MJ DeMarco

Prioritize Control in Your Ventures

Choose business models or investments where you have control over the key variables, such as pricing, product, and customer access, to safeguard your income and ensure scalability.

If your road to wealth devours your active adult life and it isn’t guaranteed, that road sucks.

Wealth is not about having a lot of money; it’s about having a lot of options.

The leading cause of poorness is poor choices. Poor choices are the horsepower behind poverty.

You are exactly where you decide to be. If that's unhappiness, you need to start making better choices.

Luck is the residue of process.

To make millions, you must affect millions. That doesn’t happen in a small store on Main Street, but in hundreds of stores across the country.

Ideas are nothing but a chemical reaction in your brain. The owner of an idea is not he who imagines it, but he who executes it.

Fast wealth is created exponentially, not linearly.

The real golden years of life are when you’re young, sentient, and vibrant.

Wealth cannot be purchased at a Mercedes dealership, but the destruction of your freedom can.

True wealth is authored by the three fundamental F’s: Family, Fitness, and Freedom—not by material possessions.

The more lives you affect, in scale or magnitude, the richer you will become.

Process makes millionaires, and the events you see and hear are the results of that process.

Focus on one thing and do it in the most excellent way. A scattered focus leads to scattered results.

Price implies value and defines brands. Don’t allow your own perception of price direct your brand to mediocrity.

Differentiation is a defense to commoditization.

Business survives. Brands thrive.

The Slowlane is a job: your hard work traded for your employer’s cash. The Fastlane is about building a better system… that will leverage your work.

To consume richly, produce richly first. Producers get rich. Consumers get poor.

Money is your army. The more you have, the more they will fight for freedom.

Wealth is a Process, Not an Event

MJ DeMarco shatters the illusion of overnight success, emphasizing that true wealth is built through a consistent, disciplined process over time. He argues against the 'get rich quick' mentality, showcasing how the most admired successes are the result of years of unseen effort and strategic planning. This idea challenges the conventional belief in luck or sudden windfalls as the primary drivers of wealth, urging readers to focus on building their own 'wealth process machine.' The key phrase here is 'Process Over Event.' A direct quote that encapsulates this idea is, 'Process makes millionaires, and the events you see and hear are the results of that process.' An example from the book is the story of a tech entrepreneur whose 'overnight success' was actually a decade in the making, involving countless hours of coding and iteration.

The Law of Effection: Scale or Magnitude

DeMarco introduces the 'Law of Effection' as a cornerstone of wealth creation, stating that wealth is directly proportional to the number of lives you affect or the magnitude of value you provide. This contrarian view positions wealth as a function of impact, not just personal effort or savings. It shifts the focus from individual accumulation to serving others on a large scale or with significant value. The key phrase is 'Impact Equals Income.' A direct quote illustrating this idea is, 'The more lives you affect, in scale or magnitude, the richer you will become.' An example is the comparison between a local sandwich shop owner and a software developer whose product reaches millions, highlighting the exponential potential of scalable impact.

Control Your Financial Destiny

DeMarco advocates for taking full control over one's financial future by building systems and assets that generate income independently of time. This idea challenges the traditional employment model, where income is directly tied to hours worked, and promotes entrepreneurship and investment as pathways to freedom. The key phrase is 'Ownership Over Employment.' A direct quote is, 'If someone can ‘flip a switch’ and destroy your business, you’re playing roulette with your financial plan.' An example is the author's own journey from a limo driver to a business owner, illustrating the transformative power of controlling one's income sources.

Debt as a Time Thief

Reimagining debt not just in financial terms but as a thief of time, DeMarco argues that every dollar borrowed is a future hour of life that must be spent earning to repay it. This perspective encourages a more mindful approach to spending and borrowing, prioritizing freedom and time over material possessions. The key phrase is 'Time is the Ultimate Currency.' A direct quote is, 'Parasitic debt eats free time and excretes it as indentured time.' An example given is calculating the true cost of a $4,000 gadget not just in dollars but in the 440 hours of life it consumes when financed on a modest income.

