read it and write down everything you learn from it Table of Contents
 
Title Page
Fastlane Resources
Testimonials
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
PART 1: Wealth in a Wheelchair…“Get Rich Slow” is Get Rich Old
CHAPTER 1 -- The Great Deception
CHAPTER 2 -- How I Screwed “Get Rich Slow”
PART 2: Wealth is Not a Road, But a Road Trip
CHAPTER 3 -- The Road Trip to Wealth
CHAPTER 4 -- The Roadmaps to Wealth
PART 3: The Road Most Traveled: The Sidewalk
CHAPTER 5 -- The Sidewalk Roadmap
CHAPTER 6 -- Has Your Wealth Been Toxified?
CHAPTER 7 -- Misuse Money and Money Will Misuse You
CHAPTER 8 -- Lucky Bastards Play the Game!
CHAPTER 9 -- Wealth Demands Accountability
PART 4: Mediocrity: The Slowlane Roadmap
CHAPTER 10 -- The Lie You've Been Sold: The Slowlane
CHAPTER 11 -- The Criminal Trade: Your Job
CHAPTER 12 -- The Slowlane: Why You Aren't Rich
CHAPTER 13 -- The Futile Fight: Education
CHAPTER 14 -- The Hypocrisy of the Gurus
CHAPTER 15 -- Slowlane Victory … A Gamble of Hope
PART 5: Wealth: The Fastlane Roadmap
CHAPTER 16 -- Wealth's Shortcut: The Fastlane
CHAPTER 17 -- Switch Teams and Playbooks
CHAPTER 18 -- How the Rich Really Get Rich!
CHAPTER 19 -- Divorce Wealth from Time
CHAPTER 20 -- Recruit Your Army of Freedom Fighters
CHAPTER 21 -- The Real Law of Wealth
PART 6: Your Vehicle to Wealth: YOU
CHAPTER 22 -- Own Yourself First
CHAPTER 23 -- Life's Steering Wheel
CHAPTER 24 -- Wipe Your Windshield Your Clean
CHAPTER 25 -- Deodorize Flatulent Headwinds
CHAPTER 26 -- Your Primordial Fuel: Time
CHAPTER 27 -- Change That Dirty, Stale Oil
CHAPTER 28 -- Hit The Redline
PART 7: The Roads to Wealth
CHAPTER 29 -- The Right Road Routes to Wealth
CHAPTER 30 -- The Commandment of Need
CHAPTER 31 -- The Commandment of Entry
CHAPTER 32 -- The Commandment of Control
CHAPTER 33 -- The Commandment of Scale
CHAPTER 34 -- The Commandment of Time
CHAPTER 35 -- Rapid Wealth: The Interstates
CHAPTER 36 -- Find Your Open Road
CHAPTER 37 -- Give Your Road a Destination!
PART 8: Your Speed: Accelerate Wealth
CHAPTER 38 -- The Speed of Success
CHAPTER 39 -- Burn The Business Plan, Ignite Execution!
CHAPTER 40 -- Pedestrians Will Make You Rich!
CHAPTER 41 -- Throw Hijackers to the Curb!
CHAPTER 42 -- Be Someone's Savior
CHAPTER 43 -- Build Brands, Not Businesses
CHAPTER 44 -- Choose Monogamy Over Polygamy
CHAPTER 45 -- Put It Together: Supercharge Your Wealth Plan
Appendices
APPENDIX A: Reader Reflections
APPENDIX B: The 40 Fastlane Lifestyle Guidelines




by MJ DeMarco
Copyright 2011 MJ DeMarco, All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a published review.

Published by Viperion Publishing Corporation
PO Box 93124, Phoenix, AZ 85070
http://www.viperionpublishing.com

ISBN EBOOK: 978-0-9843581-1-3
ISBN PAPERBACK: 978-0-9843581-0-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010934089
Cover design by MJ DeMarco
Interior design by Fiona Raven
Printed in the USA
The information presented herein represents the view of the author as of the date of publication. This book is presented for informational purposes only. Due to the rate at which conditions change, the author reserves the right to alter and update his opinions based on new conditions. While every attempt has been made to verify the information in this book, neither the author nor his affiliates/partners assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, or omissions.

Additional Fastlane Resources:
Fastlane on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/TheMillionaireFastlane

Discuss the Fastlane!
http://www.theFastlaneForum.com

Fastlane Articles
http://www.FastlaneEntrepreneurs.com

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http://www.MJDeMarco.com
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The Millionaire Fastlane
http://www.theMillionaireFastlane.com

TESTIMONIALS
“The Fastlane mentality is a refreshing perspective on growing wealth in time to enjoy it. I am so tired of the traditional advice of working hard and saving gradually. This Slowlane approach was not working for me. MJ helped me realize what was possible, and I am 'accelerating' faster than I could have imagined. My business and my net worth is growing every day. I hate to imagine where I would be today without The Fastlane.”
-- Skyler R., Idaho Falls, Idaho

“Before I discovered The Fastlane, I had the opinion that money had to be earned by working for someone else 10 hours a day for at least 50 years. I thought that making millions was only for those who had either rich parents or luck. Now I know better-making millions neither requires rich parents nor luck. It requires the knowledge of how to make those millions. And through the Fastlane, I was able to acquire this knowledge.”
--Florian F., Augsburg, Germany

“To say that your advice and the 'Fastlane principles' you teach have changed my life is an understatement. I KNEW there was a better life out there, but I had become frustrated about how to reach it. After reading months of your free advice in the free Fastlane Forum, it all started coming together for me. I began to see WHY I was living paycheck to paycheck, and I decided then that I was going to escape it. Four years later, I have almost quadrupled my net worth. I have saved and invested more in the past few years then many of my friends in their 30s. Furthermore, at 26 years old now, the education I have received in the past four years far exceeds anything I could have learned in college.”
-- Mike G.,Washington, New Jersey

“The Fastlane has taught me how to think BIG and realize that a 9–5 job is not the answer. I will soon graduate college and not be worried with interviews. Thanks!”
--Luke M., Durham, North Carolina

“If it weren't for the Fastlane, I'd still be looking at a pencil-pushing future, living a life of frugality with suppressed dreams, and dreading rolling out of bed every single day. Thanks to MJ and the Fastlane community, my mind, life, and doors have opened up like I never could have imagined! I'm on track to leave my J-O-B lifestyle in the dust, speeding off into the sunset with exuberance and abundance!”
--Matt J., Orlando, Florida

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To Cakes:
Thank you for being both a mother and a father, and for the selfless sacrifices you made for your children. I am graciously indebted by your haunting, motherly taunts of “Get a job, baby!” which inspired me to rebel against financial mediocrity …

To Michele Hirsch:
Not sure this book would exist if it weren't for your words of encouragement and support during those early, “studio apartment” years. Nope, I didn't forget.

To the Fastlane Forum community:
Thank you for the constant reminders that I had a job to finish.

PREFACE
The “Lamborghini Prophecy” Completes

The Millionaire Fastlane is the echo of a chance encounter I had long ago when I was a pudgy teenager. It was a Fastlane ignition of consciousness, a resurrection triggered by a stranger driving a mythic car-a Lamborghini Countach. The Fastlane was born, and with it the resolution and belief that creating wealth need not take 50 years of financial mediocrity devoured by decades of work, decades of saving, decades of mindless frugality, and decades of 8% stock market returns.

Often, this book references the Lamborghini brand, and it isn't to brag when I say I've owned a few. The Lamborghini icon represents the fulfillment of a prophecy in my life. It innocently started when I saw my first Lamborghini and it kicked my ass out of my comfort zone. I confronted its young owner and asked a simple question: “How can you afford such an awesome car?”

The answer I received, unveiled in chapter 2, was short and powerful, but I wish I had more. I wish that man had taken a minute, an hour, a day, or a week to talk to me. I wish that young stranger would have mentored me on how to get what I thought the Lamborghini represented: wealth. I wish that man had reached into his car and given me a book.

Fast-forward to today. As I endanger the streets in my Lamborghini, I relive that same moment except in role reversal. To celebrate my Fastlane success, I bought one of these legendary beasts, a Lamborghini Diablo. If you've never had the opportunity to drive a car that costs more than most people's homes, let me tell you how it works: You can't be shy. People chase you in traffic. They tailgate you, rubberneck, and cause accidents. Getting gas is an event: people snap photos, enraged environmentalists give you the evil eye, and haters insinuate about the length of your penis-as if owning a Hyundai implies being well endowed. Mostly, people ask questions.

The most frequent questions come from leering and inquisitive teenagers, as I was many years ago: “Wow, how can you afford one of these?” or “What do you do?” People associate a Lamborghini with wealth, and while that's more an illusion than anything (any dimwit can finance a Lamborghini), it's indicative of a dream lifestyle that most people conceive as incomprehensible.

Now when I hear the same question I asked decades ago, I have the power to gift a book and perhaps, to gift a dream. This book is my official answer.

INTRODUCTION
The Road to Wealth Has a Shortcut

There's a hidden road to wealth and financial freedom, a shortcut of blinding speed where you can achieve wealth in youthful exuberance over elder entropy. Yes, you don't have to settle for mediocrity. You can live rich, retire four decades early, and live a life that most can't. Sadly, the shortcut is cleverly camouflaged from your view. Instead of the shortcut, you're led down a paralyzing road to mediocrity-a dulled cornucopia of financial stratagem tailored to the slumbering masses, a legion of mandates that sacrifices your wildest dreams in favor of numbed expectations.

That road?

It's financial mediocrity, known as “Get Rich Slow,” “The Slowlane,” or “Wealth in a Wheelchair.” That tedium sounds like this:

Go to school, get good grades, graduate, get a good job, save 10% of your paycheck, invest in the stock market, max your 401(k), slash your credit cards, and clip coupons... then, someday, when you are, oh, 65 years old, you will be rich.
This dictation is a decree to trade life, for life. It's the long way, and no, it isn't scenic. If wealth were an ocean voyage, “Get Rich Slow” would be sailing around the horn of South America, while the Fastlaner uses the shortcut-the Panama Canal.

The Millionaire Fastlane isn't a static strategy that preaches “go buy real estate,” “think positively,” or “start a business,” but a complete psychological and mathematical formula that cracks the code to wealth and unlocks the gateway to the shortcut. The Fastlane is a progression of distinctions that gives probability to the unspeakable: Live richly today while young, and decades before standard norms of retirement. Yes, you can win a lifetime of freedom and prosperity, and it doesn't matter if you're 18 or 40. What “Get Rich Slow” does in 50 years, the Fastlane shortcut does in five.

Why Can't You Drive the Shortcut?

If you're a typical wealth seeker, your approach to wealth can be predictably foretold by a timeless question: What do I have to do to get rich? The quest for the answer-wealth's Holy Grail-throws you into a mode of pursuit where you chase a variety of strategies, theories, careers, and schemes that supposedly will bring great wealth into your lap. Invest in real estate! Trade currencies! Play pro ball! “What do I have to do?” screams the wealth seeker!

No, please stop.

The answer is more about what you've been doing than what you haven't. There's an old proverb that has mutated a few times but the gist is this: If you want to keep getting what you're getting, keep doing what you're doing.

The translation?

STOP!

If you aren't wealthy, STOP doing what you're doing. STOP following the conventional wisdom. STOP following the crowd and using the wrong formula. STOP following the roadmap that forsakes dreams and leads to mediocrity. STOP traveling roads with punitive speed limits and endless detours. I call it “anti-advice,” and much of this book follows this prescription.

This book lists nearly 300 wealth distinctions designed to crack the code to wealth and get you off your current road and onto a new road where you can expose wealth's shortcut. The distinctions are directional markers to “STOP” your old ways of action, thinking, and believing, and reorient you into a new direction. In essence, you have to unlearn what you have learned.

Your Reality Doesn't Change Mine

This section is for the haters. I present the Fastlane with brash cynicism. This book contains a lot of “tough love,” and while it is opinionated, you ultimately have to seek your own truth. The Fastlane might insult, offend, or challenge you because it will violate everything you've been taught. It will contradict the teachings of your parents, your teachers, and financial planners. And since I violate all that society represents, you can bet mediocre minds will take issue.

Thankfully, your belief (or disbelief) of Fastlane strategy doesn't change my reality; it only changes yours. Let me repeat: What you think of the Fastlane doesn't change my reality; its purpose is to change yours.

So let me tell you about my reality. I live happily in a big house overlooking the mountains in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona. There are rooms in my house that I don't visit for weeks. Yes, the home is too large, and that story is a horrifying epic best forgotten.

I can't remember the last time I awakened to an alarm clock-everyday is a Saturday. I have no job and no boss. I don't own a suit or a tie. My cholesterol level confirms that I dine at Italian restaurants far too often. I smoke cheap cigars. As of this edition, I drive a Toyota Tacoma for work (“work” means going to the gym and grocery shopping) and a Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster for play. I almost lost my life street racing a 750-horsepower Viper laced with nitrous oxide. I shop at Costco, Kohl's, and Wal-Mart if I'm in the neighborhood and it's past 12 a.m. No, I don't drive the Lamborghini to Wal-Mart; that might cause a disruption in the space-time-continuum. Trekkies know better.

I don't own a watch more expensive than $149. I enjoy tennis, golf, biking, swimming, hiking, softball, poker, pool, art, travel, and writing. I travel whenever and wherever I want. Other than my mortgage, I have no debt. You can't buy me gifts because I have everything I want. Prices for most things are inconsequential because if I want it, I buy it.

I made my first million when I was 31. Five years earlier, I was living with my mother. I retired when I was 37. Every month I earn thousands of dollars in interest and appreciation on investments working around the globe. No matter what I do on any day, one thing is sure: I get paid and I do not have to work. I have financial freedom because I cracked wealth's code and escaped financial mediocrity. I'm a normal guy living an abnormal life. It's a fantasyland but my reality, my normal, my deviation from ordinary where I can pursue my most implausible dreams in a life free of financial encumbrances.

Had I chosen the preordained road, “Get Rich Slow,” my dreams would be on life-support, likely replaced with an alarm clock and a heavy morning commute.

How about your dreams? Do they need resuscitation? Is your life on a road that converges with a dream, or is one? If your dreams have lost probability it's possible “Get Rich Slow” has killed them. “Get Rich Slow” criminally asks you to trade your freedom for freedom. It's an insanely outrageous barter and a dream destroyer.

Alternatively, if you travel the right roads and leverage the right roadmap, you can resurrect your dreams to possibility. Yes, as a Fastlane traveler you can create wealth fast, screw “Get Rich Slow,” and win a lifetime of prosperity, freedom, and dream fulfillment … just as I did.

If this book hasn't found you early in life, don't worry.

The Fastlane doesn't care about your age, your job experience, your race, or your gender. It doesn't care about your “F” in eighth grade gym class or your beer-drinking reputation in college. The Fastlane doesn't care about your Ivy League college degree or your Harvard MBA. It doesn't ask you to be a famous athlete, actor, or a finalist on American Idol.

The Fastlane is merciful on your past if you just unlock the gateway into its universe. Finally, at the risk of sounding like a late-night infomercial, let me clarify: I'm not a self-proclaimed guru nor do I want to be. I dislike gurus because “guruness” implies know-it-all status. Call me the “anti-guru” of “Get Rich Slow.” The Fastlane is a lifetime school with no graduates; 20-plus years into this and I humbly admit, I have more to learn.

Sorry, No Four-Hour Work Week Here

First, let's get something clear: This isn't a “how-to” book. I'm not going to tell you every nuance about “how I did it” because how I did it isn't relevant. This book doesn't contain a list of Web sites that outline ways to “outsource” your life. Success is a journey, and it can't be outsourced to India in a four-hour work week. The Millionaire Fastlane is like a yellow brick road paved in psychology and mathematics that put the odds of massive wealth in your favor.

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 compiled part of the formula, they didn't guarantee wealth. A workable formula uses mathematical constructs and not ambiguous statements. Does wealth have a mathematical formula, a code that you could exploit to tilt the odds in your favor? Yes, the Fastlane quantifies it.

Now for the bad news.

Many wealth seekers have false expectations about “money” books and think that some fairy-guru will do the work. The road to wealth has no escort and is always under construction. No one drops millions on your lap; the road is yours to travel and yours alone. I can open the door but I can't make you walk through it. I don't claim the Fastlane is easy; it's hard work. If you expect a four-hour workweek here, you will be disappointed. All I can be is that creepy munchkin pointing off in the distance with a stern directive, “Follow the yellow brick road.”

The Fastlane is that road.

Coffee with a Multimillionaire

I've approached this book conversationally, as if you're my new friend and we're having coffee in a quaint neighborhood cafe. That means my intent is to educate you-not to upsell you into some expensive seminar, membership website, or a backend marketing funnel. While I will interact with you as if you're my friend, let's face it: I don't have a clue who you are. I don't have intimate details about your past, your age, your biases, your spouse, or your education. Therefore, I need to make some general assumptions to ensure that our conversation seems personal to you. My assumptions:

 
You look around your life and think, “there's got to be more.”
You have big dreams, yet you're concerned that the road you're traveling will never converge with those dreams.
You're college-bound, college-enrolled, or college-educated.
You have a job you don't enjoy or isn't going to make you rich.
You have little savings and carry a load of debt.
You contribute regularly to a 401(k).
You see rich people and wonder, “how did they do it?”
You have bought a few “get rich quick” books and/or programs.
You live in a free, democratic society where education and free choice are standards.
Your parents subscribe to the old school: “Go to college and get a good job.”
You don't have any physical talent; your chances of becoming a professional athlete, singer, entertainer, or actor are zero.
You are young and full of enthusiasm about the future, but unsure where to direct it.
You are older and have been in the workforce for some time. After all these years, you don't have a lot to show for it and are tired of “starting over.”
You've put your heart and soul into a job only to be laid off due to a bad economy or cutbacks.
You've lost money in the stock market or traditional investments championed by mainstream financial gurus.
If some of these assumptions reflect your situation, this book will have an impact.

How This Book Is Organized

At the conclusion of each chapter, there is a subsection titled “Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions” which chronicles the critical distinctions to Fastlane strategy. Don't ignore these! They're the building blocks to engineering your Fastlane. Additionally, the stories and examples in this book come from the Fastlane Forum and other personal finance forums. While the stories are real and come from real people with real problems, I've changed the names and edited the dialogue for clarity. And finally, feel free to discuss Fastlane strategy with thousands of others at the free Fastlane Forum (TheFastlaneForum.com). When the Fastlane changes your life, stop by and tell us how or email me at <PRESIDIO_ANONYMIZED_EMAIL_ADDRESS>!

It took me years to uncover and assemble the Fastlane strategies, learn them, use them, and ultimately make millions. Bored, retired, and yes, still young with hair, I give you The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for A Lifetime! Fasten your seat belts, grab a ten-buck latte, and let's go on a road trip!

PART 1:
Wealth in a Wheelchair… “Get Rich Slow” is Get Rich Old
CHAPTER 1: THE GREAT DECEPTION

Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.
~Jodie Foster
The “MTV Cribs” Episode that Never Happened

Host: “Today we visit 22-year-old Big Daddyhoo and his 8,000-square-foot crib here on the beautiful Atlantic coastline live from sunny Palm Beach Florida … so, Big Daddyhoo, tell us about your rides!”

Big Daddyhoo: “Yo dawg, we gotz the Ferrari F430 over there with the 22-inch rims, the sick Lamborghini Gallardo over there with the custom 10-speaker stereo, and for those nights when I just wanna chillax with the ladies, the Rolls Royce Arnage does my do.”

Host: “So, Big Daddyhoo, how can you afford all these gorgeous rides? And this mansion on the beach? It must have cost more than $20 million!”

Big Daddyhoo: “Yo let me tell you dawg, Big Daddyhoo got rich chilling in mutual funds and popping phat money in my 401(k) down at my Win-Go Wireless job.”

Suddenly, you hear a record screech off the turntable.

Silence.

As you can imagine, this scenario would never happen. Big Daddy's answer is preposterous and laughable. We're smart enough to know that wealthy 22-year-old kids don't get rich investing in mutual funds and stashing money in their 401(k)s from their job at the cell phone store. We know that people who get rich young fall into a unique subset of society: pro athletes, rappers, actors, entertainers, and famous people. Those of us outside this demography are left with the traditional advice showered upon us by financial experts.

It's called “Get Rich Slow” and sounds something like this: Go to school, get good grades, graduate, get a good job, invest in the stock market, max-out your 401(k), cut up your credit cards, and clip coupons … then someday, when you are, oh, 65 years old, you will be rich.

“Get Rich Slow” Is a Losing Game

If you want to get rich and “Get Rich Slow” is your strategy, I have bad news. It's a losing game, with your time wagered as the gamble. Do you seriously think that the guy who lives in that palatial beach estate with the $500,000 supercar in the driveway got rich because he invested in mutual funds? Or clipped coupons from the local Super-Saver? Of course we don't. So why do we give credence to this advice as a legitimate road that leads to wealth and financial freedom?

Show me a 22-year-old who got rich investing in mutual funds. Show me the man who earned millions in three years by maximizing his 401(k). Show me the young twenty-something who got rich clipping coupons.

Where are these people? They don't exist. They're fairy tales of impossibility.

Yet, we continue to trust the same old tired gang of financial media darlings who espouse these doctrines of wealth. Yes sir, get a job, work 50 years, save, live mindlessly frugal, invest in the stock market, and soon, your day of freedom will arrive at age 70 … and if the stock market is kind and you're lucky, 60! Gee, doesn't this “wealth in a wheelchair” financial plan sound exciting?

In today's tumultuous financial climate, I am shocked people still believe these strategies even work. Wasn't it the recession that exposed “Get Rich Slow” for the fraud it is? Oh I get it, if you're employed for 40 years and avoid 40% market downturns, “Get Rich Slow” works; just sit back, work, and hope death don't meet you first because, golly-gee, you're going to be the richest guy in the retirement home!

The message of “Get Rich Slow” is clear: Sacrifice your today, your dreams, and your life for a plan that pays dividends after most of your life has evaporated. Let me be blunt: If your road to wealth devours your active adult life and it isn't guaranteed, that road sucks. A “road to wealth” codependent on Wall Street and anchored by time with your life wagered as the gamble is a dirty rotten alley.

Nonetheless, the preordained plan continues to wield power, recommended and enforced by a legion of hypocritical “financial experts” who aren't rich by their own advice, but by their own Millionaire Fastlane. The Slowlane prognosticators know something that they aren't telling you: What they teach doesn't work, but selling it does.

Wealth Young: Is It Bullshit?

The Millionaire Fastlane isn't about being retired old with millions, but about redefining wealth to include youth, fun, freedom, and prosperity. Take this comment posted on the Fastlane Forum:

“Is it bullshit? You know, the dream to be young and live the life-to own the exotic cars, to own the dream house, to have free time to travel and pursue your dreams. Can you really get free of the rat race young? I'm a 23-year-old investment banker in Chicago, Illinois. I make a modest salary and modest commissions. By most people's standards, I have a good job. I hate it. I cruise Chicago's downtown and I see some guys living the life. Guys driving expensive exotic cars and I think to myself … They're all 50 or older with silver hair! One of them once told me, 'You know kid, when you finally can afford a toy like this, you're almost too old to enjoy it!' The guy was a 52-year-old real estate investor. I remember looking at him and thinking 'God … that can't be true! It's gotta be bullshit! It's gotta be!'”
I can verify-it isn't bullshit. You can live “the life” and still be young. Old age is not a prerequisite to wealth or retirement. However, the real BS is thinking you can do it by the default “Get Rich Slow” construct, at least by the time you hit your 30th birthday. Believing that old age is a precursor to retirement is the real BS. The real BS is allowing “Get Rich Slow” to steal your dreams.

Reinvent Retirement to Include Youth

Say “retirement” and what do you see? I see a crotchety old man on a porch in a creaky rocking chair. I see pharmacies, doctor's offices, walkers, and unsightly urinary undergarments. I see nursing homes and overburdened loved ones. I see old and immobile. Heck, I even smell something musty circa 1971. People retire in their 60s or 70s. Even at that age, they struggle to make ends meet and have to rely on bankrupted government programs just to survive. Others work well into their “golden years” just to maintain their lifestyle. Some never make it and work until death.

How does this happen? Simple. “Get Rich Slow” takes a lifetime to travel and its success is nefariously dependent on too many factors you cannot control. Invest 50 years into a job and miserly living, then, one day, you can retire rich alongside your wheelchair and prescription pillbox. How uninspiring.

Yet, millions undertake the 50-year gamble. Those who succeed receive their reward of financial freedom with a stinking lump of turd: old age. Gee thanks. But don't worry; patronization rains from the heavens: “These are the golden years!” Who they kidding? Golden to whom?

If the journey devours 50 years of your life, is it worth it? A 50-year road to wealth isn't compelling, and because of it, few succeed and those who do settle for financial freedom in life's twilight.

The problem with accepted norms of retirement is what you do not see. You don't see youth, you don't see fun, and you don't see the realization of dreams. The golden years aren't golden at all but a waiting room for death. If you want financial freedom before the Grim Reaper hits the on-deck circle, “Get Rich Slow” isn't the answer. If you want to retire young with health, vibrancy, and hair, you're going to need to ignore society's default “Get Rich Slow” roadmap and the gurus spoon-feeding you the slop in the trough. There is another way.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
“Get Rich Slow” demands a long life of gainful employment.
“Get Rich Slow” is a losing game because it is codependent on Wall Street an anchored by your time.
The real golden years of life are when you're young, sentient, and vibrant.
CHAPTER 2: HOW I SCREWED “GET RICH SLOW”

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
Exposing the “Get Rich Slow” Dreamkiller

As a teenager, I never gave myself a chance of becoming wealthy young. “Wealth +youth” was an equation that didn't compute simply because I didn't have the physical capabilities. Common roads to wealth for the young are competitive and require talent; become an actor, a musician, an entertainer or a pro athlete-all roads that had a big “ROAD CLOSED” sign that laughed, “Not a chance, MJ!”

So, early in life, I conceded. I gave up on my dreams. “Get Rich Slow” made it abundantly clear: Go to school, get a job, settle for less, sacrifice, be miserly and quit dreaming about financial freedom, mountainside homes, and exotic cars. But I still dreamed. It's what teenage boys do. For me, it was all about the cars-specifically, the Lamborghini Countach.

The 90 Seconds that Changed My Life

I grew up in Chicago and was a porky kid with few friends. I wasn't interested in teenage girls or sports, but lying around in a beanbag stuffing my face with doughnuts while watching Tom-n-Jerry reruns.

Parental supervision was absent; Mom divorced Dad years earlier, which left my older siblings and me to be raised by a single mother. Mom didn't have a college education or a career, unless a deep-frying job at Kentucky Fried Chicken qualified. That left me to my own indulgences, usually consumption of sweets and the latest episode of the A-Team. My exertions were epitomized by a long broken broomstick: I used it as the TV's remote control since the real one was broken and I was too lazy to move. When I did move, the local ice cream shop was often my target; a sugary delight was a motive I could count on.

That day was like any other day: I sought ice cream. I plotted the flavor of my next indulgence and headed toward the ice cream parlor. When I arrived, there it was. I was face to face with my dream car; a Lamborghini Countach famous from the 80s hit movie Cannonball Run. Parked stoically like an omnipotent king, I gazed upon it like a worshiper beholden to its God. Awestruck, any thoughts of ice cream were banished from my brain.

Posterized on my bedroom walls and drooled upon in my favorite car magazines, I was acutely familiar with the Lamborghini Countach: cunning, evil, obscenely fast, spaceship doors, and ungodly expensive. Yet, here it was just a few feet away, like Elvis resurrected. Its raw tangible grandeur was like an artisan coming face to face with an authentic Monet. The lines, the curves, the smell …

I gawked for a few minutes, until a young man left the ice cream parlor and headed toward the car. Could this be the owner? No way. He couldn't have been more than 25 years old. Dressed in blue jeans and an oversized flannel shirt with what I spied to be an Iron Maiden concert shirt underneath, I reasoned this couldn't be the owner. I expected an old guy: wrinkled, receding gray hairline, and dressed two seasons late. Not so.

