The Rat Race: Rinse & Repeat, Getting Nowhere [TFC 121]

The Rat Race: Rinse & Repeat, Getting Nowhere [TFC 121]

The conventional idea of the rat race is where we study hard and get a job to accumulate wealth so that we can settle down, start a family and eventually retire. TFC 121 will blow your mind as we challenge this notion: quitting your job does not necessarily mean you are out of the rat race. This episode will expand on the true meaning of the rat race and the 3 phases to go through for anyone who is trying to get out of it.

Rinse & repeat, getting nowhere – have you ever felt like this? Host Reggie believes this is the rat race mindset where you do the same thing every single day without any progress and this is not limited to the average working adult; even wealthy people experience this too! This stagnant mindset is what we should be challenging.

How then should we get out of this rat race mindset? Reggie describes the 3 phases one will experience during this process and some useful tips that will help you to rediscover your needs and interests with the goal of achieving fulfillment and happiness in whatever you do.

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podcast Transcript

Reggie: Hey Coconuts! A lot of people are talking about getting out of the rat race but I officially say… in my view, Reggie’s view is that, a lot of them are only preparing. They’re only preparing… whether is it building your own portfolio, building multiple streams of income, whatever jazz, learning up a new skill, all those stuff… are really just preparing.

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Most of them have not gotten out of the rat race and they don’t understand what’s out there. Personally, I know the word “rat race” is super loaded. I would expand on it as we go along. I believe that I have gotten out of the rat race and I’ve talked to many people that I personally believe have gotten out of the rat race.

In this process of getting out, there are a few phases. Specifically, I’ve broken down into three phases and I’m going to share with you some of the tips and tricks to go through these phases. I am a strong believer that if it’s winter, you got to treat it like it’s winter; if it’s summer, you’ve got to treat it like it’s summer. You don’t want to be over-hyped about certain things. 

Today, we’re going to talk about the three phases of breaking out the rat race and possibly some of the best tips and tricks to help you go through this process so welcome back! 

Good morning, everyone! I welcome you to another day with The Financial Coconut. In our podcasts, we will be debunking financial myths, discovering best financial practices and discussing financial strategies that fits our unique life. You get it, ultimately empowering us to create a life we love while managing our finances well. 

My name is Reggie. I’m your host for today and I’m going to talk to you a little bit more about some of the phases of breaking out of the rat race.

Okay… Before we begin, we definitely have to expand on the extremely loaded word of rat race. I know the stereotypical idea out there of what is a rat race. It is to study hard, get a good job, keep accumulating wealth and change jobs if you’re unhappy, buy a house, settle down, get a family and then retire.

Pretty much that is what people term as the “rat race” and a lot of people want to get out of it. I understand why a lot of people want to get out of it for a huge barrage of reason and I’m not going to doubt you that if you really want to get out of it, you must have some sort of reason. But whether your reason is strong enough, that’s a whole different discussion. I believe that for a lot of people that are still on the fence of whether do they want to get out of this system, their reason is not strong enough yet. My friends say there’s a crash phase and I’ll talk about that later. 

To me, this is just one of the race. This is just one of the system out there that has been built from the industrial era… trickled down since the industrial era. People were shifting to cities and (there were) a lot of factories and it’s this whole process of teaching people to become factory workers and equipping them with the skills to be technicians and engineer and produce and do all that jazz. 

That system has been built for a long time and it is a system in itself. People out there will commonly call this the rat race. In other words, you keep running in this cycle: keep accumulating, keep spending, keep accumulating, keep spending. It’s very iconic of capitalism, by the way. That is what people will call the rat race.

But the problem I have with this… the underpinning idea of the rat race, why people are unhappy, is that it’s just doing the same thing again and again, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat and probably, they’re getting nowhere and that’s why it’s called a rat race. It’s like a hamster wheel, you keep running in it. At least that’s the image that comes up in my head. 

