The Millionaire Fastlane Review
It has been awhile since I've read a book that I couldn't put down. Definitely one of the most inspiring…
A few days ago, I asked Twitter for some feedback on Rich Dad Poor Dad. I received a ton of replies with the consensus swinging from awesome, to a vanity project, to a complete waste of time. A number of people suggested I read MJ DeMarco’s The Millionaire Fastlane instead, and having heard good things from sources I trust, I thought I’d take them up on the suggestion.
The Millionaire Fastlane aims to dispel the myth of Get Rich Slow, aka ‘every financial dream you’ve ever been sold’. DeMarco is a contemporary self-made millionaire; the type that we traditionally look up to in the Internet Marketing world. But then, this is no ordinary world. DeMarco made his fortune by selling Limos.com for several million dollars in the early 2000s. Now, he wants to hand us his blueprint for early retirement, using a clusterfuck of petrolhead metaphors and really, really tough love.
It sounds like a very familiar story arc, doesn’t it? Tell the already downtrodden reader that he’s been doing it wrong all these years. Then fill his shattered dreams with hope that a quick fix solution is there after all.
DeMarco distances himself from the popular ‘be your own boss gurus’ that he claims to despise. And yet his formula for setting the tone of the message is as textbook as a Clickbank sales page. While the first half of The Millionaire Fastlane is a merciless assassination of anybody and everybody who detours from his grand plan, the latter chapters are a brilliant portrayal of what it really takes to attract wealth.
Fastlane is a mixed bag. It’s 100 pages too long, and starts terribly by ticking off every last painful cliche of the Internet Millionaire. DeMarco is an abrasive, obnoxious and sometimes annoying writer. That happens to be one of my preferred methods of relating to young cash-hungry audiences, but MJ really pushes the boat out. The tough love tone could be forgiven, if it wasn’t for the breathtaking nonchalance by which he dispels the merit in any lifestyle but his own.
God forbid you read this book as the proud owner of a shitty car, or as somebody in his 50s or 60s. DeMarco ridicules anybody who hasn’t achieved early wealth as a urine-stained, wheelchair-riding lost cause of society.
The first 100 pages act as a relentless attack on what MJ refers to as sidewalkers and slowlaners, or anybody who hasn’t discovered his fastlane mindset. He unleashes a grandstand assault on just about anybody with a day job, and anybody with the audacity to follow a profession that requires working for The Man, or getting a college education.
It takes 17 chapters of preaching to the choir for DeMarco to simmer down and accept that we ‘get it’. We know why most people are destined to never be millionaires. We know that working 5 days in an office to enjoy 2 days of peace is not the greatest of trades. But Christ, does he ever ram it down our throats? Barely a page drifts by where we’re not forced to listen to his Lamborghini fetish, or an increasingly ridiculous diatribe of automobile metaphors.
So, I hated the first half of this book. The empty rhetoric left me wondering how such a broken beat could ever have hoarded the 5 star reviews that Amazon suggests, which made it all the more surprising that the chapters to follow are perhaps some of the best ever written on the field of personal finance.
As brash as DeMarco writes, his assessment of entrepreneurism is the sort that really gets you lining up the parallels with your own business. He provides a much needed demolition of the myth that being your own boss is synonymous with wealth and freedom. He even accuses us affiliate marketers of hitchhiking the road to riches and not being genuine entrepreneurs. He’s right, of course. And his message that creating systems is the true secret behind wealth will be reverberating in the head of anybody who persists with the first half of the book and gets so far as to read it.
There are moments in the closing chapters where The Millionaire Fastlane resonates with our kind in a way that I’ve yet to see any other book manage. It’s a perfectly executed kick in the GoDaddys. A much needed reminder that as long as we stay promoting other people’s products, we get no closer to dictating our own future. Indeed, DeMarco even confesses his love for affiliate marketing. He just wants to be in charge of the system, rather than a disposable part of it.
Without doubt, the first half of this book is a damning crucifixion of the modesty lacking in our industry, but by the time you reach the final page, you’ll be feeling too punchdrunk on inspiration to care.
