Chapter 10: The Lie You've Been Sold: The Slowlane - The Millionaire Fastlane

CHAPTER 10: THE LIE YOU'VE BEEN SOLD: THE SLOWLANE

What if I told you 'insane' was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years at the end of which they tell you to piss off; ending up in some retirement village hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time? Wouldn't you consider that to be insane?
~ Steve Buscemi (Con Air, Paramount Pictures, 2003)

Next Exit: “Slowlane” Mediocrity Ahead

In the previous chapter, we highlighted that a Sidewalker has no financial plan and is only concerned with the pleasures of today, often governed by instant gratification. While the Sidewalk is a chronic lifestyle that mortgages the future for a pleasurable today, the Slowlane is the antithesis: a sacrifice of today in the hopes of a brighter and freer tomorrow.

As a Slowlane traveler, you're deluged with a series of doctrines that plead discipline to the trade-off. Get a job and waste five days a week toiling at the office. Bag a lunch and stop drinking $10 coffee. Faithfully entrust 10% of your paycheck to the stock market and your 401(k). Quit dreaming about that sports car in the window because you can't buy it! Delay gratification until you're 65 years old. Save, save, save because compound interest is powerful: $10,000 invested today will be with 10 gazillion in 50 years!

Surprisingly, the Slowlane is the first convenient exit off the Sidewalk and evolves with maturity and increased adult responsibilities. Most college graduates begin their post-schooling life on the Sidewalk. I certainly did.

Graduation pardoned a license to buy stuff that yielded instant pleasure: trips to Cancun, a flashy car with a booming stereo, nightly drinking binges, a massive CD collection. Life was all about now, regardless of future consequences. Sidewalkers (and people in general) instinctively regard a better future: “I'll be making more money,” “I'll hit the lottery,” “After my father dies I'll inherit thousands.” Future crutches often justify pleasurable nows and, behind the scenes, Lifestyle Servitude swells.

However, with increased responsibilities, perhaps a growing family, mounting debt loads, and future expectations not matching reality, the Sidewalker comes to terms with the uncertainty of the Sidewalk and does the seemingly responsible lane change: He off-ramps and graduates to the Slowlane roadmap, a strategy touted and praised by credible sources. While the Sidewalk is typified by undisciplined behavior, the Slowlane's financial plan introduces responsibility and accountability into the wealth formula. That can't be bad right?

Unfortunately, the Slowlane is like bad directions given at a gas station, except these directions aren't given by strangers, but by people you trust: teachers, television and radio personalities, financial advisers, and yes, even our parents. These ostensible sources reinforce the strategy's fictitious strength when its efficacy is a sucker's bet. The Slowlane is a lifetime wager that a sacrificial today will yield a wealthier tomorrow.

The Promise of Wealth … The Price? Your Life

The Slowlane is rarely challenged. It's a lie so deceiving that when the ruse is uncovered, decades of life have passed … meanwhile, millions more are being newly indoctrinated to the deception. If you buy the lie, you sell off today in hopes of a glorious tomorrow. And when does this glorious tomorrow happen? When can you splurge, spend your millions, and enjoy life? When?

The driving force behind wealth under Get Rich Slow is time-time employed at the job and time invested in the markets. Your glorious tomorrow might arrive after 40 years, when you're living your last presidential administration and on your second hip replacement. Your glorious tomorrow might arrive when you're 73 years old and soaked in urine and strapped to a stinking bed because you've lost your mind to Alzheimer's. Seriously, when does this Slowlane plan of retiring rich actually become real so you can enjoy your millions?

As a teenager, Joe reads several personal finance books about getting rich. They tell him to save, get a career, clip coupons, and live below your means. After graduating with a law degree, Joe follows this advice. While it is difficult, Joe follows this plan for wealth diligently.

He works 60 hours weekly at his law firm, often neglecting his family and children. His weekdays are consumed at the office, while his weekends are spent home “recharging” from the rigors of the workweek.

After 12 years in law, Joe decides his profession is no longer enjoyable. Yet, he decides to endure, as he is just one promotion away from making partner and a guaranteed six-figure salary. As Joe's life progresses, he never loses sight of his goal: Retire by age 55 because, after all, financial guru David says, “The smart people finish rich.”

Joe saves, works overtime, invests in mutual funds, and participates in his firm's 401(k). He continues to endure his job for the sake of the plan. No one said it'd be easy. That “one day” was coming, the day when he'd retire with millions. He justifies that five days of misery in a hated job was worth the sacrifice for the future.

Then, one hot summer day while mowing the lawn, Joe has a heart attack and dies at age 51 … four years before his destination.

