Book Notes: The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime

By MJ DeMarco. 323 pages.

NOTE: Whenever I read a nonfiction book, I like to summarize the ‘meat’ of it, the parts that really had value to me (I copied the idea from Derek Sivers). So, fair warning: this is less a book summary and more a ‘points I liked in a book’ summary.

Normally I’d avoid a book with a breathless, cheesy title like ‘The Millionaire Fastlane’, but I decided to read this one on the recommendation of someone I follow on YouTube. There’s plenty of hyperbole here, but once the author settles in to explaining his real point, it’s gold. The main message is counter to the traditional story of how to build wealth (see the ‘Slowlane’ in this book), but the message is clear: there’s a better (and faster) road to wealth than aimless spending or decades of saving to enjoy old age.

Summary

Wealth and true happiness is not defined by by money or ‘stuff’, but by the ‘three Fs’: Family (relationships), Fitness (health), and Freedom (choice).

There are three ‘lanes’ to that wealth and happiness, and each has its own belief system:

The ‘Sidewalk’: Poverty. Money is the most important asset. Time is abundant. Money is for spending. One life event away from broke. No real plan. Complete servitude to lifestyle. Wealth is an event, not a process. Wealth = Income + Debt. Primary income source: job.
The ‘Slowlane’: Mediocrity. Money is the most important asset. Time is abundant. Money is scarce. The most common lane, especially later in life. Get rich slowly. Work a job, live frugally, save for retirement in a 401(k), enjoy it 40 years later. Wealth is a slow process with a payoff someday. Wealth = Job + Market Investments. Primary income source: job.
The ‘Fastlane’: Wealth. Time is the most important asset. Money is abundant. Wealth is a process, not an event. Wealth = Net Profit + Asset Value. Primary income source: business systems and investments.

This book is about the Fastlane.

About Luck

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 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.
In short: Do something, and your opportunities, understanding, and ‘luck’ will expand.

‘Sidewalkers’

Sidewalkers love events but hate process. Sidewalkers seek “big hits” because their belief system tells them wealth is an event.
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.
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. This mindset makes you vulnerable to victimhood.
With increased responsibilities, perhaps a growing family, mounting debts, and future expectations not matching reality, the Sidewalker comes to terms with the uncertainty of the Sidewalk. He does the seemingly responsible lane change: He off-ramps and graduates to the Slowlane roadmap, a strategy touted and praised by credible sources.

‘Slowlaners’

Jobs suck because they’re rooted in limited leverage and limited control.
The 2008 global recession exposed the Slowlane for the fraud it is. With no job, the plan fails. When the stock market loses 50 % of your savings, the plan fails. When a housing crisis erases 40 % of your illiquid net worth in one year, the plan fails.
The plan is a failure because the plan is based on time and factors you can’t control.
“Pay yourself first” is a Slowlane doctrine. The problem is that it’s near impossible in a job.
A Slowlaner will try to manipulate their weak mathematical universe by trying to make the variables malleable: Manipulate intrinsic value by increasing hours worked; Manipulate intrinsic value by changing jobs or adding jobs; Manipulate intrinsic value by going back to school; manipulate compound interest by seeking better investment yields; manipulate compound interest by expanding investment time horizon; manipulate compound interest by increasing the investment.
Indentured time is time you spend earning a living. It is the opposite of free time.
Parasitic debt is debt that creates indentured time and forces work.

The Paradox of Practice–or Do as I Say, Not as I Did

A Paradox of Practice exists when someone promotes a money-making strategy but that strategy is not what made them rich. In other words, they’re not practitioners of their own advice. These people effectively teach one wealth equation (the Slowlane) while they get rich leveraging another (the Fastlane).
Are you being sold one wealth equation while the player of the game uses another?
In a 2007 article Suze Orman was quoted as admitting to having the bulk of her wealth (an estimated $ 25 million) in bonds, primarily municipals. Additionally, she admits that only 4% of her wealth is tied-up in the stock market because “if I lose a million dollars, personally I don’t care.”
It’s clear that Orman acquired the $35 million not through the stock market, IRA, bonds, and treasuries; she acquired it by using the Fastlane roadmap, amassing wealth, then pouring that wealth into these instruments.