You’ll feel the need to step out from the shadow of promoting products you have no control over. You’ll want to build real wealth that leads to real freedom. This illumination, if it comes, is the single greatest gift an affiliate marketer could ask for. For that reason alone, Millionaire Fastlane is a must-read.
Recommended This Week
A detailed assault on monetizing Plentyoffish is covered in Volumes 1 and 3 of Premium Posts, which have both received widespread praise. Grab your copies now. Also, watch out for Volume 4 which will be landing next month and covering some brand new topics that I think you’re going to enjoy.
If you’re a new reader, please add me to your RSS. Also follow me on Twitter. Thanks for reading.
Great post. Just discovered your site and have been reading it regularly (and purchasing your premium posts).
I recently read this book too and shared a lot of your same observations. It was an odd mismatch. on the one hand he had some luck. 10 years ago there were some great opportunities to create a huge lead gen business like he did where you could be the marketer selling all the leads (e.g. to dentists, doctors, etc.). And his limo site is definitely one such example. However, the window seems mostly closed for these types of services as there are a million SEO/PPC/SEM marketing companies that seek this business now by going directly to each business. So what he did does not mostly seem replicable and certainly not any form of blueprint. I was left wondering what the goal of writing the book was and realized he had a forum of some sort. I signed up there and checked it out for awhile but couldn’t see much value. mostly warrior forum types.
the thing that does distinguish him is that he clearly does have the proper mindset to run an offline business and the management skills and philosophy to do this. there is value in what he said there. It sure seems like most people who get interested in “making money online” certainly do not want to run a “real business” and usually not one with employees or an office, etc.
i read a lot so i don’t regret the time spent on the book. If someone wants to understand the entrepreneur’s mindset and what’s involved in starting a business, the best and most realistic book i’d recommend is Carol Roth’s entrepreneurial Equation. and if you want to understand the right philosophy for building systems, then read michael gerber’s e-myth. both of these books will fundamentally change your life.
and finch…thanks for all the great posts and value both in your free posts and in the premium stuff i’ve bought so far.
Yep, Interesting book.
What I can say, is that it definitely has provided inspiration for (young) wannabee online entrepreneurs. It speaks in a language that many teenage Americans can understand, whereas Rich Dad does’t.
I know this because it’s been doing the rounds in the affiliate world, so being the cheapskate was able to download it for FREE! 😉
Cheers,
Dave
Finch;
I totally agree with you that the book could be a 100 pages (or maybe even 200 pages) shorter and still cover all the same ground. It’s a lot of reading for only a few lessons, but the lessons are important and maybe that’s his point. If you do put in the time to read the entire book you certainly won’t miss what he’s trying to teach.
Ashley
MJ Demarco is a cheesy name. Like Don Juan De Marco. Damn are they related? And Finch, at least tell us on what page we should start reading, no need to endure the raping to be inspired!
I read the book. Yeah, it took a long time and he seeems to really love his cars. Basically, he urges people to try and create “real” businesses where you own everything.He says the only vehicle for wealth is to first become rich(5-10 million) and live off the interest or other steady investments. And, in order to do that, you need to make a real business. Some things that really helped me were regarding the value of time and realizing it is precious. Also, it helped me realize just how skilled some of affiliates really are. And that affiliates, if they’re any good, already have the skills required to really get a business going fast. They just have to pick a real business, sell it at some point for 5 million or so and whala… time to retire.
You have an interesting take on the book. I didn’t hate the first half as much as you did, but I did find myself scrolling down through parts of it simply because I was bored of his, “I have a Lambo and loads of money and you live on the sidewalk” attitude. When I finished reading it, I thought that it should have been much better edited and someone ought to have told him to make it 70 pages shorter…
That said, the second half of the book did inspire me to start planning two new sites that I’ll launch later in the year. They are both in the same – very competitive but bet very well paid – sector, and my aim will be to build, make them profitable and sustainable and then sell them. My mindset is “build two websites, make them profitable, sell them and then buy a house”. So all in all, he did a good thing for me I think.