“What the heck?” I thought. How could a young guy afford such a kick-ass automobile? For God's sake, that car costs more than the house I live in! It's got to be a lottery winner, I speculated. Hmmm … or maybe some rich kid who inherited the family fortune. No, it's a pro athlete. Yes, that's it, I concluded.

Suddenly, a daring thought invaded my head: “Hey, MJ, why don't you ask the guy what he does for a living?” Could I? I stood on the sidewalk, dumbfounded while I negotiated with myself. Emboldened and overcome with adrenaline, I found my legs moving toward the car as if my brain weren't agreeable. In the back of my mind, my brother taunted, “Danger, Will Robinson, danger!”

Feeling my approach, the owner hid his trepidation with a forced smile and opened his door. Whoa. The car's door flung up into the sky, vertically, as opposed to swinging out sideways like a normal car. It threw me off what little game I had and I tried to maintain my composure, as if cars with futuristic doors were standard fare. What couldn't have been more than 20 words seemed like a novel. My opportunity was here and I snatched it. “Excuse me, sir?” I nervously muttered, hoping he wouldn't ignore me. “May I ask what you do for a living?”

Relieved that I wasn't a teenage derelict, the owner kindly responded: “I'm an inventor.” Perplexed that his answer didn't match my preconception; my prepared follow-up questions were nullified, paralyzing my next move. I stood there frozen like the ice cream I had sought minutes earlier. Sensing the opportunity for escape, the young Lamborghini owner took the driver's seat, closed his door, and started the engine. The loud roar of the exhaust swept through the parking lot, alerting all life forms to the Lamborghini's formidable presence. Whether I liked it or not, the conversation was over.

Knowing it might be years before such a sight would happen again, I took mental inventory of the automotive unicorn before me. I left awakened as a neural pathway suddenly smacked open in my brain.

The Liberation from Fame and Talent

What changed that day? I was exposed to the Fastlane and a new truth. As for the sweets I pursued that day, I never made it into the store. I turned around and went home with a new reality. I wasn't athletic, I couldn't sing, and I couldn't act, but I could get rich without fame or without physical talent.

From that point forward, things changed. The Lamborghini encounter lasted 90 seconds, but transcended a lifetime of new beliefs, directions, and choices. I decided that I would someday own a Lamborghini and I would do it while I was young. I was unwilling to wait until my next encounter, my next chance experience, and my next poster: I wanted it for myself. Yes, I retired the broomstick and got off my fat ass.

The Search for the Millionaire Fastlane

After the Lamborghini encounter, I made a conscious effort to study young millionaires who weren't famous or physically talented. But I wasn't interested in all millionaires, just those who lived a rich, extravagant lifestyle. This examination led me to study a limited, obscure group of people: a small subset of fameless millionaires who met these criteria:

 
They were living a rich lifestyle or were capable of such. I wasn't interested in hearing from frugal millionaires who lived “next door” in the middle class.
They had to be relatively young (under 35) or they had to have acquired wealth fast. I wasn't interested in people who spent 40 years of their life jobbing and penny-pinching their way to millions. I wanted to be rich young, not old.
They had to be self-made. I was broke. Silver-spoon winners of the lucky sperm lottery weren't invited to my lab.
Their riches couldn't be from fame, physical talent, playing pro ball, acting, singing, or entertaining.
I sought millionaires who would have started like me, an average guy without any special skill or talent, who, somehow, made it big. Through high school and college, I religiously studied this millionaire divergence. I read magazines, books, and newspapers and watched documentaries of successful businessmen; anything that provided insight into this small subset of millionaires, I absorbed it.

Unfortunately, this zest to uncover the secret to fast wealth led me to disappointments. I was a late-night infomercial marketer's dream come true-gullible, willing, and armed with a credit card. I bought into countless opportunities, from “one tiny classified ad” to the Asian real estate mogul and his sexy bikini-clad yacht vixens. None of them delivered wealth, and despite the slick commercials and their claims, the large-breasted models never materialized.

As I fed my appetite for knowledge and endured one odd job after another, my research uncovered some remarkable common denominators. I was confident I had uncovered all the components to The Millionaire Fastlane and fameless wealth. I was determined to become rich young, and the journey would begin after college graduation. Little did I know what lay ahead-the roadblocks, the detours, and the mistakes.

Resistance into Mediocrity

I graduated from Northern Illinois University with two business degrees. College was a five-year prenatal employee brainwashing with graduation as the overrated climax. I viewed college as indoctrination into corporate droneship; an unfulfilled marriage between me and a life of jobs, bosses, and being overworked and underpaid. My friends were hired for great jobs and bragged about it:

“I work for Motorola.”

“I got a job at Northwestern Insurance!”

“Hertz Rental Cars hired me as a training manager!”

While I was happy for them, my friends bought the lie that I later define as “The Slowlane.” Me? Thanks but no thanks. I sought to avoid the Slowlane like a medieval plague. My idea was to find the Fastlane, retire rich, and retire young.

Roadblocks, Detours, and Depression

Despite the confidence, the next few years fell horribly short of my expectations. I lived with my mother as I bounced from one business venture to another. Success was absent. Every month was a different business: vitamins, jewelry, some hot “turnkey” marketing program purchased from the back of a business magazine, or some goofy long-distance network marketing gig.

Despite the hard work, my record of failures grew, as did my mounting debts. Years passed and folly fermented as I was forced to take a series of Neanderthal jobs that crippled my ego: a busboy at a Chinese restaurant (yes, there are cockroaches in the back), a day laborer in the slums of Chicago, pizza-delivery boy, flower-delivery boy, dispatcher, limo driver, early morning newspaper delivery for the Chicago Tribune, Subway sandwich restaurant salesman (WTF?), Sears stock clerk (in the freaking drapery department), charity can collector, and house painter.

The only thing worse than these shitty jobs and their pay? The hours. Most required a predawn start … 3 a.m., 4 a.m… . if any ungodly hour was involved you could bet my job required it. Five years of college and I graduated to live like a dairy farmer. Hell, money was so tight that I prostituted myself to an older woman to pay for my best friend's wedding gift. Yes, cougars preyed in the 1990s.

Meanwhile, my friends progressed in their careers: They got their 4% yearly pay increases. They bought their Mustangs and Acuras and their 1,200-square-foot townhouses. They appeared to be content and lived the expectant life preordained by society. They were normal and I wasn't.

At 26 years old, I fell into depression; my businesses were not self-sufficient and neither was I. Seasonal depression gnawed at my fractured psyche. Chicago's rainy, dark, dreary weather made me crave the comfort of a warm bed and tasty pastries. Accomplishments were preceded by sunshine; so yes, I wasn't accomplishing much.

Tired of the high-school dropout jobs, I struggled to get out of bed, and doubt became the daily affirmation. Physically, emotionally, and financially exhausted from failure, I knew my results weren't indicative of my true self. I knew the Fastlane way to wealth but just couldn't get it executed. What was I doing wrong? What was holding me back? After all these years of research and education, complete with a closet full of books, magazines, and “quick start” videos, I was still no closer to wealth. I sat stalled on the sidewalk with the Fastlane nowhere in sight.

My deep depression sunk me into escapes, but instead of drugs, sex, or alcohol, I lost myself in books and kept studying fameless millionaires. If I couldn't be successful, I'd escape into the lives of those who were by absorbing books of the rich, autobiographies of the successful, and other rags-to-riches tales.

But it got worse. The people in my life gave up on me. My long-time girlfriend proclaimed, “You have no resolve.” She had a safe and secure job with a rental car agency, but we'd argue because she worked long hours for chump change, a whopping $28,000 a year. Of course, she rightly retorted with the facts: “You don't have a job, you make $27,000 less than me, and none of your businesses work.” She was a smart cat. Our relationship ended as she found courtship with a corporate radio ad executive.

And then there was my mother. For the first years after college, she cut me slack, but then came the failures and the goofy jobs. I begged patience and pleaded that wealth creation for a Fastlane entrepreneur operates under an exponential scale-those who hold jobs operate under a linear scale. Unfortunately, it didn't matter how great my charts and diagrams were; mom lost faith and I didn't blame her. Landing a man on Mars showed more promise.

Her directives dulled my drive. She'd shout, “Get a job, baby!” at least 20 times a week. Ugh, even today I shudder. That phrase, shouted in that voice, could exterminate cockroaches in a post-apocalyptic world. There were days I'd want to pound my head into a vise and crush my ears into deafness. “Get a job, baby!” bore into my soul; it was a motherly decree that put the trial to an end with the jury's unanimous verdict: “Failure, with a vote of no confidence.”

Mom suggested, “The grocery store is hiring a deli manager, why don't you go down there and check it out?” As if my college education and struggles for the last five years were to eclipse at the deli counter, cutting blocks of bologna and ladling potato salad to the neighborhood soccer moms. Thanks for the job tip, but I'll pass.

My Blizzard of Awakening

It took the pain of a cold Chicago blizzard to throw me into the crossroads of life. It was a dark, frigid night, and I was dead tired working as a limo driver. My shoes were drenched from wet snow while I fought a migraine headache. The four aspirins I chased two hours earlier had no effect. I wanted to get home but couldn't. I was stuck in a blizzard and my usual routes were snowed in.

I pulled to the shoulder of a faintly lit road and felt the cold chill of melted snow crawl up my legs from my toes. I put the limo in park and faced myself in dead silence with nothing but the fall of snowflakes to remind me how much I hated winter. I dazed at the cigarette-burned ceiling of the limousine and thought, “What the hell am I doing? Is this what my life has become?”

Sitting on an empty road in a blizzard in the dark of the night out in the middle of nowhere, I'd had it. Sometimes clarity washes over you like a peaceful breeze and other times it hits you over the head like a falling Steinway piano. For me, it was the latter. A sharp declaration overpowered my brain: “You cannot live another day like this!” If I was going to survive, I needed to change.

The Decision to Change

The harsh winter shot me into swift action. I decided to change. I decided to take control over something I thought was uncontrollable: my environment. I decided to relocate-to where, I didn't know, and at that moment, I didn't care.

In an instant, I felt powerful. The velocity of that choice infused my miserable existence with hope and a small drip of happiness. My failures evaporated and I felt reborn. Suddenly a dead-end road converged with a dream. It just wasn't about the decision to move; it was about taking control and knowing that I had a choice.

With this new power, I considered options that never had dawned on me. I asked a simple question: “If I could live anywhere in the country without restraint, where would I live?” I thought about the things important to me, and circled five cities on a map. The next month I moved, or I should say, escaped.

The Merge from Slowlane to Fastlane

I arrived in Phoenix with 900 bucks, no job, no friends, and no family-just 330 days of sun and a burning desire to hit the Fastlane. My possessions included an old mattress, a 10-year-old rusty Buick Skylark with no third gear, a few side businesses that made little cash, and several hundred books. Ground zero for my new life was a small studio apartment in central Phoenix that rented for $475 per month. I transformed my studio apartment into an office. No bedroom set, no furniture, just a mattress that invaded the kitchen. I slept with Pop Tart crumbs, a side effect of laying a mattress next to the kitchen counter.

I lived poor and without security, but I felt rich. I was in control of my life. One of the many businesses I created was a Web site. While driving that limo in Chicago, sometimes I'd sit idle for hours and had plenty of downtime to read books. I didn't waste that time. While I waited for clients at the airport or while they got obliterated at the local watering hole, I sat in the limo and read. And read. I studied everything from finance to Internet programming to more autobiographies of the rich.

The limo job did something special: it put me at the forefront of an unsolved need that needed a solution. One of my limo clients asked if I knew of any good limo companies in New York. I dropped the passenger off at the airport, but he left me with a seed of invention. If I lived in Chicago and needed a limo in New York, where would I go to find it? I didn't have a New York Yellow Pages handy, and surely no one else outside of New York did either. Faced with this question, I concluded that other travelers would have the same challenge. So I built a Website that would solve this problem.

Naturally, the Internet has no geographical limits, so this venture traveled to Phoenix well. But, like my prior businesses, it didn't make a lot of money. However, now it was different. I was naked in a strange town with no money, job, or safety net. I had to focus.

I aggressively marketed my Web site. I sent out emails. Cold-called. Mailed letters. I learned search engine optimization (SEO). Because I couldn't afford books, I visited the Phoenix library daily and studied Internet programming languages. I improved my Web site and learned about graphics and copywriting. Anything that could help me, I consumed.

Then one day I had a breakthrough; I received a call from a company in Kansas that raved about my Web site service and wanted me to design its Web site. While my focus wasn't web design, I obliged for a price of $400. They thought the price was a steal, and within 24 hours, I had built the company its Web site. I was ecstatic. In 24 hours, I had most of my rent payment. Then, coincidentally, not 24 hours later, I received another call from a company in New York asking for the same thing, a new Web site. I designed it for $600 and it took me two days to complete. I had another rent payment!

Now, I know this isn't a lot of money, but from poverty to $1,000 in three days felt like winning the 50-million-dollar Powerball. My first few months in Phoenix I gained traction and survived on my own for the first time in my life. No flower boy. No busboy. No pizza delivery. No sponging off Mom. I was purely self-employed! I was momentous acceleration, a wind at my back that foreshadowed a directional change into a new universe of wealth generation.

But something still wasn't right. Something was missing and I knew it. Most of my income was attached to my Web site designs and not my Web site advertising business. My income was tied to my time, the construction of Web sites. More Web sites jobs meant more time spent, and if I didn't work, my income would stop. My time was being sold off for money.

A New Wealth Equation Yields Wealth Acceleration

In the winter, a friend visited from Chicago. I showed him my web directory and he was amazed at all the traffic my service received. I'd get limo price inquiries from around the world, every minute of the day. How much for a limo from Boston to Worcester? How much from JFK to Manhattan? We'd scan my email inbox and it had 450 emails. Ten minutes passed, click refresh, and then there would be another 30 emails. Emails were pouring in several per minute. He suggested “Dude! Turn those emails into money somehow.”

He was right, but how? And how can it solve a legitimate need? He left me with this challenge and I was intent to solve it. Days later, I created a risky, unproven solution and I gave it a shot. What did I do? Instead of selling ad space I decided to sell leads. There was a problem though. This “revenue model” was new and groundbreaking. Additionally, I had to convince my customers that this method of business was beneficial to them, and I had no data to predict whether it could succeed. Remember, this was the late nineties, when “lead generation” in Web space was unfounded, at least until I went out and did it.

Nonetheless, I took the risk and implemented it. In the short term, I expected the change to kill my income and it did. I predicted its success would take months, if it worked at all. The first month the new system generated $473. Yikes. I built more Web sites to fill my income gap. The second month's revenues were $694. Third month, $970. Then $1,832. $2,314. $3,733. And it continued and continued. It worked.

My revenue, my income, and my assets grew exponentially but not without issue. As traffic grew, so did the complaints, the feedback, and the challenges. Improvements came directly from customer suggestions. Within days, sometimes hours, I'd implement customer ideas. I was known to answer my clients' emails within minutes, if not an hour. I learned to be receptive to the consumer, and business exploded.

The workdays became long and challenging. Forty hours was a vacation; typical workweeks were 60 hours long. Days and weekends blurred together. While my new friends were out drinking and partying, I was hunkered down in my tiny apartment, regurgitating code. I didn't know if it was Thursday or Saturday, and it didn't matter. The glory of the hard work was this: It didn't feel like work; in fact, I enjoyed it. I didn't have a job; I had a passion to make a difference. Thousands of people benefited from something I created, which addicted me to the process.

I made a difference!

I started to compile testimonials from clients.

“Because of you, my business grew ten fold.”

“Your Web site led me to my biggest corporate client.”

“Your company has been instrumental in growing my business.”

This feedback was wealth currency. I wasn't awash in riches quite yet, but I felt rich.

My “Faked” Shortcut to Wealth

In 2000, my telephone rang with a different type of inquiry. Technology startups called; they wanted to know if I would sell my business. In that year, the dot-com frenzy was in full force. Not a day went by without a tall tale about some dot-com millionaire who struck it rich by selling a tech property. Remember the fameless millionaires? This subset of the rich grew at a staggering rate, and the wave swelled my way.

So, did I want to sell my company? Hell yes! I had three offers to sell.

 
Offer 1: $250,000.
Offer 2: $550,000.
Offer 3: $1,200,000.
I accepted offer three and became a millionaire … instantly … well, almost.

It didn't last.

At the time, I thought $1.2 million dollars was a lot of money. It wasn't.

Taxes. Worthless stock options. I made mistakes and invested poorly. I bought a Corvette, hoping it would make me look rich. I thought I was rich, but I really wasn't. By the time it was over, I had less than $300,000 left.

The tech bubble arrived with unforgiving consequences, at least for buyers of my company. Against my recommendations, they made poor decisions, decisions that were good for short term revenue but horrific for long-term growth. They flushed money down the toilet as if there were an endless supply. Do we really need custom-branded water bottles? And logo T-shirts? Are these revenue generating actions?

Decisions were made slowly and by committee. Customers were ignored. Incredulously, most of the company's executive management had Harvard MBAs, proof that the business logic doesn't come with expensive initials after your name. Despite having $12 million in venture capital to buoy the storm, my Web site slowly started to die.

A few months later, near the cliff of bankruptcy, it was voted that my Web site would be dissolved, even though it was still profitable. Tech buyers dried up and stocks were in the tank. Everyone was on life support, including them.

Unwilling to watch my creation fade into oblivion, I offered to repurchase my Web site at a fire sale price-a mere $250,000, financed by its own profit. The offer was accepted and I regained control of the same company I had just sold a year earlier. Essentially, I'd operate the business, take the profit and pay down the carry-back loan. What was left over I reinvested into the business. With my company back in my control, a new motivation surfaced-to not only survive the dot-com crash, but to thrive.

The Birth of the Money Tree

The next 18 months I was revitalized to take my service to the next level. In hindsight, I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't just some lucky chap who got caught up in the dot-com boom. I continued to improve my Web site. I integrated new technologies and listened to customers. My new passion was automation and process.

As I streamlined my processes and systems, a slow and steady transformation took place. I worked less and less. Suddenly, I worked an hour a day instead of ten. Yet, the money rolled in. I'd go to Vegas on a gambling spree; the money rolled in. I'd be sick for four days; the money rolled in. I'd day trade for a month; the money rolled in. I'd take a month off; the money rolled in.

Then I realized what I achieved. This was the Fastlane. I built myself a real, living, fruit-bearing money tree. It was a flourishing money tree that made money 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and it didn't require my life for the trade. It required a few hours a month of water and sunshine, which I happily provided. Outside of routine attention, this money tree grew, produced fruit, and gave me the freedom to do whatever I wanted.

For the next few years I lived a life of laziness and gluttony. Sure, I worked a few hours a month, but mostly, I worked out, traveled, played video games, bought and raced fast cars, entertained myself with dating Web sites, gambled-I was free because I had a money tree that surrogated for my time and yielded a bountiful monthly harvest.

Since reclaiming my business, it grew meteorically. Some months I'd PROFIT more than $200,000. Yes, profit! A bad month was $100,000. I earned in two weeks what most people earned in an entire year. Wealth poured in and I was flying low on the radar … no fame. If you earned $200,000 every month, how would your life change?

 
What would you drive?
Where would you live?
What vacations would you take?
What schools would your children attend?
Would debt be a noose around your neck?
How fast would you become a millionaire? Four months or forty years?
Would grabbing a $6 coffee at Starbucks be an issue?
You see, when you generate this kind of income, millionaire status happens quickly. I was a multimillionaire by age 33. If I hadn't sold my business initially, I would have probably arrived there faster, but when you're eating cardboard noodles and someone tosses $1.2 million dollars in your face, not many would say, “Nah, I'll pass.”

I purchased my first Lamborghini and completed the dream prophecy birthed in my teens. Today, that same question I asked so many years ago is now sent my way almost weekly. And now I have an answer that I can give, and an answer I would have dreamed of hearing.

In 2007, I sold my company again. It was time to retire and think about my wildest dreams, things like this book and screenwriting. However, this time I entertained a variety of offers, ranging from $3.3 million to $7.9 million. After making millions over and over in a few short years, I accepted one of the full-cash offers and repeated the Fastlane process … in 10 minutes. That's how long it took to cash the six checks that amounted to millions.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
Fame or physical talent is not a prerequisite to wealth.
Fast wealth is created exponentially, not linearly.
Change can happen in an instant.
PART 2:
Wealth is Not a Road, But a Road Trip
CHAPTER 3: THE ROAD TRIP TO WEALTH

The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
~ Lao Tzu
Wealth Is a Road Trip, Not Just a Road!

While in college, my friends and I embarked on a spring break road trip from Chicago to South Florida. Naturally, as young men, we were gushing with anticipation and enamored with the destination: a sunny, crowded Florida beach of scantily clad, well-tanned, boozed-up college coeds.

Unfortunately, preoccupied with the destination, we failed to address the journey and the vehicle that we relied onto get us there. Eight hours into the trip, our old Dodge Duster started billowing smoke and clanked to a stop. With a ruptured gasket and no oil, our trip stalled on some country road in the middle of southern Illinois. Cows, manure stink, and cornfields, light years away from the sandy beaches of South Florida.

Sadly, for most, the journey to wealth often ends like my spring break road trip: stalled on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, left to ask, “How the hell did I get here?”

Like my spring break trip, to know and drive “the road to wealth” is not enough because the road itself is deficient in delivering wealth. Your pursuit of wealth stalls when your focus is the road and its destination, and not the roadtrip. Sure, the Fastlane might open a rapid road to wealth, but a successful road trip will demand your respect for all of the trip's vital tools.

My spring break stalled because we neglected the road trip and focused on the road. Oil? Roadmap? Engine tune-up? Screw it, just hit the road and head south! When you disregard critical road trip components, your engine redlines, oil burns stale, gas is squandered, and decade-long detours are encountered. When your focus is only the road, your journey is likely to stall and dreamy destinations never arrive.

Wealth's Illusionary Road

If wealth has escaped you, it's probably because you are “road-focused” and not using the whole formula. Sure, you might have bits and pieces: an ingredient captured from a book or two, another seeded by some “get rich” seminar or a hot stock tip from your broke college buddy. Unfortunately, these isolated ingredients can't create wealth and are likened to a car stuck on the road to wealth with an empty gas tank and a dead battery. You can't crack wealth's code with one variable in a multi-variable equation.

Wealth's road trip formula is like a recipe.

Imagine if I threw you into the kitchen with sugar and flour and ordered you to bake cookies. The feat is impossible because two ingredients alone don't make the entire formula. Forget the baking soda and the cookies won't rise. Remove the butter and the cookies taste awful. One forgotten or flawed ingredient and the process fails. Therein lies the fault with most wealth books: They are “road focused.” They specialize on the most titillating part of the formula-the sugar!

They tell you:

 
Buy foreclosures to get rich!
Buy a franchise and be your own boss!
Learn the mystical secret law and think positive!
Start a business!
Invest in real estate for passive income!
Trade your way to riches with currencies!
These strategies highlight various roads to wealth: the real estate road, the trading road, and the business road. They address nothing else. The failure is within the “else” because the else is the rest of the formula.

Millionaires Are Forged by Process, Not by Events

All self-made multimillionaires create their wealth by a carefully orchestrated process. They have and use the entire formula. Despite what you may have read or heard, wealth is not an event. Wealth doesn't drop from the sky or come from a game show. It doesn't ring the doorbell and await you on the front porch with balloons and a check the size of a refrigerator. Wealth does not chime from a machine with spinning bars, lemons, and cherries.

Wealth is a process, not an event. Ask any chef and they will confirm that the perfect dish is a series of ingredients and a well-engineered process of execution: a little of this, a little of that, done at the right time at the right place, and wham, you have a tasty meal. Wealth creation has the same method of execution-a fabricated accumulation of many disassociated ingredients into an assembled whole that has value and is worth millions.

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

Take a moment and reread that.

Process makes millionaires, and the events you see and hear are the results of that process. For our chef, the cooking is the process, while the meal is the event.

For example, an athlete who scores a $50-million-dollar contract to play pro basketball is an event from process. You see and hear about the big contract, the spectacular “get-rich” event, but you typically ignore the process that preceded the event. The process was the long, arduous road you didn't witness: The daily four-hour practices, the midnight pickup basketball games, the torn ligaments, the surgery and rehabilitation, the rejection of being cut from the junior varsity team, and the resistance to the neighborhood gangs, all fabricates the journey that forms process.

When a 20-year-old sells his Internet company for $30 million dollars, you read about it on a tech blog. The event is lauded and showcased for all to admire. Sidelined is the process-you didn't hear about the long hours of coding the founder had to endure. You don't hear about the cold dark days working in the garage. You don't hear about how the company was founded on credit cards at 21.99% interest. You don't hear about the founder and his rusty P.O.S. Toyota with 174,000 miles.

When J. Darius Bikoff founded Glaceau Vitamin Water in 1996 and 11 years later Coca-Cola offers him $4.1 billion for the company, the offer makes headline news around the world. What doesn't? The 11 years of struggle forged by a sharpened process. The billion-dollar offer is the event-the process is the struggle and the backstory.

The sale of my company climaxed in an event, but its fruition was carved by process. Outsiders see the nice house and the expensive cars and might think, “Wow, if I only could be so lucky.” Such a belief is a mirage of event over process.

All events of wealth are preceded by process, a backstory of trial, risk, hard work, and sacrifice. If you try to skip process, you'll never experience events. Unfortunately, as a media-driven, “I want it now” society, we spotlight and glorify the event, but usher the process behind the woodshed, carefully drying its sweat from the public cognition. However, if you search long and hard, you can always find the process, buried in another story or in the trailing paragraphs that glorify the event.

When you make your first million, it will be because of process and not some clandestine happenstance that just happened to waltz across your path. Process is the road trip to wealth: The destination shines as an event, but it's found by process. Yes, the elevator to success is out-of-order-you'll need to hit the stairs.

Wealth's Road Trip Formula

The formula for wealth's road trip is like a long road trip across the country. Success demands your focused exercise into the journey and the tools of that journey (process) as opposed to the destination (event). There are four constituent ingredients that make up the winning formula. They are:

Your Roadmap (Parts 3, 4, and 5)
The compass for the trip-your roadmap-is the guiding force behind your actions. Your roadmap makes up your financial belief system and your preconceived convictions about wealth and money. There are three roadmaps that will chart your course to wealth:

 
The Sidewalk
The Slowlane
The Fastlane
Much like a recipe, your roadmap will outline why, where, how, and what.

Your Vehicle (Part 6)
Your vehicle is you. No one can drive the journey but you. Your vehicle is a complicated system composed of oil, gas, an engine, a steering wheel, a windshield, horsepower, and an accelerator-all needing frequent tuning and maintenance to ensure peak efficiency during the road trip.

Your Roads (Part 7)
Your roads are the financial pathways you travel. For example, you can travel the job road, and within that road you have limitless choices: You can be an engineer, a project manager, a physician, a plumber, a truck driver. Then there are entrepreneurial roads: You can be a real estate investor, a retail storeowner, a franchiser, an Internet marketer, or an inventor. Just like a road trip across the country, roads are plentiful with millions of permutations.

Your Speed (Part 8)
Speed is execution and your ability to go from idea to implementation. You could sit in a Ferrari on an empty, straight road, but if you fail to hit the accelerator, you fail to move. Without speed, your roadmap has no direction, your vehicle stands idle, and your road mutates into a dead end.

The Road Trip Is Paved with Toll Roads

Successful Fastlane travelers are warriors who live and die on rough roads. Toll roads pave the road to wealth, and that toll can't be paid on Easy Street. For some of us, this is good news because the toll weeds out the weak and escorts them to the land of normal. If you resist the toll, wealth will resist you. Unfortunately, some feel that wealth's toll can be paid by entitlements or certain “prerequisites,” such as:

 
A functional family/good childhood
“Hard work” versus “smart work”
Educational accomplishments and credentials after your name
A stellar business plan
Venture capital
Being a certain sex, color, or age
Wishing, dreaming, and thinking positively
Knowing the right people in the right places
Attending the right schools
Being passionate or "doing what you love" or "what you know"
Nothing is further from the truth.