Fastlaners

The Fastlane is characterized by Controllable Unlimited Leverage(CUL), hence creating an optimal environment for rapid wealth creation and extraordinary lifestyles.
Pay attention to these four segments: Controllable Unlimited Leverage (maximize control), Business (your own business and self-employment), Lifestyle (a commitment of blended beliefs, processes, and actions), and Rapid Wealth Creation.
Debt Perception: Debt is useful if it allows me to build and grow my system.
Time Perception: Time is the most important asset I have, far exceeding money.
Education Perception: The moment you stop learning is the moment you stop growing. Constant expansion of knowledge and awareness is critical to my journey.
Money Perception: Money is everywhere, and it’s extremely abundant. Money is a reflection of how many lives I’ve touched. Money reflects the value I’ve created.
Primary Income Source: I earn income via my business systems and investments.
Primary Wealth Accelerator: I make something from nothing. I give birth to assets and make them valuable to the marketplace. Other times, I take existing assets and add value to them.
Wealth Perception: Build business systems for cash flow and asset valuation. Wealth Equation: Wealth = Net Profit + Asset Value Strategy: The more I help, the richer I become in time, money, and personal fulfillment.
Destination: Lifetime passive income, either through business or investments. Responsibility & Control: Life is what I make it. My financial plan is entirely my responsibility and I choose how I react to my circumstances.
Life Perception: My dreams are worth pursuing no matter how outlandish, and I understand it will take time and money to make those dreams real.
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.
On your wealth road trip, the Slowlane roadmap asks that you endure a long, tiresome walk to wealth. The toil of wealth is the process itself. In the Fastlane, wealth is driven in a business system you create — the toil is the creation and management of the system itself.
Decoding the Fastlane roadmap is as simple as joining the team that is custodian to the decryption key. The winning team is Team Producer. Reshape life’s focus on producing, not consuming. When you reframe your thinking from majority thinking (consumer) to minority thinking (producer), you effectively switch teams and allegiances. Yes, become a producer first and a consumer second.

To transition to the Fastlane, switch from consumption to production.

Switch from Consumption to Production

To consume richly, produce richly first. Most people have it backward: consumption and no production. Producers get rich. Consumers get poor. Switch teams and reorient as a producer first, a consumer second. Attract wealth, don’t chase it.
To switch teams and become a producer, you need to be an entrepreneur and an innovator. You need to be a visionary and a creator. You need to give birth to a business and offer the world value.

Accelerating Wealth

The primary wealth accelerant of the rich is appreciable and controllable assets. Within our Fastlane wealth equation, this second component is called “Asset Value.” Asset value is simply the worth of any property you own that has marketplace value.
The rich accelerate wealth by accelerating asset value and selling those upgraded assets in the marketplace.
The key to the Fastlane wealth equation is to have a high speed limit, or an unlimited range of values for units sold. This creates leverage. The market for your product or service determines your upper limit.

Seedlings that Become Money Trees

There are five business seedlings to money trees. These aren’t absolute and can intersect with one another.

Rental Systems: The product is rented, not bought. Real estate, rental services, licensing.
Computer / Software Systems: SaaS, websites and applications, enterprise software, video games.
Content Systems: books, web content, systems of information.
Distribution Systems: move products to the masses (e.g., Amazon).
Human Resource Systems: The product requires people/employees to operate. Restaurants, consulting (you). Delivering the product is contingent on someone’s time.

Leverage Compound Interest (But Not To Slowly Create Wealth)

Just like education, Fastlaners and Slowlaners leverage compound interest differently. Slowlaners use compound interest to get wealthy, while Fastlaners use it to create income and liquidity. The difference: Slowlaners start with $5; Fastlaners start with $ 5 million.
When a rich politician or public figure discloses his finances, notice the common themes. Their wealth comes from business interests, while liquid cash reserves are tied into fixed income securities like municipal bonds, treasuries, and other highly liquid investments. The rich aren’t using the markets to create wealth; they’re increasing their existing wealth with leveraged business assets.
Fastlaners realize that the compound interest weapon is most effective with large sums of money. For compound interest to be effective, you must bypass 30 years of mathematical ineptitude by riding the crest where it is effective.
A 5% tax-free yield on $ 10 million suddenly creates a $ 500,000 per year passive income. Like a tidal wave at the seashore, compound interest rears excruciating force when pitted against large sums of money. This is where money transforms into a fully passive income stream.
As for earning your $10 million(or more), that solution lies in exponential leveraged growth stemming from a Fastlane business — net income plus asset value — NOT in expenses, NOT in the stock market, and NOT in a job.

