by MJ DeMarco
Get Your Eyes off the Rearview Mirror
Today is the starting line for the rest of your life. Yes, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. The problem with the past is that we remember memories we shouldn’t, and we don’t forget what we should. If your eyes are stuck in the rearview mirror, you’re stuck in the past. If you’re stuck in the past, you’re not looking ahead. If you’re not looking ahead, you can’t hit the mark of your future.
The universe doesn’t care about your past. It is blind to it. The universe doesn’t care that I wore pink pants in high school. (Hey, remember Miami Vice?) The universe doesn’t care that I got in a fight with Francis Franken and lost. The universe doesn’t care about your MBA from UCLA, your drug-dealing father, or that you wet your bed in junior high. The universe simply doesn’t care. One person and one person only weaponizes past transgressions: you.
If the universe doesn’t remember, why should you?
Being the youngest of three siblings, you can bet I was the subject of some vile comments. Fat, stupid, you name it. However, just because my brother called me an idiot for 12 years doesn’t make it my reality.
Your past never equals your future unless you allow it.
Think about a coin flip.
No matter how many times it’s flipped, the next flip is always random. Probability cannot be attached to a future flip based on the past.
Your past is the same.
Just because you failed at five relationships doesn’t mean your next will fail, especially if you learn from them! Just because you flipped burgers three hours ago doesn’t mean you can’t be a millionaire next year. The universe forgets, just like the universe forgot I mopped floors and delivered pizza not long ago.
Is Your Memory Treasonous?
Your memories carry the same makeup as your choices. They’re treasonous, muted, or accelerative. Unlike choice’s consequences, you have a choice how your past is classified. The records of the past can be sealed.
For example, if you lost your life savings in a restaurant franchise that went bankrupt soon after you invested, your memory could be either accelerative or treasonous. Your memory and its perception could be:
“Business ownership is a big risk. I’ll never do that again” or “Next time, I’m going to be selling franchises, not buying them.” The former is treasonous, while the latter is accelerative.
You have a choice in framing failure and the past. It serves or hinders.
When I reflect on my own failures, they serve me to effect future change. It’s a part of the responsibility/accountability process. What did I learn? What can I change in the future? What should I forget?
After I crashed my Viper and nearly killed myself, I remember the haze of almost losing everything. I didn’t want to repeat those feelings, and their memories served future change: Street racing is for morons. Alternatively, I could allow ego to reign, keep street racing, and boast, “I’ll never lose another race again!” While the consequences of our choices can’t be manipulated, you can manipulate your memories to serve you. My life is not defined by being picked last in high school gym class. If you’re defined by your past, it will be impossible for you to become who you need to be in the future.
Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions
➡Your choices of action manifest from your choices of perception.
➡What you choose to perceive, or not perceive, will manifest itself to a choice of action, or inaction.
➡You can change your choice of perception by aligning yourself with those who experience the perception as reality.
➡Worst Case Consequence Analysis helps avoid treasonous choices.
➡The Weighted Average Decision Matrix can help you make better big decisions by clarifying alternatives and their internal factors.
➡The universe has no memory, only you do.
➡Your past can be accelerative or treasonous. You choose the classification.
➡If your eyes are transfixed to the past, you can’t become the person you need to become in the future.
[25] - Deodorize Foul Headwinds
Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.
~ Oscar Wilde
The Fastlane’s Natural Headwind
The greatest invention of mankind was the airplane because it defied the natural force of gravity and seemingly violated the laws of physics. How could something so heavy float in the air? What made Orville and Wilbur Wright’s breakthrough so spectacular wasn’t just the act of flying, but the act of breaking free from society’s gravitational pull.
Flying is impossible.
You guys are nuts.
You are wasting your time.
Foolish . . .
Before they could even pursue flying, the Wright brothers had to break free of society’s natural headwind—the natural social conditioning that poisons all young minds. A Fastlane Forum member posted this:
Go into a kindergarten class and ask the kids how many of them can sing. EVERY hand will go up. Fast-forward 13 years and ask the same class of seniors the same question. Only a few hands will go up. What changed? The kindergarten kids believed they could sing because no one had told them otherwise.
Perfectly stated. We must not hear the naysayers, because they have been conditioned by society. Society will grind a constant headwind at your vehicle’s grille. You can’t worry about deviating from social norms, because the norm is to be two paychecks from broke. If you want to push beyond average results produced by average people, you’ll need to adopt an uncommon approach that doesn’t fall in the favor of “everyone.”
The more uncanny and exceptional you strive to be, the more you need to fight through social indoctrination. Extraordinary wealth will require you to have extraordinary beliefs.
Turn Your Back to STinky Headwinds
If you turn your back to a headwind, it becomes an accelerant. I had to do this, otherwise I would have failed. After graduating from college, I was expected to find a good job. I didn’t and instead dove into entrepreneurial ventures.
