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
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.
Maintain a central control of your business.listen to customer feedback about their needs and suggestions they give for improvement of your business.
Fame or physical talent is not a pre-requisite to wealth.
Fast wealth is created exponentially, not linearly.
Change can happen in an instant.
Your pursuit of wealth stalls when your focus is the road and its destination, and not the road trip. 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.
You can’t crack wealth’s code with one variable in a multi-variable equation.
Wealth is a process, not an event.
Without process, there is no event.
If you try to skip process, you’ll never experience events.
Process is the road trip to wealth.
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.
More money is not a solution to poor financial management.
Unaffordable material possessions have consequences to our health and relationships.
Wealth is authored by strong familial relationships, fitness and health, and freedom—not by material possessions.
Money can’t buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you’re being miserable. ~ Clare Boothe Luce
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.
Money, properly used, can buy freedom, which can lead to happiness.
The consequence of instant gratification is the destruction of freedom, health, and choice.
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.
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.
Responsibility is the price of greatness. ~ Winston Churchill
Wealth Demands Responsibility, Followed by 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.
Wealth is defined by freedom.
The rich use the markets for income and wealth preservation—not to create it!
Extreme talent is paid extremely well.
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.
People would do better, if they knew better.
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.
A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.
The winning team is Team Producer.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.
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 wealthcreation temperament. Remember, the rich are a minority, and you want to be in that minority. It starts with a producer mindset.
To consume richly, produce richly first.
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!
Money trees are business systems that survive on their own.
Change creates millionaires. Those who observe and take advantage of change will be the new millionaires and billionaires.
The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.~ Proverbs 22:7
Fastlaners think globally, not locally.
For compound interest to be effective, you must bypass 30 years of mathematical ineptitude by riding the crest where it is effective.
Scale creates millionaires. Magnitude creates millionaires. Scale and magnitude creates billionaires.
The closer you get to the source of large numbers, the closer you will get to wealth. To serve millions is to make millions. Think big to earn big.
Any “adviser” who recommends a business structure as a sole proprietorship or general partnership should be avoided like an airport toilet. These entities are risky because they don’t protect you and catapult unlimited liability onto you and your personal assets.
Poor choices are the leading cause of poorness.
The will to persevere is often the difference between failure and success.
Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.
Lifestyle choices will make you a millionaire.
The smallest choices made in your daily life create habits and lifestyle that forms process—they are the ones that can make the biggest impact. You can’t decide to “go Fastlane” because that itself is just an event. A Fastlane process is hundreds of choices.
The younger you are, the more potent your choices are and the more horsepower you posses.
Until we see what we are, we cannot take steps to become what we should be.
The more uncanny and exceptional you strive to be, the more you need to fight through social indoctrination. Extraordinary wealth will require you to have extraordinary beliefs.
Toxic relationships drain energy and detract from your goals to be extraordinary.
Good relationships are accelerative to your process, while bad relationships are treasonous.
Value your time poorly and you will be poor. When time is wasted as a lifestyle choice you will be stranded in places you don’t want to be.
When life sucks, escapes are sought. I don’t need television because I invested my time into a real life worth living, not a fictitious escape.
If you race cars at the drag strip, you know that every ounce of weight counts. Racers remove everything nonessential to make the car as light as possible. This increases efficiency, speed, and performance, resulting in faster finishes. Unnecessary weight forces the car to work harder. Yet on our road trip to wealth, we’re guilty of adding weight. Our vehicle is burdened with junk-in-the-trunk that coerces us to work harder.
You want to be rich, you have to start thinking rich. Time is king.
Parasitic debt has to be stopped at the source: instant gratification.
Fastlane education is to foster growth of the business system. Conversely, Slowlane education is designed to specifically enhance the intrinsic value of the person receiving the education. It is to become a gear in the system.
Good seminars are under $1,000 and are given by respectable experts, practitioners, and seminar firms. Good seminars are educational and don’t come at the price of a new Cadillac Escalade. Bad seminars are hyped, high-pressure, and exploitative. Bad seminars are about making money and not about helping you.
Interest reads a book; commitment applies the book 50 times. Interest wants to start a business; commitment files LLC paperwork. Interest works on your business an hour a day Monday through Friday; commitment works on your business seven days a week whenever time permits. Interest leases an expensive car; commitment rides a bike and puts the money into your system. Interest is looking rich; commitment is planning to be rich.
Hard work and commitment separates the winners from the losers.
Arm your expectations to hard work, sacrifice, and other bumps in the road. These are the landmines where the weak are removed from the road and sent back to the land of most people.
To make millions, you must serve millions.
The five fast lane commandments are; i) The Commandment of Need ii) The Commandment of Entry iii) The Commandment of Control iv) The Commandment of Scale v) The Commandment of Time
What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other? ~ George Eliot
Money isn’t attracted to selfish people. It is attracted to businesses that solve problems. It’s attracted to people who fill needs and add value. Solve needs massively and money massively attracts.
A formidable “why” is all you need to turn your daily activities into passionate motivation.
If any Joe Blow napping behind Chan’s Chinese restaurant in the alley next to a dumpster can start your business in minutes, it isn’t a business you want to be doing!
