Chapter 30: The Commandment of Need - The Millionaire Fastlane

CHAPTER 30: THE COMMANDMENT OF NEED

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?
~ George Eliot

Sand Foundations Crumble Houses

Ninety percent of all new businesses fail within five years, and I know why they fail. They fail because they fail the Commandment of Need.

(Need) – E – C – S – T

When you build a business on a flawed foundation, it will fail. Sand foundations crumble houses. Businesses that violate the Commandment of Need either belong to the 90% failure category or masquerade as a job. Gravity cannot be defied, and the winning premise of business is a simple yet often forgotten by most business owners: Businesses that solve needs win. Businesses that provide value win. Businesses that solve problems win profits. Selfish, narcissistic motives do not make good, long-term business models.

Think about the purpose of businesses. Why do they exist?

To satisfy your selfish desire to “do what you love?”

To satisfy your craving for wealth and financial freedom?

Seriously, no one cares about your desires, your dreams, your passions, your “whys” and your reasons for wanting to be rich. No one cares that you want to own a Ferrari and prove your parents wrong. No one cares that corporate America wronged you. No one cares! Yes, the world is a selfish place and nobody gives two shits about your motives to “go Fastlane.”

So what do people care about?

People care about what your business can do for them. How will it help them? What's in it for them? Will it solve their problem? Make their life easier? Provide them with shelter? Save them money? Educate them? Make them feel something? Tell me, why on God's green Earth should I give your business money? What value are you adding to my life?

Reflect back to our producer/consumer dichotomy. Consumers are selfish. They demand to know is “what's in it for me!” To succeed as a producer, surrender your own selfishness and address the selfishness of others.

Stop Chasing Money-Chase Needs

Never start a business just to make money. Stop chasing money and start chasing needs. Let me repeat that, because it's the most important thing in this book: Stop thinking about business in terms of your selfish desires, whether it's money, dreams or “do what you love.” Instead, chase needs, problems, pain points, service deficiencies, and emotions.

Entrepreneurs fail because they create businesses based on selfish premises, and selfish premises don't yield profitable businesses; they lead directly into the 90% failure wastebasket.

• “I need a new income stream.”
• “I'm an expert in [blank] so I'll do that.”
• “I read a 'get rich' book and it says to start a business.”

Wrong. Wrong. And wrong.

Again, selfish, narcissistic premises are VIP invitations to violate the Commandment of Need.

You and your business attract money when you stop being selfish and turn your business's focus from the needs of yourself to the needs of other people. Give first, take second. Needs come first, not money! Needs precede money! Engage the marketplace with your own selfish need and my bet is placed on your failure.

Joe was a martial arts expert and he loved his craft. Following the advice of gurus, he set out to “do what you love” and opened a martial arts studio. Within 10 months, his studio closed, as he could no longer support his family on his $21,000-per-year business profit.

Before Joe started, he was destined for failure. He got into business based on a faulty entrepreneurial road paved with sand, a premise based on selfish needs and selfish desires: “I'm an expert in martial arts and love the art, therefore I should open a studio.” The correct foundation is externally based on needs in the marketplace, not on internal selfish needs. Instead of selfish motives, what should have Joe been thinking?

• Is there a need in my neighborhood for a martial arts studio?
• What are existing martial arts studios doing wrong that I could do better?
• What improved value do I offer the martial arts student?
• What assets do I bring to this community?

Joe failed because there wasn't a genuine need in the marketplace and his motives were selfish. Had Joe analyzed these questions foremost, his odds of driving a successful road would have dramatically improved.

Several years ago, during the economic expansion, I noticed a standalone storefront being built in my mother's neighborhood of Chandler, Arizona, a white, middle-class suburb of Phoenix. As the building went up and the store tenant moved in, the heat of failure percolated. How did I know?

This new store was a hip-hop apparel boutique. Fasten your seat belt here comes failure! Why? The store violates the Commandment of Need. The neighborhood doesn't need a hip-hop store. The area isn't urban, there are no dance clubs nearby, and nothing looks remotely hip-hop. In fact, not 100 yards away there is an eldercare retirement home. Is a 91-year-old grandpa the target market for hip-hop gear? The obvious problem here is selfishness. The owner is following his passions, and his love for hip-hop music and culture. Maybe a life coach told him to “do what you love.” Whatever the motive, the need is internal and not externally based on the marketplace. I predicted the business would last 12 months. After 18 months, the business disappeared. The road was paved with sand because no need existed.