The Millionaire Fastlane doesn't care about these things. The Fastlane isn't a straight and smooth tree-lined street with white picket fences and children swinging on tires hanging from oak trees. It's a dark, deserted, unpaved road strewn with potholes that forces change and evolution. If the road trip to wealth were easy, wouldn't everyone be wealthy?

Expect a price to be paid. Expect risk and sacrifice. Expect bumps in the road. When you hit the first pothole (and yes, it will happen) know that you are forging the process of your unfolding story. The Fastlane process demands sacrifices that few make, to resolve to live like few can.

The Road Trip Can't Be Outsourced to a Chauffeur

We live in a society that wants to outsource everything, from our household chores to raising our kids. Outsourcing might work for a dirty bathroom, but it doesn't work for wealth. Wealth's road trip has no chauffeur and the toll can't be outsourced to a virtual assistant in India.

Had someone gifted a Lamborghini to me (or any dream) when I was 16 years old, I can guarantee you I wouldn't be where I am today. When someone grants you your desires without you exerting any effort, you effectively handicap process. The person I needed to become would have been dwarfed because process would have been outsourced. There is no wisdom or personal growth gained in a journey that someone else does for you. The journey is yours.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
Wealth is a formula, not an ingredient.
Process makes millionaires. Events are 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 events.
CHAPTER 4: THE ROADMAPS TO WEALTH

If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.
~ Lewis Carroll
The Compass for Wealth

If you don't know where you are going, how will you know if you get there? If your destination is undefined, undoubtedly you'll never arrive and likely end in a place you don't want to be. Wealth is found with a roadmap, not a dartboard.

Self-made millionaires don't become millionaires by stumbling into money, just as financial failures don't become failures by stumbling into poorness. Both are the direct result of the financial roadmap chosen and the actions and beliefs that evolve from that roadmap. Your financial roadmap is definitive to process, and it's the first tool for your road trip to wealth.

Your current financial situation is a product of your existing roadmap, whether chosen or not. Your roadmap guides your actions, and the consequences of those actions have created your financial life. How your life unfolds is determined by your choices, and these choices originate from your belief systems, and those belief systems evolve from your predisposed roadmap. If you want to change your life, change your choices. To change your choices you must change your belief system. Your belief system is defined by your roadmap.

How do beliefs affect finances?

Beliefs preceded choices, which precede action. For example, if you believe “rich people got rich investing in mutual funds” your actions will reflect that belief. If some financial guru tells you to cancel your credit cards because “all debt is bad,” you do it. If an author says, “$50 invested today will be worth $10 million in 40 years,” and you believe it, your actions reflect that belief.

Beliefs are powerful mechanisms that drive action, whether true or not. Our parents said Santa Claus was real and we believed it. We left cookies, we looked out the window for the flying reindeer, and we wondered how he got his big butt down the chimney. We believe what we're taught until we gather evidence to the contrary.

Your belief system acts like a roadmap, a compass that, if errant, can lead you to a lifetime of detours. Fictitious beliefs are lying roadmaps; they escort you down dead-end roads where “Wealth: Next Exit” never happens.

The Three Financial Roadmaps to Wealth

Plotting your course to wealth and building your process starts with an examination of your current financial roadmap and the alternatives. There are three financial roadmaps:

 
The Sidewalk Roadmap
The Slowlane Roadmap
The Fastlane Roadmap
Within these three roadmaps lies a psychology, a belief system that dictates actions relative to each roadmap. More importantly, each roadmap operates within a “universe” governed by a mathematical “wealth equation.” Whatever roadmap you choose, your universe for wealth creation will abide by each map's respective wealth equation. Additionally, each roadmap is naturally predisposed toward a specific destination. Those predispositions are:

 
The Sidewalk >- Poorness
The Slowlane >- Mediocrity
The Fastlane >- Wealth
Whichever financial roadmap you follow will predispose you to the destination inherent in the roadmap-the roadmap's “true essence.”

What is true essence?

If you play blackjack and win 15 consecutive hands, you violate the true essence of randomness. The natural state of randomness is to not deliver 15 wins in a row. When a wild African lion is tamed to perform in a Las Vegas magic act, the lion is trained to violate its true essence. The lion naturally wants to be wild, to hunt, to kill, to feed, to mate. The lion wants to revert to its natural self, which is why some flamboyant magicians get their heads bitten off. You have to be special to bend the laws of true essence.

Similarly, the roadmaps each possess a true essence that leads either to poorness, mediocrity, or wealth. For example, if you follow the Sidewalk, you'll likely end poor. While wealth is possible using any of the maps, finding it via a roadmap not predisposed to wealth is improbable.

Each roadmap contains key mindsets that act as signposts, or “mindposts,” that provide direction and guide actions, just like a roadmap. Those mindposts are:

Debt Perception:
Does debt control you or do you control your debt?

Time Perception:
How is your time valued and treated? Abundant? Fleeting? Inconsequential?

Education Perception:
What role does education have in your life?

Money Perception:
What is money's role in your life? Is money a tool or a toy? Plentiful or scarce?

Primary Income Source:
What is your primary means of creating income?

Primary Wealth Accelerator:
How are you accelerating your net worth and creating wealth? Or are you?

Wealth Perception:
How do you define wealth?

Wealth Equation:
What is your mathematical plan for accumulating wealth? What wealth equation defines the physics of your wealth universe?

Destination:
Is there a destination? If so, what does it look like?

Responsibility & Control:
Are you in control of your life and your financial plan?

Life Perception:
How do you live your life? Do you plan for the future? Forsake today for tomorrow? Or tomorrow for today?

The Roadmaps Operate within Distinct Universes

Each roadmap operates under a specific set of mathematical formulas, the wealth equation that determines the speed at which you can create wealth. Like Einstein's E=MC2, these formulas govern your wealth universe much like physics governs our universe. And because physics is bound by mathematical absolutes, so are your equations (and probabilities) to wealth.

The velocity of wealth acceleration evolves from your chosen roadmap's “universe,” and it is within these universes that your financial plan accelerates or stalls. Think of it as a railroad track, with each track having its own set of speeds, rules, and laws. You can hop aboard a track that allows speeds of 20 mph or speeds of 200 mph.

If you're unhappy in your financial situation, you can change your universe immediately by switching roadmaps. However, first, you have to understand the roadmaps to swap them. Let's dissect the three roadmaps in the next three parts of the Millionaire Fastlane: the Sidewalk, the Slowlane, and the Fastlane.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
To force change, change must come from your beliefs, and your roadmap outlines those beliefs.
Each roadmap is governed by a wealth equation and predisposed to a financial destination-Sidewalk to poorness, Slowlane to mediocrity, and the Fastlane to wealth.
PART 3:
Poorness–The Sidewalk

CHAPTER 5: THE SIDEWALK ROADMAP

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
The Sidewalk Roadmap

Most people are lifelong Sidewalkers, followers of the Sidewalk Roadmap. The Sidewalk is the plan most followed, a contract for a pleasurable today in lieu of a more secure tomorrow.

A Sidewalker exists in a state of one-something-from-broke: One album failure from broke. One business deal from broke. One gig from broke. One layoff from broke. On the Sidewalk, you're always “one something” from being homeless, bankrupt, or back living in your parent's basement.

Yes, some Sidewalkers actually earn large incomes, but none of them ever obtains true wealth. Don't let the contradiction fool you. The Sidewalk doesn't have an exit ramp to wealth-only a “DEAD END” sign signaling impending doom. The Sidewalker's road trip is a financial treadmill with a destination that typically ceases at bankruptcy or a crisis of reckoning.

What Is a Sidewalker?

A Sidewalker's financial destination doesn't exist. The plan is to have no plan. Surplus money is immediately spent on the next great gadget, the next trip, the next newer car, the next fashionable styles, or the next hot fad. Sidewalkers are carelessly trapped in a “Lifestyle Servitude” fed by an urgent, insatiable need for pleasure, image, and instant gratification. This perpetuates a cascading cycle that spins faster every month, increasing the velocity of the burden, forever enslaving the Sidewalker to their job or their business.

The Sidewalk is the road most traveled because it's the path of least resistance. Its siren song is instant gratification, and money is a hot potato that's quickly exchanged for the latest fix of the day. Want to witness how Sidewalkers live and think? Watch the television show Judge Judy for a few hours. Daughters suing moms for $100, people denying responsibility, consequence ignorance, people wanting rent for free. Seriously, the show should be renamed Life from the Sidewalk.

The Mindposts of a Sidewalker

The Sidewalker's roadmap contains behavioral characteristics that drive the Sidewalker's actions. These mindsets are signposts, or “mindposts” that guide the Sidewalker through life.

Debt Perception:
Credit allows me to buy things now! Credit cards, consolidation loans, car payments-these supplement my income and help me enjoy life today! If I want it now, I'm going to get it now.

Time Perception:
Time is abundant and I spend money like there's no tomorrow. Heck, I could be dead in two weeks, and you can't take it with you!

Education Perception:
I finished school when I graduated, hooray!

Money Perception:
If you got it, flaunt it! Why save for a rainy day? I spend every dime I earn and most of my bills are paid on time; isn't that being fiscally responsible?

Primary Income Source:
Whatever gig pays the most is what I will do. I chase money baby! It's all about the Benjamins!

Primary Wealth Accelerator:
Net worth? I hit the casino, I buy lottery tickets, and I have an active lawsuit against an insurance company … does that count?

Wealth Perception:
He who dies with the most toys wins!

Wealth Equation:
My formula for wealth is (Wealth = Income + Debt).

Destination:
What destination? I live for today and I can't be bothered about tomorrow.

Responsibility & Control:
Everything bad happens to me. The man is keeping me down. I am a victim. It's someone else's fault.

Life Perception:
Live today, to hell with tomorrow. Life is too short to plan any further than 30 days out. You can't take it with you! You're only young once! Besides, I'll hit it big someday.

The Disturbing Sidewalking Facts

While these hypothetical mindposts and their commentary might sound ridiculous, they aren't. Just look at the data. Read the reports. According to a US Census Bureau study conducted in 2000 (before the technology implosion of 2001 and the financial crisis in 2008), here are the disturbing facts:

 
A person under the age of 55 is 57% likely to have zero net worth, or negative net worth.
An estimated 62% of all households in the United States have less than $100,000 in net worth.
89% of all “under 35” households had a net worth less than $100,000.
A person in the 35–44 age range has a median net worth of $13,000 excluding home equity.
A person in the age 45–54 group has a median net worth of $23,000, excluding home equity.
In a 2007 Census Bureau survey, 61% of all people who earned income earned less than $35,000/year. This data unmasks the ugliness behind the Botox injections and the luxury German sedans: Sidewalkers are the majority. An estimated 60% of adults live their lives on the sidewalk. Yes, the world is full of financial illusionists.

Once the recent financial crises are factored in, the latest figures will devolve into chilling depths; I estimate that 85% of American families will have zero or negative net worth. But you can bet that they have 650 cable channels streaming into their five flat-screen HDTVs. If you're older than 35 and you have less than $13,000 in net worth let me be blunt: What you are doing isn't working. You need a new roadmap.

The Standard Sidewalker: Income Poor

“Income-Poor” Sidewalkers are the mainstream populous and reflect the lower to middle class. These Sidewalkers work for modest salaries and possess all the toys to show for it, but have little savings and no retirement plan. Their future is mortgaged to the hilt in favor of a lifestyle, with purchase affordability of any extravagance determined by the monthly payment. Every dime is spoken for: car payments, clothes or is sent to stave off the credit reaper.

If you live this way, you are driving at the financial redline on a narrow road bordering a cliff. There is little hope for Sidewalkers because their roadmap is corrupted by gratification, selfishness, and irresponsibility. This problematic disposition repels wealth and thrusts codependency on overburdened hosts: taxpayers, employers, friends, parents, and loved ones. Income-Poor Sidewalkers rationalize, “Life is short. Get out of my way or get run over!”

Sidewalking Symptoms: Are You on It?

You haven't learned much since graduating from high school or college.
“I'm done with school, hooray!”

You change jobs frequently.
“C'mon, MJ, I left because this other job pays more.”

You think people with money have it because they had rich parents, luck, or easier life circumstances than you.
“I've had it hard. If my parents would have paid for college I could have had a good job. I had a rough childhood. Those people with money have no idea.”

You are easily impressed and seek to impress.
“I love designer purses, German cars, Italian clothes, and purebred dogs. I work hard for my money and I deserve it!”

You have poor credit.
“I pay my obligations most of the time … it's just that I can't always pay on time because of situations outside of my control. Besides, the banks and utility companies are big, rich companies-they are the enemy.”

You put faith into politicians and government to change the system, instead of focusing on how you can change yourself.
“A bigger government is the solution. More regulation, more programs, and more services. The government should serve the people. Rich people should pay more in taxes for their good fortune-they can afford it and I can't!”

You view pawnshops, payday loan stores, and credit cards as a means of supplemental income.
“Groceries can't wait until the next paycheck-my family has to eat! Besides, there's a sale on crab legs for only $18 a pound.”

You have filed for bankruptcy at least once.
“It wasn't my fault-I overextended myself and didn't expect to lose my job. I didn't expect a recession. I don't feel bad about bankruptcy because it wipes my slate clean and I can start over fresh. I'm already pre-approved for another credit card.”

You live paycheck to paycheck.
“Wait, doesn't everyone?”

You don't alert a business when they give you incorrect change in your favor.
“Are you crazy? If a business makes a money mistake, I'm keeping it. It's not my fault their employee screwed up.”

You have a negative net worth and little, if no savings.
“What's the point? You only make 1% on a savings account anyhow, and look at all those people who invested in the stock market. Suckers! At least if I spend every dime I can't lose it!”

You have no car insurance, no health insurance, and you have unprotected sex with uncommitted partners.
“What can I say, I'm a risk taker. I know that insurance and birth control are important, it's just not a priority.”

You regularly gamble at the casino or buy lottery tickets.
“You gotta play to win right? Forget the odds-this time's different, I just feel it.”

You immerse yourself in alternate realities, including Web site celebrity gossip blogs, television, sports, video games, or soap operas.
“I just love American Idol, Lost, Survivor and Peoples' Court. Monday through Friday from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., I know exactly where I will be.”

You've lost money on “get rich” schemes.
“There's got to be an easy way to wealth. If I just buy this program/DVD series/late night infomercial product, I'll have the secret! Get rich easy is out there!”

Your family cringes when you ask for money or you quit asking because you know a lecture follows.
“Geez, it's just $500. My parents should take care of me until I die. Don't they see how hard I have it? I mean, look at this apartment! The granite countertops need to be replaced!”

Can you identify a behavioral pattern? These mindsets are indicative to the Sidewalk. Hopefully you're not feeling angry or defensive because that might indicate your beliefs are bred from the Sidewalk roadmap.

The Sidewalk's Gravitational Pull: Poorness

A recession is a bump in the road. How many people have lost their homes due to the current economic crisis? Their savings, their jobs, or their 401(k)s? The Sidewalk offers no protection, because you're naked and you can't absorb the hits. If you're hit by traffic, you're road kill. If you want to be unshakable on your financial roadtrip, you have to get tough and strap on a bulletproof vest and have a plan that transcends years, not days.

A life on the Sidewalk naturally pulls you to poorness. Because the Sidewalk is about the short term, it never works for the long term. Your future becomes a mortgage for a pleasant present.

Unfortunately, any bump in the road causes the loans of the Sidewalk to be called in: a recession, a job loss, an interest rate hike, a mortgage reset. Living on the Sidewalk can literally end in living on the sidewalk.

If you ask any derailed Sidewalker what spun his financial life out of control, he will quickly blame some external factor: I was laid off! My car broke down! I had no health insurance when I broke my foot! The judge ordered a 20% increase in alimony! When you rev your financial engine at the redline you're guaranteed to burnout. And then, ironically, your pleasant todays turn into horrible tomorrows: more work, more debt, and more stress.

I don't know your age, but let's be honest and ask the uncomfortable question: Can you seriously expect to retire on $13,000 in net worth? Or $113,000? Is it rational to think you can live off your home equity refinance? Have you thought beyond next week's paycheck? At what threshold do you realize that it's time to shift gears and reevaluate? Is there a threshold? Why would something that you've been doing for 5, 10, 20 years suddenly start working? Yes, insanity is doing the same things repeatedly and expecting different results.

The Sidewalk is not a road to wealth unless your strategy is casinos, lottery tickets, or some poison-your-spouse insurance scheme. Government aid, social security, charity, and “my parents will soon die and leave me a fortune” inheritance is not a financial plan! If you don't want to work at Kmart until you're 75 years old or you don't want to retire under a bridge in a cardboard box, you have to have a plan. Should life grant you another 50 years, what the heck is your plan?!

The first step to escape the Sidewalk is recognizing that you might be on it … then replace it with something that works!

Money Doesn't Solve Money Problems

Newsflash: The Sidewalk is money blind. It doesn't care about how much money you make. You can't medicate poor money management with more money. Yes, you can look filthy rich and still be riding the Sidewalk dirty.

Sidewalkers come from all walks of life, even those with the visual embodiments of wealth. They own businesses, they work high-paying careers like medicine or law, or they live as successful actors or musicians and earn big incomes. The common denominator remains consistent: There is no plan, no savings-spend more than you earn and trade a secure tomorrow for a “living large” lifestyle of today. A Sidewalker's wealth equation is determined by income plus debt, determined by available credit.

Wealth = Income + Debt

Sidewalkers create their lifestyle in direct proportion to their income and supplement that lifestyle with extensive use of debt. All Sidewalkers stress about paying their mortgage or rent, paying the utility bills, meeting the minimum payments on their credit cards-it's just what happens when there is no thought given past the happy hour after payday.

The Affluent Sidewalker: Income-Rich

When an income-rich Sidewalker goes broke it makes big news. Have you ever wondered how a rich rapper can go broke three years after his last album? Or why a famous actor needs to file bankruptcy a few years removed from the public spotlight? How does one transform an $80-million NBA contract into the oblivion of bankruptcy? I'll tell you: The Sidewalk where wealth equals income plus debt.

You don't have to look hard to find an “Income-Rich” Sidewalker. These are people who look rich, but in reality are one paycheck, one album, or one movie failure from broke. They make large incomes, with every dime spent on the next lavish accoutrement. Their lifestyle is accelerated by a big income and a big credit line. Yes, after their big income is spent, they buy more things they don't need with money they don't have, trusting fully that their large incomes will go on forever.

I laughably refer to Sidewalkers as “all credit cards.” They drive nice cars and wear expensive clothes, but are one blown gasket away from a total financial meltdown.

A member of the Fastlane Forum (TheFastlaneForum.com) posted this slice of Sidewalking overhead from a friend who works at a lending agency:

“A famous rapper was denied a loan for $60,000 … despite putting on his application that he was making $400,000 per month … yet, after having two hits in the past year, he must be broke. He also had a terrible credit score. Goes to show you, money management skills and having good credit are very important, even when you are having a ton of success.”
Since Income-Rich Sidewalkers earn big incomes, having designer clothes, accessories, and hobbies are commensurate with their earnings. For example, if an Income-Rich Sidewalker earns $20,000 a month, they feel justified in buying a pair of $300 jeans. The problem is that, just like Income-Poor Sidewalkers, an Income-Rich Sidewalker's spending isn't satisfied until they've burned through their entire monthly income plus some. It's an irrational way to live, as if these people fear that not spending the money will cause it to disappear. Earn $50,000 a month? Spend $60,000. Earn $250,000? Spend $350,000. The money outflow always outpaces the money inflow.

Someone who earns $2 million a year is susceptible to the same Sidewalking pitfalls as someone who earns $20,000! Financial discipline is blind to income. Lack of financial discipline resides on the Sidewalk and it doesn't care what you earn or what you drive.

The Income/Wealth Mirage of the Sidewalk

Notice how both income-poor and income-rich Sidewalkers share the same problems but different scenery. The reason is, more money is not a solution to poor financial management. Poor money management is like gambling at a casino, because, over time, the house always wins. Tossing more money at the deficiency is like trying to plug a hole in a dam with more water. More money doesn't buy financial discipline.

Those lacking financial discipline misuse money to delay the inevitable. If you can't live on $40,000 a year, you won't be able to live on $400,000 a year. While you might fret about your $900 mortgage payment, the income-rich Sidewalker frets about his $9,000 mortgage payment. The fretting is alike; the problems are the same, only the amounts differ. Only a mindset change regarding money is a solution to money problems. To change your mindset, you must change your roadmap. Get off the Sidewalk and stop equating wealth to income and debt.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
A first-class ticket to the Sidewalk is to have no financial plan.
The Sidewalk's natural gravitational pull is poorness, 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.
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.
CHAPTER 6: HAS YOUR WEALTH BEEN TOXIFIED?

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
~ Henry David Thoreau
Society's Toxification of Wealth

The lure of the Sidewalk evolves from society's poisonous and toxic corruption of wealth. Society has resolutely declared wealth's definition for you: “Wealth” is a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce, chartered jets, exotic trips to the South Pacific, a mansion on the bay, and a penthouse in Las Vegas. Society says wealth is six-carat diamond earrings, Aston Martins, and watches that cost more than most people's homes. Society says wealth is an Indecent Proposal to buy a romp in the sack with Demi Moore for $1 million based on the argument “the night will come and go, but the money will last a lifetime.” How am I doing? Sound like wealth?

Ask 10 people “what is wealth?” and you'll hear 10 different answers. Your “wealth” might be symbolized by a Lamborghini like it was for me, or it might be a farm on 70 acres in Montana and a stable full of race horses. If you think like most, “wealth” is instinctually defined by lavish luxury lifestyles.

Society has conditioned us to believe that wealth is an absolute construct perfected by material possessions. In fact, I've had to tailor the “hook” of this book to society's definition of wealth over the real definition. Why the misdirection? Like Pavlov's dogs, you've been trained to respond to it. You see, society has done a fabulous job of defining wealth for you, and unfortunately, they (again) have misled you. But don't worry; if you want luxury, the Fastlane can deliver.

The Wealth Trinity: What Is Wealth?

Wealth isn't as ambiguous as it may seem. The happiest moments in my life were when I felt true wealth. And guess what? It wasn't the day I bought my first Lamborghini. It wasn't the day I moved into a big house on a mountain or sold my company for millions. Wealth is not authored by material possessions, money, or “stuff,” but by what I call the three fundamental “F's”…

 
Family (relationships)
Fitness (health)
Freedom (choice)
Within this wealth trinity is where you will find true wealth and, yes, happiness.

Wealth is strong-spirited familial relationships with people. Not just your family, but with people, your community, your God, and your friends. At the end of the iconic movie It's A Wonderful Life we're given the final lesson: “Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.” This reflects on the importance of having your life shared with friends, family, and loved ones. Wealth is making a difference. Wealth is community and impacting the lives of others. Wealth cannot be experienced alone in a vacuum. Believe me, the richest moments of my life occurred when I was surrounded by a family of friends and loved ones.

Second, wealth is fitness: health, vibrancy, passion, and boundless energy. If you don't have health, you lack wealth. Ask any terminally ill person what they value. Ask any cancer survivor how they suddenly feel reborn and happiness is displaced from “stuff” to people and experiences. There is no price on health and vibrancy.

And finally, wealth is freedom and choice: freedom to live how you want to live, what, when, and where. Freedom from bosses, alarm clocks, and the pressures of money. Freedom to passionately pursue dreams. Freedom to raise your children as you see fit. And freedom from the drudgery of doing things you hate. Freedom is the liberty to live your life as you please.

Wealth Can't Be Bought for 60 Easy Payments

I vividly remember the day. After I sold my company in 2000, my attorney handed me my first installment payment, a check for $250,000.

“Yippee, $250,000! I'm rich! I made it!” I mistakenly gleamed.

And now it was time to announce it the world. I immediately envisioned fast cars, designer clothes, speedboats, and an entourage of bikini-clad women. I thought I was wealthy and I was going to flaunt it.

Unfortunately, that fantasy was miles from the reality. Yet, I tried. I bought a candy-apple red convertible Corvette. Sports car? Check. Designer clothes from Nordstrom? Check. I researched buying a speedboat until the Internet crash interrupted my orgasmic vision. I invested my newfound wealth in tech stocks and lost thousands of dollars. Within months, more than half of my “wealth” evaporated, and after a conversation with my accountant, another third was soon to be parted with, thanks to taxes.

Ironically, in my attempt to look wealthy, real wealth slid further away. With no job, no business, no income, and a small sum of money, I couldn't support my life forever, nor the wealthy lifestyle I envisioned for someone rich. I wasn't rich at all.

The Illusion of Wealth: Looking Rich

In pop culture, master illusionists of wealth are called “30K millionaires.”

If you haven't heard this phrase, it characterizes someone who maintains an image of a millionaire, yet has no net worth. These folks aren't hard to find. They drive entry-level BMWs with custom chrome rims, they wear fancy designer clothes with gothic cursive lettering from some faux French guy, and they congregate in the VIP section of the club ordering bottle service, of course, on credit. These folks broadcast like dashing debutantes with an extraordinary A-game, but behind all the flash-and-cash they're miserable magicians of the Sidewalk.

The problem with looking wealthy versus being wealthy is that the former is easy while the latter is not. Easy credit and long-term monthly financing options(make no payments for one year!) are tempting conduits to help you purchase the illusion of wealth. Society has led you to believe that wealth can be bought at a mall, at a car dealership, or on an infomercial. Like my initial spending spree when I cashed my first check, these appearances of wealth are supposed announcements to the world: “I'm rich!”

But are you?

When you finance an $80,000 Mercedes Benz over six years because that's all you could afford, that isn't wealth, but impersonation of wealth. You're fooling yourself, and it's a Fastlane detour. But don't jump the bandwagon yet; this isn't a sermon about how you can't spend money on pricey German sedans. Not at all. Wealth isn't embodied in a car but in the freedom to know that you can buy it. Freedom to walk into the dealership, know your price, pay cash, and drive away.

For a gift, I bought my brother a new Lexus. It was the easiest transaction I ever did.

I researched the car and determined the price I wanted to pay. I walked into the dealership with a cashier's check and told the salesman, “I have a cashier's check for $44,000 and I want to buy that car. I need a YES or a NO.”

Twenty minutes later, I owned a Lexus. This is wealth, not an impersonation of wealth.

When I drive to the gym, I pass a dilapidated apartment complex near the expressway. In the parking lot I always see the same car parked: a shiny black Cadillac Escalade with 22-inch chrome custom rims. Do you see the incongruity? You live in a crappy apartment but you drive a $60,000 car with $10,000 rims? Do I see monitors in those headrests and hear a 24-speaker stereo? Geez, 90 grand of image and two bucks of common sense. Wouldn't it be wiser if you focused on owning a nice house in a nice neighborhood instead of leasing the tightest car in the Marbella Gardens apartment complex? Priorities: Some want to look rich, while others want to be rich.

Faux Wealth Destroys Real Wealth

“Faux wealth” is the illusion of wealth without having it. It believes society's definition of wealth. It's not realizing that the pursuit of “faux wealth” does something terribly destructive: It destroys real wealth.

And as the chasm between real wealth and faux wealth expands, expectations are violated and misery creeps in. Like a Chinese finger-cuff, the more you try to look rich, the tighter the grip of poorness becomes. Wealth cannot be purchased at a Mercedes dealership, but the destruction of your freedom can.

Lost in wealth's translation is freedom. People flaunt the icons of wealth, but do not have freedom, and when you don't have freedom, it assiduously gnaws at the other true wealth elements, health and relationships.

