Nine to Five Escape Plan Read online

  Now think of your score!

  If your score is under ninety-nine, you are in trouble. Maybe you shot straight out of the gate with a loud and proud one hundred because that’s obviously the score I am looking for but most people are naturally a little reserved. They try to be positive but not crazy positive and so they say something like ninety percent or heck even ninety five percent.

  Let’s work with ninety five percent as an example. The fact that they bought this book says that they are pretty certain that they want to be wealthy, but maybe there is a something in their head pulling them back from the total commitment level that is really required.

  You see people get trapped working for the man because our social programming dictates that’s what you do. We are kept hungry for money by the system. The company we work for will pay us just enough to prevent us leaving and not a penny more. The system is stacked against the average man because we are taught some very erroneous stuff about wealth and abundance from a young age.

  Perhaps the people who score themselves under 100 were just told enough times that wanting money is bad or greedy. Or perhaps they have heard that only the corrupt people of the world are rich and it is more pure to live a normal everyday life. A lot of people get very spiritual about this and say that money is not important in the grand scheme of this wonderful life we have been gifted. Love, peace and happiness are all more important than money.

  I can guarantee you that any person who ever said anything like that didn’t have a lot of money, most of them were stone cold broke. These sorts of statements sound like they come from a higher, more moral place and can make us feel ashamed about craving wealth. Do not listen to these statements; they actually come from a very low and dark place. You see, even though a statement such as ‘love is more important than money’ sounds like an enlightened thing to say, it is making a dangerous assumption. It assumes that you can’t have both at the same time. It’s a bit like saying oxygen is more important than nitrogen when it comes to breathing. That may sound logical but the reality is we don’t breathe pure oxygen and if we did we would die pretty quickly. The air we breathe is made up of 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. If you only allowed yourself the oxygen then it would attack and kill your central nervous system and you would drop down dead.

  The same is true of love, happiness, peace and any other fluffy ideal that you can come up with. I am not denying that love is important, vital in fact but it is not a universal solution to all your needs. You can’t pay your credit card bill with love, if you get sick and go to hospital they won’t accept a huge donation of happiness in return for your treatment. Let’s be absolutely clear about some things, yes love is important but you can’t compare it to money and say it’s more important. That would be like saying the San Francisco Forty Niners are a much better football team than the San Francisco Giants. We are not comparing apples with apples; it is simply not a fair comparison.

  Before you take another step on this journey you must get absolutely clear that money is not dirty or evil, it doesn’t make you a bad person and it doesn’t limit your ability to love or be loved. Money is freedom and that is all. Having an abundance of money means you are not trapped into a corner by life. If a family member gets sick you don’t have to join the queue to see a cheap and inferior doctor. You have options open to you, and the more options you have in life the better and the richer you will be (and I am not just talking financially).

  Nothing demonstrated the devastation of having restricted options quite like the horrific events of 9/11. Do you remember watching those shocking news reports of people jumping from the twin towers, knowing for certain that they were leaping to their deaths? In that stark situation they had two options and two options only. To burn to death or jump to their death, if they had had just one more option, anything, they would have taken it.

  Once you have the mindset that gives you options you must choose one and live, breathe and eat it! The path you choose should consume you, not because I am telling you that it must but because no other state exists. If you have to force yourself to follow a certain prescribed path then you will never reach your full potential. Back when I was in my twenties a good friend of mine came to me with a business idea.

  He was so enthusiastic about it, I could feel the passion and energy radiating off him as he spoke. He was one hundred percent committed to the concept but he needed my help to get started. He wanted me to be a 50-50 partner on the venture. I won’t go into a lot of detail but let me tell you that the project involved bulk importing socks and retailing them around the United Kingdom. I turned him down; actually I turned him down more than a dozen times in the end. I didn’t feel the slightest bit of passion for what he was proposing. I knew I couldn’t get excited about socks and I knew my purpose here in this life was not to warm the feet of my fellow man. I could have given it a go with my lukewarm mindset and done my best but I knew even back then that the most we could achieve would be something between mediocre success and abject failure.

  This is why I am constantly telling people that if they are currently doing a job that they don’t absolutely love then their first mission is to change that situation and as soon as possible. You will never get rich by pushing a bolder up a hill for someone else. If you don’t jump out of bed in the morning and run into work, then you my friend are in the wrong line of work. Sadly most people realize this but get trapped in the loop of making ends meet and never have the courage to change the thing that is making them the most miserable.

