MJ DeMarco quotes

“A bad hand is being born in a third-world country without education, sanitation, or clean water. A bad hand is being born with a debilitating disease like cystic fibrosis or cerebral palsy. The sad fact is most people think they’ve been dealt a bad hand when they’ve been given one of the best hands in the world. If you popped out of Mom in America or another industrialized republic, congratulations; you have pocket kings.”

“A business attached to your time is a job.”

“A business does not make a Fastlane – some businesses are jobs in disguise.”

“A committed Fastlaner has his nose in a book weekly.”

“A job seals your fate into a criminal time trade: five days of life traded for two days of freedom. A job chains you to a set grade of experience. A job takes away your control. A job forces you to work with people you can’t stand. A job forces you to get paid last. A job imposes a dictatorship on your income. These limitations are counter-insurgencies to wealth.”

“A preoccupation to become “highly educated” could be a Trojan horse to your freedom.”

“A successful business isn’t fun and games, especially one that violates the Commandment of Time.”

“Accept reality: There are no shortcuts. Real change requires a real process.”

“All events of wealth are precluded by process, a backstory of trial, risk, hard work, and sacrifice. If you try to skip process, you’ll never experience events.”

“All self-made multimillionaires create their wealth by a carefully orchestrated process.”

“Almost all penta-millionaires made their fortunes in a big lump sum after a period of years.”

“An extraordinary life is won on offense; it is then preserved through defense.”

“Anything worthwhile in life will require a worthwhile effort.”

“Before impacting millions, you must impact hundreds.”

“Before you can do what you love, you have to do what you hate.”

“Behind the tangled roots of poorness, you will find a poor valuation of free time, which breeds from bad choices.”

“Beliefs are powerful mechanisms that drive action, whether true or not.”

“Business plans are useless until they are married to execution.”

“Businesses survive. Brands thrive.”

“Businesses that solve needs win. Businesses that provide value win.”

“Change creates millionaires. Those who observe and take advantage of change will be the new millionaires and billionaires.”

“Choice is the most powerful control you have in your life.”

“Comparison is future-oriented and focused on what is missing, creating anxiety. Gratitude is present-oriented and focused on what you have, creating peace.”

“Competition is everywhere. Just do it and do it better.”

“Compound interest pays my bills. It’s my passive income source. Yet, compound interest is not responsible for my wealth.”

“Consensus fallacy—the idea that if many people believe something, some position, or some ideology, it must be true.”

“Consumerism is the leading obstacle to happiness.”

“Debt = production - consumption”

“Debt is the leading cause of strife for the newly married.”

“Debt that traps you to a job is not good debt.”

“Determination is not a solitary choice but thousands of them. You cannot decide to be determined, it must occur repeatedly, concertedly, and with commitment.”

“Divert your focus and you’ll get killed by the entrepreneur who isn’t diverted.”

“Each dollar saved is another freedom fighter added to your slave army. Your army also procreates more soldiers. Altogether, your saved soldiers are fighting for your freedom. On the other hand, every dollar spent on the latest fad is one fighter killed.”

“Everyone always shows up at the end of a boom.”

“Everyone wants change, but no one wants to change themselves.”

“Everyone wants the perfect wife but few want to work towards becoming the perfect husband.”

“Everyone’s freedom is different.”

“Expect a price to be paid. Expect risk and sacrifice. Expect bumps in the road. When you hit the first pothole (and yes, it will happen) know that you are forging the process of your unfolding story.”

“Experience comes from what you do in life, not from what you do in a job. You don’t need a job to get experience.”

“Extraordinary results demand extraordinary efforts.”

“Extraordinary wealth will require you to have extraordinary beliefs.”

“Face it. What you know today is not enough to get you where you need to be tomorrow. You must constantly reinvent yourself, and reinvention is education.”

“Failure is the sweat of success.”

“Fast wealth is created exponentially, not linearly.”

“Feed the crowd and you shall never starve.”

“Focus on one business and one business only.”

“For me, every day is a Saturday because I haven’t sold off Monday through Friday.”

“For me, every day is a Saturday because I haven’t sold off Monday through Friday.”

“Freedom is a component to wealth and happiness. Those who live freer will be happier. Those who have stronger bonds with their communities and families will be happier. Those with health will be happier.”

“Friday evening is glorified because people celebrate the dividends of their trade: five days of work-bondage exchanged for two days of unadulterated freedom. Saturday and Sunday is the paycheck for Monday through Friday, and Friday evening symbolizes the emergence of that payment, freedom for two days.”

“Get your time detached from your business.”

“Great value precedes great wealth.”

“Happiness stems from good health, freedom, and strong interpersonal relationships, not necessarily money.”

“Hard work and commitment separates the winners from the losers.”

“Hard work/Process creates events others see as luck.”

