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The Criminal Trade: Your Job
By working faithfully 8 hours a day, you may eventually
get to be the boss and work 12 hours a day.
~ Robert Frost
Jobs: Domestication into Normalcy
To Trade Time Is to Trade Life. In a job, you sell your life for money.
Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions
•• In a job, you sell your freedom (in the form of time) for freedom (in the form of money).
•• Experience is gained in action. The environment of that action is irrelevant.
••Wealth accumulation is thwarted when you don’t control your primary income source.
The Slowlane:
Why You Aren’t Rich
Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying.
Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say.
Whatever you want to do, do it now. There are only so many tomorrows.
~ Michael Landon
For compound interest to be effective, you need three things:
1) TIME, as measured in years.
2) A favorable YEARLY INVESTMENT YIELD within those years.
3) An INVESTED SUM, repeatedly invested.
Wealth is built with time as an asset, not as a liability!
Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions
•• Slowlane wealth is improbable due to Uncontrollable Limited Leverage (ULL).
•• The first variable in the Slowlane wealth equation evolves from a job that factors to intrinsic value that equates to your nominal value for each unit of your life traded.
•• Intrinsic value is the value of your time set by the marketplace and is measured in units of time, either hourly or yearly.
•• In the Slowlane, intrinsic value (regardless of its time measurement) is numerically inhibited because there are only 24 hours in the day (for the hourly worker), and the average lifespan is 74 years (for the salaried worker).
•• Like the Slowlaner’s primary income source (a job), the Slowlaner’s wealth acceleration vehicle (compound interest) is also pegged to time.
•• Like a job, compound interest is mathematically futile and cannot be manipulated. You cannot force-feed the market (or the economy) to give you phenomenal returns, year after year.
••Wealth cannot be accelerated when pegged to mathematics based on time.
•• Time is your primordial fuel and it should not be traded for money.
••Your time should not be an expendable resource for wealth because wealth itself is composed of time.
••Your mortality makes time mathematically retarded for wealth creation.
•• If you don’t control the variables inherent in your wealth universe, you don’t control your financial plan.
The Futile Fight:
Education
The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
~ Albert Einstein
Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions
•• Slowlaners attempt to manipulate intrinsic value by education.
•• Indentured time is time you spend earning a living. It is the opposite of free time.
•• Parasitic debt is debt that creates indentured time and forces work.
The Hypocrisy of the Gurus
There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted,
but now it happens to everybody.
~ Adlai Stevenson
Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions
•• Take advice from people with a proven, successful track record of their espoused discipline.
••Many money gurus often suffer from a Paradox of Practice; they teach one wealth equation while getting rich in another. They’re not rich from their own teachings.
Slowlane Victory…
A Gamble of Hope
I’d rather live in regret of failure than in regret of never trying.
~ MJ DeMarco
12 Distinctions Between Slowlane and Fastlane Millionaires
1) Slowlane millionaires make millions in 30 years or more. Fastlane millionaires make millions in 10 years or less.
2) Slowlane millionaires need to live in middle-class homes. Fastlane millionaires can live in luxury estates.
3) Slowlane millionaires have MBAs. Fastlane millionaires hire people with MBAs.
4) Slowlane millionaires let their assets drift by market forces. Fastlane millionaires control their assets and possess the power to manipulate their value.
5) Slowlane millionaires can’t afford exotic cars. Fastlane millionaires can afford to drive whatever they want.
6) Slowlane millionaires work for their time. Fastlane millionaires have time working for them.
7) Slowlane millionaires are employees. Fastlane millionaires hire employees.
8) Slowlane millionaires have 401Ks. Fastlane millionaires offer 401Ks.
9) Slowlane millionaires use mutual funds and the stock market to get rich. Fastlane millionaires use them to stay rich.
10) Slowlane millionaires let other people control their income streams. Fastlane millionaires control their income streams.
11) Slowlane millionaires are cheap with money. Fastlane millionaires are cheap with time.
12) Slowlane millionaires use their house for net worth. Fastlane millionaires use their house for residency.
Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions
••The Slowlane has seven dangers, five of which cannot be controlled.
••The risk of “lifestyle” is the one risk Slowlaners will try to control.
••The Slowlane is predisposed to mediocrity because its mathematical universe is mediocre.
•• Slowlaners manipulate the “expense” variable because it is the one thing they can control.
•• Exponential income growth and expense management creates wealth—not just by curtailing expenses.
••You can break the Slowlane equation by exploding your intrinsic value via fame or insider corporate management.
•• Successful Slowlaners not famous or in corporate management end in the middle . . . middle class and middle age.
•• Slowlane millionaires are stuck in the middle class.
•• $5 million is the new $1 million.
••A millionaire cannot live a millionaire lifestyle without financial discipline.
•• Lottery winners fall into the millionaire trap and go broke because they attempt to live a “millionaire” lifestyle, not understanding that a few million doesn’t go very far.