to get out is much lower than the price to maintain.  If you find the price is higher than you are willing to pay, then get creative.  Keep looking for alternatives.  Don’t assume your first idea is the only one.  There is almost always an alternative available that will be worth the price in the long run.

Imagine what you will do with your new freedom

It is very important to understand what you will gain when you pay the price to get free.  You will likely underestimate the value of your freedom.  Most people have no idea what it is like to be free and what they will do when they are free.  If you gain freedom from debt you may be able to quit the job you hate and devote your time to your true life purpose and passion.  Figure it out. Don’t just quit your job and then sit at home and watch TV with no idea what you are going to do next.

Pay the price and be free

Imagine paying the price to get out over and over.  Visualize it until it no longer seems so bad.  Then pay it and get it over with.  Rip off the band aid.

Don’t get sucked into the mistake of taking the pain of the status quo for granted while imagining horrible price to gain your freedom.  You almost always underestimate the price of maintaining and overestimate the price of freedom.  It is the fear of the unknown and the unfamiliar that scare you.  It’s not that your current situation is comfortable, it is just familiar.  It’s the fake comfort of bearable pain that exists in your familiar zone.

You do not have to suffer the chronic problems that most of the world takes for granted and lives with on a daily basis.  You can be free if you are willing to pay the price.  Remember you are paying a price either way.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.

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The term “golden handcuffs” typically means some lucrative financial incentive to keep an executive or manager from leaving a company.  Financial compensation is arranged in such a way to “handcuff” them to their particular job or company.  I want to expand this idea to anyone who has a traditional job.  Whether we like to admit it or not, most people in traditional jobs are also locked tight by the golden handcuffs.  We have, by our own behavior, handcuffed ourselves to our jobs.

In my experience the #1 reason why people just don’t leave the jobs they are fed up with, is due to the fact that they believe they simply cannot survive, or are not willing to pay the price, to be without their job for any length of time.  It is a frightening thing for long-time prisoner to be let loose from his cell.  The pressure of responsibility feels like it is going to crush him.

The main underlying cause for this problem is that most of us are simply living at, nearly at, or often even above our means.  I exclude those who through no fault of their own can barely feed themselves, but I suspect there are very few people in that category reading this blog.

When someone at a buffet line piles their plate with more food than they can eat, we say “their eyes were bigger than their stomach”.  We could also say that most people’s eyes are bigger than their paycheck.  We go into debt to buy homes, cars, clothes, electronics, and all sorts of other stuff that we do not need to live well or to be happy.  We get used to living at our means and buying all kinds of material things.  We do not need these large homes, expensive cars, electronic toys, closets full of clothes, or the myriad of other things we get used to living with.

What we are doing is guaranteeing that we will be locked to the rat race by the golden handcuffs for many years to come.  Traditional retirement plans, restricted stock options, vesting of savings plans, health insurance and many other benefits provided to employees by many companies lock the golden cuffs even tighter.

Locking yourself into your job is very easy to do.  Almost everyone does it.  It often occurs gradually.  You get married and buy a big house.  You have kids and the mother might choose to stay home to raise them.  You need to save for your children’s college funds, your family needs insurance, private schools, the best clothes, all the activities, etc.  Without even realizing it you have locked yourself into the rat race of your job with a massive pair of golden handcuffs.

If you want freedom from the rat race, you need to think very carefully about how you live.  The freedom you lose by snapping on the cuffs may seem insignificant and worth it when that sexy new car is calling your name, but that sexiness will wear off just as fast as the satisfaction with your job.

Beware of the golden handcuffs.  They sure look good at first, but they lock tight and are very difficult to remove.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.

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Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that commitment in general is a bad thing.  I know this may go against common wisdom, but if common wisdom was so wise, most people wouldn’t be common.  I’m not talking about a commitment to spend quality time with your partner or your children, but the hundreds of general commitments we tend to make all the time.

These are the commitments that box us in and steal our lives. I almost said “steal our time” instead of “steal our lives”, but then I remembered that time is life.  These are the commitments that turn a life of potential joy into a life of obligation and drudgery.  We make these commitments one at a time, in moments of weakness, and in isolation from the total context of our lives.  Thus bit by bit we give away our ability to live joyful, carefree, and just plain happy lives.

Money Commitments

Most people I know live on the edge or even above their means.  Even those who don’t live above their means are living so close to the edge there is no room for error.  We live in large houses with big mortgages.  My wife and I live in a house several times as large as my grandparents and much larger than my parents did.  My parents grew up in homes less than 1/2 the size of ours with at least 6 people in those households.

