Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime
The Millionaire Fastlane Video Summary
Fight Mediocrity, OnePercentBetter & the Swedish Investor
Key Takeaways
Lesson 1: The 3 Lanes
Our beliefs form our actions. If you identify yourself with many of the slowlane, or perhaps even the sidewalk beliefs, it’s very probable that you are currently not on a highway towards wealth.
The Sidewalk
Your average person living paycheck to paycheck. No matter how much they earn, they’ll match it with how much they spend. Sidewalks can actually have a huge income, i.e. professional athlete.
The problem is having no financial intelligence or responsibility. So if something goes wrong, like losing their job or aren’t needed anymore, you’re basically screwed. This is why you’ll see even professional athletes who made millions at one point be completely broke now. Don’t take the sidewalk.
Sidewalks pursue pleasure today at an expense of a more secure tomorrow. Always one step away from being broke. They never know if they’ll be able to pay the rent each month, meanwhile chug bag a case of beer to temporarily suspend life problems. Thinks time is abundant and can spend money like theres no tomorrow. Graduates from school and justifies that thats all the education the need to get by. Takes whatever job they can that pays the most.
You know you’re a sidewalk if you change jobs frequently, haven’t learned much since graduating from school, have poor credit, barely any savings and put faith into politicians and government to fix a system. An estimated 60% of adults live their lives on the sidewalk.
The Slowlane
This basically your standard go to school, get a decent job, save 10%, invest in the stock market, hope i grows at 7% annually and when you’re 65, you can be a millionaire. So why does the slow lane suck?
Because you want to enjoy the things in life you want to enjoy, while you’re still young. It’s like selling your soul for 40 years so that when you’re in a wheel chair retiring, you can then start to have fun. Not that different from what people do on a weekly basis. Work Monday-Friday for two days at the end of the week, and then do that over and over again.
This could be the best strategy for most people. Why? Because most people aren’t capable of meeting the demands of the fast lane. And the slow lane is definitely better than the sidewalk.
Lane 2: The Slowlane sacrifices today in hopes for a brighter an freer tomorrow. They also sacrifice their time and money. This is why the typical narrative of becoming a doctor, maxing out your 401k, and investing in mutual funds for 40 years puts you in the slow lane. You can get to wealth, but it’s very slow and you don’t have time .
"Your glorious tomorrow might arrive when you're 73 years old, and soaked in urine, strapped to a stinking bed because you've lost your mind to Alzheimer's "
The Fastlane
The whole idea with the fast lane is this: the more value you give to the world, the richer you will become. The general rule is this: the more value you provide to more people, the better you will do.
Why is the slow lane actually a good strategy for most people? Because most people have not developed themselves where they can give something of true value to the world. If you aren’t capable of giving tremendous value to other people, that’s your fault. Own up to it. If you want to be in the fast lane, stop watching Netflix and start going to the library.
Why not pick the slow lane? Essentially you are selling your life in the form of time, the most valuable commodity, also I know I can provide value to the world, and a 7% return is pretty small. There is no limit how much you can grow your business. You can easily double your business in months, but could you double your salary in months?
Being in the fast lane isn’t impossible. Even if you aren’t in the position to give something of valuable to the world right now, as long as you’re developing yourself the right way, you can be. The more people you help, the bigger the magnitude of your help, the richer you will be.
"The fast lane is a business and lifestyle strategy characterized by controllable unlimited leverage, hence creating an optimal environment for rapid wealth creation and extraordinary lifestyles. "
Lesson 2: The 4 Elements of The Fastlane
1. Controllable Unlimited Leverage
In the slowlane there are uncontrollable variables. You have much less control over your time expenditure and income level, while the fast lane gives you maximum control and leverage over tim, money and other stuff. i.e. being able to work from anywhere in the world.
2. Business like a job is to the slow lane, self employment and a business is the fast lane.
3. Lifestyle the fast lane is a lifestyle choice. It is not succumbing to the typical narrative as a means to just get by in life.