“Has life regressed into paying bills and living for a weekend?”

“Help one million people and you will be a millionaire.”

“Hoodwinking expenses does not create wealth. Exploding income and controlling expenses creates wealth.”

“I awoke to the epiphany that I was the driver of my life and my problems were the consequences of my choices.”

“I cannot imagine running a company in which another entity has the power to instantaneously kill your revenue stream.”

“I consider content-based revenue models the most difficult for success because entry barriers have significantly declined and its success is predicated on high traffic.”

“I made many changes, but I didn’t give up on the dream.”

“I spent five years in college just to sit in a 6 X 6 cubicle and cold-call elderly people out of a damn telephone book? Are you freaking kidding me? I could have done this out of middle school, and I didn’t need to spend thousands on a college.”

“I’d rather live in regret of failure than in regret of never trying.”

“If it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth it.”

“If millions seek you, you will be paid millions.”

“If more money were spent on pleasing existing clients rather than trying to find new ones, the average business would survive longer than five years.”

“If the cookies don’t get into the grocery cart, they don’t get home. And if they don’t get home, they don’t get in my mouth. And if they don’t get in my mouth, they don’t transform into belly fat.”

“If the devil funded a study reporting that 91 percent of hell’s inhabitants were happy, would you believe it?”

“If the road trip to wealth were easy, wouldn’t everyone be wealthy? Expect a price to be paid. Expect risk and sacrifice. Expect bumps in the road.”

“If you accept conventional wisdom from conventional people living conventional lives, can you expect to be anything but conventional?”

“If you aren’t where you want to be, the problem is your choices. Your circumstances are the symptoms of those choices.”

“If you can’t immunize yourself from the temptations of instant gratification, you’ll be hard-pressed to find success in either health or wealth. Both demand a lifestyle shift from short-term thinking (instant gratification) to long-term thinking (delayed gratification). This is the only defense to lifestyle servitude.”

“If you don’t control your income, you don’t control your financial plan. If you don’t control your financial plan, you don’t control your freedom.”

“If you don’t identify where you want to go, the road to get there stays hidden.”

“If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know if you get there? If your destination is undefined, undoubtedly you’ll never arrive and you’ll likely end in a place you don’t want to be. Wealth is found with a roadmap, not a dartboard.”

“If you get someone’s attention, half the battle is won.”

“If you have a passive income that exceeds all your needs and lifestyle expenses including taxes, you’re retired.”

“If you have to think about “affordability,” you can’t afford it because affordability carries conditions and consequences.”

“If you reflect on your choices, you make them in an instant, yet their consequences transcend a lifetime, especially ones made early in life.”

“If you retrace poverty’s footprints you will find that poorness starts at the exact same place. choice.”

“If you struggle to live on $50,000 a year, you’ll probably struggle to live on $500,000.”

“If you want extraordinary results, you’re going to need extraordinary thinking.”

“If you want to change your life, change your choices.”

“If you want to live well, produce well. The more production value you thrust into society, the bigger your house, the faster your car, and the juicier your steak. In other words, stop looking to take and start looking to give.”

“If you want to make millions, impact millions.”

“If your past defines your existence, it will be impossible for you to become the person you need to become in the future.”

“In school, failure is a bad thing. Marked by a bloody F and a parental beatdown, failure is admonished. Fail and you’re grounded! No TV, no iPad! Is it any shock that straight-A students make great employees while the C-students are the guys hiring them? The A-students do as they’re told, follow rules unquestioningly and stay within the lines. Meanwhile, C-student and future billionaire Johnny is a ninth grader’s newest BFF—he’s underneath the bleachers selling his older brother’s Playboys at twenty-five dollars a pop.”

“In the world of wealth, ideas are worthless yet treated like gold.”

“Instant gratification is a populous plague and its predominant side effects are easily spotted: debt and obesity. Wealth, like health, isn’t easy and is cut from the same fabric. Their processes are identical.”

“Instead of digging for gold, sell shovels. Instead of taking a class, offer a class. Instead of borrowing money, lend it. Instead of taking a job, hire for jobs. Instead of taking a mortgage, hold a mortgage. Break free from consumption, switch sides, and reorient to the world as producer.”

“Interest is quitting after the third failure; commitment is continuing after the hundredth.”

“Ironically, in my attempt to look wealthy, real wealth slid further away.”

“Jobs suck because they’re rooted in limited leverage and limited control.”

“Just because you flipped burgers three hours ago doesn’t mean you can’t be a millionaire next year.”

“Know what you can and can’t afford. There is nothing wrong with buying boats and Lamborghinis if you can truly afford them.”

“Leads are only as good as the person following them.”

“Life does not begin on Friday night and end Monday morning.”