Keep up the good work 🙂
Having just read this book I must say that you made quite the accurate assessment. Most of the golden tidbits of knowledge can be found in 3-4 chapters. I feel the main recourse for the book is to enlighten and evoke entrepreneurial mindsets and that it did, and it did well.
Just finished this book.
Have to agree skip the whole first 3rd about where he bashes all other thought processes. The reason I say skip, is most people reading the book are already on board with “dont trade time for money” and its better to get rick quicker than slowly.
The real meat in my opinion was his 5 factors for evaluating a business. This really opened up my eyes and made it clear quickly what I have to do with my business. To date I’ve been floundering like a fish out of water trying to grow, but this book was a dose of Adderal I needed to help me focus on the actions I need to take in the next 6 months to get to where I want to be.
As always Finch your writing style is amazing you must write some sick copy.
I love guys like this… he can create a million dollars whenever he wants but he’s left selling the old “get rich quick” book… the ultimate sign that you CAN’T make it happen anywhere else.
He gets lucky 10 years ago when a lot of people got lucky… it’s like those 14 year old kids who got rich with their myspace/widget sites when adsense and yahoo ads first came out.
Here’s the main point: The guys who own the products make the most money… did anyone really need to spend $16 to figure that out?
Oh and you need workable systems that other people can do (hired workers) while you sit back and collect your millions (ground breaker)…
Why not just see what other successful businesses are doing and try to reverse engineer…?
Go through their entire selling process, check for reviews first so you know you’re not going to get charged up the ass for months… then buy the product, go through the upsells and cross sells, see what they do well, then take that main game plan and replicate it either in the same niche or somewhere else.
I never take these types of authors seriously… “You need to live in the fast lane” blah blah blah, but he couldn’t replicate his own success/luck again if he tried, so he’s left selling get rich quick books.
And we’ve already been through the whole “if you’re not an entrepreneur you’re loser” bit… guys like these are the true morons… what would happen if everybody was an entrepreneur?
Who would fix your leaky faucet, collect your trash, watch your kids while you were at work, serve you food at your favorite restaurant, drive your limos, build your mansions, etc. etc.
Every person in the economic ecosystem is like a small (or big) cog in a watch, each one working to make everything run smoothly no matter how small their part in the system might be.
Judging by the feedback, it’s obviously a divisive book! Good to hear what you guys made of it.
I forgot to mention in the review that I really enjoyed the chess analogy. Best use of a chess set since Season 1 of The Wire.
This review is total rubbish. And should be ignored – it simply wreaks of jealousy!
Read the book again and remember to bring your brains and possibly “some guts” next time mate – (and by the sounds of things your reading glasses)!
And next time if you don’t like the first 100 pages use your better and judgement and move onto a book you have a greater affinity for – don’t just complain later that it wasn’t worth the time invested!
Joshua – Did you even read the review? I called it a must-read. You might want to check your own reading glasses.
You appear to be unable to grasp the whole concept of a review. Reviewers critically assess…or complain as you put it.
Interesting you say this… Maybe you didn’t finish the book? He doesn’t consider himself a child of the “dot com boom” as you suggest, because if you read, he sold the business, bought it back from the company he sold it to (that went bankrupt), ran it for 6 years, and resold it at a multimillion dollar valuation in ’07, far past the dot com bubble.
The last thing he wanted to do was write a book, so people like you could come along, read half of it, get all indignant and disregard the book, and start bashing what you assume his story will be.
Try looking for a bit more info on him rather than spouting off your “expertise,” and you could end up surprised.
I would respond to more of your post, but I think if you actually read the whole thing, you’ll find a lot of your criticisms of him answered.
And no, I’m not affiliated with him or the book at all, just inspired by his story and mindset, and really love (not) when people shoot down someone with a good story because they think they know how it ends, and of course, they know “better.”
It has been awhile since I’ve read a book that I couldn’t put down. Definitely one of the most inspiring and motivating business books I have ever read.