The Millionaire Fastlane (26 page)

Our choices have consequences that transcend decades.
This transcendence is horsepower
. Every day my discomfort reminds me of that fateful day when I chose poorly. And today, I'm still paying the mortgage of that choice, a mortgage that never amortizes.

The Butterfly Effect

Can you make a choice this instant that can forever alter the trajectory of your future? You can, and it can be the difference between poverty and wealth. When you make minor permutations (choices) that deviate from your initial conditions, profound effects transpire over time.

Think of it like a golf club striking a golf ball. When the clubface hits the ball square, the ball goes straight and heads toward the hole. But when the clubface is rotated a fraction of one degree, the ball's trajectory lands far off course. At impact, the divergence is minor, but as the ball travels further it widens and widens until the gap is so large that getting back on track is nearly impossible. A bad choice can set your trajectory off by only one degree today, but over years the error is magnified.

Choices have this type of divergence over time and it's called “impact differential.”

When your choices are extrapolated throughout the years, the divergence widens. The divergence can be either positive or negative. For example, when I moved to Phoenix from Chicago, the “impact differential” exploded as time passed. Had I not made this choice my life would be significantly different. I also chose to get a dead-end job as a limo driver, which opened my eyes to a business need. That too was a choice that had extraordinary horsepower and created positive “impact differential.”

The 2003 movie
The Butterfly Effect
starring Ashton Kutcher is great film that excellently illustrates choice horsepower. In the movie, the main characters engage in treasonous choices as youngsters, and you witness how each life unfolds as those treasonous choices permeate through time. You see the impact differential! Recognize that every day you make decisions that will ripple through the years. Question is, will your choice ripple to happiness and wealth? Or depression and poverty?

The Erosion of Horsepower

Your choices have significant trajectory into the future, and the younger you are, the more horsepower they exude. Unfortunately, horsepower fades with age.

If this is confusing, think about it in terms of an asteroid that is on a collision course with Earth. When an asteroid is millions of miles out in space (representing your youthful choices) a simple one-degree change in trajectory will save the Earth from destruction. This is the power of horsepower. For us older folks, the asteroid is closer to Earth (and closer to our death), which weakens the potency of our choices. A one-degree change isn't as effective, and for the same potency, it needs to be 10 degrees.

When you are under 25 you have maximum horsepower and your choices discharge an incredible amount of firepower. A simple choice I made more than 20 years ago is still felt today. That's a lot of torque! If you reflect on your choices, you make them in an instant, yet their consequences transcend a lifetime, especially ones made early in life.

Your life's choices are like a mature oak tree with millions of branches. The branches symbolize the consequences of your choices. Near the trunk of the tree, the branches are thick, reflecting the decisions you've made early in life, while the top branches are thin, symbolizing decisions near the end of your life.

Youthful choices radiate the most strength and fabricate the trunk of your tree. As the branches ascend topside through time, they get thinner and weaker. They don't have enough power to bend the tree in new directions because the trunk is thick with age, experience, and reinforced habits.

My motorcycle crash had significant horsepower because I feel it today. If you are unmarried with five kids by age 23, where do you think the branches of your choice tree will lead? How thick and unbendable is your choice tree? If you skip classes and are drunk for four years in college, how will that ripple through your choice tree? If you're best friend is a drug dealer, where will that branch lead?

At age 16, for a school prank, David ignites a smoke bomb in the school bus, and 14 children suffer smoke inhalation. Fortunately, those children recovered quickly, but David's 10-day stay in juvenile detention forever propels David's life down a different path. David meets Rudy, who teaches David the “rules” of the perfect burglary. This relationship forges David's new career choice-thievery. After avoiding the law for seven years, David is caught, convicted, and sentenced to nine years in prison.

Had David not met Rudy, where would he be? A fireman? Banker? Choice and its horsepower transcend.

At age 17 and against her parents' wishes, Alyssa, an honor student, leaves home to live with a 31-year-old man she met at the local bar four months earlier. Her boyfriend introduces her to crystal meth, and what initially started as a funny experiment becomes a life-consuming addiction. Alyssa resorts to illegal activities to support her habit, including stealing from her parents. Her reckoning occurs when she is caught at the local mall stealing and sentenced to three years in jail and state-mandated rehabilitation.

Had Alyssa listened to her parents, where would she be today? Choice and its horsepower transcend.

The smallest choices made in your daily life
create habits and lifestyle that forms process
-they are the ones that can make the biggest impact. You can't decide to “go Fastlane” because that itself is just an event. A Fastlane process is hundreds of choices.

Regardless of age, reflect on your life and analyze the forks in the road and where those forks have taken you. The forks are choices, both large and small, and each shares the common thread of having the magnificent power to take you somewhere different. Whatever you decide today impacts tomorrow, weeks, months, years, decades, and yes, generations.

If you're younger than 30, your choices are at peak horsepower because they are growing the thick branches of your choice tree. Time to put the pedal to the metal!

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

• The leading cause of poorness is poor choices.
  
• The steering wheel of your life is your choices.
  
• You are exactly where you chose to be.
  
• Success is hundreds of choices that form process. Process forms lifestyle.
  
• Choice is the most powerful control you have in your life.
  
• Treasonous choices forever impact your life negatively.
  
• Your choices have significant horsepower, or trajectory into the future.
  
• The younger you are, the more potent your choices are and the more horsepower you possess.
  
• Over time, horsepower erodes as the consequences of old choices are thick and hard to bend.
  

