MJ DeMarco - The Millionaire Fastlane

[Hale.Pane]

sort of amazed at how everyone in the world loves this book or finds it revolutionary but me. please start naming lifechanging or mind opening tips that are found in this book. i can't think of one thing i didn't already know and i'm definitely not as smart as most of the dudes here posting such glowing reviews. it seemed obviousy and fluffy. he talks and talks and talks and talks in his "talky" writing style without really providing much.

Maybe you're one of the fortunate few who did grew up in a blue pill environment. I was born and raised a red blooded peon. We lived for the weekend, walmart and wasteful needless spending (rocking gucci bling with spinners and shit on mickey d paycheck).

*There's a tip section that's pretty good. Some tips from the book.


1. Do not trade time for money.
2. Not to operate within limited scales
3. Not to give credence to ideas but execution
4. Do not sell your soul for a weekend

IMO these are spot on .

 

[ebtek]

I'm reading it right now. I'm in the "slow-lane" part and it's a great read. He's obviously very intelligent. I especially like how he keeps shitting on Dave Ramsey, Robert Kiyosaki, Napoleon Hill, The Secret, and all these other financial authors and books without explicitly doing so. So entertaining.

later he shits on Tim Ferris, especially right at the end lol

MJ, are you saying I can’t get wealthy working four hours a week?
Sure you can, because you define freedom within your wealth trinity. If wealth to you is
traveling the world with $100 in your wallet and you have a knack for getting by on subterfuge,
schemes, shitty once-a-day customer service, barter, and other nefarious practices, go for it. If
you feel you can own your life and take care of your family’s needs on $1,000 a month, go for it.
Were there times when I worked four hours a week? Absolutely, and many times less! The
difference was, I invested tons of work to get there, and I wasn’t earning $1,000/month, but
$100,000/month. I never met a multimillionaire who found success investing four hours a
week from start to finish. It’s a one-way street: Four-hour workweeks are fruit from money
trees, but money trees cannot grow from four-hour workweeks!

 

[ebtek]

Don't let the lame name of the book distract you, it's the real deal. But obviously most people won't implement the advice in it. Berto recommended it to me and I was pleasantly surprised.

yea thats the one thing i dont really like about it (book title), especially when mentioning/recommending to friends. sounds like some sleezy mlm thing

 

[conv3rsion]

yea thats the one thing i dont really like about it (book title), especially when mentioning/recommending to friends. sounds like some sleezy mlm thing

he explains why he 'had' to name it that.

 

[gbmack]

What I find funny is that all the people who follow his Facebook feed and post on his forums (I never go there but occasionally get linked there) seem like total slowlane idiots.

Even MJ himself linked to this retarded thread from FB:
Making Money While Other People Are Eating Lunch

Now, I appreciate this guy hustling and finding opportunity somewhere. But this is NOT "Fastlane". This isn't very scalable, it isn't lasting, and it isn't a process in itself that can result in massive wealth. Turning this into some mass-use arbitrage process would be, but this little example is not. The point is to get away from "one hit wonders" like this, and then he goes and links to it!

Anyone can read a book and think they're a genius. And while MJ [rightfully] calls out a lot of gurus, yet he's beginning to get a bunch of idiot wannabe followers himself. Nothing he can do about it, it's just sweetly ironic.

Anyway... If you get this book, apply it and move on. From what I'm seeing in his forums, there's really nothing to learn but how to wast time with suckers.

Building a business and becoming successful requires a sickening worth ethic and an ounce of creativity. No books, no gurus needed, but they can certainly help.

 

[jhoffy22]

Building a business and becoming successful requires a sickening worth ethic and an ounce of creativity. No books, no gurus needed, but they can certainly help.

Agree. Repped.

 

[ebtek]

Halfway through the book and wow the sidewalk portion of the book was why I totally failed my first time around after doing IM for a few years.

this shit is so beautifully eloquant it'll give you goosebumps

 

[wiredniko]

I truly enjoyed this book, it was actually a hard book to take notes on since I wanted to just copy everything and write it down...in any case.

