Book Summary: The Millionaire Fastlane

Table of Contents

The Book in Three Sentences

In this summary of The Millionaire Fastlane, you’ll learn that instead of relying on unpredictable variables, there’s an alternative known as the Fastlane. The Fastlane is a financial roadmap that relies on control to gain freedom. We’ve all been told to study, graduate, and get a job, but author MJ DeMarco offers a hidden path that has the potential to change people’s lives.

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The Millionaire Fastlane Summary

Introduction

The road to wealth has a shortcut.

Most people live in financial mediocrity. This is also known as the Slowlane. It takes the Slowlane fifty years what the Fastlane achieves in five.

If you’re not rich so far, stop doing what you’ve been doing.

For a lot of people, the Millionaire Fastlane is offensive, insulting, and challenging.

Unlike The Four-Hour Workweek, this is not a “how-to” book.

This is the list of assumptions the author has about the reader:

You want more out of life.
You have dreams your current lifestyle won’t provide.
You’re college-educated.
You don’t have savings and carry debt.
You contribute to a 401 (k).
You wonder how rich people got their wealth.
You have bought books about getting rich.
Your parents encouraged you to study and get a job.
You don’t have a physical talent.
You’re eager about the future but unsure about its direction.
You’ve been laid off.
You’ve lost money.

Part I: Wealth In a Wheelchair… “Get Rich Slow” Is Get Rich Old

Chapter 1: The Great Deception

“Get Rich Slow” means to study, get a job, and invest. At 65, you’re rich. This is a losing game because it depends on Wall Street and time you don’t have. You can be young and wealthy, but you can’t do it by following the “Get Rich Slow” construct. Reinvent retirement to include youth in its equation. “Get Rich Slow” depends on many factors you can’t control.

Chapter 2: How I Screwed “Get Rich Slow”

At a young age, the author researched a set of obscure millionaires. They had some characteristics in common:

They were living a rich lifestyle.
They were young.
They were self-made.
They were famous athletes, actors, singers, and entertainers.

To illustrate the Fastlane, the author shares his personal experience. MJ DeMarco moved to Phoenix with little to nothing, paid for an apartment, and turned it into an office. He read books on finance, internet programming, and autobiographies about rich people during his downtime. Eventually, he built a website that solved people’s problems. The site helped people find good limousine companies in their area. The fact that he lived in a new place with no money forced him to focus. He marketed the site through email, letters, and SEO. He studied internet programming languages to improve his site. A company called him to build a website for them.

The problem was that his income was based on his time. The author figured out a way to capitalize on people’s needs and sold the site for more than $1 million. He bought it back for $250,000 a year later after the dot com crash. He streamlined the process and worked less and less. This was the Fastlane. A business that runs 24/7 and doesn’t require someone overseeing it all the time.

Part 2: Wealth Is Not a Road, But a Road Trip

Chapter 3: The Road Trip to Wealth

Your focus shouldn’t be on the road or the destination, it should be on the road trip. If you’re not wealthy, that’s because you’re “road-focused”. You can’t expect to become wealthy by applying a few concepts or principles from business books. Those are some of the ingredients for a formula of success. To be rich, you have to see wealth as an orchestrated process. Without process, there is no event.

The four ingredients of the winning formula:

Your road map: this is the compass. There are three possible roadmaps: the sidewalk, the Slowlane, and the titular Millionaire Fastlane.
Your vehicle: this is you.
Your roads: the financial pathways.
Your speed: this is how you go from idea to execution.

There’s a price to be paid if you take the Fastline. Sacrifices have to be made.

Chapter 4: The Roadmaps to Wealth

You have to know where you’re going to achieve wealth. You need a roadmap. To change your life, change your choices.

There are three financial roadmaps:

In the Sidewalk roadmap, you have to be predisposed to be poor.
In the Slowlane roadmap, you have to be predisposed to be mediocre.
In the Fastlane roadmap, you have to be predisposed to be wealthy.

Each roadmap has mindsets called “mindposts”.

