Escaping the rat race is hard

3 barriers to entrepreneurship and how you can overcome them

Escaping the rat race is hard.

Escaping the rat race requires escaping conventional thinking. It requires taking uncommon risks and constant self-directed learning. Hardest of all, it requires sustaining contrarian viewpoints about most aspects of modern life.

In my opinion, it’s all worth it.

American culture exerts a powerful influence on the beliefs and habits of its citizens. From the earliest of ages, we are groomed to be perfect members of our capitalist society. Between school, religion, television, and the home, it seems that every input guides us toward a specific life script: get good grades, get a good job, work hard, eventually retire, eventually die.

I followed this formula unquestioningly for 20 years. I graduated high school with perfect grades and was well on my way to a cushy 9–5 job with a large company. If it was not for two motivating events, I would have followed this course to its eventual extreme.

The first event was finding work I did not like. My brief experience in a traditional 9–5 corporate role immediately motivated me to search for alternative ways of making a living.

The second event was reading The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. This pulled me towards entrepreneurship. The book described a lifestyle worth chasing. I’ve been engulfed by the pursuit of it ever since.

Passionate about the power of entrepreneurship and confused by the low interest in it from my peers in my college classrooms, I took time to explore the source of the disconnect. This article is my best attempt at an answer.

A Roadmap

In this article, I suggest three sequential obstacles preventing people from pursuing entrepreneurship and plotting their escape from the rat race.

They are summarized briefly below.

The first hurdle is awareness.

Some people do not know that they are pawns in a bigger game of chess. They either have not been exposed to alternative career paths or have been taught not to take them seriously by their family, teachers, friends, or the media.

The second hurdle is motivation.

People know entrepreneurship exists, but they do not want it badly enough. Either the pain of tolerable mediocrity is not sharp enough or the pull of entrepreneurship is not compelling enough to recharter course. They lack hobbies and passion.

The third barrier is education.

Individuals do not know how to succeed as an entrepreneur. They lack the mental tools for success (beliefs, habits, frameworks, financial literacy) and subsequently lack the confidence to go out and try their luck in business.

Who Cares?

The world of entrepreneurship has become more accessible than ever before.

Technology has “dropped startup costs, opened new markets, and created new distribution channels. It’s easier and cheaper than ever to make something and tell people about it” (Pearson).

The timing has never been better for entrepreneurs.

I hope that this post guides others through the roadblocks to taking the leap.

Hurdle 1: Awareness

Put simply, entrepreneurship is not an option for many people because they are not even aware of it as an option. Until we are exposed to certain ideas, we are like fish in a tank. All assumptions are hidden assumptions until they are challenged or brought to our awareness.

In Plato’s Allegory of The Cave, prisoners are chained in place such that they can only see a wall in front of them. The prisoner’s notion of reality is limited to the images projected on the wall. All of the imagery is controlled by puppeteers behind them who cast shadows (Cohen).

This analogy can extend to people’s conception of work. Like the prisoners in the cave, people’s sense of what is possible is dictated by what they are exposed to.

If people are shown projections of entrepreneurs, 9–5 jobs, investing, freelancing, and many potential life paths, they would likely entertain all the options.

Unfortunately, many people have a simple and limited exposure. Because of their metaphorical chains and puppet masters, their narrow worldview is unchallenged.

Go to school. Go to college. Get a job. Save. Retire. Die.

It’s all they’ve been taught because it’s all their teachers teach. It’s all they know because it’s all their parents preach. It’s all they know because it’s all the media mentions.

How does this happen?

In his manifesto of a book, Unscripted: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship, MJ DeMarco shares his theory of seeders.

Seeders are parties who are responsible for keeping us chained to the cave wall and ensuring our world view is static and controlled. Specifically, DeMarco identifies six parties that prevent us from becoming aware of entrepreneurship.

Before explaining how the seeders keep us chained, I’ll concede that the real world is much more complex than the cave. Incidental exposure to entrepreneurship is common because our gaze is not literally fixed. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk are household names even in working-class homes.

The key function of the seeders, therefore, is twofold.

First, they do their best to chain our heads in place to minimize overall exposure and consideration of entrepreneurship.

Second, the seeders are quick to otherize entrepreneurship in the event of incidental exposure. Below, I’ll explain who the main seeders are and the role they play in narrowing our horizons.

The first set of seeders are friends and family.

In many ways, these seeders limit your success with social norms. They pressure you to go to college. They tell you “entrepreneurship is risky.” They tell you to be realistic and responsible and expect you to conform.

The second seeder is the education system.

