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.

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.

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.

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 the first article in a series that will examine the characteristic traits of successful people.

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. –Robert Francis Kennedy

Resilience: The ability to recover quickly from illness, change, or misfortune; buoyancy.

In Brief…

The most important characteristic of successful people may be their resilience. In life’s journey there will be many challenges, difficulties, and failures.  A successful life will see many wins but also many disappointments and failures.  To be counted among those successful people, you must have the resilience to bounce back “truly alive” as Bob Proctor says:

Resilience is the ability to come back after great disappointment or pain, after great loss or failure, and be truly alive.  — Bob Proctor

The thrill of victory is only made possible by the agony of defeat. 

Developing Resilience

• Build a strong network of positive relationships with family and friends.
• Ask for help.
• Laugh.
• Take your next action.
• Keep your eye on the prize.
• Learn from your mistakes.
• Be flexible.
• Be positive.
• Focus on the good in yourself.

In Depth…

• Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996 and it had metastasized into his lungs, stomach, and brain.  Three years later in 1999, he won the first of what was to become a record-breaking seven straight Tour de France victories.
• Donald Trump declared bankruptcy in his business and also had almost one billion dollars in personal debt.  Trump bounced back from this failure to become one of the most recognizable real-estate and business moguls in the world today.
• Joanna K. Hill lost 12 members of her family in a four-year period.  It started with her husband and ended with her son.  Yet throughout it all she looks for the positive and gives thanks for what she does have.
• Thomas Edison tried nearly 10,000 times before succeeding with the electric light bulb.  At 67 years old his factory went up in flames.  Looking at the ruins he said “There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew.”
• Jack Canfield, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series that has sold over 100,000,000 copies, relates how they failed with publishers 149 times before finding one that was willing to publish their first book.
• Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.
• Steven Spielberg was rejected by film schools three times.
• Walt Disney was fired by the editor of a newspaper for lacking in ideas.

There are tens of thousands of similar stories of struggle and failure in the lives of the successful.  Most successful people will say that they learned more from their failures than they did from their success.

Failure is not falling down, it is staying down.  Do not fear failure.  Embrace failure and learn from it.  Achievers do not saturate themselves with thoughts of failure.  A successful person will analyze the risk and yet still walk to the edge and let go.

I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward. –Thomas Edison

You can choose to cultivate resilience and join the 3% of the population doing what they love and succeeding at it. Or you can keep doing what got you nowhere.  It’s your choice.

How to Build and Maintain Resilience

• Build a strong network of positive relationships with family and friends. These relationships will support you through the tough times.  Being connected to others will help you sustain your resilience.
• Ask for help.  Use your own resources, but when you get stuck do not be afraid to ask for help.  You are reading this on the Internet.  It’s a good place to start connecting with people who may be able to help.  Use your network of in-person relationships for those really tough times.
• Laugh.  When something goes wrong laugh.  Laugh out loud and laugh hard.  I got this idea from Bob Proctor and I tried it.  It works!
• Take your next action.  Figure out what you need to do next and do it.  Don’t wallow in self-pity.  Get up and move!
• Keep your eye on the prize.  Maintain focus on your ultimate benefit. I’m not talking about immediate benefits like more money, but the final destination.  You may want financial independence in order to be able to have free time so you can pursue your dream in order to be happy.  Financial independence is not the prize.  Happiness is the prize.  Focus on your dream and how happy it will make you.
• Learn from your mistakes.  Resilient people will look, and sometimes you have to look hard, for the lesson to be derived from the experience.
• Be flexible.  Anticipate challenges, problems, and failures.  Know from the start that you will have to change along the way, adjust to the unexpected, and pick yourself up from defeat.
• Be positive.  A general characteristic of positivity may be the most important thing you can do.  Negative self-talk is a downward spiral.  Positive self-talk is an upward spiral.  Spiral upwards please!
• Focus on the good in yourself.  No matter what happens your life is full of success and you need to focus on that success when you are feeling discouraged or defeated.  Write down every win you can think of that you have had in your life.  Get yourself excited about what you know you can do.

What do you think?  Subscribe to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or to a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you aboard.

“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]

Unless you want to be caught in the claws and jaws of the rat race predators, you need to pay careful attention to what follows.  When you look up toward the sky, you will see a large kettle (group) of vultures circling overhead and the hawks and wolves lurk near you in the trees and bushes.  They are waiting for you to take a step outside where they can gobble you up.

