# The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco - Blinkist

What’s in it for me? Discover how to create wealth quicker, so you can enjoy it now – not later.

We've all heard different strategies that are supposed to make us rich: get a good education, work hard, save religiously, live frugally, invest wisely, and then wait patiently until the ripe old age of 65.

But what if you don't want to participate in a financial plan that involves sacrificing your youth so you can enjoy your riches in the latter part of your life, if at all?

And what happens if you lose your job, inflation rages, or the stock market collapses?

The truth is, many of us won't see the kind of money we'd like during our lifetimes, even after retirement.

And there's a simple reason for this: conventional roads to wealth rarely work for everyone.

They’re just predicated on too many variables you can’t control or leverage.

Thankfully, there's another way to accumulate wealth faster without outsized risk.

That's where this Blink to The Millionaire Fastlane comes in.

It presents a strategy to accumulate wealth that author MJ DeMarco has lived out first-hand.

After moving to a new city with $900, sheer determination, and not much else, he built a company that earned him six figures monthly.

He then sold that company – twice – and ended up successfully retiring at the age of 33.

You’ll get access to DeMarco's top tips, takeaways, and strategies for driving in the millionaire Fastlane.

This includes exploring your current money mentality, answering why a Fastlane approach to wealth is superior to traditional methods, and outlining the principles that’ll guide your high-speed journey to getting rich and retiring early.

What’s your money mentality, and where does it lead?

When it comes to money, there are three types of people in the world: Sidewalkers, Slowlaners, and Fastlaners.

To find out which one you are, ask yourself these questions: Do you spend most of your money as soon as you earn it?

Does your lifestyle rely heavily on debt?

Is your future predicated on luck, risky gambles, or government assistance?

If so, you're likely a Sidewalker.

DeMarco says this is people's most common mentality with money and life.

And hey, if you’re a Sidewalker, you're in the right place to change those habits!

Or are you the type of person with a steady job who insists on saving every dime so it can be invested in the stock market?

Do you fret over each little expense and rationalize that saving hundreds of dollars today could be worth millions in 50 years?

Is your quest for financial freedom reliant on factors you can't control, like your employer, the economy, and an unpredictable stock market?

In this case, you're a Slowlaner.

Again, no need for shame – this is the mainstream method prescribed in all those other finance books.

But in reality, this mindset is risky and unreliable.

Finally, do you own a business with the potential for asymmetrical returns – the conduit to massive wealth accumulation?

This kind of business brings in cash while you're at a movie on a Tuesday afternoon.

Can you earn $100,000 in profit next month?

Next year?

Do you own and build assets that can grow 2,000 percent in one year?

If this is you, congratulations on being a Fastlaner – or at least meeting a few of the characteristics toward becoming one!

The point is, each of these paths is like a roadmap.

And like all roadmaps, they lead to predictable destinations.

The likely destination for a Sidewalker is poverty.

In the Slowlane, it’s mediocrity.

The Fastlane path is the only mentality that can predictably lead to wealth.

Whichever mindset you identify with, it’s essential to know that you can switch lanes.

You can go from the Sidewalk to the Slowlane, from the Slowlane to the Fastlane, or, as DeMarco did, leap from the Sidewalk directly to the Fastlane!

In fact, it was an idea gleaned from DeMarco's final dead-end job that opened the door to his next opportunity.

As a limo driver in the suburbs of Chicago, he frequently heard customers ask about booking services in other cities.

So he taught himself how to code and designed a website to answer that need.

Unfortunately, he was so busy juggling his website with his driving job that he didn’t put much effort into marketing it, much less enhancing it.

That all changed when DeMarco quit his job and risked moving to Phoenix, Arizona, to focus on the business.

He had no choice but to succeed – or fail.

Once in Arizona, he continued to educate himself and got better at coding, marketing, and sales.

To pay the bills, he built one-off websites for others while putting most of his time and effort into growing his new online business.