“Majority thinking yields mediocrity, and for that majority, time is an asset that is undervalued and mindlessly squandered.”

“Making money is hard. Keeping it is harder.”

“Many money gurus often suffer from a Paradox of Practice; they teach one wealth equation while getting rich in another. They’re not rich from their own teachings.”

“Many people want to change their life, but they are not willing to change their choices, and ultimately this changes nothing.”

“MODEL: Mediocre, Obedient, Dependent, Entertained, and Lifeless.”

“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.”

“Money is proof you helped your fellow man.”

“Money trees, businesses, and systems aren’t built overnight.”

“Money, properly used, can buy freedom, which can lead to happiness.”

“Most business owners pay more attention to their competition than to their business.”

“Most consumers buying decisions are driven by emotions.”

“Most people are consumers who are two paychecks from broke. Most people won’t invest long hours into their business system while friends are living it up on credit.”

“Most people have a lack of confidence in themselves and their ability and are willing to settle for so much less.”

“Most people make their life’s management decisions not as the CEO, but as a preschooler awaiting instructions on when to get their midday nap.”

“My doctor’s preferred method of attack was prescription drugs. I refused because I wanted to fix problems, not mask symptoms.”

“Negative influences or destructive people, no matter what their label (family, fraternity brother, coworker) shouldn't carry exemptions to excommunication.”

“Never start a business just to make money.”

“Ninety percent of all new businesses fail because they are based on selfish internal needs, not external market needs.”

“Once I focused on what attracts money, and not the money itself, the money flowed.”

“Once your time is gone, you’re dead. And when your clock ceases to tick, no amount of cash will save you from the end.”

“Opportunity drives through your neighborhood frequently, and when it does, you have to grab that bitch.”

“Opportunity drives through your neighborhood frequently, and when it does, you have to grab that bitch. Evaluate the risk and take action. Unfortunately, opportunity doesn’t care about your timing. Opportunity doesn’t care about your circumstances, your broken-down car, or your life’s turmoil. It comes and goes of its own will, has a mind of its own, and it’s blind to predicaments. Opportunity comes dressed as changes and challenges. Remember, change makes millionaires.”

“Our choices have consequences that transcend decades.”

“Owning a business doesn’t guarantee wealth or detachment from time.”

“Partnerships are marriages. After the love affair and the lust wears off, they must survive on character, synergy, and complementary attributes.”

“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?”

“People drown in the misery of their own choices while neglecting to acknowledge they are the cause.”

“People want what they want. People don’t care about you, your business, your product or your dreams; they want to help themselves and their family.”

“People who don’t take responsibility are victims.”

“Pledge to never stop learning.”

“Producers get rich. Consumers get poor.”

“Recluses won’t find purpose living out their days in a sacred bubble. Partake in commerce, start working out, volunteer, go on a mission. Do freaking something.”

“Reshape life’s focus on producing, not consuming.”

“Savers aren’t losers. Savers are winners because they eventually become lenders. Savers are winners because they become owners in companies. Savers are winners because they become producers and build assets.”

“Scale creates millionaires. Magnitude creates millionaires. Scale and magnitude creates billionaires.”

“Self-made millionaires don’t become millionaires by stumbling into money, just as financial failures don’t become failures by stumbling into poorness. Both are the direct result of the financial roadmap chosen and the actions and beliefs that evolve from that roadmap.”

“Short-term feel-good is often long-term bad.”

“Society says wealth is “stuff,” and because of this faulty definition, the bridge between wealth and happiness collapses.”

“Solve other’s problems and you will solve your own money problems!”

“Someday is dangerous and paralyzing. It traps you in land of Nowheresville. Someday is here, now, pristine and clean and begging no allegiance for tomorrow.”

“Sorry, hope isn’t a plan!”

“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.”

“Success is simpler than you think: ax the shortcut, honor the process-principle, and do the necessary work.”

“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.”

“The best investment you can make is in yourself.”

“The elevator to success is out of order. You will need to climb the stairs.”

“The fabric of your life is sewn by the cumulative consequences of your choices – millions of them that set you into motion. You act, react, believe, disbelieve, perceive, misperceive, and all of it engineers your existence. If you’re dissatisfied with life, your choices take full responsibility. Blame yourself and the choices you’ve made. Yes, you are as you have chosen.”

“The fiduciary principle:
A resolution that as unscripted entrepreneurs we will serve selflessly to serve the selfish.”

“The happiest people in the world have a tight sense of community and strong family bonds.”

“The irony of looking wealthy is that it is an enemy to real wealth: It destroys freedom, it destroys health, and it destroys relationships.”

“The key to achieving enormous tasks is to break them down into their smallest parts.”

“The leading cause of indentured time is parasitic debt.”

“The more I help, the richer I become in time, money, and personal fulfillment.”