If you want to get rich, start observing the true law of the universe: MATH.

Scale, Magnitude, Source, and the Law of Effection

The Law of Effection: the more lives you affect in an entity you control, in scale or magnitude, the richer you will become. Affect millions and make millions.

To exploit the Law of Effection, your business needs to make an impact of either scale or magnitude, or both. Within our Fastlane wealth equation, “scale” and “magnitude” are implicit to our “net profit” variable.
Make a giant impact a few times or make a small impact millions of times.
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.
An example of SCALE is reflected on our Fastlane roadmap via the profit variable in our wealth equation: units sold. If you sell 20 million pens and make 75 cents profit on each, you just earned $ 15 million. This is having an impact on SCALE with tiny MAGNITUDE. Obviously, selling a writing pen doesn’t have a major impact on anyone’s life. The wealth is transmuted via SCALE, not magnitude.
Scale creates millionaires. Magnitude creates millionaires. Scale and magnitude creates billionaires.
Retrace the source of millionaire money and you will find millions of something.
There are three barricades that prevent entrepreneurs from realizing the Law of Effection: Scale, Magnitude, and Source. Effection’s strongest barricade is scale.
For example, as an author, I have scale, and with scale, the Law of Effection is accessible.
How many lives have you touched ? Who has benefited from your work, your assets, and your handiwork? What problems have you solved? What value are you to society? If you’re working the front desk at a hotel, you simply aren’t making much of an impact, and your bank account will represent that same fact. The amount of money you have(or don’t have) is a direct reflection on the amount of value you have provided(or not provided).
Joe Magnitude owns a company that develops commercial real estate. He develops 14 office complexes and partitions the offices into condos. Each fully sold complex profits him $ 400,000(magnitude) × 14(scale) equals $ 5,600,000.
Joe Scale writes a book detailing a diet of the stars. He sells 800,000 copies(scale) and earns $ 7 per copy(magnitude). He earns the same amount: $ 5,600,000.

To ‘Pay Yourself First’, Own Yourself

If your primary income source comes from a job, your ability to pay yourself first is paralyzed because the governments are paid first! For “pay yourself first” to be legitimate, you truly need to pay yourself first in infinite amounts and the government last. You must own your vehicle.
To own your vehicle(you), start a corporation that formally divorces you from the act of business. Your corporation is the body of your surrogate.
Assuming a US – based business, the best business structures for your Fastlane business are: 1) C corporation 2) S corporation 3) Limited liability corporation. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, but all share two common benefits: limitation of liability and tax efficiency.

Avoid Treasonous Choices

The leading cause of poorness is poor choices.
You are exactly where you decide to be. And if that’s unhappiness, you need to start making better choices.
People don’t choose to be poor. They make poor decisions that slowly assemble into a poorness puzzle.
Treasonous choices are actions that do irreparable harm to your life, your dreams, and your goals. The consequences of treasonous choices throw life onto unintended detours and hazardous roads that are difficult to escape and often times, permanent.
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.