  Yes, you need desire by the bucket load if you are going to become a wealthy man or woman. You need to be working on your passion, a project that burns in your heart and soul like a raging inferno. There is a monumental difference between what you want in life and what you are driven to achieve. A burning desire is not the same as what you wish for. You might wish you will win the lottery but surely you can see that can’t be the whole point of your life. A burning desire is not the same as what you want, you may aspire to owning a Bentley, but if you get it will it mean your life is complete? A burning desire is something that it is a MUST for you. You cannot live without it.

  Just imagine, if you are in a desert now, it’s so insanely hot and you have been exposed to the blazing sun for so long that you know you can only survive a little longer in these conditions, death is approaching fast. Suddenly you see a man on a camel approaching and he is holding a bottle of water. You straight away scramble to him and ask for water. Now, what if that person doesn’t want to give you his water? Would you accept no for an answer, would you shrug and say ‘oh ok, no problem’? Or would you do whatever it took to get some of his water?

  Let me give you another example and make this absolutely clear for you. Assume that you don’t know how to swim. While on vacation you go out for a walk in the middle of the night and you accidently fall into the deep end of the swimming pool. You wouldn’t shrug and think ‘it would be really nice to get out now’. You would kick and scream like your life depended on it. Getting out of that pool would be a burning desire; you would do anything in that moment to get the outcome in your mind.

  Many people want to quit their day job and pursue their dreams, but most of them will never get anywhere near achieving it because it is not a must for them. If something is a must for you, you will do whatever it takes to get it. This is the burning desire that you need if you want to success in your life. Success never comes automatically; you will need to spend a lot of time and effort on it. If you are serious about committing all your effort to this goal in your life then carry on with this book. If you can’t get yourself to one hundred percent committed then stop now, because you are just wasting both our time. Getting the F*ck ‘The Man’ Mindset is a bit like pregnancy; you can’t be half hearted about having a baby and decide to just get a little bit pregnant.

  The concepts behind CraigBeck.com are a binary proposition, you either want this or you
don’t. When I asked you at the start of this book to give me a score between zero and one hundred you may have believe there were one hundred and one possible answers, but what I am telling you now is there are only two. You can choose zero or one hundred and that is it!

  Inspirational Reading – George Marshall ‘Get Out While You Can’:

  So you’ve got your degree and secured your place on the corporate ladder. Theoretically, you should be on your way to endless success and happiness - but does your reality comply with that trajectory? George Marshall’s book exists to prove that ‘Plan A’ is rarely that simple. Get Out While You Can takes us through ‘Plan B,’ in which we scrap the traditionalist route to success and realise our own potential. With clever tips on protecting our most valuable assets like time and energy, Marshall’s book is a must-read for those wanting to break free from the corporate rat race.

  Cardone’s 10x Rule

  Before creating the very first chapter of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling prepared for over 7 years. Her imagination lingered in the halls of Hogwarts and she visualized every aspect of her magical world. Only when she had the clear vision for the complete story did she sit down to write. Because of this, Harry Potter is among the most read series of novels ever written.

  Prior to making the first Stars Wars motion picture in the 1970's, George Lucas prepared for at least 6 movies and kicked off at episode 4, instead of episode 1. Because of this, nearly 40 years down the road the whole world still lose it when a brand new Star Wars come out. This would not be conceivable if Lucas had not thoughtfully and significantly prepared.

  People who are successfully living outside the rat race generally go big or they go home. When you dream, you should dream big. Don't just plant a tree, plant an orchard in your imagination. What you plant in life is also what you reap.

  Are you living 10X?

  " Being cautious needs you to act warily, and there is no chance that you will ever reach 10X activity levels by being so careful.", Grant Cardone

  Examine your objectives for this year. Chances are good; they demonstrate at least some fearful reasoning and less-than-creative thinking. I have no doubt (without even meeting you) that your targets are much less demanding than you can really deal with. Trust me on this; you are a greater manifestation power than you currently understand. You can deal with much more than you believe.

  You can change and adjust to just about anything life throws at you.

  As an illustration, if your target this year is to make $50,000, I challenge you to improve that intention to $500,000.

  That may seem insane but let me ask you, would you rather hit a target of $50,000 or fall short on a target of $500,000. Even if you fall short by 80% of your outrageous goal you still have double what you would have had if you had pursed the smaller and much easier aspiration.

  When you 10X your objectives, you will be compelled to handle your aspiration in non-conventional and ingenious methods. The conventional strategy does not work with 10X planning.

  Not only does your consciousness have to develop in what you prepare and pursue, but your day-to-day energy has to transform too. Equally as individuals undervalue their individual potential, they also undervalue how much work and time something will take. Therefore, a lot of people are often late for meetings and fail to complete ventures they start.