Money Chasers Chase Money, Not Needs

Frequently I read posts from aspiring entrepreneurs with grandiose goals of making a fortune by starting a business. Hang out at any business forum and you will see the misdirected, selfish foundation poisoning the well.

• How can I make money starting a business?
• What business can I start with $200 and still make $5K per month?
• What home-based business can I start?
• I have a friend who manufacturers widgets; you think I can make money selling them?
• How can I make a passive income?
• What's a good product to sell on eBay?
• What's the best business to start on a shoestring?

If you sit around and ask yourself these types of questions, you'll likely end in the failure category because these dialogues expose your preoccupation with money, and not needs or value.

You've got it backward!

I call these entrepreneurs “money-chasers.” They hop from one business to the next, scalping and arbitraging market imbalances, rarely solving needs or creating momentum. Sometimes these selfish business owners use questionable business practices as customer needs are neglected and money is pursued with relentless zeal.

Money chasers are consumers who haven't quite made the transition to producer. They want to be producers, but they selfishly think like consumers.

For example, in the housing boom, money chasers became mortgage brokers and real estate agents. The burst of the bubble purged the industry clean of the excess. Now with foreclosures at an all-time high, “loan modifiers” are the newest money chasers. Every boom and bust brings forth the money chasers who are selfishly motivated to hop aboard a train of trends, but are in business solely to serve themselves. With plenty of selfish consumers to prey upon, money chasers survive and thrive until the next bust or they're exposed for fraud. In times of excess, scams, schemes, and rip-offs pervade because money chasers invade and imbalances are created.

To Attract Money Is to Forget About Money

Want to make big bucks? Then start attracting money instead of chasing it. Money is like a mischievous cat; if you chase it around the neighborhood, it eludes you. It hides up a tree, behind the rose bush, or in the garden. However, if you ignore it and focus on what attracts the cat, it comes to you and sits in your lap.

Money isn't attracted to selfish people. It is attracted to businesses that solve problems. It's attracted to people who fill needs and add value. Solve needs massively and money massively attracts.

The amount of money in your life is merely a reflection to the amount of value you have given to others. Ignore this symbiosis and money will ignore you. Successful businesses share one common trait: The satisfaction of consumer needs as reflected by sales in the marketplace. The marketplaces and consumers, not you, determine if your business is viable. If you sell 10 million anything, 10 million people have voted that your product will help them, or satisfy one of their needs.

The only Fastlane road that works is a road paved with cement-rock hard needs, wants, and solutions-not sand. A rock hard pavement gives you the unfair odds. Solve needs on a massive scale or in magnitude. It could be as fantastic as starting a software company as Bill Gates did, or something seemingly minute like putting a new spin on something old. If you own a Web site that services 10,000 people daily, you're making an impact. If you own a real estate company that provides housing to 1,000 people, you're making an impact.

Make a freaking impact and start providing value! Let money come to you! Look around outside your world, stop being selfish, and help your fellow humans solve their problems. In a world of selfishness, become unselfish.

Need something more concrete? No problem. Make 1 million people achieve any of the following:

• Make them feel better.
• Help them solve a problem.
• Educate them.
• Make them look better (health, nutrition, clothing, makeup).
• Give them security (housing, safety, health).
• Raise a positive emotion (love, happiness, laughter, self-confidence).
• Satisfy appetites, from basic (food) to the risqué (sexual).
• Make things easier.
• Enhance their dreams and give hope.

… and I guarantee, you will be worth millions.

So the next time you're trolling the Web looking to make money, sit back and ask yourself, “What do I have to offer the world?” Offer the world value, and money becomes magnetized to you!

“Do What You Love” and Die as You Do

Beware of another guru-speak: “Do what you love and the money will follow!”

Bullshit.

That is, unless you want to violate the Commandment of Need. “Do what you love” is another mythical decree perpetrated by hypocritical gurus and so-called life coaches who are probably three clients away from broke. Sadly, the road of “do what you love” rarely converges with wealth. In fact, it might lead you down a road to destructive love.

If you're like me, “do what you love” was never an option. Think about what you love and then think, will someone pay for it? Is it going to solve a need? Are you good enough to make money doing it? Most likely, you aren't.

For “do what you love” to work, you need two things:

1. Your love must solve a need and
2. You must be exceptional at it.

I love to play basketball, but I suck at it. I can't parlay my love of basketball into a career. I love to play piano, but again, I suck at it. I love many things, but I suck at them! If I wanted a career in any of these “loves,” I'd need unlimited time and money because no one would pay me a dime to do it. Who wants to endure that ineptness?