Henry Sukarano buys his dream house in the Baltimore suburbs for $1.8 million. As a pharmaceutical representative for one of the leading drug makers, Henry's career is on the fast-track. His big home has everything he wants, including a pool, horse stables, and an impressive five-car garage. The purchase gives Henry a feeling of “I've made it!” . . . for about eight weeks.
Corporate politics and job cuts invade Henry's career, forcing him to work longer hours. He assumes other territories once covered by recently laid-off workers. Henry commutes two hours daily and is mandated to cover the entire Eastern seaboard. He's either on the road, in a plane, or sleeping. The long hours have disturbing clarity: Henry rarely “lives” at his dream home, and when he does, he spends it sleeping or recharging from the hustle of the workweek.
His relationship with his wife and kids suffers. His health declines as the stress of responsibility mount. Henry comes to a moment of truth: “I'm not living a dream, but my dream is living me.” Feeling trapped to the lifestyle illusion, Henry continues to work believing the ideology that wealth has its price.
Notice how the destruction of freedom attacks the other sibling wealth components. Unaffordable material possessions have consequences to our health and relationships. The irony of looking wealthy is that it is an enemy to real wealth: It destroys freedom, it destroys health, and it destroys relationships.

Foremost, The Millionaire Fastlane addresses the FREEDOM portion of the wealth trinity, because freedom offers protection to health and relationships. Only you can define your freedom and how you prefer to live. If you want the freedom to fly private jets, that's it. If you want the freedom to live a minimalist lifestyle, then that is it. Everyone's freedom is different! Within your personal definition, you'll find a big piece of your wealth puzzle, as opposed to society's version, which leads to Sidewalking purgatory.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
Wealth is authored by strong familial relationships,
fitness and health, and freedom-not by material possessions.
Unaffordable material possessions are destructive to the wealth trinity.
CHAPTER 7: MISUSE MONEY AND MONEY WILL MISUSE YOU

Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable.
~ Clare Boothe Luce
IF Money Doesn't Buy Happiness … Does Poverty?

People who declare, “Money doesn't buy happiness” have already concluded they will never have money. This old equivocation becomes the torchbearer to their poorness. And since money doesn't buy happiness, why save it? And then logic begs, if money doesn't buy happiness, does poverty? Does the guy who owns a Ferrari automatically have a small penis while the guy behind the wheel of a Honda must be well hung?

Go to Google and search the phrase “Money doesn't buy happiness.” Page after page concludes that money has no bearing on happiness. Should you be shocked that a Connecticut businessman earning a six-figure salary might be unhappier than a cattle-herder in Kenya? Absolutely not.

That fact is, these analyses fall short because they don't isolate the real thief of happiness: servitude, the antithesis of freedom. The irony is that when most people earn “more money,” it doesn't add freedom, it detracts. By creating Lifestyle Servitude, more money becomes destructive to the wealth trinity: family, fitness, and freedom.

According to Creighton University's Center for Marriage and Family, debt is the leading cause of strife for the newly married. Debt and Lifestyle Servitude keeps people bound to work and unbound to relationships.

A 2003 World Value Survey (worldvaluessurvey.com) found that the happiest people in the world have a tight sense of community and strong family bonds. After basic needs are met (security, shelter, health, food), our happiness quotient is most significantly impacted by the quality of our relationships with our partners, our family, our friends, our spirituality, and ourselves.

If we are too busy chasing the next greatest gadget to strike down the competitive opulence of the Joneses, we finance our misery. The World Value Survey concluded that “consumerism” is the leading obstacle to happiness.

The fact is, there are many millionaires and well paid career folks who are absolutely miserable, and it has nothing to do with the money. It has to do with their freedom. Money owns them, instead of them owning their money. The well salaried workaholic who is never home to strengthen the relationship with his wife and kids is likely to be less happier than the poor farmer in Thailand who spends half his day tending to his fields and the other half with his family.

In 2009, the popular American talk show host David Letterman went public with an extortion plot by a producer from another CBS show. The men who perpetrated the alleged $2 million blackmail scam reportedly earned $214,000 a year. Yet the man claimed to be in severe financial ruin, partly due to spousal alimony payments of nearly $6,000 per month. Was this extortionist trying to blackmail a celebrity because he wanted to “buy happiness?” What was his real motive? I contend that he was trying to buy freedom because his debts kept him contained in servitude. Would $2 million have made a difference? Perhaps in the short term, but not in the long term because his relationship with money was already corrupted. A source close to the investigation said, “He just didn't want to work anymore.” In other words, he craved freedom.

Normalcy Is the Rat Race, a Modern-Day Slavery

Why am I wealthy, versus the guy stuck in morning traffic driving to work? I have freedom. I wake up and do what I want. I pursue dreams. I write this book without worrying about how many will sell. I hop a plane to Las Vegas for two weeks without worrying about jobs, bosses, or unpaid electric bills. Freedom is fantastic.

Yet my lifestyle is not “normal.” Like wealth, society, through its “Get Rich Slow” mandates, has defined “normal” for you. Normal is waking at 6 a.m., fighting traffic, and working eight hours. Normal is to slave at a job Monday through Friday, save 10%, and repeat for 50 years. Normal is to buy everything on credit. Normal is to believe the illusion that the stock market will make you rich. Normal is to believe that a faster car and a bigger house will make you happy. You're conditioned to accept normal based on society's already corrupted definition of wealth, and because of it, normal itself is corrupted. Normal is modern-day slavery.

I'm amazed that most people perilously operate one crisis away from financial ruin. We have become a nation of undisciplined spenders and consumers. We have become a nation where unfettered spending and material extravagance write our obituaries in the ink of stress. If you're held hostage to your lifestyle, you aren't wealthy, because you lack freedom.

The Proper Use of Money

Money doesn't buy happiness when it's misused. Instead of money buying freedom, it buys bondage. “Wealth” and “happiness” are interchangeable, but only if your definition of wealth hasn't been corrupted by society's definition. Society says wealth is “stuff,” and because of this faulty definition, the bridge between wealth and happiness collapses.

When you don't feel wealthy, you're likely to try to conjure that feeling. You buy icons of wealth to feel wealthy. You crave feelings, respect, pride, and joy. You want admiration, love, and acceptance. And what are these feelings supposed to do for you? You expect deliverance into happiness. You want to be happy!

And that's the bait. We equate the corrupted definition of wealth with happiness, and when it doesn't deliver, expectations are violated and unhappiness is the consequence.

Used properly, money buys freedom, and freedom is one parcel in the wealth trinity. Freedom buys choices. 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 deleterious effects of working a hated job five days a week for 50 years.

Money secures one agent of the wealth formula, freedom, which is a powerful guardian to wealth's sibling ingredients: health and relationships.

 
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, with financial validation removed from the equation.
Are any of the above likely to make you happy? I bet they will. They certainly won't make you unhappy.

Lifestyle Servitude: The Trap of the Sidewalk

Sidewalkers are embroiled in Lifestyle Servitude, where life is forced into a rat race, a constant tug-of-war between lifestyle extravagances and work, a self perpetuating merry-go-round of work for income, income for lifestyle, and lifestyle for work. Wherever there's Lifestyle Servitude, there's a systematic erosion of freedom.

 
Work creates income.
Income creates lifestyle/debt (cars, boats, designer clothes).
Lifestyle/debt forces work.
Repeat …
I learned about Lifestyle Servitude in my early 20s. After college graduation, I took a hellacious job as a construction laborer in Chicago and fought city traffic daily. The pay was more than I had ever earned at my young age, and with my increase in income, I felt wealthy. So what did I do? I elevated my lifestyle and financed the illusion of wealth. I bought my first sports car, a Mitsubishi 3000GT.

It didn't take long for me to realize that my dream car wasn't an icon of wealth, but a parasite that fed on my freedom. I hated my job, it was stressful, and it drained my energy, leaving my entrepreneurial dreams tethered. I couldn't quit. I had responsibilities: car payments, gas, and insurance. Because of my obligations to “stuff,” I had sentenced myself to imprisonment in a job I loathed.

Yet, this type of servitude is normal. We're taught to strive for the latest and greatest regardless of consequence. It leaves us indentured for years, condemning us to lifestyle imprisonment… and the more stuff you buy that you can't afford, the longer your jail sentence becomes.

If You Think You Can Afford It -You Can't

Think about the last time you bought a pack of gum. Did you fret over the price? Did you ask, “Hmmm, can I afford this?” Probably not. You bought the gum and it's done. The purchase had no impact on your lifestyle or your future choices. To a rich man who walks into a dealership and buys a six-figure Bentley without thought, the acts are the same. Affordability is when you don't have to think about it. If you have to think about “affordability,” you can't afford it because affordability carries conditions and consequences.

If you buy a boat and resort to mental gymnastics over affordability, YOU CAN'T AFFORD IT. Sure you can assuage affordability and make outlandish arguments, often starting with…

“I can afford this as long as …
… I get that promotion.”
… my mortgage doesn't adjust.”
… my stock portfolio makes another 10% this month!”
… my sales forecasts are double.”
… my wife finds a job.”
… I cancel my health insurance.”

This self-talk is a warning that you can't afford it. Affordability doesn't come with strings attached. You can bluff yourself but you can't bluff the consequences.

So how do you know if you can afford it? If you pay cash and your lifestyle doesn't change regardless of future circumstances, you can afford it. In other words, if you buy a boat, pay cash, and are NOT be affected by unexpected “bumps in the road,” you can afford it. Would you regret a gum purchase if you lost your job a week later? Or if your sales forecast was slashed by 50%? Nope, it wouldn't make a difference. This is how affordability is measured against your level of wealth.

To overcome wealth impersonation, know what you can and can't afford. There is nothing wrong with buying boats and Lamborghinis if you can truly afford them. There is a time and a place to indulge. The Millionaire Fastlane is designed to bring you to that place.

The Bait of Lifestyle Servitude

The siren call of Lifestyle Servitude is the false prophet of feel-good-instant gratification and immediate pleasure. Wouldn't it be nice if everything that felt good were good? Chocolate? That super-sized fast-food combo meal? Sunbathing? Smoking? Unfortunately, short-term feel-good is often long-term bad. Instant gratification is a populous plague and its predominant side effects are easily spotted: debt and obesity.

Many Americans are fat because the easiest (and cheapest) instant gratification comes from food. When you plop your butt on the recliner and maul through a can of Pringles, you choose pleasure now in lieu of pain later. If you live with your parents and you finance $45,000 over 72 months for a new Mustang based on a$31,000-a-year bartender's wage, you let instant gratification win, and Lifestyle Servitude ensues.

Wealth, like health, isn't easy and is cut from the same fabric. Their processes are identical. They require discipline, sacrifice, persistence, commitment, and yes, delayed gratification. 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. Both demand a lifestyle shift from short-term thinking (instant gratification) to long-term thinking (delayed gratification). This is the only defense to Lifestyle Servitude.

Look for the Hook!

Instant gratification is the bait and Lifestyle Servitude is the hook. The advertising industry is on a great fishing expedition, and their goal is to hook you. Their juicy bait? That shiny new car, the bigger house, the designer clothes, the “got-to-have-it now” product. Every day you are bombarded with instant gratification's bait …

“You can't survive life without this product!”
“Buy now and life will be so much easier!”
“You are not a success until you own one of these!”
“Imagine how envious the neighbors will be when you buy this!”

These messages share one commonality: You're their prey and the peddlers don't care if you can afford it or not. Defend yourself by exposing the hook beneath the bait: the bucket of bondage which is Lifestyle Servitude.

When instant gratification entices you to bite the bait, you become a casualty of the hook: Lifestyle Servitude. Instead of you owning your stuff, your stuff owns you. Know wealth's enemies and what actions invite those enemies into your life. Wait until you can truly afford your lifestyle luxuries … and in the Fastlane, that day can come sooner rather than later.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
Money doesn't buy happiness because money is used for consumer pursuits destructive to freedom. Anything destructive to freedom is destructive to the wealth trinity.
Money, properly used, can buy freedom, which can lead to happiness.
Happiness stems from good health, freedom, and strong interpersonal relationships, not necessarily money.
Lifestyle Servitude steals freedom, and what steals freedom, steals wealth.
If you think you can afford it, you can't.
The consequence of instant gratification is the destruction of freedom, health, and choice.
CHAPTER 8: LUCKY BASTARDS PLAY THE GAME

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Psst … Wanna Get Lucky?

I once overheard someone call me a “lucky bastard.” What a sad, delusional Sidewalking belief. I'm not lucky; I'm a player of the game. While Mr. Lucky-Bastard-Hater uttered that under his breath and sat his ass in the dugout, I was at the plate taking swings.

Joe is a Sidewalker and believes luck is required to get rich. He spends his days working construction and his evenings commenting on gossip blogs, playing videogames, and watching TV. He has given up on his dreams of financial independence based on his ideas of luck. “I'm just not a lucky guy,” he laments.

Joe's brother Bill also has a job in construction, except Bill spends his evenings surfing the Internet, researching the newest practices of inventing and engineering. Bill's dream is to be an inventor and has created four prototypes of inventions in various fields. Bill also spends his vacation time at trade shows and marketing seminars. While Joe is killing ogres and wizards in the latest dungeon of doom, Bill is out of the box of nothingness and exposing himself and his inventions to the world.

Who's going to “get lucky”?

Self-Made Millions Arise from Self-Made Luck

Mark Cuban, billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team (http://www.blogmaverick.com) told a telling tale of luck in regards to his success. Mark recalls the struggles of his early successes before his big sale to Yahoo for $5.9 billion. In each story, Mark remembers how people attributed his success to luck … lucky to sell his first company, MicroSolutions … lucky to make money trading in the technology boom … and lucky to sell his company to Yahoo for a few billion. Notice how events are quickly reasoned to be luck and process is swept underneath the rug.

Cuban understands the dichotomy that most don't: Process creates events that others see as luck. He goes on to comment how nobody mentioned luck when it came time to reading complicated software texts or Cisco router manuals or sitting in his house testing and experimenting with new technologies. Where was luck then?

“Rich people got lucky” is a Sidewalker's creed and a disempowering belief that strips you of your free will. While luck can create riches by way of lotteries, casinos, and rich parents, it rarely creates long-lasting wealth. To take advantage of The Millionaire Fastlane understand that luck is a product of process, action, work, and being “out there.” And when you are “out there” you stand a chance at being in the right place at the right time.

There are right places and wrong places.

The right place isn't on your sofa watching American Idol or slapping greenbacks into thongs at Betty's Booty Cabaret, or down at the neighborhood bar getting jacked-up on Bud Light while watching the Cubs lose another game. If you want to be at the right place at the right time you indeed have to be at the right place-and the right place knows which places are the wrong places.

If you aren't off the Sidewalk taking action and engaging in process, you will never realize luck. Luck is always perceived to be a matter of event: you win the lottery, you win a sweepstakes, or you find a 200-year-old painting in the attic worth millions. Again, more falsities. Like wealth, luck is not an event but an aftereffect of process. Luck is the residue of process.

Sidewalkers love events but hate process. It's only natural for Sidewalkers to assume wealth is luck, because they believe wealth is an event.

A member of the Fastlane Forum (TheFastlaneForum.com) recently posted that Bill Gates got lucky. I had to disagree. Luck didn't create Windows. Luck didn't create a company. Luck didn't create repetitive, concerted action toward a specified purpose. When you consistently act and bombard the world with your efforts, interacting with the waves of others, stuff happens. And that stuff? Sidewalkers interpret it as luck, when it is nothing more than action engaged with better probabilities.

Luck occurs when probability moves from impossible to likely. For our two brothers in construction, who is going to get lucky? The brother who exposes his inventions to the world bends probability in his favor. His lazy brother does not. Force your process out into the world and you can defy the odds of “being in the right place at the right time.”

When I think of luck, I think about poker players. Mistakenly, their craft is construed as luck, while career poker players will affirm it isn't luck, but systematic analytics and player psychology. The best poker players in the world are superior statisticians and interpreters of human behavior. Does luck play a role? Sure, but the role is minor, while player competency siphons the majority's bankroll. To tell a great poker player “you're lucky” is to hurl an insult. Likewise, to ascribe luck to a self-made millionaire's success is to perform the same insult.

To realize luck, engage in processes where better probabilities exist. Luck is introduced when you play. When life is played to win, luck shows its face. Unfortunately, Sidewalkers assign luck to events of faith-luck not engaged by process. If you want luck, engage in process, because process raises events from the ashes.

Renounce the “Big Hit” as Your Financial Plan

Sidewalkers loathe process, so their financial plan omits standard process (such as saving or budgeting) and relies on events. If you believe that luck is the sole source of wealth, you'll gravitate toward events of luck-a diligent quest to finding “the big hit.”

What's a big hit? Big hits are sudden miracles that create wealth fast. Lotteries, casinos, poker tournaments, heck, even frivolous lawsuits and defrauding the government are considered avenues to “the big hit.” In effect, “big hits” are attempts to bypass the wealth journey and start at the finish line. It's the removal of your yellow brick road and the sharpening lessons that come from it.

Sidewalkers seek “big hits” because their belief systems tell them wealth is an event. Unfortunately, big hits are long shots and violations of true essence. Do you believe in miracles? Sidewalkers do.

Why do reality TV competitions such as American Idol attract so many people when most of the contestants suck? These people are searching for that elusive “big hit.” While the talented make it through (they have talent because they have process), the disqualified bemoan off the set, blaming Simon Cowell, the microphone, or some other insignificant factor for their failures. Singing Someday Over the Rainbow a few times in the shower doesn't make a process.

Getting Swindled: A Sidewalker's Temptation

Order now for just three easy payments of $39.95 and I will teach you how to make millions working just 40 minutes a week while hanging upside down on a trapeze in your basement. Yes folks, it's that easy.

But wait, there's more!

Order today and, as a bonus, you'll receive photos of this buxom woman right here next to me. Doesn't she look great? When you start making money like me, ladies like her will be ringing your doorbell at all hours of the day. Yes, folks, this system is awesome and it won't be here for long. Act now!

The infomercial guru knows exactly what he's doing. He targets Sidewalkers, who are magnetized to events and the big hit. Why advertise at 2 a.m.? That's when Sidewalkers congregate, because they're either unemployed or watching reruns of Seinfeld. Believe me, Fastlane drivers aren't up at 2 a.m. because of some boob tube rerun; they're forging process and muscling toward their destination.

Sidewalkers are ripe for swindling because they seek events and want to avoid process. When this becomes ingrained into your mindset, infomercial pitches suddenly become the evening's entertainment.

Disembarking the Sidewalk: The Three Anchors

Use logic.

Think for a moment.

If you came across a magic “system” that easily made millions in a few short months, what's the first thing you'd do? Of course you know, and I know! You'd hire a direct marketing firm, package your secret into five CDs and one quick-start video and sell it on the Home and Garden Channel at 3 a.m. on Tuesday night. Yes, that's the first thing I'd do if I had the billion-dollar secret! Screw traveling the world, forget charity, and dump the idea of making more millions. Nope! Let's package this baby and tell the world for three easy payments of $39.95!

Do people believe the pitch or do they desperately seek the easy event? The art of selling moneymaking “systems” on TV infomercials is a strong Fastlane. Unfortunately, the systems being sold aren't Fastlane or as profitable as the act of selling the system itself. How do gurus get away with this madness? Easy. A Sidewalker's mindset is anchored in three beliefs that keep them trapped there and vulnerable to moneymaking scams:

Belief 1: Luck is needed for wealth.
Belief 2: Wealth is an event.
Belief 3: Others can give wealth to me.

Here is where these beliefs fail. First, wealth is not about luck but about process improving probabilities. Second, events of wealth, like lotteries and casinos, are long shots and not process. And finally, only you can deliver yourself to true wealth. There is no chauffeur and there is no moneymaking program sold on TV that will escort you. These deceptions keep Sidewalkers anchored in good company with the majority, awake at 2 a.m. on the couch thinking they're one phone call away from making millions because TV's wealth chauffeur says so.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
Like wealth, luck is created by process, not by event.
Luck is created by increased probabilities that are improved with the process of action.
If you find yourself playing the odds of “big hits,” you are event-driven, not process-driven. This mindset is conducive to the Sidewalk, not the Fastlane.
“Get Rich Quick” infomercial marketing is a Fastlane because savvy marketers know that Sidewalkers place faith in events over process.
Moneymaking “systems” are rarely as profitable as the act of selling them to Sidewalkers.
CHAPTER 9: WEALTH DEMANDS ACCOUNTABILITY

Responsibility is the price of greatness.
~ Winston Churchill
Hitchhikers Don't Drive!

One anchor to the Sidewalk is to entrust your financial plan to others, to believe that there is a chauffeur to wealth and that someone else can drive that journey for you. This mindset makes you vulnerable to victimhood.

Imagine if you hitchhiked across the country. There's a decent chance you'd never make it to your destination. You could climb into a psycho's car that decides to take you on an unintended detour. You could encounter a murderer who slashes your throat and dumps you in a roadside ditch. Hitchhiking is inefficient and dangerous!

Yet, the Sidewalker's manifesto is predicated on hitchhiking: faith unto others, and when things don't work out as intended, blame unto others. After faith in luck and events, blame is the third anchor to the Sidewalk.

Back in the late 80s, when I was a teenager, my mother chummed with friends at a local restaurant. Within that friendship circle several of them put their life savings into an investment innocuously named “The Fund.” These folks-some respected businessmen-raved about this investment, claiming impressive monthly returns. These friends encouraged my mother, as a struggling single mom, to invest. Mom was no dumb cookie. She asked questions and didn't like the answers. Something didn't “feel” right. Logic tickled her inner brain. Ultimately, she passed on the investment and it remained outside her world.

Years later “The Fund” made headline news. An investment company had bilked millions of dollars from investors. The investment company was exposed to be a Ponzi scheme, and several swindled investors committed suicide, including the perpetrator. This investment company was none other than that great investment mother declined years earlier-“The Fund.”

The Law of Victims

The Law of Victims says you can't be a victim if you don't relinquish power to someone capable of making you a victim. When you bequeath control to others, you essentially become a hitchhiker with no seat belt. You take the passenger seat in a stranger's car, which could be murderous to your financial plan. And when that happens, you're vulnerable to joining the ranks of victims.

The road to victimhood is through denial: First responsibility, then accountability.

People who don't take responsibility are victims. Some of them are born victims and, instead of trying to improve their hand, they fold and give up. For them, everyone has the solution to their problems but them. And their problems? Not their fault. Nope, someone else is to blame. Instead of looking within, they look outward and project responsibility to some other entity. Victims are Sidewalkers who refuse to take the driver's seat of their own lives and live under a dark cloud of “theys” reflective of a “me against them” attitude.

“They laid me off.”
“They changed the terms.”
“They cheated me.”
“They didn't tell me.”
“They raised my rent.”
“They raised my interest rate.”

Invariably, all these “theys” are self-imposed. If the landlord raised your rent, is it his fault you decided to live there and you didn't read the lease agreement? If the company laid you off, is it their fault you chose to work there? Was it my fault that I was a broke 25-year-old stuck in a blizzard in a limo on the side of the road? It was.

There was a recent labor union rally against Wal-Mart from employees disgruntled with the retailer's poor wages. A 33-year-old employee named Eugene complained about his employer arguing that he spent three years unloading trucks for $11.15 an hour, which was below the retail industry average of $12.95 an hour. His grievance? He can't afford a car or Wal-Mart's health insurance.

Wow, how disturbing. Was someone arrested? Seriously, someone should arrest the man who put the loaded gun to Eugene's head forcing him to work at Wal-Mart for a below-market wage! Give this guy a bitch-slap. No one forced him to work at Wal-Mart; he works there because he chose to work there. Hey, Eugene, if you're tired of making $11 an hour, raise your value to society. Get your ass over to the library. Wal-Mart can't offer low wages if they don't have an endless supply of victims like you.

You see, when a financial adviser promises you 14% guaranteed income from a bank certificate of deposit and you later discover that he scammed you, it's your fault. You didn't do the diligence. You didn't investigate. You ignored the tickle of logic in your brain. You are a victim of your own malfeasance.

The Politics of Hitchhiking

Sidewalking hitchhikers are a major constituency in all countries. These people seek the easy life yet want someone else to pay for it. They're lifetime hitchhikers. They believe the government (or some other entity) should do more for them. They are victims of the system. They are victims of life because life dealt them a bad hand. They vote for whatever politician promises them the world at no cost. Free healthcare. Free education. Free gas. Free mortgages. Wow, give me a ballot!

John F. Kennedy's “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” has maligned into “What can my country do for me?” While I can't comment on the societal deterioration outside of the United States, within the last 20 years Sidewalking has become a way of life in America. Americans once loyally proclaimed, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Now we just say, “Give me.”

As I write, the economy is in a tailspin. The housing market crashed, lending dried up, and millions have lost their savings. How did we get here? It isn't complicated: We relied on “others” to make financial decisions for us. We ignored the fine print. We didn't read the contract. We didn't read the legislation. We made government an insurance policy. As a society, history is doomed to repeat if we continue to repeat the same behavior.

I'm a minor participant in the recession. Sure, my home declined in value but that's OK because I don't use my home as a wealth tool! Yet the gurus say “your home is your greatest investment!” Baloney! When the markets crashed, I didn't lose a lot of money because the markets weren't my wealth acceleration vehicle! The Fastlane is about control, and if you live like a Sidewalking hitchhiker, you have no control.

On a public forum in August 2005, I predicted the forthcoming housing bust and outlined my theory with seven reasons I thought so. As it turns out, I was correct, and that truth crystallized because I chose to make financial decisions for myself. I didn't rely on the pontificators at CNBC who rapaciously declared that housing was safe. I didn't rely on the mainstream media. I didn't rely on others. I relied on me. I was driving, not hitchhiking. And the beauty of driving is something that escapes most people: responsibility.

Wealth Demands Responsibility, Followed by Accountability

Responsibility is the forefather to accountability, but one doesn't evidence the other. When you admit responsibility to over drafting your checking account yet do it again next week, you're not accountable. When you admit responsibility to fathering a child out of wedlock, yet continue to engage in that behavior, you're not accountable. When you take responsibility for having your purse stolen but flaunt it on the table in open view, you're not accountable.

Accountability is being culpable to your consequences and modifying your behavior if need be to prevent those consequences. You can be responsible while not being accountable. A Fastlane Forum user does a great job distinguishing between responsibility and accountability:

What kills me is when people make the same piss-poor choice multiple times but then claim to be responsible. It's easy to be “responsible” when responsible means just walking away. I've seen single parents who pledge to be “responsible” for the wild oats they've sown, only to occasionally send a check in the mail. I've seen people walk away from homes, claiming to be “responsible ”for their actions, only to buy another home they can't afford. I've seen people being “responsible” for the actions their drinking and driving caused only to do it again!
I am sick and tired of people being “responsible!” I want people to be accountable. People need to think before they act. Own their choices before they make them. I am okay with people making mistakes-but freaking own that you made a mistake and learn from it. That's what true accountability and responsibility is all about.
A friend of mine recently had her identity stolen. As we dined at a restaurant she bellyached about the nightmarish ordeal. Determined to find the cause of her problem, I stopped her contempt midstream and asked a few questions. I wondered, was she a victim, or not being accountable?

I asked, “How did your identity get stolen?”

“My purse was stolen in Mexico.”

“How did that happen?” I probed.

“I was at a restaurant and someone swiped it”

“Oh? Was your purse laid out, wide-open on the table, like it is now?”

She glanced at her purse and got my point. As we dined, her purse sat on the tabletop in open view of everyone. Any thief could easily snatch her purse and run. She looked at me, scoffed, and then grabbed her purse and secured it to her lap.

A victim? Or not holding herself accountable? Her problem was caused by a bad choice-the choice to not safeguard her purse. And even after this costly lesson, she still didn't understand the power of being accountable. If she were accountable to the error, her purse wouldn't lie exposed on the table as a beacon of opportunity to thieves, but safe in her lap.

Immunize Yourself from Victimization

Stop being a victim by taking responsibility, followed by accountability. In 2006, I bought my dream home in Phoenix, Arizona, overlooking a gorgeous mountain range. The home had one of the best views in Phoenix but needed a substantial remodel. A new friend recommended a general contractor and I hired the contractor without investigation, no diligence, no reference check, no license investigation, nothing.

Duh.

What should have taken eight months rotted into a three-year ordeal, a nightmare that framed the worst decision of my life. The contractor was grossly incompetent and an idiot. Yet, I was to blame. I accepted both responsibility and accountability because I hired the contractor. To plunder a line from Star Wars, slightly modified, “Who's the idiot, the idiot himself or the idiot that hires the idiot?”

