1.  Work for somebody else. The best known way is when you work for somebody. You either hire out your brawn or your brain for a fixed amount, often for a fixed number of hours a day. If you are an unskilled worker, the law says that you must be paid for a certain amount for a day. The scale goes up with your skills or your position in government or in a business organization. The fat cats on top are often the best paid. But they are still employees.
2. Work for yourself. Most professionals belong to this category: doctors, lawyers, accountants, architects, public relations men and entertainers. So are those people who work at home or have small businesses of their own. The vendors in the street are belong to this group. They are lumped into the category called self-employed.
3. Go into business. This is the businessman/businesswoman or the entrepreneur. They differ from employees, the self-employed and the investors because the create wealth and new jobs. A country with a sizable number of smart entrepreneurs is a country bound to become richer.
4. Make your money work for you. People in this group are the investors. They use their money to earn more money. They invest in things or activities that put more money into their pockets. Some buy shares of stocks. Others buy interest-earning government or corporate debt papers. Some buy properties to rent.
   

Still others lend their money. Unlike the employees and the self-employed, they don’t work for money. They make money for them by using what they already have to make even more money.

Each person who earns some money falls into one of the four groups: the employed and self-employed the businessmen and the investors.

People move up or down the social ladder in any society as their money-making ability changes.

Employees, if prudent, keep part of their wages and later become investors or put their own business. The same can be done by the self-employed.

People who move from self-employed and an employee to a businessman have somehow acquired some financial literacy. They have better chances of getting out of the poverty trap.

If you do that, you are moving from the rat race to the fast track, from poverty to self-sufficiency, and are close to growing rich. You may still keep your job while tending a small business or while owning an apartment row which gives you monthly income that exceeds your fixed pay or salary.

To move from the rat-race trap to have a business, you need to keep part of your monthly earnings. This is the first step to financial literacy. There is no other way. It takes discipline and a lot of hard work. It also takes guts. This I had to learn through a game in business.

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