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During my Fastlane journey of discovery, I always sought the absolute, infallible formula that would lead to wealth. What I found was ambiguity and subjective imperatives like “be determined” or “persistence pays” or “it’s not what you know, but who.” While these tidbits were pieces of the puzzle, they didn’t guarantee wealth. A workable formula uses mathematical constructs, not ambiguous statements.
The Slowlane prognosticators—people who make a fortune on investment management fees, seven-figure book deals, and ancillary financial programs and subscriptions—know something that they aren’t telling you: What they teach doesn’t work, but selling it does.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the masses, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. ~ MARCUS AURELIUS
When you’re the first person whose beliefs are different from what everyone else believes, you’re basically saying, “I’m right, and everyone else is wrong.” That’s a very unpleasant position to be in. It’s at once exhilarating and at the same time, an invitation to be attacked. ~ LARRY ELLISON
Money can’t buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you’re being miserable. ~ CLARE BOOTHE LUCE
To create luck, engage in processes so probabilities move from NOTHING, to SOMETHING. Luck is introduced when you play. If you don’t play, you can’t win. Unfortunately, Sidewalkers assign luck to events of mystical chance. They don’t see the manipulated probabilities imbued by process which makes the chance possible. If you want luck, dive into process, because process raises events from the ashes.
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? ~ STEVE BUSCEMI (CON AIR, PARAMOUNT PICTURES, 2003)
By working faithfully 8 hours a day, you may eventually get to be the boss and work 12 hours a day. ~ ROBERT FROST
Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now. There are only so many tomorrows. ~ MICHAEL LANDON
Every day, people sacrifice their time for tiny nuggets of wealth, where time is the liability and not the asset. Anything that steals time and doesn’t have the power to free time is a liability.
Good advice comes from the guy who scores touchdowns—not the guy who can’t even get on the field! Yes, the best quarterbacking advice comes from Tom Brady, not MJ DeMarco.
To assume that you will live a long, healthy life is arrogant. To assume that life won’t throw you any curves is naïve. For the Slowlane to prevail, it assumes life is predictable and forgiving. It isn’t. You lose your job. You get sick. The car needs a new transmission. You get married. You get divorced. You have kids. You have a child with special needs. You have aging parents who need care. The economy dips into recession or depression. Life is a menagerie of crisis points making the Slowlane roadmap a risky bet that consumes your most precious asset: time.
You can’t overcome mathematical limitations. A car that has a top speed of 10 mph will always have a top speed of 10 mph, no matter HOW HARD YOU PUSH THE ACCELERATOR. If you travel across the country at 10 mph, you’re going to need 40 years! The Slowlane is predisposed to mediocrity because the numbers are always mediocre.
The Fastlane is about building a better system, a better contraption, a better product, or a better “something” that will leverage your work. In the Slowlane, you are the source of heavy lifting, while in the Fastlane, you construct a system that does it for you.
Decoding the Fastlane roadmap is as simple as joining the team that is custodian to the decryption key. The winning team is Team Producer. Reshape life’s focus on producing, not consuming. When you reframe your thinking from majority thinking (consumer) to minority thinking (producer), you effectively switch teams and allegiances. Yes, become a producer first and a consumer second. Applied, this means instead of buying products on TV, sell products. Instead of digging for gold, sell shovels. Instead of taking a class, offer a class. Instead of borrowing money, lend it. Instead of taking a job,
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Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. ~ TS ELIOT
There are five business seedlings to money trees. Mind you, these aren’t absolute and can intersect with one another. Each system inherently has a grade that rates its level of passivity. A higher grade means a greater potential for passivity, but not necessarily a greater income. 1) Rental Systems 2) Computer/Software Systems 3) Content Systems 4) Distribution Systems 5) Human Resource Systems
Change creates millionaires. Those who see the changes and take advantage of it will become the new millionaires and billionaires. And because change is constant, millionaire opportunities also remain constant.
Other restaurants deploy a combination of chains and franchises. Dairy Queen and McDonalds have both chains and franchises. If your business operates in limited scale, it can be conquered with chains and franchises. If you own one hot-dog cart and sell at one location, there is no leverage. If you own 500 hot-dog carts and sell at 500 locations through 500 owner-operators, suddenly leverage appears. The Fastlane wealth equation has power.
Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value. ~ ALBERT EINSTEIN
The Law of Effection states that the more lives you affect in an entity you control, in scale and/or magnitude, the richer you will become. The shortened, sanitized version is simply: Affect millions and make millions.