Debt perception: do you control debt or does debt control you?
Time perception: how do you see time?
Education perception: what’s the role of education?
Money perception: what’s the role of money?
Primary income source: what is your primary income source?
Primary wealth accelerator: how are you accelerating and creating wealth?
Wealth perception: how do you define wealth?
Wealth equation: what’s the mathematical plan to generate wealth?
Destination: what is it? What does it look like?
Responsibility and control: do you control your life and your finances?
Life perception: how do you live life?

Each road map has a mathematical formula called the wealth equation, which determines the speed at which you generate wealth.

Part 3: Poorness – The Sidewalk

Chapter 5: The Sidewalk Roadmap

This is the most followed plan. You’re on the brink of being bankrupt. The plan of people on the sidewalk is they don’t have a plan. They always have new gadgets, go on trips, and have newer cars. As the author puts it, they live a “lifestyle of servitude”. They are in need of pleasure, image, and instant gratification. This is the path of least resistance.

Sidewalk mindposts:

Debt perception: debt means buying something now.
Time perception: there’s plenty of time.
Education perception: education ended after graduation.
Money perception: spend it all.
Primary income source: whatever pays most.
Primary wealthy accelerator: casino, lottery tickets.
Wealth perception: the person who dies with most things wins.
Wealth equation: wealth = income + debt
Destination: there isn’t one.
Responsibility and control: I’m a victim, everything is someone else’s fault.
Life perception: live today, tomorrow isn’t important.

Sidewalking symptoms:

You haven’t learned much since school.
You change jobs often.
You think people with money are lucky, had rich parents, or had an easier life.
You’re easily impressed or want to impress.
You have poor credit.
You have a blind fate in the government to offer solutions to all your problems.
You need credit cards as a means of supplemental income.
You have filed for bankruptcy.
You live paycheck to paycheck.
You have no savings.
You have no insurance.
You go to the casino or buy lottery tickets.
You enjoy alternate realities.
You’ve lost money on schemes.

Living on the sidewalk pulls you to poorness.

You can be rich and still waste all your money. Good financial management is crucial, not more money.

Chapter 6: Has Your Wealth Been Toxified?

What is wealth? To answer this question, you have to take into account the three F’s:

Family (relationships)
Fitness (health)
Freedom (choice)

Chapter 7: Misuse Money and Money Will Misuse You

Servitude is the opposite of freedom. Money gives you freedom.

If you have to think about how much something costs, then you can’t afford it. Instant gratification has negative effects you see long term. This happens with things. You should own your stuff. Your stuff should never own you.

Chapter 8: Lucky Bastards Play the Game

Luck has nothing to do with wealth unless you win the lottery. Getting rich is about hard work, process, and action.

The sidewalker’s mind is set on the following moneymaking scams

Belief 1: Luck is needed for wealth	Reality 1: It’s about process improving probabilities.
Belief 2: Wealth is an event	Reality 2: These are long shots, not processes.
Belief 3: Others can give wealth to me	Reality 3: Only you can deliver wealth.

Chapter 9: Wealth Demands Accountability

In the author’s words: “wealth demands responsibility, followed by accountability.”

Responsibility means making a mistake and accepting that you have made one. Accountability means making the mistake, accepting it, and learning from it. So the end result is that you alter your behavior so that something doesn’t repeat.

Part 4: Mediocrity – The Slowlane Roadmap

Chapter 10: The Lie You’ve Been Sold: The Slowlane

The Slowlane encourages people to sacrifice today for a better future. The driving force is time.

Debt perception: debt is the worst.
Time perception: time is plentiful.
Education perception: education is what helps me make money.
Money perception: money is scarce. You have to save it.
Primary income source: my job.
Primary wealth accelerator: compound interest, mutual funds, 401 (k)
Wealth perception: work, save and invest.
Wealth equation: wealth = job + market investments.
Destination: retirement.
Responsibility and control: provide for my family which means relying on others.
Life perception: settle for less. Don’t take risks.

