by MJ DeMarco
Your Speed (Part 8)
Speed is execution and your ability to go from idea to implementation. You could sit in a Ferrari on an empty, straight road, but if you fail to hit the accelerator, you fail to move. Without speed, your roadmap has no direction, your vehicle stands idle, and your road mutates into a dead end.
The Road Trip Is Paved with Toll Roads
Successful Fastlaners are warriors who live and die on rough roads. Toll roads pave the road to wealth, and that toll can’t be paid on Easy Street. For some of us, this is good news because the toll weeds out the weak and escorts them to the land of normal. If you resist the toll, wealth will resist you. Unfortunately, some feel that wealth’s toll can be paid by entitlements or certain “prerequisites,” such as:
✓A functional family/good childhood
✓“Hard work” versus “smart work”
✓Educational accomplishments and credentials after your name
✓A stellar business plan
✓Venture capital
✓Being a certain sex, color, or age
✓Wishing, dreaming, and thinking positively
✓Knowing the right people in the right places
✓Attending the right schools
✓Being passionate or “doing what you love”
Nothing is further from the truth. The Millionaire Fastlane doesn’t care about these things. The Fastlane isn’t a straight tree-lined street with white picket fences and children swinging on tires hanging from oak trees. It’s a dark, deserted, unpaved road strewn with potholes that forces change and evolution. If the road trip to wealth were easy, wouldn’t everyone be wealthy?
Expect a price to be paid. Expect risk and sacrifice. Expect bumps in the road. When you hit the first pothole (and yes, it will happen) know that you are forging the process of your unfolding story. The Fastlane process demands sacrifices that few make, to resolve to live like few can.
The Road Trip Can’t Be Outsourced to a Chauffeur
We live in a society that wants to outsource everything, from our household chores to raising our kids. Outsourcing might work for a dirty bathroom, but it doesn’t work for wealth. Wealth’s road trip has no chauffeur and the toll can’t be outsourced to a virtual assistant in the Philippines.
Had someone gifted a Lamborghini to me (or any dream) when I was 16 years old, I wouldn’t be where I am today. When you are granted gifts without any effort, you effectively handicap process. The person I needed to become would have been dwarfed because process would have been outsourced. There is no wisdom or personal growth gained in a journey that someone else does for you. The journey is yours. And unless you find like-minded Fastlaners, you will walk it alone.
Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions
➡Wealth is a formula, not an ingredient.
➡Process makes millionaires. Events are residual by-products of process.
➡To seek a “wealth chauffeur” is to seek a surrogate for process.
➡Process cannot be outsourced, because process dawns wisdom, personal growth, strength, and ultimately, events.
[4] - The Roadmaps to Wealth
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.
~ Lewis Carroll
The Compass for Wealth
If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know if you get there? An undefined destination means an undefined arrival. More than likely, you’ll end up where you don’t want to go. You find wealth with a roadmap, not a dartboard.
Self-made millionaires don’t become millionaires by stumbling into money. Likewise, financial failures don’t become failures by stumbling into poorness. Both are residual outcomes of the chosen financial roadmap and the actions and beliefs evolving from that roadmap. Your financial roadmap is definitive to process, and it’s the first tool for your road trip to wealth.
Whether you know it or not, your current financial status is the aftermath of your financial roadmap. It guides your actions which renders consequences which renders your financial life.
Ultimately your choices determine how your life unfolds.
But where do these choices come from?
They bud from your belief systems which are defined within your roadmap.
To change your choices it has to start from your roadmap because it is there where your beliefs lie, both literally and figuratively. Radical life disruption comes from a radical disruption in your roadmap. Change that, and you change everything.
For instance, here’s how roadmaps and their bound beliefs affect finances: if you believe “rich people got rich investing in S&P index funds” your actions will reflect that belief. If some financial guru tells you to cancel your credit cards because “all debt is bad,” you do it. If an author says, “$50 invested today will be worth $10 million in 40 years,” and you believe it, your actions spring from that belief.
Beliefs are powerful mechanisms that drive action, whether true or not. Our parents said Santa Claus was real and we believed it. We left cookies, looked out the window for the flying reindeer, and wondered how he got his big butt down the chimney. We believe what we’re taught, even when evidence appears to the contrary!
Your belief system acts like a compass that, if errant, can lead you to a lifetime of detours. Fictitious beliefs are lying roadmaps; they escort you down dead-end roads where “Wealth: Next Exit” never happens.