But I wasn't a victim because I first was responsible: It was my fault. I allowed it to happen. Then, second, I became accountable: Now when I hire house workers, I do an investigation. Or, I could sink my teeth into being a victim and play the pity violin like everyone else.

For my friend with the stolen purse, the Fastlane mindset is to take responsibility followed by accountability. Responsibility: It was my fault that my purse was stolen. Accountability: In the future, I will take precautions to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Immunization for victimitis occurs when you are both responsible for AND accountable to your actions and the possible poor consequences of those actions. Own your mistakes, failures, and triumphs. Reflect on your choices. Are you in a situation because you delivered yourself there? Did you error in the process? Were you lazy? Most bad situations are consequences of bad choices. Own them and you own your life. No one can steer you off course, because you are in the driver's seat.

And when you own your decisions, something miraculous happens. Failure doesn't become the badge of victimhood-it becomes wisdom. Deny accountability and responsibility and the keys of your life are given to someone else. In other words, take the damn driver's seat to your life!

You Deserve! You Deserve! You Deserve!

The other day I heard successive radio commercials that were utterly disturbing. You don't need to be a nuclear physicist to know their target … Sidewalking victims.

The first commercial was for a mortgage loan modification company. The sales pitch went like this: “Modify your loan and get the lower payments you deserve.” The next commercial was from an attorney. “Been in an accident? Get the money you deserve.” The final commercial was from a credit repair company. “Let us negotiate your debts down to nothing so you can live the life you deserve!”

Notice the common phrase?

You deserve.

Seriously, what do these people really deserve?

Your credit sucks, you don't pay your bills on time, and you deserve a better life? Grandma rear-ends your car and suddenly you deserve a large cash award from some rich insurance company? You buy a house you can't afford and now you deserve a lower rate? How does “deserving” suddenly come so easy with no particular effort, like an event raining from the heavens? We're being methodically brainwashed to believe that we deserve everything without obedience to process, or accountability.

You deserve what your actions earned, or haven't earned. Being responsible is one thing; being accountable is another. When you're accountable to your choices, you alter your behavior in the future and take the driver's seat of your life.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
Hitchhikers assign control over their financial plans to others effectively introducing probabilities to victimhood.
The Law of Victims: You can't be a victim if you don't relinquish power to someone capable of making you a victim.
Responsibility owns your choices.
Taking responsibility is the first step to taking the driver's seat of your life. Accountability is the final.
PART 4:
Mediocrity–The Slowlane Roadmap
CHAPTER 10: THE LIE YOU'VE BEEN SOLD: THE SLOWLANE

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)
Next Exit: “Slowlane” Mediocrity Ahead

In the previous chapter, we highlighted that a Sidewalker has no financial plan and is only concerned with the pleasures of today, often governed by instant gratification. While the Sidewalk is a chronic lifestyle that mortgages the future for a pleasurable today, the Slowlane is the antithesis: a sacrifice of today in the hopes of a brighter and freer tomorrow.

As a Slowlane traveler, you're deluged with a series of doctrines that plead discipline to the trade-off. Get a job and waste five days a week toiling at the office. Bag a lunch and stop drinking $10 coffee. Faithfully entrust 10% of your paycheck to the stock market and your 401(k). Quit dreaming about that sports car in the window because you can't buy it! Delay gratification until you're 65 years old. Save, save, save because compound interest is powerful: $10,000 invested today will be with 10 gazillion in 50 years!

Surprisingly, the Slowlane is the first convenient exit off the Sidewalk and evolves with maturity and increased adult responsibilities. Most college graduates begin their post-schooling life on the Sidewalk. I certainly did.

Graduation pardoned a license to buy stuff that yielded instant pleasure: trips to Cancun, a flashy car with a booming stereo, nightly drinking binges, a massive CD collection. Life was all about now, regardless of future consequences. Sidewalkers (and people in general) instinctively regard a better future: “I'll be making more money,” “I'll hit the lottery,” “After my father dies I'll inherit thousands.” Future crutches often justify pleasurable nows and, behind the scenes, Lifestyle Servitude swells.

However, with increased responsibilities, perhaps a growing family, mounting debt loads, and future expectations not matching reality, the Sidewalker comes to terms with the uncertainty of the Sidewalk and does the seemingly responsible lane change: He off-ramps and graduates to the Slowlane roadmap, a strategy touted and praised by credible sources. While the Sidewalk is typified by undisciplined behavior, the Slowlane's financial plan introduces responsibility and accountability into the wealth formula. That can't be bad right?

Unfortunately, the Slowlane is like bad directions given at a gas station, except these directions aren't given by strangers, but by people you trust: teachers, television and radio personalities, financial advisers, and yes, even our parents. These ostensible sources reinforce the strategy's fictitious strength when its efficacy is a sucker's bet. The Slowlane is a lifetime wager that a sacrificial today will yield a wealthier tomorrow.

The Promise of Wealth … The Price? Your Life

The Slowlane is rarely challenged. It's a lie so deceiving that when the ruse is uncovered, decades of life have passed … meanwhile, millions more are being newly indoctrinated to the deception. If you buy the lie, you sell off today in hopes of a glorious tomorrow. And when does this glorious tomorrow happen? When can you splurge, spend your millions, and enjoy life? When?

The driving force behind wealth under Get Rich Slow is time-time employed at the job and time invested in the markets. Your glorious tomorrow might arrive after 40 years, when you're living your last presidential administration and on your second hip replacement. Your glorious tomorrow might arrive when you're 73 years old and soaked in urine and strapped to a stinking bed because you've lost your mind to Alzheimer's. Seriously, when does this Slowlane plan of retiring rich actually become real so you can enjoy your millions?

As a teenager, Joe reads several personal finance books about getting rich. They tell him to save, get a career, clip coupons, and live below your means. After graduating with a law degree, Joe follows this advice. While it is difficult, Joe follows this plan for wealth diligently.
He works 60 hours weekly at his law firm, often neglecting his family and children. His weekdays are consumed at the office, while his weekends are spent home “recharging” from the rigors of the workweek.
After 12 years in law, Joe decides his profession is no longer enjoyable. Yet, he decides to endure, as he is just one promotion away from making partner and a guaranteed six-figure salary. As Joe's life progresses, he never loses sight of his goal: Retire by age 55 because, after all, financial guru David says, “The smart people finish rich.”
Joe saves, works overtime, invests in mutual funds, and participates in his firm's 401(k). He continues to endure his job for the sake of the plan. No one said it'd be easy. That “one day” was coming, the day when he'd retire with millions. He justifies that five days of misery in a hated job was worth the sacrifice for the future.
Then, one hot summer day while mowing the lawn, Joe has a heart attack and dies at age 51 … four years before his destination.
You can either live rich young or live rich old while risking death along the way. The choice is yours and it shouldn't be a contest. Rich at 25 years old beats the snot out of rich at 65 years old.

Ask a youngster, how do you get rich young? Will coupons, mutual funds, and 401(k)s be the answer? Comedic, I know.

Wealth is best lived young and enjoyed while you have health, vibrancy, energy, and yes, maybe even some hair. Wealth is best lived in the prime of your life, not in its twilight after 40 years of 50-hour workweeks have pulverized your dreams into surrender. Deep in our soul we know this, yet we continue to faithfully pledge obedience to a financial roadmap that promises wealth after four or five decades.

And the bigger concern you should have is, does it even work?

The global recession has 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. Unfortunately, millions of people have faithfully invested decades into the plan only to discover the ugly truth: The Slowlane is risky and insufferably impotent.

A strategy that requires your life and your dreams to be paid as penance is a sucker's bet. The Slowlane arrogantly assumes that you will live forever and, of course, be gainfully employed forever. Unfortunately, wheelchairs don't fit in the trunks of Lamborghinis.

Slowlane Mindposts and Missives

Over time, the Slowlaner collects and espouses a series of mindposts reinforced by credible sources. Mom and Dad say go to college, graduate, and get a job. Bestselling author David says, “Stop drinking expensive lattés.” Suze says, “Open a Roth IRA and contribute 10% of your paycheck.” Ramsey says, “Snowball that debt.” All these missives formulate the Slowlaner's mindposts, a journey to wealth that consumes a lifetime.

Debt Perception:
Debt is evil. It must be religiously attacked, even if that means working overtime for life.

Time Perception:
My time is abundant and I will gladly trade my time for more dollars. The more hours I can work, the more I can pay off my debt and save money for retirement at 65.

Education Perception:
Education is important because it helps me earn a bigger salary.

Money Perception:
Money is scarce and every dime and dollar must be accounted for, budgeted, and perilously saved. If I want to retire by 65 with millions, I have to ensure I don't squander my hard-earned money.

Primary Income Source:
My job is my sole source of income.

Primary Wealth Accelerator:
Compound interest is powerful because $10 invested today will be worth $300,000 in 50 years. Oh yes, and don't forget about mutual funds, home appreciation, and my employer's 401(k).

Wealth Perception:
Work, save, and invest. Work, save, and invest. Repeat for 40 years until retirement age … 65 years old or, if I'm lucky and the markets return 12% yearly, maybe 55!

Wealth Equation:
Wealth = job + market investments.

Destination:
A comfortable retirement in my twilight years.

Responsibility &Control:
It's my responsibility to provide for my family although for that plan to work I have to rely on others, including my employer, my financial adviser, the government, and a good economy.

Life Perception:
Settle for less. Give up on big dreams. Save, live frugal, don't take unnecessary risks, and one day I will retire with millions.

So how do you know you're being sold the Slowlane? The following lists the primary munitions indigenous to the Slowlane roadmap.

 
Go to school
Get good grades
Graduate
Pay yourself first
Overtime
Corporate ladder
Save X% of your paycheck
Contribute to your 401(k)
Invest in mutual funds
Buy and hold
Paychecks, pensions, benefits
Diversify
Raise your insurance deductibles
The stock market
Say “no” to expensive lattes
Be frugal
Get out of debt
Clip coupons
Cancel your credit cards
Dollar cost averaging
Get an advanced degree
Pay off your house early
Your home is an asset
Individual retirement accounts (IRAs)
Live below your means
Understand compound interest
When you encounter these “buzz phrases,” be wary-someone is selling you the Slowlane as a total plan to wealth. While coupons and other Slowlane strategies aren't worthless in a plan, they shouldn't be the plan. The Slowlane as a total plan is the problem, not the Slowlane being a part of a plan. This distinction is critical because financial discipline must transcend to any wealth campaign.

The Slowlane Roadmap: A Mathematical Introduction

How is wealth created in the Slowlane? To expose its method (and its weakness) you need to reverse engineer and deconstruct the strategy down to its mathematical roots, or its wealth equation.

In other words, you want to expose the plan's theoretical speed limits for wealth, which is always determined by two variables: your primary income source (a job) and your wealth acceleration vehicle (market investments). These two variables formulate the Slowlane's wealth equation and governs its wealth creation power or, in this case, futility.

Wealth = (Primary Income Source: Job) + (Wealth Accelerator: Market Investments)

This equation factored looks like this:

Wealth = Intrinsic Value + Compound Interest

The primary income variable, intrinsic value has two variables itself dependent on how you are paid within your job. It could be either:

Intrinsic Value = Hourly Wage X Hours Worked

~ or ~

Intrinsic Value = Yearly Salary

Compound interest is derived from “market investments,” which is the universal concept that $X invested in the stock market today will be worth $X millions decades from now. In chapter 12, we will examine the Slowlane's mathematical constructs and exploit their true deficiency. Therein, you'll discover why society's plan, your parent's plan, the media's plan, and the guru's plan are horrific strategies for wealth.

Have You Sold Your Soul for a Weekend?

Your soul is worth more than a weekend. Banality followed by blindness is the side effect of Slowlane institutionalization.

In 2007 on a cold January morning, a violinist stationed himself in a Washington, DC, train station and played six classical pieces from Bach. Except this was no ordinary violinist and it was no ordinary violin. This was an incognito Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world, who nights earlier had played to a sold-out concert hall in Boston for nearly $100 a ticket. As Joshua played his $3.5 million violin in the midst of the morning commuter rush, approximately 2,000 people passed through the station, most of them on their way to work.

He played continuously for 45 minutes. Only six people stopped to listen briefly. No crowd formed. About 20 folks gave money but continued onward at a brisk pace. When he finished, there was silence except for the rhythmic hustle of a busy train station. No applause. No crowd. No recognition.

This experiment, conducted by the Washington Post, uncovers something incredibly powerful-and disturbing. Not even the greatest musician in the world can illuminate the blinding depths of the rat race and those entrenched by its indifference.

Have you become so numbed by making a living that the living has been sucked out of your life? Are you so blinded by Monday through Friday that any beauty that sings before you is muted? The train commuters come and go like zombies-they're oblivious to the splendor of Monday through Friday. Yet, what if this experiment occurred on Saturday; would its outcome be any different?

This story exposes the Slowlane for its contempt: When you trade your life mindlessly for a paycheck, you risk being blinded to life itself as you cursively walk by it in a busy train station. Life does not begin on Friday night and end Monday morning.

“Thank God It 's Friday”: Born and Bred in the Slowlane

A friend recently berated me because I declined to go out on a Saturday night.“ Are you crazy? It's Saturday night!” he wailed. I told him something a Slowlaner doesn't understand: For me, every day is a Saturday because I haven't sold off Monday through Friday.

Wealth's provenance evolves from the three Fs: family, fitness, and freedom. Freedom's value to wealth is evidenced on Friday evenings, which just so happened to be the setting for an epic conversation I had with my friend at a happy hour. While we sat on the bar's patio, we heard a chattering cacophony of patrons engaged in spirited conversation. The bar was “happening” and within the rustling soundtrack, you'd never guess a recession was ongoing.

Over the noise, I asked my friend “What do you hear?”

“I hear people having a great time, a celebration,” she said.

I asked further, “Why?”

“Why what? It's Friday!” she declared.

I probed further. “What's so special about Friday? If we came here on Monday, this place would be empty and the sound of celebration would be absent. What makes Friday so special as opposed to Monday or Wednesday?”

Knowing that she was trapped into one of my paradoxical interrogations, she humored me.

“Uhh … people get paid on Friday?”

I levied the verdict: Friday evening is glorified because people celebrate the dividends of their trade: five days of work-bondage exchanged for two days of unadulterated freedom. Saturday and Sunday is the paycheck for Monday through Friday, and Friday evening symbolizes the emergence of that payment, freedom for two days. The prostitution of Monday through Friday is the reason “Thank God it's Friday” exists. On Friday, people are paid FREEDOM in the currency of Saturday and Sunday!

Negative 60% The Dismal Return of the Slowlane

The ultimate insanity is to sell your soul Monday through Friday for the paycheck of Saturday and Sunday. Yes, give me $5 today and in return I'll give you $2 back tomorrow. 5-for-2. No? How about five loaves of bread today and in return, I'll give you two back tomorrow. No again? Why? This is a smoking deal!

Hopefully you recognize that five of anything in exchange for two is a bad return. The 5-for-2 return on investment is a negative 60%. If you make consistent negative 60% return on investments, you'd go bankrupt quick. What logical person would accept such a horrific deal?

Most likely, you already do.

When you accept the Slowlane roadmap as your strategy, you accept 5-for-2. You give five days of work servitude in exchange for two days of weekend freedom. Yes, Monday through Friday is prostituted for Saturday and Sunday. While people easily recognize and reject a negative 60% return on their money, they do it willingly with their time.

If you have children you have to question this normality. Kids grow on Mondays and Tuesdays. I've heard they grow on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays too. Yes, they don't wait for the weekend to grow up. When little Miranda speaks her first word, walks her first walk, dances the first dance, she doesn't care if you're in Houston for the quarterly manager's meeting. Kids and relationships don't wait for the weekend to grow, and while you're out trading 5-for-2, guess what-the kids get older and so do you.

People who are bankrupt with time see their freedom, their families and their relationships disintegrate. Time is mismanaged because the Slowlane is predicated on time. Five days of servitude for two days of freedom is not a good trade unless you trade time into a system that can give you a better return on your time. Instead of 5-for-2 for life, how about a 5-for-2 trade that has the potential to blossom into a better ratio? Like 1-for-2 or 3-for-10? Would you make a 5-for-2 trade knowing that it could transform into a 1-for-10? Would that be a something to invest in?

While I worked my plan, I gave 7-for-0 (I worked seven days and didn't take a day off) because I knew the roads on my roadmap converged with dreams. I worked for a better ratio in the near future, not in 40 years. I controlled my destiny and eventually my time trade investment yielded a dividend of 40 years. Now I do 0-for-7. I work zero days and get seven days of freedom.

Sadly, if you are entrenched in the Slowlane, your options to shatter this negative 60% return for your freedom is restricted. Remember, wealth is defined by freedom, and if you require proof, look no further than Friday night when people celebrate freedom as the Slowlane dictatorship takes a weekend furlough.

Normal Is Condemnation to Mediocrity

Revolutionary Road, the 2008 movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, does an excellent job portraying the Slowlane's death grip. A young couple find themselves living in suburbia, going through the motions of life: The husband (DiCaprio) goes to work every morning and immerses himself in a crowd of his peers while his wife (Winslet) fills the role of the good housewife. Both instinctively know that something is wrong. They're settling. They've accepted normal. They've forsaken their dreams for the insane plan of everyone. Throughout the movie we witness their attempts to escape, and with perilous consequences.

The problem is, we've been brainwashed to accept the Slowlane roadmap as normal. The defective roadmap gains traction early in life and is sanctified as the “commoners” only probable means to wealth. Sounds logical right? Folks like us just don't get rich playing pro ball, rapping, singing, acting, or entertaining, so we're left with the Slowlane. And for some, that just might be OK. But for the rest of us with big dreams, big goals, and big ideas, it just doesn't cut the mustard.

Here's a Slowlane story pulled from the pages of the Fastlane Forum (TheFastlaneForum.com):

In the quest for becoming wealthy, my life has become quite uncomfortable. It all started five years ago when I had nothing. I had turned 30 years old and I thought that living paycheck to paycheck was no way to live at all. I made a vow to myself that I would become wealthy. In order to do this I took on a second job and saved all of the money from that job while I used the money from the first job to pay for my living expenses.
Basically, the last five years of my life have been as such in order for me to save money:– living and paying relatively cheap rent for an 8°-13 foot room– using public transportation and a motorcycle for transportation.– working almost every day with no days off during the week– rarely eating out– never buying “toys” or nice things for myself or wife– almost never going out and having a good time.
With the second job and my economical lifestyle I have managed to save about $50,000 in five years. It would have been more, but I lost a good $30,000 when I invested right before the Dow hit its peak in October of 2007.
I've reached a breaking point. Five years is a long time to live in a room no bigger than a jail cell. The jobs are mind numbing. I feel like my life is a prison. I have a good lifestyle for saving money, but at the expense of my mental sanity and happiness as a human being. I just feel like I can't live like this any longer.
The Slowlaner accepts an existence of frugality and sacrifice to a tipping-point where life feels like incarceration. Does this guy's life seem awesome or mediocre? Will it merge with a dream? The Slowlane plan forsakes the now for a faint promise of a wealthy future. I don't consider “settle for less” a strategy, which is why the Slowlane is predisposed to mediocrity. Life isn't great, but it isn't so bad either. No, it could be better … but you've got to swap the Slowlane for a new plan.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
The Slowlane is a natural course-correction from the Sidewalk evolving from taking responsibility and accountability.
Wealth is best experienced when you're young, vibrant, and able, not in the twilight of your life.
The Slowlane is a plan that takes decades to succeed, often requiring masterful political prowess in a corporate environment. For the Slowlaner, Saturday and Sunday is the paycheck for Monday through Friday.
The default return on your time in the Slowlane is negative 60%-5-for-2.
The 5-for-2 trade inherit in the Slowlane is generally fixed and cannot be manipulated, because job standards are five days a week.
The predisposed destination of the Slowlane is mediocrity. Life isn't great, but it isn't so bad either.
CHAPTER 11: THE CRIMINAL TRADE: YOUR JOB

By working faithfully 8 hours a day, you may eventually get to be the boss and work 12 hours a day.
~ Robert Frost
I Spent Five Years in College … for a Phonebook?

Before college graduation, I humored myself and attended a few job workshops. One I remember vividly: an entry-level position at a big insurance firm in Chicago. During our introduction at the corporate facility, the company recruiters told us exactly what to expect:

“Over there [pointing to a sea of cubicles] is where our new hires sit. I won't be coy; in the beginning this job is difficult. We give you three things: a desk, a telephone, and a telephone book. You will spend 10 hours a day cold-calling to build your clientele. I know, not glamorous, but the rewards …”
At that point the rewards were inconsequential and I went into acting mode. I acted interested. I acted happy. I acted like it was acceptable. It wasn't.

I spent five years in college just to sit in a 6 X 6 cubicle and cold-call elderly people out of a damn telephone book? Are you freaking kidding me? I could have done this out of middle school, and I didn't need to spend thousands on a college degree to hawk insurance. Yet, my peers salivated at the opportunity of having a nice base salary, a great 401(k), and a top-tier health plan. No thanks. If I'm cold-calling out of the damn phonebook, it won't be for my boss, but for me.

Jobs: Domestication into Normalcy

If you want to escape the Slowlane, find wealth and freedom fast, you've got to dump the job.

Let me repeat.

Dump the damn job!

Jobs suck. I mean that generically, not targeted toward a specific job. Whether you're an electrician or a store manager, you hold a job. Jobs suck because they're rooted in limited leverage and limited control. Sure, you can have great job (and a fun one too!) but in the scope of wealth, they limit both leverage and control-two things desperately needed if you want wealth. Here are six sucky reasons your financial plan shouldn't revolve around a job, the nucleus to the Slowlane.

Suckage #1: To Trade Time Is to Trade Life

Who taught us that trading time in exchange for money was a great idea? Why does this normalcy consistently translate into unrivaled suckage? If you're shackled to a job, you're engaged to a glorified exchange of your time (your life) for pieces of paper that grant you freedom. You sell your freedom to get freedom. Pretty stupid, huh?

Jobs suck because they ravenously consume TIME. At a job, TIME TRADE is central to how you make money. A job is the basis for that horrific 5-for-2 exchange. But let me translate that word, TIME, differently: LIFE. In a job, you sell your life for money. If you work, you get paid. If you don't work, you don't get paid. Who officiated this bloodsucking marriage?

Here is a list of common jobs and how long you have to work just to earn $1 million. If you diligently save 10% of your earnings and stuff it under a mattress, your time to $1 million multiplies by a factor of 10. Do you have 300 years to save your way to $1 million?


PROFESSION	YEARS TO EARN $1M	YEARS TO SAVE $1M
Architect - $64,000	16 years to earn	156 years to save
Auto Mechanic - $34,000	30 years	294 years
Bartender - $16,000	61 years	625 years
Carpenter - $37,000	27 years	270 years
Software Engineer - $80,000	13 years	125 years
Secretary - $38,000	27 years	263 years
Hairdresser - $22,000	47 years	454 years
Teacher - $46,000	22 years	217 years
Pharmacist - $95,000	11 years	105 years
Police Officer - $48,000	21 years	208 years
Physical Therapist - $66,000	15 years	152 years
Veterinarian - $72,000	14 years	139 years
Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Anthony Balderrama, CareerBuilder.com. Figures rounded for simplicity.

Wouldn't it make sense to get paid regardless of what you're doing? Get paid while you sleep, while you have fun, while you poop, while you sit on the beach? Why not get paid with the simple passage of time and make time work for you instead of against you? Does that exist? It does, but it doesn't come from a Slowlane.

Suckage #2: Limitation on Experience

I learned more as an entrepreneur in two months than I did working 10 years at dozens of dead-end jobs. The problem with a specialized skill set is, it narrows your useful value to a confined set of marketplace needs. You become one of many cogs in a wheel. And if that cog becomes obsolete or expendable? Guess what, you're out of luck.

For example, thousands of autoworkers have been displaced because their jobs have been outsourced or replaced by robotics. Experience doesn't help them, it hinders them. Remember typewriters? How is the typewriter repairman doing these days? How about stockbrokers? Travel agents? Dying breeds of jobs move out of favor like fashion fads. One year your skill set has value, the next, it doesn't.

Second, job experience is usually regimented into a core group of activities that is routinely repeated over and over again, day after day. After the initial learning experience, the job becomes regimented and accumulation of new knowledge creeps to a crawl. A job limits learning and mutates into life's death knell: a trade of life force for money.

Experience comes from what you do in life, not from what you do in a job. You don't need a job to get experience.

Ask yourself this: Which experience is more important? The experience of a menial job designed to pay your bills? Or the experience (and failures) of creating something that could provide you financial freedom for a lifetime without ever having to hold a job again?

Suckage #3: No Control

A job is like sitting in the bed of a pickup truck. You're exposed to the harsh elements while the driver of the truck sits comfortably in the driver's seat. And if the ride gets rough? You get jacked around or worse, tossed overboard. There is no control sitting in the back of a pickup truck, and to have this “strategy” at the heart of your financial plan is asinine. If you don't control your income, you don't control your financial plan. If you don't control your financial plan, you don't control your freedom.

Millions obediently sing the employee Kumbaya, believing that a job is central to supporting themselves. Sure, a job can support you, but is your goal only “support”? Do you want wealth or mediocrity? If the momentum of your financial road trip can be road blocked by a pink slip, you're gambling. You aren't being real; you're being foolish. There is neither safety nor security in a job.

Suckage #4: Linda's Bad Breath

I have people in my family who are life-long employees. I hear about their trials and toils. Despite two dozen different jobs over the years, I noticed nothing changes when it comes to office politics. It's the same story, different people, different day, in a different office. So-and-so is sleeping with the boss and courting favor. Jim is lazy but takes credit for the work. Linda has bad breath and everyone is afraid to tell her. Lacey arrives late and leaves early. Horace steals food and wears the same sport jacket every day. Lazy Lester never replaces the copier paper. Same stories, different office.

No matter where you work, office politics play a part. The stage is different but the actors are the same. And, unfortunately, as an employee immersed in the work environment, you have to play the game. You have to be obedient or face retribution from coworkers or your boss.

I can remember my friend's after-work rants as she toiled at a high-carb corporate environment. Everything had a process. Got an idea? Great, send it to the boss, the boss sends it to his boss, who then hands it off to legal, who then sends it back to her boss's boss for revisions, who sends it back, blah blah blah! By the time the “idea” gets anywhere it's either stale or four other people have staked a claim to it. Who needs this entangled web destroying your sanity? The only defense to office politics is to control the playing field, and to do that, you have to be the boss. And to be the boss, you not only need to run the show, you need to own it.

Suckage #5: A Subscription to “Pay Yourself Last”

“Pay yourself first” is a Slowlane doctrine. The problem is that it's near impossible in a job. Local, state, and federal governments heavily tax earned income and your options to shield that income from taxation is limited to contributions to 401(k)s and IRAs-which are also limited-10% of your income or a maximum of $16,500, whichever is less.

If you diligently trade your life and ascend into corporate management, expect 50% of your money to disappear before it touches your hands. As an employee, you immediately receive a subscription to “pay yourself last,” and yes, that subscription arrives even if you don't subscribe. If you are paying yourself last and everyone gets your money first, don't expect to build wealth fast.

Suckage #6: A Dictatorship on Income

Ever get hit with a 1,000% pay raise from your boss?

Imagine this: Impressed at the obvious returns you've provided at your job, you confidently stroll into your boss's office and demand a raise.

“I bring value to this company,” you argue. “I'm reliable and rarely call in sick.”

Your boss takes a defensive posture, crosses his arms, tilts his head skyward, and leisurely reclines in his big, red executive chair.

You take a deep breath and let it ride. “Therefore, sir, I'd like a 1,000% pay raise.”

Your boss emits a guttural groan. He lurches forward, ends his recline and hammers his hands to the desk. “OK, what's the joke? I'm busy” he snipes.

You reply, “No joke. I'm serious. I make $9 an hour. I want a raise to $90 an hour.”

