The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco is a get rich quick book but getting rich quick doesn’t mean getting rich easy. So while reading this summary, do not expect quick tricks and tips to become a millionaire easily. The lane to become a millionaire is a fastlane but it would not be easy for everyone to drive on it!

The Millionaire Fastlane Summary

There are three routes which can lead you to your financial destiny. These routes are-

  • The Sidewalk
  • The Slowlane
  • The Fastlane

The sidewalk is the route of the poor, the slowlane and the fastlane are the two routes which the millionaires follow.

The Sidewalkers- Sidewalkers are the people who live their life from paycheque to paycheque. Their expenses are equal to or sometimes more than their income. These people live in present without worrying about their future. Even if they worry about their future, they fail to do anything about it.
The problem with the Sidewalkers is that they do not have any financial intelligence. Because of their lack of financial intelligence, even if they are super rich, they become moneyless and homeless as soon as their income vanishes. You can find many examples of people who were wealthy at the peak of their career but they died in miserable conditions due to improper wealth management.

Bela Lugosi, the Oscar-winning actor who played the role of Dracula, is one such example of a Sidewalker. His drinking and drug habits made him miserable by the time he died. This is the reason why you should always avoid the sidewalk.

Signs of being a sidewalker- Changing jobs frequently, not learning anything new, no savings, debt, bad credit history, thinking that the government is responsible for all the problems in your life.

The Slowlaners- This is the typical path on which most of the people want to walk. Yes, instead of Fastlane, people want slow lane, either because they are incapable of walking on the fastlane or they are simply unaware of it. So what is slow lane?

First, go to school, then attend college and get a degree, then get a  decent job (not even an awesome high-class job, just a decent job!), then start getting the salary, start saving 10% of it throughout your life. In the end, you will be a millionaire.

Well, the slow lane definitely works. If you are investing religiously for a long period of time then definitely that investment will pay-off. So what is the problem with the slowlane? Here are some of them-

  • Unlike the Fastlane, it makes you rich at an extremely slow pace.
  • At such a slow speed you will become rich when you will be in your 60’s, what will the use of that money then? Medicines?
  • You will have no control over the growth of your money. The appreciation or depreciation of your investment completely depends upon external factors, you cannot do anything to increase the rate of its growth.
  • Slowlaners grill themselves in their workplaces from Monday to Friday so that they can enjoy on Saturdays and Sundays, similarly will be grilling yourself from your 20’s to 50’s so that you can enjoy in your 60’s and 70’s.

But the sad part is, it is better for most of the people to take the slow lane instead of fastlane. This is so because most people don’t have the capabilities which are required to walk on a fast lane. We will talk more on this later, for now let us come to the fastlane.

Fastlane
Fastlane has a very simple rule- “The more value you give to more and more people, the more money you make.”

The more you give the more you get. As we saw in the Blue Ocean Strategy Summary, Oyo Rooms provided a premium hotel experience to the people at very low prices, this solved a problem of millions of Indian travelers. By solving a problem, Oyo created value for them. And now, everyone in India knows how big Oyo is. So a lot of value to millions of people paved a fastlane for Oyo founders.

Another example of creating big value to numerous people is Google. There are hundreds of search engines out there on the internet but why is Google the most preferred search engine in the world? Its because Google provides the highest value to its users. Apart from search Google gives so many free services to the users that it will be impossible for you to name all of them. Let’s try to name some of them- YouTube, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Books, Google Maps, Google Flights, Analytics, Adwords, News, Picasa, and many more. You can’t even imagine that how many facilities you can access with just a single Google account.

So why does Google gives so many services for free? Well, the main business of Google is earning through ads. It shows ads to the users, the advertisers pay it money for showing their ads to people. Now, the more people use Google search, the more ads it would be able to show. Therefore it provides so many services for free so that the users keep using its platform and it can keep showing them ads. By providing free services, Google creates a tremendous amount of value to its users.

So this is how a lot of value is created,  but if you remember, then we were also talking about creating value for a large number of users. So how does Google cover a large number of people? Well since its a website, it can be accessed from almost any part of the world. This gives them the opportunity to create value for almost all the internet users in the world. This ability to cover many people comes from the scalability of the business.

Now let us come back to the topic which we did not discuss in detail earlier

Why Fastlane is not for everyone?

Very few people have the capabilities of walking on the fastlane. The people who are capable of doing so are the ones who have developed themselves over a long period of time. To develop yourself, you need to gather a lot of knowledge and experience.

Now you try to think by yourself, who would be capable of creating huge value in the life of millions of people-

  • The one who did nothing in the childhood except for passing his or her exams in the school or the one who spent his or her childhood in reading a lot of books just to satiate his or her curiosity?
  • The one who spent his or her college life in watching movies and fooling around or the who kept experimenting with new startup ideas?
  • The one who does his or her job working like an ass or the one who learns something new from every job and then applies those skills in creating something of his own?

This is why it is said that fastlane is not for everyone. But this doesn’t mean that it is impossible to take the fastlane. You just need to work hard for it. Instead of wasting your time in watching TV shows and movies, you need to spend your time in reading good books and experimenting with your ideas.

Now if you have decided that you are going to take the fastlane then here are some points which you should remember. These are actually the five commandments of wealth-

  • The aim of your business should be to satisfy the needs of people. Every successful business satisfies some need of its customers. If your business is good at satisfying the needs then it will earn money automatically.
  • There should be a strong barrier to entry in your business. If it will be very difficult to do what you are doing then there will be fewer competitors in the future. If it will be very easy to do what you are doing then many similar businesses will crop up soon and your profit margins will be diluted.
  • You should be having full control of your business. If it is possible for someone to make a decision to ruin your business then your you are not running a fastlane business.
  • There should be scalability in your business. Your business should be able to transcend from city to state, nation, and the whole world. The larger you can scale, the better it is. If it is impossible to reach millions of people then your business will never be big.
  • Your business should be independent of your time. It should be able to run on its own. If it requires your presence to run it then also you are not on the fastlane.

So these were some key takeaways from the Millionaire Fastlane. If you wish to understand this summary in hindi then you can watch my video on the same topic