Here are my book notes on it:

- The slowlane: go to school, get good grades, graduate, get a good job, save 10%, invest in the stock market, max your 401K, slash your credit cards, clip coupons, then someday when you are 65 years old you will be rich
- If you are not wealthy stop doing what you are doing. Stop following the conventional wisdom
- Wealth has a formula and the Fastlane identifies it

The Great Deception
- Do you think that the guy who drives a $500,000 got it by clipping coupons and investing in mutual funds?
- The message for getting rich slow is clear. Sacrifice your today, your dreams and your life for a plan that pays dividends only after your life has evaporated
- Retirement is supposed to be your life's destination of financial freedom but if the journey takes 50 years is it worth it?

How I Screwed Get Rich Slow
- Fame or physical talent is not a pre-requisite to wealth
- Fast wealth is created exponentially not linearly
- Change can happen in an instant

Wealth is not a Road but a Road Trip
- When your focus is only the road, your journey is likely to stall and dreamy destinations will never arrive
- Wealth is like a recipe all components are needed to make a complete product
- Wealth is a process not a single event
- The process is the struggle and the back story
- The winning formula is your roadmap (guiding force behind your actions), your vehicle (is you), your road (the financial pathways you travel), your speed (your ability to execute from idea to implementation)
- The fastlane demands sacrifices that only a few are willing to make

The Roadmaps to Wealth
- If you want to change your life, change your choices
- To change your choices you must change your belief system
- Three financial roadmaps, the sidewalk, the slowlane, and the fastlane
- Each roadmap has a different psychology and predispositions
- Sidewalk - poorness, slowlane - mediocrity, fastlane - wealth
- Each road has key mindsets, mindposts that provide direction
- Mindposts answer the following questions
Debt perception: does debt control you or do you control debt?
Time perception: how is your time valued and treated?
Education perception: what role does education have in your life?
Money perception: what is money's role in your life? Is money a tool or a toy? Plentiful or scarce?
Primary income source: what is your primary means for creating an income
Primary Wealth Accelerator: how are you accelerating your net worth and creating wealth?
Wealth perception: how do you define wealth?
Wealth equation: what is your mathematical plan for accumulating wealth What wealth equation defines the physics of your wealth universe?
Destination: is there a destination? What does it look like?
Responsibility and Control: are you in control of your life and your financial plan?
Life perception: How do you live your life? Forsake today for tomorrow Or tomorrow for today
The Sidewalk: The Road Most Travelled

- A contract for a pleasurable today in lieu of a more secure tomorrow
- They are one something away from being broke
- The plan is to have no plan
- Even with large incomes they are one step away from bankrupncy
- The sidewalkers is the path most traveled because its the path of least resistance
- Everything is done for instant gratification, for getting the new toy
- Debt perception: credit allows me to buy things now
- Time perception: time is abundant now, I could be dead in two weeks, you can't take money with you
- Education perception: I finished school when I graduated
- Money perception: if you got it, flaunt it. I earn it, might as well spend it, most of my bills are paid on time
- Primary income source: whatever pays the most is what I will do
- Primary wealth accelerator: Net worth? I hit the casino and buy lottery tickets
- Wealth perception: he who dies with the most toys wins
- Wealth equation: wealth = incomre + debt
- Destination: what destination? I live for today
- Responsibility and Control: Everything bad happens to me, I am a victim, the man is keeping me down
- Life perception: live for today, life is too short to plan..I will hit it big one day
- Living pay check to pay check
- The sidewalk offers no protection, you can't absorb the hits
- The money outflow always outpaces the inflow
- You can be income rich and still ride the sidewalk dirty
- Wealth is authored by Family (relationships), Fitness (health), Freedom (choice)
- Don't be a 30K millionaire, appearing to be rich when you are not
- People flaunt the icons of wealth but do not have freedom