You’re on the Slowline if, among many other things, you:

Go to school
Get good grades
Graduate
Work overtime
Climb the corporate ladder
Save X% per month
Invest in mutual funds
Don’t buy expensive lattes
Are frugal

The Slowlane Roadmap

Wealth = (Primary Income Source: Job) + (Wealth Accelerator: Market Investments)

Five days of servitude for two days of freedom isn’t a fair trade.

Accepting normal (the Slowlane) means living in mediocrity.

Chapter 11: The Criminal Trade: Your Job

If you want to escape the Slowlane, quit your job.

Six reasons your financial plan shouldn’t revolve around a job:

To trade time is to trade life. You only get paid when you work.
Limitation on experience. If you rely entirely on experience, you can end up with no job. Your job can be outsourced or replaced by robotics. Your skillset may have no value in the future.
No control.
All jobs have something in common regardless of where you work.
In the Slowlane, you’re usually paid last.
A dictatorship on income.

Chapter 12: The Slowlane – Why Aren’t You Rich

The Slowlane strategy is rooted in uncontrollable limited leverage or ULL. These are a series of variables that can’t be controlled.

To be wealthy you need:

Control
Leverage

The two variables of the Slowlane:

Intrinsic value: how much you make working. It’s measured in units of time (hourly or annually.) The equation is as follows: Job (intrinsic value) = (hourly rate of pay) x (hours worked)
The Primary Wealth Accelerator: market investments, 401(k)s. These investments use compound interest. This is based on time, a variable, you have no control over. The equation is as follows: Wealth = (Job) + (Market Investments)

For compound interest to work, you need:

Time: measured in years.
A favorable yearly investment yield
An invested sum

Compound interest: Invested Sum X (1+Yield)^Time

Compound interest and a job have the same problem: they take time.

Chapter 13: The Futile Fight: Education

The Fight Against Uncontrollable Limited Leverage: Education.

Not all kinds of education are created equal. Formal education is expensive in time and money. To get rich, you don’t need an expensive college degree. Some of the richest people in the world never graduated from college, such as Bill Gates, David Geffen, and Steven Spielberg.

Slowlane entrapment:

Conformity: “If there aren’t opportunities in my field, my education becomes devalued.”
Education servitude: “Freedom eroded by education”. Debt forces work. Going to an expensive school leads to debt.

Chapter 14: The Hypocrisy of the Gurus

Gurus and financial advisers are guilty of a paradox of practice. The paradox of practice is they don’t usually practice what they teach. They teach only one wealth equation while getting rich using another.

Chapter 15: Slowlane Victory… A Gamble of Hope

Slowlane wealth is a long and dangerous journey. It assumes life is predictable and forgiving.

Seven Slowlane dangers:

The danger of your health
The danger of the job
The danger of your home
The danger of the company
The danger of your lifestyle
The danger of the economy
The danger of the sidewalk. You can revert to the sidewalk. You feel hopeless and crave control. You buy things out of your price range.

A slowlaner will try to make variables malleable:

Works more
Changes jobs
Goes back to school
Looks for better investments
Wants more time
Saves more

The term “millionaire” isn’t the same as “rich”. Millionaires can still have a middle-class house, unassuming cars, infrequent vacations, and work regular jobs. Being a millionaire in some cases means being in the upper-middle class. To live a millionaire lifestyle, you still need discipline.

Part 5: Wealth – The Fastlane Roadmap

Chapter 16: Wealth’s Shortcut: The Fastlane

What is it? “The Fastlane is a business/lifestyle strategy characterized by controllable unlimited leverage”.

Controllable Unlimited Leverage (CUL): maximum control and leverage
Business: you’re self-employed, you’re your own boss, you own your business.
Lifestyle: the Fastlane is a lifestyle.
Rapid wealth creation: you make large amounts of money quickly.

The Fastlane mindposts:

Debt perception: debt is useful if it lets me grow my system.
Time perception: time is the most important asset, more than money.
Education perception: learning = growing.
Money perception: there’s a lot of money. It symbolizes the value I’ve provided.
Primary income source: business and investments.
Primary wealth accelerator: creating things.
Wealth perception: business systems generate cash flow.
Wealth equation: wealth = net profit + asset value.
Strategy: I help and become richer.
Destination: a lifestyle of passive income.
Responsibility % control: I am in control of my own life.
Life perception: I pursue my dreams.