If anyone can start a business in one day or less doing what you do, you probably are violating the Commandment of Entry and tough odds are ahead.
When it comes to entry, your industry and your business should not be available to everyone, because if it is, you must be prepared to be exceptional.
When it comes to money, the best warning flag is “everyone.” Everyone is a red flag that the Commandment of Entry has been violated. If everyone is engaged in the same activity, it surely will fail.
If you want to live unlike everyone, you can’t be like everyone. Don’t confuse that with exceptionality.
Access to a business road should be a process with a toll, not an event.
To hit big money or legendary money, you need to control your system and every aspect of that system.
. If you don’t control your system, your money tree, and your brand, you control nothing. You must sit on top of the pyramid and serve the masses. Stop climbing pyramids and start building them.
To achieve scale, magnitude or reach must increase.
Think big, but think scale and/or magnitude.
As a Fastlaner, your road should be traveled with the intention to make it automated.
A business that earns income exclusive of your time satisfies the Commandment of Time.
To satisfy the Commandment of Time, start with a business that uses a money system seedling, or introduce one.
If you want to get across the country, drive the fastest roads, not the slowest. Seems logical, except when it comes to financial independence. Instead of driving the fastest roads, most people drive the slowest, and in some cases, a road that won’t even get them there.
Opportunity is rarely about some blockbuster breakthrough like the light bulb or the car, but as simple as an unmet need, or a need not met adequately.Opportunity is a solution to an inconvenience.Opportunity is simplification. Opportunity is a feeling. Opportunity is comfort. Opportunity is better service. Opportunity is fixing pain. Opportunity is putting weak companies out of business.
Successful businesses take existing ideas, services, and products and simply make them better, or spin them in new directions.
Opportunities are rarely about inventing breakthroughs, but about performance gaps, small inconveniences, and pain points.
The first rule of financial literacy: “Live below your means.” Yes, a pragmatic doctrine echoed from Slowlane dogmaticians that is an affable replacement for its mathematical equivalent of “Keep expenses under your income.” Earn 10 bucks and don’t spend 20. But is it Fastlane relevant? Absolutely, with one distinction: Live below your means with the intent to expand your means.
Speed is not thinking about a Fastlane business, but creating it. Speed is uncovering a need and formulating a solution and a prototype. Speed is filing paperwork for your business entity. Speed is building and growing a business. Speed is making contacts and forcing your process out into the world. Speed is approaching your business like a strategic game of chess while your opponents play checkers. Speed is turning off the Playstation.
Seriously, think about what I’ve been saying throughout this whole book: Why is execution so difficult, while ideas are so routine? Once again, we return to our wealth dichotomy: Event versus process. Execution takes process: effort, sacrifice, discipline, and persistence. Ideas are just events.
Having the world’s best idea will do you no good unless you act on it. People who want milk shouldn’t sit on a stool in the middle of the field in hopes that a cow will back up to them.
If I received a business plan from an entrepreneur who sold his company for $20 million just two years earlier, you can bet your sevens I’d read it. The value is not the plan, but the person giving it and his track record of execution.Today, I know a circle of people who would read my business plan if I gave them one. They know I have a track record of execution that validates the business plan. If you don’t have a track record of execution, the business plan is a worthless piece of Kinkos-bound pulp.
Business plans are useless because they are ideas on steroids.
94 The best business plan in the world is a track record of execution—it legitimizes the business plan.
If you want your business to get funded, take action and create something that reflects tangible execution.
Bill Cosby once said, “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”
If more money were spent on pleasing existing clients rather than trying to find new ones, the average business would survive longer than five years.
“The customer pays your paycheck, not me—keep them happy."
Partnerships are marriages. After the love affair and the lust wears off, they must survive on character, synergy, and complementary attributes
No amount of spectacular product features, such as great technology (snazzy Web sites) or great architecture (lavishly appointed hotels) can compensate for poor customer service.
A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one. ~ Henry Ford
If your product doesn’t stand out in the crowd, it doesn’t stand a chance and you’re forced into the strategy of “cutting prices to stand out from the crowd.
If you’re following, you aren’t leading, and if you aren’t leading, you’re not innovating
If you are going to take your eye off the road and examine your competitors, expose their weaknesses.
If you are too busy copying or watching your competition, you’re not innovating.
106 Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’ Never forget that message when working with people.~ Mary Kay Ash
Businesses survive. Brands thrive
The first step at building a brand is to have a Unique Selling Proposition or a USP.
If you get someone’s attention, half the battle is won.
If you want to sell anything, translate features to benefits.
Price is more than just a competitive metric that slides up and down to sell goods faster. It also indirectly conveys the value of your product or service.
Price implies value and defines brands.
Consumers make buying decisions based on emotions before practicality.
Fastlane success comes from monogamy; not split attentions among wives and mistresses. It’s marriage. Yes, good old-fashioned monogamy. Focus on one Fastlane business and kick ass at it.
A weak business commitment commits you to weak assets. Weak assets do not accelerate wealth.
Stop chasing money, because it eludes those who try. Instead, focus on what attracts money, and that is a business that solves needs.
Do not engage in barrier-free or entry-weak businesses.
