Now for the bad news. No one is going to help you. No one will guide you, fund you, motivate you, or coddle you. Few will be supportive. The Fastlane road is yours to travel and yours alone. I don’t claim the Fastlane is easy; it’s hard work. If you expect a four-hour workweek here, you will be disappointed. I can give you the roadmap to paradise, but I can’t navigate the journey for you.

Nonetheless, the preordained plan continues to wield power, prophesied and enforced by a legion of hypocritical “financial experts” or FIRE acolytes who aren’t rich by their own advice but by their own Fastlane. The Slowlane prognosticators—people who make a fortune on investment management fees, seven-figure book deals, podcast sponsorships, training programs, and ancillary subscriptions— know something they aren’t telling you: What they teach doesn’t create wealth fast, but selling it does.

If you want real, unencumbered financial freedom while still being young enough to enjoy it, you need to ignore society’s default “Get Rich Slow” roadmap or its newest “you’ll own nothing and be happy” lapdog, FIRE.

Fast wealth is created asymmetrically, not linearly.

Don’t fear taking roads that have not been paved by others.

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.

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 as few can.

Change must evolve from your beliefs, and your roadmap circumscribes those beliefs.

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

Truthfully, many millionaires and well-paid career folks are miserable, and it has nothing to do with the money. It has to do with their freedom. The well-salaried workaholic who is never home to strengthen the relationship with his wife and kids is likely to be less happy than the poor farmer in Vietnam who spends half his day tending to his fields and the other half with his family.

I've found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often. — Brian Tracy

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 of being in the right place at the right time.

Like wealth, luck is created by process, not by an event.

Luck is created by increased probabilities that are improved with habitual action or process.

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 life's victims because they were dealt a bad hand. They vote for whatever politician promises them the world at no cost. Free health care. Free education. Free gas. Free mortgages.

“Who's the idiot, the idiot himself or the idiot that hires the idiot?”

Taking responsibility is the first step to taking the driver's seat of your life. Accountability is the final.

While the Sidewalk is a lifestyle that mortgages the future for a comfortable today, the Slowlane is the opposite: a sacrificial today in the hopes of a more comfortable tomorrow.

I learned more as an entrepreneur in two months than I did working ten years at dozens of dead-end jobs. The problem with a specialized skill set is that it narrows your practical 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.

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?

The only defense to office politics is to control the playing field and to do that, you must be the boss. And to be the boss, you not only need to run the show, but you also need to own it.

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. Your maximum upper limit is 24 hours for the hourly worker 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 sell more. Of course, working 24 hours a day is humanly impossible, so 8 to 12 hours per day are traded.

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest. ~ Benjamin Franklin

the rich use the markets for income and wealth preservation—not to make it!

The distinction is that “get rich schemes” aren’t endemic to “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 within Instagram feeds with pictures of beaches, palm trees, and used Ferraris. It lies, deceives, and casts a mirage of vanity that all desire. Just buy this $197 PDF or buy this stock software program, and wham, you will be rich in ten days! No! That’s not “Get Rich Quick” but “Get Rich Easy,” which only leads to a lighter wallet.

The Fastlane is about building a better system, a better gadget, a better product, or a better “something” that will leverage your work.

The winning team is Team Producer.

However, once you see the world from a producer’s 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.

To consume richly, produce richly first.

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.

Wealth = Net Profit + Asset Value

The 5 money-tree seedlings are rental systems, computer systems, content systems, distribution systems, and human-resource systems. Real estate, licenses, and patents are examples of rental systems. Internet and software businesses are examples of computer systems. Authoring books, blogging, and magazines are forms of content systems. Franchising, chaining, network marketing, and television marketing are examples of distribution systems. Human resource systems can add or subtract to passivity. Human resource systems are the most expensive to manage and implement.

One saved dollar is the seed to a money tree. A mere 5% interest on $10 million is $40,000 a month in passive income. A saved dollar is the best passive income instrument. Fastlaners (the rich) don’t use compound interest or the markets to get wealthy but to create income, preserve liquidity, and deploy capital.

Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value. — Albert Einstein

The Law of Effection states that the more lives you affect in scale and/or magnitude in an entity you control, the richer you will become. The shortened, sanitized version is simply: Affect millions and make millions.

The Law of Effection states that the more lives you affect or breach, both in scale and magnitude, the richer you will be. Scale translates to “units sold” of our profit variable within our Fastlane wealth equation. Magnitude translates to our profit variable's “unit profit” within our Fastlane wealth equation.

If you aren’t where you want to be, the problem is your choices.

You cannot decide to be determined; it must occur repeatedly, concertedly, and with commitment. The point of this rant is that Fastlane isn’t something you try; it’s something you live. It isn’t one choice but hundreds. And when you line a string of choices together, they create your process, and your process will create your lifestyle. Lifestyle choices will make you a millionaire.

The leading cause of poorness is poor choices and how we react to the hand we're dealt.

Treasonous choices introduce DAREs or Downside Asymmetric Risk Events, which have the power to erase thousands of good decisions. DAREs forever impact your life negatively, sometimes permanently. Your choices have significant horsepower or trajectory into the future. The younger you are, the more potent your choices are and the more horsepower you possess. Over time, horsepower erodes as the consequences of old choices are thick and hard to bend.

WCCA comes into play when I drive. Viper, Lamborghini, doesn’t matter—other idiot drivers looking for a street race constantly antagonize me. Sure, I might hit the accelerator hard for three seconds, but in those three seconds, WCCA takes over. What’s the worst that could happen? I could kill myself or someone else. Odds? 3%? With my racing competency, I understand the risks are dangerously high. I release the accelerator and don’t participate. The other driver? He speeds away with something to prove and disregards the potential outcomes. That’s OK, maybe there’s a reason he’s driving a ten-year-old fart-can Honda, and I’m in the Lamborghini. Win the street race—I’ll win life.

Today is the starting line for the rest of your life.

Street racing is for morons.

If your eyes are transfixed on the past, you can’t become the person you need to become in the future.

Extraordinary wealth will require you to have extraordinary beliefs.

As a producer, you are the minority, while consumers are the rest. To be unlike “everyone” (who isn’t rich), you (who will be rich) require a strong defense; otherwise, their toxicity infects your mindset. Commiserating with habitual, negative, limited thinkers is treasonous. Uncontrolled, these headwinds lead directly to the couch and the video game console. Yes, the old, “If you hang out with dogs, you get fleas.” This dichotomy makes you a blossoming flower that needs protection, water, and plenty of sun. Negative friends, family, or coworkers are dark clouds. Defend yourself or suffer the consequence of slow assimilation to mediocrity.

The natural gravity of society is not to be exceptional but average. Toxic relationships drain energy and detract from your goals to be extraordinary. The people in your life are like your comrades in a battle platoon. They can save you, help you, or destroy you. Good relationships are accelerative to your process, while bad relationships are treasonous.

Time isn’t a commodity, something you pass around like a cake. Time is the substance of life. When anyone asks you to give your time, they’re really asking for a chunk of your life.

Value your time poorly, and you will be poor.

Fastlaners are frugal with time, while Slowlaners and “millionaires next door” are frugal with money.

Sidewalkers and Slowlaners use money as the sole criterion in decision-making: Which job pays the most? Where is the cheapest item? How can I get some free chicken? Money is scarce, and time brings up the rear and sweeps up the mess. If you want to be rich, you must start thinking rich... Time is king.

Time is deathly scarce, while money is richly abundant.

You’re not a cog in the wheel; you learn to build the wheel. For example, if I go to a training seminar that gives me skills to “hire top-gun salespeople,” I’m engaged in activities that enhance my business’s fertility and my money tree. If I read a book on a new computer technology that illustrates how to create new interactive website features, I’d be learning to facilitate the system. Again, Fastlane education is to foster the growth of the business system. Conversely, Slowlane education is designed to specifically enhance the person’s intrinsic value receiving the instruction. It is to become a gear in the system.

Turn off the TV, pick up a book, and read it. Quit playing fantasy football and hit the library. Quit the XBOX grab-ass and hit the books. A committed Fastlaner has his nose in a book weekly. He attends seminars. He trolls business forums. He’s on Google or YouTube searching for different topics and strategies.