10 years ago I was debt free and owned my home free and clear.  Then we moved and bought a house twice the size of our previous house and went into debt again.  I don’t borrow money for cars but most of my friends do.

So where does this get us besides nice homes and cars?  It gets most of us locked into jobs we don’t really enjoy.  People are afraid to change jobs because the new job might not work out.  Most people can’t afford to be without a job for even a few months because they are stretched so thin to start with.  They can’t take a risk and try to build a business because they have so much debt and the bills come due every month.  Their lives are filled with obligations they can no longer control.

If you have been at your job for a number of years, you probably feel at least some sense of security there.  You are afraid to change because what happens if the economy goes sour?  The new guy will be the first to get laid off you tell yourself.  We become extremely conservative and risk-averse because we have so much to lose.  Or so we think anyway.  What if you had no debt?  Would that change your actual or perceived level of freedom?

I know young people in their 20’s driving expensive cars.  Yes they can afford them but just barely.  Just because you make a good living doesn’t mean you should spend it all.  For that momentary pleasure, they are locking themselves into the rat race.  They are losing the flexibility and freedom that should be inherent in their youth.  Next they will get married, buy a house, and start having children.  At that point most will be total slaves to the rat race.  A 30 year-old friend of mine just had a baby and bought a 4,500 sq. foot home.  He’s locking the ankle chains on tight.

Your money commitments have enslaved you.  You are not free to experiment and enjoy life.  You are not free to live in the NOW.  You are committed to living for those future debt payments.  If  60% or 70% of your waking hours are spent commuting to and working at a job you don’t love, you have committed away 60% or 70% of your freedom.  You may not realize it and you may not think about it consciously and explicitly, but that is the case for most of us.

It’s not just your debt either.  If you live in a 4,000 sq. foot home you probably owe significant property taxes every year.  You must have an enormous homeowners insurance bill that comes due every year.  You undoubtedly have very high monthly gas and electric bills that obligate you to maintain a high monthly income.

Time Commitments

These are the sneaky life killers.  They overtake you so gradually that by the time your you realize what happened, your life is already gone.  If you were honest and calculated how much of your time every day is used up in commitments, you would likely be very surprised at how little true freedom you have.

Your job commitments, your church commitments, your civic commitments, your coaching commitments, your chauffeuring commitments, your children’s activity commitments, your hobby commitments, your shopping commitments, your household commitments, your PTA commitments, your neighborhood commitments, your friend commitments, your family commitments, your online commitments, and on and on the list goes.

Every single time commitment you make uses up part of your life. One tiny commitment at a time, you have probably given up most or all of your freedom.  You are no longer free, on a daily basis, to live in the now and to make choices about what is important and of value to you now.

None of this is necessary.  There is another way.

A Better Way

“If there is one change you could make today that would have the biggest impact on your life in terms of productivity, effectiveness, and being able to do the things you most want to do, it would be to reduce the commitments in your life.”  — Leo Babauta

Learning to say “no” and learning to reduce or completely eliminate your commitments will pay off huge dividends for the rest of your life.  I encourage you to try living a life free of obligations and commitments.  I had that at one time and I gave it up with a mortgage.  I intend to get even that back soon.

I can honestly say that outside of my work, I have zero time commitments.  There is not one single hour of my non-work time that is truly committed to anything.  The closest thing is this blog, but I don’t look at that as a commitment.  I could quit writing these articles tomorrow.  Besides that I love to do it.  I am freely doing something I love here.

That is not to say I don’t spend time doing things that other people do as commitments because I do.  But I have not committed my time away to any of them.  If I help somebody I do it freely as a choice at that moment.  I never pre-commit to do any of it.  That simple change makes all the difference in the world.  If you commit to spending one evening a week at something for the next six months, how do you know that next week or next month that will be the most valuable thing you could be spending your time doing?  You don’t.  I don’t have any “chores” I’m obligated to do either.

Reducing these commitments is not easy and if you have a lot of them involving other people it is going to be painful to reduce or eliminate them, but you can do it.  Right now put yourself on your deathbed and look back on your life.  Try to imagine what you didn’t do because you were putting it off into the future.  Think about what you didn’t do because you didn’t have “time”, which really means you didn’t have your life.  “Someday…”, “When I retire…”, “When my kids are gone…”, etc.  Remember, you may be on your deathbed next month or next year.