Instead of doing the heavy lifting, focus on creating a system that does it for you.

The Fastlane is a business system. The Slowlane is a job.

Chapter 17: Switch Teams and Play Books

To win, use a winning formula.

Since the day you were born, you were taught to consume, to demand. To win, you need to produce, not consume. Become a producer first and a consumer second. Once you become a successful producer, you can consume whatever you want. Producers are rich while consumers are poor. To become a producer, you need to be an entrepreneur and innovate. You need to be a visionary who creates, you need to establish a business that gives people value.

Your product should:

Earn you income long after its time investment
The income generation should be taken away from the creator (human asset) to the product (business asset).

Chapter 18: How the Rich Really Get Rich

Wealth = net profit + asset value

According to this formula, in order to be wealthy, you also need to control two variables:

Net profit = (units sold) + (unit profit)

Asset value = (net profit) + (industry multiplier)

To make more profit, you:

Raise units sold by increasing conversion ratio
Raise units sold by increasing web traffic
Raise unit profit

Asset value = (net profit) x (industry multiplier)

Chapter 19: Divorce Wealth from Time

Your business system should work regardless of how you spend your time. Own your time instead of time owning you.

Passive income, the five Fastlane business seedlings:

Rental systems (houses, copyrighted music, cartoons)
Computer/software systems (software, apps, games)
Content systems (books, blogs, social networks)
Distribution systems (selling products through infomercials or retailer chains, franchising)
Human resource systems (businesses that have people as a backbone, such as Amazon.com)

Chapter 20: Recruit Your Army of Freedom Fighters

The best passive income venue is money. People pay you money and you get dividends in return.

Chapter 21: The Real Law of Wealth

Math rules the universe, not philosophy. The law of attraction says that if you know what you want, then you’ll eventually get it. In reality, this doesn’t work. The law of effection, on the other hand, says that the more lives you affect, the richer you’ll become. The law of effection can be summed up in two words: impact millions. The amount of money you have reflects the amount of value you have provided to others.

Net profit = units sold (scale) x unit profit (magnitude)

Scale means selling many units. Magnitude means having a great impact.

Part 6: Your Vehicle to Wealth – You

Chapter 22: Own Yourself First

Many people adhere to the “pay yourself first” doctrine”. This means saving your money (or paying yourself) before doing anything else. But this is futile because the government always pays itself first. To pay yourself first, you must own yourself. This means to have your own corporation or the be your own boss.

Chapter 23: Life’s Steering Wheel

Poor choices lead to poorness.

You are what you decide to be.

A treasonous choice is an action that changes your life, goals, and dream for the worst.

You can make a series of minor choices that can lead to major changes in your future life.

Chapter 24: Wipe Your Windshield Clean

Your choices will reflect your mindset. If you believe something is out of reach, you’ll unconsciously make sure it will be.

There are two types of choices:

Choices of Perception (thought patterns)
Choices of Action (choosing to do something)

Your language carries weight.

You make better choices using these two strategies:

Worst case consequence analysis

For every choice you make, ask yourself this: What’s the worst consequence? What’s the probability of this outcome? And is this an acceptable risk?

Weighted average decision matrix

According to different factors, your decisions become values. The higher the value, the better the decision.

Don’t be stuck in the past.

Chapter 25: Deodorize Flatulent Headwinds

You can do whatever you want. Don’t let society tell you otherwise. It’s OK to deviate from social norms. Turn your back on “dream stealers”, these become toxic relationships.

Positive people make you grow. Think of your relationships as warriors. So would you go to war with your friends?

Surround yourself with positive people
Read motivating autobiographies
Find a mentor

Your significant other should share the same values as you.

Chapter 26: Your Primordial Fuel: Time

Time is the most valuable asset you have. Time is scarce, money is plentiful.

Your lifespan = free time + indentured time

Free time is yours to spend. It usually takes place in the evenings or weekends when time is not exchanged for money.

