I've Read The Great Rat-Race Escape!

[MJ DeMarco]

If you read THE GREAT RAT RACE ESCAPE , please post here!

I'm happy to announce that my next full length book (444 pages, 16 hours Audible) is now available with a release date of Tuesday June 29th, 2021.

- Audible Audiobook
- Amazon Paperback
- Amazon Kindle
- Google Play
- Kobo
- Apple
- Barnes And Noble

##### SUMMARY

UNSCRIPTED - The Great Rat Race Escape : From Wage Slavery to Wealth, How to Start a Purpose Driven Business and Win Financial Freedom for a Lifetime
(Yes, really long but I was able to get to work on the cover!)

By all appearances, Jeff and Samantha Trotman are living the American Dream. But behind the white picket fence, they endure an American Nightmare. With little time for each other, a pile of debt, and Ferrari taste on a Ford budget, the ruse of affluence is killing them. Two respectable jobs and a lovely suburban house paint a pretty picture, but behind the ink is a broken marriage rife with meaningless work and dead dreams. And now, with an unplanned pregnancy, they’re facing a mid-life crisis twenty years early.

With little time and looming bankruptcy, the Trotmans are forced to face the red-pill truth they long denied: They were living, but they weren’t alive. Determined to resurrect their life and their marriage, the Trotmans plot a rat-race escape—only to find themselves more thickly in it.

As tensions rise and hope fades, follow along step-by-step as the Trotmans pivot to a new strategy and a new career: starting a business as entrepreneurs.

While they navigate their journey, you’ll learn 120 wealth-building strategies and principles that your mainstream financial guru won’t dare reveal—actionable concepts that will help you profit your way into the Unscripted 1%, an emerging economic class of entrepreneurs who enjoy a lifetime of freedom emancipated from miserly living and Wall Street's "save, pray, and wait" paradigm. Discover how one family escapes the rat-race grind and wins a lifetime of financial freedom, leaving behind the tyranny of meaningless jobs and mediocre living— and how you can too.

• The Bad Math Principle: Why most people will never escape the rat-race, much less earn financial freedom.
• The 1/5/10 Strategy: How this one simple exercise will unearth your ultimate dream life while establishing a decision framework for its reality
• The Honeypot Principle: Why the financial media's "invest a $100/mo for 40 years in indexed-funds" narrative is part of the same rat-race scheme, just a different side of the same rigged coin.
• The Dual Change Strategy: The two divergent sides of change and how it can make you a fortune.
• The Value Skew Strategy: How to find literally 1000s of business ideas and why you never need to "disrupt" or invent anything new or novel.
• The Millionaire Payday Strategy: How to spot opportunities to hire yourself and earn an instant millionaire-making income.
• The Cinderella Principle: Why starting a business based on a cultural trend or a fad is a horrible idea.
• The Perseverance Strategy: Never struggle with motivation again; the four necessary ingredients to tap into unlimited motivation and determination, regardless of the obstacles in your way.
• The Triangulated Value Strategy: Learn how to never quit three-feet from gold: The 3-pronged strategy in maximizing marketing yields while also illuminating the "quit or continue" decision.
• and over 110+ more!

Don’t let the rat-race and its co-conspirators proclaim your life as non-essential. Don’t let the rat-race entice you to save your life away for the promise of an elderly retirement. Don’t let the rat-race lull you into a tedious existence medicated by television, video games, and trivial sporting events.

Go Unscripted , escape the rat-race, and win your happily-ever-after.

##### DOWNLOAD SAMPLE CHAPTERS
>>> If you'd like to download the first 40 pages, visit here.

 

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[yong il choi]

I am in Korea. I don't have a Korean translation yet, so I'm buying an English book from Amazon and reading it. English is difficult for me. I will do my best to read it. Reading will be long. I respect MJ.

 

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[ToySoldier]

Honoured to be the first review on Audible.

I didn't think it was possible to top TMF . But @MJ DeMarco, you did it.

 

[frenki]

I'm from Balkans and cards are not used often here, so this was my first ever online purchase on Amazon and I think it is truly the best decision I ever made.

Loved the book so far, especially the part about "bad mathematics" I've had so much pressure from my relatives to start college last year and this year too.


They told me:

Just get that piece of paper.
You're going to need it for a job in the future.

People will think lowly of you, if you don't have a degree.

University isn't that expensive here, circa "2500-3000" Dollars per year, but still, I can't imagine wasting 3 years there and hanging out with losers who just want to hang out in coffee shops and smoke weed all day long.



I'm going to buy this as a gift whenever one of my friends has their birthday!

