The 3 Levels Of Money (How To Escape Wage Slavery)

How to pursue your life's work

Everyone is playing one of three money games:

• Survival (90% of people) – Make enough to not die. Money as master.

• Success (9% of people) – Make enough to matter. Money as scoreboard.

• Sacred (1% of people) – Make enough to authentically create. Money as energy.

So no, money is not evil. That's a clear sign of level 1 thinking. And that level of thinking is incredibly destructive. It can spread into all areas of your life and turn you into a bitter victim who feels as if they have no control over their life.

Reaching level 3 used to be reserved for those who could acquire a lot of capital or connections. Your physical location, status, education, and family determined most of your financial future (this does not mean all or even many of them reached level 3).

But now, thanks to creative economies and digital leverage, it's more accessible than ever. (Later, we will talk about a "meta model" that allows you to pursue your life's work, regardless of what level you are in.)

See, there are 4 major epochs of human history.

In the hunter-gatherer era, there was no money abstraction. People traded goods directly. It was pure value exchange often as gifting.

In the agricultural era, humans could produce more goods and focus less on survival. There was still direct value exchange with cattle, salt, and shells, but the first versions of actual "money" started to surface with precious metals like silver and gold. Think of this as Money 1.0. Survival-based.

In the industrial era, Money 2.0 began to emerge along with capital, investments, and scale. The race for material success was a thing before this, but now it was expanding rapidly.

In the information era, Money 3.0 has become possible on a large scale thanks to digital leverage, creative economies, and meaning-driven markets.

The thing is, you can't just "jump" to level 3 of money in your own life. And there are many people who are in the digital economy who still have survival and success thinking.

The current cultural phase of money is that most people hate their relationship with money while desperately needing it.

Today's world is filled with archetypal wage slaves, side-hustlers, and budgeters.

I'm not trying to talk down, I am stating the obviously observable archetypes.

In this letter, I want to provide you with a path to overcome your toxic relationship with money, earn enough to escape wage slavery, and ultimately pursue your life's work.

How To Escape Wage Slavery

The unfortunate reality of Money Level 1 is that it's extremely difficult to open your mind to see new opportunities.

Work is seen as necessary suffering.

Exchanging time is the only way to make money.

Retirement is the only escape, and you just hope the next 40 years are tolerable.

Most of your relationship with money stems from conditioning from your parents, and if your parents weren't at a higher level of development, you inherited various patterns like pursuing a high paying job as the end goal, saving your leftover cash in case of emergency, comparing down rather than up (atleast your not homeless!), and unironically hoping that you win the lottery.

Level 1 thinking, as outlined in the Human 3.0 model, is characterized by thinking there is "one right way" to do things, which is often based on what you were conditioned to believe.

Level 1 of money is not limited to a job. But a job is the current and common manifestation of this level of thinking. People can be at Level 3 while having a job, but there are a few requirements.

This low consciousness thinking can start to blend over into your mental experience, preventing development in that domain of life.

Every Monday, you feel a sense of dread.

Every Friday, you can't wait for temporary relief.

When you check your bank, stress shoots into your system, and you have to constantly calculate how much you can spend.

Even worse, this leads to shadow patterns (behavior that you are unconscious of that will hold you back until resolved). You judge wealthy people as immoral or lucky when that is obviously a wrong generalization. You bond with friends by complaining about your situation, reinforcing your identity. You mistake being cheap for wisdom. And finally, you manufacture drama to feel a sense of excitement in your life, rather than putting that energy toward an exciting goal.

As bad as that sounds, this is a natural level of development.

Everybody starts in Level 1, some just go through the experiences that allow them to develop faster, and others get trapped in it for life. We don't want that.

The Path To Level 2

Take a marketing coordinator at a mid-size company.

Let's call him Max.

He makes about $45K a year, has student loans piling up, but at least he "has a real job." After a long day, he enjoys gaming with his friends. On the weekends, he heads to the sports bar with his friends. At the start of the week, he spends a few days mentally, physically, and often spiritually recovering from the weekend (naughty Max).

Max runs into his old friends at lunch one day. They start talking about money. They're making triple the amount he is while working at a new tech startup. They suggest getting dinner sometime, but at a restaurant Max wouldn't feel comfortable affording.

