Journey to Achieve versus Journey to Escape

Why do most retail investors embark on their journey towards Financial Freedom?

Don't look at others, look at yourself. Yeah, you!

What was the catalyst? The key motivator?

It's "to escape" right?


It's hard not to let these "escape" and "achieve" words colour your answers or judgement.

Maybe it's best I start with myself before everyone gets defensive:


1) I trade to escape the boredom and unbearable lightness of being.

2) I invest to escape a regular day job and to pay for my days of leisure.



If I were to say I invest or trade to achieve, I would not be clinging to a day job while investing/trading part-time in hope.

With single-mindedness, I would fight tooth and claw to muscle myself into the financial industry. I'll take any entry-level job be it a dealer, remisier, sell-side analyst, etc. Even office boy or data-entry clerk also can!

There will be no X amounts in Y years goals as money is not my objective. I just want to get my foot into the door and work my way up to what I aim to achieve - either to be a buy side money manager.or a institutional prop trader. I just want to invest or trade. Period.

We are not after titles or glamour; getting paid well for doing what we love is just a bonus!

And there's no such thing as "retirement" - we will do it forever and ever. Like that guy from Omaha? Is George Soros and Jim Rogers still doing what they do?


Can you see the difference between investing/trading to escape and to achieve?

One is just a vehicle; the other is our ikigai (reason for being).


There's another way of telling the difference.

When we journey to escape, there is usually a "I'll show them!" element.

The motivation may come from a moribund career, girlfriend leaving you for richer guy, unhappy family life, mid-life hormonal changes, etc.

We seek to compensate what we did not get from our regular life. Hence you can see a lot of affirmation seeking behaviours from financial bloggers and regulars at forums.

No, I'm not going to spell it out. You have fun spotting them yourself. Wink.

See? Serve you right for dropping Literature lah!


If we journey to achieve, we can be a little bit self-centred, a little bit selfish, a little bit egoistic. We only see ourselves in our eyes. We only care about how we feel and what we want.

Hence we don't really care about the approvals of others; we fear more about letting ourselves down...

Just make a wild guess whether it would be fun to work with Steve Jobs?