My daughter is grown up and no longer living in our home so that makes it easier for me.  What I am about to say is probably considered heresy by many people, but I’m going to say it anyway because I believe it. I practiced this kind of non-intervention with my daughter.  Most parents are way too involved in their children’s lives.  A friend of mine calls this helicopter parenting.  I hate to break the bad news to you, but your children probably wish you would go away and leave them alone much of the time.

You need to let them learn how to deal with life’s challenges and yet be available to spend quality time with them.  They don’t learn by you telling them what to do all the time.  All they learn from that is how much they wish you would just shut up and quit nagging them.  They really learn by their own freely chosen experiences.  You need to be available to talk to them when they need to talk and to provide calm, intelligent, respectful, and solicited advice.  If you do that I am positive that you will be surprised at how often your children want and choose to come to you freely and talk to you.  You’ll be amazed at how often they solicit your advice.  You don’t need to be hovering over them and running their lives.

I suggest you pick three things that you want to commit time to and eliminate all the rest completely.  Freeing up time so you can spend it doing your activity of choice at any particular moment on a daily basis, is just about the best thing you can do to achieve a sense of freedom and control over your own life.

Being free doesn’t mean being irresponsible.  It means being a fulfilled, joyful, growing, and intentional human being.  It means living your own purpose and your own life.  It means being free to change course at any moment during your life.  Life is a process of growth.  You learn new things that change your outlook and you will want to change your actions correspondingly.  This is is normal.  This is being the adaptable human being you were meant to be.

Make sure you are free to make those changes when you want to make them.  Don’t be an “I wish” person.  Don’t be somebody who says “I wish I had time do this or that”.  Instead be someone who has the freedom to make the choices and have the experiences you choose to have at the time you want to have them.  Don’t lock yourself up in a prison of commitments that you have created for yourself.  A prison you built one seemingly harmless brick at a time.

This article is not the article I started out to write.  I was going to give you a bunch of tips, but I have run out of space to do that.  This is already a long article.  You are all smart people and I think you can figure out what you need to do and how to do it.  I’ll be happy if this article made you pause and think for just a moment.

Get Free Updates to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or via a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you on board.

What do you think?  Leave a comment below.

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in the world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.” — George Bernard Shaw

I read this recently and I loved it.  I have been reading it every day.  I am developing a deep passion for the idea contained within it.  Losers blame circumstances.  That’s why they are losers.  Period.  Circumstances don’t happen to you.  You create your own circumstances by how you respond to events in the external world.  If you “do nothing” then that is the action of non-action and thus even then you are creating your own circumstances.

Did you get laid off?  If so you, you laid yourself off by your actions prior to the event.  How are you reacting to that event?  Your reaction is creating your circumstances.  Is the stock market drop impacting your finances?  Why?  How are you responding?  How did you get into a position where it could hurt you?  Did the universe force you into this position?  How are you reacting?  You are creating your circumstances right now.

This is a money making opportunity.  Volatility is where the big money opportunities always lie.  Stability doesn’t provide anywhere near the opportunity for creative people that instability and change does.  We are living in exiting times.  **** the news media and everyone else who is crying crocodile tears.

If you want to have a pity party, I’m not interested. Nobody would show up for mine and I’m not showing up for yours.  I threw myself a pity party a few months ago and it was almost a funeral.  Accept your feelings because they are real, and then adjust your mindset to one that is positive.

You have a basic choice about how you create your life and create it you will no matter which choice you make.  You can:

1. Float aimlessly in the turbulence like a ship without a crew and end up shipwrecked.
   OR
2. Take massive and decisive action to create the life you choose.

What can you do?

1. Accept responsibility for where you are and accept it totally.
2. Write down your vision, purpose, and goals.
3. Create a 30-day massive action plan to begin the process.
4. Give that 30-day plan a chance to show progress, even a small amount.  Whatever results you see will encourage you to do more.
5. Understand that you will struggle.  It takes courage to take action.  Inaction allows you to be safe and say “Life did it to me”.
6. Stop complaining.
7. Focus on one thing at a time or you will dilute your results and fail.
8. Find like-minded people to associate with.  You can encourage one-another.
9. Do not accept ANY limiting talk or behavior from anyone and that includes yourself.
10. Keep your eyes on your prize; the ultimate goal for which you act.  This will keep you motivated.

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” — Henry Ford

Let me close with another quote from George  Bernard Shaw.  This is an inspiring and incredibly positive view of life.

“Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” — George Bernard Shaw

Burn up your life. Leave something of yourself in those you touch along the way. Decide right now to start taking decisive action to change your circumstances and weave your own dream.