Consider this book. I love to write. The book represents a dream of “doing what I love,” and that dream was made possible by the Fastlane. If I needed this book to pay for my mortgage, I'm not sure it would. I have no clue if this book will sell 10 copies or 10 million. Therefore I can't rely on it.

“Doing what you love” for money often isn't good enough because we aren't good enough. Additionally, so many people are “doing what they love” that the marketplace for that activity is so crowded and margins become depressed and heavy competition reigns.

Authoring a book is a crowded space. Just because I love to write doesn't guarantee money will follow. In fact, no one cares that I love to write. Do you? Of course not! You want to know if my writing will help you.

In a magazine interview, billionaire RJ Kirk was asked about the benchmark to his success. He replied, “It is for others to say whether I am useful or not.” It isn't for you to decide whether you are useful. The marketplace makes that determination. People pay for their satisfaction; they don't pay to satisfy your need of “do what you love.” People pay for solutions, not for your enjoyment. People pay for solved problems. People don't give a dirty dog-ass about your love for whatever. If “do what you love” doesn't fill a need spectacularly, no one will pay for it!

This book is possible because I didn't need the confirmation of money to authenticate my skill. If that sentence is not too complicated to understand, you get my point. Maybe I'm just not good enough. Regardless of sales, my book is a testament to “do what I love” whether I'm good at it or not. The Fastlane allowed money to be removed from the equation. Now, I don't need to get paid to “do what I love.” I just do it. In other words, money led to “do what you love,” it didn't follow. How's that for irony?

Lebron James gets paid to play basketball because he is good. One of the many destinations of the Fastlane is to remove the confirmation of money from your “do what you love” activity. Fastlane success means I could play basketball seven days a week. I can play video games all day. I don't need to get paid to “do what I love” because I can now do it for FREE.

If you are one of the lucky few who can earn an income from a specific activity that you love AND are good enough, kudos to you. And congratulations-you might not need a Fastlane. A Slowlane just might suffice. No worries. But for those of us who can't transform our loves into income, there are other alternatives paved by the Fastlane.

“Doing What You Love” Fakes and Derivatives

If you can't work a job or a business doing what you love, you're likely to fall into a trap. Your natural reaction is to make a deal with the devil-the Slowlane. You trade your life away, doing things you hate, in exchange for doing things you love. You say, “I'll do five days of work I hate so I can enjoy two weekend days doing something I love.” Does this barter sound like rational thinking?

For example, my friend Andy is a bank collections agent and hates his job. At beer time, I hear the complaints, the frustration, and the BS about the job: the Nazi-like micro-management, the incompetent boss, and his psychotic co-workers. He's on the firing line from all fronts. He numbs himself to this suffering five days a week. His salvation?

His weekend.

He pays “do what you hate” with a weekend of boating, which is his “do what you love.”

Then other people negotiate with “do what you love” into an alternative, or a derivative. For example, Pauline loves to knit, so she sells her knitting online. Jose loves automotive audio so he opens a car stereo shop. Janice loves to sculpt and sells her works at the local gallery. Gary is an avid bodybuilder so he becomes a personal trainer.

There are two dangers to derivatives:

1. They don't make money fast.
2. They endanger the love.

First, “do what you love” rarely creates money fast because more than likely, not only are YOU doing what you love but thousands of others love doing the same thing too (just tune into the first-week auditions for American Idol for proof). The need is weak. This saturates markets and makes profit margins shallow.

At my gym, a personal trainer acquaintance told me he is struggling to make ends meet. When I asked why, he responded that personal training is so competitive that he can't charge a price worth his time. His service fees are deflationary, caused by an abundant supply of trainers, and when supply exceeds demand (need) prices move down. Not enough need, too much supply.

So why is the field for personal trainers so saturated? Simple. People follow the espoused guruesque advice without reflection on need: “Do what you love.”

Unfortunately, if you LOVE doing it, bet on thousands of others loving it too. When you “do what you love,” prepare to face stiff competition. Who enjoys higher margins? The personal trainer? Or the guy who starts a company to cleanup crime scenes?

The second danger of derivatives is that your love becomes vulnerable to contamination when you do it for money. If you are forced to do anything, even something you purport to love, in exchange for a paycheck, that love is put in danger.

Years ago, I took a job as a limo driver because I loved to drive. By the time that job ended, I hated to drive. After work, I'd stay home because I was so sick of driving. My love was contaminated.

I once had a friend who created fantastic paintings as a hobby. When I asked her why she doesn't paint full time for a living, her answer was simple: I paint when I am impassioned to paint. The few times when she painted for money, it stunted her artistic creativity because a different force fueled the motivation-money, not emotion from the moment.