When you decide to follow your dream and escape the rat race, you are vulnerable.  You are going to see so many get-rich-quick schemes and scams flying in your direction you won’t know which direction is up.  These will be presented in very convincing presentations, using tried and true marketing techniques, wrapped inside the most powerful testimonials from the allegedly new rich.  There is no way you can lose right?  All the money you ever wanted is just around the corner and all you have to do is reach out and grab it.

It simply doesn’t work that way.  Yes you can achieve your dreams.  Yes you can be happy and successful.  Yes you can earn more than you ever have before.  No it is not easy.  No it is not quick.  And no it does not come without a price.  If you want something and are not willing to pay the price to get it, you are going to end up very disappointed.  I am not going to link you to dozens of sites promising rivers of money will soon flow your way.  You need to learn the principles that will sustain you over the long-term.  I want you to be part of this community for the long term and so I am going to earn your trust.

There are two strategies you can follow right now to achieve your escape.
The first is to make major changes in your current life situation and the second is to change careers and do something entirely different with your life.  You must apply the first strategy regardless and the second one around career change will also be used by many people.  However you do not have to use the second strategy.  Many people won’t and will still benefit enormously.  The whole point of this article is to convince you to make this decision carefully and deliberately.

The first strategy detailed below is very important as it will sustain you during your escape and for the rest of your life no matter what you decide in regards to career change.  Please don’t rush into that decision or you will find yourself in a heap of trouble.  I will post some information in the next few days on some resources you can begin looking into if you feel a change is necessary right now.  I suggest that you get your life in order first and then you will have the necessary foundation to make a very successful career change later.

Make life changes now, no matter what your current situation.

There are very few people who won’t benefit tremendously from some major changes in the way they approach their personal and professional lives.  Make these changes now and continue to grow positively, and you almost certainly will find happiness and success in your current job or business.  You will benefit from these changes for the rest of your life.

I will continue to provide a lot of content in this blog to help you achieve these changes.  They are remarkably straightforward if you know what to do.  Here are some resources to help you get started.

• Follow the steps to finding happiness that were described in the Find Happiness Outside of the Rat Race series.  Here is a great article from Zen Habits: First Your Feelings: Then Your Action Plan.  This article from Goodlife Zen is also very good: What is the ONE Thing in Your Life
• Check out Derek’s Success Tips.
• Drink in everything Leo Babauta.  I realize I’m bordering on hero worship,  but I simply think the guy is fantastic.  Here is his book: Power of Less, The: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential…in Business and in Life by Leo Babauta. Here is his web site: Zen Habits
• Continue to participate in The Rat Race Trap community.  I am committed to doing everything possible to help you get that great life you deserve.  There is so much more to come and I can hardly wait to put it out there for you.  We can all help each other here by actively participating in the comments and getting discussion threads going.
• Review the Must Read and Killer categories to your right in the link sidebar.  You will find a lot of good information there now and it will continue to grow rapidly as the site content builds.  Some of those articles were mentioned above.
• Get your finances in order.  You must at least be financially stable before you make any major changes.  Stable finances are a key to long-term success and you must start right now.  The following link is to a nice blog on personal finances, and there is a ton of content.  You probably will have to browse around to find exactly what you want but it is a great resource  Here is the link to the basics category of Get Rich Slowly.    There are a million articles on the Internet and so just start Googling personal finances.  You can expect a lot of future content here on this blog around financial success in the future.  Here are a couple of starter articles to get you going:
  • http://www.surfersam.com/articles/personal-finance-plan.htm
  • http://www.muzi.com/library/ar/english/122502.shtml

Much, much, more to come.  Please let me know what you think.

Stephen.

In our modern chaotic and rat race world, we are no longer sleeping in a naturally healthy manner.  Sleep deprivation is widespread and the effects of sleep deprivation are alarming.  Read this for some good information on what happens when you don’t get enough sleep.

Why do we need optimal sleep?

What does sleep have to do with escaping the rat race?  Plenty.  It’s not how many hours of the day you are awake to live your life that is important.  It is how much living you are able to do in those hours that really matter.  If you are sleep deprived you are going to be at a severe handicap in your quest to escape the rat race and live the life of your dreams.  Even if you don’t think you are sleep deprived, if you live in the rat race you likely are impaired from sleep deprivation and just don’t know it.

