The Millionaire Fastlane (13 page)

CHAPTER 11: THE CRIMINAL TRADE: YOUR JOB

By working faithfully 8 hours a day, you may eventually get to be the boss and work 12 hours a day.
~ Robert Frost

I Spent Five Years in College … for a Phonebook?

Before college graduation, I humored myself and attended a few job workshops. One I remember vividly: an entry-level position at a big insurance firm in Chicago. During our introduction at the corporate facility, the company recruiters told us exactly what to expect:

“Over there [pointing to a sea of cubicles] is where our new hires sit. I won't be coy; in the beginning this job is difficult. We give you three things: a desk, a telephone, and a telephone book. You will spend 10 hours a day cold-calling to build your clientele. I know, not glamorous, but the rewards …”

At that point the rewards were inconsequential and I went into acting mode. I acted interested. I acted happy. I acted like it was acceptable. It wasn't.

I spent five years in college just to sit in a 6 X 6 cubicle and cold-call elderly people out of a damn telephone book? Are you freaking kidding me? I could have done this out of middle school, and I didn't need to spend thousands on a college degree to hawk insurance. Yet, my peers salivated at the opportunity of having a nice base salary, a great 401(k), and a top-tier health plan. No thanks. If I'm cold-calling out of the damn phonebook, it won't be for my boss, but for me.

Jobs: Domestication into Normalcy

If you want to escape the Slowlane, find wealth and freedom fast, you've got to dump the job.

Let me repeat.

Dump the damn job!

Jobs suck. I mean that generically, not targeted toward a specific job. Whether you're an electrician or a store manager, you hold a job. Jobs suck because they're rooted in
limited leverage
and
limited control
. Sure, you can have great job (and a fun one too!) but in the scope of wealth, they limit both leverage and control-two things desperately needed if you want wealth. Here are six sucky reasons your financial plan shouldn't revolve around a job, the nucleus to the Slowlane.

Suckage #1: To Trade Time Is to Trade Life

Who taught us that trading time in exchange for money was a great idea? Why does this normalcy consistently translate into unrivaled suckage? If you're shackled to a job, you're engaged to a glorified exchange of your time (your life) for pieces of paper that grant you freedom.
You sell your freedom to get freedom
. Pretty stupid, huh?

Jobs suck because they ravenously consume TIME. At a job, TIME TRADE is central to how you make money. A job is the basis for that horrific 5-for-2 exchange. But let me translate that word, TIME, differently: LIFE. In a job, you sell your life for money. If you work, you get paid. If you don't work, you don't get paid. Who officiated this bloodsucking marriage?

Here is a list of common jobs and how long you have to work just to earn $1 million. If you diligently save 10% of your earnings and stuff it under a mattress, your time to $1 million multiplies by a factor of 10. Do you have 300 years to save your way to $1 million?

Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Anthony Balderrama, CareerBuilder.com. Figures rounded for simplicity.

Wouldn't it make sense to get paid regardless of what you're doing? Get paid while you sleep, while you have fun, while you poop, while you sit on the beach? Why not get paid with the simple passage of time and make time work for you instead of against you? Does that exist? It does, but it doesn't come from a Slowlane.

Suckage #2: Limitation on Experience

I learned more as an entrepreneur in two months than I did working 10 years at dozens of dead-end jobs. The problem with a specialized skill set is, it narrows your useful value to a confined set of marketplace needs.
You become one of many cogs in a wheel
. And if that cog becomes obsolete or expendable? Guess what, you're out of luck.

For example, thousands of autoworkers have been displaced because their jobs have been outsourced or replaced by robotics. Experience doesn't help them, it hinders them. Remember typewriters? How is the typewriter repairman doing these days? How about stockbrokers? Travel agents? Dying breeds of jobs move out of favor like fashion fads. One year your skill set has value, the next, it doesn't.

Second, job experience is usually regimented into a core group of activities that is routinely repeated over and over again, day after day. After the initial learning experience, the job becomes regimented and accumulation of new knowledge creeps to a crawl. A job limits learning and mutates into life's death knell: a trade of life force for money.

Experience comes from what you do in life, not from what you do in a job. You don't need a job to get experience.

Ask yourself this: Which experience is more important? The experience of a menial job designed to pay your bills? Or the experience (and failures) of creating something that could provide you financial freedom for a lifetime without ever having to hold a job again?

Suckage #3: No Control

A job is like sitting in the bed of a pickup truck. You're exposed to the harsh elements while the driver of the truck sits comfortably in the driver's seat. And if the ride gets rough? You get jacked around or worse, tossed overboard. There is no control sitting in the back of a pickup truck, and to have this “strategy” at the heart of your financial plan is asinine.
If you don't control your income, you don't control your financial plan
. If you don't control your financial plan, you don't control your freedom.

Millions obediently sing the employee Kumbaya, believing that a job is central to supporting themselves. Sure, a job can support you, but is your goal only “support”? Do you want wealth or mediocrity? If the momentum of your financial road trip can be road blocked by a pink slip, you're gambling. You aren't being real; you're being foolish. There is neither safety nor security in a job.