DeMarco explains how the education system is the perfect preparatory system for corporate life. “As soon as you’re old enough to hold a crayon, you’re taught that “work” or “things I’d rather not do” start Monday and end Friday, while “play” is reserved for the weekend” (DeMarco, 29). More, “the educational system conditions you to accept an authoritative structure requiring permission: At 8:00 a.m., you need to be in homeroom… Ask permission to piss. Do as you’re told, stay in a single-file line, and don’t talk unless asked” (DeMarco, 29).

In my own experience, this is true.

Every professor I’ve had frames the importance of what we are learning in terms of how likely the concept is to appear in a job interview.

Every topic is important because “your boss might need you to do this.”

The third seeder is the corporation.

This is the result of deeply internalized marketing messaging.

DeMarco explains “… Even in my own experience with teenage gift buying, it’s Beats headphones or nothing at all. Yeah, I’d rather not enjoy music than be seen wearing something else. You see, the SCRIPT teaches our children that their popularity and “coolness” are driven by consumption: what they wear and what they drive” (DeMarco, 32).

The fourth seeder is financial institutions.

Wall Street teaches us to entrust our financial future to investors in NYC.

DeMarco explains the goal of Wall Street is “To entice your fiscal future into the grip of hope-and-pray — three uncontrollable and unpredictable markets: the job market, the stock market, and the housing market…” (DeMarco, 33).

Instead of being taught to invest in our own success by starting businesses or other private investments, we are encouraged to hope and pray that Wall Street will provide returns such that we have a nest egg at retirement.

The fifth seeder is the government.

I do not fully agree with DeMarco here.

In some respects, the government encourages entrepreneurship. It is favorable from a tax perspective to own and operate your own business, but nonetheless, the government does encourage individuals to take on debt in the form of mortgages, consumer spending, and student debt.

For many, debt is a shackle that keeps people dependent on their jobs and predictable paychecks.

The final seeder is the media.

The media, an attention business, is incentivized to sensationalize everything — highlighting failure rather than celebrating success. Similarly, most depictions of entrepreneurship otherizes entrepreneurs.

Elon Musk is superhuman. Bill Gates is a genius. Zuckerberg was only successful because he went to Harvard. All other tech founders have been programming since they were 8 years old.

The media is quick to give us excuses as to why those who have escaped the rat race are fundamentally different from us. This makes entrepreneurship seem safely out of reach.

Overcoming Awareness

For many, the seeders have a strong enough grip on beliefs to keep entrepreneurship out of self-conception. Some, however, manage to avoid this.

Maybe they studied entrepreneurship in school. Maybe they had a nurturing entrepreneurial friend group or watched a lot of Shark Tank. Whatever it is, entrepreneurship seems viable.

Once the hurdle of awareness is overcome, the question is one of motivation: do they care enough to break the chains and leave the cave?

Hurdle 2: Motivation

The motivation for being an entrepreneur can take two forms: push away from the scripted life or pull toward the entrepreneurial life.

It is possible to be compelled by both, or only one.

I’ll briefly explain the two, starting with push.

Push — Get me OUT of here

For many people, life on the scripted path is not bad. Most people with good jobs have safe homes, enough to eat, friends, and some vacation time. It is a comfortable existence. People are content with their day-to-day life.

Why rock the boat?

MJ DeMarco explains a necessary step in the path to becoming an entrepreneur. He calls it a “f**k this event.” He explains, “the f**k this event is a traumatic moment, epiphanic, and painful. It’s a pejorative mental breakthrough, one that sounds like any of the following: “No more!” “I’ve had it!” or “I can’t live like this!” The FTE smacks you when the pain of the status quo finally exceeds the anticipated pain of its escape…” (DeMarco, 82).

There are many potential causes for an FTE.

• Traffic forcing you to miss a huge life event.
• Being denied vacation time to attend a funeral.
• A milestone birthday and a sudden realization of how little progress has been made toward childhood dreams.

No matter the cause, an FTE provides clarity: quiet desperation is no longer tolerable.

Pull — Holy shit, that sounds fun

The other side of motivation is more positive.

You know what entrepreneurship enables and you want it with your entire soul.

It could be dreams of consumption beyond what a job provides. If the goal is to drive a Lamborghini, you will realize the dramatic improbability of achieving this in a traditional job early in your career.

For others, myself included, the motivation is time and adventure.

We know what the world offers and we want to be able to experience it.

We have passion projects. We want to travel, learn languages, and live fully.

What fully cemented this motivation for me was reading The Four Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss.

In the book, Ferriss explains how Automation, Elimination, and Delegation can lead to the Liberation of your time. By building smart business systems, it becomes possible to only need to work a few hours per week.

Ferriss explains that many aren’t motivated to achieve great bouts of free time because they do not even know what to do with it. They would travel for a few weeks and then quickly become bored.

To remedy this, Ferriss suggested ideas in the chapter of his book entitled Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work.

Ferriss interviewed the “New Rich”, those with Four Hour Workweeks, to learn what leisure activities were most compelling.