The rich understand that education doesn’t end with a graduation ceremony; it starts. The world is in constant flux, and as it evolves, your education must move with it, or you will drift to mediocrity.

Set a goal to read at least twelve books per year or one per month. If you are aggressive, you’ll read several books every month like I strive to do. I can’t stress enough that the more knowledge you consume, the more torque you create on the Fastlane road trip.

People are lazy. People want it handed to them. They don’t want to read and connect the dots. They want to be steered and hand-held, or even better, have it done for them entirely.

Organizers of expensive seminars take advantage of Sidewalkers and disenfranchised Slowlaners by marketing empty promises as “events.”

Interest reads a book; commitment applies the book fifty 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.

Interest is quitting after the third failure; commitment continues after the hundredth.

The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!

Fear of failure is normal, yet failure creates experience, and experience breeds wisdom.

Waiting empowers mediocrity. People sit around waiting their entire lives for the perfect this, the perfect that. The ideal scenarios and circumstances never arrive. What does arrive? Time, old age, and the specter of a dream lost.

Hard work and commitment separate the winners from the losers.

There is never perfect timing and waiting for “someday” wastes time.

The Law of Effection says to make millions, you must impact millions. How can you impact millions? In the Slowlane, you explode intrinsic value, become enormously indispensable, and earn millions. In the Fastlane, you engineer a business that touches millions of lives in scale or many lives of magnitude. If your road doesn’t lead through Effection’s neighborhood or have an exit ramp onto it, sorry, you’re on the wrong road.

The best roads and the purest Fastlanes satisfy the CENTS Framework; the Five Fastlane Commandments: Control, Entry, Need, Time, and Scale.

If they believe they’re in control, let them believe it. These folks can’t be told the fire is hot; they need to feel the burn for themselves.

Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.

“In a gold rush, don't dig for gold; sell shovels!”

When the frenzy is buying, you should be selling. When the rage is selling, you should be buying or staying pat. History is littered with “everyone is doing it” booms and busts. The tech stock boom of the late 1990s, the incredible oil price explosion, the housing crash that led to the worldwide financial meltdown, and even recently, the bitcoin/cryptocurrency rose into the mainstream vernacular. All exemplify “everyone is doing it”—a heavily trafficked road that usually crawls toward impending doom, like a herd of lambs heading for slaughter...

Dumb money—EVERYONE—always shows up at the end of a boom. Who is dumb money? Consumers! Money chasers!

Want to make big bucks? Then start attracting money instead of chasing it. Money is like a mischievous cat; it eludes you if you chase it around the neighborhood. It hides up a tree, behind the rose bush, or in the garden. However, if you ignore it and focus on what attracts the cat, it comes to you and sits in your lap. 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.

Make a freaking impact and start providing value! Let the money come to you! Look around outside your world, stop being selfish, and help your fellow humans solve their problems. In a world of selfishness, become unselfish. Need something more concrete? No problem. Make 1 million people achieve any of the following: Make them feel better. (entertainment, music, video games) Help them solve a problem. Educate them. Make them look better (health, nutrition, clothing, makeup). Give them security (housing, safety, health). Raise a positive emotion (love, happiness, laughter, self-confidence). Satisfy appetites, from basic (food) to the risqué (sexual). Make things easier. Enhance their dreams and give hope. . . . and I guarantee, you will be worth millions. So, the next time you're trolling the web looking to make money, sit back and ask yourself, “What do I have to offer the world?” Offer the world value, and money becomes magnetized to you!

Ninety percent of all new businesses fail because they are based on selfish internal needs, not external market needs.

No one cares about your selfish desires for dreams or money; people only want to know what your business can do for them.

Chase money, and it will elude you. However, if you ignore it and focus on what attracts money, you will draw it to yourself. Help one million people, and you will be a millionaire.

“Do what you love” sets the stage for crowded marketplaces with depressed margins.

“Doing what you love” usually violates the Commandment of Need.

Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out. — Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Commandment of Time requires that your business and income detach from your time.

A company that earns income exclusive of your time satisfies the Commandment of Time.