 

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[redshift]

Loved it! The new genre/format was super interesting and effective. It was like reading all 3 of your books at the same time! (in a good way) Also, love the fiction part. Can't wait to see how the Trotman story unfolds. My only regret in reading it was having to stop at a cliffhanger haha.

The beach image actually works pretty well, especially in the start of the chapters. It gave a sense of calm and hope in the turbulence of the Trotman story. So, great choice with that. The icons etc are very cool too, give it a gamified and fun look.

If you are thinking about an additional product to go with this, I think this book would work pretty well with some kind of physical add-on for the tips/strategies etc. I recently bought the Untethered Soul 52 card deck from Michael Singer (its available on amazon), and have got a lot of value out of it. His just has weekly quotes from the book but your format would map much better to something like this.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I just finished the book last night. It’s bittersweet cause now I have to take action, and it’s a bit scary. I’ve gotta breakthrough my barriers and just get to ideas and execution.
It was a good read. I enjoyed the story With the principles integrated. I do think MJ’s writing has matured, and I liked the unorthodox way of getting the story to combine well with the principles by getting you emotionally involved.
im already starting today to get some ideas that make ’CENTS.’

You are a helluva a writer. I do respect you.
My gut instinct told me, Tim Ferris is your competitor.

Thank you! As for the TF reference, I don't see myself as having any competition because I'm not in the business of being a guru. I identify as an author who loves to write. I operate no sales funnels, no courses, no seminars, no coaching, nothing. I'm not a figurehead, a podcaster, or a talk show host, nor do I have any interest in being one.

So jealous! I think i need to wait for translation into my origin language. I am not good enough to read a book in english i think..

Then you will have to wait at least a year. That's how long translations take, and that's assuming I start licensing them now.

Great book. Story of Jeff and Samantha made is so personally relatable as compared to MFL

Thank you, that was my objective -- to put TMF and Unscripted into action so the reader could see exactly how it is done.

Loved the book so far, especially the part about "bad mathematics" I've had so much pressure from my relatives to start college last year and this year too.

Yes, math is the golden cipher.

 

[Alferez]

Hi, just bought it! Right now in the process of developing a web site of speech therapy. Want to develop and online test to evaluate if your child needs help, what you can do from home, speech therapy leads, etc.

Need some motivation to go on, at the moment no visits at the web etc...

Thanks @MJ DeMarco and all you guys for this awesome community.

 

[DeletedUser84644]

Where's the "I've read the rat race escape" thread? I want my new title.

 

[Prince33]

The story started at the guy being 27 years old. When I heard(bought audiobook version) the part about him looking in the mirror at work; after begging for just 11 minutes or whatever it was almost stunning. Been there done that. Especially being the same age as the protagonist in the start, it was like listening to my own life. MJ also wrote "there's gotta be more to life than this" (paraphrasing) a few times in there. Which I was saying to myself since I was a teenager.

So many people waste their lives penny pinching and living miserable. And if they don't do that they are financing everything so it's an onsluaught of bill after bill after bill and you get stuck that way. And we all know the most infamous; student loans.

So glad and feel privileged I grew up in a generation (Zillennials/Z) where in my 20's I can have access to this kind of information to keep me from making the mistakes of past generations and learn from their woes. Beauty of the internet.

Thanks again MJ, and everyone else on this forum.

Though most of it I felt I already heard in the other two; the story put things in perspective and can really imagine yourself in that situation. Especially the slow lane path and living "frugal" stuff.

Yeah we heard about it over and over in the first two books about how ineffective it is and how much it sucks but the story put things into perspective vividly for me.

It really nails in the fact that if you truly want to be free you must go Fastlane, there are no alternatives. Especially if you want/have a family. Also shoutout to any and all hardworking fathers on this forum. I know we have a few.

 

[pat9000]

Having read The Millionaire Fastlane and Unscripted , I can say every time I read one of MJ's books, I have to read them slowly because if I go too fast, I don't give myself time to let it soak in.

Some of the chapters hit me so hard, I want to curl up in a ball and just be like "Crap bro" because there is so much value in the book, it becomes overwhelming.

Value is a long and tough process, and I catch myself when trying to take shortcuts but the desert of low sales, low activity can be brutal on your mindset. It's definitely like running a marathon and it hurts sometimes.

I hope you guys are having success and I highly recommend the read!

 

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[Chris_Varick]

just finished the great rat race escape today, took me a week and now the red pill is completely swallowed - there is no going back to the 9 to 5 world. the book actually gives everybody a complete guideline on how to start the journey and what to be aware of during the journey. the strategies embedded into the story is a brilliant idea. Where unscripted rather shocked me, this book in my opinion gives a step by step procedure on how to start and to evolve with naming all the traps that come along - Just great - Thanks M.J. for this masterpiece

 

[Fox]

Thanks @MJ DeMarco !