“How about this? You'll get nothing and like it. Get out of my office, quit wasting my time, and if you do it fast, I won't fire you. How about that for an offer?”

You stammer out. I guess the boss didn't think the 1,000% pay raise was doable.

This scenario would never happen. As an employee, you can't demand a pay raise greater than 10%, let alone 1,000%. Yet, as an employee of any company, this is your playing field. Your value is dictated and the job becomes a wealth delimiter with limitations that cannot be subverted.

A job seals your fate into a criminal time trade: five days of life traded for two days of freedom. A job chains you to a set grade of experience. A job takes away your control. A job forces you to work with people you can't stand. A job forces you to get paid last. A job imposes a dictatorship on your income. These limitations are counter-insurgencies to wealth.

Still want a job?

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
In a job, you sell your freedom (in the form of time) for freedom (in the form of money).
Experience is gained in action. The environment of that action is irrelevant.
Wealth accumulation is thwarted when you don't control your primary income source.
CHAPTER 12: THE SLOWLANE-- WHY YOU AREN'T RICH

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
Exposing Slowlane Ineptitude

If the Slowlane is your “get rich” strategy I can make a likely assumption: You're not rich and you never will be. Wow, how could I be so sure? Simple. The Slowlane strategy is rooted in Uncontrollable Limited Leverage, or ULL (pronounced “yule”). If you need help remembering this important concept, just think, “If the Slowlane is your plan, 'ULL' never get rich.”

Uncontrollable Limited Leverage is the disturbing evidence that proves the Slowlane's futility. How do you get rich in the Slowlane? You get a great-paying job, save money, live frugal, invest in the stock market, and repeat for 50 years. If you mine this strategy into its mathematical constructs, you'll find that the variables that define the plan cannot be controlled nor leveraged.

Uncontrollable Limited Leverage (ULL) – Part 1

Why is ULL so important? To accumulate financial wealth, you need to attract large sums of money. To attract large sums of money, you need two things: 1) Control and 2) Leverage. The Slowlane has neither and that truth is exposed when you reverse engineer the strategy into its mathematical equivalent, or its wealth universe. Uncover the mathematics behind the plan and you uncover its weakness!

When the Slowlane is deconstructed, you find two variables: 1) The “primary income source,” which defines how income is earned, and 2) The “wealth accelerator,” which defines how wealth is accumulated. The Slowlaner's primary income source comes from “a job,” while the wealth acceleration vehicle comes from “market investments” like 401(k)s and mutual funds. Put it together and you arrive at the Slowlaner's wealth equation:

WEALTH = (Job) + (Market Investments)

The primary income source The wealth accelerator

Under this plan, income from a job funds both lifestyle and market investments. However, to uncover the prohibitive ULL within the plan, we have to factor these variables further, starting with the job variable.

The Warden of Wealth: Intrinsic Value

How is money earned in a job?

Intrinsic value.

Intrinsic value is determined by the marketplace and is the price at which you can trade your time for money. Intrinsic value is what you earn working a job. How much is someone willing to pay you for what you offer to society? Intrinsic value is measured in units of time, either hourly or annually. If you're paid $10/hour to flip burgers at the neighborhood grill, your intrinsic value is $10 per hour. If you're an accountant and earn a $120,000 annual salary, your intrinsic value is $120,000 per year.

JOB [Your Intrinsic Value] = (Hourly Rate of Pay) X (Hours Worked)

~ or ~

JOB [Your Intrinsic Value] = Annual Salary

Notice that intrinsic value is measured in units of TIME.

This “time attachment” introduces the Slowlane's first punitive element of wealth creation.

Can you control time? Can you leverage time? You can't.

Your time is limited to 24 hours of exchange. If you earn $200/hour, you can't miraculously demand to work 400 hours in one day. If you earn $50,000/year, you can't miraculously demand to work 400 years in your life. Time has no leverage.

For the hourly worker, your maximum upper limit is 24 hours, and guess what. There's nothing you can do to change this limit. In theory, you can trade 24 hours of your day for income, but you can't trade more. Of course, working 24 hours a day is humanly impossible, so 8 to 12 hours per day are traded.

For the salaried worker, the prohibition is the same. You can't work more years than your normal life expectancy. What is the upper limit of this exchange? Forty, fifty years? In all of recorded history, no human has ever worked 10,000 years of his or her life. Whether you're paid hourly or annually-it doesn't matter-you can't leverage time!

Consider this.

Is 12 a large number? Or 50? Are these numbers predisposed to create millionaires? They aren't, and it exposes why the mathematics of a job are wealth punitive: Your time is limited to small numbers and cannot be leveraged. “Hours worked” or “annual salary” are mathematically inept because they're based on time measurements that cannot be controlled or manipulated. Mathematics doesn't lie; 12 will always be less than 10,000,000. If leverage is limited, so is wealth creation. Small numbers do not make millionaires.

Behind limited leverage is another corrosive wealth killer-no control. Can you control your employer? Can you control your salary? Can you control the economy? Can you earn $50,000 one year and next year bank $50 million? Can you control anything about your job, including your measly 4% pay raise? You might think you can by job-hopping, but you can't. Control is weak, if not absent.

Compound Interest: What “They” Don't Tell You

The second variable in the Slowlane wealth equation is the “primary wealth accelerator,” which comes from market investments like mutual funds, 401(k)s, and other traditional investments touted by gurus and financial advisers. These investments use the financial strategy known as “compound interest,” which is a mathematical construct that outlines the power of interest accumulation over great periods of time.

The fundamental sell of compound interest is the old guru swan song regurgitated ad nauseum: $10,000 invested today will be worth gazillions in 40 years. Invest $250 a month for 50 years and you will retire rich! Used correctly, “compound interest” is a powerful ally to wealth; used for Slowlane purposes and it dredges the wealth road trip to a crawl. Why? Again, the puzzle is solved if you exploit the math-the answer plays sibling to why a job won't make you rich: TIME.

Wealth creation via compound interest requires the passing of time and lots of it. Like a job, compound interest, or market investments such as mutual funds and 401(k)s, can't be leveraged nor can they be controlled. They rely on deficient math to create wealth.

Inasmuch as the income you make in a job is measured in an hourly rate or an annual salary, the wealth acceleration process of “compound interest” is also measured in time (years) multiplied by a yearly yield. Let's again review the physics, the mathematical formula for the Slowlane pathology to wealth:

WEALTH = (Job) + (Market Investments)

Or factored:

WEALTH = [Intrinsic Value (Yearly)] + [Compound Interest (Yearly)]

Factored further:

WEALTH = (Time X Hourly or Salaried Value) + Invested Sum X (1 + Yield)time

Like a job, the flaw in “compound interest” lies in the same mathematical restrictions in which numbers work AGAINST you instead of FOR you. Take a look at this chart, which highlights the effect of compound interest and that $10,000 investment.



A Slowlane guru preaches that a $10,000 investment grown at 15% will be worth over $2.5 million dollars in 40 years!!! Hooray!!!

What don't they tell you?

They don't tell you that a 15% return year-after-year is impossible unless you invest with Bernie Madoff or Charles Ponzi. They don't tell you that in 40 years you'll be dead, and if you're not, you'll be close. They don't tell you that in 40 years, your $2.5 million will likely be worth $250,000 in today's dollars and that a gallon of milk will cost $12.00. They don't tell you that this method of wealth acceleration is not what they use. They don't tell you plenty, and yet you're supposed to believe it without question.

Uncontrollable Limited Leverage (ULL) - Part 2

For compound interest to be effective, you need three things:

 
TIME, as measured in years.
A favorable YEARLY INVESTMENT YIELD within those years.
An INVESTED SUM, repeatedly invested.
These three variables make up the latter portion of our Slowlane wealth equation:

Compound Interest = Invested Sum X (1 + Yield)time

Although this is a simplified version of a more complicated equation, the point of this analysis is its variable components. Compound interest demands that your investments yield a predictable 10% return per year. Good luck with that 40-year gamble. Have the markets ever lost 20% in one year? Or 40%? They have, and when they do, your hard-earned savings evaporate.

You see, wealth acceleration via compound interest is deficient because its variables are deficient. Neither time nor yield can be leveraged or controlled. Again, meet my friend Uncontrollable Limited Leverage.

Can you demand a 2,000% return on your money this year? Can you demand your investment time horizon increase from the standard 40 years to 400 years? Again, the numbers can't be leveraged. Your upper limit of time investment horizon is 50 years. Yield is worse-6%, 8%, or 10% yearly investment returns are typical standards. Time is restrained by the years in your life, yield is restrained by the average yield of typical market investments, and sum is limited because your means of creating income comes from a job-also limited! The only way to subvert the mathematical weakness of compound interest is to start with a large number, and large numbers require leverage!

Additionally, like a job, you can't control compound interest. Can you demand your bank pay 25% interest on your savings? Hey, Mr. Slowlane Bank, I demand a 25% yield on my savings account! Can you control the economy? Hey, Mr. Economy, can you guarantee me low unemployment and a business-friendly tax environment? Can you control the average yield of the stock market? Hey, Mr. Stock Market, I'm tired of 8% returns, can you give me 250% this year? Funny stuff! Can you control anything in this equation other than a furious, labor-intensive search for the best investments to ensure you eek out another marginal 1%?

You can't.

Why Mutual Funds and 401(k)s Won't Make You Rich

In 2008, I went to a fixed-income investment seminar given by a major brokerage house. Fixed-income investments are instruments like municipal and corporate bonds. Approximately 50 people attended the standing-room-only seminar. I sat in the back and surveyed the crowd. Remove the gray hair, the socks-n-sandals combos, the canes, and the wheelchairs and what was left? Just me. I was the youngest person in the room (and heck, I'm not even that young anymore). How does a thirty-something get in a room full of retirees?

The people in the room were Slowlane success stories. They used time to accelerate wealth, and what it got them was old age. I don't say that to be mean-spirited to older generations, but to cast light on the point: Compound interest (401(k)s, mutual funds, the stock market) cannot accelerate wealth fast.

According to research and marketing firm The Harrison Group (HarrisonGroupInc.com), only 10% of penta-millionaires (net worth $5 million) report that their wealth came from passive investments. Age data was not provided but you can guess that none of the 10% were under 30.

Think about it. Have you ever met a college student who got rich investing in mutual funds or his employer's 401(k)? How about the guy who bought municipal bonds in 2006 and retired in 2009? I wonder if that guy driving a $1.2-million car can because of his well-balanced portfolio of mutual funds?

These people don't exist because the youthful rich are not leveraging 8% returns but 800%! Has your wealth ever grown by 800% in one year? Probably not, but guess what? MINE HAS because I'm not shackled to the Slowlane wealth equation. My wealth acceleration vehicle doesn't come from the stock market!

Yet, you've been domesticated to believe that these tools accelerate wealth. Mutual funds, stocks, bonds, 401(k)s, dollar cost averaging, and compound interest are perfunctory stratagem for wealth acceleration in the Slowlane. Unfortunately, without control or leverage, they're impotent wealth accelerators.

Buy-and-Hold Is Dead

In college, I was taught “buy and hold” was the safe investment strategy that made millions. Buy stocks in solid companies, sit back and wait decades, and voila, I'd be awash with millions. They'd shove that graph in your face and say “A$10,000 Investment in XYZ Company in 1955 would be worth $5 million today!” Thankfully, I ignored it.

In 1997, I opened a Roth IRA with $1,000 and invested the monies in a growth mutual fund at a major investment firm. Yes, I let the “professionals” manage it for me. For the next decade, I didn't touch it. Essentially, I forgot about the account.

In the 10 years that followed, I made over $10 million dollars by following a Fastlane roadmap and leveraging Fastlane strategy. And what about that Roth IRA opened years ago? I never touched it and let it ride the ebbs-and-flow of the Slowlane.

Today that account is worth $698.

$698! With inflation, the real purchasing power is $500. My spare change bucket on my kitchen table was a better investment. Had I invested $1 million, I'd have lost more than $400,000. And this is the Slowlaner's anointed weapon of wealth? Hilarious!

Millions worship the Slowlane roadmap with “buy and hold” as Main Street, a Main Street that is decades long, imperiled by hazards, and rarely routes to wealth.

I recently heard a Slowlane prognosticator proclaim the effectiveness of “Get Rich Slow” by citing this tasty factoid: If at the end of 1940 you had invested $1,000 in the stocks of the S%P 500 you would now have $1,341,513. So let's examine this fact, assuming it is fact.

 
It's 1940 and assume you are 21 years old.
It's 1940 and you somehow got your hands on $1,000, which in today's dollars is about $15,000.
You took that $1,000 in 1940s money and did as above.
Congratulations! It is NOW 2010 and you are 91 years old, rich with $1,341,513. Or if you were lucky to get your $1,000 ON BIRTH, you'd now be 71 years old! Yes, folks, it's time to get excited! “Get Rich Slow” is going to make you rich! Just ignore your 74-year life expectancy and make sure your wheelchair comes equipped with chrome rims. Seriously, how does anyone get excited over this crap?

The Slowlane's Traitorous Relationship with Time

Compound interest and a job have the same disease: the sinful and gluttonous consumption of your time while forsaking control. Both variables within the Slowlane wealth equation are anchored by time-time traded in a job and time traded in market investments.

Time becomes the lynchpin for wealth that congenitally ties to the mathematical handicaps of mortality: 24 hours in a day and a 50-year work-life expectancy. Yes, “getting rich” is a function of time. Unless you plan on living forever, this relationship is dubiously foolhardy. Why? Because to trade your time away is to trade your wealth away.

Examine these pathetically common examples. Assume a 5% savings rate on gross salary and an annual investment yield of 8% per year. We'll exclude taxes and inflation.

Salary @ $25,000/yr, save $1,250/year, invested over 40 yrs @ 8% = $362,895
Salary @ $50,000/yr, save $2,500/year, invested over 40 yrs @ 8% = $725,791
Salary @ $75,000/yr, save $3,750/year, invested over 40 yrs @ 8% = $1,088,686
Salary @ $100,000/yr, save $5,000/year, invested over 40 yrs @ 8% = $1,451,581
Salary @ $150,000/yr, save $7,500/year, invested over 40 yrs @ 8% = $2,177,132

Don't get enamored with the numbers. Keep in mind this is 40 YEARS from now. If you are 20 years old, you will be 60 years old. If you are 30 years old, you will be 70 years old. If you are 40 years old, you'll be dead. Sorry, but that's beyond life expectancy.

So at these ages, does this money and the freedom it buys sound appealing? Also, do you realize that this money will have 50% of today's buying power? Forty years ago you could buy a car for $3,000 and a loaf of bread for 20 cents. Lest we not forget the other lofty assumptions, gainful employment and a robust economy that behests a safe 8% per year. In 2008 the markets lost 50%. I guess the gurus forgot to mention these anomalies.

Folks, you don't want millions to accompany your cane, you want it to accompany your youth.

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.

Within the Slowlane, time is mistreated like an effervescent fountain that runs forever. Unfortunately, the mortality rate is 100% and life's prognosis is death. Some day you will die, and, hopefully, 60% of your time wasn't squandered in a cubicle while your children grew up and your spouse cheated with the yoga instructor.

The Slowlane Is a Plan of Hope

The Slowlane dilutes your control. You're reading this book because you want to control your financial destiny, NOT put it in the hands of some company or the stock market.

If you want to get rich, you have to control and leverage the variables in your financial plan-any financial plan without control immediately disintegrates into a plan of hope. Hope I don't get laid off! Hope my stocks rebound! Hope I get that promotion! Hope my hours aren't cut! Hope my company doesn't go bankrupt! Hope, hope, and hope! Sorry, hope isn't a plan!

The Slowlane plan rests in a mathematical prison, with time as the warden. To create explosive wealth fast, you must abandon the Slowlane formula and its lecherous relationship to time. Wealth is built with time as an asset, not as a liability! Yet, the Slowlaner's reaction to Uncontrollable Limited Leverage is predictable: They embark on an errant fight against the one variable they perceive as controllable-their intrinsic value. The Slowlaner argues, “I must make more money!”

And that fight is fought futilely with an expensive education.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
Slowlane wealth is improbable due to Uncontrollable Limited Leverage (ULL).
The first variable in the Slowlane wealth equation evolves from a job that factors to intrinsic value that equates to your nominal value for each unit of your life traded.
Intrinsic value is the value of your time set by the marketplace and is measured in units of time, either hourly or yearly.
In the Slowlane, intrinsic value (regardless of its time measurement) is numerically inhibited because there are only 24 hours in the day (for the hourly worker),and the average lifespan is 74 years (for the salaried worker).
Like the Slowlaner's primary income source (a job), the Slowlaner's wealth acceleration vehicle (compound interest) is also pegged to time.
Like a job, compound interest is mathematically futile and cannot be manipulated. You cannot force-feed the market (or the economy) to give you phenomenal returns, year after year.
Wealth cannot be accelerated when pegged to mathematics based on time.
Time is your primordial fuel and it should not be traded for money.
Your time should not be an expendable resource for wealth because wealth itself is composed of time.
Your mortality makes time mathematically retarded for wealth creation.
If you don't control the variables inherent in your wealth universe, you don't control your financial plan.
CHAPTER 13: THE FUTILE FIGHT: EDUCATION

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
~ Albert Einstein
The Fight Against Uncontrollable Limited Leverage: Education

The Slowlaner's natural reaction to the Uncontrollable Limited Leverage (ULL) inherent in their wealth equation is to wage war with intrinsic value by deploying the education weapon. Since ULL defines the Slowlane, the Slowlaner rationalizes that the only variable worthy of escalation is their rate of pay. I need to make six figures! I need to make more money! So, predictably, they go back to school and get an MBA or some certification. They'll argue, “MBA grads earn 15% more!” or “The starting salary of a certified PMP is $120,000 year!”

For example, Steve Ambrose enrolls into an MBA program to sweeten his credentials. The cost of the MBA is $44,000 and 800 hours. Steve justifies this twofold expense (time and money) because he anticipates his intrinsic value to rise. Upon completion, Steve expects to be worth more to his company and worth more in the competitive marketplace. Unfortunately, he still trades his time for money-just at a higher rate, yet still uncontrolled and unleveraged.

Another example is my friend who enrolled in a project management certification class that ate five eight-hour Saturdays from her life and cost $2,700. Her goal? A project management credential that would raise her intrinsic value in the marketplace. As a certified project manager, she exposes herself to new opportunities at higher grades of pay. But still, a trade of time for money.

Whether consciously or not, the Slowlaner believes that elevating intrinsic value can create wealth. Want to be highly paid right out of college? Go to medical school and become a doctor. As a physician, your intrinsic value is now worth $200 per hour. Become an engineer, a lawyer, or an accountant-all highly paid, professional, salaried positions. Typically, a formal college education is used to serve Slowlane purposes-an explicit attempt to raise intrinsic value. Fight that intrinsic value variable!

Not All Education Is Created Equal

The problem with formal education used to raise intrinsic value is that it's ungodly expensive in time and money. Not a week goes by when I don't hear about some freshly minted MBA graduate who struggles to pay his student loans while working a mid-grade job he could have gotten out of high school. Debt that traps you to a job is not good debt. A preoccupation to become “highly educated” could be a Trojan horse to your freedom.

Not all education is created equal. Some education can roadblock your wealth road trip. If an education entombs you under a mountain of debt and shackles you to a job for the rest of your life, is it really a good education? If an MBA increases your salary by 15% but takes 15 years to pay, was it a good investment?

It's a great myth: To get rich you need an expensive college degree. Hogwash. A degree isn't a prerequisite to Fastlane wealth. Some of the richest Fastlaners are people who never finished either high school or college. Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Richard Branson, Michael Dell, Felix Dennis, David Geffen, and John Paul DeJoria all dropped out of school to pursue Fastlane objectives. How dare they get rich and not be “educated”?

Slowlane Entrapment

Financing expensive college tuition for an education is a dangerous game that can lead to Slowlane entrapment: conformity and education servitude. A typical collegiate study progresses from general knowledge to very specific skill sets.

For example, while studying finance I learned complex mathematical formulas that aided in financial decision-making, things like “lease or buy” and “return on investment.” These concepts are specific tools to a trade that can hinder your future options. The prescribed path for graduates with finance degrees was to get a job in the financial sector, an insurance company, an accounting firm, or an investment house.

My education had the indirect and unintended consequence of restricting my options to specific disciplines based on an educative skill set. The result? Conformity and limited choice. If there aren't opportunities in my field, my education becomes marginalized and devalued. If the opportunities available require less education(say, a BS) than I have (MBA), I become overqualified and unemployable. If my skills erode in practicality based on technological evolution, my education becomes deprecated and my value to society plummets accordingly.

The second educational entrapment danger is “education servitude.”

While the Sidewalker deals with “Lifestyle Servitude,” the Slowlaner wrestles with “Education Servitude” (freedom eroded by education) that traps the victim to a job.

Has your education indentured you to a job? Advanced degrees are not cheap. According to The College Board the average college degree, including room and board, now costs nearly $60,000. Prefer the prestige of a private school? The tab will set you back a Ferrari. This kind of debt buries the dreams of your youth and puts them permanently bound to the Slowlane or worse, the Sidewalk.

Consider the statistics. In 2007, the Washington Post reported that, according to Nellie Mae, the big student loan service provider, by the time college students are seniors, 56% of them will have four or more credit cards with an average balance of $2,864. According to a research report by Demos-USA.org, a public policy research and advocacy organization, people in the 18–24 age bracket spend nearly 30% of their monthly income on debt repayment. This is double from 20 years ago.

A survey of college borrowers found that the average college senior graduated with nearly $19,000 in student loan debts, and graduate degree pursuers more than $45,000. A 2007 Charles Schwab survey revealed that teenagers believe when they get older they will earn an average salary of $145,000. The reality? Adults with a college degree earned an average of $54,000. Unfortunately, the future isn't so bright that you have to wear shades. The truth behind reality and expectation is about a $100,000 chasm. This disparity might explain why the debts of our youth have exploded as they bridge their reality to expectation. If I can't make $145,000, I can look like I make $145,000!

The best excuse people have for not having wealth is “I don't have time.” Well, why don't you have time? Because you have a job. Why do you have a job? Because you need one. Why do you need one? Because you have bills to pay. Why do you have bills to pay? Because you have debt. Why do you have debt? Oh yes, because you went to school for six years and have six figures in student loans.

If you financed your advanced education with debt, the debt automatically becomes parasitic and traps you into forced job servitude, and that destroys freedom. While you might earn more, work is forced to stave off the debt. The debt is parasitic because it fails to free time and instead creates indentured time. Sadly, the parasitic debt is unforgiving and isn't sympathetic to the source. Whether you owe $35,000 for your awesome BMW or for student loans, debt steals freedom and forces indentured time.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
Slowlaners attempt to manipulate intrinsic value by education.
Indentured time is time you spend earning a living. It is the opposite of free time.
Parasitic debt is debt that creates indentured time and forces work.
CHAPTER 14: THE HYPOCRISY OF THE GURUS

There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.
~ Adlai Stevenson
You've Been Duped

Suppose after college you're getting a bit pudgy around the middle and decide it's time to get back in shape. You enroll in a community college class called “Healthy Nutrition: Eat Your Way to a Beautiful Body.”

On the first day of class, you arrive early, seat yourself, and anxiously await the class instructor. After a few minutes, an obese man walks into the room and waddles to the front of the class. You think, “Wow, he's fat . . . but he's here to change that … good for him!” As the man profusely sweats while fumbling with a stack of papers, you glance at the student chair near the man and wonder if he can fit on it … he's twice the size of the chair!

Then suddenly you're hit with the paradox.

This isn't a student but the instructor! Are you freaking kidding me? How can this man effectively teach a class called “Healthy Nutrition: Eat Your Way to a Beautiful Body” when he is not a model of his teaching? How can anyone take him seriously? Bewildered at the hypocrisy, you leave the class and head to the bursar's office, intent on getting a tuition refund.

When it comes to gurus and financial advisers this is what you must do: leave class and request a refund because they're guilty of a Paradox of Practice.

The Paradox of Practice

The Paradox of Practice asks, “Do you practice what you preach? Are you a model, an exemplification of what you teach?”

Would you take skin care advice from a butterface?
Would you take financial advice from a bankrupt bum?
Would you take medical advice from a sanitation worker?
Would you take bodybuilding advice from a 90-lb. weakling?

The Paradox of Practice is a heated debate in my forum. Some feel it's perfectly acceptable to preach a strategy for wealth yet never use it.

Do as I Say, Not as I Do

A Paradox of Practice exists when someone promotes a moneymaking strategy but that strategy is not what made him or her rich. In other words, they're not practitioners of their own advice. These people effectively teach one wealth equation (the Slowlane) while they get rich leveraging another (the Fastlane).

When I see financial powerhouse “Suze” instructing people to “dollar-cost average” their mutual fund portfolios, do I listen to her? Hell no. I laugh. When “Cramer” advocates stock in Lehman Brothers because he says it's a good buy, do I listen? No way.

I feel sorry for anyone who follows the investment advice of these people.

I consider these people to be better entertainers than investment advisors. I have no love lost for the poor sap who lost his retirement savings because he listened to some CNBC pundit peddling some hot stock tip or investment advice.

What is wrong with people?

How do you not take responsibility for your financial plan?

And then there's your uncle. You know the guy-the well-educated elder in your life who knows everything, including the molecular structure of dark matter in the Horsehead Nebula. His army of factoids is always ready for deployment: stock tips, the latest and greatest investments, money trends. Yet, lest you forget, he lives paycheck to paycheck.

I call these people “Broke Know-It-Alls”-people who dispense financial, moneymaking advice, and yet are dirt poor. These fat behemoths are walking hypocrisies on how to live a life of health and fitness. Listen to these folks with an entertainment expectation, not advice. Good advice comes from the guy who scores all the touchdowns-not the guy shut out in the fourth quarter! The best quarterbacking advice comes from Peyton Manning, not MJ DeMarco.

Is a Paradox of Practice in Play?

In the game of money, money is the scorecard. If someone tells you how they “scored,” make sure they disclose their real method to wealth, not the illusion concealing the real culprit.

Sadly, it's virtually impossible to get good, practical money advice, because most gurus live a Paradox of Practice. Yes, gurus are rarely rich because of their advice, but rich because they're successful Fastlaners who covertly hide their Paradox of Practice.

These paradoxical metaphors described earlier befit the hypocrisy of the people who you've entrusted with your financial roadmap. You're sold blindly down the river by a ride they've never completed. Meanwhile, they gaze at you comfortably above in their corporate jet, drinking champagne. No one tells you the real, unadulterated story behind their road to wealth, but I will.

The Slowlane roadmap is sanctimoniously trumpeted by best-selling book authors who dispense financial advice through TV, radio, and books. The strategies they sell are a travesty of grand illusions. Do you seriously think these people are rich from their preachings? Or, are they selling you the Slowlane while they get rich in the Fastlane?

Let me hypothesize about the possible wizardry behind their charade.

First is “Suze.”

Suze preaches mutual funds, dollar-cost averaging, 401(k)s. We can absorb Suze in many media: radio, TV, and in any of her half-dozen books. Her grille is everywhere. She's the wretched Slowlane poster child, a high-volume producer of Slowlane junkets spewed to millions. So what's the problem? Ask yourself this: Is Suze rich because she followed her own advice like municipal bonds, dollar cost-averaging and 401(k)s? The probable hypocrisy-the Paradox of Practice-is that Suze's method of creating wealth doesn't appear to be the road she travels, nor teaches. Is Suze Fastlane rich because she leverages the Fastlane roadmap while she pitches you the Slowlane? Is she worth millions because she followed her own advice? Or because she sold millions of books? Is her wealth equation different from the one she teaches? Things that make you go hmmm…

In a 2007 article Suze was quoted as admitting to having the bulk of her wealth (an estimated $25 million) in bonds, primarily municipals. Additionally, she admits that only 4% of her wealth is tied-up in the stock market because “if I lose a million dollars, personally I don't care.” Wow, and yet, this is the vehicle you should entrust to build your wealth? How exactly did Ms. Suze acquire that $25 million nest egg? Because of her advice which champions the stock market, mutual funds, IRAs, bonds, and treasuries? Or, did she use the Fastlane roadmap, amass wealth fast via explosive net income, and then pour her wealth into these instruments?