To me, the biggest problem with this connotation of the rat race is that everything is like that. Everything is like that, every system is like that. I know absolute words are hard to substantiate but let me just give you a little bit of context. 

I have friends who are property investors. I’m sure you guys have heard some of them on our other podcasts Coconut Avenue and also some on this podcast. What do they do? They buy the property, they fix it up and then they wait for the price to go up and then they sell the property and they take the capital and go to the next property. They fix it up and then wait for the price to go up and then they sell the property and then what they do? They take the money and they go to the next property and then they buy the same property and then they fix it up and then, they sell it again! 

Isn’t that an exact connotation of a rat race? Aside from the system in itself of what the commonly understood idea of a rat race, I’m trying to distill the essence of why this system of studying hard, getting a job, going out there and hustling, making your money, settle down in a family and then retire… why is this the only thing that is called a rat race? 

This is just the average worker scenario. For the longest time ever since post industrial era, it has been like that for the longest time. Whichever country you go to, you see this system. Of course, now things are changing because work is changing, the way we see money is changing. The internet change a lot of things. The whole gig economy is out there. 

There’re a lot of things that are happening but at the core in itself, the essence of a rat race is rinse and repeat, getting nowhere. Rinse and repeat, getting nowhere… you can put this same thing on someone that is just buying the next property, buying the next property, buying the next property and you also can put this on someone that is just investing in the stock market, investing in the stock market, investing in the stock market.

It’s the same, right? It is just a different system but they are still operating in the rat race mindset where it’s rinse and repeat, getting nowhere. Of course, the grass always seems greener on the other side. Everybody wants to be the investor, everybody wants to be the entrepreneur, everybody wants to do whatever, all that jazz. 

But I have to tell you that… Yes, if you’re a successful property investor, you’re a successful stock market investor, you’re a successful entrepreneur, material wealth is not a problem, right? That is not your core problem but in the process of going upwards, you’re competing like mad. There’s a lot of competition and you’re hurting relationships, you’re spending sleepless nights, you’re concerned, you’re worried and you’re hustling. 

These are all personal experiences, I’ve interviewed all these entrepreneurs. Just go and check out Our Entrepreneurshit Show, (which is) my pet project and I love it the most. It shows as an entrepreneur, they go through a lot of s***.

Is that what you want? That is the price to pay and with that, I’m not siding any particular system or way of life. It’s not like being a property investor is superior or being an entrepreneur, starting a business is superior or just working a job, it’s superior. No, they are all different characters. It’s much like MapleStory starting line, you can do different things and different characters just operate differently within the system. 

We can have an ongoing discussion about whether is it fair, blah, blah, blah. All those discussions are there and we should have that kind of discussion about pay, about power, about all those things in our broader system. But it does not then suggest that this particular system, which is the average workers’ situation, is the only thing that should be seen as a rat race. It is not the only thing that you rinse and repeat, getting nowhere.

I’m sure you watch multiple shows out there. Bling Empire, I think that’s one of the most… on Netflix, right? Bling Empire… one of the clearest suggestion of the rinse and repeat, getting nowhere. They are very wealthy. They are just buying things and throwing parties, buying things, throwing parties, buying things, throwing parties… rinse and repeat, getting nowhere, and a lot of them, they broke down, the way they talk and all that. 

Squid Game… recently Squid Game also did that. I’m not a big fan of using Squid Game to tell you “oh, personal finance, blah, blah, blah…”. I know I probably should have but the idea is, remember the last scene? That old guy turns out to be the master of the game? He said that “the most similar plight of the richest man and the poorest man is that we both have nothing to live for.” 

I think that is very apt.I know it’s very hard to accept this and consume this but as you talk to more people… I hope we do more interviews to show you that. Also, I’m not discouraging you from changing the system, I’m just pointing out what is the underlying similarity across all the people that are operating all the different systems and then you can label these people as “yah, these people are in the rat race”, because they rinse and repeat, getting nowhere. 

