The second big myth that was busted in the book The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime by MJ DeMarco, was about how we had all been convinced that living in mediocrity will eventually lead us to being rich (but too old or ill to enjoy it).

I want to earn a million dollars, but I found myself still trapped in some of that old thinking that habits like being thrifty and investing in property/stocks will lead me to wealth. The author said, if that’s your only path to riches, then you’re screwed. Those habits are useful but only in a certain context of being financially savvy with money and having high leverage and control over wealth creation. Thrift is not a high leverage wealth creation activity.

Sharing them here as reference for myself, and for anyone who might find it useful. This is not a book review, just raw notes lifted directly from the book, with some minor edits, interpretations and categorisations of my own.

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Wheelchairs don’t fit in Lamborghinis

The Slowlane traveler is the antithesis of the Sidewalker: a sacrifice of today in hopes of a brighter and freer tomorrow, through discipline, responsibility and accountability, via good grades, working hard at your job, being frugal, saving, investing, towards a comfortable retirement.

Slowlane: A lifetime’s wager

The Slowlane is a lifetime wager, rarely challenged. Sell off today in hopes of a glorious tomorrow, but that might come when you’re too old and ill to enjoy your millions. Living rich young or live rich old? Wealth is best lived young and enjoyed while you have health and energy.

Slowlane: A false promise

Slowlane is a false promise, exposed by the global recession. The plan fails when you lose your job, stock market crash, and housing market collapse. The Slowlane is risky, and a sucker’s bet if it requires your life and dreams to be paid as a penance.

Thrift has its place, but it’s not all of it

While clipping coupons and other Slowlane strategies aren’t worthless in a plan, they shouldn’t be the plan. The Slowlane as a total plan is the problem, not the Slowlane being a part of a plan.

You are paid in weekends

The weekend is the payment for 5 days of work bondage. On Friday, people are paid in the currency of freedom. You trade 5 days for 2 days - a negative 60% return.

You’ve been duped to pursue mediocrity

The predisposed destination of the Slowlane is mediocrity - life isn’t great, but it isn’t so bad either.

Six sucky reasons you should dump your job

1. Trading time in exchange for money, you sell your freedom to get freedom. It’s a time trade and a poor return on that investment, because jobs ravenously consume time. Why not get paid while you sleep?

2. Jobs narrow your useful value to a confined set of marketplace needs, with activities repeated routinely over and over. 

3. Limited control over your income and financial plan to wealth.

4. Office politics. 

5. You pay yourself last, because of tax and other contributions.

6. A dictatorship on income. Your value is dictated by your boss/company, and the job is a wealth delimiter, with limitations that cannot be subverted.

Wealth needs control & leverage

To get rich, you have to have control and leverage over the variables in your financial plan. The Slowlane has neither, because you have limited control/leverage over your job and income, and market investments based on your income aren’t high leverage wealth acceleration vehicles. Slowlane is basically uncontrollable limited leverage.

Your limited time is your bottleneck

Your job is tied to time, there’s an upper limit to how much you can trade it, per day (8-24h) or per lifetime (40years). Small multipliers like these don’t make millionaires. 

A job has limited control over wealth acceleration

Your job also has no control. You can’t control your employer, your salary, the economy. Wealth cannot be accelerated when pegged to mathematics based on time. Wealth is built with time as an asset, not as a liability. Your mortality makes time mathematically retarded for wealth creation.

Compound interest from investing is flawed

Wealth creation via compound interest requires the passing of a lot of time, and an risky assumption that the yield will stay favourable (which is 6-10% - not high to start with). Not forgetting about inflation and price increases. The Slowlane is an illusion of hope.

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” ~ Albert Einstein

A Master’s won’t help you get rich

The Slowlaner’s natural reaction to uncontrollable limited leverage inherent in their wealth equation is to change the variable of intrinsic value, their rate of pay, using higher education credentials. But it is still trading time for money. And it often entombs you in debt and shackles you to a job, i.e. education servitude. The debt becomes parasitic because it steals freedom and fails to free up time.

Degrees are overrated as a wealth acceleration tool

The myth is that to get rich you need an expensive college degree. Prescribed career pathways for graduates actually limit your choices. Opportunities in your field determine whether your education becomes devalued (when opportunities are scarce), or overqualified (when opportunities require less education).