You can either live rich young or live rich old while risking death along the way. The choice is yours and it shouldn't be a contest. Rich at 25 years old beats the snot out of rich at 65 years old.

Ask a youngster, how do you get rich young? Will coupons, mutual funds, and 401(k)s be the answer? Comedic, I know.

Wealth is best lived young and enjoyed while you have health, vibrancy, energy, and yes, maybe even some hair. Wealth is best lived in the prime of your life, not in its twilight after 40 years of 50-hour workweeks have pulverized your dreams into surrender. Deep in our soul we know this, yet we continue to faithfully pledge obedience to a financial roadmap that promises wealth after four or five decades.

And the bigger concern you should have is, does it even work?

The global recession has exposed the Slowlane for the fraud it is. With no job, the plan fails. When the stock market loses 50% of your savings, the plan fails. When a housing crisis erases 40% of your illiquid net worth in one year, the plan fails. The plan is a failure because the plan is based on time and factors you can't control. Unfortunately, millions of people have faithfully invested decades into the plan only to discover the ugly truth: The Slowlane is risky and insufferably impotent.

A strategy that requires your life and your dreams to be paid as penance is a sucker's bet. The Slowlane arrogantly assumes that you will live forever and, of course, be gainfully employed forever. Unfortunately, wheelchairs don't fit in the trunks of Lamborghinis.

Slowlane Mindposts and Missives

Over time, the Slowlaner collects and espouses a series of mindposts reinforced by credible sources. Mom and Dad say go to college, graduate, and get a job. Bestselling author David says, “Stop drinking expensive lattés.” Suze says, “Open a Roth IRA and contribute 10% of your paycheck.” Ramsey says, “Snowball that debt.” All these missives formulate the Slowlaner's mindposts, a journey to wealth that consumes a lifetime.

Debt Perception:
Debt is evil. It must be religiously attacked, even if that means working overtime for life.

Time Perception:
My time is abundant and I will gladly trade my time for more dollars. The more hours I can work, the more I can pay off my debt and save money for retirement at 65.

Education Perception:
Education is important because it helps me earn a bigger salary.

Money Perception:
Money is scarce and every dime and dollar must be accounted for, budgeted, and perilously saved. If I want to retire by 65 with millions, I have to ensure I don't squander my hard-earned money.

Primary Income Source:
My job is my sole source of income.

Primary Wealth Accelerator:
Compound interest is powerful because $10 invested today will be worth $300,000 in 50 years. Oh yes, and don't forget about mutual funds, home appreciation, and my employer's 401(k).

Wealth Perception:
Work, save, and invest. Work, save, and invest. Repeat for 40 years until retirement age … 65 years old or, if I'm lucky and the markets return 12% yearly, maybe 55!

Wealth Equation:
Wealth = job + market investments.

Destination:
A comfortable retirement in my twilight years.

Responsibility &Control:
It's my responsibility to provide for my family although for that plan to work I have to rely on others, including my employer, my financial adviser, the government, and a good economy.

Life Perception:
Settle for less. Give up on big dreams. Save, live frugal, don't take unnecessary risks, and one day I will retire with millions.

So how do you know you're being sold the Slowlane? The following lists the primary munitions indigenous to the Slowlane roadmap.

• Go to school
• Get good grades
• Graduate
• Pay yourself first
• Overtime
• Corporate ladder
• Save X% of your paycheck
• Contribute to your 401(k)
• Invest in mutual funds
• Buy and hold
• Paychecks, pensions, benefits
• Diversify
• Raise your insurance deductibles
• The stock market
• Say “no” to expensive lattes
• Be frugal
• Get out of debt
• Clip coupons
• Cancel your credit cards
• Dollar cost averaging
• Get an advanced degree
• Pay off your house early
• Your home is an asset
• Individual retirement accounts (IRAs)
• Live below your means
• Understand compound interest

When you encounter these “buzz phrases,” be wary-someone is selling you the Slowlane as a total plan to wealth. While 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. This distinction is critical because financial discipline must transcend to any wealth campaign.

The Slowlane Roadmap: A Mathematical Introduction

How is wealth created in the Slowlane? To expose its method (and its weakness) you need to reverse engineer and deconstruct the strategy down to its mathematical roots, or its wealth equation.

In other words, you want to expose the plan's theoretical speed limits for wealth, which is always determined by two variables: your primary income source (a job) and your wealth acceleration vehicle (market investments). These two variables formulate the Slowlane's wealth equation and governs its wealth creation power or, in this case, futility.