In business, to be a success, you only have to be right once. — Mark Cuban

Business leverage is like a playing field or a habitat of water. You can choose to inhabit the ocean or a pool at the local park. There are six business habitats: Local/community (pool) County/city (pond) Statewide (lagoon) Regional (lake) National (sea) Worldwide (ocean)

Your total pool of customers determines your habitat. The larger the habitat, the greater the potential for wealth.

The Fastlane wealth equation is disarmed when you violate the Commandment of Scale.

Fastlane Purity: Five Commandments Thou shalt not invest in a needless business. Thou shalt not trade time for money. Thou shalt not operate on a limited scale. Thou shalt not relinquish control. Thou shalt not let a business startup be an event over the process.

The best Fastlanes satisfy all five Commandments: Control, Entry, Need, Time, and Scale. Assuming a need-based premise, the Internet is the fastest interstate because it overwhelmingly satisfies all Commandments. Innovation can be any variety of open roads: authoring, inventing, or services. Inventing success needs coupling with distribution. A singles-based business is scaled to a home-run business by intentional iteration. With iteration, scale is conquered.

You’ve got a great idea, but someone is already doing it? So what. Do it better. Find value attributes and skew them favorably. Do it better than the existing company. “Someone is doing it” is a monumental illusion imposing as an impassable obstacle. Someone is always already doing it. The bigger question is, how can you do it better? Can you fill the need better, offer a better value skew, or be a better marketer?

Successful businesses rarely evolve from some legendary idea. Nope, successful entrepreneurs take existing concepts and improve them through value skew. They take poorly met needs and solve them better. Skip the big idea and go for the big execution of more value skew. You don’t need an idea that has never been done before. Old ideas suffice; just do it better and execute as no one has!

Competition should not impede your road. Competition is everywhere, and your objective should be to “do it better” by skewing value attributes. Fastlane success resides in execution, not in the idea. The world’s most successful entrepreneurs didn’t have blockbuster ideas; they just took existing concepts and made them better or exposed them to more people.

Conquer big goals by breaking them down to their most minor component.

A financial adviser doesn’t solve financial illiteracy, and literacy is insurance. Financial illiteracy dilutes your control, especially when evaluating the advice of a financial adviser.

Planned obsolescence is a marketer’s expectation that whatever they’re selling you, you won’t use it. And if you don’t use it, you’re unlikely to ask for your money back.

Entrepreneurs struggle to differentiate between idea and execution. They think ideas are worth millions when success is never about the idea but about the execution. “I had that idea!” Oh yeah? Who cares. So did a thousand other people. What separates you from them? They executed. You didn’t, and you did nothing. Instead, you spent hours playing fantasy football. You spent the morning sleeping. You spent five days at a job. You chose everything but that great idea. You see, ideas are nothing but a chemical reaction in your brain. It’s an event that requires little effort. An idea is an event, and the execution is the process. Successful entrepreneurs don’t start in flashes of brilliance; no, they take that flash of an idea (the event) and transform it into massive execution (the process). Execution is the great divider separating winners and losers from their ideas. If you want to retire thirty years early, you need a dominant, relentless king. Aloof and blasé kings lose games and don’t win races.

Others share your blockbuster idea. He who thinks the idea owns nothing. He who executes the idea owns everything.

Be prepared for the ultimate business sacrilege: Business plans are worthless. Yes, I said it. Business plans are useless because they are ideas jacked up on steroids.

Figure out what needs figuring and just go do it. The world will do its job and tell you the directions to travel.

If you want investors, get out and execute. Create a prototype. Create a brand. Create a track record that others can see or touch. Dive into process. Investors will open their wallets when you have a physical manifestation of an idea. Heck, be good enough, and they will be fighting to give you money.

If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.

Complaints are a beautiful thing. They represent free feedback and expose unmet needs in your business. They represent the journey’s road noise. I logged my customers’ complaints because they provided a kaleidoscope into the customer’s minds. One complaint meant ten others felt the same way. When my black book accumulated similar complaints weekly, I had to evaluate the issue and take corrective action. Complaints are the world’s whispers hinting at the direction you should be moving.