Misuse Money and Money will Misuse You
- The real thief of happiness is servitude
- Money does not buy happiness, freedom does
- Normal is modern day slavery
- Money buys the freedom to watch your kids grow up
- The freedom to pursue your craziest dreams
- The freedom to make a difference in the world
- The freedom to build and strengthen relationships
- The freedom to do what you love without needing financial validation
- Sidewalkers create a lifestyle of servitude, work creates income income creates lifestyle/debt, lifestyle/debt forces work...repeat
- If you have to think if you can afford something, you can't afford it (stick of gum vs buying a Bentley)
- You can afford something if you can pay cash for it and your lifestyle does not change regardless of future bumps on the road
- Wealth, like health requires discipline, sacrifice, persistence, commitment, and delayed gratification

 

[wiredniko]

Lucky Bastards Play the Game
- Process creates events that others see as luck
- Luck is introduced when you play the game
- Big hits are attempts to bypass the wealth journey and start at the end
- Sidewalkers have three false beliefs, luck is needed for wealth, wealth is an event, others can give wealth to me

Wealth Demands Accountability
- The law of victims says you can't be a victim if you don't relinquish pwer to someone capable of making you a victim
- People who don't take responsibility are victims
- Wealth demands responsibility followed by accountability
- Being accountable means changing your behavior if need be to prevent the same consequences
- Stop being a victim by taking responsibility followed by accountability
- When you own your decisions failure does not become the badge of victimhood, it becomes wisdom
- You deserve what your actions have earned

The Lie you have been Sold: The Slowlane
- The slowlane is a lifetime wager that a sacrificial today will yield a wealthier tomorrow
- The plan is based on time and factors you can't control, why it fails
- Debt perception: debt is evil, it must be attacked
- Tim perception: my time is abundant, I will trade my time for more dollars
- Education perception: education is important because it helps me earn a bigger salary
- Money perception: money is scarce, every dollar and dime must be accounted for, budgeted and saved
- Primary income source: my job is my sole source of income
- Primary wealth accelerator: compound interest is powerful, don't forget about mutual funds, home appreciation and 401K
- Wealth equation: job + market investments
- Destination: a comfortable retirement
- Responsibility and Control: its my responsibility to provide for my family although I plan to work by relying on others
- Perception: settle for less, give up big reams, save, live frugal
- The slowlane as a total plan is the problem, not the slowlane being part of the plan
- Financial discipline is important
- When you accept the slowlane roadmap as your strategy you give five days of work servitude for two days of weekend freedom

The Criminal Trade: Your Job
- To trade time is to trade life. You are trading your life for money
- Limitation on experience. With a job you
- become a cog of a wheel
- No control. If you don't control your income, you don't control your financial plan
- Pay yourself last. Expect 50% of your money to disappear before it touches your hands
- A dictatorship on income. Can you ask for a 1000% raise?

The Slowlane: Why you aren't Rich
- Slowlane has limited leverage
- Income is time based, and slowlaners are unable to leverage time
- You can't control your raises, the economy or if your job becomes obsolete
- Compound interest requires the passing of time
- To trade your time away is to trade your weal th away
- If you want to get rich, you have to control and leverage the variables in your financial plan

The Futile Fight: Education
- Education still keeps you in the more time = more money trap
- Educating yourself can give you specialized knowledge which can hurt you in the long run
- Loans from educations can trap you in your job

The Hypocrisy of Gurus
- The paradox of practice: do you practice what you preach
- Take advise from people that with a proven track record on the discipline they preach

Slowlane Victory: A Gamble of Hope
- Slowlane has multiple dangers
- The danger of your health
- The danger of your job. Assumption that you will always rise higher and be employed
- The danger of your home. Assumption that house values always rise
- The danger of the company. Companies can be mismanaged, lose money, stocks can plummet
- The danger of lifestyle. By trying to save money you can become a miser
- The danger of economy. Market and recession break the 8% yield return
- The danger of the sidewalk. Slowlane can lead to frustration reverting you back to the sidewalk mentality
- The slowlane is pre-disposed to mediocrity because the numbers are always mediocre
- Lifestyle degradation occurs to cut costs since income cannot be raiseed fast enough

