Chapter 9: Wealth Demands Accountability - The Millionaire Fastlane

CHAPTER 9: WEALTH DEMANDS ACCOUNTABILITY

Responsibility is the price of greatness.
~ Winston Churchill

Hitchhikers Don't Drive!

One anchor to the Sidewalk is to entrust your financial plan to others, to believe that there is a chauffeur to wealth and that someone else can drive that journey for you. This mindset makes you vulnerable to victimhood.

Imagine if you hitchhiked across the country. There's a decent chance you'd never make it to your destination. You could climb into a psycho's car that decides to take you on an unintended detour. You could encounter a murderer who slashes your throat and dumps you in a roadside ditch. Hitchhiking is inefficient and dangerous!

Yet, the Sidewalker's manifesto is predicated on hitchhiking: faith unto others, and when things don't work out as intended, blame unto others. After faith in luck and events, blame is the third anchor to the Sidewalk.

Back in the late 80s, when I was a teenager, my mother chummed with friends at a local restaurant. Within that friendship circle several of them put their life savings into an investment innocuously named “The Fund.” These folks-some respected businessmen-raved about this investment, claiming impressive monthly returns. These friends encouraged my mother, as a struggling single mom, to invest. Mom was no dumb cookie. She asked questions and didn't like the answers. Something didn't “feel” right. Logic tickled her inner brain. Ultimately, she passed on the investment and it remained outside her world.

Years later “The Fund” made headline news. An investment company had bilked millions of dollars from investors. The investment company was exposed to be a Ponzi scheme, and several swindled investors committed suicide, including the perpetrator. This investment company was none other than that great investment mother declined years earlier-“The Fund.”

The Law of Victims

The Law of Victims says you can't be a victim if you don't relinquish power to someone capable of making you a victim. When you bequeath control to others, you essentially become a hitchhiker with no seat belt. You take the passenger seat in a stranger's car, which could be murderous to your financial plan. And when that happens, you're vulnerable to joining the ranks of victims.

The road to victimhood is through denial: First responsibility, then accountability.

People who don't take responsibility are victims. Some of them are born victims and, instead of trying to improve their hand, they fold and give up. For them, everyone has the solution to their problems but them. And their problems? Not their fault. Nope, someone else is to blame. Instead of looking within, they look outward and project responsibility to some other entity. Victims are Sidewalkers who refuse to take the driver's seat of their own lives and live under a dark cloud of “theys” reflective of a “me against them” attitude.

“They laid me off.”
“They changed the terms.”
“They cheated me.”
“They didn't tell me.”
“They raised my rent.”
“They raised my interest rate.”

Invariably, all these “theys” are self-imposed. If the landlord raised your rent, is it his fault you decided to live there and you didn't read the lease agreement? If the company laid you off, is it their fault you chose to work there? Was it my fault that I was a broke 25-year-old stuck in a blizzard in a limo on the side of the road? It was.

There was a recent labor union rally against Wal-Mart from employees disgruntled with the retailer's poor wages. A 33-year-old employee named Eugene complained about his employer arguing that he spent three years unloading trucks for $11.15 an hour, which was below the retail industry average of $12.95 an hour. His grievance? He can't afford a car or Wal-Mart's health insurance.

Wow, how disturbing. Was someone arrested? Seriously, someone should arrest the man who put the loaded gun to Eugene's head forcing him to work at Wal-Mart for a below-market wage! Give this guy a bitch-slap. No one forced him to work at Wal-Mart; he works there because he chose to work there. Hey, Eugene, if you're tired of making $11 an hour, raise your value to society. Get your ass over to the library. Wal-Mart can't offer low wages if they don't have an endless supply of victims like you.

You see, when a financial adviser promises you 14% guaranteed income from a bank certificate of deposit and you later discover that he scammed you, it's your fault. You didn't do the diligence. You didn't investigate. You ignored the tickle of logic in your brain. You are a victim of your own malfeasance.

The Politics of Hitchhiking

Sidewalking hitchhikers are a major constituency in all countries. These people seek the easy life yet want someone else to pay for it. They're lifetime hitchhikers. They believe the government (or some other entity) should do more for them. They are victims of the system. They are victims of life because life dealt them a bad hand. They vote for whatever politician promises them the world at no cost. Free healthcare. Free education. Free gas. Free mortgages. Wow, give me a ballot!

John F. Kennedy's “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” has maligned into “What can my country do for me?” While I can't comment on the societal deterioration outside of the United States, within the last 20 years Sidewalking has become a way of life in America. Americans once loyally proclaimed, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Now we just say, “Give me.”

As I write, the economy is in a tailspin. The housing market crashed, lending dried up, and millions have lost their savings. How did we get here? It isn't complicated: We relied on “others” to make financial decisions for us. We ignored the fine print. We didn't read the contract. We didn't read the legislation. We made government an insurance policy. As a society, history is doomed to repeat if we continue to repeat the same behavior.

I'm a minor participant in the recession. Sure, my home declined in value but that's OK because I don't use my home as a wealth tool! Yet the gurus say “your home is your greatest investment!” Baloney! When the markets crashed, I didn't lose a lot of money because the markets weren't my wealth acceleration vehicle! The Fastlane is about control, and if you live like a Sidewalking hitchhiker, you have no control.

On a public forum in August 2005, I predicted the forthcoming housing bust and outlined my theory with seven reasons I thought so. As it turns out, I was correct, and that truth crystallized because I chose to make financial decisions for myself. I didn't rely on the pontificators at CNBC who rapaciously declared that housing was safe. I didn't rely on the mainstream media. I didn't rely on others. I relied on me. I was driving, not hitchhiking. And the beauty of driving is something that escapes most people: responsibility.

