Everybody has their own reasons for going to their 9-5. Some people do it to support their family, other people do it to.. support their family.. And sometimes, people go to support.. their family. Most of us actually go to work for the same reason, so make a living for ourselves and our families. How about those who leave work though? Why do people leave their jobs? Escaping the rat race is the dream, true freedom.
Inside The Race
For sure, there are benefits to escaping the rat race! You’re able to set so many aspects of your life, from your sleep schedule to your income. Choosing when you can see your family, when you can eat (something almost any 9-5 controls), and other things you usually couldn’t decide for yourself is one of the biggest benefits to escaping the rat race.
Can you choose any of these things with your typical job? If you’re lucky, and have a nice boss, that’s possible. Unlikely, but possible. My father had one of these cool bosses, that let him decide just about anything he wanted, but even he quit his job and became an entrepreneur.
Now, escaping the rat race isn’t as easy as making $X per year, or reaching Y position in the company. It’s about creating passive income that exceeds your expenses. Take the game Cashflow, for instance. The entire goal of the game is to escape the rat race, just like life, and achieve your dream. To escape the rat race in game, you delve into various different business ventures and slowly raise your passive income.
This portion of the game is the main struggle, where you have to balance your living expenses with how much you put into investments and paying off debts. That’s almost exactly how the real life rat race works, too. People struggle to make ends meet while their debts keep on piling up, and those of us who want to get out have to find balances in life, cut expenses in places, the works.
Breaking Free
Just like in the game, there’s light at the end of the tunnel though. Once your passive income in game has exceeded your living expenses, you can move out to the Fast Track, your goal is just to keep expanding. Gone are the days of living paycheck to paycheck, now you’re living dream to dream!
You don’t have to show up to a job every day in order to make your payments, nor will you have to answer to any boss (besides your spouse). You can set your own hours, and nobody can tell you that you need to work overtime. This is what freedom feels like! Being able to spend time with your family, not miss important events, anything like that.
In real life, escaping the rat race is just like in the game. Once you can make enough passive income to pay for your monthly expenses, then you don’t have to worry about working any more. I’m not saying that you have to, or should, quit your job. That’s up to you, but escaping the rat race means you’ve finally earned complete freedom from work, if you so choose!
Is The Fast Track Right For Me?
Here’s the short answer. Do you want more time? More money? If either of those answers was “yes”, then the fast track *IS* right for you! Even if the answer is “maybe”, it’s still right for you!
Don’t worry, I’ve broken down some of the differences between the Rat Race and the Fast Track.
| Inside The Rat Race | Into The Fast Track | |
|---|---|---|
| Control Your Own Time | - | X |
| Make However Much Money You Choose | - | X |
| Have Job Security | - | - |
| Able To Control Your Daily Routine | - | X |
| Living Paycheck To Paycheck | X | - |
| Rely On Boss To Provide Work And Pay | X | - |
| Setting A Healthy Sleep Schedule | - | X |
See what I mean? There are some *huge* differences between the two! Neither truly can grant you security in your life, but with the Fast Track, that’s the closest you’re going to be able to get. Having many different streams of passive revenue can help with security, in case one or more go flat. In the rat race, you have one main income stream (your job). If that goes flat, so does your entire income.
Here’s another bit of safety that the Fast Track gives you; If you get tired of it, or decide that the Fast Track isn’t for you, there’s always the option to go back to the way things were. You can quit your new lifestyle and go back to being an employee any time you’d like, there’s nothing trapping you in there. The choice truly is yours in the Fast Track, unlike the Rat Race.
Getting To The Fast Track, Feasibly
Now, passive income isn’t a new concept. Sure, there are new ways to go about achieving it, but the idea of making money without it being an equal trade for services is nothing new. Network marketing is one such business model. Too many people confuse true network marketing companies (like Avon, for instance), for buzzwords like “pyramid scheme”.
There is real merit behind the design of network marketing, and it certainly isn’t always a scam. The media takes what few scams are out there, and blows them out of proportion. The media really messes with our perception in many different ways, but a topic for another day, that is.
Probably my personal favorite way has to be affiliate marketing. This isn’t the best paying, but this is the *only* model where everybody involved wins. The business wins by gaining new traffic and customers. The customer wins because they were introduced to a product/service they wanted, as well as often getting a discount. The entrepreneur wins by being given a small share of the company’s profits for referring the customer. And best of all, this costs *nobody* extra!
Now keep in mind, starting a business requires serious up-front work. Many things, including staffing and setting up a location, can’t even happen until your business is legal. You have to register your business with the government first. Only then can you start working for it!
Of course, there are other ways to generate passive income as well. My father wrote some about Kindle Publishing, and how to profit from that. No matter which way you decide to get to the Fast Track, though, there will be some work involved. Just like anything in this world, to reach a goal, you have to prepare for it. Even on your off days where you just don’t want to work, being able to make yourself keep going is a crucial skill to have.
In Summary
No matter which way you look at it, life in the Fast Track is just plain *better* than life in the rat race. From stress levels to freedom of finances and time, nothing can beat the entrepreneurial spirit here. I’m not telling you that you have to quit your job (that’s my father’s job), or invest your entire life’s savings on a pro cock-fighter, nothing like that.
What I *am* telling you to do, though, is to keep your eyes open to opportunity. Who knows? One smart decision, one leap of faith, and your entire world could be taken from the rat race, and launched straight to the Fast Track.
