Chapter 8: Lucky Bastards Play the Game! - The Millionaire Fastlane

CHAPTER 8: LUCKY BASTARDS PLAY THE GAME

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
~ Thomas Jefferson

Psst … Wanna Get Lucky?

I once overheard someone call me a “lucky bastard.” What a sad, delusional Sidewalking belief. I'm not lucky; I'm a player of the game. While Mr. Lucky-Bastard-Hater uttered that under his breath and sat his ass in the dugout, I was at the plate taking swings.

Joe is a Sidewalker and believes luck is required to get rich. He spends his days working construction and his evenings commenting on gossip blogs, playing videogames, and watching TV. He has given up on his dreams of financial independence based on his ideas of luck. “I'm just not a lucky guy,” he laments.

Joe's brother Bill also has a job in construction, except Bill spends his evenings surfing the Internet, researching the newest practices of inventing and engineering. Bill's dream is to be an inventor and has created four prototypes of inventions in various fields. Bill also spends his vacation time at trade shows and marketing seminars. While Joe is killing ogres and wizards in the latest dungeon of doom, Bill is out of the box of nothingness and exposing himself and his inventions to the world.

Who's going to “get lucky”?

Self-Made Millions Arise from Self-Made Luck

Mark Cuban, billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team (http://www.blogmaverick.com) told a telling tale of luck in regards to his success. Mark recalls the struggles of his early successes before his big sale to Yahoo for $5.9 billion. In each story, Mark remembers how people attributed his success to luck … lucky to sell his first company, MicroSolutions … lucky to make money trading in the technology boom … and lucky to sell his company to Yahoo for a few billion. Notice how events are quickly reasoned to be luck and process is swept underneath the rug.

Cuban understands the dichotomy that most don't: Process creates events that others see as luck. He goes on to comment how nobody mentioned luck when it came time to reading complicated software texts or Cisco router manuals or sitting in his house testing and experimenting with new technologies. Where was luck then?

“Rich people got lucky” is a Sidewalker's creed and a disempowering belief that strips you of your free will. While luck can create riches by way of lotteries, casinos, and rich parents, it rarely creates long-lasting wealth. To take advantage of The Millionaire Fastlane understand that luck is a product of process, action, work, and being “out there.” And when you are “out there” you stand a chance at being in the right place at the right time.

There are right places and wrong places.

The right place isn't on your sofa watching American Idol or slapping greenbacks into thongs at Betty's Booty Cabaret, or down at the neighborhood bar getting jacked-up on Bud Light while watching the Cubs lose another game. If you want to be at the right place at the right time you indeed have to be at the right place-and the right place knows which places are the wrong places.

If you aren't off the Sidewalk taking action and engaging in process, you will never realize luck. Luck is always perceived to be a matter of event: you win the lottery, you win a sweepstakes, or you find a 200-year-old painting in the attic worth millions. Again, more falsities. Like wealth, luck is not an event but an aftereffect of process. Luck is the residue of process.

Sidewalkers love events but hate process. It's only natural for Sidewalkers to assume wealth is luck, because they believe wealth is an event.

A member of the Fastlane Forum (TheFastlaneForum.com) recently posted that Bill Gates got lucky. I had to disagree. Luck didn't create Windows. Luck didn't create a company. Luck didn't create repetitive, concerted action toward a specified purpose. When you consistently act and bombard the world with your efforts, interacting with the waves of others, stuff happens. And that stuff? Sidewalkers interpret it as luck, when it is nothing more than action engaged with better probabilities.

Luck occurs when probability moves from impossible to likely. For our two brothers in construction, who is going to get lucky? The brother who exposes his inventions to the world bends probability in his favor. His lazy brother does not. Force your process out into the world and you can defy the odds of “being in the right place at the right time.”

When I think of luck, I think about poker players. Mistakenly, their craft is construed as luck, while career poker players will affirm it isn't luck, but systematic analytics and player psychology. The best poker players in the world are superior statisticians and interpreters of human behavior. Does luck play a role? Sure, but the role is minor, while player competency siphons the majority's bankroll. To tell a great poker player “you're lucky” is to hurl an insult. Likewise, to ascribe luck to a self-made millionaire's success is to perform the same insult.

