The Millionaire Fastlane (27 page)

If you want extraordinary results, you're going to need extraordinary thinking. Unfortunately, “extraordinary” is not found trapped in society's gravity of thinking and the beliefs that fuel them.

Steering Tips: Better Choices and a Better Life

As your journey progresses, respect yourself and ask, is this a good choice of perception? A good choice of action? Is this going to be treasonous to my dreams and cloud my windshield to a better life? Have I chosen to be a victim or a victor? Have I chosen to surrender or accept the challenge? Changing your life starts with changing choices. The Fastlane vehicle to wealth is driven on choice, not asphalt. You start making better choices using two strategies dependent on the decision's gravity.

1. Worse Case Consequence Analysis (WCCA)
   
2. Weighted Average Decision Matrix (WADM)
   

WCCA is designed to steer you away from perilous detours and treasonous choices. Conversely, WADM is designed to help you make better big decisions with multiple contingencies. This dual-pronged attack works on the choice extremes: a prevention of disastrous choices and a facilitator of good choices.

Worse Case Consequence Analysis (WCCA )

The first decision tool is Worst Case Consequence Analysis (WCCA), which requires you to become forward-thinking and an analyzer of potential consequences. WCCA asks you to answer three questions about every decision of consequence:

1. What is the worst-case consequence of this choice?
   
2. What is the probability of this outcome?
   
3. Is this an acceptable risk?
   

While these three questions might seem lengthy, your analysis process shouldn't take longer than a few seconds. You don't need a pen or paper, just your head and a conscious choice of perception. When choices are analyzed using WCCA, potential disasters are exposed and alternatives can be chosen. Unnecessary roads of treason can be bypassed.

I use WCCA extensively. For example, several years ago, after several drinks at a local bar, I went home with a woman who was making the moves and wanted to get busy. She pulled the old Harlequin whisper, “Make love to me.” Of course, having known her for all of two hours, I knew this wasn't love but something else. Behind my drunken passion, I ran through my WCCA analysis.

What is the worse case outcome of this choice?

1. I could get a sexually transmitted disease.
   
2. I could get her pregnant and be locked to this person for the rest of my life.
   
3. I could be falsely accused of rape.
   

What is the probability of these outcomes?

1. STD: 10% (based on her outward promiscuity!).
   
2. Pregnancy: 1%.
   
3. Falsely accused: 0.5%.
   

Is this an acceptable risk? I immediately reasoned HELL NO. The 10% or the 1%-I reasoned the risk was too great and that risk had outcomes that could change my life FOREVER. I denied the woman's advances and hid my lust in favor of a better choice.

What if I hadn't?

Sure, I would have enjoyed a quick romp of fun, but what about afterward? Would I be put in a position of an unplanned pregnancy with a woman I didn't know? Would I be condemned with a disease that would jeopardize my health and limit my search for a future partner? The potential consequences of this action had profound treasonous trajectories that I avoided.

WCCA comes into play when I drive. Viper, Lamborghini, doesn't matter-other idiot drivers looking for a street race constantly berate me. Sure, I might hit the accelerator hard for three seconds, but in those three seconds, WCCA takes over.

What's the worst that could happen?

I could kill myself and someone else. Odds? 1%? 3%? Knowing my racing competency, the risks are dangerously high. I release the accelerator and don't engage. The other driver? He speeds away with something to prove and in disregard to the potential outcomes. That's OK, maybe there's a reason he's driving a ten-year-old fart-can Honda and I'm in the Lamborghini. Win the street race-I'll win life.

The Weighted Average Decision Matrix (WADM)

Ever wrestle with a tough decision? One day you favor option A and the next day you flounder back to option B. Wouldn't it be great if making a tough decision were a simple as picking the higher number?

The second decision tool I use compares and quantifies big decisions. You know them: Should you move or stay? Quit or continue? Go back to college or not? For WADM, you need paper and a pencil. Or alternatively, you can visit
HelpMyDecision.com
and let the web work the calculation for you. Keep in mind, WADM is for big decisions, so you might use this a few times a year whereas WCCA can be used daily.