  Instead of insisting on and assuming you will always have perfect conditions, prepare for adversity. As opposed to undervaluing just how much effort and time a specific thing will take, over estimate those factors. Put way more hard work into your objectives than you presume is really needed to get there.

  If you're going to think 10X, you need to also invest 10X personal energy. Without having invested the hard work, it does not matter how "outrageous" your goals are. As soon as your energy, effort and actions compliment (and surpass) your objectives, your Millionaire dreams will swiftly come true.

  Call to action:

  " How can you accomplish your TEN year plan in the next 6 months?", Peter Thiel, co-founder of Paypal

  Examine your objectives, how can you 10X them? How can you constrict your focus? Or get inventive? Or approach things in different ways to achieve unorthodox outcomes?

  Ready to get inventive and get daring?

  Go "All in"

  " As soon as you decide, the cosmos colludes to make it come about.", Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Individuals are often scared of real responsibility. We 'd rather keep our options open than commit 100% to an endeavor. We 'd rather vary our financial investments in order to reduce risk.

  But if you really intend to go big, you have to put all your eggs in one basket. It sound’s scary but it's really far simpler and less precarious to concentrate on just one basket than many baskets. And yes of course, failing is a risk but are you here to linger in the Rat Race or are you here to step out of the congestion at the bottom of the mountain and join us at the top?

  The moment you figure out what you really want, over-commit to that project. Go all in. Pass your point of no return. When you do this, you'll discover the genuine implication of security and safety, which can only originate from within.

  Once your safety and security is clearly coming from inside yourself, instead of anything outside of you (like a consistent salary, medical insurance, or pension plan), you'll see yourself in an entirely new light. Your belief and faith in yourself and your capabilities will drastically intensify.

  The challenges that at one time held you back will end up being devices to push you ever onward. Your peripheral environment will complement your inner aspirations.

  Call to action:

  How you set the game up is more crucial than whether you are playing in the game. In order to succeed before you play, make daring decisions and vows of what you will achieve in advance. Public pledges that demand you to perform at an exceptional degree.

  Eighteen months before my business crossed the million-dollar point I told my closest friend and family that my goal was to be a millionaire within the next 2 years. I stated as a fact that within one year I would be comfortably past my first half million and I would reach my full goal shortly after that. Yes, of course many of them told me I was being unrealistic, my father told me to stop being so bloody ridiculous.

  But you see, I wasn’t asking their permission, seeking validation or even testing the feasibility of my dreams. I was stating my intention publically. I was expressing the facts as I saw them. My goal was so clear, so sharp and so real in my minds eye that it felt impossible for me to consider it not happening.

  Like preparation, your energy and implementation should complement (and surpass) your decisions and pledges.

  I encourage you to get clear in your own mind about what you are going to achieve. Make your objectives public and commit big to your dreams.

  I will close this chapter with a story from one of my all time favorite motivational speakers. Zig Ziglar is sadly no longer with us but I love the way he would tell stories to get across his point:

  There was a wealthy oil man in Texas and he had a beautiful daughter. His daughter was of an age that he felt it was appropriate for suitors to bid for her hand in marriage. And the Oil Man was very protective of his daughter. He felt there really wasn't any one good enough to have her hand in marriage.

  So he hosted very large party and invited the most eligible bachelors from all over. And during this party people mingled while having a good time and all the handsome men prepared to woo the oil man and his soon to be wealthy daughter. To these single guys it all seemed too good to be true, they were wondering what was the catch for this party. At the appropriate time the wealthy Oil Man brought everyone out to the pool. It was a very long pool. And the pool was full of Alligators.

  All of the eligible bachelors were told to wait at one end of the pool and the Oil man with his daughter was at the other end. He proceeded to make an announcement:

  "The first suitor willing and able to jump in the water and swim a
cross this pool filled with alligators will have my daughter's hand in marriage. And not only would you be getting my daughter's hand in marriage but you will be getting first rights to all of this ... My estate and wealth”.

  No sooner had he finished his sentence than he heard a single big splash in the pool. He turned around quickly and was surprised to see a young man swimming as fast as he possibly could to get to the other end. Almost as fast as he had heard the splash, he was looking at this wet and out of breath young man standing in front of him.

  The oilman was surprised and shook the young man's hand. He then asked him what was his motivation for jumping into the pool full of alligators and swimming across? Was it his daughter's hand was it the wealth? Young man still out of breath responded, "Neither, I just want to know the who the of a gun is that pushed me in "

  Nothing Good Happens Without Passion

  “I try to live my life where I end up at a point where I have no regrets. So I try to choose the road that I have the most passion on because then you can never really blame yourself for making the wrong choices. You can always say you're following your passion”, Darren Aronofsky