 

[alexkuzmov]

I picked it up on Audible, I'm a few hours in and its very fascinating thus far.
I will pause it for now and reflect on my own journey, because the book pointed out a few flaws in my plan.

While I am enjoying time freedom and am well on my way to financial freedom(or so I think) having quit my job about 3 months ago to work full time on my SaaS business which is slowly ramping up(we have some profits but not enough to cover living costs just yet, close though) I cant help but feel helpless before my goals.

Maybe I should reexamine how much money I need or maybe alter the goals.
Something which I didnt expect is that motivation dropped when I quit my job, so did productivity.
I expected the opposite, but its like the hate for my job was fuelling my progress.
Now that I have time for my family and myself, its like I dont feel pressure anymore, yet I know that its there given that I dont have the financial freedom achieved.

Maybe the book will provide some insight into that, hopefully

@MJ DeMarco thank you, awesome job

 

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[guaava23]

I just finished the book last night. It’s bittersweet cause now I have to take action, and it’s a bit scary. I’ve gotta breakthrough my barriers and just get to ideas and execution.
It was a good read. I enjoyed the story With the principles integrated. I do think MJ’s writing has matured, and I liked the unorthodox way of getting the story to combine well with the principles by getting you emotionally involved.
im already starting today to get some ideas that make ’CENTS.’

 

[Speculatooor]

I just finished the book. I have been looking forward to this book ever since I knew you were busy writing a new book, because TMF and Unscripted especially were eye openers that changed my life. I even bought Unscripted twice and made my friends read it.

I hope my review can give some value as a market-echo.

I really like how this book puts the theory into practise with a fictional story. While I don't read fiction mostly, it was written really well, and very relatable in a way. The story really connects and I like the focus on application. It reminds me of the book Built To Sell, which also did this.

I do agree with an earlier comment in this thread about how Unscripted explained the theory more structured and in depth.

I also agree with the comment above that the editing is great with all meat and no fluff. This is also why you are my favourite author. Especially because you shake things up and break the rules and try to do things differently. Your books are just tomes of raw, pure value that are not PC'd by publishers. Like you are personally mentoring the reader with your vast knowledge/experience.

Pros:
- Very well written, capturing story
- Beginner friendly
- The golden nuggets, especially when talking about relatable situations in your own journey
- Focus on applying the theory with fictional example
- All meat, no fluff

Cons:
- Quality of the cover. The plastic is letting loose. Bummer.
- Theory is feels less structured than TMF and Unscripted
- Content page feels obscure compared to TMF and Unscripted

All in all, I really, really liked it. 5/5. (but Unscripted still is #1)

 

[FitRay]

Thanks, @MJ DeMarco , I just finished the e-book version today after a few days of reading and I like it a lot. What fascinates me the most about all your books is, that they motivate me in a very special way:

On one hand, I see all the input, the knowledge, experiences, and detailed descriptions about how things are and how they should be - this is just awesome and moved a lot in my past years. On the other hand, it helps REFLECTING what I'm already doing right - it's like a positive feedback loop regarding my life and business decisions and tells me that I'm mostly on the right track!

Whenever I read one of your books (and be it the third time!) it sets energy free and I have new ideas, how to approach my target market, what to try, to analyze, to adjust - and then I approach my daily side-hustle-time slot with even more energy, power and a smile in my face. And it shows results (prototype online, first sales made, etc.)...

No other book does that to me!

Whenever I need a kick in my a** I just need to open your books and WHAMMM: Productivity hits, ideas, and solutions are popping up - unbelievable.

And there is one additional thing that stands out: The reason for the negative and dark tone at the beginning, where Jeff and Sam feel, that their LIVES suck, is because of their LIVE SITUATIONS. We need to feel the pain before we act and want to escape the rat race. Ultimately the pain is just a bad belief emerging from a false sense of self - a delusion, as Eckhart Tolle's "Power of Now" puts it. But the delusion of suffering is also the delusion of how the rats see the world. It was the first time for me, that I was able to connect entrepreneurship with spiritual enlightenment ... holy s**t!

All that said: What a great book, that I'll recommend as I did with your other books.

NOTE: As a German your English is not the easiest, but if you get used to it, it's also for non-natives nice to read. Well done!

 

[msufan]

Just finished the book today. Just wanted to chime in to say that the use of narrative was compelling. I think people will frequently see themselves in those characters and that the use of that fictional story will light a fire under many folks wanting to avoid the mistakes those characters made at first.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

The book is great, just started my 2nd listen through of the Jeff & Sam tale. At 16 hours+ audio it's truly amazing value for money.