My family thought I was crazy and proclaimed, “You’re wasting a five-year education!” Peers thought I was delusional. Oh dear, delivering pizza and chauffeuring limousines while two business degrees hung from the wall?! Women wouldn’t date me because I broke the professional, “college-educated” mold the fairy tale and its white picket fence promised.
Going Fastlane and building momentum will require you to turn your back at the people who spew foul headwinds in your direction. You have to break free of society’s gravitational force and their expectations. If you aren’t mindful to this natural gravity, life can deteriorate into a viscous self-perpetuating cycle, which is society’s prescription for normal: Get up, go to work, come home, eat, watch a few episodes of Law and Order, go to bed . . . then repeat, year after year.
Before you know it, 45 years have passed and you need another 25 just to make your financial plan work. Time passes, dreams die, and what remains? An old withered body forlorn for what could have been.
Who farts headwinds? They are:
✓Friends and family who just don’t get it.
✓Media and educational institutions who preach Slowlane dogma.
✓Parents who are conditioned to believe wealth is for other people.
✓Slowlane gurus who claim your house is the best investment.
✓Slowlane gurus who say $100 invested today will be worth $10 million in 50 years.
✓Your environment.
Escaping Human Headwind Bloviators
People who don’t empower your goals are human headwind bloviators. They add friction to the journey. When you spout excitement over actions or ideas, bloviators react with doubt and disbelief and use conditioned talking points such as, “Oh that won’t work,” “Someone is already doing it,” and “Why bother?” In motivational circles, they’re called “haters” or “dream stealers.”
You must turn your back on them. Every entrep
reneur has bloviators in their life. Network marketers consider me a bloviator. These people are normal obstacles to the Fastlane road trip. Remember, these people have been socially conditioned to believe in the preordained path. They don’t know about The Fastlane, nor do they believe it. Anything outside of that box is foreign, and when you talk Fastlane, you may as well be speaking Klingon.
As a producer, you are the minority, while consumers are the rest. To be unlike “everyone” (who isn’t rich), you (who will be rich) require a strong defense; otherwise, their toxicity infects your mindset. Commiserating with habitual, negative, limited thinkers is treasonous. Uncontrolled, these headwinds lead directly to the couch and the video game console. Yes, the old, “If you hang out with dogs, you get fleas.”
This dichotomy makes you a blossoming flower that needs protection, water, and plenty of sun. Negative friends, family, or coworkers are dark clouds. Defend yourself or suffer the consequence of slow assimilation to mediocrity.
Escaping Environmental Headwinds
While you might redirect human-originated headwinds, environmental factors aren’t so easily controlled. What are environmental headwinds?
For me, it was Chicago. I was seasonally depressed and needed sun for motivation. Chicago was my hurricane force headwind, and if I wanted success, I needed to turn my back. I escaped and moved to one of the sunniest places on the planet. Had I not turned my back to my environmental headwind, this book would not exist. Where would I be today if I hadn’t turned my back to the tornado? I know I wouldn’t be here, happy, and retired 30 years early. Nope, I’d be on the Kennedy Expressway fighting traffic and strung-out on anti-depressants. I’ll pass.
I made a choice to turn my environmental headwind into a tailwind. While I can’t blame all my problems on my environment, they enforced this disconnect between “interest” in wealth and “commitment.”
Another headwind could be your work environment. If your hated job drains the life out of you, it’s a headwind. After a long workday and you have nothing left for your dreams and your Fastlane plan, you’re done. The headwind keeps you trapped.
While growing up, one of the successful entrepreneurs I studied was Sylvester Stallone. While Sly is thought to be an actor, he’s really an entrepreneur. His Rocky screenplay was his product that touched millions, and he sold it under a specific set of circumstances, which included the provision that he had to play the lead role.
Sly was no stranger to the Law of Effection. One of the telling elements of Sly’s success story was his resistance to getting a “normal” job. He mentioned that if he’d taken a corporate job, his dream would have died because he knew the gravity of a job was inescapable for him. He recognized a corporate environment was a headwind.
If your environment puts a stiff headwind in your face, you must take proactive steps to remove the headwind. What headwinds are blocking your dreams? Take control and make choices that can shift the trajectory of your life.
Creating Accelerative Winds
My headwind was my environment. For you, it might be negative friends or other Slowlane influences. When you turn your back on these people, you break the headwind. When you associate with people who empower your goals, you create a wind at your back and build momentum. Positive people nurture your growth, sooth your failures, and invest in your dreams. Good people are conduits to your dreams, not just in motivational fuel, but in extending your opportunely reach.
People are like roads—they can either bring opportunity or distress into your life. The quality of these roads solely depends on the quality of the person.
Think of the relationships in your life like an army platoon readying for battle. Who are you going to war with? Your friend Mark who is always late, lies, and passes out drunk every Saturday night? Your friend Lucy who has a new job every three weeks, was caught forging checks, and is only looking for a super-rich guy to carry her off into the sunset? Are these people you can count on? Are these the people you want to go to battle with? If not, you need to pick better warriors to have on your team.