Wealth: The Fastlane Roadmap
- Fastlane is a business and lifestyle strategy characterized by Controllable Unlimited Leverage
- Debt perception: Debt is useful it allows me to build and grow my system
- Time perception: time is the most important asset I have, far exceeding money
- Education perception: constant expansion of knowledge and awareness is critical for my journey
- Money perception: money is everywhere and it's extremely abundant. Money is a reflection of how many lives I have touched. Money reflects the value I have created
- Primary Income Source: I earn income via my business systems and investments
- Primary Wealth Accelerator: I make something from nothing. I give bith to assets and make them valuable to the marketplace
- Wealth equation: 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 and Control: Life is what I make it. My financial plan is entirely my responsibility and I choose how I react to circumstances
- Life perception: my dreams are worth persuing no matter how outlandish. I understand that it will take money to make some of my dreams real
- Get rich quick does not mean get rich easy

Switch Teams and Playbooks
- Instead of a consumer become a producer. Produce things that people want
- Instead of buying products on TV, sell products, instead of digging for gold sell shovels, instead of taking a morgage, hold a morgage
- Examine the world from the producer standpoint, when you see an advertisement examine it from the producer perspective, how they make money, what is the aim of the message, what business processes are involved, are they making profit?
- Attract wealth because consumers seek producers
- To consume richly, produce richly first
- To be on the fastlane you need to be a producer, entrepreneur, innovator visionary and a creator

How the Rich Really Get Rich
- Wealth = Net Profit + Asset Value
- Net Profit = Units Sold x Unit Profit
- Asset Value = Net Profit x Industry Multiplier
- Raise units sold by increasing conversion ratio
- Raise units sold by increasing web traffic
- Raise unit profit
- Engage in a fastlane business that has the potential for leverage or high speed limits
- Small numbers produce small results
- Industry multipliers differ in each industry
- Asset value can skyrocket for example if the industry multiplier is a 4, that means for every $1 earned, the asset value increases by $4, that's 400% increase
- Zealous pursuit of net profit is a double attack since it increases asset value as well
- Control your financial plan, do not let it control you
- Liquidation events transform appreciated assets to money

Divorce Wealth from Time
- Business systems break the bond between time and money
- If you have passive income that exceeds all your needs and lifestyle expenses including taxes you are retired
- The fruit from a money tree is passive income
- Money trees, rental systems, content systems, distribution systems, human resource systems
- Rental system: real estate, licenses and patents
- Computer system: internet and software businesses are examples
- Content system: authoring books, blogging and magazines
- Distribution system: franchising, chaining, network marketing, TV marketing
- Human resource systems can add or subtract to passivity
- Human resource systems are the most expensive to manage and implement

Recruit Your Army of Freedom Fighters
- One saved dollar is the seed to your money tree
- Fastlaner's don't use compound interest to get rich, but to create income and preserve liquidity
- A saved dollar is a freedom fighter added to your army
- Compound interest applied against large amounts of money works really well
- Fastlaners eventually become net lenders

The Real Law of Wealth
- The law of effection: the more lives you effect in an entity you control in scale and/or magnitude, the richer you will become
- Affect millions to make millions
- Net profits = units sold (scale) x unit profit (magnitude)
- Price always reflects magnitude
- Retrace the source of millionaire money and you will find millions of something

Your Vehicle to Wealth: You
- You can't pay yourself first if you don't own yourself
- Pay yourself first and the government last
- Create a corporation that you control
- When you own a corporation net profits are reduced by expenses, the remaining profits are then taxed
- Corporations pay taxes four times a year, if you have a job you pay taxes everyday
- The best business structures are C corp, S corp, LLC, avoid sole proprietor like the plague
- C corp: corp profits are taxed at corp income tax rates with net income distributed to shareholders. Income splitting, split income to both owner and the business lowering the tax bracket. Advantageous for larger corps and corps with asset growth strategy
- S Corp: They work like a C Corp but is not taxed as a separate entity. Taxes are paid a the individual level. Profits are not subject to self-employment tax. S corps are limited to 100 owners
- LLC: LLC profit passes through to its owners, called members