I like that MJ and the narrator take turns with the chapters, I think it works well. It's a clear definition of actionable advice and narrative example. Also, it's funny hearing the narrator put on Sam's female voice for the dialogue parts. Add's some humor to it, especially when he has to voice the "come hither" moments from Sam.

The relationship insights are spot on! at some points it was like MJ had been in the room for some of the conversations I've had with my own wife.

The husband and wife striving for a better life against the scripted system and succeeding is a great story. I'd say the wife unscripted pretty quickly though, mine is neutral on the subject, she supports my ambition and can see the logic, but she has not fully bought in to the unscripted mindset and wants to follow the "safe route".

Maybe there is a book idea there, how to unscript your significant other.

Great read!

Thanks for the feedback, glad you enjoyed the tale.

As for Sam Unscripting fast, well, she is the problem-solver in the family.

 

[RicardoGrande]

Just got mine in today.
I won't give away too much, but I really appreciated the way you dived in by challenging both the script, but also mediocre comfort right in the beginning.
It's something I personally fell back into after being ravaged by a month and a half of overtime workweeks and my goals and processes turned into zombieing out at youtube with coffee for my miracle mornings.
Can't wait to finish it over the next week, Thank you MJ!

 

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[andyhaus44]

Loving the audiobook so far and cannot wait to read the book!

Definitely giving it a 5 star rating and just getting started. Thank you for your time and effort on the narration MJ!

 

[Ismail941]

Demarco.
You are a helluva a writer. I do respect you.
My gut instinct told me, Tim Ferris is your competitor. I follow you because you caught the wave in 1999. I don’t follow any bs gurus anymore. Thanks for your all Work. You have my attention.

 

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[OVS]

I'm 5 hours into listening to it on audible! It is a great book to keep you motivated and with the right priorities in mind! Thanks, MJ!

 

[MattR82]

I like that you got the same narrater for the fiction part, but kept yourself for the other half. It was something that really connected me when I first listened to TMF .

Really enjoying this a lot. Feels a bit like xmas morning.

I will definitely be leaving a review but want to wait till I've finished it and take my time writing one. First time in my life I've wanted to draft a review!

Also.. nice reminder on RAS. I can't stop thinking about it when driving around. Don't think I'll ever look at traffic the same way again lol.

 

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[Jonas Napier]

Jeff and Samantha Trotman are living the American Dream

Spoiler: SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT:
When they started reading books by some random DeMarco dude I litterally laughed out loud waking up my kids that I was putting to bed!!!

Great book man - such an awesome new way of doing it with the story and the teaching intertwined - this will become popular for sure.

Whether you coined the concept or not it's still AWESOME

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I wonder if it has the potential to grow into full fiction one day?

The fiction can stand alone as its own book already, no need to add more.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Love this book. This is one of the only 3 books I’ve had trouble putting down of the dozens I’ve read in 2021.

Beautiful words that every author wants to hear. Thank you.

 

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[Mathuin]

just dont bring up starbucks again! LOL we know that you despise that joint

MJ doesn't seem to hate Starbucks.

He hates that financial "gurus" tell people to stop going to Starbucks and put that $5 that you could've spent on coffee in a low cost S&P 500 Index fund so in 40 years it will be worth $50.

I hate Starbucks not because their $5 coffee is robbing me of my FIRE fantasy. I hate them because of their "progressive" bullshit.

 

[strlym]

If you read THE GREAT RAT RACE ESCAPE , please post here!

I'm happy to announce that my next full length book (444 pages, 16 hours Audible) is now available with a release date of Tuesday June 29th, 2021.

- Audible Audiobook
- Amazon Paperback
- Amazon Kindle
- Google Play
- Kobo
- Apple
- Barnes And Noble

##### SUMMARY

UNSCRIPTED - The Great Rat Race Escape : From Wage Slavery to Wealth, How to Start a Purpose Driven Business and Win Financial Freedom for a Lifetime
(Yes, really long but I was able to get to work on the cover!)

By all appearances, Jeff and Samantha Trotman are living the American Dream. But behind the white picket fence, they endure an American Nightmare. With little time for each other, a pile of debt, and Ferrari taste on a Ford budget, the ruse of affluence is killing them. Two respectable jobs and a lovely suburban house paint a pretty picture, but behind the ink is a broken marriage rife with meaningless work and dead dreams. And now, with an unplanned pregnancy, they’re facing a mid-life crisis twenty years early.

