Why should I know M. J. DeMarco?

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“Extraordinary results demand extraordinary efforts.”

“Failure is the sweat of success.”

“Fast wealth is created exponentially, not linearly.”

“Feed the crowd and you shall never starve.”

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

“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.”

“Great value precedes great wealth.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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 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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“Our choices have consequences that transcend decades.”

“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 who don’t take responsibility are victims.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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?”

“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.”

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

“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 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 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.”