The Millionaire Fastlane

by M.J. DeMarco

STOP! If you aren’t wealthy, STOP doing what you’re doing. STOP following conventional wisdom and using the wrong formula.

Now for the bad news. No one is going to help you. No one will guide you, fund you, motivate you, or coddle you. Few will be supportive. The Fastlane road is yours to travel and yours alone.

Sometimes clarity washes over you like a peaceful breeze, and other times it hits you like a falling Steinway piano.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions Fame or physical talent is not a prerequisite to wealth. Fast wealth is created asymmetrically, not linearly. Change can happen in an instant. Don’t fear taking roads that have not been paved by others. I wrote this book because it is something I wished I could have read when I was twenty years old.

Your pursuit of wealth stalls when your focus is on the road and its destination and not the road trip.

Wealth is a process, not an event.

Wealth eludes most people because they are preoccupied with events while disregarding process. Without process, there is no event.

If you try to skip the process, you’ll never experience events.

If you resist the toll, wealth will resist you.

A functional family/good childhood “Hard work” versus “smart work” Educational accomplishments and credentials after your name A stellar business plan Venture capital Being certain sex, color, or age Wishing, dreaming, and thinking positively Knowing the right people in the right places Attending the right universities Being passionate or “doing what you love.” Nothing is further from the truth. The Millionaire Fastlane doesn’t care about these things.

If the road trip to wealth were easy, wouldn’t everyone be wealthy? Expect a price to be paid.

Wealth is a formula, not an ingredient. Process makes millionaires. Events are residual by-products of process. To seek a “wealth chauffeur” is to seek a surrogate for process. Process cannot be outsourced because process dawns wisdom, personal growth, strength, and ultimately, events.

You find wealth with a roadmap, not a dartboard.

Beliefs are powerful mechanisms that drive action, whether true or not.

Within these three roadmaps lies psychology, a belief system that dictates actions relative to each roadmap.

It takes no courage to be normal. No courage to take the road most traveled. No courage to sit comfortably within the walls of your culture. Courage comes questioning, and then challenging the expected. — MJ DeMarco

A Sidewalker’s financial destination doesn’t exist.

Sadly, the Sidewalk is the road most traveled because it’s the path of least resistance.

Wealth = Income + Debt

The money outflow always outpaces the money inflow.

Bei sidewalker

Lack of financial discipline is pitted on the Sidewalk, and it doesn’t care what you earn or drive.

The reason is that more money is not a solution to poor financial management.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions A first-class ticket to the Sidewalk is to have no financial plan. The Sidewalk’s natural gravitational pull is poverty, both in time and money. You cannot solve poor financial management with more money. You can be income rich and still ride the Sidewalk dirty. Lifestyle Servitude on the Sidewalk grows from excess consumption seeded by instant gratification, image management, and debt. If wealth is defined by income and debt, wealth is an illusion because it is vulnerable to potholes, detours, and “bumps in the road.” When the income disappears, so does the illusion of wealth. Poor financial management is like gambling; the house eventually wins.

If you're not paying attention, culture will define wealth for you by default.

Some want to look rich, and others want to be rich.

Wealth is not authored by material possessions, money, or “stuff,” but by what I call the three fundamental “F's”: family (relationships), fitness (health), and freedom (choice, both fiscally and personally).

“Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.”

Wealth is authored by a wealth trinity: solid familial relationships, fitness or health, and unfettered freedom.

Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable. —Clare Boothe Luce

Truthfully, many millionaires and well-paid career folks are miserable, and it has nothing to do with the money. It has to do with their freedom.

Normal is modern-day slavery.

When the giddy “oohs and ahhs” of these expensive doohickeys fade, or worse, don't deliver, expectations are violated, more servitude is created, and misery is left behind.

Money buys experiences and memories.

The fact is, there are plenty of poor people who live richer than their overworked upper-middle-class counterparts because the latter lack freedom, they lack solid relationships, and they lack health—all

Money buys the freedom to watch your kids grow up. Money buys the freedom to pursue your craziest dreams. Money buys the freedom to make a difference in the world. Money buys the freedom to build and strengthen relationships. Money buys the freedom to do what you love, removing financial validation from the equation.

If you can't immunize yourself from the temptations of instant gratification, you'll be hard-pressed to find success in either health or wealth.

To take advantage of The Millionaire Fastlane, understand that luck is a product of process, action, work, and being “out there.”

If you want luck, dive into process, because process raises events from the ashes.

Belief 1: Luck is needed for wealth. Belief 2: Wealth is an event, something I can buy or find in an easy 1-2-3 system. Belief 3: Others can give wealth to me.

Sidedwalker

but freaking own that you made a mistake and learn from it. That's what true accountability and responsibility is all about.

Own your mistakes, failures, and triumphs. Reflect on your choices.

What if I told you ‘insane’ was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years at the end of which they tell you to piss off; ending up in some retirement village hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time? Wouldn’t you consider that to be insane?

the Slowlane is the opposite: a sacrificial today in the hopes of a more comfortable tomorrow.

The Slowlane is a lifetime wager that a sacrificial today will yield a wealthier tomorrow.

The Promise of Wealth . . . The Price? Your Life

The 2008 global recession exposed the Slowlane for the fraud it is. With no job, the plan fails. When the stock market loses 50% of your savings, the plan fails. When a housing crisis erases 40% of your illiquid net worth in one year, the plan fails.

The plan is a failure because the plan is based on time and factors you can’t control.

Wealth = job + market investments.

Not even the most fantastic musician in the world can illuminate the blinding depths of the rat race and those suffocating by its indifference.

family, fitness, and freedom.