Indentured time is the time spent making money. This includes work, but also dressing for work, commuting, recharging from work, and so on.

Free time is the right time. Indentured time is the wrong time

Parasitic debt eats free time. Everything we buy has two costs:

The actual time
The free time turned indentured time

The cause of parasitic debt is instant gratification.

Before buying something, ask yourself: will this take away my freedom? Will I own this or will it own me?

Time is the ultimate equalizer. There’s no unfair advantage. We all get 24 hours a day. Time is king.

Chapter 27: Change That Dirty, Stale Oil

Education and knowledge are important. The purpose of education is to “amplify the power of the money tree and the business system”. Education is free. If you’re not learning, that’s because you’re choosing not to.

Learning is important. Applying the principles you learn is equally important.

You’ll find knowledge in:

Bookstores
The library
Internet classes
Internet blogs, podcasts, and webcasts
Seminars
Cable TV
Classes
Free magazines

In order to have time to learn “you must accomplish two objectives in one timeframe”

Listen to audiobooks while in traffic.
Listen to audiobooks, podcasts, or articles while exercising.
Read while you wait, such as in airports, or at the doctor’s office.
Read in the bathroom.
Read during work downtimes.
Read while watching reruns.

Chapter 28: Hit the Redline

The redline is full commitment. Commitment to the system and your business. There’s a difference between being interested and being committed.

INTERESTED	COMMITTED
Reads a book Wants to start a business Works on business an hour a day Leases an expensive car Looks rich	Applies the book’s principles Files LLC paperwork Works on business 7 days a week whenever time allows. Rides a bike and saves money for the system Plans to be rich

Distance yourself from “most people”.

Don’t wait for someday. The perfect time doesn’t exist.

Part 7: The Roads to Wealth

Chapter 29: The Right Road Routes to Wealth

Is your road to wealth a dead end?

Slowlaner: your road is your job

Fastlaner: your road is your business

The law of effection says that to make millions you must impact millions. To do so, you need to build a business that allows it.

The Five Fastlane Commandments (NECST)

The Commandment of Need
The Commandment of Entry
The Commandment of Control
The Commandment of Scale
The Commandment of Time

Ideally, your road should meet all five commandments.

Chapter 30: The Commandment of Need

This is the foundation of your business and it should be solid. Your business should fulfill needs, provide value, and solve problems.

Why does your business exist? It shouldn’t exist solely to make you money or because you do what you love. Customers don’t care about you, they care about what your business can do for them. Don’t chase money, chase needs. Give first and take second.

Instead of starting a business because it’s what you love, look at the competition and see what you could be doing better. Is there a genuine need in the marketplace for what you’re offering? So move from selfish, internal needs to external, market needs.

Money is attracted to businesses that solve problems. The money you have reflects the value you have given to others.

Make people feel better
Solve their problems
Educate them
Make them look better
Give them security
Make things easier
Make them look better

Will someone pay for what you love to do? For it to work, you must:

Solve a need
Be exceptional at it

Remember that you can always do what you love for free.

Doing what you love:

Doesn’t make money fast
Endangers the love

The fuel for the Fastlane is passion, not love.

Chapter 31: The Commandment of Entry

The commandment of entry:

Higher entry barriers: strong roads with less competition.
Low-barrier-entry business: weak roads, high competition.

If you violate this commandment, you better be exceptional. Real business startups are processes, not events. This requires many steps.

If everyone is doing it, then there’s a problem because everyone isn’t wealthy. When everyone is doing it, that’s a good time to get out.

Chapter 32: The Commandment of Control

When you renounce control, you’re at the mercy of the driver. When you control a business, you’re in control of everything. This means you’re driving. For example, relying on Google Adsense for monthly revenue. If Google decides there’s a problem with your site, you’re entire revenue’s gone. Google is in control, not you. Don’t blindly invest everything into someone else’s brand.

Chapter 33: The Commandment of Scale

Six business habitats

Local/community (pool)
County/city (pond)
Statewide (lagoon)
Regional (lake)
National (sea)
Worldwide (ocean)

The higher the habitat, the greater the potential speed of our Fastlane.