Life's Steering Wheel
- Lifestyle choices will make you a millionaire
- Treasonous choices change your life forever
- You are exactly where you chose to be
- Success is hundreds of choices that form a process. Process forms lifestyle
- The younger you are the more potent your choices

 

[wiredniko]

Wipe Your Windshield Clean
- What motivates you to act and choose?
- Choices of perception (thought patterns) and choices of action (choosing to read)
- Your perception is not the reality
- Your language dictates your reality
- WCCA is designed to steer you away from perilous detours and treasonous choices
- WADM is designed to help you make better big decisions with multiple contigencies
- Worst Case Consequence Analysis (WCCA)
What is the worst case consequence of this choice?
What is the probability of this outcome?
Is this an acceptable risk?
- Weighted Average Decision Matrix (WADM)

Create 3 columns, one headed "Factors", the other two or more the decision choices you have to make
Write all the factors that are important to you
One the factor column assign the importance of the factor from 1 through 10
Now rate each decision based on the factors you have created with 1 through 10
Next to each row multiply the weight (of the factor) times the grade (of the individual decision)
Add up the weight columns to get the final number for each choice
Ex. Factors/Detroit/Phoenix Weather (10) / 2 [20] / 8 [80]
- WADM works as long as you are perfectly honest with the factor weights
- The universe does not care about your past. It is blind to it
- If your eyes are fixed in the past you will not be able to become the person you want to be in the future

Deodorize Flatulent Headwinds
- Extraordinary wealth requires extraordinary beliefs
- Other people will create doubts, friends and family who don't get it, educational institutions, parents, slowlane gurus and your environmen
- People that don't empower you add friction, they are dream stealers
- Defend yourself or suffer the consequence of slow assimilation to mediocrity
- Other headwinds can be where you live, your job that drains you

Your Primordial Fuel: Time
- Value your time poorly and you will end up poor
- When your time is wasted as a lifestyle choice you will be stranded where you do not want to be
- Time is deathly scarce while money is richly abundant
- Lifespan = Free Time + Indentured Time (time spent working and work you must do for work)
- Money buys free time and eliminates indentured time
- Free time gets paid with money. Indentured time becomes the ransom of your free time
- Parasitic debt devours free time
- Everything you buy has two costs, the actual dollar debt and free time transformed to indentured time
- Fastlaners are frugal with time, while slowlaners are frugal with moneyParasitic debt has to be stopped at the source, instant gratification

Change that Dirty, Stale Oil
- Your education starts are graduation
- Education serves the purpose of advancing your business system and money tree not your intrinsic value
- Do not be the cog in the wheel, be the wheel
- You can become an expert in any discipline not requiring physical skills

Hit the Redline
- The redline is pure unadulterated commitment
- Its not just about interest, its about application
- Interest is about quiting after the third time, commitment is about continuing after the hundredth failure
- You can have mediocre comfort now or meteoric comfort later
- Intelligent risks have a limited downside and unlimited upside
- Moronic risks have an unlimited downside or short term
- Make "someday" today
- There is never a perfect time, just today

The Roads to Wealth
The Right Road Routes to Wealth
- Your business road must follow the law of effection
- Engineer a business that touches millions in scale or magnitude
- The Five Fastlane Commandments

The Commandment of Need
- Businesses that solve needs win
- Businesses that provide value win
- To succeed as a producer surrender your own selfishness and learn to address the selfishness of others
- Stop chasing money and chase needs
- Give first, take second
- Ask yourself is there a need for this business, what can you do better, how can you improve value what assets can you bring in
- To make money you need to start attracting money, don't chase it
- Money is attracted to businesses that solve problems
- Want some ideas? Help a million people by making them feel better, help them solve a problem, educate them, make them look beter, give them security, raise a positive emotion, satisfy appetites, make things easier, enhance their dreams and give hope
- To do what you love your love needs to solve a need and you need to be exceptional at it...most of the time its bad advice to do what you love
- When you do what you love chances are other people are doing it as well making certain fields saturated (writing, personal trainers)
- The motivational fuel for the Fastlane is passion
- Find your passion, the force that will make you do anything. Your passion is your end goal
- Find your WHYs, create a list of why you are doing what you are doing
- The Fastlane isn't a destination but a personal journey

