Don’t let the get-rich-quick title fool you. Millionaire Fastlane provides cogent, in-depth instruction into the types of businesses and sales channels you should focus on. Written by MJ DeMarco, the book relates the story of his journey from an hourly limousine driver to becoming an online business owner who earned the ability to separate his time from his money.
That is the thesis of DeMarco’s book: If you want to become wealthy, then you must develop a way to earn money for yourself without giving up time in return. He argues that if you only get paid more if you work more hours – and you do not earn anything if you are not on the clock, then you will never attain wealth.
The book describes the three lanes on the financial highway:
Table of Contents
Walking on the sidewalk
This is the most crowded lane on the way towards financial success – and it is also the “worst” lane to be in. People who drive here live paycheck to paycheck; they always spend whatever they have in their account, and borrow to spend even more. In a word, they are consumers.
They consume movies, social media, television, electronics, cars, etc., without ever producing anything of value themselves. It does not matter how much they make – whether it’s $30,000 a year or $300,000 a year. Anyone is a “sidewalker” who is stuck in the consumption mindset, and who pays little attention to setting aside savings.
Driving in the slow lane
Drivers in this lane are old-school: They work the same job for four decades straight, max out their 401(k) with an employer match, and cross their fingers that by the time they are retirement age they will have enough to retire. The slow lane is usually considered to be a safe path to retirement,
DeMarco, however, makes an excellent point. This method of saving is full of inherent, hidden risk that you cannot control. The stock market could be in a slump when you need to retire, giving you 50 percent or less of your intended retirement funds. Your employer’s pension could go bankrupt, leaving you without a steady stream of income. Your entire plan is built on several assumptions that may or may not work out in the long run.
Cruising in the fast lane
This, according to MJ, is the most attractive option for saving for retirement. This method involves starting a business in order to use leverage – not the “leverage” of consumers, who use debt – but the leverage of time and value. Leveraging time to work for you means identifying a way that you can earn money without using your time.
Is “Millionaire Fastlane” right?
In the book, DeMarco explains his reasoning behind choosing a get-rich-quick sounding title. Most people, he says, echoing PT Barnum, are suckers. They want to believe that success can be achieved overnight, or the YouTube preroll that promises if you give some stranger 15 seconds of your time, he will teach you the secret to unimaginable wealth via dropshipping. So DeMarco wrote the title specifically so he could teach those people.
The book is not about getting rich quick; it is meant to be a guide to the mindset required to create and sustain a business that will not cost you your time. If you build a business that costs you time, you will just end up with what you are already trapped in – another job in which you have to go to work every day or suffer not being paid. Leveraging your time and creating an asset that generates wealth will get you off the sidewalk or out of the slow lane and into the fast lane.
Of course, Millionaire Fastlane is not without its flaws. It essentially tells people to make an internet business that prints cash, but fails to offer any instructions as to how. However, there is a reason. DeMarco does not provide a precise blueprint to spell out how you can build an online business because this is not a one-size-fits-all problem. You have a unique set of skills and passions, and the business you eventually create will be perfectly unique to you.
Jack Hyles once said, “All men are my teachers.” This book helps the reader understand how to apply that quote to business. Instead of seeing corporations as evil behemoths who only want to control and harm consumers, seek to figure out why they operate in the manner that they do, and to learn from it.
Is the book recommended?
For people who have not thought about getting into entrepreneurship before, this book is a paradigm shift. It will help you understand why the fast lane is more desirable than the other two lanes, as well as what can be attained if you manage to create a successful business. The book will help reveal to you how many opportunities exist that will help you generate wealth in order to get more of your most valuable resource: time.