How? Join entrepreneur clubs, attend networking events, ally yourself with like-minders, get yourself around people who subscribe to a Fastlane, anything-is-possible mindset, and decide who you want on your team of warriors. Read books and autobiographies of those who have the kind of success you want. Find a mentor. Join entrepreneur forums with a Fastlane mindset, like the Fastlane Forum! Not a week goes by when someone doesn’t email me, “This forum changed my life!” That’s a tailwind!
Folks, this is war and your life is in the balance. You need warriors who are impervious to the Death Star and can deactivate the Slowlane tractor beam, not fearful pansies who drop their cargo at the first sign of Imperial Slowlaners. Reflect on your environment and your relationships, and recognize the headwinds. Then choose accelerative action: Can these headwinds be removed, ignored, or managed? Unlike natural wind, you are the arbiter of your headwinds. Success follows those who break the headwind and put it at their back.
Significant Other or Significant Distraction?
The worst headwind can be the person who sits in your vehicle’s passenger seat. They sit and lecture you on your dumb ideas and remind you of your failures. Or they don’t say anything and just distract you: They fiddle with the radio, adjust the climate control, mess with the windows, and hum old Duran Duran tunes. Or they play the role of a back seat driver: “Charles! Charles! Do this! Do that! Turn there! No, dummy!” What possibly can be so hazardous to your trip and who is this person? How did they get in your car?
This person is your significant other. By talking with other aspiring entrepreneurs, I’ve learned that significant others (spouses, fiancées, girlfriends, boyfriends) can be some of the biggest headwinds out there. Having a life partner who doesn’t ascribe to your ideals and goals is like towing a trailer full of wet manure. If your partner doesn’t subscribe to an entrepreneurial philosophy and toes the Slowlane road, can you expect to grow together? Someone fighting with you in your corner is accelerative; if they oppose, they become treasonous.
One of my first girlfriends was A+ marriage material. But she fully subscribed to the Slowlane philosophy. She couldn’t understand why I was so fervent to be an entrepreneur. Our relationship soured as my failures grew, and the relationship eventually ended. This wasn’t anyone’s fault; we just were two different people on two different paths.
Bad relationships are roadblocks to Fastlane success. They drain energy and dim dreams. It’s like rowing a boat upstream. Unwilling passengers add weight, distract, and sometimes are expensive to remove. Yes, divorce is treasonous and expensive, both emotionally and financially. Traveling down the road less traveled is already difficult. Why compound the journey by weighing down the car with someone who doesn’t share your destination? Are you in the right relationship with a person who believes in you and your goals? Or is your relationship just like lukewarm water, not bad, not good, just comfortable enough to stand pat? If so, it might be time to evaluate your passenger.
Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions
➡The natural gravity of society is not to be exceptional, but average.
➡Toxic relationships drain energy and detract from your goals to be extraordinary.
➡The people in your life are like your comrades in a battle platoon. They can save you, help you, or destroy you.
➡Good relationships are accelerative to your process, while bad relationships are treasonous.
[26] - Your Primordial Fuel: Time
Time isn’t a commodity, something you pass around like a cake. Time is the substance of life. When anyone asks you to give your time, they’re really asking for a chunk of your life.
~ Antoinette Bosco
The $6 Bucket of Chicken
Why will most people never get rich? Look no further than a $6 bucket of chicken. It made big news: A major fast-food restaurant offered a free bucket of chicken to anyone who had an Internet coupon. People flocked to res
taurant locations and waited for hours, all for a free $6 bucket of chicken. Know anyone who would stand in line for hours just to get something free?
Are you one of them?
These stories are common, and yet my reaction is the same: What the hell is wrong with people? I’ll tell you: These people value their time at zero. It’s free. Like the air we breathe, they’re convinced that time is abundant and in endless supply. They live as if they were immortal. They are certain that time, the fuel of their life, never runs empty.
I wonder if these people had three weeks left to live, would they be standing in line for a bucket of chicken? What if they had three months? Three years? At what mortal threshold would logic and reason smack sense into people? And affirm that waiting three hours for a free bucket of chicken is not time well spent? The greasy chicken truth: Value your time poorly and you will be poor. When time is wasted as a lifestyle choice you will be stranded in places you don’t want to be.
Take a look around. How do your friends, family, and peers value their time? Are they standing in line to save four bucks? Are they driving 40 minutes to save 10 dollars? Are they parked on the sofa anxiously waiting to see who wins Dancing With the Stars?
The average American watches more than four hours of TV each day. In a 65-year life, that person will have spent nine years glued to the tube. Nine years Ms. Bueller. Nine.
Why?
Simple.
Life sucks. Life needs an escape. Life is no good. Show me someone who spends hours online playing Clash of Clans or Candy Crush, and I’ll show you someone who probably isn’t very successful. When life sucks, escapes are sought. I don’t need television because I invested my time into a real life worth living, not a fictitious escape that airs every Tuesday night at 8 p.m.