How to Change Your Life

How do you upload new beliefs and overwrite the old ones? Find the information, resources, and the people that align with the new beliefs.
Changing your life starts with changing choices. The Fastlane vehicle to wealth is driven on choice, not asphalt. You start making better choices using two strategies dependent on the decision’s gravity: Worse Case Consequence Analysis (WCCA) and Weighted Average Decision Matrix (WADM).
WCCA is designed to steer you away from perilous detours and treasonous choices. Conversely, WADM is designed to help you make better big decisions with multiple contingencies.
WCCA asks you to answer three questions about every decision of consequence: 1) What is the worst – case consequence of this choice ? 2) What is the probability of this outcome ? 3) Is this an acceptable risk ?
Your memories carry the same makeup as your choices. They’re treasonous, muted, or accelerative. Unlike choice’s consequences, you have a choice how your past is classified. The records of the past can be sealed.
Fastlaners understand that time is the gas tank of life. When the gas tank runs dry, life ends. Time is the greatest asset you own, not money.
Education: in the Slowlane, education is used to elevate intrinsic value, while in the Fastlane it is used to facilitate and grow the business system. Also, Fastlane education is secured by methods that do not produce parasitic debt or conformity. The purpose of education within the Fastlane is to amplify the power of the money tree and the business system. You’re not a cog in the wheel ; you learn to build the wheel.
The right road must lead to wealth and carry real probabilities ! How ? Your road must go near or through the Law of Effection.

How To Illuminate Your Road

To light the Law of Effection and illuminate your Fastlane road, cross-examine it against the Five Fastlane Commandments, the CENTS framework:

Control: No one can derail me
Entry: This isn’t easy
Need: I want what you offer
Time: This exists on its own
Scale: This is useful to many

A road meeting all five commandments can make you filthy rich fast. As violations accrue, the road degrades in its wealth potential, and with it, your ability to get near Effection also degrades.

While it’s possible to violate one or more commandments and still create wealth quickly, you should aim for a road that satisfies all five commandments. Potent roads are potent wealth creators.

The Commandment of Control

* To hit big money or legendary money, you need to control every aspect of your system. When you relinquish control and defer power to a higher authority, you cede big money to the driver and accept good money as the passenger.
* When you control your business, you control everything in your business — your organization, your products, your pricing, your revenue model, and your operational choices. If you can’t control every aspect of your company, you’re not driving!
* Think manufacture, not retail.
* Hitchhiking a Fastlane is an epidemic that deceives many would-be entrepreneurs.

The Commandment of Entry

* As entry barriers to any business road fall, or lessen, the effectiveness of that road declines while competition in that field subsequently strengthens.
* Higher entry barriers equate to stronger, more powerful roads with less competition and less need for exceptionality.
* Want to know if your business violates entry? The answer is simple: Is getting into business an event or a process? Real business startups are processes, not events.

The Commandment of Need

Businesses that solve needs win.
Needs can be pain points, service gaps, unsolved problems, or emotional disconnects. Ninety percent of all new businesses fail because they are based on selfish internal needs, not external market needs.
Money chasers haven’t broken free from selfishness, and their businesses often follow their own selfish needs.
People vote for your business with their money.
People must care about what your business can do for them. How will it help them? What’s in it for them? Will it solve their problem? Make their life easier? Provide them with shelter? Save them money? Educate them? Make them feel something? What value are you adding to my life? Consumers are selfish. They demand to know is “what’s in it for me ! ”
To succeed as a producer, surrender your own selfishness and address the selfishness of others. Stop chasing money and start chasing needs.
Stop thinking about business in terms of your selfish desires, whether it’s money, dreams or “do what you love. ” Instead, chase needs, problems, pain points, service deficiencies, and emotions.
Money chasers are consumers who haven’t quite made the transition to producer. They want to be producers, but they selfishly think like consumers.
Money is like a mischievous cat; if you chase it around the neighborhood, it eludes you. 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. The amount of money in your life is merely a reflection to the amount of value you have given to others. Ignore this symbiosis and money will ignore you.
In a world of selfishness, become unselfish.
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.
- For “do what you love” to work, you need two things: 1) Your love must solve a need and 2) You must be exceptional at it.
- Authoring a book is a crowded space. Just because I love to write doesn’t guarantee money will follow. In fact, no one cares that I love to write. Do you? Of course not! You want to know if my writing will help you.
- Passion for an end goal, a why, drives Fastlane action.