Wealth = (Primary Income Source: Job) + (Wealth Accelerator: Market Investments)

This equation factored looks like this:

Wealth = Intrinsic Value + Compound Interest

The primary income variable, intrinsic value has two variables itself dependent on how you are paid within your job. It could be either:

Intrinsic Value = Hourly Wage X Hours Worked

~ or ~

Intrinsic Value = Yearly Salary

Compound interest is derived from “market investments,” which is the universal concept that $X invested in the stock market today will be worth $X millions decades from now. In chapter 12, we will examine the Slowlane's mathematical constructs and exploit their true deficiency. Therein, you'll discover why society's plan, your parent's plan, the media's plan, and the guru's plan are horrific strategies for wealth.

Have You Sold Your Soul for a Weekend?

Your soul is worth more than a weekend. Banality followed by blindness is the side effect of Slowlane institutionalization.

In 2007 on a cold January morning, a violinist stationed himself in a Washington, DC, train station and played six classical pieces from Bach. Except this was no ordinary violinist and it was no ordinary violin. This was an incognito Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world, who nights earlier had played to a sold-out concert hall in Boston for nearly $100 a ticket. As Joshua played his $3.5 million violin in the midst of the morning commuter rush, approximately 2,000 people passed through the station, most of them on their way to work.

He played continuously for 45 minutes. Only six people stopped to listen briefly. No crowd formed. About 20 folks gave money but continued onward at a brisk pace. When he finished, there was silence except for the rhythmic hustle of a busy train station. No applause. No crowd. No recognition.

This experiment, conducted by the Washington Post, uncovers something incredibly powerful-and disturbing. Not even the greatest musician in the world can illuminate the blinding depths of the rat race and those entrenched by its indifference.

Have you become so numbed by making a living that the living has been sucked out of your life? Are you so blinded by Monday through Friday that any beauty that sings before you is muted? The train commuters come and go like zombies-they're oblivious to the splendor of Monday through Friday. Yet, what if this experiment occurred on Saturday; would its outcome be any different?

This story exposes the Slowlane for its contempt: When you trade your life mindlessly for a paycheck, you risk being blinded to life itself as you cursively walk by it in a busy train station. Life does not begin on Friday night and end Monday morning.

“Thank God It 's Friday”: Born and Bred in the Slowlane

A friend recently berated me because I declined to go out on a Saturday night.“ Are you crazy? It's Saturday night!” he wailed. I told him something a Slowlaner doesn't understand: For me, every day is a Saturday because I haven't sold off Monday through Friday.

Wealth's provenance evolves from the three Fs: family, fitness, and freedom. Freedom's value to wealth is evidenced on Friday evenings, which just so happened to be the setting for an epic conversation I had with my friend at a happy hour. While we sat on the bar's patio, we heard a chattering cacophony of patrons engaged in spirited conversation. The bar was “happening” and within the rustling soundtrack, you'd never guess a recession was ongoing.

Over the noise, I asked my friend “What do you hear?”

“I hear people having a great time, a celebration,” she said.

I asked further, “Why?”

“Why what? It's Friday!” she declared.

I probed further. “What's so special about Friday? If we came here on Monday, this place would be empty and the sound of celebration would be absent. What makes Friday so special as opposed to Monday or Wednesday?”

Knowing that she was trapped into one of my paradoxical interrogations, she humored me.

“Uhh … people get paid on Friday?”

I levied the verdict: Friday evening is glorified because people celebrate the dividends of their trade: five days of work-bondage exchanged for two days of unadulterated freedom. Saturday and Sunday is the paycheck for Monday through Friday, and Friday evening symbolizes the emergence of that payment, freedom for two days. The prostitution of Monday through Friday is the reason “Thank God it's Friday” exists. On Friday, people are paid FREEDOM in the currency of Saturday and Sunday!

Negative 60% The Dismal Return of the Slowlane

The ultimate insanity is to sell your soul Monday through Friday for the paycheck of Saturday and Sunday. Yes, give me $5 today and in return I'll give you $2 back tomorrow. 5-for-2. No? How about five loaves of bread today and in return, I'll give you two back tomorrow. No again? Why? This is a smoking deal!

Hopefully you recognize that five of anything in exchange for two is a bad return. The 5-for-2 return on investment is a negative 60%. If you make consistent negative 60% return on investments, you'd go bankrupt quick. What logical person would accept such a horrific deal?

Most likely, you already do.

When you accept the Slowlane roadmap as your strategy, you accept 5-for-2. You give five days of work servitude in exchange for two days of weekend freedom. Yes, Monday through Friday is prostituted for Saturday and Sunday. While people easily recognize and reject a negative 60% return on their money, they do it willingly with their time.

