An Integral Strategy, The Millionaire Fastlane

This is a great book, despite the cover which initially turned me off. Get rich stuff is a dime a dozen and most of it is basic and overall useless. I'm especially disappointed in the recently released 'Get Rich Click' a book so basic it should be free, but this - The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime. - is not the typical book about making money, it's really not about the money, though it is.  

This book will open your mind, make you mad, turn your gut and it will get you thinking about the common conventions. It's about destroying the myth of get rich slow or of waiting until you retire to be wealthy and enjoying wealthy. 

I'll state up front that it's not for everyone, but your though process will open up and ideas and strategies will flow and it will be up to you to take advantage of these sparks.

MJ DeMarco a good writer, he gets his ideas across and the book is easy to read.

He is a self-made multi-millionaire who lives in Metro Phoenix, by the way. He challenges the common means and ways of acquiring wealth including why late night gurus do what they do when why they succeed - it's certainly not by following their own advice (though some it is valuable).

This is a book that may offend you: the ideas are for the young and why wealth can be in the now: you don't have to have what DeMarco calls “Wheelchair Wealth”.

“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.”

→ MJ DeMarco from The Fastlane Millionaire

ROADMAPS TO WEALTH: SIDEWALKS, SLOWLANES AND FASTLANES

DeMarco goes into three different paths to wealth creation: The Sidewalk, The Slowlane, and The Fastlane and as the Lamborghini on the cover suggests the first two don't cut it.

An overview: 

The Sidewalk is not the place you want to be: this is the place where you spend more time looking the part rather than being it; the rich poor. This is the buy on credit route. You get all the gadgets, you look cool and feel cool, but like the masses and the country you're in debt and we all know how bad it feels to be in debt all the time. Keep away.

On the other hand The Slowlane is about sacrifice, about pinching every penny for a greater tomorrow. This is probably where most people are. The Slowlane is essentially all about sacrificing today for what you hope will be a better tomorrow. This is about a stable job, stock investing, 401Ks, Roth IRA's, foregoing the adventure now for a cruise later. You work hard for 30, 40 years and if you survive and you're in good health maybe you'll be able to have fun if everything you expected and the world is as you counted on.

The Fastlane is about taking on additional risk, but calculated risk, about working hard and putting systems into place to create wealth now, to retire young or at least have the option to live now while you have health and hair.

“Get Rich Slow” criminally asks you to trade your freedom for freedom. It’s an insanely outrageous barter and a dream destroyer.”

→ MJ DeMarco

LIFESTYLE SERVITUDE - 'Cringe'

Employment is the new servitude, the new slavery. We're always subjects to the whims of the bosses and their ability to run the business. We do this, but we still want it now - the tv, the car, the house.

That's why often you see people asking questions about buying a home with bad credit and no money. They want it now and the industry feeds on it, taking advantage of the 'want it nows' with fees and interest. Check in you emotional impulses and hold of instant gratification.

GET RICH QUICK VS. GET RICH EASY

This is not about getting rich easy. It takes effort to create massive wealth now and it can be done, it is being done. Don't fall prey to schemes, to gurus or pyramids where only those who pull you in make the buck.

You have to serve millions to make millions or serve fewer people at a higher price, but watching late nite tele and buying into the next affiliate or real estate program is not going to get you there, unless you're the one selling the program. It's not easy to get rich quick, but neither it is easy to get rich slow.

THE FLAW OF ATTRACTION

This is a pun on the popular 'The Secret'.  There are fans of the 'law' of attraction. They will tell you that you don't have to do much but imagine and visualize and the life you want will manifest itself. They did a good job selling you.

DeMarco, proposes that the path to success is the 'Law of Effection' and he notes: “Effection of scale or magnitude always precedes money, either directly or indirectly. The more lives you impact, directly or indirectly, the more wealth you will attract.”

In other words stop trying to use magic to make stuff and turn you attention to affecting people's lives in a positive way. The more people you affect the greater the financial reward will be. Start taking action.

THE FASTLANE IS PAVED IN FAILURE

You will fail. Most successful persons have failed and many have failed over and over. Success does not lie in safety, but in perseverance and magnitude. You can't be afraid to fail because it's easier to fail and get back up than to be imprisoned in the grips of debt and servitude, that is unless you want to be there. Do you?

CREATING A LIFE WORTH LIVING

I just saw an ad on the tele for a cable station offering a discount on it's rates to view as many as 1,500 channels on the tv, the phone and computer. Stats show that Americans watch some 4 hours of television per day. Amazing! This is how America got pacified, this is the new propaganda machine keeping people in their place in servitude. These are the same people who have bumper stickers with "____ sucks" Does your life suck so much that you need to live it through the television?

INTEREST VS. COMMITMENT

“Yes, the elevator to success is out-of-order— you will need to labor up the stairs.”
~ MJ DeMarco

The The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime. is available at Amazon ----- and the Kindle version of the book is less than ten bucks.