The Millionaire Fastlane was super smart with their marketing. The title eludes to some get-rich-quick scheme, but the book is far from it. This book is all about changing your mindset about wealth and teaches you how to build wealth like other millionaires.
One of the key points he makes in this book is that wealth is defined as being healthy, being surrounded by great friends and family and having the freedom to your life however you want to live it. Notice that money is not in the main points of wealth and that's because money is not required to be wealthy, but money can help you become wealthy by increasing one of those three characteristics. Notably the freedom point.
MJ goes into talking about three types of people as well. Sidewalkers, Slowlaners, and Fastlaners. Anybody reading a book like this is probably a Slowlaner, and I would guess that there are no Sidewalkers reading a book like this, but it's nice to see the distinction between the three as he goes through the book.
1. Think like a producer not a consumer
This was one of my biggest takeaways from this book. I say this phrase to my wife and family all the time, and it's something that I'm trying to instill in my kids. Everywhere you look there are consumers. It seems like everyone is drooling at the latest iPhone or the latest tech gadget. When we aren't fascinating over the newest toys we are consuming television. Consumption is literally everywhere!
If you want to have the freedom to do what you want in life you need to help others. Simple as that. Add value to other people's lives. Let them consume your products. Of course, even as producers we still consume other people's ideas and entertainment, but don't let that become the focus of your life. Make sure that you are producing more than you are consuming.
Another point MJ makes in this book is about the Law of Effection. This deals with how many people you are affecting. If you help 1 million people out for $1 each than you've made a million dollars. If you help 100,000 people out for $10 each than you've made a million dollars. The Law of Effection is all about scale and magnitude. The more people you affect, the richer you become. The richer you become, the more you can put that towards becoming wealthy.
He also talks about putting yourself in the right environment. When I get home from work the first thing I do is eat snacks. I know that I can do that because snacks are always in my pantry. They are always in my pantry because we always buy them at the store. But changing your environment means don't buy them at the store to begin with. If you don't buy them at the store then they won't be in the pantry. If they aren't in the pantry than there is no snacks to eat when you get home from work. Change your environment so you can avoid consuming and start producing.
2. Doing what you love is totally wrong
Many people are taught every day to follow their passion, do what they love, and money will follow. This is totally wrong. People don't care if you are doing what you love. It's irrelevant. They care about the problems you are solving for them. “The worm needs to attract the fish, not the fisherman" It's important to understand what people need in their lives and then figure out how to love the job afterwards.
MJ also addresses Free Time vs Indentured Time. This was interesting to me because the freedom he talks about with the wealth factor deals with Free Time. When you have more Free Time you can do what you want, but when you have more Indentured Time that is time that is spent doing something you need to do. This would be like going to work for 40 hours a week. That is indentured time. In order to get into the Fastlane you have to convert your indentured time into free time. This goes for small business owners as well. How much of your time is actually Free Time? Can you leave the shop at any moment and still bring in money? Change forced servitude to free time and that's how to achieve true wealth.
3. What makes a good business? NECST
I love this acronym that MJ talks about. NECST stands for Need, Entry, Control, Scale, and Time. These five points make a business worthwhile. Is there a need for your product or service. Most businesses fail because there isn't a need for their thing. Simple as that, if you've had failed businesses in the past, most likely it was because there wasn't a need for it. Either it didn't exist or you didn't create the need.
Entry is all about barriers to entry for a business. MJ talks about purchasing those get-rich-quick schemes from others or the network marketing material that tells you can be rich by joining our team. If the barrier to entry is so low that all you need to do is write a check and sign than anyone can do that and you won't stand out. Make sure that the barrier to entry is high and people would have a hard time copying your product or service.
Control. When my friend asked me why my business friends wouldn't go for network marketing companies, the reason came down to control. True entrepreneurs understand that they need to be in control of every aspect of their business. They need to be able to control the price, the marketing, the colors, the webpage layout, the pitch script, the manufacturing process. If they don't have control then they can't make the business work for them. If you don't have control of the business than are you really the business owner or just another employee?
Scale is all about ramping up. Can the business serve 1000 people at the same time? If you are a hot dog stand in the local market, you only have the ability to serve one hot dog every few minutes. At the end of the day, there is a limit to how many hot dogs you can give out to people. A good business will have the ability to scale up to serve thousands of people at the same time. The more people you serve or affect the wealthier you can become. Law of Effection.
Finally time. The whole purpose of business is to create more free time while shedding off your indentured time. If the business needs you to run it than you're in the wrong business. You should have enough margin to be able to hire someone to free your time or you should be able to automate your time. The goal is to separate your time from your business and if the business allows that than you've built a great one.
Pros/Cons
The pros for this book are many. Honestly I love this book because of how it's changed my mind on wealth and how it's given me actionable steps to understand what makes a good business. There are so many nuggets of information in this book that it's hard to gather them all.
There aren't a lot of cons. I might say that it's difficult to remember everything in this book because of the vast knowledge that you get from it. It's hard to keep up and remember the acronyms MJ creates.
Conclusion
You should read this book at the beginning or toward the middle of your business venture. I would say that you could read this book at any point, but if you've already invested a lot of time building yourself another job than that wouldn't be very helpful.
Other books like this one might include Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I feel like it's more of a mindset book than anything because it really opens your eyes into how the wealthy think and what they do to become wealthy.
I would give this book a ten out of ten. I think this is a great book with many good points. If I had the time I would re-listen to this book a hundred times in order to make sure I got all the points out of it that I needed to get. There is just too much information in this book that is so good it's hard to remember it all.
