It’s getting paid again and again without doing extra work.

1. The Royalty Route. No, I don’t mean being related to kings and queens. That’s getting paid for doing no work. I mean you write a book, invent a game, record an album, and you could be collecting checks for years.

2. The Tycoon Track. Make money off other people doing the work. It’s called owning a profitable business.

3. The Entertainer’s Edge. Get many customers to pay for a single set of services. That’s what pro athletes do. They can entertain tens of thousands of paying customers in an arena, and millions more at home. Cartoonists get paid by hundreds of newspapers read by millions. Actors by millions of ticket buyers. Treating one patient at a time is the circumstance that keeps doctors, while far more valuable, from getting as rich.

In short, this means, the salaried job is an institutionalized rut. A trap. It beats poverty, for sure, but retirement isn’t really a route to freedom, is it?

Of course, not being rich, not having succeeded with own books or games, it’s easy for me to talk.

Part 2: A helpful guide: ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’

After writing the section above, I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad on the recommendation of a friend. What an eye-opener! Claims schools fail to teach us anything useful about money. Says the rich are rich because they avoid the trap of thinking Hard Work for a Salary = Success. Don’t work for money, make money work for you, says author Robert T. Kiyosaki. Use your smarts to keep building income-producing assets (real estate, businesses you own, intellectual property that pays you royalties). Take advantage of tax and corporation laws. Pump money into investments, not self-indulgent things. Keep learning your whole life, broadening your knowledge, not just specializing, and use your noodle to figure new ways to cash in. An easy, compelling read that might put you on a smarter path.