With little time and looming bankruptcy, the Trotmans are forced to face the red-pill truth they long denied: They were living, but they weren’t alive. Determined to resurrect their life and their marriage, the Trotmans plot a rat-race escape—only to find themselves more thickly in it.

As tensions rise and hope fades, follow along step-by-step as the Trotmans pivot to a new strategy and a new career: starting a business as entrepreneurs.

While they navigate their journey, you’ll learn 120 wealth-building strategies and principles that your mainstream financial guru won’t dare reveal—actionable concepts that will help you profit your way into the Unscripted 1%, an emerging economic class of entrepreneurs who enjoy a lifetime of freedom emancipated from miserly living and Wall Street's "save, pray, and wait" paradigm. Discover how one family escapes the rat-race grind and wins a lifetime of financial freedom, leaving behind the tyranny of meaningless jobs and mediocre living— and how you can too.

• The Bad Math Principle: Why most people will never escape the rat-race, much less earn financial freedom.
• The 1/5/10 Strategy: How this one simple exercise will unearth your ultimate dream life while establishing a decision framework for its reality
• The Honeypot Principle: Why the financial media's "invest a $100/mo for 40 years in indexed-funds" narrative is part of the same rat-race scheme, just a different side of the same rigged coin.
• The Dual Change Strategy: The two divergent sides of change and how it can make you a fortune.
• The Value Skew Strategy: How to find literally 1000s of business ideas and why you never need to "disrupt" or invent anything new or novel.
• The Millionaire Payday Strategy: How to spot opportunities to hire yourself and earn an instant millionaire-making income.
• The Cinderella Principle: Why starting a business based on a cultural trend or a fad is a horrible idea.
• The Perseverance Strategy: Never struggle with motivation again; the four necessary ingredients to tap into unlimited motivation and determination, regardless of the obstacles in your way.
• The Triangulated Value Strategy: Learn how to never quit three-feet from gold: The 3-pronged strategy in maximizing marketing yields while also illuminating the "quit or continue" decision.
• and over 110+ more!

Don’t let the rat-race and its co-conspirators proclaim your life as non-essential. Don’t let the rat-race entice you to save your life away for the promise of an elderly retirement. Don’t let the rat-race lull you into a tedious existence medicated by television, video games, and trivial sporting events.

Go Unscripted , escape the rat-race, and win your happily-ever-after.

##### DOWNLOAD SAMPLE CHAPTERS
>>> If you'd like to download the first 40 pages, visit here.
View attachment 40258

View attachment 40257

I've finished this book yesterday. After binge-reading all of your books, I can say I will never read those popular financial books the same ever again. Thank you so much, MJ!

 

[GhostParticle]

Just finished this book on audible, binging it in about four days... Wow

A quick background... I had been searching, brainstorming, and working on ways to either reset my failing real estate business or find a better path. I've always been interested in e-commerce, largely because of the black and whiteness of analytics, and how you can glean marketing decisions from different variables. I have struggled to be able to translate those functions into real estate. No budget vs goliaths, everyone and their mother being licensed in my state making RE agents a commodity, my resistance to social media, and being terrible on phone to name a few excuses.

I stumbled across this forum in search of engrepreurial knowledge, and perhaps community. Read a couple of the gold posts, and found value in them, so I thought I'd give one of MJs books a go. I chose the latest, due to the world being so differnt since 2020.

I've read plenty of business/ entrepreneurial books in the past, all with common themes and info, and figured I'd be hearing more of the same.

Man was I surprised! Not only does he give a good macro picture of the process of building a business and scaling, but each chapter has a micro level detail that most other books gloss over or don't touch on at all.

I thought I would be fasforwarding through the fictional portions of the book to get into the meat and potatoes, but I found it to be pretty captivating, well written with full/ complex character stories, and a great medium for explaining real world application of a lot ( not all) of the non fictional business strategies.

The bottom line- this book restored my hope.

I may diverge from real estate, or I may approach it differently. Of that I am not yet sure. But now I have a process I can follow to help get me to where I want to be.
Before reading all I saw were dead ends, hopelessness, mediocrity. The book helped to rekindle something in me that I had for years lost. Now creative ideas and solutions are flowing again. There is excitement brewing.

That alone was worth the 20 bucks for the book.

Hopefully this reaches at least one person who's on the fence about reading. If I had to decide over reading this book vs having a burger and fries ( roughly the same cost now a days) I'd starve myself for days and read the book.

Cheers!

 

[woken]

The cover is dark blue.



Ha Ha, well the ending is what might "trigger" people.

Masterpiece.
I found it harder to read with two timelines, but nonetheless, a masterpiece.

Hidden gems everywhere.