What is the difference between someone that is in the rat race and not in the rat race? Regardless of who you are, you will always be part of a system and we will talk about that in the pointers to come. I believe the underlying factor is whether you have accepted that this is the system, whether you thrive in this system and whether or not you actually feel fulfilled and happy within this system. I know it’s very cheesy sounding, but honestly, people that love the system will never tell you “oh, we want to get out of the rat race”. They’re just doing their thing. They’re just having fun. 

Like me, as an entrepreneur… sometimes I’ll be like “aiyah, 为什么 (why) work so hard? Why work so hard? Why don’t I just quit?” Overall, I still like it. I create content for all of you and sometimes I’ll be like “oh my goodness! I’ve got no more ideas, man”. I’m struggling here but I still like it so I still come back to it especially when I take a break and I’ll be like, “oh yeah, I got this idea and I want to talk about it”. With that in mind, the underlying difference between a rat race and not a rat race is whether you can accept it, whether you’re thriving in it and whether you’re enjoying it.

At this juncture, I want to slip in something about material wealth and non-material needs. There are a lot of people out there that tell you that “oh, you want to get out of rat race, you make more money. You want to build a bigger passive portfolio, gather more wealth…” and all that. The reality is a lot of people that are thinking of getting out of the rat race or teetering on the sides of getting out of the rat race, they have already accumulated some sort of material wealth. That’s why they are feeling very unhappy, very dissatisfied at work or dissatisfied with their life because they need the higher order needs now.

If they need the higher order needs, then more wealth is not going to solve that problem. They need to go and do the relationship, self-actualization, all those things. Don’t debate with me about Maslow. I’m not here to debate with you about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs but I vividly feel that a lot of people… it’s because they are deprived of the higher order needs: their creative needs, their love, the relationship, the self-actualization… that is driving their unhappiness and they have already accumulated a lot of material wealth, that’s why they can be concerned about all these things. With that, why do you need more material wealth? Why not just go head on and solve the problem in itself? But yeah, that’s a whole discussion for another day. 

Today, we’re going to focus on the different phases of getting out of the rat race and the first phase… First phase, it’s a very painful phase is what I call the lost and emotional phase. Yes, lost and emotional. I know a lot of people think “oh yeah man, you accumulate all this money, you have built your portfolio…” By the way, I just want to say people that have built a passive portfolio, built multiple streams of income, they have not gotten out of the rat race but with that kind of financial strength, they are cushioning their material impact after… let’s say, they quit their job.

If you can create a portfolio that matches a $5,000 a month salary, then you are cushioning that material impact when you quit your job. In other words, you have one less thing to worry about when you are trying to leave the rat race. That’s all it is… if you usually make $5,000 a month but you build a portfolio that can allow you to make dividend or $5,000 a month, then yes, that’s the best case, right? You have cushioned the material needs, that’s it. 

You have actually not gone through all the other phases and all the other problems that you will meet. I’m not saying that it is a bad thing, I’m just saying that you’ve spent 10-20 years just to cushion your impact when you leave (your job)… just to cushion the impact when you leave or when you “start your first phase of exiting the rat race” which is being lost and emotional. 

Why? Why being lost and emotional? I know a lot of people would think “oh my god, I made all this money now, I built this portfolio. I can get out” and they feel triumphant like “whoa yeah! We do this!” But let me try to draw your memory, let me try to draw a little bit of your memory when you were in your younger days. 

When you were in secondary school, when you finish ‘O’ levels and be like, “what the hell is going to happen next? Where do I want to go? Do I want to go JC (Junior College), do I want to go Poly(technic)? What’s happening? Do I try to pursue a Uni(versity) degree or what’s going on?” and then you have that two-year NS (National Service) for the guys, you also feel lost like, “what to do? What’s happening?” You don’t know what to do and also, the post-uni for everybody or whoever that went through uni or post-tertiary education, trying to go into the job market, you’re so lost like “what to do? I don’t know”.