Note from Stephen:  This is a guest post by Marj over at the way of money.  I am a huge fan of Marj, Clément, and their blog.  Please go check it out and read the archives.  The content is excellent and very relevant to readers of The Rat Race Trap.

by Marj Galangco of www.thewayofmoney.com

In order to get out of the rat race, we must be financially literate. Ironically, financial literacy is not even taught in schools, that’s why many of us – including the “highly-educated” ones – actually know very little about money.

The problem is further compounded by financial miseducation. How many of us are taught to study well and go to college, get a JOB and exchange our time for money, save our money, don’t invest because it’s risky, just buy a house and pay the mortgage for the rest of our life?

The fact is that many people who followed this formula are now people in their 60s-70s who are struggling because their pensions or savings are barely enough to provide for their basic needs. Meanwhile, there is a growing number of billionaires/millionaires age between 20s-40s precisely because they did NOT follow the prescribed formula.

In this post, I’ll be discussing the main concepts we must grasp in order to achieve financial freedom. I know finance can be the most boring subject in the world, but luckily for us, we can learn this via the Cashflow® 101 board game.

Cashflow® 101 is created by Robert Kiyosaki, the world-reknowned author of the Rich Dad Poor Dad book series. It’s an educational tool that teaches players the fundamental concepts they need to understand to get out of the rat race and make their money work for them instead of the other way around. The game simulates real-world scenarios, thus allowing the players to practice real world investing without any risks. It’s a brilliant and effective educational tool because Cashflow® 101 allows players to learn about accounting, finance, and investing while having fun at the same time.

Having invested in it 4 years ago, I thought it would be great to play it again and share everything I have learned here. But first, if you’re not already familiar with the game, here’s a quick introductory video:

Video Robert Kiyosaki – The CASHFLOW Game

Briefly, here are the basic mechanics of the game: in order to get out of the Rat Race and onto the Fast Track, you must acquire assets that will generate enough passive income to cover all your expenses. This can be done by purchasing properties, businesses, mutual funds, land, and stocks. As we work our way around the board, we land on different squares:

• “Paycheck” (your monthly paycheck, depending on your profession)
• “Opportunity” – investment opportunities
• “Doodads” – these are liabilities, or expenses that are often unnecessary
• “Market” – opportunities to make (or lose) money from your accumulated assets

Things I learned from playing the Cashflow Board Game

#1: “In order to get out of the rat race, I must learn to think like the Rich”

This is a lesson that we will keep hearing. Our success is going to be determined by our mindset.

I have played the board game with many people, with varying levels of financial literacy. Some of them were open-minded and eager to learn, while others were stuck in their conditioned paradigms. It was easy to tell which players were consciously adopting the mindsets and habits of the rich while playing the game.

On one occasion I heard someone joking (I hope), “you may get out of the Rat Race, but you’re still a rat!”. So let’s look at the difference between the Rich Rat and Poor Rat mentality:

Poor Rat: How can I work harder so I can buy more toys and keep up with the Joneses? What shall I spend on today? I know – shoes! Jewelry! Oh wait my mobile phone is now 3 months old, I need a new one or my friends will think I’m so out of season… Oh no! I dont have money in the bank! I’ll just charge it on my credit cards then…

Rich Rat: If I think like the rich, I’ll be able to recognize the opportunities (they abound all around me and can appear every day) that will make me rich. I must learn how to tell the difference between assets and liabilities: Assets are those that put money in my pocket, while liabilities are things that take money out of my pocket. So by this definition my house, car, vacations, toys, clothes, are all liabilities! (gasp)

It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t spend on doodads, because these liabilities give us the experiences we want out of life. Personally, I prefer to live a rich lifestyle, not one that is limited! I don’t want to constantly scrimp just to save money. I prefer to create the money I need so I can then buy whatever I like.

The key is that if I want something I must learn how to delay gratification, but instead of depriving myself, I can ask a more empowering question: “How can I acquire assets that will then pay for the toys I want?”

Kiyosaki stresses that the Rich buy assets first, liabilities second. The poor normally just buy liabilities. It reminds me of someone I used to know. She bought a coat from Prada even though she already had over £12,000 in debt. I was educating her about her credit card debt and she said, “Assets? What assets? And how do interest rates work anyway?” I am dreading to think where she is now and how much her debt is.

How about you – do you think like Poor Rat, or do you think like Rich Rat?

#2: “Not all debts are equal.”

It is from Kiyosaki that I learned all about ‘good debt’ and ‘bad debt’. Kiyosaki defines good debt as those that makes your rich, bad debt are those that makes you poor.