If you have children you have to question this normality. Kids grow on Mondays and Tuesdays. I've heard they grow on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays too. Yes, they don't wait for the weekend to grow up. When little Miranda speaks her first word, walks her first walk, dances the first dance, she doesn't care if you're in Houston for the quarterly manager's meeting. Kids and relationships don't wait for the weekend to grow, and while you're out trading 5-for-2, guess what-the kids get older and so do you.

People who are bankrupt with time see their freedom, their families and their relationships disintegrate. Time is mismanaged because the Slowlane is predicated on time. Five days of servitude for two days of freedom is not a good trade unless you trade time into a system that can give you a better return on your time. Instead of 5-for-2 for life, how about a 5-for-2 trade that has the potential to blossom into a better ratio? Like 1-for-2 or 3-for-10? Would you make a 5-for-2 trade knowing that it could transform into a 1-for-10? Would that be a something to invest in?

While I worked my plan, I gave 7-for-0 (I worked seven days and didn't take a day off) because I knew the roads on my roadmap converged with dreams. I worked for a better ratio in the near future, not in 40 years. I controlled my destiny and eventually my time trade investment yielded a dividend of 40 years. Now I do 0-for-7. I work zero days and get seven days of freedom.

Sadly, if you are entrenched in the Slowlane, your options to shatter this negative 60% return for your freedom is restricted. Remember, wealth is defined by freedom, and if you require proof, look no further than Friday night when people celebrate freedom as the Slowlane dictatorship takes a weekend furlough.

Normal Is Condemnation to Mediocrity

Revolutionary Road, the 2008 movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, does an excellent job portraying the Slowlane's death grip. A young couple find themselves living in suburbia, going through the motions of life: The husband (DiCaprio) goes to work every morning and immerses himself in a crowd of his peers while his wife (Winslet) fills the role of the good housewife. Both instinctively know that something is wrong. They're settling. They've accepted normal. They've forsaken their dreams for the insane plan of everyone. Throughout the movie we witness their attempts to escape, and with perilous consequences.

The problem is, we've been brainwashed to accept the Slowlane roadmap as normal. The defective roadmap gains traction early in life and is sanctified as the “commoners” only probable means to wealth. Sounds logical right? Folks like us just don't get rich playing pro ball, rapping, singing, acting, or entertaining, so we're left with the Slowlane. And for some, that just might be OK. But for the rest of us with big dreams, big goals, and big ideas, it just doesn't cut the mustard.

Here's a Slowlane story pulled from the pages of the Fastlane Forum (TheFastlaneForum.com):

In the quest for becoming wealthy, my life has become quite uncomfortable. It all started five years ago when I had nothing. I had turned 30 years old and I thought that living paycheck to paycheck was no way to live at all. I made a vow to myself that I would become wealthy. In order to do this I took on a second job and saved all of the money from that job while I used the money from the first job to pay for my living expenses.

Basically, the last five years of my life have been as such in order for me to save money:– living and paying relatively cheap rent for an 8°-13 foot room– using public transportation and a motorcycle for transportation.– working almost every day with no days off during the week– rarely eating out– never buying “toys” or nice things for myself or wife– almost never going out and having a good time.

With the second job and my economical lifestyle I have managed to save about $50,000 in five years. It would have been more, but I lost a good $30,000 when I invested right before the Dow hit its peak in October of 2007.

I've reached a breaking point. Five years is a long time to live in a room no bigger than a jail cell. The jobs are mind numbing. I feel like my life is a prison. I have a good lifestyle for saving money, but at the expense of my mental sanity and happiness as a human being. I just feel like I can't live like this any longer.

The Slowlaner accepts an existence of frugality and sacrifice to a tipping-point where life feels like incarceration. Does this guy's life seem awesome or mediocre? Will it merge with a dream? The Slowlane plan forsakes the now for a faint promise of a wealthy future. I don't consider “settle for less” a strategy, which is why the Slowlane is predisposed to mediocrity. Life isn't great, but it isn't so bad either. No, it could be better … but you've got to swap the Slowlane for a new plan.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

• The Slowlane is a natural course-correction from the Sidewalk evolving from taking responsibility and accountability.
• Wealth is best experienced when you're young, vibrant, and able, not in the twilight of your life.
• The Slowlane is a plan that takes decades to succeed, often requiring masterful political prowess in a corporate environment. For the Slowlaner, Saturday and Sunday is the paycheck for Monday through Friday.
• The default return on your time in the Slowlane is negative 60%-5-for-2.
• The 5-for-2 trade inherit in the Slowlane is generally fixed and cannot be manipulated, because job standards are five days a week.
• The predisposed destination of the Slowlane is mediocrity. Life isn't great, but it isn't so bad either.