Yet, her advice for people at the precipice of poverty is that they should invest in the stock market to create wealth when it appears she hasn't. Folks, the rich use the markets for income and wealth preservation-not to create it!

Then there's David. As I thumbed through David's many books, I was inundated with an alarming quantity of Slowlane ilk: compound interest tables, save 10% of your paycheck, stop drinking expensive coffee, and other chronic Slowlane diatribes. Again, the Paradox of Practice rears its ugly mug. Did David get rich from his advice? Or from selling 11 books, over and over several million times, often regurgitating the same Slowlane sludge until you can't take it anymore?

And finally, we have Robert, who hails from Hawaii and has two dads-one rich, one poor. “Double-Dad Robert” bellicosely explains the real definition of assets and that sophisticated investors are deep into real estate. On national television, Robert once bragged about his Lamborghini and I found this extravagant exposition ironic, yet disingenuous. Why? Isn't Robert showcasing the fruit of his teachings? Perhaps.

Robert is a Fastlane success story. He created and built a brand worth millions. But the curious question is this: Which came first? The best-selling book or the Lamborghini? Is there a Paradox of Practice underneath? Did Robert have this status icon “pre-book” by leveraging his real estate teachings? Or did the Lamborghini arrive after selling millions of books? Robert has undoubtedly amassed a great deal of wealth selling books, games, and seminars. Is it possible you're being sold one wealth equation while the architect of the game uses another?

Gurus fill a market need and I don't deny it. However consider this: Are they being truthful about their paradox and their magic potion? Are they rich because of what they preach, OR what they sell? Once you're familiar with Fastlane mathematics, it should become clear to you which gurus are likely guilty of the paradox. Is the underlying mathematical equation which governs their teachings the same one that made them rich? If the "do as I say" doesn't match the "do as I do", you should be suspicious.

What makes me different is this: The Fastlane concepts in this book gave me financial independence. I already have financial freedom-the nice house, the sports cars, and the flashy rapper credit card. I don't need this book to get me these things. I also confess this Fastlane disclaimer: This book has the power to make me wealthier because it leverages the same wealth equation I teach you. In other words, the "do as I say" matches the "do as I do."

Slowlane Gurus Admit Failure

On a Slowlane financial radio show, a caller sought advice: In a few months the recession destroyed more than 50% of her savings, which had taken her nearly 11 years to accumulate. The Slowlane guru's advice? A palliative “Stick to the plan.” Recommit. Rebuild.

In other words, my crappy plan has failed you, has taken 11 years to fail you, yet stand by it. Hope the economy rebounds. Hope the economy never sees another recession. Hope, hope, and hope. And yes, please buy my newest book, Rebuild …

Economic recessions expose the Slowlane as a risky fraud with lifetime ramifications. Since these gurus make their rich livelihood selling the Slowlane roadmap, they need you to believe it works. Their wealth comes from your belief. Despite the current recession's masterful expose, the Slowlane illuminati will never admit that their strategy is woefully inept, and instead they have deviously recalibrated their message to conceal the truth: They continue to spew the same failed rhetoric by writing new books, with new titles and new platitudes. Titles like:

Rebuild Your Wealth . .
Start Over …
Recommit …

Notice the shift in language, exposing the truth: If the plan is so good, why do you need to “rebuild” or “start over?” If the strategy worked, such words wouldn't be necessary. For the charade to continue, the gurus need to reinforce the strategy with new books selling the same old shit! And the bigger question: Do you think the gurus need to “start over” or “rebuild”? Of course not! They don't use the plan they sell! They operate in an entirely different wealth universe not predicated on uncontrollable limited leverage.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
Take advice from people with a proven, successful track record of their espoused discipline.
Many money gurus often suffer from a Paradox of Practice; they teach one wealth equation while getting rich in another. They're not rich from their own teachings.
CHAPTER 15: SLOWLANE VICTORY… A GAMBLE OF HOPE

I'd rather live in regret of failure than in regret of never trying.
~ MJ DeMarco
Exodus: Life in the Slowlane

Wealth by the Slowlane roadmap is analogous to Exodus, the biblical story of Moses. God leads Moses out of Egyptian bondage into a daunting 40-year journey through the desert, with the promise of a glorious future in the land of “milk and honey.” After a lifetime of toil and struggle, Moses arrives at the doorstep to his destination and-wham!

He dies.

He never sees the promise of the journey because life has no guarantees.

Sadly, Slowlane wealth is akin to this long, perilous journey through the desert. It's a trip that takes decades to finish, starves your life, and makes no promises. Yes, graduate from college, get a good job, entrust your money to the stock market, serve the boss well, and you might be rewarded. In today's harrowing financial climate, I'm surprised people still believe it.

But people do, and in legions. When I see sales figures for Slowlane books, I'm dumbfounded. Millions sold. How sad. Millions being led astray down a path littered with dangerous potholes and detours, a road that takes years to travel for a far-fetched promise of a freer tomorrow. To assume that you will live a long, healthy life is arrogant. To assume that life won't throw you any curves is naive. 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 littered with crisis points, which make the Slowlane roadmap a risky bet that consumes your most precious asset: time.

Seven Slowlane Dangers

People drive the Slowlane because it's what they've been told to drive. They believe the risks are minimal and it's safe. After all, 90% of all new businesses fail after five years, so the “Fastlane” can't be any safer! If you lob a little logic into the Slowlane narratives you'll find that it's extremely hazardous and a plan based entirely on hope. Assumptions-decades of them-expose the Slowlane's true risks. Choose to travel the road and choose to gamble. Here are the risks:

1) The Danger of Your Health

The Slowlane HOPES you will live long enough to enjoy the fruits of your savings as you hit your late stage years. Remember, you will have millions when you retire at 65! Will you be healthy enough to enjoy it? Alive? If you can't work your job, you can't make money. If you can't work, what happens to this plan? Also, avoid other calamities; hope your job stress doesn't kill you and your family remains healthy.

2) The Danger of the Job

The Slowlane HOPES that you'll be gainfully employed at all times, safely climbing the corporate ladder year after year. You must avoid layoffs, corporate politics, firings, poor industry cycles, job skill degradation, and bad job markets.

3) The Danger of Your Home

Home equity is lauded as a middle-class wealth vehicle. Many gurus have shouted from the rooftops, “Retire on your home equity!” and “Your home is an asset!” Capital BS. The Slowlane HOPES that real estate values always rise, and it's patently false. In 2008, the value of my home equity plummeted $800,000. I disavow my home as an investment and, thankfully, I do not rely on it.

4) The Danger of the Company

Not many companies outlive the centuries. If your retirement faith is put into one company in the form of either 1) your job, 2) your pension, or 3) their stock, you HOPE the company survives. You make a bet. Many retirees discover too late that their retirement pensions are lost to mismanagement by company executives. Others who focus their wealth into one company stock accept great risk that the stock will be worth more in the future. If you assign your retirement unto others, you then accept external risks that you can't control. When the torque of you're financial plan resides with others, you're likely to lose control.

5) The Danger of Your Lifestyle

The Slowlane begs you to settle and become a miser. Want to own an exotic car? Forget it. Want to live on a beach? Wishful thinking. If you cannot control your temptations of lifestyle improvement (a nicer home, a nicer car, a nicer meal out), the Slowlane becomes slower and reverses course. The Slowlane HOPES your “delayed gratification” moves to “no gratification.”

6) The Danger of the Economy

The Slowlane HOPES that your investments will yield a predictable 8% return year after year. You must believe the theory that “buy and hold” works. It doesn't, because economic busts, recessions, and depressions happen. For example, in 2008–2009, the equity markets lost nearly 60%. If you saved for 15 years and amassed $100,000, it would now be worth $40,000. It would take you 14 years at 8% yearly returns just to get back even! That equates to almost 30 YEARS GONE! And this doesn't account for inflation, which makes your $100,000 more like $50,000!

7) The Danger of the Sidewalk

Frustrated Slowlaners often revert to the Sidewalk. Why? Hope over control. When you can't control time, when you can't control your job, when you can't control five days of your life each week, you feel powerless. Emotions of helplessness create an environment ripe for instant gratification and Lifestyle Servitude. A study published in 2008 by the Journal of Consumer Research found that when people feel powerless and out of control, they have a strong desire to buy things that convey a high status. Why do they feel powerless? Simple. In the Slowlane, you relinquish control because time is in control and the gates to the Sidewalk reopen. Hope is not a plan.

Resistance Is Futile

When you perform an autopsy on the Slowlane you see its true colors: It's slow, it eats time, and it's risky. When a Slowlaner realizes the plan isn't working, he goes into overdrive. Overdrive in the Slowlane is like pushing a car's accelerator to the floor, hoping its upper speed limits somehow will mystically extend higher, when in fact, the racetrack itself is the problem-not the accelerator. Yet, a Slowlaner will try to manipulate his weak mathematical universe by trying to make the variables malleable.

 
Manipulate intrinsic value by increasing hours worked.
(I need to make more money!)
Manipulate intrinsic value by changing jobs or adding jobs.
(I need to get paid more!)
Manipulate intrinsic value by going back to school.
(I need a better career!)
Manipulate compound interest by seeking better investment yields.
(I need better investments!)
Manipulate compound interest by expanding investment time horizon.
(I need more time!)
Manipulate compound interest by increasing the investment.
(I need to save more!)
Each of these six responses is a futile attempt to manipulate the impotence of the Slowlaner's wealth equation. Unfortunately, the limitations of the mathematics cannot be subverted, and doing so results in dangerous cause-effects cycles.

When a Slowlaner wants to make more money, he increases his hours worked, switches to a better paying job, or adds jobs. When a Slowlaner wants to get paid more, he goes back to school, hoping to increase intrinsic value. When a Slowlaner realizes that a 3% investment return isn't building wealth fast enough, bigger risks are assumed for bigger returns. When a Slowlaner watches 40% of his nest egg disappear in an economic recession, he goes back to work arguing that five years is not enough to “get back to even.”

You can't overcome the limitations of mathematics. 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 Slowlane is risky because its variables are uncontrollable and leverage is absent. ULL really means “ULL” never get rich. Yet, lifestyle is the one variable Slowlaners can effectively manipulate. Unfortunately, this quickly turns Slowlane life into a stale exhibition of misery. Yes, settle for less.

Wealth Fail: Wrong Equation. Wrong Variable

At some point, the Slowlaner realizes he can't force the stock market to yield bigger returns. He can't force a 200% pay raise. He can't afford an advanced education to raise intrinsic value. Job-hopping offers little incremental pay upgrades. The Slowlaner is enslaved to his equation and resorts to manipulating the only controllable variable, personal net income, which is increased by reducing expenses.

Personal Net Income = Intrinsic Value – Personal Expenses

Slowlane gurus praise this strategy. The edicts are clear: Pay down your debt. Dump the new car for an old one. Raise your insurance deductibles. Cancel your credit cards and pay cash for everything. Quit buying $10 coffee at Starbucks. Bag your lunch. Shop in bulk. Spend four hours clipping coupons. C'mon buddy, slash those expenses-some day you're going to be rich! Hilarious!

These tiresome strategies are a classic response to being stuck in the Slowlane.

Lifestyle degradation.

When you're married to a bad wealth equation, this is resistance. This is like getting a divorce by sleeping on the couch. This is like never batting in a baseball game and expecting to win. Since wealth is tied to time and can't be controlled, you're left with kitchen scraps … lifestyle degradation in the form of expense reduction. Yup, become a cheapskate.

Wrong. Hoodwinking expenses does not create wealth. You can't win the money game always playing defense-you must go on offense. Exploding income and controlling expenses creates wealth.

For example, when I routinely earned $100,000 per month, I accumulated wealth fast because I maintained control over my expenses. As my income exponentiated, expenses grew linearly and weren't neglected. If my income increased by 100%, expenses only grew by 10%. I didn't accumulate wealth because of expense dickery. Income explosion and expense control created wealth.

So what happens when a Slowlaner commits to the expense variable? Life becomes about what you can't do. You can't take that trip. You can't buy your kids a decent pair of shoes. You can't own a dream car. You can't subscribe to the movie channels. Yes, the good old “sacrifice your today for the promise of tomorrow.”

You settle.

Slowlane Victory: Fame or a Geriatric Ward

Why invest in a plan that consumes 40 years of your life and fails most of the time? I wouldn't. The dreary reality is that Slowlane failure doesn't happen overnight; failure transpires over the years like a termite-infested woodshed, and when its denizens come to judgment, it's too late. Yes, Slowlane victory is as tough as a truck-stop sirloin.

In a 2002 AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) survey, 69% of the respondents said they would need to work past retirement age. A year earlier, 45% said they would need to work into their 70s and 80s. We can deduce something disturbing from this data: The Slowlane's failure rate is near 70%. Despite the risks, despite the mathematical limitations, despite the typical five day trade for a weekend, despite all of it, you might stand firm and try your luck. While victory isn't impossible, I need mention a few things: Slowlane winners are usually extremely talented, elderly, or overworked.

How to Win the Slowlane: The “Secret Exit”

The Slowlane can be defied if you find its “secret exit,” its “get out of jail free” card that neutralizes the limitations of Uncontrollable Limited Leverage. That secret Slowlane escape?

Fame.

Fame breaks the mathematical limitations of intrinsic value. Those who defy the Slowlane are the most pervasive in our culture because of fame-the pro athletes, rappers, musicians, actors, and entertainers. If you want to bludgeon the Slowlane's weakness you need to get famous. Why? Fame and notoriety carries a high intrinsic value. People pay extraordinary rates for you and your services. (Even if, like a reality-show star, you have no skills.)

When a 20-year old basketball player leaves college and scores a $30 million contract, you've just witnessed Slowlane defiance. When an actress lands a $15 million lead role in a major motion picture, you've just witnessed Slowlane defiance. When an obese freckly-faced Irish guy ascends from waiter to top finalist on American Idol, the limitations of the Slowlane roadmap are shattered because intrinsic value explodes. Suddenly, intrinsic value has leverage because of demand.

Unfortunately, most people who seek wealth do so through Slowlane defiance, not via the Fastlane. Fortune-leading fames are the obvious attack. Why do stadiums breach to capacity for American Idol auditions? Fame explodes intrinsic value! You can defy the Slowlane's limitations by becoming so indispensable that your value to society skyrockets. If millions seek you, you will be paid millions. Pro basketball player LeBron James is paid millions because his skills are in short supply. Famous actors and entertainers are paid millions because millions demand their brand in entertainment form. Extreme talent is paid extremely well.

Overworked into Corporate Management

The other highly sought-after Slowlane “secret exit” is good ol' corporate management. No doubt you've heard the Slowlane missive “climb the corporate ladder.”

When a corporate CEO cashes $20 million in stock options, you've witnessed another Slowlane defiance. Surely you've heard about all those overpaid CEOs of large companies raking in the big dough. Have you ever looked at their age? Exclusive of the founders and owners, most of them are in their 50s and 60s.

Obviously, the roads through corporate management don't happen overnight; from mailroom to CEO can take 40 years. And if it does, you certainly don't get there by taking it easy. Nope, you arrive early and leave late. Sorry, I don't have 40 years of patience, waiting for that golden parachute to land in my backyard.

Successful Slowlaners Get Stuck in the “Middle”

I have no desire to be famous or to be a corporate drone-heck, I don't even own a suit or tie, so how would I climb the corporate ladder? If you're allergic to fame and corporate ascension as a road to riches, what's left? Society enforces the Slowlane as your only option. Unfortunately, that strategy leads straight into the “middles”-middle class or middle age.

Every lottery has a winner. Bad odds have winners! “Oldlaners” (Slowlaners who succeed using a Slowlane strategy) who survive the Slowlane road-map eventually become millionaires, but please, don't pop the cheap champagne quite yet. The distinction between a Slowlane millionaire and a Fastlane millionaire is like the difference between a Buick and a Ferrari. When you recognize the difference, you can critique advice properly and assign it to its correct Fastlane or Slowlane box.

Millionaires Are Rich … or Are They?

I recently read an article about a young woman named Callie from the U.K. who, several years ago, won millions in a lottery, only to lose most of it shortly there after. Of course, “lose” implies that the entire bag of cash flew out of the car while cruising down the boulevard in her brand new convertible.

She didn't “lose” it-she spent it. She was just 16 years old when she won the $3 million, and it took only six years for her to blow it: drugs, partying, exotic cars, breast implants, and a jaw-dropping $730,000 in designer clothes. The problem? Callie thought she was rich and spent like she was rich. Surely she bought into her title: “I'm a millionaire.” While $3 million is a decent chunk of change, she needed $30 million for her lifestyle.

Which brings us to our famous word, “millionaire.”

When you hear that word, what do you think? Like wealth, you probably have visions of an extravagant lifestyle: boats, helicopters, mansions, and expensive jewelry. For decades, the term “millionaire” has been ubiquitously used to describe someone “rich.”

Except these visions of opulence describe a lifestyle of a millionaire elevated by the Fastlane, not the Slowlane. Slowlane millionaires who don't escape by fame or corporate bastardization live differently. They own homes in innocuous middle class neighborhoods. They drive unassuming cars like Hondas or Toyotas, they vacation infrequently, they limit their dining expenses, they cut coupons, and they max out their 401(k)s. They work five days a week at jobs they most likely hate and diligently save 10% of their paychecks. Others own small businesses, franchises, and retail stores. Several national best-selling books have enlightened us: Yes, these are the “millionaires next door.”

Sadly, in today's terms, a “millionaire” (net worth of $1,000,000) is simply upper middle class. A millionaire is not rich. Five million is the old one million. Depressing, I know.

This hidden truth is why many lottery winners go broke after a few years. Winners envision the lavish lifestyle and live it not knowing that several million dollars won't support it! If you win a million bucks (which after taxes is only $600,000), your lifestyle shouldn't change. If you try to live the “millionaire lifestyle” as shown on television, a fool and his money are soon parted.

Playing the lottery is a symptom of the Sidewalk. So why would it shock anyone to discover that a newly crowned lottery winner goes broke just years later? Lottery winners assign “rich” to the word “millionaire,” so their fortune is fast spent on the icons of wealth, and soon thereafter, they're bankrupt.

The word “millionaire” fooled them.

Millionaire is middle class. To live a lifestyle normally reserved for “millionaires,” you will have to amass far more than $1 million. Having $1 million doesn't entitle you to a lifestyle of the rich and famous. You need at least $10 million for that. So when the media spoon-feeds you the word “millionaire,” determine its perspective: Is it Slowlane and middle class? Or Fastlane and rich?

12 Distinctions Between Slowlane and Fastlane Millionaires

 
Slowlane millionaires make millions in 30 years or more. Fastlane millionaires make millions in 10 years or less.
Slowlane millionaires need to live in middle-class homes. Fastlane millionaires can live in luxury estates.
Slowlane millionaires have MBAs. Fastlane millionaires hire people with MBAs.
Slowlane millionaires let their assets drift by market forces. Fastlane millionaires control their assets and possess the power to manipulate their value.
Slowlane millionaires can't afford exotic cars. Fastlane millionaires can afford to drive whatever they want.
Slowlane millionaires work for their time. Fastlane millionaires have time working for them.
Slowlane millionaires are employees. Fastlane millionaires hire employees.
Slowlane millionaires have 401(k)s. Fastlane millionaires offer 401(k)s.
Slowlane millionaires use mutual funds and the stock market to get rich. Fastlane millionaires use them to stay rich.
Slowlane millionaires let other people control their income streams. Fastlane millionaires control their income streams.
Slowlane millionaires are cheap with money. Fastlane millionaires are cheap with time.
Slowlane millionaires use their house for net worth. Fastlane millionaires use their house for residency.
The Fastlane isn't about becoming the next middle-class millionaire with tiresome mandates about what you cannot do; it's about what you can do.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
The Slowlane has seven dangers, five of which cannot be controlled.
The risk of “lifestyle” is the one risk Slowlaners will try to control.
The Slowlane is predisposed to mediocrity because its mathematical universe is mediocre.
Slowlaners manipulate the “expense” variable because it is the one thing they can control.
Exponential income growth and expense management creates wealth-not just by curtailing expenses.
You can break the Slowlane equation by exploding your intrinsic value via fame or insider corporate management.
Successful Slowlaners not famous or in corporate management end in the middle . . . middle class and middle age.
Slowlane millionaires are stuck in the middle class.
$5 million is the new $1 million.
A millionaire cannot live a millionaire lifestyle without financial discipline.
Lottery winners fall into the millionaire trap and go broke because they attempt to live a “millionaire” lifestyle, not understanding that a few million doesn't go very far.
PART 5: Wealth–The Fastlane Roadmap
CHAPTER 16: WEALTH'S SHORTCUT: THE FASTLANE

People would do better, if they knew better.
~ Jim Rohn
What About Door #3?

Sidewalk or Slowlane? Sacrifice today or tomorrow? You can walk the Sidewalk with no financial plan and convince yourself that the indulgences of today have no consequence for tomorrow, or drive the Slowlane and sacrifice your today for the risk and illusions of a secure tomorrow.

But wait! There is another choice … an alternative, a hybrid financial roadmap that can create wealth fast and slash 40 years from wealth accumulation. “Fast” however is relative; if you're 18 you can be filthy rich by 25. If you're 30, you can be retired by 36. Broke at 48 and you can retire by 54. But is it likely? Risky? If you could play one of three raffles, which would you play?

Raffle Sidewalk:
First prize: $10,000,000 awarded immediately. Your odds of winning: 1 in 6 million (.0000016%)

Raffle Slowlane:
First prize: $500,000 awarded in 40 years. Your odds of winning: 1 in 6 (16%)

Raffle Fastlane:
First prize: $10,000,000 awarded in 6 years. Your odds of winning: 1 in 7 (14%)

Which did you pick? Hopefully Raffle Fastlane because its rewards far exceed the incremental risk of Raffle Slowlane. Raffle Sidewalk is a wasted long shot. Your choice of financial roadmaps-Sidewalk, Slowlane, or Fastlane-is like this hypothetical raffle. Once you understand the roadmaps and their respective wealth equations, you can choose the one that will serve as your compass.

What Is the Fastlane?

The Fastlane is a business and lifestyle strategy characterized by Controllable Unlimited Leverage (CUL), hence creating an optimal environment for rapid wealth creation and extraordinary lifestyles. Definitively, pay attention to these four segments:

1) Controllable Unlimited Leverage (CUL)
Whereas the Slowlane is defined by uncontrollable variables with no leverage, the Fastlane exploits the opposite conditions: maximum control and leverage.

2) Business
Your own business, self-employment, and entrepreneurship are centrist to the Fastlane, much like a job is to the Slowlane.

3) Lifestyle
The Fastlane is a lifestyle choice: a commitment of blended beliefs, processes, and actions.

4) Rapid Wealth Creation
The Fastlane is about creating large sums of wealth rapidly and beyond the confines of “middle class.”

Here is a story that best describes the Fastlane, and yes, this story is inspired from a real story posted on the Internet.

After four long years, I sold my company [THE BUSINESS] for $32 million [RAPID WEALTH CREATION] and I wouldn't change a thing. I'm happy I sold because I wanted to make money fast and transform paper money into real money. This decision changed my life permanently.
Now, I do whatever I want and I'm not the least bit bored. The world is my playground; I travel, I learned two new languages and how to play piano. I play water sports, hike, and snowboard at least a month a year. I own three homes, I watch pro sports and my favorite teams whenever I choose, watch 3–4 movies a week, and read 1–2 books a week. Most of my time is spent with my family, and I literally watch my two daughters grow before my eyes. My family has lived on all four corners of the planet, including Australia and the Caribbean.
Looking back, it wasn't easy. I worked 12–16 hour days for four years, almost always six days a week, and always a few hours on Sunday. We created an awesome service and sold the crap out of it. [THE BUSINESS WITH CUL] I remember tough times, and I had to put every dime of my money into the company … we had less than 50 bucks in our account at least five times.
Except for my family during those startup years, I sacrificed plenty; I canceled cable TV and I temporarily stopped doing a lot of things I enjoyed because I was committed to a goal and a dream of something far greater than a lifetime job. [THE LIFESTYLE]
Now, I am an investor in multiple startup companies and am making an impact I could have never imagined. I have no apologies or regrets. My life rocks and I wouldn't change a thing. If I didn't make a choice to get into business and start a company, I don't know where I'd be.
This story epitomizes the Fastlane. A business was created; a lifestyle grew the business, which opened up the expressway, and the expressway led to extraordinary wealth, which led to freedom. And yes, it isn't for everyone.

Question is: Is it for you?

The Fastlane Mindposts

Like the other roadmaps, the Fastlane Roadmap contains the same mindposts or behavioral characteristics that drive the Fastlaner's actions along the journey. They are:

Debt Perception:
Debt is useful if it allows me to build and grow my system.

Time Perception:
Time is the most important asset I have, far exceeding money.

Education Perception:
The moment you stop learning is the moment you stop growing. Constant expansion of my knowledge and awareness is critical to my journey.

Money Perception:
Money is everywhere, and it's extremely abundant. Money is a reflection of how many lives I've touched. Money reflects the value I've created.

Primary Income Source:
I earn income via my business systems and investments.

Primary Wealth Accelerator:
I make something from nothing. I give birth to assets and make them valuable to the marketplace. Other times, I take existing assets and add value to them.

Wealth Perception:
Build business systems for cash flow and asset valuation.

Wealth Equation:
Wealth = Net Profit + Asset Value

Strategy:
The more I help, the richer I become in time, money, and personal fulfillment.

Destination:
Lifetime passive income, either through business or investments.

Responsibility % Control:
Life is what I make it. My financial plan is entirely my responsibility and I choose how I react to my circumstances.

Life Perception:
My dreams are worth pursuing no matter how outlandish, and I understand that it will take money to make some of those dreams real.

These mindposts are what formulate the Fastlaner's lifestyle. It drives action.

The Fastlane Roadmap: Predisposed to Wealth

The Fastlane Roadmap is predisposed to wealth because it operates under a wealth equation with controllable, unlimited variables, and the mathematical cage of time is removed.

ULL is replaced with CUL.

Correctly exploited, the roadmap reveals a rapid road to wealth via unlimited mathematics evolving via “profit” or “asset value” or both. This rapid wealth accumulation expunges years from the journey to wealth because time is removed or exploited during the process. The Fastlane produces wealth in short periods-millions, sometimes billions of dollars.

Yes, it's true: “Get Rich Quick” exists.

The Shadow Behind “Get Rich Quick”

Successful Fastlaners “Get Rich Quick.”

Don't let those three words scare you; I know when you hear them you're inundated with a flurry of negative associations starting with “scam:” things like “one tiny classified ad” and seminars that cost $5,000, memories of infomercial gurus, foreign lotteries, the Interior Finance Minister from Nigeria who needs help unloading $9 million dollars (USD), and the phony “Bill Gates,” who needs you to “forward this email beta test to everyone” and be rewarded $50,000 in quick cash because, gosh golly, the attorney listed on the letter says so.

“Get Rich Quick” is such an abused phrase that it has no credibility. Beaten and battered, we're numbed to believe it doesn't exist. Like Santa or a unicorn, we're advised, “Get rich quick is a scam!”

I don't blame you, but is it true? Can't you make millions like they say on infomercials?

The distinction is that “get rich schemes” aren't endemic of “Get Rich Quick” but its evil twin, “Get Rich Easy.” “Get Rich Easy” shadows its innocent sibling, leaving a trail of victims to be blamed by its brother. “Get Rich Easy” parades in the limelight and on late night television. It lies, deceives, and casts a mirage of vanity that all desire. Just watch this quick-start video or buy this stock software program, and wham, you will be rich in 10 days! No! That's not “Get Rich Quick” but “Get Rich Easy”-and that only leads to a lighter wallet.

Fastlane success stories embody “Get Rich Quick.” For people to proclaim “It doesn't exist” is another untruth advanced by ignorance. Don't allow Slowlane losers to corrupt truth. Don't concede. Don't make “That only happens to other people” your truth.