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
- If you violate the Commandment of Entry be prepared to be exceptional
- Lack of entry itself creates the marketplace (poker players)
- If you are exceptional easy entry does not become a liability but an asset
- Everyone is doing it is a bad sign since not everyone is wealthy

The Commandment of Control
- Fastlane drivers retain control of everything in their business
- To hit big or legendary money you need to control your system and every aspect of that system
- Think like a shark not a guppy, be the leader not the follower
- Invest in your bran
d only
- Being a hitchhiker means you sell, operate and manage..they do not create and innovate
- If you don't control your system, your money tree and your brand, you control nothing

The Commandment of Scale
- There are six business habitants
County/city (pond)
Statewide (lagoon)
Regional (lake)
National (sea)
Worldwide (ocean)
- The larger the habitant the greater the potential speed or leverage of your Fastlane
- Without leverage you can't create wealth exponentially
- To achieve scale, magnitude or reach must increase
- The more people you reach the greater scale potential
- There are three barricades that prevent entrepreneurs from realizing the law of effection: scale, magnitude and source
- Scale, if you can't serve millions you won't make millions
- Magnitude, unit profit cannot be manipulated
- Effection is always biased toward the architect of the system
- Analyze your Fastlane equation, what are your maximum units sold and maximum profit per unit?

The Commandment of Time
- Can this business be automated and systematized to operate while you are absent?
- Are my margins thick enough to hire human resource seedlings?
- Can my operation benefit from the introduction of a money tree seedling
- How can I get this business to operate exclusive of my time?
- Your road should be traveled with the intention to make it automated

Rapid Wealth: The Interstates
- Fastlane purity, the five commandments
- Thou shall 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 are, internet, innovation, intentional iteration
- Internet business models, subscription based, content based, lead generation, social networks, brokerage systems, advertising, e-commerce
- Subscription based: offer a data, information, software and charge a monthly fee
- Content based: blogs, online news magazines. Provide content for free consumption and sell advertising space
- Lead generation: they often provide a service to consumers while simultaneously aggregating a non homogeneous industry. This works best with fragmented industries, where the industry players consist of mostly small to medium sized businesses. You help the consumer save time and the business owner to find new customers cheaply
- Social networks: they are spin off content systems
- Brokerage systems: bringing buyers and sellers together and facilitate transactions. Typically they earn money in each transaction (paypal, elance)
- Advertising: merge buyers and sellers together and accept advertising fees in lieu of transaction fees
- E-commerce: its the act of selling goods, services and information
- Innovation is another road to wealth, you have to manufacture and distribute a product, service or piece of information
- The core activity of invention is to take something, improve it and modify it
- Intentional iteration: the act of repeating a process, usually with the aim of approaching a desired goal or target or result
- Iteration is a profitable singles based business scaled to home runs like chaining, franchising

 

[wiredniko]

Find Your Open Road
- There are opportunities everywhere around you
- Your idea does not have to be the light bulb or the car, its a solution to an inconvenience, opportunity is simplification, a feeling, comfort, a better service, fixing pain
- Someone is doing it should not stop you, the question is can you do it better, offer greater value or be a better marketer
- Skip the big idea and go for the big execution
- How to spot open roads? Listen for people that say "I hate", "I don't like", "this frustrates me", "why is this like this", "do I have to", "I wish there was", "I am tired of", "this sucks"

Give Your Road a Destination
- Freedom has a price, and that price is money
- Set your destination

