Escaping the rat race isn't about quitting a 9-5 job. It's about avoiding the “Money Trap". A race to the next paycheck, or material possession.

The Rat Race seems to be conflated with working a 9-5 job. It's often used to guilt those who have a disliking towards their jobs into purchasing a course, program, or something of that nature.

A real rat race isn't about working a 9-5 job, it's about living on a financial edge. Such that your greater life goals and ambitions are placed in the background as you continue chasing the next paycheck, or material possession.

Our relationship seems with money is often as follows: it enters our life, and it leaves. Sometimes this is expressed as your income and expenses, but I think a better way of framing this is your production vs your consumption.

For most of us, we have an issue with consumption. And when fixing this, it may be best to first draw an awareness to yourself as a consumer. Using a budget and tracking your expense is the best way of starting. A common strategy in personal finance is building an "Emergency Fund", a fund that holds 3 - 6 months' worth of expenses - enough so that if an emergency were to ever occur, you wouldn't have a problem financially supporting yourself through such an occasion.

Production is then about increasing the amount of value you can bring to a society. People are paid in proportion to their perceived value in the marketplace, and one of the best ways of increasing your perceived value is by solving a problem in the market, and then selling this solution through a business at scale. This is the entrepreneurial route. And whilst most of us will be able to produce value into the market by selling our labour in the form of a 9-5 job, this doesn't mean our ability to produce stops there.

To be continued...