The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco

This book by MJ demark, it's called the Millionaire Fast Lane. And he talks about there being three.

Lanes in life that people choose with their finances.

The first one is the sidewalk. That's basically most people, they never build any wealth, and that's because they're not doing the things that build wealth. So they're on the sidewalk. They're literally watching the rest of us.

Go by and wondering, why can't I be like that? Or just not willing to do those things.

And then he talks about the slow lane and the fast lane.

Right.

And the fast lane, you know, I.

Think is pretty well demonstrated by this interview with Alex. Right. He's only four years out of residency.

He's been in a military family doc job.

And we can all look up what military family docs make.

It's substantially less than the average family physician paycheck, I can assure you. And of course, his wife is working.

Hard and hustling as well, you know, and they've had a number of successes.

In their life, but four years out in millionaires, right. When I was in the military, it took us seven years, and three of those were not in the military before we were millionaires. And he's gotten there faster because he's on the fast lane with all this hustling and entrepreneurship that he's doing.

So what does the slow lane look like?

Well, the slow lane, I don't want to call it the guaranteed pathway to wealth.

Sounds kind of boring, actually, when you put it that way.

But that's basically what it is for a document. Here's what it looks like. You get good training, you go get a decent job, you carve out maybe 20% of what you're making. You put it toward building wealth. You can invest it in low cost, broadly diversified portfolio, static asset allocation of index funds. So you put your money into a handful of index funds, and after 15, 20, 25 years, you are a multimillionaire who can retire very comfortably, maintain your lifestyle even after retirement, never have to worry about money again. Leave lots of money to your heirs and to charities.

Right.

It's not guaranteed, but it's pretty close to guaranteed, right? If you carve out 20% of your income throughout your career and invest it just in that boring way, a few minutes a year is all you gotta spend on your finances, really. And you're gonna get there. This is what this author, M.J. deMarco, would call the slow lane. And maybe it is kind of slow if you're a typical earner.

You know, if you're in a family that only makes $80,000 a year.

Maybe it is kind of slow lane for a physician if you're willing to live on only $80,000 a year. This is a very fast lane. You know, you can get to financial independence in five or 10 years out of training. If you're earning like a doc and.

You know, spending like regular Joe. Right. I tell people to live like a resident for two to five years, and.

That'Ll certainly give you a big jumpstart.

On your financial life.

But if you keep. Just keep doing that, you get to fi very quickly, maybe a decade. The third lane, of course, is this entrepreneurial lane. There are no guarantees in the entrepreneurial lane. It's been fun for me in my life to have one foot kind of in this steady, slow lane and one foot in this not so steady fast lane. And we've had successes in the fast lane. We've obviously had successes in the slow lane as well. Would we have gotten to our goals in the slow lane if that's all there ever was? Absolutely. We wrote a plan up in residency that would have had us financially independent.

And me able to work whatever I wanted to work by 51. Well, 51 is only like a year away. Year and a half away. I don't feel like I'm quite that old yet. Maybe I am.

You guys look at me and see.

Some gray hair when you're watching this on YouTube.

But it went pretty fast. That's the slow lane pathway. And it would have worked just fine for us even if WCI had never made any money. But starting in 2011, I started hustling a little bit like Alex did, and working hard, trying to do some good things in the world, but also trying to make some money. And obviously WCI became successful.

There's 18 of us working here now. We've got to make payroll every month. We are obviously able to do that.

So far, and that helped us build wealth faster. And because of that, we became financially independent about eight years faster than we expected to. So I don't want to tell you that the fast lane doesn't work. Clearly, it does work.

Right?

We went down the fast lane. Now, I don't know that I was hustling quite as much as Alex was while I was in the military. That was a little different ops tempo back then. If I wasn't deployed, a couple of.

My partners were, and we were working.

An awful lot of shifts back then. Thankfully, deployments are not quite so frequent.

Now as they were back then when.

I was in the military, and it.

Gives people a little bit more time at home to maybe work on some other things.

But the truth is, these both work. You've got to figure out what's right for you. What you don't want to do is say, oh, I'm mostly just going to be in the slow lane, but I'm just going to gamble on this other thing on the side. That's a bad idea.

That doesn't work out very well for anybody to put a big chunk of their net worth into something they did.

Not learn much about, they're not paying much attention to. That's a bad idea. Don't do that. If you want to be in this fast lane, get all the way into it. Yes, you can still work out the slow way, just like we did, but put both feet in, put the time.

In, learn what you need to do and put the effort in.

And yes, there are costs, right? For some portion of your life, you're probably going to feel like you got.

A couple of jobs and hopefully that pays off very well for you. There's no guarantee, obviously it's going to.

But the entrepreneurial pathway can be very effective.

It's just a much less guaranteed pathway.

So figure out what's right for you. Don't feel guilty that you're not in the other pathway. Whatever you choose, don't choose the sidewalk. The slow lane is fine. The fast lane is fine, too. I'm not here to judge you, no.

Matter which one you're in, but figure.

Out what works for you. Write down a financial plan, follow the.

Financial plan, and make sure you're adequately.

Educated for the pathway that you choose. Hope that's helpful to you.

The hosts of the White Coat Investor are not licensed accountants, attorneys, or financial advisors. This podcast is for your entertainment and information only. It should not be considered professional or personalized financial advice. You should consult the appropriate professional for specific advice relating to your situation.