Things soon took off, and he earned a respectable income rivaling any job paycheck.

But then something miraculous happened due to the power of scale inherent in his business.

Instead of earning $50K a year, a decent salary at the time, he started profiting $50K a month.

Then $100K a month.

Then $200K.

Over ten years, DeMarco earned millions and created a viable asset that was also worth millions.

His tenure with the company he created ended when he sold the business for a mid-seven-figure valuation.

This rapid wealth accumulation allowed him to take a hiatus – what some would call a semi-retirement – and focus on writing.

The Millionaire Fastlane is a product of this period.

In short, DeMarco made millions quickly – enough to retire in luxury and never work again for the rest of his life – and it had nothing to do with fanatical frugality, regular savings, and religious investments.

It's clear what it takes to make the leap to the Fastlane: start a business that’s capable of creating asymmetric returns.

An asymmetric return transforms a $2,000 business investment into $20 million in a few short years – which is nearly impossible through even the best stocks or bonds.

The stock market only averages 10 percent per year, not 1,000 percent – the types of returns available in a Fastlane business.

Only the Fastlane makes sense (the math doesn’t lie)

Each money mentality has what DeMarco calls a “wealth equation” based upon its inherent beliefs about money.

We can imagine the wealth equation as a vehicle that’s subject to certain system mechanics.

A Sidewalker operates by the equation of Wealth = Income + Debt.

That means they use their income and available credit to pay for what they perceive to be a wealthy lifestyle while increasing their overall liability to cover the bills.

This equation is like a tricycle – which, unfortunately, drives toward poverty.

A Slowlaner possesses the Wealth = Job + Market Investments equation, which can be broken down into Wealth = Hourly Wage or Salary + Compound Interest.

While they have a slight edge over the Sidewalker through investments, savings, and debt avoidance, their income variable is just as limited as the Sidewalker’s.

Why?

Because time is limited.

You can work only so many hours in a day (24) or years in your life (an average of 50).

And even when you’re earning a lot of money, you're still trading your time – which is your freedom and most precious asset – for it.

You’re essentially sacrificing today for the promise of tomorrow.

Meanwhile, you can't control the monetary forces inherent in the equation: the economy, inflation, market, salary, etc.

You also can't guarantee you'll keep your high-paying job, if you have one – much less survive the decades needed for the plan to work.

Ultimately, the wealth equation for a Slowlaner is akin to a bicycle: it’s better than a tricycle but still not very effective for making a cross-country trip.

DeMarco asserts that the only way to eliminate these issues is to create wealth with a business.

But it can’t just be any old business.

The Fastlane equation is Wealth = Net Profit + Asset Value.

The net profit figure comes from the number of products you can sell, multiplied by the profit you make from each.

Depending on your product or industry, this number should be scalable into the thousands, or even millions.

While you might currently make $20 per hour trading your time 8 hours a day (Slowlane) you could be making $2,000 per hour selling 20 items per hour, per day!

Likewise, the growth of profits also coincides with the growth of assets.

In the financial world, business assets are valued according to industry multiples, which is similar to price-to-earnings ratios calculated for publicly traded companies.

In a nutshell, the multiple is what potential buyers would be willing to pay for your company, which is often several times more than your net profit.

Industry multiples vary by industry, but they can range from a low of 2 to a high of 100 or more.

DeMarco calls these multiples “wealth acceleration factors” because anytime you increase your company's profit, you increase the value of the asset you own by that percentage.

So say the industry multiple in your sector is 5.

That means any increase in profit increases your net worth by a factor of 500 percent.

Where else can you earn 500 percent returns that are within your control?

Definitely not in the Slowlane!

In the Fastlane equation, you can control many of the variables: your products, prices, marketing initiatives, and much more.

And then your profits do double-duty by elevating the valuation of your company, which directly increases your net worth by the applicable multiple.

If you succeed in creating a $200,000 profit, congratulations – you probably just created an asset worth $1 million.