Suckage #4: Linda's Bad Breath

I have people in my family who are life-long employees. I hear about their trials and toils. Despite two dozen different jobs over the years, I noticed nothing changes when it comes to office politics. It's the same story, different people, different day, in a different office. So-and-so is sleeping with the boss and courting favor. Jim is lazy but takes credit for the work. Linda has bad breath and everyone is afraid to tell her. Lacey arrives late and leaves early. Horace steals food and wears the same sport jacket every day. Lazy Lester never replaces the copier paper. Same stories, different office.

No matter where you work, office politics play a part. The stage is different but the actors are the same. And, unfortunately, as an employee immersed in the work environment, you have to play the game. You have to be obedient or face retribution from coworkers or your boss.

I can remember my friend's after-work rants as she toiled at a high-carb corporate environment. Everything had a process. Got an idea? Great, send it to the boss, the boss sends it to his boss, who then hands it off to legal, who then sends it back to her boss's boss for revisions, who sends it back, blah blah blah! By the time the “idea” gets anywhere it's either stale or four other people have staked a claim to it. Who needs this entangled web destroying your sanity? The only defense to office politics is to control the playing field, and to do that, you have to be the boss. And to be the boss, you not only need to run the show, you need to own it.

Suckage #5: A Subscription to “Pay Yourself Last”

“Pay yourself first” is a Slowlane doctrine. The problem is that it's near impossible in a job. Local, state, and federal governments heavily tax earned income and your options to shield that income from taxation is limited to contributions to 401(k)s and IRAs-which are also limited-10% of your income or a maximum of $16,500, whichever is less.

If you diligently trade your life and ascend into corporate management, expect 50% of your money to disappear before it touches your hands. As an employee, you immediately receive a subscription to “pay yourself last,” and yes, that subscription arrives even if you don't subscribe. If you are paying yourself last and everyone gets your money first, don't expect to build wealth fast.

Suckage #6: A Dictatorship on Income

Ever get hit with a 1,000% pay raise from your boss?

Imagine this: Impressed at the obvious returns you've provided at your job, you confidently stroll into your boss's office and demand a raise.

“I bring value to this company,” you argue. “I'm reliable and rarely call in sick.”

Your boss takes a defensive posture, crosses his arms, tilts his head skyward, and leisurely reclines in his big, red executive chair.

You take a deep breath and let it ride. “Therefore, sir, I'd like a 1,000% pay raise.”

Your boss emits a guttural groan. He lurches forward, ends his recline and hammers his hands to the desk. “OK, what's the joke? I'm busy” he snipes.

You reply, “No joke. I'm serious. I make $9 an hour. I want a raise to $90 an hour.”

“How about this? You'll get nothing and like it. Get out of my office, quit wasting my time, and if you do it fast, I won't fire you. How about that for an offer?”

You stammer out. I guess the boss didn't think the 1,000% pay raise was doable.

This scenario would never happen. As an employee, you can't demand a pay raise greater than 10%, let alone 1,000%. Yet, as an employee of any company,
this is your playing field
. Your value is dictated and the job becomes a wealth delimiter with limitations that cannot be subverted.

A job seals your fate into a criminal time trade: five days of life traded for two days of freedom. A job chains you to a set grade of experience. A job takes away your control. A job forces you to work with people you can't stand. A job forces you to get paid last. A job imposes a dictatorship on your income. These limitations are counter-insurgencies to wealth.

Still want a job?

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

• In a job, you sell your freedom (in the form of time) for freedom (in the form of money).
  
• Experience is gained in action. The environment of that action is irrelevant.
  
• Wealth accumulation is thwarted when you don't control your primary income source.
  

CHAPTER 12: THE SLOWLANE-- WHY YOU AREN'T RICH

Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now. There are only so many tomorrows.
~ Michael Landon

Exposing Slowlane Ineptitude

If the Slowlane is your “get rich” strategy I can make a likely assumption: You're not rich and you never will be. Wow, how could I be so sure? Simple. The Slowlane strategy is rooted in
Uncontrollable Limited Leverage
, or ULL (pronounced “yule”). If you need help remembering this important concept, just think, “If the Slowlane is your plan, 'ULL' never get rich.”

Uncontrollable Limited Leverage is the disturbing evidence that proves the Slowlane's futility. How do you get rich in the Slowlane? You get a great-paying job, save money, live frugal, invest in the stock market, and repeat for 50 years. If you mine this strategy into its mathematical constructs, you'll find that the variables that define the plan cannot be controlled nor leveraged.

Uncontrollable Limited Leverage (ULL) – Part 1

Why is ULL so important? To accumulate financial wealth, you need to attract large sums of money. To attract large sums of money, you need two things: 1) Control and 2) Leverage. The Slowlane has neither and that truth is exposed when you reverse engineer the strategy into its mathematical equivalent, or its wealth universe. Uncover the mathematics behind the plan and you uncover its weakness!

When the Slowlane is deconstructed, you find two variables: 1) The “primary income source,” which defines how income is earned, and 2) The “wealth accelerator,” which defines how wealth is accumulated. The Slowlaner's primary income source comes from “a job,” while the wealth acceleration vehicle comes from “market investments” like 401(k)s and mutual funds. Put it together and you arrive at the Slowlaner's wealth equation:

WEALTH = (Job) + (Market Investments)

The primary income source The wealth accelerator

Under this plan, income from a job funds both lifestyle and market investments. However, to uncover the prohibitive ULL within the plan, we have to factor these variables further, starting with the job variable.