That’s the reality that you’re going to face. Same reality, no difference. Why? Because firstly, you need to recognize that you have exited the school system at that point in time which has very defined systems by the way. From the way it’s being graded, from the kind of classes you need to take, even down to the timetable, every day, what you need to do… it’s super defined, right? The school education system is very defined so when you leave it, you’re lost because you have left the school system. Now, you enter the working world, the working system and you are trying to like… er, what to do?” So you’re lost. 

The same kind of process will happen when you are trying to leave this working system and potentially pursue a different way of life whether is it the nomadic life or whether is it the investor life or whether is it the content creator life, the gig economy life, what have you. You are just trying to go into the next system and in this process of going to the next system, you will be lost. Just so happened that the underlying desire of getting out of the rat race is not to go into another system. This is very weird but this whole thing will close up, bear with me all the way to the end. 

The idea that a lot of people have when they want to pursue this whole “get out of the rat race” thing, they never thought of “oh, you know what? After I get out of this rat race, I’m actually joining another system.” To them, it’s like “I’m liberated, I have freedom, I can do whatever the s*** I want or whatever the thing I want to do”… I know a lot of s*** today. 

That ultimatum in itself which is the freedom, liberation, get-out-of-all-these-system kind of thing creates this problem for whoever that’s trying to get out of the rat race because now, you don’t have the next system that you need to go to. Okay, let’s be real. Between the school system and the work system, because the narrative is built so clearly, although you may struggle, you may feel lost, there are certain things that are being built that will help you towards it. Whether is it career fair, your friends going there, what I call a pacer pack. Everybody is going there, it’s easy for you to just like “no lah, let’s just go along. Let’s just chug along”. 

But without that, without the next system that you will transit into, now you got to define everything. You got to figure out everything, you got to ask yourself, “What am I doing?” This is extremely scary for a lot of people which is why, I mean… let’s be real, a lot of people cannot even stay single for a long period of time, cannot not have a job for an extended period of time because it is scary, it is emotional and it is hard especially when the whole bunch of your friends are doing something else. 

Everything essentially breaks down, right? You have all the money, you’ve quit the job, so what? Your friends are doing whatever they do, they’re continuing to pursue the narrative. You’re trying to take a different direction altogether or you’re trying to do something else altogether and in this something else, you don’t know anybody yet. You don’t know anybody that’s doing this something else, you’re just like.. you learn from the Internet, some guy tell you to do this or you go and pick up some course and you subscribe to this idea and you try to go through this whole process alone. 

It’s very easy to be lost and very easy to be emotional. I don’t need to expand on the emotional part but the reality is, you will be lost which is why a lot of people will end up going back to the “rat race”, which is the system that they’re familiar with. They’ll be like “oh, you know, I changed a job and I’ve got something else”, but it’s still a job. The same problem exists. You have not sorted out the whole situation with how you interact with other people, how you recognize that different people have different needs and not everybody perform the same way. Not everybody needs to talk the same way. 

You have not sorted out the whole idea of like… when you do a job, there are a lot of requirements and there’s some dehumanization in this process. It’s not always just about you. If you have not sorted out all those things, you’re essentially going back and you reverse. You reverse course… You work so hard, try to accumulate wealth and then you go, “oh, I got out of the rat race.” You don’t know what to do then you reverse course. You go back to the same thing that you were familiar prior.

It’s very normal, everyone does that. It’s so normal so that is the given which is why some of my friends that have left the rat race, they say that you need this thing called a “crash”. You need this thing called a “crash” so that your reasons are strong, so that you will never go back. When you try to build a portfolio to be very cushion-y and try to cushion your transition into the other thing, it’s actually (because) your reasons are no longer that strong because you have not gotten that serious pain and that kind of “crash”.