The Commandment of Time

The goal: passive income and a vibrant money tree.
The goal of the Fastlane is a disconnection of your time from income. A business attached to your time is a job.
Net Profit = Units Sold × Unit Profit. If “units sold ” has a ceiling, you stifle leverage. Without leverage, you can’t create wealth exponentially.
Reach or Magnitude = Scale

The Commandment of Scale

Scale is about leverage, and leverage is what gives the Fastlane wealth equation its power.
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)
Scale is difficult to find locally or in a pool that fits only a small number of people. Sure, it can be done, but it requires magnitude, and magnitude doesn’t come cheap. If you own a tanning salon, your habitat is local. If you own an upscale restaurant, your habitat is county/city. If you own an Internet company, your habitat is worldwide.
Business is like baseball. Play on a field where you can hit home runs; don’t play on a field where they’re prohibited! Be in the business of home runs, not singles.
Most entrepreneurs undertake “singles-only” businesses. The home run is impossible and their habitat shriveled. If you’re a massage therapist, you’ll never have 10,000 patrons outside your door. There is no leverage! And if you don’t have leverage in the Fastlane equation, you don’t have a chance.
Reach, or magnitude equals scale.
To achieve scale, magnitude or reach must increase. Magnitude is naturally increased with price or cost.
Reach, exclusive of magnitude, also achieves scale. Reach is massive numbers. The more people you reach, the greater scale potential. Who does your business serve? The local neighborhood? Or the world? The bigger your pool of play, the bigger your potential for wealth.

The Five Commandments of Fastlane Purity

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 process.

The Most Potent Fastlane Roads: The Three Interstates

The most potent Fastlane roads are the “Three I’s, ” or “Three Interstates, ” because they possess the fastest upper speed limits and meet, or can meet, all five Fastlane commandments. They are: 1) Internet 2) Innovation 3) Intentional Iteration.

Finding Open Roads

Have you ever wondered why people sell get-rich-quick books and yet the content is just regurgitated blather from 30 prior books ? The authors know that authoring is a potent Fastlane.
The challenge of any authoring Fastlane is never the book or the words themselves. Some of the greatest books in the world go unread, while the mediocre stuff sells millions. The difference lies in marketing, public relations, and just good old – fashioned business know – how. Writing a book is not a business; selling the book is.
You’ve got a great idea, but someone is already doing it ? So what. Do it better. “Someone is doing it” is a monumental illusion imposing as an impassable obstacle. Someone is always already doing it. The bigger question is, can you do it better ? Can you fill the need better, offer greater value, or be a better marketer ?
Successful businesses rarely evolve from some legendary idea; successful entrepreneurs take existing concepts and improve them. They take poorly met needs and solve them better.
Skip the big idea and go for the big execution.
“I hate…” What do you hate ? Solve the hate, and there’s your open road.
“I don’t like…” What don’t you like ? Remove the dislike, and there’s your open road.
“This frustrates me… ” What is frustrating ? Remove the frustration, and there’s your open road.
“Why is this like this ? ” I don’t know, why is it ? Remove the “why” and there’s your open road.
“Do I have to ?” Do you ? Remove the “have to.” There’s your open road.
“I wish there was…” What do you wish ? If you wish, others wish too. Make wishes come true, and there’s your open road.
“I’m tired of… ” What are you tired of ? Fix someone’s tiresomeness, and there’s your open road.
“This sucks…” What sucks ? Remove or reduce suckage, and there’s your open road.
The opportunities of open roads come in easily painted language: Discomfort, distress, inconvenience, complaints, problems, and performance gaps. You must attack these challenges and introduce solutions — offer solutions to the masses and I guarantee money will follow ! Moral: Solve other people’s problems and you will solve your own money problems.
Opportunities are rarely about inventing breakthroughs, but about performance gaps, small inconveniences, and pain points.
Fastlane success resides in execution, not in the idea.