For example, the house that you live in is a liability if you’re paying the mortgage and it’s not putting money in your pocket. However, if you took out a mortgage to buy a house and then rented it out – and it’s providing a positive cashflow of $500 every month – it’s an asset. It’s very important to know the difference.

The rich have more good debts than bad, and that’s why they are rich.

The poor have more bad debts than good, and that’s why they are poor.

Which type of debts do YOU have more of? Do you have existing bad debts that you can start to slowly pay off? Are you willing to cut back on your doodads in order to get out of your bad debts?

#3. “I can be anywhere, have any income level, be of any (legal) age and still get out of the rat race if I’m willing to act and establish sources of passive income”

At the start of the game each player is given a profession, which then dictates their monthly income and expenses level. We all started with jobs – today, Clément and I played the game. I started as a teacher and Clément as a janitor. My monthly salary was $3,300 and my expenses $2,190, leaving a cashflow of $1,110.

Clément earned $1,600 a month as a Janitor but he got out of the rat race first, onto the fast track, bought his “dream” house and continued to win the game (I could have carried on regardless, working on getting myself out of the rat race, but since it there was only two of us we decided to pack up).

Clément won because he did 2 key things:

• He invested in lucrative deals – stocks that had positive potential ROIs, 10 acres of raw land which produced a 3000% ROI, a 3bed/2bed house which he rented out, etc.
• As soon as he was able to, he got rid of all his bad debts, thereby reducing his monthly expenses, which then increased his monthly cashflow.

Think of how you too can start doing these things. As Clément demonstrated, it doesn’t matter at what stage you are in your life or what you do for a living. As long as you have the financial education, you can get out of the rat race.

Are you actively seeking investments? Have you educated yourself enough to be able to spot lucrative investments?

#4: “I must be smart with my investments.”

From time to time, the game presented investment opportunities that clearly stated either a negative or a very small ROI. I personally did not invest in them, but I have seen other players do so in the past. We see this happen in real life as well, don’t we? Some people buy a business or a property without first doing ther due dilligence or calculating their potential returns.

A fundamental lesson I learned was that I have to make my money work for me, not the other way around, and that I must learn to adjust my strategies as the market changes.

But let me identify why I think I lost the game. Some of the events that got me stuck in the rat race as a school teacher were:

1. I made a couple of fundamental miscalculations on my balance sheet.
2. My dice landed on several doodads, some of which really crippled me – like the home theatre and a boat.
3. My dice landed on “New baby – Congratulations!” three times, which increased my expenses by $540 a month (I didn’t even know who their father was!).
4. I got “downsized” twice – I had to pay a month’s worth of expenses and lose my next 2 turns
5. At one point, my ONLY source of passive income was a 3bed/2bath house which I rented out. My tenant did a runner on me and I had to compensate for some losses.
6. I wasn’t able to buy lucrative investments because my doodads increased my expenses, which then led to a negative cashflow.
7. I didn’t invest in certain opportunities because I didn’t want to take the risks involved.

From these, I learned the following:

1. While I rarely make such mistakes, it shows us that being financially illiterate is a truly expensive type of ignorance! But how many of us are investing in our continuing financial education? How many of us know how to invest? How many of us can read a balance sheet? How many of us are financially illiterate?
2. A boat, for Christ’s sake! I had to pay $4,000 and take out a loan of $17,000 just to be able to obtain these liabilities. While I personally will not do such a thing, you can imagine that there are real people out there who would. I had to pay the bank $340 a month just to repay this loan! Hey if I’m a school teacher and I’m behaving like this, no wonder financial literacy isn’t taught in schools!
   If you’re in the habit of spending on liabilities, take heed. From now on, learn to ask yourself this question whenever you are contemplating to buy something: “Is this an asset, or is this a liablity?” If it’s a liability, change your strategy and think of ways how you could obtain an asset first that will pay for the liability you want to have. Trust me – it’s so much more rewarding to acquire your doodad when you know it’s being paid for by an asset!
3. No, I’m not advocating looking at your kids as liabilities now – c’mon I’m not that bad… I’m just saying they could have at least mentioned to me who the father was.
4. Oh well. Shit happens. And when it does (and it most likely will), it’s best to have financial cushions. So the question is, do you have any? I didn’t, so I got stuck in the Rat Race. Don’t make the same mistake.
5. This shows us that we must establish multiple sources of passive income. These days, we can’t just rely on one or two anymore.
6. My doodads prevented me from being able to afford lucrative investment deals that came up. I may look good in my boat and be able to brag about my home theatre but by God they’re not just bleeding me dry, they’re robbing me of any hope to stop the bleeding!
7. (I had three kids to feed and the father wasn’t even mentioned so can you really blame me for being afraid of taking risks? heh) Seriously though, in the real world we all have our own barriers to investing, don’t we? We’re either too old or too young; we’re either too clever or too dumb; we use our children as excuses to NOT do something instead of using our children as our most compelling reasons to aim for even greater and higher goals! The fact remains that the more excuses we come up with, the more opportunities we will miss. Remember that in life, it’s the missed opportunities that make up our deepest regrets, and rarely the ones that we actually took advantage of.