I’m not saying everybody needs to crash… what is the idea of a crash? Maybe your whole worldview breaks down because your long-time fiancé breaks up with you or you got serious backstabbed, you went through some sort of coup in your company and you drop out of school and then you start to see that “oh wow, the world is so different.” There must be some very serious crash… or you know, family passing, whatever. There’s some serious crash that cuts out your reverse. That means you cannot reverse, you will never go back, you can only move forward. Only people with this kind of reason that strong, usually will succeed through this transition of getting out of the rat race.

If you don’t have that kind of crash… I’m not saying you must crash. I’m not telling everybody to crash. But if you don’t have this kind of crash, I need you to vividly recognize in this stage while you are being lost, you shouldn’t try too hard to grab hold to everything that you already understood before because you are essentially trying to transit out of the system that you were in. You are going to break a lot of habits, you’re going to question a lot of things and it is the reality in this phase of lost and emotional. 

What I will suggest you to do is to set up a mini lifestyle system… whether is it watch what you eat or have more exercise, do some of the… or pick up some hobby and all that jazz. Those things will help you to form a small timetable for you to keep going. I know some friends who, in the process of getting out of the rat race, they pick up a new language. They pick up Russian, they pick up Korean, they pick up whatever and it is very cool, right? They pick a whole new language. 

In the process, because when they have something to do to keep them going, they will not readily think of going back but at the same time, it is not something that takes up all your energy and all your time. Maybe a few hours a day? All the extra time, then they will start to think about “actually, what do I want? What do I stand for? What do I believe in?” and you try to work through this whole “lost process” by revisiting their habits, revisiting their goals and revisiting their life. This is something that I think you should do. 

That’s for phase number one of getting out of the rat race. For phase number two of getting out of the rat race is what I call the “exploration” phase and I’ll share more with you after a word from our sponsor. 

Okay, so the exploration phase, right? What is this? Of course, after you go through the lost and emotional situation where you work through your emotions, you become more familiar with it, you are more calm and you have built some sort of mini system to keep your life going: eat healthy, exercise, read books, pick up a language… some of the small little things that can keep you going, not something that takes up your whole life again and then you have no bandwidth to think. 

Next comes exploration, which is a situation where you want to try a lot of new things. Whatever that I was saying in point one about building a mini system, those are things that you already know that you like, whether is it yoga, whether is it read(ing) a book, whether is it baking… some of those things that you already like and you try to amplify it in your lost and emotional phase to help you tie through this whole process. 

Of course, like I said, if you have a crash, there’ll be no reverse. You’re only going in front. All this building-a-mini-system-in-the-lost-phase is to try to reduce the tendency of you reversing back to your old ways and give you the bandwidth to go forward.

With this extra bandwidth where you can question your life, question what you want, question the system that you were in and try to understand all these other things that are going along or going around, this is essentially the time of exploration where you meet a lot of new people, when you try to connect with interesting people… people that you think are interesting and I tell you, LinkedIn, Instagram, even Facebook, there are a lot of interesting people that you can connect with. Social media is not all evil and not all bad. I think that’s something that you should do: exploring, talking to people, try to figure out what is their life, what is their way, what is their view. 

Some people can try new things, pick up a small little internship, pick up a small part-time job. Have you ever wondered what the NTUC aunty actually do? You get the idea, right? The idea is not to become a NTUC aunty but the idea is… I salute the NTUC aunty. I have to say our NTUC aunty is super productive. I’ve traveled to many places and I think they do a good job. They can collect digital payment, they can do everything… I’ll stop the NTUC aunty rant. 

The idea is to try new things, meet new people, explore new stuff and just go around and pick up new things. Not all (of it) have to be fun. You could do an internship here, you can do a part-time (job) there, just try out different way of life, different career or do mini kind of things and just to go around and see what’s going on.

That’s the whole idea because in this process of exploration, in this phase, you are really trying to define where you want to go next or what you are trying to do next. Your best bet is to try a lot of things and explore. It’s not all about the things that you already love and the things you already want but it could be all the things that you are curious and you are on the fence prior. This is your best time, your best bet. 