I should know because I have spent many, many years dragging around all day long with low energy and low performance as a result of my own harmful sleep patterns.  I may not need as much sleep as many people, but by trying to get by with three or four hours per night, with an occasional no-sleep night thrown in, I was doing serious damage to my overall health and well being.  I have trouble sleeping even when I clearly need it.  Just to get the little sleep I’ve been getting, I have spent years taking sleeping pills and all forms of herbs and vitamins.  My sleep pattern was not only sub-optimal, it was broken and dangerous.

What did I do?

In the middle of a mental and physical breakdown I stumbled onto something that may be one of the best things I have ever done for my health.  I ran across an advertisement on the Internet for a sleep program.  I made an intuitive judgment and bought it.  That first day, long before I ever laid my head on the pillow for the night, I had a strong feeling that this was going to be the answer for me.  It was an intuitive judgment based upon what I was reading and watching.  The program comes with videos you watch online in order to understand the sleep cycle.  It teaches you a lot of great information that I knew had to be right.  I’ve bought many things and taken many courses and programs on the Internet and most of them aren’t very good.  Some are downright junk.  But what I was watching seemed different.  A man named Yan was explaining the science behind sleep and the circadian rhythm.  He was explaining what happens to mess it up and what you can do about it.  It wasn’t a glossy load of crap; it seemed genuine and logical.  I was very intrigued.

That was only a few weeks ago, and now I am absolutely sold on the program.  I haven’t taken a sleeping pill since that first day and I feel much, much better.  I’m sleeping more and with better quality than I ever was sleeping with the pills.  I paid $69 for the program which has a 60-day money back guarantee.  You can’t lose.  Yan will send you follow up emails and more bonuses along the way.  You get downloads of sleep tracks that put your brain into the correct cycles for quality sleep.  It works miracles.  The sleep tracks are temporary.  Eventually you discard them and sleep naturally with no pills, tapes, or anything else.  You learn the natural things you can do to get your sleep patterns back to the natural and healthy state nature meant them to be in.

I paid $69 for a program worth $690 and I fully expect to come back her in a couple of months and tell you it was worth $6,900.  $69 doesn’t pay for a single nice dinner out for you and your partner so the price is truly peanuts.  I’m not going to try and sell you on it any more.

What can you do?

I will simply say if you have any trouble with sleep, I don’t see how you can pass this up.  If you want out of the rat race and/or need help with sleep then here is the link: Sleep Tracks

Your Escape from the Rat Trap

You can use time management and other techniques to get more things done in the same amount of time or to get the same amount done in less time.  My first major attempt at personal productivity was to spend an enormous amount of time and energy (and a decent amount of money) in trying everything I could find on those methods.  This is what most people who use productivity programs are after.  However a much more powerful approach is to get the important things done.  Ultimately when you combine the two approaches you are going to be able to get more of the important things done in less time than you previously spent getting anything done.  Whew!  This is a key to escaping the rat race trap.

There is a man that I will introduce you to later who has become my personal hero.  I dream to do even a fraction of what he has done.  I now am on my way to actually achieving that final level I describe in the previous paragraph.  I am finally proving to myself that it is possible and it will be possible for you as well.  It is exhilarating to actually see it start to work.  I have a long, long way to go but I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It seems so strange at first and being naturally skeptical I was skeptical of all this.  But I have learned to suspend disbelief and give a great many new things a try.  A few of them have worked amazingly well for me and I now have personally experienced the power of this newest approach. The good news for you is that the time I wasted trying a hundred different approaches allows me to provide you a shortcut to the best approach.  You get to skip all the pain of searching and trying them out yourself.

My mystery hero has accomplished the following in the last few years:

1. Take up running
2. Eat healthier
3. Become organized and productive
4. Train for and run two marathons
5. Work two jobs and run double his income
6. Become a vegetarian
7. Complete two triathlons
8. Start a blog that became one of the top 50 blogs in less than 2 years and has millions of readers a month
9. Eliminate all debt
10. Simplify his life
11. Declutter his home
12. Lose over 40 pounds
13. Write and sell two successful e-books
14. Write the first draft of a novel
15. Quit his day job and work from home
16. Start a second successful blog
17. Publish a book that became an instant seller

He did this while being married and raising six kids!!  I cannot even imagine all that.  I have one kid and she has left home to find her own way in the world.  I have been a workaholic and more or less spinning the rat wheel in the rat race for many years.  I damaged my health and my mind and forgot what was really important to me all at the same time.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you more about how you too can turn it all around and escape the rat race.  I’ll also reveal the mystery man and give you links to some great resources.