The Three Financial Roadmaps to Wealth
Plotting your course to wealth and building your process starts with an examination of your current financial roadmap and the alternatives. There are three financial roadmaps:
➡The Sidewalk Roadmap
➡The Slowlane Roadmap
➡The Fastlane Roadmap
Within these three roadmaps lies a psychology, a belief system that dictates actions relative to each roadmap. More importantly, each roadmap operates within a “universe” governed by a mathematical “wealth equation.” Whatever roadmap you choose, your universe for wealth creation will abide by each map’s respective wealth equation. Additionally, each roadmap is naturally predisposed toward a specific destination. Those predispositions are:
➡The Sidewalk >— Poverty
➡The Slowlane >— Mediocrity
➡The Fastlane >—Wealth
Whichever financial roadmap you follow will predispose you to the destination inherent in the roadmap—the roadmap’s “true essence.”
What is true essence?
If you play blackjack and win 15 consecutive hands, you violate the true essence of randomness. The natural state of randomness is to not deliver 15 wins in a row.
When a wild African lion is tamed to perform in a Las Vegas magic act, the lion is trained to violate its true essence. The lion naturally wants to be wild, to hunt, to kill, to feed, to mate. The lion wants to revert to its natural self, which is why some flamboyant magicians get their heads bitten off. You have to be special to bend the laws of true essence.
Likewise, the roadmaps each possess a true essence that leads either to poverty, mediocrity, or wealth. For example, if you follow the Sidewalk, you’ll likely end poor. While wealth is possible with any of the maps, divergence from the map’s essence is like defying odds: gambling for six hours at the roulette table and winning.
Each roadmap contains key mindsets that act as signposts, or “mindposts,” that provide direction and guide actions, just like a roadmap. Those mindposts are:
Debt Perception:
➡Does debt control you or do you control your debt? Or, do you even have debt?
Time Perception:
➡How is your time valued and treated? Abundant? Fleeting? Inconsequential? Do you work for time? Or does time work for you?
Education Perception:
➡What role does education have in your life? Does it have a role at all?
Money Perception:
➡What is money’s default position in your life? Is money a tool or a toy? Plentiful or scarce?
Pr
imary Income Source:
➡What is your primary means of creating income?
Primary Wealth Accelerator:
➡How are you accelerating your net worth and creating wealth? Or are you?
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? If so, what does it look like?
Responsibility & Control:
➡Are you in control of your life and your financial plan?
Life Perception:
➡How do you live your life? Do you plan for the future? Forsake today for tomorrow? Or tomorrow for today?
The Roadmaps Operate within Distinct Universes
Each roadmap operates under a specific set of mathematical formulas, the wealth equation that determines the speed at which you can create wealth. Like Einstein’s E=MC², these formulas govern your wealth universe much like physics governs our universe. And because physics is bound by mathematical absolutes, so are your equations (and probabilities) to wealth.
The velocity of wealth acceleration evolves from your chosen roadmap’s “universe,” and it is within these universes that your financial plan accelerates or stalls. Think of it as a railroad track, with each track having its own set of speeds, rules, and laws. You can hop aboard a track that allows speeds of 20 mph or speeds of 200 mph.
If you’re unhappy in your financial situation, you can change your universe immediately by switching roadmaps. However, before you can swap the roadmaps, you have to understand them. Let’s dissect the roadmaps in the next three parts of the Millionaire Fastlane: the Sidewalk, the Slowlane, and the Fastlane.
Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions
➡To force change, change must come from your beliefs, and your roadmap circumscribes those beliefs.
➡Each roadmap is governed by a wealth equation and predisposed to a financial destination—Sidewalk to poverty, Slowlane to mediocrity, and the Fastlane to wealth.
PART 3
POVERTY: THE SIDEWALK
ROADMAP

PART 3- POVERTY: THE SIDEWALK ROADMAP
[5] - The Road Most Traveled: The Sidewalk
When you’re the first person whose beliefs are different from what everyone else believes, you’re basically saying,“I’m right, and everyone else is wrong.” That’s a very unpleasant position to be in. It’s at once exhilarating and at the same time, an invitation to be attacked.
~ Larry Ellison
The Sidewalk Roadmap
Most people are lifelong Sidewalkers, followers of the Sidewalk Roadmap. The Sidewalk is the plan most followed, a contract for a pleasurable today in lieu of a more secure tomorrow.
A Sidewalker exists in a state of one-something-from-broke: One album failure from broke. One business deal from broke. One gig from broke. One layoff from broke. On the Sidewalk, you’re always “one something” from being homeless, bankrupt, or back living in your parent’s basement.
Yes, some Sidewalkers actually earn large incomes, but none of them ever obtains true wealth. Don’t let the contradiction fool you. The Sidewalk doesn’t have an exit ramp to wealth—only a “DEAD END” sign signaling impending doom. The Sidewalker’s road trip is a financial treadmill with a destination that typically ceases at bankruptcy or a crisis of reckoning.