Scale creates millionaires. Magnitude creates millionaires. Scale and magnitude creates billionaires.
Joe Magnitude owns a company that develops commercial real estate. He develops 14 office complexes and partitions the offices into condos. Each fully sold complex profits him $400,000 (magnitude) × 14 (scale) equals $5,600,000. Joe Scale writes a book detailing a diet of the stars. He sells 800,000 copies (scale) and earns $7 per copy (magnitude). He earns the same amount: $5,600,000. The closer you get to the source of large numbers, the closer you will get to wealth. To serve millions is to make millions. Think big to earn big.
Your life is the sum result of all the choices you make, both consciously and unconsciously. If you can control the process of choosing, you can take control of all aspects of your life. You can find the freedom that comes from being in charge of yourself. ~ ROBERT F. BENNETT
Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities. ~ OSCAR WILDE
People who don’t empower your goals are human headwind bloviators. They add friction to the journey. When you spout excitement over actions or ideas, bloviators react with doubt and disbelief and use conditioned talking points such as, “Oh that won’t work,” “Someone is already doing it,” and “Why bother?” In motivational circles, they’re called “haters” or “dream stealers.” You must turn your back on them. Every entrepreneur has bloviators in their life. Network marketers consider me a bloviator. These people are normal obstacles to the Fastlane road trip. Remember, these people have been
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Sidewalkers and Slowlaners use money as the sole criterion in decision-making: Which job pays the most? Where is the cheapest item? How can I get some free chicken? Money is scarce and time brings up the rear and sweeps up the mess. If you want to be rich, you have to start thinking rich … TIME IS KING.
Drivers create MLM companies; they don’t join them. Drivers sell franchises; they don’t buy them. Drivers offer affiliate programs; they don’t join them. Drivers run hedge funds; they don’t invest in them. Drivers sell stock; they don’t buy stock. Drivers offer drop-shipping; they don’t use drop-shipping. Drivers offer employment; they don’t get employed. Drivers accept rents and royalties; they don’t pay rents and royalties. Drivers sell licenses; they don’t buy them. Drivers sell IPO shares; they don’t buy them. Drivers don’t JOIN the hottest trend, they SERVE the hottest trend.
The Commandment of Entry states that as entry barriers to any business road fall, or lessen, the effectiveness of that road declines while competition in that field subsequently strengthens. Higher entry barriers equate to stronger, more powerful roads with less competition and need for exceptionality.
In other words, if “getting into business” is as simple as paying $200 for a distributor kit, there are no entry barriers, and the opportunity should be passed. If any Joe Blow alley-napping next to a dumpster behind Chan’s Chinese restaurant can start your business in minutes, it isn’t a business you want to be doing! The world is littered with so-called businesses that have no entry barriers. And that is why they suck and the people who follow them aren’t rich.
Want to know if your business violates entry? The answer is simple: Is getting into business an event or a process? Real business startups are processes, not events. If you’re suddenly in business because you bought a distributor kit, or completed an online form, you’re violating entry. If you’re suddenly in business because you took one or two actions, you violate entry. Conversely, if I wanted to start a bed-and-breakfast in Sedona Arizona, I’d have to find a property, fix it, finance it, insure it, get licensing and permits, hire a staff, and perform about 10 other steps. Entry is a
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People care about what your business can do for them. How will it help them? What’s in it for them? Will it solve their problem? Make their life easier? Provide them with shelter? Save them money? Educate them? Make them feel something? Tell me, why on God’s green Earth should I give your business money? What value are you adding to my life? Reflect back to our producer/consumer dichotomy. Consumers are selfish. They demand to know is “what’s in it for me!” To succeed as a producer, surrender your own selfishness and address the selfishness of others.
Never start a business just to make money. Stop chasing money and start chasing needs. Let me repeat that, because it’s the most important thing in this book: Stop thinking about business in terms of your selfish desires, whether it’s money, dreams or “do what you love.” Instead, chase needs, problems, pain points, service deficiencies, and emotions. Entrepreneurs fail because they create businesses based on selfish premises, and selfish premises don’t yield profitable businesses; they lead directly into the 90% failure wastebasket.