“Do what you love” is left to professional athletes, because they are at the pinnacle of their games. And yet, even after making millions, many of these athletes suffer the same fate. They lose their love of the game. Dancers lose their love for dance. Artists lose their love for art. Money and the demands of life cast a cloud over the love and darken it into a burden.

While derivatives of “do what you love” might yield a figment of happiness, they operate in saturated marketplaces and, more importantly, they could jeopardize your natural love for the activity.

Your Ignition: Moving from Love to Passion

The motivational fuel for the Fastlane is passion, not love. Passion gets you out of the garage and onto the road. If you have a passion for a specific goal, you'll do anything for it. I had a passion for Lamborghinis and was willing to do anything for it. Pick up dog shit, mop floors, work at 3 a.m.-whatever it was going to take, I had the passion to do it. Did I love driving limos? Hell no. But I had a Fastlane passion and it motivated my movement to the vision of future.

Your vehicle needs an ignition, a starter, something that compels you to jump out of bed in the morning challenged to tackle the day. That ignition is passion. You need a passion for something greater. It is different for everybody, but when you find it, you will do anything for it.

When you reposition your goals and visions at the end of a road that works, that end transforms your daily life into passionate action toward that specified destination. If you can't get paid doing some activity, identify a specific “why” or “end goal” that ignites your passion to act.

What is your WHY? Why are you doing this? Why go Fastlane? Whom do you want to prove wrong? My “WHYS” read like this:

“I want to pay off my mother's mortgage.”
“I want to wake up without an alarm clock.”
“I want to write a book without the pressure of money.”
“I want a big house on a mountainside with a pool.”
“I want a Lamborghini.”
“I want to make a difference.”
“I want to prove him wrong.”

Passion beats “do what you love,” because passion fuels motivation for something greater than yourself and is generalized. When the focus is “doing what you love,” the focus becomes industry-specific and you're likely to violate the Commandment of Need. Why are you starting this business? Because you love it? Or because there is a real market need?

I repeat: Passion for an end goal, a why, drives Fastlane action.

Mike Rowe, host of the cable television show Dirty Jobs, profiled several owners of businesses who had less than lovable duties. From testing bovine manure to cleaning up pigeon goop, the owners were passionate. None of them “loved” what they did, but they had passionate “whys” and very deep bank accounts. Competition was sparse because everyone else was busy chasing “do what you love.” A formidable “why” is all you need to turn your daily activities into passionate motivation -the “get up in the morning” metamorphosis to bust open a Fastlane road. What are your WHYS, and are they strong enough to motivate you into process?

Passion Erases the Suffering of Work

When I was in startup mode with my company, I worked long hours. Was I suffering the toil of work? No. I enjoyed it, because I had my “whys” and I was moving toward them. The journey hardened me, challenged me, and yes, it was even fun! I was passionate about what I wanted and I was going to get it. The Fastlane isn't a destination but a personal journey.

Writing this book has been an enduring journey, and I admit that I gave up three times. Why? After a year of writing and not finishing, my love for writing evaporated. My love became a hate. I was “doing what I love” and suddenly that love faded because people started to expect a book. I confided to a friend, “I quit. I no longer enjoy it and I don't need to finish it.”

So how did I finish if my love for writing evaporated? I found my passion, which compelled me to finish: I love to see the dreams of others become reality. When a dead dream is given sudden life, I feel invigorated. Any time I wanted to give up, I'd receive an email that applauded me: “Your forum changed my life” or “Thank you, my life has turned for the better.” That is passionate currency that repositioned my writing effort into action. I went from love, to suffering, to passion.

Get Your Road to Converge with a Fantastic Dream

A road that doesn't converge with your dreams is a dead end. When you concede dreams, life withers. Reflect back to childhood, when you heard: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Underneath this question, what's it really asking? It's a probe to find the road to your dreams, and it was usually answered in a phantasmal vision. For me, I wanted to be an astronaut (blame Han Solo) a filmmaker (blame George Lucas) and an author (blame Isaac Asimov).

How about you? What is your outrageous, fantastic dream? And the real question of concern: Is there any chance you are doing it, or will be doing it? More than likely, you're not, because the Slowlane has killed it.

I asked my friend Rick this question. Guess what. He didn't answer this question with “I want to be a sales representative at Verizon Wireless.” Nope. He answered with “I wanted to be a race car driver.” So, why is Rick selling cell phones today? Is there any chance in hell he will actually become his dream, a racecar driver? There isn't. The dream is dead and the road is derelict. Nonetheless, as Rick sticks to his job and waits for a promotion, he wonders, “There's got to be more than this.”