This wealth creation system is like upgrading from the pedal power of a tricycle or a bicycle to an engine-powered car.

It’s how you drive your financial plan to success and accelerate wealth.

The CENTS commandments: 5 guidelines to a Fastlane business

Say you've invested all your money into purchasing a franchise, and you're not turning enough of a profit to hire any help.

You're stuck working as the sole employee, now putting in more hours than you did for someone else.

Worse, you’re spending those hours to keep the business running – not to increase profits or improve your financial status.

As mentioned earlier, the Fastlane equation won't work for any business – the Law of Effection states that if you want to make millions, you must impact millions.

To steer you in the right direction and guide your decisions, DeMarco proposes five commandments: control, entry, need, time, and scale – or CENTS for short.

Let's look at each one.

The commandment of control asserts that you establish and maintain complete authority over all aspects of your business.

That’s because if any person or corporation holds a patriarchal position above your company, they can put you out of business with a single decision.

In that case, you’ve violated control and accepted excessive amounts of risk.

A great example is a business that’s predicated on an API, like Reddit.

If Reddit changes the terms of its API or cancels it altogether, your company is instantly out of business.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s literally what happened in 2023.

The commandment of entry asks you to consider how easy or difficult it is for anyone to enter the industry.

In this case, you want it to be somewhat difficult.

If someone can compete against your business in a matter of hours or days, it’s probably an industry you should avoid.

Excessive competition creates environments where the cheapest price usually wins.

In other words, the entrepreneur willing to accept the most minuscule profits (or most losses) will come out on top.

This isn’t a conducive environment for wealth creation.

The commandment of need demands that you set aside your ego and consider who you’ll be serving and how.

For a business to succeed, it has to solve a problem or meet a real need for others.

Your value skew is important here – something your company does better than the competition.

This could be amazing customer service, quality ingredients, or a sleeker user interface.

Basically, it’s anything that might compel a buyer to purchase from you versus your competitors.

The commandment of time addresses the scenario at the start of this section.

It requires you to consider the likelihood of you being able to step away and allow automation or other people to effectively run the business for you.

Also, consider the timeline for when that can happen.

Creating a job for yourself is one thing, but creating wealth that allows you to spend time doing anything you want?

That's the goal.

Finally, the commandment of scale underscores the importance of thinking mathematically.

Does your product or service align with your financial goals?

If you want to amass an eight- or nine-figure net worth, you aren't likely to make it happen if you're limited geographically.

Ultimately, the lynchpin question is this: What’s the difference between profiting $100 per day and profiting $10,000 per day?

What does each scenario look like?

Is the higher number feasible?

How can you make it happen?

And how easily?

Remember DeMarco's job with the limo company?

He was offered the chance to buy the company with no money upfront, but he'd already begun formulating his escape plan.

More importantly, his other fledgling business met all of the commandments, and the limo company didn't.

Now, because he chose the right system and the right equation, he can take a limo himself or drive the sports car of his choice – in the Fastlane, of course.

Final Summary

To unlock your greatest wealth opportunities at the highest speeds possible, you need to shift your money mindset and take action.

You now know about the three money mentalities: the Sidewalker, the Slowlaner, and the Fastlaner.

You also understand the beliefs and habits that push the Sidewalker toward poverty, the Slowlaner toward mediocrity, and the Fastlaner toward explosive wealth.

And you learned about the math and systems that drive each group: the apparent flaws in the Sidewalker equation (tricycle system), the less-obvious restrictions in the Slowlane equation (bicycle system), and the unlimited potential within the Fastlane equation (sports car system).

When it comes time to start your own business or reformulate a current one, remember the CENTS framework: control, entry, need, time, and scale.

These rules are the best ways to ensure your efforts are rewarded asymmetrically with wealth – especially if you want to enjoy the glorious fruits of that wealth young and vibrant, and not in the twilight of life.