After going home and staring at the ceiling for a bit, he decides to apply for the Senior Coordinator role at his current job. He gets rejected for "lack of experience." Soon after, the $65K position gets filled by someone external. Someone younger.

The game is rigged.

Monday dread intensifies.

Gaming is his one escape, but it starts to get boring.

"Must be nice," he says in his head to any mildly successful person he sees.

From that distaste, he decides to do some life math.

3% raises = $52K in 5 years.

Rent prices have been increasing by $200/month yearly.

9 more years to pay off student loans. Interest is accumulating.

Zero savings for a house. Probably still broke by the age of 40. If someone were to come into his life, that financial situation may get worse, and who in today's world would want to be with him?

Dissonance hits him like a truck.

If he keeps doing the same thing, his life will only get substantially worse.

He buys 10 self-help books. Watches every Alex Hormozi video. Joins 4 side hustle Skool communities. DMs people on social media saying, "teach me how to make money."

And he only feels more confused.

5 months in, he's tried dropshipping, crypto trading (loses $500), starting an Amazon FBA store, even tried vibe coding an app.

Then it dawns on him, he has no real skills… except one.

He manages Google Ads at his company. Decides to optimize the current campaigns to practice on the job. His boss starts to notice.

When deciding to pursue your own path, the best place to start is with a pain point, passion, or profession. You already have the experience that can turn into an independent income source. You can solve your own pain point, pursue a passion of yours, or take the skill you've developed in your profession and stack new skills onto it.

Max comes across a Twitter thread on how to start freelancing with Google Ads.

Crazy synchronicity.

He doesn't sleep that night. 6 hours feels like 30 minutes. He starts seeing patterns everywhere. His lunch breaks turn into Reddit research sessions. His commutes are dedicated to YouTube University. His gaming sessions turn into deep work sessions. He can't help it. He doesn't even respond to bar invites. His notifications are stacking up with, "Bro, where have you been?"

10 months in.

He says "fuck it," and sends an email to a local gym.

"I can get you memberships through ads. Only pay me if it works."

The gym owner takes a chance. First week, 3 new memberships. Second week, 10.

Max just made his first $500 by his own will.

He feels an internal shift. Why would he keep living his same life when this is an option? It's difficult, and the rejections hit harder than the new clients, but he feels as if there's something here. He can't shake it.

Month 13 comes. His side business made half of what his normal job makes.

Month 14 comes. They make the same amount.

Month 15 comes. He quits.

New game, new problems, but he feels alive for the first time in years.

What were the mechanisms behind Max's success?

How did he launch into level 2?

He went through 3 distinct phases. The phases of development.

• Dissonance – He got his taste of his current life, it was normal to him. He finally became aware of where his life was heading by mapping it out and observation of unfair events sent him over the edge. He had activation energy.

• Uncertainty – He used his distaste for his current life as fuel to begin experimenting, even though this was unconscious to him. He learned so much, almost quit, but it finally clicked since he persevered. Skill and knowledge were acquired.

• Discovery – He realized he did have hidden value to offer, and someone else needed that value. He could focus his energy on one channel and couldn't break out of it, it sucked him in.

Beyond that, he entered a channel - a period of intense and obsessive development that compressed years of growth into months.

He was pushed into that channel through a glitch – a high-risk accelerant, specifically a life crisis and brutally realizing the life he didn't want to live.

These phases, channels, and glitches are patterns across all domains, not just money.

If you want to understand levels of development in certain domains of your life, phases you must go through, and tactics to increase growth faster, study HUMAN 3.0.

Once the first payment hit, his identity shifted. He had reached level 2. The persistent results solidified that identity, and that carried him forward for a few years.

How To Pursue Your Life's Work

Everyone loves the idea of reaching Money Level 3:

Work feels like play. Discipline is the default. Money doesn't consume your mind, and yet you can make as much as you'd like. You can't wait to get up in the morning and do what you love to do. You feel a sense of responsibility to your customers. Their success is your success. Learning and earning collapse into one. All prior skills stack up so that you can earn from any of your interests. People tell you to "lighten up and live life," but you wouldn't want to be doing anything else. You don't need an escape.

The thing is, you don't reach level 3 by imitating it.