And then there's Sarah. She didn't answer this question with, “I want to be a shift manager at Taco Bell.” Nope, she wanted to be an artist. But today, Sarah finds herself working the graveyard shift, mopping up the floors in the dining room from slobs who have mistaken sour cream for finger paint. As she slams the mop-head in the wringer, Sarah has a moment of disquiet. “Is this what my life has become?”

The problem with these people is not their jobs. We've all had crappy, embarrassing jobs that we hate. The problem is their dead-end road that will never converge with a dream. Dreams are forsaken to pay the bills. Instead of a convergent road to dreams (or a chance of a dream), their road goes through an inescapable hell.

Life becomes suffering.

There is nothing wrong with working at Verizon or Taco Bell. Heck, these jobs would have been promotions in comparison to the meaningless jobs I've held. But please, don't make these jobs your means to the end, your final road, because the “end” most likely will never come.

You see, if your dream is dead, so is your passion. “No passion” numbs you to the greatest violinist in the world while he plays in the train depot. “No passion” leads to mediocrity and the land of everybody. “No passion” leads to unhappiness. “No passion” equals no wealth.

If you're struggling for motivation, re-energize your dream and align it with a road capable of burning a trail to its reality. Dead dreams can't burn trails of passion. Passion fires your will to do what is necessary beyond what others can't. Fastlaners work unlike everyone else so they can live unlike anyone else. Take four years of hard work in exchange for 40 years of freedom. Unfortunately, most people take 40 years of hard work for four weeks of freedom, or however long their paid vacation time lasts.

Find Your “Snow in the Toilet”

How do you find your passion? Passion comes from either excitement or discontent. Take this story posted on the Fastlane Forum (TheFastlaneForum.com): I grew up in a poor family and lived in a very old run-down barn that had half of it converted into a home. One of the worst times of the year was the winter, because our water pipes would freeze and, with it, our running water. The only way to flush the toilet was to bring snow into the barn, pack it into the water tank behind the toilet, and wait for it to melt. I saw that my mom had to put snow in the tank of the toilet bowl just for us to flush. The worst part was that it had to be refilled every time someone used the toilet. I thought to myself, “I never want to live like this again!”

What is your passion-your perennial “snow in the toilet?”

Leslie Walburn is passionate about animals. Disillusioned by county owned shelters that euthanize dogs, her dream is to own a no-kill dog rescue shelter. While she can “do what she loves” and get a job at a shelter, it doesn't bring her closer to her dreams, nor will the job help her amass the wealth needed to pursue the dream. Yes, dog shelters are expensive. Instead, Leslie allows her passion to fuel her motivation-she starts a Fastlane business(unrelated to animals) that eventually funds her dream. Her passion leads to a dream without the crucible of money.

Reflect on a time when your life was turned upside down with excitement and/or discontent.

That is your passion. For me, excited passion was when I saw my first Lamborghini as a teenager and I decided “One day, I will own a Lamborghini.” For me, discontented passion was watching my mother struggle in dead-end jobs, trying to raise three kids without a husband. Both fueled my passion; I wanted a Lamborghini and I wanted to help ease the burden for my mother. Excitement (wants and desires) serves as passionate fuel, as does discontent (undesirable situations). Both allowed me to do what others wouldn't. If you find yours, you will too.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

• The Commandment of Need states that businesses that solve needs win. Needs can be pain points, service gaps, unsolved problems, or emotional disconnects.
• Ninety percent of all new businesses fail because they are based on selfish internal needs, not external market needs.
• No one cares about your selfish desires for dreams or money; people only want to know what your business can do for them.
• Money chasers haven't broken free from selfishness, and their businesses often follow their own selfish needs.
• People vote for your business with their money.
• Chase money and it will elude you. However, if you ignore it and focus on what attracts money, you will draw it to yourself.
• Help one million people and you will be a millionaire.
• For money to follow “Do what you love,” your love must solve a need and you must be exceptional at it.
• “Do what you love” sets the stage for crowded marketplaces with depressed margins.
• When you have the financial resources, you can “do what you love” and not get paid for it, nor do you have to be good at it.
• Slowlaners feed “do what you love” with “do what you hate.” Five days of hate for two days of love.
• “Doing what you love” for money can endanger your love.
• Passion for an end goal, a why, drives Fastlane success.
• Having a passionate “why” can transform work into joy.
• “Doing what you love” usually leads to the violation of the Commandment of Need.
• The right road for you is one that will converge with your dreams.