Hopefully in this situation, you meet like-minded people. They may not be all in the same career path as you or they may not all be in the same system as you but they’re all on this process of trying to explore life, see life in a different fashion and going through this process. Together, you form a pacer pack. I am a strong believer of a pacer pack. It always helps and makes life easier. 

That is exploration, phase number two of breaking out of the rat race and the third phase… the third ultimate phase that will wrap up this whole thing is you got to accept yourself into another system.

I know you want to punch me right? I say so long, you listen so long, then you’d be like “actually, your goal is to accept yourself into another system”. The process of getting out of the rat race, like I have established in the very beginning of the podcast is… the underlying idea of a rat race or the essence of why people call something a rat race is because they rinse and repeat and they get nowhere. 

But you will never see someone that really like what they do calling it a rat race. To them, it’s a craft, it’s what I enjoy, it’s my calling, whatever name they call it. Got divinity, no divinity, got cultural, no cultural, whatever. Craft is very cultural. Divinity comes with the whole calling thing, whatever they call it.

People that enjoy what they do, they have a different name for it. It’s never about the rat race and “I’m trying to get out of the rat race”. In actuality, what you really need to do is to get yourself accustomed to a system and get yourself into a system where you can enjoy and where you accept it and also in this process, find your crew. Find your group, find the people that you vibe with. There’s a certain way of life. 

In today’s world, there is optionality. In today’s world, there are a lot of choices. You can essentially live in drastically different way of life. I am currently now in Georgia, Tbilisi. I’m doing remote work. I’m a podcaster and I make money digitally. You guys are listening to me,and I know sponsor(s) love us, that kind of stuff. It’s a very different way compared to the past where it was pretty much an industrial process and you could only work a job and that’s your only source of income or if not, you try to be a capitalist.

These days, there are a lot of more nuance, a lot of different ways to live life. In that sense, in phase three, I really think it’s about finding the place that you can hang out for a while, finding the system that you can hang out for a while. You don’t need to commit to the system. You don’t need to be like “oh yeah! I found a new system!” in fact, actually if you commit too quickly, it’s a suggestion that you’re trying to reverse to your old ways, a little bit like a rebound relationship. 

At the core, in phase three of trying to get yourself accepted into a new system, it is about finding the place you can be, finding the place you find comfortable and you can hang out and you can rinse and repeat and feel the bliss and feel the peace. At the same time, also find a bunch of people that you can do it together with. 

At some point, you’ve got to latch into a broader system. Let me give you a little bit more colour. Maybe at first, you are like “I don’t want to do this anymore”, then you try the whole content creator route or try to do content and all that jazz. After a while, you realize that… okay, you explore. You explore, you try that. “Oh yeah, maybe I quite like this. This is something that I can do” but (if) you realize, for your content creator life to be colourful and viable and exciting and something that you can love and keep doing, you have to go and meet other content creators. You have to be attached into the system, into the content creator system. 

Inevitably, at some point, which is what I call the phase three is you have to join back into a system but in this process, you are joining back with acceptance, with understanding, knowing that this is what I want or this is what I can tentatively want.

It’s very different because some people will say “aiyah, then never mind. No need to go through this whole rat race process. Don’t need to go through the lost, emotional, exploration and acceptance (phase)”… just stick to whatever it is. Of course, if you stick to wherever it is and you already love it, then okay, of course you will not even entertain this idea. 

If you listen until now, you’re definitely entertaining the idea of getting out of the rat race. In that process, what I’m trying to tell you is you have to go through this process if you want to really ultimately “get out of the rat race”, which in essence is rinse and repeat, getting nowhere.

The fundamental way to get out is to accept where you are, enjoy what you do and find bliss and joy and meaning in this way of life that you have chosen and in order to choose this, I’m going to sum up today. You’ve got to go through three processes.