Define your lifestyle. What do you want?
Assess the cost. How much do you dreams cost?
Set the targets. The the money system and business income targets
Make it real, fund it and open it
- Asses the cost, determine the monthly cost for each thing you want including taxes and insurance. Gross living cost = lifestyle cost + allowances
- Net living cost = gross living / 0.6 (this is for taxes)
- Set the targets: money system target = (net living cost x 12) / 0.05 then your business system target = gross living cost x 5
- Knowing your business system target of passive income breaks down as 40% taxes, 40% fund your money system and 20% pays your lifestyle
- Make it real. The key to achieving enormous tasks is to break them down into their smallest part
The first step to fund your money system at a brokerage firm. Designate an account that represents your money system
- Pick an income fund that yields at least 5% yearly (Fidelity TRowePrice, TDAmeritrade)
- You can't build a financial empire if you are ignorant of basic finance and economics
- A money system is not used to grow wealth but to grow inome
- Building a financial empire requires financial literacy

Your Speed: Accelerate Wealth
The Speed of Success
- Speed is not thinking about Fastlane business but creating it
- Your business plan is a game of chess

The King: Execution
The Queen: Marketing
The Bishop: Your customer service
The Knight: Product
The Rook: Your people
The Pawn: Your ideas
- Execution is king, ideas mean nothing if they are not executed
- The owner of the idea is not he who imagines it, but he who executes it

Burn the Business Plan, Ignite Execution
- You never know what works until you put it out there. Putting it out into the box
- The world tells you which direction you should be going at all times
- Business plans are useless. Execute and the world will tell you how good your business plan actually is
- The value is not the plan, its the person giving it and his track record of execution

Pedestrians Will Make you Rich
- Keep track of customer complaints, they will offer you a free roadmap of the direction you should be moving to
- Four types of complaints, complaints of change, expectation, void and fraud
- Complaints of change are the hardest to decipher, most people resist change
- Complaints of expectations stem from either your service fails or your marketing strategy was deceptive
- Complaints of void are when a customer asks for something you do not have. This is extremely valuable because it exposes unmet needs
- Complaints of fraud. Respond to exploitive complaints with grace explaining your position and move on
- Superior Unexpected Customer Service, transform the customer experience to something superior, this creates loyal customers and repeat buyers
- Loyal customers create free advertising for you
- Success comes from making your customer the boss and number 1 stakeholder to your business
- Look big, act small. Create the appearance of looking big and growing
- The other purpose of looking big is you can kill the competition before it starts

Throw Hijackers to the Curb
- Don't let bad people in your castle
- Partnerships are like a marriage
- Get accountants and attorneys that deal with businesses, make sure to investigate them before you commit
- Don't just trust, verify
- Your employees drive the public perception of your company

Be Someone's Savior
- People tend to make buying decisions for commoditized goods and services based on price
- If your product does not stand out the only metric used will be price, avoid that
- Stop obsessing on your competitors and work on your own product
- Analyze competitors weaknesses and provide a better more differentiated service

Build Brands, Not Businesses
- Good marketing can cover bad businesses
- Businesses survive, brands thrive. Having a brand is the best defense against commoditization
- The first step of building a brand is to have a Unique Selling Proposition
- Your USP is the anchor to your brand
- Develop your USP by
Uncover the benefits. Solve a problem or a need. Do this with your customers in mind
Be unique. The uniqueness of your USP creates consumer divergence
Be specific and give evidence. Rise above the noise by alleviating natural consumer skepticism
Keep it short, clear and concise
Integrate your UPS to all marketing materials
Make it real
- You can rise above the noise by polarizing, rise emotions, be risque, encourage interactions, unconventional
- Translate features into benefits
- Switch places, identify features, identify advantages, translate advantages into benefits
- Price is a brand builder because price implies value
- The right pricing strategy conveys the wrong meaning

Choose Monogamy over Polygamy
- A scattered focus leads to scattered results
- When you segregate your effort among assets you build weak assets