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

My repeated and often preached motto to my employees was, “The customer pays your paycheck, not me—keep them happy.”

Satisfied customers can be human resource systems that promote your business for free.

Satisfied customers have a dual residual effect: Repeat business and new business via discipleship.

Your customer’s satisfaction holds the key to everything you selfishly want.

Associate yourself with [wo]men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation. It is better to be alone than in bad company. ~ George Washington

When I started my entrepreneurial career fresh out of college, I trusted everyone. I bought all kinds of crazy schemes that promised wealth. What happens when you trust everyone? You get burned. You get lazy. You hire criminals. When you trust everyone, you chase business opportunities that violate the Commandment of Control. Others get to dictate your financial road trip. And when that happens, you crash and burn. There is only one person you can blindly trust in this world: you.

A good accountant and attorney will save you thousands, perhaps millions. Accountants and attorneys have the keys to your castle; make sure you trust them entirely because they have the power to right or wrong you.

Your employees drive the public's perception of your company.

Fanatical customer service can overcome shortcomings, but fanatical features can't overcome poor customer service.

Customer service philosophy is delivered from human interactions—not ambitious mission statements on a wall plaque in the CEO's office.

A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one.

Another “dead professor” moment: Forget about your competition 95% of the time. The other 5% should be used to exploit their weaknesses and differentiate your business. If you forget about your competition, you're forced to focus on your business, which is to innovate, skew value, and win over the minds of your customers. And when you fill needs, and your army of customers grows, something suddenly happens: Everyone follows you.

Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’ Never forget that message when working with people.

Your USP is your brand anchor and is typically your primary value skew. What makes your company different from the rest? What will compel a customer to buy from you over someone else? My USP was decisive: “No-risk advertising: If we send you nothing, you pay nothing.”  Advertisers joined by a boatload because they were tired of expensive advertising options offered this risk proposition: “Pay us $5,000 upfront, then hope and pray.” I exposed a pain point, fixed it, and then advertised

The best USPs are short, clear, and powerful. Long phrases get skipped over.

Another Geico spot mocked convention when they aired a promo for a new reality TV series called “Tiny House.” The promo featured a newlywed couple in a midget-sized apartment who endured cramped quarters and rising marital tensions. The couple is shown hitting their heads on low ceilings and struggling for a good night’s sleep in a tiny bed. But wait, this expected convention of reality is only a ruse that bursts into unconventional when the announcer voices: “The drama will be real, but it won’t save you any money on car insurance.” If you get someone’s attention, half the battle is won. The other half is letting selfishness take over your audience and tailor your messages to self-interest.

It’s ironic: To succeed in a Fastlane, we must forsake our selfishness yet satisfy the desires of others. Did I say this would be a cozy stroll down the beach? The first human behavior you can count on is selfishness. People want what they want. People don’t care about you, your business, your product, or your dreams; they want to help themselves and their families. It’s human nature. Therefore, our marketing messages must focus on benefits, not features.

Consumers make buying decisions based on emotions before practicality. If you can arouse audience emotions, convincing customers to buy is easier.

A cheap and a premium price are value skews, implicitly conveying value and worth. Don’t allow your own perception of price to tarnish your brand to mediocrity.

A scattered focus leads to scattered results. Instead of one business that thrives, the polygamist-opportunist has twenty businesses that suck. Ten companies earning $10,000 cumulatively are not better than one business that does it single-handedly. When you segregate your effort among assets, you build weak assets. Weak assets don’t do the heavy lifting, and they don’t build strong pyramids. Weak assets do not generate speed. Weak assets do not scale to multimillion-dollar valuations. Weak assets do not accelerate wealth; they build an income to pay the month’s bills only to start again next month.

After successful entrepreneurs hit the mother lode of wealth, then, and only then, do they shift into different experiences that deviate from their core business.

Wealth is a process, not an event.

Build a brand, not a business. Treat customers like your boss and reposition complaints to opportunities. Listen to the world as they offer the best directional clues. Resist commoditization. Differentiate yourself from the competition through USP, and multiple value skews. Get above the noise. Focus on one business and one business only.

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