Need something more concrete? No problem. Make 1 million people achieve any of the following: 1) Make them feel better. (entertainment, music, video games) 2) Help them solve a problem. 3) Educate them. 4) Make them look better (health, nutrition, clothing, makeup). 5) Give them security (housing, safety, health). 6) Raise a positive emotion (love, happiness, laughter, self-confidence). 7) Satisfy appetites, from basic (food) to the risqué (sexual). 8) Make things easier. 9) Enhance their dreams and give hope. … and I guarantee, you will be worth millions. So the next time you’re trolling the
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In business, to be a success you only have to be right once. ~ MARK CUBAN
Billionaire Mark Cuban recently wrote on his blog that it doesn’t matter how many times you strike out in business because you only have to be right once, and that “once” can set you up for life. In other words, be in the business of home runs.
If you can’t access the Law of Effection, you won’t get rich. The conduit to all wealth is via the Law of Effection. For the Slowlaner, the LOE has to be hit by massive intrinsic value explosion: Sing in front of millions, entertain millions, play ball in front of millions. For the Fastlaner, the LOE is leveraged by scale or asset value explosion: Sell millions, help millions, serve millions, impact millions.
If you want to get across the country, drive the fastest roads, not the slowest. Seems logical, except when it comes to financial independence. Instead of driving the fastest roads, most people drive the slowest, and in some cases, a road that won’t even get them there.
FASTLANE PURITY: FIVE COMMANDMENTS Thou shalt not invest in a needless business. Thou shalt not trade time for money. Thou shalt not operate on a limited scale. Thou shalt not relinquish control. Thou shalt not let a business startup be an event over process.
Inventing is still recognized as the default get-rich-quick method out there, and yes, it is alive and well. However, don’t be fooled. Inventing isn’t really about inventing the vehicle, the telephone, or the goofy Segway—the core inventing activity is just taking something and improving or modifying it. Take something old and stale and make it better. Take an underexposed product, make it your own, and reintroduce it to the world. Take something unconventional and make it conventional.
At first, people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done—then it is done, and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. ~ FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
Opportunity is rarely about some blockbuster breakthrough like the light bulb or the car, but as simple as an unmet need, or a need not met adequately. Opportunity is a solution to an inconvenience. Opportunity is simplification. Opportunity is a feeling. Opportunity is comfort. Opportunity is better service. Opportunity is fixing pain. Opportunity is putting weak companies out of business.
“I hate …” What do you hate? Solve the hate, and there’s your open road. “I don’t like …” What don’t you like? Remove the dislike, and there’s your open road. “This frustrates me …” What is frustrating? Remove the frustration, and there’s your open road. “Why is this like this?” I don’t know, why is it? Remove the “why,” and there’s your open road. “Do I have to?” Do you? Remove the “have to.” There’s your open road. “I wish there was …” What do you wish? If you wish, others wish too. Make wishes come true, and there’s your open road. “I’m tired of …” What are you tired of? Fix someone’s
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You see, when you have nothing except 120 pages of text, charts, and graphs, that shows organizational skills, not execution. Angels to private equity never invest in business plans—they invest in people with track records of execution. That is your best business plan!
Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’ Never forget that message when working with people. ~ MARY KAY ASH
The queen is the most powerful piece in chess and it is also in business. Marketing can convince people to buy mediocre products. Marketing can hide or disguise service flaws. It can shadow incompetence, and it can keep convicted felons disparate from their product. The power of marketing is that an effective ad campaign can move products, regardless of the cockroaches hiding underneath. Marketing is a game of perceptions, and whatever the perception is, that’s the reality.
Step 1: Uncover the Benefit(s) Get into business for the right reason: to add or create value, solve problems or fill a need. That creates your first USP. If you are already in business, find your greatest product benefit, one that sets it apart from the competition. If you don’t have a distinct benefit that’s obvious to your potential buyer, you’re operating without a USP.
Step 2: Be Unique The objective of a USP is to be unique when compared to the alternatives. This plants a logical argument into your customer for choosing your company, because, without your company, they are forgoing the benefit. USPS should use powerful action verbs that create desire and urgency. “Lose weight” should be changed to “Obliterate fat” or “Shred pounds.” “Grow your business” should be dropped in favor of “Explode revenues” or “Shatter sales records.” The your USP’S uniqueness creates a consumer divergence when it comes to their buying decision. If you pick a Mac over a PC, you
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Step 3: Be Specific and Give Evidence Noise is everywhere, and if you are going to rise above it, you have to alleviate natural consumer skepticism. Do so by being specific, and if possible, offer evidence. WEB SITE: “Your car sold in 20 days or less or it’s free.” PRODUCT: “Drop 20 pound...
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Step 4: Keep it Short, Clear, and Concise The best USPS are short, clear, and powerful. Long phrases get skipped over.