Put it Together: Supercharge Your Wealth Plan
- Formula: wealth is a formula and a systematic process of beliefs, actions and habits
- Admit: get rich slow is not the right path, weak leverage should be avoided
- Stop and Swap: stop following the wrong roadmaps, stop selling your soul for a weekend
- Time: time is the king asset of the Fastlane, specifically free time. Avoid time thieves. Make decisions with time as a key decision factor
- Leverage: leverage controllable and unlimited mathematics to create wealth
- Assets and Income: wealth is accelerated by exploding income and asset value
- Number: how much money will you need to live a lifestyle of your choosing. Put a chart in your office that continually monitors your numbers and progress. Pictures and items to visualize your goals
- Effection: impact millions and you will make millions
- Steer: commit to the Fastlane ideology. Become responsible followed by accountable
- Uncouple: uncouple from Slowlane, create a corporation
- Passion & Purpose: find a passion and purpose to fuel you
- Educate: never stop learning, leverage existing blocks of time to keep learning
- Road: get on the Fastlane road, train your mind to see needs and problems, try to solve a problem better
- Control: control all your aspects of your business, be a shark
- Have: have what others need and money will flow to you. Have what people want not what you want
- Automate: get time detached from your business
- Replicate: replicate to increase your scale
- Grow: grow your business by treating it like a game of chess
- Exit: full passivity accomplished by the money system
- Retire, Reward and Repeat: reward yourself for milestones met
- The Fastlane road trip is not a destination but a journey
- Stop being like everyone and take action

 

[secretagentdad]

Stop taking notes and start doing.

You're grinding. Just like in your journal thread.

 

[pbakos92]

Stop taking notes and start doing.

You're grinding. Just like in your journal thread.

No. You shouldn't just "do", the same way you shouldn't just read. You need to do both, and taking notes is definitely a good idea so you can always refresh yourself down the line when you forget things you've read.

 

[g1c9]

Stop taking notes

PLEASE do not stop taking notes. You save me days. They're excellent.

 

[itchy]

later he shits on Tim Ferris, especially right at the end lol

MJ, are you saying I can’t get wealthy working four hours a week?
Sure you can, because you define freedom within your wealth trinity. If wealth to you is
traveling the world with $100 in your wallet and you have a knack for getting by on subterfuge,
schemes, shitty once-a-day customer service, barter, and other nefarious practices, go for it. If
you feel you can own your life and take care of your family’s needs on $1,000 a month, go for it.
Were there times when I worked four hours a week? Absolutely, and many times less! The
difference was, I invested tons of work to get there, and I wasn’t earning $1,000/month, but
$100,000/month. I never met a multimillionaire who found success investing four hours a
week from start to finish. It’s a one-way street: Four-hour workweeks are fruit from money
trees, but money trees cannot grow from four-hour workweeks!

The problem with this is that tim never said he created his biz on 4 hours a week or for that matter recommend you do he worked long hours to create his biz, then automated it using what he teaches in 4hww and RUNS it on 4 hours a week. Eerily similar to MJ's few hours a month to "water and feed" his business. Pot, kettle black here. Other than that (i'm a big ferris fan) i am loving this book

 

[pinchyfingers]

wiredniko +rep

 

[NetMillion]

Great book.

I read it 2 months ago and it made me re-think some stuff.

This book and Felix Dennis "How to Get Rich" are probably the two books I would recommend someone wanting to get paper.

thanks, now I know never to read it

 

[pixelo]

thanks, now I know never to read it

How can you not appreciate Felix Dennis?

 

[thehobbster]

The problem with this is that tim never said he created his biz on 4 hours a week or for that matter recommend you do he worked long hours to create his biz, then automated it using what he teaches in 4hww and RUNS it on 4 hours a week. Eerily similar to MJ's few hours a month to "water and feed" his business. Pot, kettle black here. Other than that (i'm a big ferris fan) i am loving this book

I get so tired of people who never read 4 Hour Work Week saying "yeah but nobody can create a business working only four hours...blah blah blah," just as much as I get tired saying "You obviously never read it."

 

[PostUp]

Reps on RC for wiredniko!

Thanks for the notes!

I'm taking a three hour roadtrip later this week and I'm going to be listening to this the entire way.

Great recommendation.