Many people have lived “Get Rich Quick” because it was preceded by process.

Tales from the Fastlane

Unless you live in a vacuum, you're already familiar with the Fastlane. When anyone experiences a get-rich-quick event via business, you're witnessing the Fastlane. Here are some Fastlane stories pulled from the headlines:

 
The inventor who creates a gadget and sells millions of them to 15 wholesale distributors.
The guy who builds a cell phone application and sells it 50,000 times.
The guy who formulates an energy bar to help him stave off hunger and later is offered $192 million for his company.
The guy who builds a blog and three years later sells it for $4 million to a big pharmaceutical company.
The woman who invents a mop and sells 500,000 of them on QVC.
The teenager who builds a Web site that profits $70,000 month and later sells it for millions.
The guy who patents a product process and then licenses it to a Fortune 500 company and goes on to make $14 million.
The guy who creates a Web site to help him listen to his favorite basketball team and later sells the company for $5.5 billion.
The guy who builds a software company and later becomes the richest man on the planet.
The doctor who researches anti-aging treatments and sells them to a drug company for $700 million.
The author who writes a book about a teenage wizard and goes on to become a billionaire.
The gal who manufacturers and sells 20 million undergarments that help women fight body gravity.
The Internet marketer who earns $150,000/month selling ads.
The infomercial marketer who remakes an existing product and sells 4 million of the “new, improved” version.
The guy who creates an energy drink to help him stay hydrated and then sells the company for $530 million.
Hidden “Get Rich Quick” Fastlanes are everywhere if you just look for them.

The Fastlane: Wealth's Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a historic period when humans learned how to leverage the speed and efficiency of machine-based manufacturing. Manual labor was replaced in favor of systems, an organized union of distinct parts that coalesced into a specific production outcome. Long and arduous tasks manually handled by humans transformed into mechanization, expelling most human labor out of the production equation. For that era, it was their version of “Get Rich Quick.” Products that formerly took months to manufacture now took days.

Likewise, financial freedom via the Fastlane Roadmap is like an industrial revolution for wealth. The default road to wealth is manual labor, a fight against time and intrinsic value. The rapid road to wealth is to industrialize the wealth process, to systematize it like our ancestors systematized production. The differences between the default road (the Slowlane) and the shortcut (the Fastlane) are best demonstrated in an Egyptian parable.

The Parable of Fastlane Wealth

A great Egyptian pharaoh summons his two young nephews, Chuma and Azur, and he commissions them to a majestic task: Build two monumental pyramids as a tribute to Egypt. Upon completion of each nephew's pyramid, Pharaoh promises each an immediate reward of kingship, retirement amidst riches, and lavish luxury for the rest of their natural lives. Additionally, each nephew must construct his pyramid alone.

Chuma and Azur, both 18, know their daunting task will take years to complete. Nonetheless, each is primed for the challenge and honored by the Pharaoh's directive. They exit Pharaoh's chambers ready to begin the long pyramid-building process.

Azur begins work immediately. He slowly drags large heavy stones into a square formation. After a few months, the base of Azur's pyramid takes shape. Townsfolk gather around Azur's constructive efforts and praise his handiwork. The stones are heavy and difficult to move, and after one year of heavy labor, Azur's perfect square foundation to the pyramid is nearly finished.

But Azur is perplexed. The plot of land that should bear Chuma's pyramid is empty. Not one stone has been laid. No foundation. No dirt engravings. Nothing. It's as barren as it was a year ago when Pharaoh commissioned the job. Confused, Azur visits Chuma's home and finds him in his barn diligently working on a twisted apparatus that resembles some kind of human torture device.

Azur interrupts, “Chuma! What the hell are you doing!? You're supposed to be building Pharaoh a pyramid and you spend your days locked in this barn fiddling with that crazy machine?”

Chuma cracks a smile and says, “I am building a pyramid, leave me alone.”

Azur scoffs, “Yeah, sure you are. You haven't laid one stone in over a year!”

Chuma, engrossed and unfazed by his brother's accusation retorts, “Azur, you're short-sightedness and thirst for wealth have clouded your vision. You build your pyramid and I will build mine.”

As Azur walks away, he chides, “You fool! Pharaoh will hang you in the gallows when he discovers your treason.”

Another year passes and Azur solidifies the base of his pyramid and begins the second level. Except a problem arises. Azur struggles in his progress. The stones are heavy and he cannot raise them to the pyramid's second level. Challenged by his physical limitations, Azur recognizes his weakness: he needs more strength to move heavier stones, and to do so, seeks the counsel of Bennu, Egypt's strongest man. For a fee, Bennu trains Azur to build bigger and stronger muscles. With great strength, Azur anticipates the heavier stones will be easier to lift onto the higher levels.

Meanwhile, Chuma's pyramid plot of land is still barren. Azur assumes his brother has a death wish since, by all appearances, Chuma is violating Pharaoh's mandate. Azur forgets about his brother and his nonexistent pyramid.

Another year passes and Azur's pyramid construction slows to a disheartening crawl. It often takes one month just to place one stone. Moving stones to the upper levels require great strength and Azur spends much of his time working with Bennu to build greater strength.

Additionally, Azur is spending most of his money on counseling fees and the exotic diet required for the training. Azur estimates at his current construction pace, his pyramid will be completed in another 30 years. Unfazed, Azur lauds, “After three years, I've far surpassed my brother. He hasn't placed one stone yet! That fool!”

Then, suddenly, one day while hauling a heavy stone up his pyramid, Azur hears a loud commotion erupting from the town square. The townsfolk, regular observers to his work, abruptly abandon his plot to examine the celebratory fuss. Curious himself, Azur takes a break and leaves to investigate.

Surrounded by a cheering crowd, Chuma trolls up the town square commandeering a 25-foot contraption, a towering machine built from a twisted maze of gantries, wheels, levers, and ropes. As Chuma slowly moves up the village street amidst the buoyant crowd, Azur fears the explanation. After a short trawl to Chuma's barren pyramid plot, Azur's suspicions are confirmed.

Within minutes, Chuma's strange machine starts moving heavy stones and begins to lay the foundation to his pyramid. One after another, the machine effortlessly lifts the stones and softly places them side-by-side into place. Miraculously, the machine requires little effort for Chuma's operation. Crank a wheel attached to a rope and cantilever entwined by a gear system, and bingo! Heavy stones are moved quickly and magically.

While Azur's pyramid foundation took over a year to build, Chuma lines up the foundation to his pyramid within one week. The second level that Azur so arduously struggled with is even more shocking: Chuma's machine does the work 30 times quicker. What took Azur two months takes Chuma's machine two days. After 40 days, Chuma and his machine accomplish as much as Azur's three years of toilsome work.

Azur was destroyed. He spent years doing the heavy lifting while Chuma built a machine to do it for him.

Instead of honoring the machine, Azur vows, “I must get stronger! I must lift heavier stones!” Azur continues the hard labor of pyramid building while Chuma continues to work the crank of his machine.

After eight years, Chuma finishes his pyramid at age 26: three years to build the system and five years to reap the benefits of the system. The great pharaoh is pleased and does as promised. He rewards Chuma with kingship and endows him with great riches. Chuma never has to work another day in his life.

Meanwhile, Azur continues to dredge away at the same old routine. Lift rocks, waste time and money to get stronger, lift rocks, and get stronger. Sadly, Azur refuses to acknowledge his flawed strategy and endures the same old process: Carry heavy stones until you can lift no more … then get stronger so you can lift heavier stones.

This mindless prescription leads Azur to a lifetime of toil. He never finishes his pyramid promised to Pharaoh simply because he decides to do the heavy lifting himself when he should have focused on a system to do it for him. Azur has a heart attack and dies while on the 12th level of his pyramid, just two levels from finishing. He never experiences the great riches promised by Pharaoh.

Meanwhile, Chuma retires 40 years early in a crown of luxury. Sloshing in free time, Chuma goes on to become Egypt's greatest scholar and an accomplished inventor. He is entombed alongside Pharaoh in the same pyramid he built.

The Fastlane Is a Business System: The Slowlane Is a Job

The Slowlane is a job: your hard work traded for your employer's cash. Azur's struggles resemble that of a Slowlaner; to get rich, you're told to get stronger (spend money, return to school, and earn more in the job market) so you can lift heavier stones. 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.

On your wealth road trip, the Slowlane roadmap asks that you endure a long, tiresome walk to wealth. The toil of wealth is the process itself. In the Fastlane, wealth is driven in a business system you create-the toil is the creation and management of the system itself.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
The risk profile of a Fastlane strategy isn't much different from the Slowlane, but the rewards are far greater.
The Fastlane Roadmap is an alternative financial strategy predicated on Controllable Unlimited Leverage.
The Fastlane roadmap is predisposed to wealth.
The Fastlane Roadmap is capable of generating “Get Rich Quick” results, not to be confused with “Get Rich Easy.”
CHAPTER 17: SWITCH TEAMS AND PLAYBOOKS

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.
~ Benjamin Franklin
The Fastlane Roadmap: The Playbook for Wealth

Losing teams use losing playbooks. Play for a losing team and you're stuck using their losing playbook. To win, switch teams and use the winner's playbook. The Fastlane roadmap creates financial winners because it uses a winning formula rooted in unlimited and controllable mathematics. Where is this playbook and how do you get it? You have to forsake the ideology of the majority and become a Slowlane traitor.

Switching Teams and the Playbook

From the day you were born, you were baptized to play for Team Consumer, from the Barbie Doll and the Tonka Truck to the Star Wars action figures. You've been conditioned to demand: to want products, to need products, to buy products, and of course, to seek out the cheapest of those products.

The correlation between the Slowlane and the Sidewalk is this: Jobs exist to facilitate the consumer process. You become a brand manager for a consumer products company, you become an insurance agent, you become an accountant for some corporation-it's consumer driven and focused to move goods and services into the hands of consumers. This “consumer” focus is like a gravitational pull to keep you amenable to anti-Fastlane thinking.

Cracking the Code

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, hire for jobs. Instead of taking a mortgage, hold a mortgage. Break free from consumption, switch sides, and reorient to the world as producer.

I know; it's not easy. However, once you see the world from a producer perspective, your perception sharpens like a fine-tuned radio frequency, from static to clear stereo sound. Suddenly, opportunities have clarity, ideas surface, and scams are exposed. This new minority status is critical to strengthening your wealth creation temperament. Remember, the rich are a minority, and you want to be in that minority. It starts with a producer mindset.

Producer Reorientation

When you encounter an advertising message that coaxes you to buy something, examine it from the producer perspective. How does this company make money? What is the aim of its message? What kind of business processes are involved in offering this product or service? Is this company making a profit? What is the revenue model? Is this product manufactured overseas or locally?

I've never bought a product on late night television, because I'm on the same team. As a producer, I see the infomercials for what they are: producers (the minority) serving the consumer (the majority). The “act nows,” the “but wait, there's more!” the “free bonuses”-these are marketing weapons in a producer's arsenal. I watch infomercials not to buy, but to see what the pros are doing.

As producers, our job is to entice consumers to buy. As a producer locked into a producer mindset, I attract wealth because consumers seek producers. Consumers are the majority who demand their fill!

To Consume Richly, Produce Effectively

And the irony of this producer/consumer dichotomy? Once you succeed as a producer, you can consume anything you want with little consequence because you'll be rich.

To consume richly, produce richly first. Unfortunately, most people have it backward: consumption and no production. Producers get rich. Consumers get poor. Switch teams and reorient as a producer first, a consumer second. Make wealth attracted to you!

Be a Producer: Leverage the Business of a System

To switch teams and become a producer, you need to be an entrepreneur and an innovator. You need to be a visionary and a creator. You need to give birth to a business and offer the world value.

While the centrist theme to the Slowlane is a job, in the Fastlane, it's a business. Yes, good old self-employment. I know, not breaking news for “get rich” books, however, it's important to note that most small business owners are light years away from a Fastlane and dickering with Slowlane metrics. Some businesses masquerade as jobs!

A Fastlane business is the key to the Fastlane wealth equation (Wealth = Profit+ Asset Value) because it unlocks LEVERAGE, a new set of wealth variables that are unlimited and controllable, whereas in the Slowlane, they are limited and uncontrollable. Yes, ULL is swapped for CUL.

For example, the sale of this book extricates me from the Slowlane wealth equation and its universe. This book puts me into the Fastlane universe, which is governed by its wealth equation of net profit and asset value. This book is a business system that has unlimited leverage in both time and money! First, it survives time and it is capable of earning income long after my original time investment. This book effectively transfers the act of income generation from me (the human asset) to the book (the business asset).

From start to finish, this book cost roughly 1,000 hours of my time. If I sell 100,000 books at $5 profit each, I earn $500,000, or roughly $500 per hour invested. If I sell 500,000 books, I will earn $2,500 per hour invested. The more I sell, the greater the return on my original time investment, as I already paid the time. Imagine 10 years from today I sell one copy of this book. Suddenly I earn $5 from a time investment I made years ago!

But it gets better! If I guest-speak on a radio show for 10 minutes and that appearance yields 1,000 book sales, this 10-minute investment yields $5,000 in income (1,000 books X $5 profit) and yields a return on my time at $30,000 per hour. Can you get rich trading your time for $30,000 per hour? Yes you can, and awfully fast.

You see, when you unlock yourself from the handcuffs of time imposed by the Slowlane roadmap, you assign income to a system that leverages unlimited mathematics, and fast wealth becomes possible. The variables in my wealth universe can be controlled and leveraged. In the next chapter you will discover why the Fastlane can deliver financial freedom and wealth faster than any mutual fund can.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

 
Producers are indigenous to the Fastlane roadmap.
Producers are the minority as are the rich, while consumers are the majority as are the poor.
When you succeed as a producer, you can consume anything you want.
Fastlaners are producers, entrepreneurs, innovators, visionaries, and creators.
A business does not make a Fastlane-some businesses are jobs in disguise.
The Fastlane wealth equation is not bound by time and its variables are unlimited and controllable.
CHAPTER 18: HOW THE RICH REALLY GET RICH

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
~ TS Eliot
The Burning Question: “How Did You Get Rich?”

Drive any car that costs more than most people's homes and strangers will accost you with the question, “What do you do for a living?” This seemingly innocuous question “fronts” for the real question burning inside … “How did you get rich?”

People want to know the road I've taken so they can assess their likelihood to travel that same road. When I prompt for a guess, the answers are typical: Athlete. Actor. A spoiled brat indulged by rich parents. A lottery winner. These speculative “answers” unmask the reality behind people's perceptions: To get rich you have to get famous, inherit money , or win money. That's what I thought, until I met that stranger in his Lamborghini so many years ago.

The Fastlane Wealth Equation

Living wealthy in youthful exuberance has to shatter the myth of “Get Rich Quick.” If you're 30 years old and worth millions, and you aren't famous or rich via inheritance, you dirty all fabrics of normality. We can't have that, now can we? Once again, the secret is unmasked in the universal language of mathematics. The secret is to divorce yourself from the ugly and obese Slowlane equation (ULL) and trade up to the smoking hot blonde-the Fastlane equation (CUL).

Wealth = Net Profit + Asset Value

Underneath this equation lies the true power of the Fastlane and how to build wealth fast. Its variables are controllable and unlimited. If you can control the variables inherent to your wealth equation, you can get wealthy. Those variables are:

Net Profit = (Units Sold) X (Unit Profit)

~ and ~

Asset Value = (Net Profit) X (Industry Multiplier)

All business owners leverage this equation, in which (units sold) X (unit profit) will determine net profit. Using my Internet company as an example, my unit profit was approximately $4 for every Web site conversion. (A conversion was a user who generated a lead). On any given day, I had 12,000 people visiting my Web site. This means my “units sold” variable had an upper threshold of 12,000 per day. I had the opportunity to “sell” 12,000 people per day.

Let's compare this variable to the Slowlane's counterpart of hours worked.

Under my wealth equation, my upper limit of wealth is “units sold” and currently stood at 12,000. Of course, 100% conversion is unreasonable, and “converting” all 12,000 is unlikely. Likewise, in the Slowlane, the unreasonable upper limit is 24 because there are only 24 hours in the day. Logically, the real upper limit is 8 to 12 hours per day.

What is going to make you rich? An upper limit of exposure to 12,000 people per day? Or maximizing your hours worked in the day? That's 12,000 vs. 24. No contest. I get rich and the Slowlaner gets old.

Controllable unlimited variables will make you rich. So how did I control this variable? How is it unlimited? Simple. My average conversion ratio was 12%. If I want to make more profit, I don't walk into the boss's office and ask for a raise. No, I have several weapons available for deployment.

1) Raise Units Sold by Increasing Conversion Ratio
A 1% increase from 12% to 13% would give me an instant raise of about $480 per day. That's $14,400 per month. If I redesign the Web site, hit a home run and get conversion to 15%, now I've expanded my income to over $43,000 PER MONTH.

2) Raise Units Sold by Increasing Web Traffic
To raise profit, I can increase traffic. If I increase Web users to my Web site from 12,000 to 15,000 and conversion stays at 12%, my daily income rises by $1,440 per day, or $43,200 per month! Not likely? It happened! On some days I would have traffic spikes where over 20,000 users would visit.

3) Raise Unit Profit
If I detect a weakness in supply for my service or improve value, I can raise prices and increase my unit profit. If my unit profit moves from $4 to $4.50,I raise my income to $10,800 per day from $8,000. That translates to an additional $84,000 per month! Is your mouth on the floor yet?

Isn't it wonderful to have control?

These were my options to create wealth. I had reasonable control over both variables, “unit profit” and “units sold,” whereas in the Slowlane you're left pleading with the boss for a measly 3% salary raise.

Second, notice how my wealth variables are virtually unlimited. I controlled only a small part of my market, and conceivably my upper threshold of traffic wasn't the current 12,000 people but upward of 50,000–100,000 users PER DAY. Unit profit is also pliable. I could experiment with increased prices or new services.

I remember the time when I introduced a new service that cost me nothing and I sent out an email to my advertisers outlining the program. Within minutes, I made a few thousand dollars in reoccurring yearly income. My invested time was negligible and the results were accumulative.

High speed limit = high potential income.

The power of this example is to illustrate why I got rich and most others don't. I changed my universe because my wealth equation was unlimited and controllable. When I make tiny, incremental changes in my strategy, I explode my income. A mere 1% increase in the variables could mean thousands and a new Lamborghini. When your wealth variables have high leverage, so does your income potential-or would you rather stick with the ceiling of 24 hours native to intrinsic value?

Unfortunately, many enthusiastic business owners engage in opportunities with low, punitive speeds.

For example, if you sit outside the hardware store and sell hot dogs from your hot dog cart, you've muzzled your speed with no accelerative leverage. The variables are limited because your reach is confined to a small area. How many hot dogs could you conceivably sell in the day? 40? 100? Is it possible you can go home and rave to your wife “Honey! I sold 20,000 hot dogs today!” It would never happen! Again, this isn't much different from the 24-hour cage on intrinsic value. Small numbers have a strong gravity toward mediocrity.

Another example is this book itself. How many people are interested in financial independence or early retirement? My market, my upper speed limit, is virtually hundreds of millions of people all over the world. To weaponize the Fastlane wealth equation, you must engage in a Fastlane business that has the potential for leverage or high speed limits.

Retarded numbers retard wealth!

Millionaires Create and Manipulate Assets (Asset Value)

In a survey of 3,000 pentamillionaires ($5 million net worth) the Harrison Group (HarrisonGroupInc.com) reported that almost all pentamillionaires made their fortunes in a big lump sum after a period of years. Worth repeating: a big lump sum, not “by saving 10% of his paycheck for 40 years.”

“A big lump sum” is just another phrase for “asset value.” Furthermore, 80% either started their own business or worked for a small company that saw explosive growth. Explosive growth is another phrase representing asset value. And yet, none of these multimillionaires had a cushy union job down at the DMV. Surprised? Don't be.

The primary wealth accelerant of the rich boils down to one concept: Appreciable and controllable assets. Within our Fastlane wealth equation, this second component is called “Asset Value.” Asset value is simply the worth of any property you own that has marketplace value.

Slowlaners and Fastlaners have two antagonistic views of “assets.” Slowlaners and Sidewalkers buy and sell depreciating assets that decline in value over time. Cars, boats, electronics, designer clothes, gizmodos, and sparkly bling to impress that newly divorced woman in the adjacent cubicle-these are all assets that lose value the moment your credit card is charged.

Contrary to this, Fastlaners buy and sell appreciating assets: businesses, brands, cash flows, notes, intellectual property, licenses, inventions, patents, and real estate. As it relates to the Fastlane wealth equation, the power of “Asset Value” lies in your ability to control the variable in a virtually limitless fashion.

Wealth Acceleration by Asset Value

The rich accelerate wealth by accelerating asset value and selling those upgraded assets in the marketplace.

Twenty-four-year-old Sheila Hinton quits her job to become a roving computer technician, eradicating viruses and cleaning computers. At first, her business operates in the local metropolitan area, but growth forces her to hire additional technicians. Her growth to additional cities is explosive and driven by demand.
In a few years, Sheila owns a company that operates in 27 states. She moves from a technician to a facilitator of the system, and her company enjoys an impressive $2.9 million profit. After enjoying the profits (and saving most of it), she sells her company for $24 million to a large computer manufacturer. She built an asset from nothing to something. The asset was her system, and now with a $30 million nest egg, she never has to work again.
The preceding story best represents the two variables that comprise “asset value”:

Asset Value = (Net Profit) X (Industry Multiplier)

Any time you have an asset that has sustainable profits, an industry multiplier governed by prevailing market conditions determines the valuation of that asset. Other people or companies will buy that asset based on the asset's net profit multiplied by the assessed multiple.

For example, if you own a manufacturing company that nets $100,000 and the average multiple for your industry is 6, your asset value is worth $600,000. Industry multipliers are subject to intense negotiating as they rise and fall with the economy and within industry sectors.

You already might be familiar with “multipliers.” Stocks trading on the public markets define the multiplier for each respective company by the price-to-earnings ratio, or PE. If a company's stock trades at 10 times PE, investors are purchasing that company at a multiple of 10 times. Price-to-earnings is relevant regardless of whether your company is a small private company or a large publicly traded company: The valuation of your company is predicated on the subjective PE for your particular industry.

For example, in my particular Web space, industry multipliers ranged from 2 to 6. For this analysis, let's use the middle: 4. This means that any time I increased my net profit, the value of my business increased by a minimum factor of 4, or 400%.

400%!

Where can you get a return of 400% in today's financial market? Are there any mutual funds paying 400%? Forget about today, how about ever? In effect, this puts a phenomenal wealth-building tool at your disposal. Since net income, profit, or earnings can determine asset value, I experienced asset growth of 400% every time I increased net profit. For every dollar I earned, the value of my company would increase by a factor of 4, or $4. If my net profit increased $500,000 for the year, my company's valuation increased by $2 million.

Below is a list of average multiples per respective industry.


Advertising	2.85
Beauty Shops	4.10
Bars/Drinking Places	2.70
Carpet Cleaning	5.22
Computer Related Services	8.19
Employment Agencies	5.4
Engineering Services	6.32
Gasoline Stations	3.70
Grocery Stores	11.34
Medical Labs	2.62
Misc. Retail Stores	3.62
Patent Owners and Lessors	14.56
Physical Fitness Facilities	3.56
Plumbing/HVAC Services	4.52
Surgical and Medical Equipment	17.32
Used Merchandise Stores	4.92
Source: Inc. Magazine, June 2009

The Wealth Acceleration Factor (WAF)

Suppose you're a disgusted engineer employed by a multinational corporation. You've been employed for three years and diligently save 10% of your paycheck and invest it into a mutual fund earning an average of 8% a year. Your Wealth Acceleration Factor (WAF) is 8%.

Now suppose you quit your job and take your three years of experience and setoff to create a company manufacturing medical devices. You estimate that your total market (potential buyers) for your medical product(s) is 16 million. According to our chart above, the average multiple for the “medical devices” industry is over 17. This means within your scope of wealth acceleration, you can accelerate wealth at a FACTOR of 17, or 1,700%. Your Wealth Acceleration Factor (WAF) is 1,700%.

Let's extend this example further. For the next six years, you grow this company to the point that its net income is $1.2 million per year. This means you now earn $100,000 per month (your net profit) AND your company (the asset) is now worth in the neighborhood of $18.4 million based on the average multiple.($1.2M X 17.32 multiple.) You could continue to grow the business (grow wealth via asset value) and cash flow (grow income) or seek to liquidate (sell asset value)to realize wealth acceleration.

Contrast the two wealth acceleration options for the Slowlaner and the Fastlaner. Your wealth acceleration options if you stay as an employed engineer:

 
Raise your intrinsic value and HOPE the boss gives you a pay raise.
HOPE the company doesn't lay you off, so you can continue receiving your income.
Save 10% of your paycheck in a mutual fund and HOPE for an 8% return for the next 40 years.
Your wealth acceleration options if you owned your own medical device company:

 
Grow net income with an income potential only limited by the number of devices you can sell, that is, 16 million.
Grow asset value at a factor of 1,700%.
Liquidate asset value and turn paper money into real money.
Can you see now why some 30-year-olds are worth $50 million and some are worth $13,000? The Fastlane universe operates on gains of 1,700% and millions, while the Slowlane universe 8% and 40. One plan is about HOPE while the other is about CONTROL. Breaking news: 8% and 40 makes millionaires in 40 years: 1,700% and 16 million makes billionaires in four years.

Wealth's Dual-Flanked Attack

Zealous pursuit of net profit is a double-flanked attack at creating wealth. Since asset value is tied to net profit, raising net profit simultaneously elevates asset value by the average industry multiple. Of course, this works in the opposite as well; if your company stagnates and net income starts to erode, so will the corresponding asset value. When I repurchased my company, I paid $250,000. I then for the next several years manipulated the asset and increased its value.

 
I expanded my customer base by 30%.
I reduced expenses, improving profitability.
I streamlined operations, which created passivity.
I elevated “net income.”
Over this process, my net income exploded and, with it, asset value. Then, subsequently, and after profiting millions passively, I put the company up for sale and entertained multimillion dollar offers. I bought an asset for $250,000, appreciated and manipulated the variables, and then sold it for millions. I controlled my financial plan; the plan didn't control me.

In the Fastlane, your Wealth Accelerator is based on creating or buying appreciative assets, adding value and manipulating the variables, and then selling. Or you can opt for the Slowlane alternative-dump $200 a month into a mutual fund and pray for 8% per year and 40 years of employment. Excuse me while I laugh.

Super-Fast Wealth Acceleration: Liquidation Events

Liquidation events create millionaires overnight, but only if liquidation occurs. Liquidation events are the process of selling your appreciable asset to the market. It's a Fastlane exit strategy.

John Twitnuts creates a social networking Web site that goes viral. Soon millions of people are using his service and John finds himself entertaining buyout offers and venture capital investments. Despite having no revenue and no profit, John has built an asset that has value to the marketplace. He receives a $640 million offer for his service from the Web's leading search engine. John declines, arguing that his business will be worth more money once he starts generating revenue. While this is true, it is a gamble.
After 18 months, John's social networking service falls out of vogue, proving that the service was nothing more than a fad. The company becomes a bad party joke. In search of glowing valuations on a declining property, John no longer receives investor or buyer interest. He realizes too late that he should have taken the $640 million and experienced a liquidation event. He eventually sells the company at a “fire-sale” price of $2.5 million to a private equity firm. His poor timing cost him more than $600 million.
Asset valuations of businesses, real estate, and other appreciable assets are nothing, but just that-valuations based on subjective analysis and market data. If the company you build from scratch has a paper valuation of $60 million and your bank account only has $10,000, are you really a millionaire? Not really. Illiquid, paper-millionaires can't buy Italian sports cars and palatial estates; money does. And to get the money, you have to increase profit and save it, or go for the big exit: liquidation.

Fastlaners accelerate wealth by building cash-flowing assets that can be sold in the marketplace to realize gains. Their wealth equation has controllable, unlimited leverag