Wealth Demands Responsibility, Followed by Accountability

Responsibility is the forefather to accountability, but one doesn't evidence the other. When you admit responsibility to over drafting your checking account yet do it again next week, you're not accountable. When you admit responsibility to fathering a child out of wedlock, yet continue to engage in that behavior, you're not accountable. When you take responsibility for having your purse stolen but flaunt it on the table in open view, you're not accountable.

Accountability is being culpable to your consequences and modifying your behavior if need be to prevent those consequences. You can be responsible while not being accountable. A Fastlane Forum user does a great job distinguishing between responsibility and accountability:

What kills me is when people make the same piss-poor choice multiple times but then claim to be responsible. It's easy to be “responsible” when responsible means just walking away. I've seen single parents who pledge to be “responsible” for the wild oats they've sown, only to occasionally send a check in the mail. I've seen people walk away from homes, claiming to be “responsible ”for their actions, only to buy another home they can't afford. I've seen people being “responsible” for the actions their drinking and driving caused only to do it again!

I am sick and tired of people being “responsible!” I want people to be accountable. People need to think before they act. Own their choices before they make them. I am okay with people making mistakes-but freaking own that you made a mistake and learn from it. That's what true accountability and responsibility is all about.

A friend of mine recently had her identity stolen. As we dined at a restaurant she bellyached about the nightmarish ordeal. Determined to find the cause of her problem, I stopped her contempt midstream and asked a few questions. I wondered, was she a victim, or not being accountable?

I asked, “How did your identity get stolen?”

“My purse was stolen in Mexico.”

“How did that happen?” I probed.

“I was at a restaurant and someone swiped it”

“Oh? Was your purse laid out, wide-open on the table, like it is now?”

She glanced at her purse and got my point. As we dined, her purse sat on the tabletop in open view of everyone. Any thief could easily snatch her purse and run. She looked at me, scoffed, and then grabbed her purse and secured it to her lap.

A victim? Or not holding herself accountable? Her problem was caused by a bad choice-the choice to not safeguard her purse. And even after this costly lesson, she still didn't understand the power of being accountable. If she were accountable to the error, her purse wouldn't lie exposed on the table as a beacon of opportunity to thieves, but safe in her lap.

Immunize Yourself from Victimization

Stop being a victim by taking responsibility, followed by accountability. In 2006, I bought my dream home in Phoenix, Arizona, overlooking a gorgeous mountain range. The home had one of the best views in Phoenix but needed a substantial remodel. A new friend recommended a general contractor and I hired the contractor without investigation, no diligence, no reference check, no license investigation, nothing.

Duh.

What should have taken eight months rotted into a three-year ordeal, a nightmare that framed the worst decision of my life. The contractor was grossly incompetent and an idiot. Yet, I was to blame. I accepted both responsibility and accountability because I hired the contractor. To plunder a line from Star Wars, slightly modified, “Who's the idiot, the idiot himself or the idiot that hires the idiot?”

But I wasn't a victim because I first was responsible: It was my fault. I allowed it to happen. Then, second, I became accountable: Now when I hire house workers, I do an investigation. Or, I could sink my teeth into being a victim and play the pity violin like everyone else.

For my friend with the stolen purse, the Fastlane mindset is to take responsibility followed by accountability. Responsibility: It was my fault that my purse was stolen. Accountability: In the future, I will take precautions to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Immunization for victimitis occurs when you are both responsible for AND accountable to your actions and the possible poor consequences of those actions. Own your mistakes, failures, and triumphs. Reflect on your choices. Are you in a situation because you delivered yourself there? Did you error in the process? Were you lazy? Most bad situations are consequences of bad choices. Own them and you own your life. No one can steer you off course, because you are in the driver's seat.

And when you own your decisions, something miraculous happens. Failure doesn't become the badge of victimhood-it becomes wisdom. Deny accountability and responsibility and the keys of your life are given to someone else. In other words, take the damn driver's seat to your life!

You Deserve! You Deserve! You Deserve!

The other day I heard successive radio commercials that were utterly disturbing. You don't need to be a nuclear physicist to know their target … Sidewalking victims.

The first commercial was for a mortgage loan modification company. The sales pitch went like this: “Modify your loan and get the lower payments you deserve.” The next commercial was from an attorney. “Been in an accident? Get the money you deserve.” The final commercial was from a credit repair company. “Let us negotiate your debts down to nothing so you can live the life you deserve!”

Notice the common phrase?

You deserve.

Seriously, what do these people really deserve?

Your credit sucks, you don't pay your bills on time, and you deserve a better life? Grandma rear-ends your car and suddenly you deserve a large cash award from some rich insurance company? You buy a house you can't afford and now you deserve a lower rate? How does “deserving” suddenly come so easy with no particular effort, like an event raining from the heavens? We're being methodically brainwashed to believe that we deserve everything without obedience to process, or accountability.

You deserve what your actions earned, or haven't earned. Being responsible is one thing; being accountable is another. When you're accountable to your choices, you alter your behavior in the future and take the driver's seat of your life.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions

• Hitchhikers assign control over their financial plans to others effectively introducing probabilities to victimhood.
• The Law of Victims: You can't be a victim if you don't relinquish power to someone capable of making you a victim.
• Responsibility owns your choices.
• Taking responsibility is the first step to taking the driver's seat of your life. Accountability is the final.