The Producer Mindset

DeMarco contrasts the 'consumer mindset,' focused on buying and using, with the 'producer mindset,' centered on creating and selling. He posits that shifting from consumer to producer is essential for wealth creation, as it aligns one's efforts with the generation of value and income. The key phrase is 'Create to Accumulate.' A direct quote is, 'To consume richly, produce richly first. Producers get rich. Consumers get poor.' An example is the advice to 'Instead of buying products on TV, sell products,' illustrating the power of reversing one's role in the economy.

The Fastlane vs. The Slowlane

DeMarco delineates two paths to wealth: the 'Slowlane,' characterized by saving, frugality, and delayed gratification, and the 'Fastlane,' defined by rapid wealth creation through entrepreneurship and leverage. He critiques the Slowlane as a gamble on time and market forces, advocating instead for the Fastlane's focus on control and speed. The key phrase is 'Speed to Wealth.' A direct quote is, 'The Slowlane is a job: your hard work traded for your employer’s cash. The Fastlane is about building a better system… that will leverage your work.' An example is the comparison between a 40-year career saving for retirement and building a business that achieves financial independence in a fraction of the time.

Wealth Multipliers

Introducing the concept of 'wealth multipliers,' DeMarco explains how certain actions or investments can exponentially increase one's wealth compared to linear growth methods like saving. This idea encourages seeking out opportunities where effort and resources can be leveraged for disproportionate returns. The key phrase is 'Exponential Over Linear.' A direct quote is, 'Breaking news: 8% and 40 makes millionaires in 40 years; 1,700% and 16 million makes billionaires in four years.' An example is the difference between investing in a low-yield savings account versus starting a business in a high-multiplier industry like technology.

Calculate the Time Cost of Purchases

Before making a purchase, calculate how many hours of work it will cost you, including interest, to foster a greater appreciation for your time and discourage frivolous spending.

Build a Money Tree

Invest in or create assets that generate passive income, such as rental properties or digital products, to free your time and increase your wealth without continuous effort.

Adopt the Producer Mindset

Shift your focus from consuming to producing by identifying opportunities to create value for others, whether through products, services, or content, to align your efforts with wealth creation.

Leverage the Law of Effection

Focus on solving problems or serving needs that affect a large number of people or provide significant value to a few, to maximize your income potential through scale or magnitude.

Time is your most important resource. Buy time, don’t trade time for money.

The Fastlane is a conglomeration of information that creates potential speed. You understand the Fastlane roadmap and its wealth equation. You’ve dumped the Sidewalk and the Slowlane.

To exploit the Law of Effection, your business needs to make an impact of either scale or magnitude, or both. Within our Fastlane wealth equation, “scale” and “magnitude” are implicit to our “net profit” variable. NET PROFIT = Units Sold (Scale) X Unit Profit (Magnitude)

The Fastlane Roadmap is engineered for two purposes. It’s engineered to create a passive income stream to the excess of your expenses and lifestyle desires, and to make financial freedom a reality, exclusive of age.

The Sidewalk is money blind. It doesn’t care about how much money you make. You can’t medicate poor money management with more money. Yes, you can look filthy rich and still be riding the sidewalk dirty.

The sidewalker is always one something from being homeless, bankrupt, or back to living in their parents’ basement.

Scale creates millionaires. Magnitude creates millionaires. Scale and magnitude creates billionaires.

The Commandment of Time: Ensure your business can be automated so that you don’t have to spend too much time managing its operations.

The Commandment of Scale: Look for a business that can scale to millions of customers. This means it doesn’t rely on your time and energy. Build a business that can be automated or outsourced.

The Commandment of Control: Your business should give you full control. Make sure you’re the one offering franchises and affiliate programs, or collecting rent and royalties.

The Commandment of Entry: Make sure there is no very low barrier to entry into your business, or you need to be exceptionally talented to succeed.

The Commandment of Need: Don’t start a business because you want money; start something that will satisfy a need and solve a problem.