4. Rapid Wealth Creation the fast lane is about creating wealth quickly and beyond the confines of the middle class.
2. Business
Like a job is to the slow lane, self employment and a business is the fast lane.
3. Lifestyle
The fast lane is a lifestyle choice. It is not succumbing to the typical narrative as a means to just get by in life.
4. Rapid Wealth Creation
The fast lane is about creating wealth quickly and beyond the confines of the middle class.
Lesson 3: The 5 Commandments of a Fastlane Business
To reach financial freedom fast, you need to quit your job and start a business. But not any type of business. This is not a “do what you love” or “be your own boss” advice. No, a business should fulfill as many as possible of “The five fastlane commandments” to be worthy of pursuing.
Commandment 1: Need
This is the reason 95% of business fail within the first 5 years. Never start a business just to make money. Stop chasing money and start chasing needs. Stop thinking about your business in terms of your selfish desires, whether it’s money, dreams or that do what you love mentality. Instead chase needs, problems, pain points, service deficiencies and emotions.
- You know you’re not satisfying the commandment of needs if you’re the guy that asks “How can I Make passive income?”
- Do what you love and the money will follow advice is BS.
Doing what you love is a flawed strategy. People do not care about what you love, people care about having their problems solved. Selfish motives like “doing what you love” is a free ticket to the road with a traffic jam again, because if you love it, chances are that everyone else loves doing it, too.
For do what you love to work, you need two things:
1. Your love must solve a need.
2. You must be exceptional at it.
It’s quite simple really: Offer the world more value, and you’ll become rich. Affect millions and you’ll make millions.
Commandment 2: Entry
Higher entry barriers equate to stronger, more powerful roads, with less competition and less need for being awesome.
If the road you are choosing is crowded with other people, you can count on being stuck in a traffic jam. You’d like some kind of barrier of entry to your business – a certain knowledge that people must possess to participate, large sums of money required for investments, contacts that you need to have etc
"The world is littered with so-called businesses that have no entry barriers. And that is why they suck and the people who follow them aren't rich."
Commandment 3: Control
Drivers control everything in their business. Drivers sell stock, they don’t buy it. Drivers accept rent and royalties. They don’t pay rent and royalties. Drivers offer affiliate programs, they don’t join them. Drivers offer drop shipping, they don’t use it
If you’re not in control of your business someone else is.
- For instance, hitchhiking a content distribution platform to distribute your educational videos violates this commandment.
- Another example: there are lots of businesses that earn good money from Google’s Adsense program, but you know what? The company which brings in the great bucks is Google itself.
Commandment 4: Scale
The guy who runs a local restaurant isn’t able to scale because his customers are confined to a single geographical location. A restaurant can also serve a limited amount of food and customers in one day.
An online business which you sell informational products gives you the ability to sell unlimited copies and at a massive scale. There’s no shortage of customers because everyone is and can buy your stuff online. Even while you sleep.
Commandment 5: Time
You must attach your business from your time. One hour online fitness coaching is not detaching a business from your time, but creating a video course would be because you can record it and once it’s up, it’s up forever. You can sell it over and over again without you having to be there.
Somewhere down the line, you must be able to detach yourself from your own business. You must create a business system that can survive without any input from yourself. We want passive income. Otherwise, you’ve just created yourself a job in disguise. Money is not king, time is.
Lesson 4: The Mathematics of Poverty and Mediocrity
Depending on which road you choose, you are predisposed to end up at a certain financial destination — and as you probably already have guessed the sidewalk is predisposed towards poverty, the slowlane towards mediocrity and the fastlane towards wealth.
The Sidewalker Wealth Equation: Wealth = Income + Debt
Yes, the sidewalker actually believes that debt can be used as a tool for wealth building, and that’s because he’s got the wrong perception about wealth. He believes, like the majority of our society, that looking wealthy means that you must be wealthy. As his credit card can allow him to buy that new Armani suit, it must mean that it makes him wealthier, right?
