Here is the idea. Two emotions run most people's money lives, fear and greed.

Fear of bills pushes you to work. Then desire makes you spend the raise. That loop is the rat race, and most people never leave it.

Let me pick up where we left off, because rich dad's offer was strange.

"I'll keep teaching you," he told nine year old Robert. "But from now on, you work for free."

Free. Not 10 cents an hour. Nothing.

Robert took the deal. I know how that sounds, but stay with me.

Rich dad explained why the pay had to go.

"Most people have a price," he said. "They have a price because of fear and greed. Fear of being without money makes them work hard. Then the paycheck comes, and greed gets them dreaming about all the things money can buy."

"So they're trapped," Robert said.

"Trapped by emotion. Fear keeps them in the job. Desire keeps them broke. Wake up, go to work, pay bills. Offer them more money and they just spin the wheel faster. That's the rat race."

Here is the part I love. Rich dad did not say fear and greed are bad. He said they are normal. The problem is letting them do your thinking.

"It's not that emotions are wrong," he told the boys. "The trick is to use your emotions to think, not to think with your emotions."

So Robert and Mike went back to dusting cans for zero cents an hour. Three weeks of it.

With no paycheck to chase, something changed. They started looking around instead of watching the clock.

That is when Robert noticed Mrs. Martin doing something odd. The store manager was cutting the front covers off unsold comic books.

The covers went back to the distributor for credit. The comics were supposed to be thrown away.

Robert asked the delivery man about them.

"Can we have them?"

"Sure," he said. "As long as you never resell them."

So they did not sell them. They opened a library.

The boys stocked a spare room at Mike's house with hundreds of comics. Neighborhood kids paid 10 cents to read as many as they wanted for two hours.

A bargain, since one comic alone cost 10 cents at the store.

They hired Mike's little sister as librarian for a dollar a week. The library ran after school. The boys did not even have to be there.

The numbers tell the story. The library brought in 9 dollars and 50 cents a week, on average.

Remember what dusting cans paid? Thirty cents a week, and it ate a whole Saturday.

The comics earned more than thirty times as much. And the money came in whether the boys showed up or not.

When rich dad heard, he grinned. This was the whole point of working for free. Take away the paycheck, and the mind starts hunting for something better.

"Keep your eyes open," he had told them. "Opportunities are right in front of your face. Most people never see them because they're looking for money and security, and that's all they get."

The boys had stopped working for money. They had made money work for them, with a stack of trash comics and a spare room.

The business ran three months before a fight between two kids shut it down. But the lesson stuck for life.

A paycheck rewards you once. An asset pays you again and again.

Try this: name your rat race out loud. Write one sentence: "I work because I'm afraid of ___, and I spend because I want ___."

Fill in both blanks honestly. You cannot escape a loop you refuse to see.

Robert asked the obvious next question. Fine, so how do you actually get out?

Rich dad said escaping the trap comes down to one rule, and almost everyone gets it backwards.