book review: 'The Millionaire Fastlane'

The past few months have been a time of transition and reflection in my life, especially in the career department. I don't want to go into detail on that quite yet (I promise I will in the future), but it did lead me to buy this book by MJ DeMarco for my first read of 2016. I read Millionaire Fastlane with the expectation that it would give me a lot of insider tips on starting a business and firsthand stories from a successful entrepreneur. To some extent, it did succeed in those aspects. But overall, I probably would not recommend this book.

Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of great points in this book, and it really did make me think. There was at least one section that I had to share with Adam, and we had a really insightful conversation about the author's points. DeMarco shares his wisdom and talks in detail about how he became a millionaire and retired to live the life he wants long before reaching age 50.

The problem with this book — and DeMarco fully admits this several times — is that he is not a writer. And it's clear. Millionaire Fastlane is 336 pages, but it should really be about 200 if you cut out all the material that DeMarco repeats. He takes a smart message and pounds it into your head two, three sometimes five times until you just get tired of reading the same rewritten sentence. It took me more than a month to read this book for that very reason. I hate repetition, and this book is full of it.

That being said, DeMarco is (obviously) a smart guy. He started his own website and company, going from a 26-year-old living on his mom's couch and bouncing from part-time job to part-time job to creating the leading website in his industry (limos) and selling it for A LOT of money. And that's just his first endeavor. His story is an interesting one, and he clearly knows his stuff about both money and business. But I think there are probably dozens of other books with the same messages that can get the point across faster and more effectively. I'd suggest you look for one of those instead.

P.S. My reviews of Luckiest Girl Alive, Leave Your Mark and Saint Anything