He elaborates “… I can’t offer a single answer that will fit all people, but, based on the dozens of fulfilled NR I’ve interviewed, there are two components that are fundamental: continual learning and service.”

Providing further detail, Ferriss suggests a focus “on language acquisition and one kinesthetic skill.”

Many of my moments of deepest joy come from learning, exercising, or helping others. Ferriss’s sales pitch yanked the right heartstrings, and I’ve been motivated to achieve success as an entrepreneur ever since finishing his book.

Hurdle 3: Entrepreneurial Literacy

The final hurdle towards deciding to pursue entrepreneurship is education.

Absent the tools to succeed, confidence is low and doubt is high.

People are unlikely to ever take action because fear of failure dominates the psyche. Because of this, successful entrepreneurs have certain habits, beliefs, frameworks, and recipes that are essential to their success.

Which Dad Is Which Dad?

While both DeMarco and Ferriss’s books provide excellent business education, no discussion of financial literacy is complete without Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

For good reason, this book is one of the best selling personal finance books of all time according to the book’s front matter.

Extremely beginner-friendly, Kiyosaki teaches a few main lessons in the book. The implementation of each of these beliefs increases the probability and confidence of success for entrepreneurs.

In the next few paragraphs, I share three of the most important concepts.

Money Is ‘Taught’ At Home and School

The most fundamental message from the book is that financial education from middle-class homes and the education system is not sufficient to lead to wealth creation.

Kiyosaki summarizes it here, “… What the rich really do requires real financial education, financial education not taught in our schools.”

Unless individuals take charge of their financial education, they are unlikely to exceed the financial success of their parents or teachers.

Assets and Liabilities

The next key lesson is the author’s distinction between assets and liabilities.

An asset is anything that increases your wealth as a result of owning it such as a dividend stock.

A liability is anything that decreases your wealth as a result of owning it such as an expensive car payment.

In this view, the name of the entrepreneurship game is no more complicated than Monopoly. Over time, continue to acquire or build assets while avoiding accumulating liabilities.

The Boring Stuff

Last is the importance of smart tax accounting.

Kiyosaki refers to this as “minding your own business.” The details are boring, but understanding the process of legal business formation is an essential aspect of entrepreneurship.

Read The Damn Book

For serious, aspiring entrepreneurs, I highly recommend reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

The book goes far beyond these three ideas and will improve any beginner entrepreneur’s mental toolkit.

Conclusion

Skin In The Game

I deeply believe in having skin in the game. This is why I do not take fitness advice from overweight people or financial advice from poor people. While they may be able to recommend what not to do, they are not credible about what to do.

For that reason, I plan to take my own advice and pursue entrepreneurship. The exact details of my plan, however, underscore one more important point I would be remiss not to mention: risk assessment.

Many people do not leap into entrepreneurship because of inappropriate risk calculations. One remedy to this is correcting a belief I refer to as the “all-in” fallacy.

People wrongly assume they need to go full-time as an entrepreneur and risk it all or it is not even worth trying.

There are so many alternatives to diving in the deep-end in that way.

Part-time jobs exist. Living expenses can be dramatically reduced. Freelancing is a viable way to earn cash flow while incubating business ideas.

These options allow transitioning to entrepreneurship to be much more gradual and steady. Things are hardly ever black and white and the spectrum between entrepreneurship and the rat race is no different.

It is my sincere hope that walking through the three hurdles outlined in this article excite you to consider entrepreneurship more seriously.

I caught the entrepreneurial bug years ago, and I cherish the life course it has set for me.

MJ DeMarco encapsulates this sentiment well “pursuing the dream is the dream itself. It’s the process. The failures, trials, and tribulations. It’s the self-growth, the self-awareness, and the self-discovery that occur during a dream pursuit. To sell the dream is to awaken the dream — and once it’s alive, you become alive.”

Life is too short to “play it safe.”

My call to learn and adventure is too strong to not pursue. There are simply too many things I want to learn and experience.

I’ve broken the chains of the cave wall. I’ve had my FTE. I hope to inspire others to consider a similar path.

Works Cited

• Cohen, S M. Allegory of the Cave, University of Washington,https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm#:~:text=In%20the%20allegory%2C%20Plato%20likens,Behind%20them%20burns%20a%20fire.&text=The%20puppeteers%2C%20who%20are%20behind,the%20wall%20of%20the%20cave.
• DeMarco, M. J. Unscripted: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship. Viperion Publishing Corporation, 2017.
• Ferriss, Timothy. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. Harmony Books, 2012.
• Kiyosaki, Robert T. Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids about Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! Plata Publishing, 2017.
• Pearson, Taylor. The End of Jobs: Money, Meaning and Freedom without the 9–5. Lioncrest Publishing, 2015.