Conclusion

Many of us may be in the Rat Race, but we won’t be there for long if we learn how to:

1. Adopt the mindset of the Rich and become financially literate.
2. Differentiate between assets and liabilities – and acquire the things that make us rich.
3. Be able to delay gratification and know how to buy the right things at the right time.
4. Know the difference between good debts and bad debts, and acquire the type that creates wealth.
5. Educate ourselves about the many ways of establishing passive income streams.
6. Invest our time, energy, health and money in the right investments at the right time, using the right strategies.

So there you go. These are the basics you need to know to start getting out of the Rat Race. Now, if you excuse me, I must go and play again and I’ll try to win this time…

The Cashflow 101 game is available in board game and electronic formats. You can get them here.

Do you wish you could make a living while at the same time doing what you passionately love?  I bet you do, but if you are like many people you think your passion can’t make you enough money to live on.  Along comes Jonathan Fields to the rescue.  He shows you how to make money doing what you love and how to do it in your spare time until you get established.

Jonathan has written an excellent book: Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love.  This book has 31 reviews on Amazon.  28 are 5-star and the other three are 4-star.  That’s about as good as it gets.  I give this book 5-stars and I very highly recommend it.  If you buy the book you can join Jonathan’s tribe (and me) at Career Renegade Flight School.

This book covers about everything.  He gives you the techniques you need to make it happen.  It won’t be easy, but by reading and following the advice in this book, you will increase your odds dramatically.

Jonathan, unlike the get-rich-quick-schemers, does not suggest you sacrifice your passion for another money making scheme.  Instead he guides you step by step through how you can find a way to make good money while following your passion.  He wants you to love what you do.

As Jonathon guides you through the process, he points you to many resources and tools you can use along the way.  Here are the chapters in the book and the path you will take.

1. You Don’t Have to be World-Class to Make a World-Class Living
2. What’s Your Secret Passion
3. Introducing the Career Renegade Paths
4. Turn Your Passion Loose Unexpected Places
5. Got Information?  Sell It!
6. Want to Teach?  Expand Your Reach?
7. Exploit the Need for Stuff
8. Exploit the Need for Community
9. Make It Easier for People to Do What You Love
10. Planning and Protecting Your Vision
11. Is the World Ready for You?
12. Are You Ready for the Renegade World?
13. Launching Your Quest for Authority
14. Getting Social Online
15. Building on Blogging and Social Media
16. Marketing that Won’t Break the Bank
17. Cultivate the Renegade Mind-Set
18. How to Be a Renegade Without Ending Up Divorced and Penniless
19. Don’t Do It Alone
20. Hold On to Your Life Preserver Until You Can Swim
21. Be Your Own Guru

Running the Rat Race

A daunting 42-to-1 “scam ratio” in online work-at-home job leads is costing Americans millions of dollars annually and turning the online environment into a “job hunting minefield,” reports home-based career experts Staffcentrix. Moreover, the ratio is growing at an estimated 50% per year.

Your odds are pretty good of getting scammed repeatedly if you are looking for alternative money-making methods on the Web.

These sites will help you with legitimate Opportunities:

Real Home Employment.com is really good source of legitimate opportunities

The Rat Race Rebellion is a source for legitimate work at home opportunities.  It focuses on the Virtual Assistant.

Check out the 62 out of 68 five star reviews of this book!  The subject is the exploding Virtual Assistant market.  This is a legitimate way to earn money from home.

Virtual Assistants (typically abbreviated to VAs), are entrepreneurs who provide professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients from a home office.^[1][2] They usually work for other small businesses and consultancy groups. It is estimated that there are as few as 5,000-8,000 or as many as 35,000 Virtual Assistants worldwide; the profession is growing in centralized economies^[3] with “fly-in, fly-out” (FIFO) staffing practices.^[4][5][6]