Getting To Your Destination

Your destination is the lifestyle you want while having the freedom to enjoy it. There are two strategies to hit your destination. The first is a money system in which you save enough money that is large enough to support your lifestyle through monthly interest and dividends. The second is a business system that spawns passive cash flow that supports your lifestyle AND simultaneously funds your money system. To make this happen, you need targets. Specifically, how much money will you and your family need ? What is the price for the freedom and lifestyle you want ?
1) Define the Lifestyle 2) Assess the Cost 3) Set the Targets 4) Make It Real
- Step 1: Define the Lifestyle: Define the lifestyle you want and its associated costs. Do you want the big house or the nonprofit foundation ? What exactly do you want ? Write everything down.
- Step 2: Assess the Cost: Determine the monthly cost for each, including all associated expenses ; taxes, utilities, maintenance, insurance, etc. Don’t forget life overhead, such as health insurance, food, etc. Three cars: $ 2,000 House: $ 5,000 Cabin: $ 1,000 Travel: $ 1,000 Private School: $ 1,000 Lifestyle Cost = $ 10,000 / month Next, determine your monthly allowance and other unknowns. This is for stuff like clothes, gadgets, toys for the children, entertainment, etc. Add this to your Lifestyle Cost to arrive at your Gross Living Cost. Gross Living Cost = $ 10,000 / mo.(Lifestyle Cost) + $ 4,000 / mo.(Allowances) Gross Living Cost = $ 14,000 / mo. Next, determine your Net Living Cost by dividing Gross Living Cost by. 60, or 60 %. This will account for potential taxes. Net Living Cost = $ 14,000 /. 60 = $ 23,333 / mo.
- Step 3: Set the Targets: The goal of this step is to set your two targets: the business system income target and the money system target. To calculate your money system target, multiply your Net Living Cost by 12, then divide by. 05, or 5 %. Five percent is the minimum expected yield on a money system. Money System Target =($ 23,333 × 12) /. 05 = $ 5,599,920 For your business system target, multiply your Gross Living Cost by 5, the required parameter to achieve a similar result by a money system. Business System Target =($ 14,000 × 5) = $ 70,000 / mo. These are your two targets. First, seek to create a business system that generates $ 70,000 / month in passive monthly income. Of this income, 40 % goes to taxes, 40 % goes to fund your money system, and 20 % pays your lifestyle. This delivers your target lifestyle AND simultaneously funds your money system. The other target is your passive income from a lump – sum money system. To enjoy your designated lifestyle supported by a money system, your target number is $ 5,599,920. Five percent interest on this amount is roughly $ 23,000 monthly, which covers lifestyle and taxes.
- Step 4: Make It Real: Get started today by looking three feet in front of you, not three miles. A long gaze at the mountain crest will overwhelm you, so stop looking at it.
Fund your money system at a brokerage firm. Designate an account that represents your money system. Typically, most brokerage accounts require a minimum $ 1,000 deposit. If you already have an account, pick an income fund that yields at least 5 % yearly and move the funds there. Or alternatively, you can open a trading account and leverage cheaper and regularly traded Exchange Traded Funds(ETFs) instead of a traditional mutual fund.
Fastlane wealth is created by the net income and asset value — not by the stock market or compound interest. Your Fastlane business should fund this account, not savings from your paycheck.
Get rudimentary knowledge of basic financial concepts.
Slowlaners seek to minimize expenses while the Fastlaner seeks to maximize income and asset values.

Play Chess, Not Checkers

Success requires that you drop the checkers and start strategizing multi – dimensionally like a chess player. How? You treat each business function like a chess piece. How they’re played will fate your Fastlane for speed or aimless drifting.
The King: Your execution
The Queen: Your marketing
The Bishop: Your customer service
The Knight: Your product
The Rook: Your people
The Pawn: Your ideas.
An idea is the event, the execution is the process.
Within our Fastlane chess game, ideas (pawns) are potential speed, while execution(the king) is the pressure applied to the accelerator.
Real money and momentum is created when an idea (potential speed) is matched with execution (accelerator pressure).
Look Big, Act Small.

Avoid Commoditization

Commoditization is a product or service that appears homogeneous among providers. For example: air travel. Most people aren’t loyal to any airline, they’re loyal to the best price. The product becomes commoditized.
People tend to make buying decisions for commoditized goods and services based on one metric: price.
If you don’t fall prey to commoditization, it’s because the business has done a good job differentiating its product from the alternatives.

Just Get Started

Get onto a Fastlane road. But don’t worry if you can’t decide which road; the road can pick you.
Train your mind to see needs, problems, and ways to improve things. Observe your thoughts and language, because they expose unmet needs, or needs met poorly.
You don’t have to find the next breakthrough ; just find an improvement opportunity, a pain point, or a service gap, and solve it.