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Find Your
Open Road
At first, people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done,
then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done—
then it is done, and all the world wonders
why it was not done centuries ago.
~ Frances Hodgson Burnett
You’ve got a great idea, but someone is already doing it? So what. Do it better.
“Someone is doing it” is a monumental illusion imposing as an impassable obstacle. Someone is always already doing it. The bigger question is, can you do it better?
Skip the big idea and go for the big execution.
Unfortunately, the least-traveled Fastlane roads are paved in failure, not smooth asphalt. This means stalls are guaranteed. Everyone fails on the road to success.
Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions
•• Opportunities are rarely about inventing breakthroughs, but about performance gaps, small inconveniences, and pain points.
•• Competition should not impede your road. Competition is everywhere, and your objective should be to “do it better.”
•• Fastlane success resides in execution, not in the idea.
••The world’s most successful entrepreneurs didn’t have a blockbuster ideas; they just took existing concepts and made them better, or exposed them to more people.
•• Opportunity is exposed in your language and your thought processes, as well as other people’s language.
•• Failure cracks open new roads.
•• Quitting only happens when you give up on your dream.
Give Your Road
a Destination
The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal.
The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.
~ Benjamin Mays
The end of the Fastlane road trip is to crown your happiness with freedom.
The Price of Freedom: Money
Freedom has a price, and that price is money. Big dreams, from materialistic Ferraris to altruistic nonprofit foundations, cost money. You can’t travel the world by swimming in the oceans. You have to pay your way, and if you think money is evil, you’ve already lost.
Set Your Destination: Four Steps to Starting
1) Define the Lifestyle: What do you want?
2) Assess the Cost: How much do your dreams cost?
3) Set the Targets: Set the money system and business income targets.
4) Make It Real: Fund it and open it!
The Rules of the Road: Financial Literacy
Managing a Money System Demands Financial Literacy
You can’t build a financial empire if you’re ignorant of basic finance and economics. These disciplines are the building blocks to a financial empire, and without them the Sidewalk becomes a danger. Remember, more money doesn’t solve money problems. To successfully leverage a money system for passivity, you have to familiarize yourself with financial instruments that fuel the money system.
Live Below Your Means—Slowlane?
The first rule of financial literacy: “Live below your means.” Yes, a pragmatic doctrine echoed from Slowlane dogmaticians that is an affable replacement for its mathematical equivalent of “Keep expenses under your income.” Earn 10 bucks and don’t spend 20. But is it Fastlane relevant? Absolutely, with one distinction: Live below your means with the intent to expand your means.
Slowlaners seek to minimize expenses while the Fastlaner seeks to maximize income and asset values.
“Live below your means” requires above-average discipline.
A Financial Adviser Doesn’t Fix Illiteracy
Literacy gives you the power to evaluate your adviser’s advice. literacy is insurance
Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions
••The Fastlane is the means to your end because dreams cost money.
•• Conquer big goals by breaking them down to their smallest component.
•• Daily saving reinforces your relationship with money; it is your passive system that buys freedom and another soldier added to your army.
••A money system isn’t used to grow wealth but to grow income. Growing wealth should be left to your Fastlane road.
••You will struggle to build a financial empire if you are financially illiterate.
••“Live below your means” is relevant at any income level.
•• For the Fastlaner, “Live below your means” means to expand your means.
••A financial adviser doesn’t solve financial illiteracy and literacy is insurance.
•• Financial illiteracy dilutes your control, especially when evaluating the advice of a financial adviser.