Law of effection barricades:

Scale
Magnitude
Source

Chapter 34: The Commandment of Time

The business should offer passive income and shouldn’t depend on you running it.

Can I automate and systematize the business so that it runs without me?

Can you plant seeds so that you get a money tree?

Without the commandment of time, there are two obstacles.

You can’t access seeds in the first place because the road is deficient.
The soil is infertile.

Chapter 35: Rapid Wealth: The Interstates

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 process.

The three Fastlane interstates meet all the commandments:

Internet
Innovation
Intentional Iteration

Potent Fastlane # 1: Internet business models (offer information or software and charge a fee):

Subscription-based
Content-based (online news magazines, blogs)
Lead generation (provide a service by combining everything into one source)
Social networks (community gatherings)
Brokerage systems (facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers).
Advertising.
E-commerce: selling goods, services, or information online (Amazon.com)

Potent Fastlane #2: Innovation:

Manufacture
Distribution

To innovate you have to solve a problem or fulfill a desire.

Making something is important, but getting into people’s hands is equally important.

Writing a book isn’t a business, selling it is.

Portent Fastlane #3: Intentional Iteration:

Iteration means repeating a process to achieve a goal. For example, franchising. It conquers scale.

Chapter 36: Find Your Open Road

There are opportunities to satisfy needs and solve problems everywhere, just pay attention.

If someone’s already doing it, do it better. There will always be competition, this gives you the chance to make your business better. It isn’t about the big idea, but about the big execution.

Don’t forget that there were several search engines before Google, several department stores before Wal-Mart, several hamburger joints before McDonald’s, and so on.

Find a niche and solve it.

To find opportunities, pay attention to these phrases:

“I hate…”
“I don’t like…”
“This frustrates me…”
“Why is this like this…”
“Do I have to?”
“I wish there was…”
“I’m tired of…”
“This sucks…”

How will you react if you fail? Failure can be the most productive force when it comes to invention.

Chapter 37: Give Your Road a Destination

Freedom has a price and that price is money.

Your destination is the lifestyle you want while having the freedom to enjoy it.

To hit your destination, you need:

A money system
A business system

How much money do you need? What is the price of freedom and the lifestyle you want? There’s a four-step process to find out:

Define your lifestyle
Assess the cost
Set the targets
Make it real

To build a financial empire, you have to know the basics of finance and economics. Educate yourself; don’t be financially illiterate.

Rule #1 of financial literacy is to live below your means.

Part 8: Your Speed-Accelerate Wealth

Chapter 38: The Speed of Success

Doing nothing is expected. This is the path of least resistance.

Having an idea is the event, executing it is the process. Ideas, on their own, are worthless. Execution is priceless. Execution is what divides winners from losers.

Chapter 39: Burn the Business Plan, Ignite Execution

The world will tell you what to do despite what you believe: put your concepts and ideas out there and see how everyone reacts.

Business plans are useless. They become important when you execute them. Your intentions for your business might change over time. There’s no value in the plan itself, but in the person behind it and their track record of execution.

Chapter 40: Pedestrians Will Make You Rich

Customer service should help, support, and resolve. See complaints as free feedback and unmet needs.

The four types of complaints:

Complains of change: as soon as you change something people love, they’ll complain. Humans naturally resist change. Try to identify normal critique from legitimate concerns.
Complaints of change: customers expect something from you, if they don’t get it, they’ll complain. This is on you, not the customer.
Complaints of void: a customer asks for something and you don’t have it. These are great opportunities to take advantage of.
Complaints of fraud: respond with grace, explain, and move on.

You can’t keep everyone happy. Solve the complaints that add the most value.

SUCS is a customer service strategy that means Superior Unexpected Customer Service. You violate your customer’s expectations by offering good customer support.

The best advertising tool is word of mouth because it’s free and gives an infinite return on investment. This is about your customer’s expectations profile, what do they want from your business?

Don’t be your own boss. Make your customers the boss. Your customers pay your paycheck, be kind to them.

Make your business big, even if it isn’t. Look big, give better service with personal touches the way small companies do. This also scares the competition. Look big, act as a one-person operation.

Chapter 41: Throw Hijackers to the Curb!

Having a business partner is like being married. It works flawlessly or it ends in divorce. When working with a business partner, your work, ethic, values, and visions must be compatible. Don’t look for diversification of risk, expense, and workload when it comes to a business partner, look for synergy. When it comes to employees, don’t be vulnerable. Verify first, trust later.

Chapter 42: Be Someone’s Savior

Is your site going to save someone’s day? This should be your motivation. The world of “me too” is getting too crowded. Have a differentiation or uniqueness. Stand out from the crowd.

Commoditization is a product or service that appears homogenous. Consumers aren’t loyal to a particular brand, but to the company with the best price. This can be seen in airlines or gas.

Have a need-based premise before starting a business. Get into an industry to solve a problem, not to change it after the fact.

Don’t follow everything the competition is doing. Follow your own path. Forget about your competition, if you ever look at it, do it to exploit their weaknesses. Focus on your business: innovate, win customers, and fill their needs, then everyone will follow you.

Chapter 43: Build Brands, Not Businesses

Marketing can shadow other flaws.

Build a brand. When you think of certain brands, there are certain qualities you immediately associate with them. Think Apple and the words, reliable, luxurious, and great design come to mind. Think Phillips and you think cheap, poor quality, and bland design. To build a brand, you need a unique selling proposition or USP.

Step 1: Uncover the benefit(s) to solve a problem or need.
Step 2: Be unique.
Step 3: Be specific and give evidence.
Step 4: Keep it short, clear, and concise.
Step 5: Integrate your USP into all marketing materials.
Step 6: Make it real

Your brand should “rise above the noise”. To do so:

Polarize
Arouse emotions
Be risque
Encourage interaction
Be unconventional

As part of the Fastlane, you must ignore your own selfishness to satisfy the selfishness of others.

Focus on benefits, not features.

Translate features to benefits:

Switch places. Be your typical buyer. What do they want?
Identify features.
Identify advantages.
Translate advantages into benefits.

The higher the price, the higher its value.

Chapter 44: Choose Monogamy Over Polygamy

Don’t scatter your focus to pursue different opportunities. Don’t chase money, try to fulfill a need.

When you have several businesses, you have four options:

Continue cheating on your existing business.
Hire someone to manage the existing business.
Hire someone to manage the new business.
Discontinue the new business.

Try to focus on one thing and one thing only. If you spread your interests around, you run the risk of ruining the one thing you’re great at. Once you’re rich, you can afford to have more interests.

Chapter 45: Put It Together: Supercharge Your Wealth Plan

FASTLANE SUPERCHARGER is an acronym that’s made up of the following terms:

Formula: process, actions, and habits that form a lifestyle. Wealth is a process, not an event.
Admit: the idea of getting rich slowly is flawed. Accept the existence of getting rich quickly.
Stop and swap: stop following the wrong roadmaps. Swap them for more effective ones.
Time: time is king.
Leverage: “leverage controllable and unlimited mathematics to create wealth”.
Assets and income: exponential growth of income and asset values creates millionaires.
Number: how much money do you need to live your lifestyle?
Effection: the more people you affect, the more money you’ll make. Money reflects value.
Steer: life’s steering is a choice, including the Fastlane.
Uncouple: uncouple from the Slowlane equation.
Passion % Purpose: passion drives you.
Educate: education begins at graduation. Never stop learning.
Road: get onto a Fastlane road, regardless of which one it is.
Control: control your financial plan.
Have: have what others need. Don’t chase money.
Automate
Replicate: be in a field capable of reaching and affecting millions.
Grow: build a brand, not a business. Be different than the competition. Customers are your boss. Focus on one business. Look for a dream and use it as your wallpaper.
Exit: have an exit strategy.
Retire, reward, or repeat: reward yourself after hitting milestones.

Remember that the Fastlane isn’t a destination but a journey.