With WADM, decision-making is easy as it isolates and prioritizes factors relevant to your decisions and then quantifies each decision with a value. The higher value reflects the better decision. For example, if you had a choice between moving to Detroit or Phoenix, WADM would yield a simple numerical valuation like Detroit 88 and Phoenix 93. Based on the number, Phoenix is the better choice. While WADM is subjective and requires your unfettered objectivity, it is a great tool for identifying which choice is more favorable to your preferences.

To use WADM, a minimum of two choices is needed, but it could be used for more. Let's say you do indeed live in Detroit and are considering moving to Phoenix. You struggle with the decision and can't get clarity. One day you want to move, the next you want to stay. Usually, this waffling occurs when there are too many decision factors within each choice.

Get a pencil and paper. Make three columns on your paper, one headed “Factors” and the other two for each choice, “Detroit” and “Phoenix.” Second, what decision factors are important in your decision? Weather? Schools? Cost of living? Being near family? Write down all factors relevant to the decision, no matter how small. Write these factors in the “Factor” column. Your WADM would now look like this:

Thirdly, next to each decision factor, weigh its importance to the decision from 1 through 10, with 10 being the most important. For example, you are seasonally depressed, so weather is assigned a 10 in your matrix. Subsequently, your children are almost 18 so you decide that a good school system isn't a top priority and it receives a 3. Do this for all factors. Now your WADM looks like this:

After each criterion is ranked 1 through 10, grade each choice 1 through 10 for each decision factor. The school system in Detroit? You give it a 4. In Phoenix, you give the school system a 5, as you determine it is slightly better. You assign entertainment in Detroit an 8 as they are home to your mighty Red Wings, while Phoenix gets a 6. Continue for each decision factor within each choice. Your WADM should now look something like this:

Next, for each row, multiply the weight times the grade and put that number next to the grade in parentheses. For example, in the entertainment row, Detroit receives a 40 (8 weight X 5 grade), while Phoenix receives a 16 (8 weight X 2 grade). Do this for all rows. Your WADM should now look like this:

The final step is simply to add up the graded weight columns to get a final number for each choice. The highest number will be the choice you favor. Your final WADM would look like this:

In this hypothetical example, you should stay in Detroit because it received the highest score, 232 over 228.

The WADM is a great tool for making big decisions as long as you are perfectly honest with the factor weighting. I've used WADM many times in my life to bring clarity to tough decisions. It proved I needed to move to Phoenix, it offered insight into why it was time to sell my business, and it even steered me clear of some bad business investments.

In 2005, I had an opportunity to invest in a Las Vegas restaurant. After I conducted my diligence on the opportunity and the founders, it was time to make a decision. I couldn't decide. I solved my decision paralysis with a WADM analysis that indicated I should turn the investment down. I did. A little over a year later, I discovered this investment turned south and that the investors lost most of their money. The WADM gave clarity to decision ambiguity and saved me from losing $125,000.

If you examine a map of the country, you'll find millions of roadways: freeways, streets, avenues, boulevards, all leading somewhere different. Your choices unearth those roads, and they are either impressive shortcuts or perilous detours. These two decision tools are navigational tools for your wealth journey.

Get Your Eyes off the Rearview Mirror

Today is the starting line for the rest of your life. Yes, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. The problem with the past is that we remember memories we shouldn't, and we don't forget what we should. If your eyes are stuck in the rearview mirror, you're stuck in the past. If you're stuck in the past, you're not looking ahead. If you're not looking ahead, you can't hit the mark of your future.

The universe doesn't care about your past. It is blind to it. The universe doesn't care that I wore pink pants in high school. (Hey, remember Miami Vice?) The universe doesn't care that I got in a fight with Francis Franken and lost. The universe doesn't care about your MBA from UCLA, your drug-dealing father, or that you wet your bed in junior high. The universe simply doesn't care. One person and one person only weaponizes past transgressions: you.