Nine to Five Escape Plan

by Craig Beck

  The part of our brain that generates this powerful motivating force would rather we always default to our comfort zone. The comfort zone is safe and requires less work to remain in it. For example would you feel more relaxed walking around your own home in a power blackout or in a huge ancient castle in the middle of nowhere? Of course home is the obvious choice because you find comfort in the familiar surroundings, you know where everything you need is and you also know how to get out of there if you had to. Simply put, your brain is pushing you to stay safely at home to avoid the risks of the unknown… always!

  While the fear of truly committing to your goals feels very real, you need to be aware that it is a subjective illusion, by that I mean the same situation can appear different if viewed from another angle. Our beliefs are much more powerful than we give them credit for. We can literally manifest reality from our beliefs. I loved the story Zig Ziglar used to tell to demonstrate this point:

  At the airport, a woman with plenty of hours to spare before her flight went to buy a book and a bag of cookies in the shops inside the airport. She then found a place to sit and started reading. She was so absorbed in reading her book and yet, she still noticed a man take a cookie from the bag between them.

  She continued with the cookies and ignored the man to avoid any scene. Soon, the cookie thief diminished her stock until only one was left. The man laughed nervously, took the last cookie and broke it in two pieces. Then he offered the half to her and ate the other half.

  The woman snatched the other half of the cookie. She thought how rude that man was. He never even thanked her! And she could not remember a time when she had been so agitated.

  And so she was relieved when her flight was called, she took all her belongings and went to the gate. On her way out, she did not bother to look at the cookie thief.

  When she was comfortably seated, she took out her book to read again and to her surprise, found her cookies inside her bag. Then the realization hit her, he shared his cookies with her and she was the cookie thief all along!

  Sometime we become so convinced that what we think we see and feel is real that we become paralyzed by it. When I first moved to the island of Cyprus I couldn’t believe how rude and impolite the Greek Cypriots were. I couldn’t even drive to the supermarket without getting cut up on the highway or being aggressively tailgated all the way to the store. People were constantly cutting in line and the people serving me in stores would never smile or offer any politeness. For quite a while I firmly held the belief that the Cypriots were a very rude bunch of people indeed. Then I made a couple of friends who were born and bred in Cyprus. I became good friends with the owner of the local pharmacy, a very wise and friendly guy called Savvas. Shortly after meeting him he took me out to lunch and for three hours we shared good food and conversation. For most of the time he sang the praises of Cyprus and it’s people. He told me that I was a very lucky guy because I had the good fortune to live in Cyprus, home to very loving and compassionate people. Savvas insisted that I could spend the rest of my days travelling the world and I would never find more caring people than the Cypriots. Of course I didn’t challenge his beliefs, but let’s just say I wasn’t entirely on board with what he was saying.

  But then something strange happened. Over the next few weeks I noticed a dramatic change in the Cypriots. They became better drivers, shop assistants started smiling, strangers in the street started to wish me a good morning as I walked passed them. There are only two explanations for this paradigm shift, either the whole country of Cyprus had a secret meeting and agreed to be a bit more hospitable or more likely the change I was witnessing wasn’t out there but rather it was inside me.

  Life is a big boomerang, be careful what you throw out there because it’s all coming back to you and at speed. This principle is so important that I refer to it as a law. What I mean by this is, it doesn’t matter whether you agree with it or not – it’s going to happen regardless of your views. In the same way that the law of gravity doesn’t care whether you believe in it or not.

  If you expect your boss to be an asshole then you send a manifestation rocket into the universe that this is what you want. If you concentrate on how crappy your marriage is and what a terrible wife or husband you have, can you see how that becomes more and more the reality. Rarely do you wake up and suddenly your marriage is fine again. We have a machine in our head with the power of creation, it’s like a manifestation ray gun and whatever you point it at comes into your life. Point it at misery and it traps a load of miserable events in its tractor beam and drags them all closer to you. Point the gun at success or happiness and your life changes in the very best way.

  I have read hundreds of personal development books where I get to the end and think ‘yes very good, but now what’? I want this book to be a practical step-by-step manual that has a dramatic and noticeable affect on your life. In order for you to make progress you need to take action. Sticking firmly to the beautiful rules of seven I have made this super simple for you. What follows are the seven essential steps you need to take in order to leave the Rat Race behind and join the financial elite.

  Step One: Take responsibility

  You create everything you become aware of and only you can either give gratitude for that thing or clean it, if it is causing pain (for you or another). Everything you label good and bad about your life has been created by the divine power of your subconscious and soul. Essentially because you are a fragment of God you have the power of God, but unfortunately your ego interferes and causes big problems. It is a bit like giving a twelve year old the keys to a two hundred mile an hour Lamborghini and asking him not to crash it.