What Is a Sidewalker?
A Sidewalker’s financial destination doesn’t exist. The plan is to have no plan. Surplus money is immediately spent on the next great gadget, the next trip, the next newer car, the next fashionable styles, or the next hot fad. Sidewalkers are carelessly trapped in a “Lifestyle Servitude” fed by an urgent, insatiable need for pleasure, image, and instant gratification. This perpetuates an accelerating cycle of consumption, increasing the velocity of the burden, forever enslaving the Sidewalker to their job or their business.
The Sidewalk is the road most traveled because it’s the path of least resistance. Its siren song is instant gratification, and money is a hot potato that’s quickly exchanged for the latest fix of the week. Want to witness how Sidewalkers live and think? Watch the television show Judge Judy for a few hours. Daughters suing moms for $100, people denying responsibility, consequence ignorance, people wanting rent for free. Seriously, the show should be renamed Life from the Sidewalk.
The Mindposts of a Sidewalker
The Sidewalker’s roadmap contains behavioral characteristics that drive the Sidewalker’s actions. These mindsets are signposts, or “mindposts” that guide the Sidewalker through life.
Debt Perception:
Credit allows me to buy things now! Credit cards, consolidation loans, car payments—these supplement my income and help me enjoy life today! If I want it now, I’m going to get it now.
Time Perception:
Time is abundant and I spend money like there’s no tomorrow. Heck, I could be dead in two weeks, and you can’t take it with you!
Education Perception:
I finished school when I graduated, hooray!
Money Perception:
If you got it, flaunt it! Why save for a rainy day? I spend every dime I earn and most of my bills are paid on time; isn’t that being fiscally responsible?
Primary Income Source:
Whatever gig pays the most is what I will do. I chase money baby! It’s all about the Benjamins!
Primary Wealth Accelerator:
Net worth? I hit the casino, I buy lottery tickets, and I have an active lawsuit against an insurance company . . . does that count?
Wealth Perception:
He who dies with the most toys wins!
Wealth Equation:
My formula for wealth is (Wealth = Income + Debt).
Destination:
Destination? I live for today and I can’t be bothered about tomorrow.
Responsibility & Control:
Everything bad happens to me. The man is keeping me down. The system is against me. I am a victim. It’s someone else’s fault.
Life Perception:
Live today, to hell with tomorrow. Life is too short to plan any further than 30 days out. You can’t take it with you! You’re only young once! Besides, I’ll hit it big someday.
The Disturbing Sidewalking Facts
While these hypothetical mindposts and their commentary might sound ridiculous, they aren’t. Just look at the data. Read the reports. According to a US Census Bureau study released in 2017 and conducted in 2014 (for 2013, years after the recovery of both the 2001 and 2008 bubbles), here are the disturbing facts:
✓A person under the age of 55 is 69.7% likely to have zero net worth, or negative net worth.
✓An estimated 54% of all households in the United States have less than $100,000 in net worth.
✓83% of all “under 35” households had a net worth less than $100,000.
✓A person in the 35–44 age range has a median net worth of $18,197 excluding home equity.
✓A person in the age 45–54 group has a median net worth of $38,626, excluding home equity.
According to 2016 Census Bureau data, 61% of all people who earned income earned less than $75,000/year. This data unmasks the ugliness behind the Botox injections and the luxury German sedans: Sidewalkers are the majority. An estimated 60% of adults live their lives on the sidewalk. Yes, the world is full of financial illusionists. And this is after the recoveries of the most recent financial bubbles. Immediately after the 2008 financial meltdown, it wouldn’t surprise me if 85% of American families would have had zero or negative net worth. But you can bet they have 650 cable channels streaming into their five flat-screen HDTVs. If you’re older than 35 and you have less than $19,000 in net worth let me be blunt: What you are doing isn’t working. You need a new roadmap.
The Standard Sidewalker: Income Poor
“Income-Poor” Si
dewalkers are the mainstream populous and reflect the lower to middle class. These Sidewalkers work for modest salaries and possess all the toys to show for it, but have little savings and no retirement plan. Their future is mortgaged to the hilt in favor of a lifestyle, with purchase affordability of any extravagance determined by the monthly payment. Every dime is spoken for: car payments, clothes, or is sent off to stall the credit reaper.
If you live this way, you are driving at the financial redline on a narrow road bordering a cliff. There is little hope for Sidewalkers because their roadmap is corrupted by gratification, selfishness, and irresponsibility. This problematic disposition repels wealth and thrusts codependency on overburdened hosts: taxpayers, employers, friends, parents, and loved ones. Income-Poor Sidewalkers rationalize, “Life is short. Get out of my way or get run over!”