False transformation: When someone adopts the appearance, language, or behaviors of a higher level without actually being there. You can be a "manifestation coach" with manipulative sales processes and a desperation for money because you are struggling to survive.

First, you reach level 2 by solving your level 1 problems.

Then, you reach level 3 by solving your level 2 problems.

That's what development is. If you were to focus on one thing in life to rapidly increase your quality of life, it would be solving problems. That's it. But the nature of problems is that they don't appear until the prior problems are solved. Your mind can't make sense of higher-level problems from a lower level.

In level 1, characterized by survival, you eventually get tired of being regular. You reach a point where you despise living an average life. All of the problems you weren't aware of surface in an instant, and you have the choice to solve them or remain the same.

In level 2, characterized by success, and once you've gotten your taste of that level, you eventually reach a point where you feel empty. The money is great, but you've essentially built yourself into a new 9-5.

When people in level 1 hear people say this, they attach to it.

They say "all rich people have meaningless and materialistic lives" in one variation or another. They latch onto that belief and lock themselves in level 1 thinking. They don't even try to make more money because of a belief, not experience.

Most people trap themselves in level 2 because they think the solution to feeling empty is to stop making money. This couldn't be any further from the truth. The amount of money you make is a reflection to the level of problems you solve. Money, in level 3, is a reflection of complex development and value.

Take the Loom founder as an example.

He spent years building Loom. He had a purpose. A way to order his mind. Then he sold it for nearly $1 billion and was financially set for life. Soon after, he had an existential crisis and felt depressed. He had essentially stopped solving problems in the Vocation domain of life, and since his identity resided in that level, he didn't think to dedicate enough energy to others (mind, body, spirit).

The thing is, if Loom was truly his life's work, it wouldn't be for sale.

You can make millions of dollars in level 1, level 2, or level 3 - but your relationship with money in each of them is drastically different (survival, success, sacred). All levels can be deeply enjoyable if you do not stagnate. Happiness is resistance being overcome.

How "evil" money is depends on your development in other domains of life. If money is your sole focus and you neglect mental or spiritual development, then you will remain unaware of your civilizational impact. If you are level 1 in mind, body, and spirit, that can easily seep into your pursuit of money.

In the case of Max from above, he could reach a point where he realizes that he's running Google Ads for a supplement company that scams their naive customers by selling quick-fix "fat burners." The more Max helps them, the more he harms others in the second order, and if he doesn't neglect that, he can start to peer into level 3.

Step 1) Have A Meaning Crisis

The first step to change your life is "beating" the level you are in.

But if you haven't beaten the level, you probably wouldn't be reading this, or you are reading this out of pure curiosity.

The second step to change your life is becoming absolutely fed up with where you are. In level 1, you get fed up with living by a script your parents or society gave you. In level 2, you get fed up with chasing success and status in isolation. That doesn't mean you "leave" those levels, it means you transcend and include their most useful parts. Each level is a part of a growing perspective.

So, you need an anti-vision.

You need to start creating your new perspective that you can grow into. You need a positive source of negative energy that pushes you into the unknown.

If you are in level 2, ask yourself:

• In 5 years, if you doubled your revenue but feel the same emptiness, what does your average day look like? Are you okay with that?

• What other areas of your life are you sacrificing just so you can make more money?

• What types of work, clients, or customers make you feel dead inside?

• What "successful" person would you become that your past self would pity?

• What does a meaningless calendar look like to you? What about a meaningful one?

• Who would you become if your only identity was your revenue?

• What would your relationships look like if the majority of your time was consumed by work you hate?

Let those thoughts trigger thoughts and contemplate where your life will end up if you don't change.

Step 2) Try Everything & Find The One Thing

Learn and build.

Those are the core habits that anyone in any level must adopt.

The way you move through the unknown is by acquiring knowledge (learning), skill (building), and experience (stepping into the arena). Now that you have an anti-vision (that grows in gravity as you think deeper into it), you have a mind that will start to notice opportunities that may have passed you by before.

The mind is a pattern recognition machine. When you have a frame (an aim for what you want and clarity on what you don't want), your brain signals important information with an increase in dopamine.

Set aside at least an hour a day for new pursuits.