The Fastlane Roadmap. Fastlaners understand that a job, no matter how lucrative, is not a source of passive income. Diversify your income streams so that if one stream dries up, you have other streams to rely on. Diversifying your income streams is like spreading your eggs across multiple baskets. If one basket breaks, you still have eggs in the other baskets.

Dollars are like privates in your army: the more you have, the harder they fight for your freedom

The owner of an idea is not he who imagines it, but he who executes it.

To live unlike everyone else, you have to do what everyone else won’t.The amount of money in your life is merely a reflection to the amount of value you have given to others.

Time is an asset that is undervalued and mindlessly squandered.

Wealth isn’t embodied in a car but in the freedom to know that you can buy it.

Poor financial management is like gambling; the house eventually wins.

If you want to change your life, change your choices. To change your choices you must change your belief system.

Millionaires are forged by process, not by events.

If there is a secret, it's in telling people directly what's in their gain when they use your solution, not so much in what they can do it.

I don't know what's the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

A successful business will rarely spring from a legendary single idea, but from existing concepts that you'll notice and improve upon.

Stop thinking of a business as "your thing", "doing what you love", or even to be rich, and start thinking about solving pain points, eliminating needs, fixing problems, providing services, or creating emotions.

Take calculated risks, and for sure shit will happen. But do it in a way where the worse thing that can happen is you meet new people, new opportunities will appear, feedback will be given, and you learn.

If we are not mindful, life can deteriorate to a cycle, prescribed by society as normal, of getting up, going to work, coming home, eating, watching tv, going to bed, repeat, year after year.

Net profit = units sold (scale) x unit profit (magnitude)

It's about building a better system, a better machine, a better product, or a better something that will leverage your work. While in the Slowlane you do the work, in the Fastlane you construct a system that does it for you.

When you trade your time for money you risk the illusion that life begins on Friday night and ends on Monday morning.

The truth is after some basic needs are met, our happiness is most affected by the quality of our relationships, with others and ourselves.

The road to wealth is filled with tolls which are good news because it weeds out the ones who are looking for schemes to get rich quickly or those that are not willing to commit to the execution of a well-designed plan.

Stop thinking about business in terms of your selfish desires, whether it’s money, dreams or “do what you love.” Instead, chase needs, problems, pain points, service deficiencies, and emotions.

People don’t choose to be poor. They make poor decisions that slowly assemble into a poorness puzzle. Retrace the footprints to poverty and it happens slowly, systematically, and methodically, under a steady diet of poor choices.

Your choices are made in a moment, but their consequences will transcend a lifetime.

No matter how big or small, dreams have a price, and that price is money, responsibility, accountability, and commitment.

If your road to wealth devours your active adult life and it isn’t guaranteed, that road sucks.

Wealth is not about having a lot of money; it’s about having a lot of options.

The leading cause of poorness is poor choices. Poor choices are the horsepower behind poverty.

You are exactly where you decide to be. If that's unhappiness, you need to start making better choices.

Luck is the residue of process.

To make millions, you must affect millions. That doesn’t happen in a small store on Main Street, but in hundreds of stores across the country.

Ideas are nothing but a chemical reaction in your brain. The owner of an idea is not he who imagines it, but he who executes it.

Fast wealth is created exponentially, not linearly.

The real golden years of life are when you’re young, sentient, and vibrant.

Wealth cannot be purchased at a Mercedes dealership, but the destruction of your freedom can.

True wealth is authored by the three fundamental F’s: Family, Fitness, and Freedom—not by material possessions.

The more lives you affect, in scale or magnitude, the richer you will become.

Process makes millionaires, and the events you see and hear are the results of that process.

Focus on one thing and do it in the most excellent way. A scattered focus leads to scattered results.

Price implies value and defines brands. Don’t allow your own perception of price direct your brand to mediocrity.

Differentiation is a defense to commoditization.

Business survives. Brands thrive.

The Slowlane is a job: your hard work traded for your employer’s cash. The Fastlane is about building a better system… that will leverage your work.

To consume richly, produce richly first. Producers get rich. Consumers get poor.

Money is your army. The more you have, the more they will fight for freedom.