Unfortunately, the sidewalk doesn’t care about how much money you make, because poor money management cannot be solved with more money.
The Slowlane Wealth Equation: Wealth = Job + Market Investments
Depending on how you are paid, the wealth that stems from your job has a problem: being bound by time.
- You can only increase your wealth by switching into a job that pays a higher hourly wage or by working more hours. Work 12 hours a day instead of 8 and you’ll earn 50% more, but you’ll also burn out in the process, guaranteed.
- You will have to go to college to get a higher annual salary, or to climb the corporate ladder, both of which takes a lot of time. Ever seen a 20-something CEO?
The market investment equation is not linear like the job equation is. We’ve heard it before, and Albert Einstein calls it the eighth wonder of the world: Compound Interest. However, it too is bounded by time, because the equation only starts to work drastically in our favor once we have big numbers.
Fastlaners love compound interest too, however, their goal is to skip the first 20 years and start where the real fun begins.
Lesson 4: The Mathematics of Wealth
It’s simple as this: to escape the slowlane you must dump your job and start a business.
The Fastlane Wealth Equation: Wealth = Profit + Asset Value
We can break down the profit that you make in your business into two parameters: Units sold and profit per unit. Here’s where the power of the Fastlane shows. Both of these variables are possible to leverage.
- You can sell something that gives $10 in profits, or you can sell something that gives $10,000 in profit.
- You can sell a hundred units, but you may as well be able to sell a hundred thousand.
Let’s go back to the slowlaner’s wealth equation for a second: Do you think that you can ever become rich earning $12 per hour and working 40 hours per week? No. That’s because small numbers have a strong gravity towards mediocrity.
Can you get rich by profiting $10 per unit and selling a hundred thousand of those units? You most certainly can, and really fast too. Asset value will help you reach your financial goals even faster. If you own a good business system, people are typically willing to buy it from you, and they will typically pay way more than one year profit for it. Just look at the stock market and the price-earning multiples there!
But, let’s be a bit more conservative. Say that you can get five times the yearly earnings by selling your company. Still, this is pretty incredible compared to a normal job. Imagine walking up to your boss and proclaiming: “I quit!” and then he responds: “I see mr. Abrahamson, just wait a moment while I’ll write you this ginormous check. Shall we say him at five times your yearly salary, perhaps?”
Note that this doesn’t guarantee anything. This sidewalk who wins the lottery will undoubtedly become wealthy, and the slowlaner can become a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. But the odds are not in their favor. We want odds in our favor, and therefore we want to start a Fastlane business.
Lesson 5: The Law of Effection
Basically, you can become a millionaire by having either magnitude or scale in your business. Magnitude is how much value you provide per person you affect. Scale is how many you affect. If you do not have either, you do not have a millionaire fastlane.
Here are a few examples:
- Slowlane William opens a lemonade stand outside of his garage. He profits one dollar for each drink sold, so he does not have magnitude in the business, and what about scale? Is it possible for William to sell ten thousand drinks from his garage? Probably not. William’s business fails the commandment of scale, because he’s got a ceiling attached to both the magnitude and the scale of his business.
- Fastlane Frank is a doctor and he starts a private clinic for plastic surgery in Hollywood with his best friend. Just like William, Frank has attached a ceiling to his business in terms of scale. He cannot provide value for, say, more than ten people today. But he does have magnitude. Delivering upgrades in looks provides a lot of value and doing so to some of the richest people in the world means that he can become rich too.
- Fastlane Fiona discovers some type of new beauty product for young women. Yes. It really isn’t possible to saturate this market! She profits only three dollars from each product sold, so she does have a ceiling in magnitude just like William. Unlike William, she doesn’t try to sell this from her local garage. She decides to partner up with a few influencers and distribute the product online. During the first year, she sells 100,000 units. During year two: a million. If you sell 1 million of anything, you can be sure you’ll become rich.
If you manage to combine both magnitude and scale, we’re talking Billionaire Fastlane rather than Millionaire Fastlane.