How to Escape the Linear Income Trap

Many seemingly “right” ways to earn money are attempts to increase one’s hourly output in linear income, while completely ignoring what exponential income and wealth are.

This formula is a highly abstract one. Being highly abstract means you can vary it in many ways.

Earning Money = Traffic + Problem Solving

Passive Earning = Passive Traffic + Passive Problem Solving (Exponential Income)

Active Earning = Active Traffic + Active Problem Solving (Linear Income)

For a young person, a very high linear income is often irresistible. Once you generate a linear income higher than your baseline, it’s bound to trigger your dopamine reward mechanism.

What is the Dopamine Reward Mechanism?

Andrew Huberman is a professor of neurobiology at Stanford University. There’s an important concept here that I myself previously misunderstood. I used to think: dopamine makes you feel good, happy, euphoric. This is actually wrong ❌. Dopamine, once released, makes you crave, not enjoy. Dopamine isn’t about making you feel good; its sole purpose is to drive you.

Enjoyment and craving are quite difficult to distinguish. Let me give an example. If you’re an e-commerce operator, and one of your strategies succeeds, leading to a surge in orders, you experience immense pleasure. Ask yourself, is the pleasure generated at that moment enjoyment or craving? At this point, dopamine has already been produced. It’s not enjoyment; it’s craving that has been produced at this moment.

Similarly, those who create content know that when a short video suddenly goes viral, you definitely feel a rush of pleasure. Is this pleasure enjoyment or craving? It’s craving; it drives you to repeat that successful action, to do it again.

Distinguishing between craving and enjoyment is very important.

What is enjoyment? Eating food at a beautiful scenic spot, watching snow with a hot coffee in the cold, or the perfect hot spring temperature after a hike. Enjoyment is a concrete, already-obtained reward.

So, what is dopamine doing? Dopamine, after a high linear burst, drives you to do it again. And humans find it hard to resist at this moment.

After experiencing a dopamine rush, the brain mechanism triggers a Pleasure-Pain Balance. What is this? Simply put, it’s to prevent you from feeling too good, otherwise you might overdose. Your brain, for self-preservation and to maintain balance, immediately activates an “opponent” process, sharply pulling you to the pain side. However good you felt a moment ago, you will now feel equally bad. What specifically is this feeling of displeasure? Emptiness, anxiety, a sense of lack. At this point, your dopamine level is below baseline. As the saying goes, “the higher you soar, the harder you fall.” And then, you experience a drive… A drive to follow that last baseline of pleasure, to do it again, and again!

What is linear income? All income that generates no accumulated assets is called linear income. The typical characteristic of linear income is trading time for money. It’s a bit harsh, but it’s the truth. This means all employed people, whether you are an executive in a Fortune 500 company or a ride-share driver/food delivery person, there is no difference; they all fall under linear income. There is a very clear distinction here: Linear income refers to: non-accumulative income.

People at different stages don’t all have the conditions and ability to break free from linear income. And within the realm of linear income, if you truly have no accumulation, then it’s a very wrong choice. Even within linear income, there are 3 comparisons. Even with linear income, let’s look at three different “accumulation” paths and the role dopamine plays in them:

Level 1: The Pure Linear Trap (Food Delivery Rider)

1. Action: When capital subsidies were high, earning 18,000 RMB per month as a food delivery rider.
2. Dopamine Mechanism: “The more orders I deliver, the more I earn.” This is the most direct and immediate dopamine reward (craving). The brain is driven to “do it again!”
3. Outcome: He is firmly locked into this high-return craving, exchanging 100% of his time for money until the trend passes or his body is exhausted.
4. Accumulated Assets: 0. (Pure linear income, no accumulation)

Level 2: The Golden Handcuffs Trap (“Unwise” Programmer/Executive)

1. Action: During the mobile internet boom, earning 50,000 RMB per month. He discovers that by working overtime, competing within the company, and meeting KPIs, he can get a 200,000 RMB bonus at the end of the year.
2. Dopamine Mechanism: This 200,000 RMB bonus is his “order surge.” This “craving” drives him to “do it again” – to aim for a higher bonus and a higher title next year.
3. Outcome: He is also driven by dopamine, dedicating 100% of his time and energy to “actively solving” company problems. He’s caught in the trap of maximizing “hourly wage.”
4. Accumulated Assets: 0. All his output belongs to the company. He is merely a “delivery rider” with a very high hourly wage. If he is laid off, his income immediately drops to zero.

Before looking at the third level of career, let’s first examine the famous Four Levers of Wealth.

There are four levers of wealth:

Human Leverage (A lever I strongly dislike, requiring management costs + instability) Capital Leverage (Playing circles, connections, prestigious schools; financing primarily relies on your title) Code Leverage (Earning Money = Traffic + Problem Solving; Passive Earning = Passive Traffic + Passive Problem Solving; to achieve passivity, you need code) Media Leverage (Content leverage, such as books, videos; note: the leverage ratio on domestic short video platforms is slowly decreasing, returning to the dopamine linear track)

I discussed the reason in my previous post

Among these, human leverage and capital leverage are two that I do not recommend because they both require the consent of others and are incompatible with the AI era.

Back to the third level.

Level 3: The Awakened One Resisting Dopamine (“Smart” Programmer)

1. Action: Also earns 50,000 RMB per month. But he understands this dopamine trap.
2. Dopamine Mechanism: He actively fights the craving for that “200,000 RMB bonus.” He chooses to forgo this highly explosive linear reward, enduring the “feeling of lack” (dopamine dip) associated with “I could have earned more.”
3. Outcome: He refuses 996 (working from 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week). He invests the time he could have used to “earn bonuses” into things that “accumulate assets.”

Let’s see what “accumulate assets” means. Note: “Programmer” can be replaced with any profession. For example, a truck driver.

Writing a Blog/Creating Short Videos: This is building “passive traffic” assets. Developing a SaaS tool/Writing a reusable module: This is building “passive problem-solving” assets. Accumulating Influence: Traffic and tools ultimately accumulate into a personal brand.

Further refining my understanding of domestic short videos: “Although both create short videos, the goals of an ‘awakened one’ and someone ‘caught in the trap’ are fundamentally different.”

1. Short videos in the “linear trap”: Made for “viral hits.” The creator pursues the “dopamine reward” (likes, new followers) given by the platform’s algorithm. They become a “senior delivery rider” for the platform, exchanging their creative time for the platform’s “instant feedback.” This is what you call the “linear track.”

2. Short videos for “exponential assets”: The creator uses short videos as an “entry point” or “hook” for “passive traffic.” Their goal is not the platform’s likes (which are “enjoyment,” not assets), but to redirect “passive traffic” to their own “passive problem-solving” system (e.g., their SaaS, their Blog, their course).

When creating short videos, the “awakened one” actively rejects the “dopamine rush” brought by platform algorithms, treating it only as a traffic generation tool.

See? All actions to break free from linear income don’t provide immediate feedback, and they all point to one word: delayed gratification. What needs to be overcome to break free from linear income is the drive of dopamine.

Two types of people are trapped in linear income:

1. Conditional issues: If they don’t engage in the game, they won’t make ends meet. They have personal financial management problems, live paycheck to paycheck, and lack the extra energy for exponential actions.
2. Perspective issues: They haven’t seen the principles of exponential income.

I hope everyone falls into the second category, enduring non-immediate feedback, with all actions pointing toward long-term compounded, accumulative gains.