  As the ego continually struggles to avoid fear and gain pleasure it inadvertently passes erroneous programs to the subconscious. As this part of you doesn’t judge or question, it simply runs the program and before you know what is happening a whole heap of misery is being delivered into your life. It seems entirely illogical that you would create such pain for yourself and so you start looking for someone else to blame. This principle applies to everything in your life and the life of those around you.

  If you are overweight and unhappy about the size and shape of your body then you must accept that you are responsible for creating this situation. You can no longer blame your genes, big bones, the proximity of the donut shop to your place of work or your parents.

  If your friend is having money trouble – this is your responsibility. I do not mean you have to bail her out or beat yourself up and feel equally as miserable as they do but you must accept that your awareness of it means it exists within you.

  Your boss is being a jerk and making your life miserable at work. His behaviour is your responsibility.

  I will say again… accepting 100% responsibility does not mean all these things are your fault. The concept of fault becomes irrelevant at the point we give up on the blame game. It might sound crazy, or just plain metaphorical, that the world is your creation. But if you look carefully, you will realize that whatever you call the world and perceive as the world is your world, it is the projection of your own mind.

  If you go to a party you can see how in the same place, with the same light, the same people, the same food, drink, music and atmosphere, some will enjoy themselves while others will be bored, some will be overenthusiastic and some depressed, some will be talkative and others will be silent.

  The “out there” for every one of them seems the same, but if one were to connect their brains to machines, immediately it would show how different areas of the brain would come alive, how different perceptions there are from one person to the next. So even if they apparently share it, the “out there” is not the same for them, let alone their inner world, their emotions.

  Step Two: Dream Big & Fail Big

  Dare to dream the big dream and never be tempted to dilute your goals. Back when I ran radio stations for a living I was always involved in the creative side of the business, the stuff that came out of t
he speakers essentially. However, because I was in a management position I would attend the weekly sales meeting. I noticed a recurring theme. The month would always start with an impressive sales target and all the execs would optimistically report that they were expecting to have a ‘good month’.

  Around two weeks into the month, the sales executives would start to tell stories of deals slipping out of their reach, people with the authority to sign orders being on vacation and other excuses as to why they were not quite ‘where they need to be’. By the third week in the month it would start to become clear that the radio station was going to miss it’s sales target. So what would the manager do? They would take the path of least resistance of course and reduce the sale target. They would do this to prevent the team becoming depressed and losing passion because they failed to hit target.

  This happened at least nine or ten months out of the year. In my opinion, constantly moving the goal posts closer can only work if your sales team is brainless. That sort of stuff doesn’t even work on children once get passed say five or six years of age. I remember playing football with my son when he was little, of course I would always let him score a goal every now and again just to keep his enthusiasm up. I remember one time we walking home from the park and he looked miserable. “Hey, what’s with the grumpy face?”, I asked, “You beat your dad, you should be pretty happy with that”.

  “It doesn’t count, you let me win”, he said.

  Moving the goals posts closer doesn’t work because it sends out the message that the first goal was unimportant to begin with. We shouldn’t be afraid to fail because if we remove the possibility of failing we rob a person of his or her opportunity to learn. Have big dreams and accept the two outcomes that will ultimately come from them, you will either have amazing and beautiful successes or painful learning experiences. We don’t want anything in the middle, and I will tell you why this applies to every part of your life:

  The middle (or the average) is where the 9 to 5 worker drones live or dream of living. Ask someone who is on $30,000 a year how much of a pay rise they would need to be really happy, really comfortable and they will probably state an increase between fifty and eighty percent. But this is not a big dream and will only keep you anchored in the demographic they say they want to leave. Try living in a major city like New York or London on $60,000 a year and you will find out how it feels to be middle class and poor at the same time. Very few people on $30,000 a year would set a goal of $300,000 and yet they will answer in the positive if asked if they would like to be rich. Hopefully you can see they have a counterbalancing outlook of life that is unlikely to work out in the long run.

  I want you to have the sort of goals that other people tell you are ridiculous or outrageous. This should be your benchmark as to whether they are big enough. Your goals should be so grand that they almost offend people. So as a little exercise, think of the person in your life who has the most pessimistic outlook. Imagine telling them that your goal is to own three thousand apartments. See the outrage on their face and then smiled to yourself because this means you are on the right track.

  Step Three: Stop taking advice off the 9 to 5 Gang

  When I was a teenager I told my father that I wanted to be a broadcaster. He told me that was a ridiculous idea and I should grow up and get a proper career with prospects. I ignored him and did what I knew I was being called to do. I ended up spending a decade as a major market broadcaster and then another decade running radio stations. At this point I told my father that I was going to quit my job and become a full time author. Again he told me I was being stupid. He advised me that it would be pure insanity to give up a good job to do something that I have no experience of doing. He chastised me for not being a happy with what I had. He told me that most people would do anything for the career and lifestyle I had. I was to stop being so selfish and ungrateful and get on with my job, before my company got wind of my ideas.

  I probably don’t need to tell you what happened next because if things hadn’t worked out I would not be writing this book. I am not saying ignore all advice, because sometimes you need a third party opinion to clear the fog. But you must be aware that the default position of the people who love and care for you is one of ‘be careful’. Parents hope their children will work hard and get a nice, safe and secure career because they don’t want them to suffer hardship. Rarely do parents encourage their children to throw caution to the wind and follow their dream. When I told my father that I was going to quit my well-paid job to do what my heart was telling me to do, he responded to protect me, not to hold me back. But regardless of his motives if I had ignored my gut and taken his advice I would be miserable now. Securely employed with a regular income, sure, but miserable all the same.

  You wouldn’t accept investment advice from a penniless financial advisor, or weight loss advice from an obese doctor. If your goal is to escape the rat race and live a passionate life then don’t look to people in the 9 to 5 routine for wisdom, they don’t have any.

  Step Four: Become Obsessed

  Obsession may sound like a negative trait but it’s really not. Sensible, middle of the road goals delivers sensible, middle of the road outcomes. People have a predisposition to focus on what they need more than what they want. If you are $100 short of money just before payday then you may have a tendency to say ‘I need $100’ but this is not true. If I gave you the $100 you would probably still end the month broke. What you really need is $1000 or $10000 but sadly we are unlikely to think like this as a default response to what life throws at us.

  The whole point of this book is to change your mindset. To force a paradigm shift that breaks your normal routine. Especially the commonplace routine, that money is something that is earned Monday to Friday, selling your time for cash. If you are not doing what you are here to do then I am almost certain your soul will be already trying to tell you. If you have a deep and constant sensation that something is missing in your life, if you feel like there is a vacuum inside you and nothing you do makes it go away then this is the voice of your soul, trying to push you in a different direction.

  Find your passion and then become obsessed about it. Seriously if you are sitting in front of the television complaining to your husband or wife about not having enough money then you don’t deserve a single dollar more than you already have. Your passion doesn’t fit inside a box you label as ‘work’; it is an all-consuming part of your existence. It is why you get up in the morning; it is why you breathe in and out. Unless you feel like that about what you are currently doing to earn money then you will never escape the Rat Race. I didn’t take my friend up on his sock empire because I knew in my heart I would not be jumping out of bed in the morning to go sell more socks. You may think that is a silly example and socks are not a very sexy business for anyone to get into but trust me there are plenty of entrepreneurs out there who made their money in much less exotic businesses than socks. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about your product or idea, just so long as you consider it to be your baby and give it all the love and passion you have inside yourself.

  Step Five: Pay Yourself First

  Before you even see you salary between 15% and 30% should be automatically removed and invested. Even if you are not in the position to save that much at the moment at least get started and begin the habit of a lifetime. Before you quit your job and go chase your dream I believe you should have enough money saved for you and your family to live on for one year. Anything less that this amount is going to end up making you miserable and liable to panic and jump back into the rat race.

  As soon as you can get started, give away 5% to 10% of you money to worthy cause to embed the fluid mindset you need to have about wealth and abundance.

  Step Six: Make Friends With Fear

  What I have discovered in life is that pretty much anything worth having is slightly just outside your comfort zone. Whether it’s launching your own business, winning the league in your chosen sport, getti
ng the career you have dreamed of all your life or ending up with the man or woman who makes you think you just won the lottery every moment you are with them. None of these things are inside your comfort zone, they all require you to stretch and grow before you can reach them. As most people know the walls of your comfort zone are made of a very strong material called fear. In order to smash through these barriers you have to stare fear straight in the eyes and charge ahead regardless.

  Fear (false evidence appearing real) is just an illusion, and I don’t just mean certain types of fear. You might quite reasonably argue that the anxiousness you feel when you stand on the top of a tall building is a very valuable sensation to experience in that moment. Of course, sometimes fear serves you in the short term but the biggest problem we have, as an intelligent species is we believe that we have something to lose. Nothing helps me make this point better than my all time favorite quote by the late, great Steve Jobs:

  “Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.

  Almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

  Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.