To realize luck, engage in processes where better probabilities exist. Luck is introduced when you play. When life is played to win, luck shows its face. Unfortunately, Sidewalkers assign luck to events of faith-luck not engaged by process. If you want luck, engage in process, because process raises events from the ashes.

Renounce the “Big Hit” as Your Financial Plan

Sidewalkers loathe process, so their financial plan omits standard process (such as saving or budgeting) and relies on events. If you believe that luck is the sole source of wealth, you'll gravitate toward events of luck-a diligent quest to finding “the big hit.”

What's a big hit? Big hits are sudden miracles that create wealth fast. Lotteries, casinos, poker tournaments, heck, even frivolous lawsuits and defrauding the government are considered avenues to “the big hit.” In effect, “big hits” are attempts to bypass the wealth journey and start at the finish line. It's the removal of your yellow brick road and the sharpening lessons that come from it.

Sidewalkers seek “big hits” because their belief systems tell them wealth is an event. Unfortunately, big hits are long shots and violations of true essence. Do you believe in miracles? Sidewalkers do.

Why do reality TV competitions such as American Idol attract so many people when most of the contestants suck? These people are searching for that elusive “big hit.” While the talented make it through (they have talent because they have process), the disqualified bemoan off the set, blaming Simon Cowell, the microphone, or some other insignificant factor for their failures. Singing Someday Over the Rainbow a few times in the shower doesn't make a process.

Getting Swindled: A Sidewalker's Temptation

Order now for just three easy payments of $39.95 and I will teach you how to make millions working just 40 minutes a week while hanging upside down on a trapeze in your basement. Yes folks, it's that easy.

But wait, there's more!

Order today and, as a bonus, you'll receive photos of this buxom woman right here next to me. Doesn't she look great? When you start making money like me, ladies like her will be ringing your doorbell at all hours of the day. Yes, folks, this system is awesome and it won't be here for long. Act now!

The infomercial guru knows exactly what he's doing. He targets Sidewalkers, who are magnetized to events and the big hit. Why advertise at 2 a.m.? That's when Sidewalkers congregate, because they're either unemployed or watching reruns of Seinfeld. Believe me, Fastlane drivers aren't up at 2 a.m. because of some boob tube rerun; they're forging process and muscling toward their destination.

Sidewalkers are ripe for swindling because they seek events and want to avoid process. When this becomes ingrained into your mindset, infomercial pitches suddenly become the evening's entertainment.

Disembarking the Sidewalk: The Three Anchors

Use logic.

Think for a moment.

If you came across a magic “system” that easily made millions in a few short months, what's the first thing you'd do? Of course you know, and I know! You'd hire a direct marketing firm, package your secret into five CDs and one quick-start video and sell it on the Home and Garden Channel at 3 a.m. on Tuesday night. Yes, that's the first thing I'd do if I had the billion-dollar secret! Screw traveling the world, forget charity, and dump the idea of making more millions. Nope! Let's package this baby and tell the world for three easy payments of $39.95!

Do people believe the pitch or do they desperately seek the easy event? The art of selling moneymaking “systems” on TV infomercials is a strong Fastlane. Unfortunately, the systems being sold aren't Fastlane or as profitable as the act of selling the system itself. How do gurus get away with this madness? Easy. A Sidewalker's mindset is anchored in three beliefs that keep them trapped there and vulnerable to moneymaking scams:

Belief 1: Luck is needed for wealth.
Belief 2: Wealth is an event.
Belief 3: Others can give wealth to me.

Here is where these beliefs fail. First, wealth is not about luck but about process improving probabilities. Second, events of wealth, like lotteries and casinos, are long shots and not process. And finally, only you can deliver yourself to true wealth. There is no chauffeur and there is no moneymaking program sold on TV that will escort you. These deceptions keep Sidewalkers anchored in good company with the majority, awake at 2 a.m. on the couch thinking they're one phone call away from making millions because TV's wealth chauffeur says so.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

• Like wealth, luck is created by process, not by event.
• Luck is created by increased probabilities that are improved with the process of action.
• If you find yourself playing the odds of “big hits,” you are event-driven, not process-driven. This mindset is conducive to the Sidewalk, not the Fastlane.
• “Get Rich Quick” infomercial marketing is a Fastlane because savvy marketers know that Sidewalkers place faith in events over process.
• Moneymaking “systems” are rarely as profitable as the act of selling them to Sidewalkers.