Read new books. Follow new accounts. Change environments. Build new projects. Any project. Software. Designs. Photos. Videos. Writing. A business. A body. A relationship. A new way of thinking. How can you not feel electric to wake up and have the ability to do whatever you want?

Decrease time spent on money and invest in the development of your mind, body, spirit, and relationships. Your goal during this phase is to immerse your mind in the thoughts and ideas that allow you to expand into a level 3 perspective. Shiny object syndrome is encouraged because you can stack knowledge all day, but if experience lags behind, you won't learn a thing.

Throughout this process, take mental note of meaningful ideas, habits, and activities you want to make a part of your life.

After 3-6 months, possibly more, you should collect enough clarity to feel confident enough in making a full transition into something new.

This is the best time to deploy tactical stress.

Move across the country. Invest most of your money into a new venture so you feel the pressure to make it work. Put yourself in a do-or-die situation. Most of the time, this will kick you into a period of intense progress, launching you into the next phase of life.

Step 3) Choose A Meta Model For Your Life's Work

There are hundreds to thousands of ways to pursue your life's work.

Clearly, I can't cover all of them here.

But I can talk about one new way that anyone can pursue.

I call it a "meta model," and you're looking at it right now.

That meta model is becoming a creator.

Not a content creator per se, but the core of who you are as a human. (We’ll talk about the 3 levels of content creation in the next letter).

Take Jordan Peterson for example (regardless of what you think of him).

He's not a content creator, but he creates content, because it is one of the highest leverage activities for pursuing his life's work. He write's books, has an online academy, has a software, hosts a podcast, and does public speaking. He started with his profession, and amplified that on the internet. He has a meaningful mission to pursue, and uses the best tools at his disposal. Today, those tools are digital.

Every business or entrepreneurial endeavor needs media to some extent.

The amount of power an individual has right now is vastly more than at any moment in the past, and that will only continue to increase. This power transfer has occurred in 3 layers.

The internet gave people access to any and all knowledge. Power transferred away from schools and institutions.

Social media gave people the leverage to attract their own audience. Power transferred away from employers, publishers, centralized media, and even record labels. People can now learn, build, and earn without being dependent on someone else's authority.

Artificial intelligence is giving people the ability to create, automate, and outsource almost anything. Power is transferring away from traditional gatekeepers and intermediaries. People will soon be able to operate at the level of large teams with a fraction of the manpower.

Why does this matter?

It has allowed for the emergence of meaning-driven markets.

Yes, there are level 1 thinkers that take the shape of influencers and attention hackers, but you can use the same tools to contribute something greater. This new digital leverage has a few components:

• Zero marginal cost distribution – Share your work with one person or one million for the same effort

• Permissionless leverage – No gatekeepers, publishers, or institutions required for access to audience

• Compound growth – Content created once continues working while you sleep, building audience 24/7

• Global reach – Access to entire planet's population with wifi, finding the specific people who resonate with your message

• AI amplification – Tools that multiply creative output, handling repetitive tasks while you focus on unique perspective

• Direct monetization – Platforms enabling instant payment from supporters without intermediaries

The individual can now pursue any interest or line of work.

If you are interested in something, an entire group of people are.

If you have a pain point, passion, or profession that someone else can benefit from, that's all the validation you need.

Thanks to technology, an individual can now build what previously required 10-100 person teams:

• A personal media company (blog, newsletter, podcast, YouTube)

• An education platform (courses, coaching, communities)

(People don't hate courses and coaches, they hate level 1 courses and coaches because they are often scams and false transformations.)

• Software products (using no-code tools, AI assistance, or sheer learning and willpower)

• Physical products (print-on-demand, dropshipping, small batch manufacturing)

This is possible at any level of money.

Of course, if you are at level 2, or already have money, the transition only becomes easier. The fewer skills you've stacked previously in the domain of money, the more learning and building you have to do.

Since I was born in this internet era, that's where I started. Since I was still in level one, I ended up failing at 7 different business models, getting a job in web design, and eventually looping back to being a creator.

After 5 years of doing this, I can't say I'm in Level 3, but work has never felt more aligned and enjoyable. I couldn't see myself doing anything else.

Thank you for reading.

– Dan

If you want to continue reading, here are some previous letters: