The Millionaire Fastlane

by MJ DeMarco

  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 video games, 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) 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 The Voice 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 Dodgers 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, a sweepstakes, or find a 200-year-old painting in the attic worth millions. Again, more falsities. Like wealth, luck is not an event but 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 interacting 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 into a real number. His lazy brother does not and is operating on zero probability. 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 create luck, engage in processes so probabilities move from nothing, to something. Luck is introduced when you play. If you don’t play, you can’t win. Unfortunately, Sidewalkers assign luck to events of mystical chance. They don’t see the manipulated probabilities imbued by process which makes the chance possible. If you want luck, dive into process, because process raises events from the ashes.

  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 luck precedes wealth, you’ll gravitate toward events needing 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 system tells 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’ll 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 (shortcuts) and want to avoid process. When this becomes etched 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 months, what’s the first thing you’d do? Of course you know, and I know! You’d hire a web design firm, package your secret into a landing page and a super-slick marketing funnel, and start placing ads on Facebook. 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 it can be theirs for one easy payment of $197!

  Do people believe the pitch or do they desperately seek the easy event? The art of selling moneymaking “systems” on the internet and 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, or an easy 1-2-3 system.

  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 (lotteries/casinos) are long shots and not process. Process is rarely defined by a 1-2-3 system. And finally, only you can deliver yourself to true wealth. There is no chauffeur and no moneymaking program advertised on your Instagram feed that will escort you. These deceptions keep Sidewalkers anchored in good company with the majority, swiping away at 2 a.m. on the couch thinking they’re one click away from making millions because the Instagram dude with 500,000 followers 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” 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.

  [9] - Wealth Demands Accountability

  Responsibility is the price of greatness.

  ~ Winston Churchill

  Hitchhikers Don’t Drive!

  The biggest anchor to the Sidewalk is to entrust your financial plan to others, or worse, no one. Another anchor is to seek a wealth chauffeur; someone else that can drive the journey for you. Unfortunately, this mindset makes you vulnerable to victimhood.

  Imagine if you hitchhiked across the country. There’s a chance you won’t make it to your destination. You could climb into a psycho’s car who takes you on an unannounced and unexpected 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 lucky 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 as 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 abdicate 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 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.

  In psychological parlance, this mental defect to assign blame externally is a condition known as an “external locus of control,” penned by American psychologist, Julian Rotter.

  In another example of blame and an external locus, there was a recent labor union rally against WalMart. Employees were protesting 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 WalMart’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 WalMart for a below-market wage! Give this guy a bitch-slap. No one forced him to work at WalMart; he works there because he chose to work there. Hey, Eugene and to anyone else reading, if you’re tired of making $11 an hour, raise your value to society. Get your butt over to the library or take an online class at uDemy. WalMart 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 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. 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 the American way to the point they are now a political constituency. Americans once loyally proclaimed, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Now we just say, “Give me.”

  As I wrote this in 2008, the economy was in a tailspin. The housing market crashed, lending dried up, and millions lost their savings.

  How did that happen?

  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 was a minor participant in the 2008 recession. Sure, my home declined in value but that’s OK because I never used 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 money because the markets weren’t my wealth acce
leration 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 CNBC pontificators 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 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 culpability to consequences and modifying your behavior 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.”