CHAPTER 24: WIPE YOUR WINDSHIELD CLEAN

Until we see what we are, we cannot take steps to become what we should be.
~Charlotte P. Gilman

Wipe Your Windshield Clean

While pumping gas into my Lamborghini, a teenager once asked me if he could snap some pictures.

“Sure, go ahead!” I replied.

After a few various rants and raves about the car, he exclaimed, “I gotta get as many pictures as possible cuz I'll never be able to afford one of these.”

Do you see a problem in that conclusion? This young man made a choice to believe he would never own a Lamborghini.

He couldn't see beyond his own windshield. Is this a small choice? A treasonous choice? A choice of significant horsepower?

This seemingly innocent choice of perception has the excruciating horsepower of treason. It is a crippler of dreams. The teen's choice of perception was poor, and because of it, it would forever lead him to mediocre results. His jury had already deliberated, and the verdict was in: An extravagant car would be always “out of his league,” and therefore, his choices would reflect that mindset. Unfortunately, he didn't understand the debilitating effect of being clouded to our own self constructed windshield into the world.

The Choice of Perception

In the last chapter, we discussed choices and their impact on your life. Thus far it's been all about choices of action-physical actions that produce consequences. However, if you look deeper, what causes those actions? What motivates you to act and choose? We have two types of choices:

1. Choices of perception (thought patterns)
   
2. Choices of action (choosing to read)
   

Choices of perception serve as the impetus to choices of action. If you believe and perceive a certain idea, you are likely to act in accordance with that belief. The difference between the teen at the gas station and me was this: When I witnessed my first Lamborghini as a kid, I thought, “Some day, I'm gonna own one of those!” My choice of perception was strong and further manifested into choices of action that reflected that perception.

You see, you choose to interpret events in your particular frame of reference. Your mind labels and categorizes events that surround you. For example, when someone says “dog,” you might see a black Labrador, while other people see a poodle. When you see a mansion on the beach, do you think “lucky?” or “I'll never own something like that?”

The first step in making better choices starts with your choice of perception, because your actions evolve from those perceptions. If you lose your job, you can frame it as a negative or a positive. When you're caught speeding, you can be angry or thankful. The choice of perception and its choices start right between your ears and drive themselves into choices of action.

Your Perception Is Not the Reality

A few years ago, my girlfriend and I were at friend's home for a party. We sat at a small table and noticed an overly exuberant gentleman moving from table to table talking to people. He looked like he was canvassing the room as if he was selling something.

He was.

He eventually got to our table and unleashed the uncouth, “Hey, how would you like to earn $10,000 per month?” The question was inappropriate for the party so I decided to respond with equal inappropriateness.

I asked, “$10,000 a month? Really?”

Thinking I was hooked, he tried to sell me a network marketing opportunity for some herbal supplement. I interrupted him and laughed “Listen, I make $10,000 every two days, so for me your opportunity would be a 90% pay cut. Do you think I'm interested?” His eyes popped out of their sockets, and after he picked them off the table, he scampered away like a rat without his cheese.

In this brief exchange, this man made an assumption: $10,000 a month is a lot of money! It isn't. Money is infinite. Fastlane opportunists can drive opportunities that yield six and seven figures monthly.
The difference is perception
.

I remember the day when I thought $10,000 was a lot of money. It was perception and not reality. Earning $1 million in one month is possible if you make the right choices and drive the right Fastlane roads. This perception leads to better choices of action. That guy at the party? He chose a crowded road. Instead of creating a multilevel marketing company, he joined one. Instead of serving the masses through Effection, he joined the masses.

Wiping the Windshield Clean Starts with Language

You can expose your mindset by examining the words in your language and your thoughts. Take for example this comment made on the Fastlane Forum:

“I got engaged last Friday! I had been struggling with this for some time but decided to give marriage one more try. She's a great girl and deserves the best, and I think I can give it to her.”

When you read this statement do you see assured success? Or pending failure? While I wish the man the best marriage, I see flaccid words that lack confidence:

“Try”
“I think”

This language spells trouble. What would have convinced me otherwise?

“I got engaged last Friday! I had been struggling with this for some time but I decided to get married for the last time. She's a great girl and deserves the best, and I will give it to her.”

Notice the difference. One is flimsy and the other is firm. Both might seem to say the same thing, but one implies possible failure while the other implies committed success. Your internal language carries weight. If a brain surgeon told you before surgery, “I'm think I can operate on you and I will try to succeed,” you should freak out and trade in your hospital gown for some eternal nighties.

Altering your words and thought perceptions are akin to wiping your windshield clean and seeing beyond your own sphere of sight. How do you manage your choice of perception? What language do you use in your mind?

“I never …
I can't …
If only …”

Or do you choose better words?

“It's possible…
I'll overcome…
I will … I can.”

If your world is canvassed with words like “never” and “can't,” guess what? It's true-you can't and you never will! Is it possible to earn $1 million in one month? Sure it is, just ask the guy who does it. What makes his windshield different from yours? Good choices of perception translate into good choices of action. To change your perception is to change your future actions.

The goal of this book is to change your perception about wealth and money. Believe that retirement at any age is possible. Believe that old age is not a prerequisite to wealth. Believe that a job is just as risky as a business. Believe that the stock market isn't a guaranteed path to riches. Believe that you can be retired just a few years from today.

So how do you upload new beliefs and overwrite the old ones? Find the information, resources, and the people that align with the new beliefs. For myself, I pursued the stories of those who acquired wealth fast and soon learned that “Get Rich Quick” wasn't a myth. I never found that 19-year-old who got rich piling money into mutual funds. However, I did find 24-year-old millionaire inventors, business founders, authors, and Web site owners.