“The owner of an idea is not he who imagines it, but he who executes it.”

“The owner of an idea is not he who imagines it, but he who executes it.”

“The problem with accepted norms of retirement is what you do not see. You don’t see youth, you don’t see fun, and you don’t see the realization of dreams.”

“The problem with looking wealthy versus being wealthy is that the former is easy while the latter is not.”

“The reality is that time is deathly scarce, while money is richly abundant.”

“The richest people in the world got rich by focusing on one core purpose.”

“The sweat of success is failure… if you’re not willing to get wet, you’re not willing to succeed!”

“The ultimate definition of insanity is to prostitute your Monday through Friday for the paycheck of Saturday and Sunday.”

“The ultimate judge-and-jury of ideas is the world and the marketplaces that serve them.”

“The ultimate wealth is having the free time to live how you want to live.”

“The world’s most renowned entrepreneurs became renowned because of monogamy: They commit to one business, and one business only.”

“There is neither safety nor security in a job.”

“There’s a profound difference between interest and commitment. Interest reads a book; commitment applies the book 50 times.”

“Think about the last time you bought a pack of gum. Did you fret over the price? Probably not. But if you buy a boat and resort to mental gymnastics over affordability, you can't afford it! Affordability is when you don’t have to think about it.”

“Thinking never made anyone rich, unless that thinking manifests itself into consistent action toward application of laws that work.”

“Thou shalt not invest in a needless business. Thou shalt not trade time for money. Thou shalt not operate on a limited scale. Thou shalt not relinquish control. Thou shalt not let a business startup be an event over process.”

“Time is the greatest asset you own, not money, not the 1969 restored Mustang, not grandpa’s old coin collection. Time.”

“Time is your primordial fuel and it should not be traded for money.”

“To assume that you will live a long, healthy life is arrogant. To assume that life won’t throw you any curves is naive.”

“To cease learning at graduation is wealth suicide.”

“To consume richly, produce richly first. Unfortunately, most people have it backward: consumption and no production. Producers get rich. Consumers get poor. Switch teams and reorient as a producer first, a consumer second. Make wealth attracted to you!”

“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 trade your time away is to trade your wealth away.”

“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.”

“Used properly, money buys freedom, and freedom is one parcel in the wealth trinity: family, fitness, and freedom.”

“Value your time poorly and you will be poor.”

“Want to know why everyone is so miserable? The answer is simple: They’ve given up.”

“Wealth creation for a Fastlane entrepreneur operates under an exponential scale –those who hold jobs operate under a linear scale.”

“Wealth eludes most people because they are preoccupied with events while disregarding process. Without process, there is no event.”

“Wealth is not authored by material possessions, money, or stuff, but by what I call the three fundamental “F’s”:

1. Family (relationships)
2. Fitness (health)
3. Freedom (choice)”

“What daily routine will get you to your goal?”

“What if I told you ‘insane’ was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years at the end of which they tell you to piss off; ending up in some retirement village hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time?”

“Whatever you decide today impacts tomorrow, weeks, months, years, decades, and yes, generations.”

“When life sucks, escapes are sought. I don’t need television because I invested my time into a real life worth living, not a fictitious escape that airs every Tuesday night at 8 p.m.”

“When you blindly invest your life and time into someone else’s brand, you become part of their marketing plan.”

“When you have a job, someone owns you.”

“When you own your decisions, something miraculous happens. Failure doesn’t become the badge of victimhood – it becomes wisdom.”

“Whenever life gets routine or mundane, it potentially signals it’s time for a new pursuit.”

“Whether you owe $35,000 for your awesome BMW or for student loans, debt steals freedom.”

“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.”

“Writing a book is not a business; selling a book is.”

“YOLO’s price doesn’t live once; it lives and grows on your Visa card.”

“You are exactly as you have chosen.”

“You are owned by your shit, which is owned by your debt, which is either owned or profited by a corporation. So you work for a corporation, everything you buy comes from a corporation, everything you watch is produced by a corporation, and the debt you owe is held by a corporation.”

“You are the appointed CEO of your life.”

“You can’t experience success without failure.”

“You cannot choose to persevere with one choice. You cannot wake up one day and say, ‘Oh today I will choose to persevere.' It must happen every day, not once.”

“You could own the best hotel in the world located on the best beach in California, but if customers are treated like inconveniences and requests go unfulfilled, they won’t return.”

“You don’t want millions to accompany your cane, you want it to accompany your youth.”

“You either choose to act or choose to complain.”

“You either do it or continue dreaming about it.”

“You learn from engagement, from doing, and from getting out and taking repeated action, more so than from any book or professor.”

“Your choices are made in a moment, and yet their consequences transcend a lifetime.”

“Your pursuit of wealth stalls when your focus is the road and its destination, and not the road trip.”