Are You on the Slow Lane or Fast Lane to Wealth?

The good news is that a lot of people are on a lane to wealth, but probably on the side walk.

What does this path consist of: working, saving and investing to retire by the age of around 60.

What if there was a different path? A path that accelerates this timeline? Thankfully there is:

The Side Walk to Wealth involves working, spending, and saving so you can retire in about 30 years.

The Slow Lane to Wealth involves working, spending, and saving so you can retire in about 20 years.

The Fast Lane to Wealth involves starting a business that will allow you to retire in around 10 years.

In the Fast Lane, you must follow the 5 Wealth Commandments: Need, Entry, Control, Scale, Time.

In this post, I talk about the characteristics of the Side Walk, the Slow Lane, and the Fast Lane to wealth.

I also go through the 5 Commandants of Wealth to follow in order to be successful in the Fast Lane.

Finally, I discuss how to go from one lane to the other and where to find out more information.

The Side Walk to Wealth

This is probably the path most people are on, I’d say 90% of people in the developed world.

What does this path consist of? Well, it goes something along the lines or this (more or less):

• They have a good job, or jobs if they are in a couple. In fact, they may have well-paying jobs.
• Apart from their work pensions they don’t have other investments, their home doesn’t count.
• They have a nice yet expensive lifestyle: nice car, house, holidays, etc. but have a lot of debt.

The outcome: they’re 100% reliant on their job and wouldn’t be able to retire before 30 years.

Because of their large debt and expenses every month, they’re unable to invest more money.

Because they can’t invest more, their pensions will take a long time to grow and be sufficient.

Worse than that, if anything was to happen to them or their jobs, they’d be in serious trouble.

Unfortunately the Sidewalk is the path that most people are on. Thankfully there’s a way out.

The Slow Lane to Wealth

The Slow Lane is another path people are on, I’d say 9% of people in the developed world.

This path is actually a significant step up from the Side Walk. It goes something like this:

• The people on this path have a good source of income: their jobs, exchanging time for money.
• They are excellent at managing their money i.e. no debt and save around 50% every month.
• They invest in other assets on top of their work pensions, such as stock market index funds.

The outcome: they’re planning for a future in which they can retire in about 20 years, more or less.

The difference between this path and the Side Walk is they try to live off of 50% of their income.

The reason for this is that they want to invest as much as they can so they can retire earlier.

This means that they won’t have as nice as a lifestyle now; smaller house, cars, holidays, etc.

However, in the long run they’ll be able to maintain their current lifestyle in their retirement.

The Fast Lane to Wealth

Finally there is the last path to wealth, I’d say around 1% of people in the developed world.

The Fast Lane is less travelled for a reason as I explain below, and it goes something like this:

• Those on this path have a job and a business on the side, or leave their job to start a business.
• This path is not easy; there may be a lot of financial struggle over the next few years.
• There are plenty of ups and down, wins and losses, and there is no guarantee of success.

The outcome: they manage to build and sell a business that makes them wealthy in 10 years or less.

You may think 10 years is a long time, but it’s much quicker in comparison to 20 or 30 years.

The problem with this path is it’s not easy: you will be sacrificing a lot in those first few years.

What’s worse is that there’s no guarantee of success; you may or may not succeed in the end.

The good news is there are elements you can implement to increase your chances of success.

The 5 Commandments of Wealth

If interested in driving down the Fast Lane, you must follow the 5 commandments of wealth:

The first is the Commandment of Need: is there a need for the product/service you propose?

What’s the problem you want to solve? Do you have this problem? What makes it stand out?

The second is the Commandment of Entry: is there a low or high entry barrier for your idea?

If you want to start a blog, you’ll find a lot of competition vs starting a manufacturing plant.

The third is the Commandment of Control: do you have control over your sales, income, etc.?

Selling on Amazon gives you little control, but selling on your own site gives you full control.

The forth is the Commandment of Scale: does your business have the potential for growing?

It’s harder with a physical product compared to a software product that you can sell infinitely.

The fifth is the Commandment of Time: can your business operate without you being there?

Your business has to be able to operate without you: not at the beginning, but in the long run.

Which Path to Wealth are You on?

The first step is figure out which path to wealth you’re on: the Sidewalk, Slowlane, or Fastlane.

Think of these paths as a spectrum: it’s likely that you’ll be somewhere in between them.

The next step is to figure out do you want to remain on your current path or change lanes?

Having read this post you may be content with your path or realise that you want to change.

If you do want to change, figure out which lane you want to take and be honest with yourself.

Are you willing to do what it takes to join the Fast Lane, or rather stick with the Slow Lane?

In the end, all these paths will lead to wealth: it just depends how long you’re willing to take.

To find out more information, check out the book: The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco.

In the book, the author goes into detail about the paths and how he ended up in the Fastlane.

Which path to wealth are you on? Which one do you want to be on? Share in the comments.

If you want to find out more about these wealth paths, let me know in the comments below!