Number one is lost and emotional because you’ve got to get out of whatever system that you were already in. In this process, you will feel lost, you will feel emotional. It’s gonna be hard. If you don’t have a strong reason, that means you don’t have a big crash. It’s very hard for you to keep going. There’s always a tendency to reverse. 

In order to help you keep going, you’ve got to do up a mini life system like one hour of gym, cooking a little bit, doing the things that you love… small little things. Your goal is not to fill up your whole calendar and fill it very muah muah (fully packed). Your goal is not to fill it up. Your goal is just to do some little things that you enjoy that will keep you going to manage your emotional process and also give you some sort of framework to work with. Remember the times where we had timetable? No matter how much we didn’t like the timetable, we will still do something and we will not kind of drown and all that. Have that little bit of that system, small system to keep you going. 

Number two is exploration. In the exploration phase, you’re really trying to question where you were, what you’re trying to do, what are things like and what are the options out there. In this phase, I highly encourage you to try new things. Do new part-time job(s), try new internship, do a side business if you want to, meet a lot of people. The goal is to meet a lot of people and try a lot of things. Try the things that you were curious but you never, ever went on to do. When you try all these things, it gives you a better clarity of like “okay, this is why certain things are done this way and actually, I quite like this” and then it could potentially be your new way of life. 

Which brings me to point number three and that is acceptance into a system. Once you’ve found “a new way of life” or a new system that you can work with, you have to latch yourself into the system. You’ve got to meet like-minded people, you got to enter into the system because there is a whole ecosystem built around this thing, from the support, from the kind of pacer pack, even the monetary system, they’re all tied together. And of course, come on, if you really enjoy doing something on your own, you find like-minded people that enjoy doing the same thing and life is going to be… tend to be better, in my view. 

To me, these are the three phases of breaking out of the rat race. Not accumulating a lot of wealth, trying to build a portfolio and then you know… “oh, freedom!” No, it’s not like that. At the end of the day, rinse and repeat, getting nowhere is the underlying idea of a rat race. If you want to get out, you need to find something that you enjoy, find the bliss. 

If you go through this whole process and at the end, you realize that “you know, I quite like my old life”, what’s so bad about going back? So yeah, with that, I hope you have a great day today and you learnt something useful today. See ya.

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Okay, yeah… I hope today’s episode is good. It’s definitely very different from what we usually do but it’s something that I’ve been wanting to talk about because there’s so much talk out there about getting out of the rat race like accumulating wealth, making a lot of money, building a portfolio. I’m like er, those things… they really don’t help you (get) out of the rat race. I’ve met so many people. They are just taking that same idea of rinse and repeat, getting nowhere and they plug it, they romanticize this other system of being an investor, being an entrepreneur. They romanticize it because they’ve not done it and they’ve not tried it.

I think what I’m trying to give you here is to understand and draw experience from my experience and from some of the friends that I believe have gotten out of the rat race and loving what they do. Essentially, that’s the idea of getting out of a rat race, right? You try these things, you don’t really like it, you go through this whole process. It’s very painful but eventually, you find out what you like, you find out what you can keep doing, what you love… however you define it and you essentially find bliss in your life. 

I’ve talked to many people around this and there are a lot of travelers, a lot of backpackers that are trying to go through this whole process. A lot of people are stuck at phase one and phase two, they don’t even… they don’t even go to phase two. Honestly, there are a lot of backpackers that are just stuck at phase one, but they’re definitely lost and emotional and trying to get out. 

For all of you that are listening, I hope these are good phases and good tips for you to try to get out of the rat race. If that is something that you want to do, DM (direct message) us on Instagram, DM us on Telegram. You can DM me or send me an email, I can share with you more experiences and all that jazz. 

Next week’s episode, I’m going to talk about the three things that I think… people are talking about it but I feel it’s not expanded enough. I’m going to talk about novelty structure and safe space next week where I think these three things are very cheap to pursue and can really elevate your quality of life, okay? Take care guys.

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