M.J. DeMarco Quotes

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

Applied, this means instead of buying products on TV, sell products. 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 a producer.

Skills and expertise are waiting just for you. No one drops a book on your lap and gifts knowledge. You must seek it, process it, and then use it. The acquisition and application of knowledge will make you rich.

time is a fuel tank that perpetually burns, permanently sealed from measurement or manipulation. And while your total life rations are unknown, their daily dispensaries are not. Each of us is gifted with twenty-four hours or 86,400 seconds per day. No one gets more; no one gets less. How you honor (or dishonor) these life rations marks the difference between being further entrenched into SCRIPTED dogma or escaping it.

Immediately after the 2008 financial meltdown, it wouldn’t surprise me if 85% of American families would have had zero or negative net worth. But you can bet they have 650 cable channels streaming into their five flat-screen HDTVs.

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.

While comatose and imprisoned, the machines feed our minds with a simulation designed to keep us oblivious, distracted, and obedient to the system draining our humanity.

Wealth is not authored by material possessions, money, or “stuff,” but by what I call the three fundamental “F's”: family (relationships), fitness (health), and freedom (choice, both fiscally and personally). You will find true wealth and, yes, happiness within this wealth trinity.

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.

During a visit to the county landfill, I parked my truck in front of a junk heap and stared. As I meditated on the garbage piled as high as a demolished apartment building, it struck me that everything in this gigantic entangled mass was once new. State-of-the-art. An object of want. There were BBQ grills, bikes, toys, lawn furniture, stoves, picture frames, wine racks; it was a graveyard of past desires, a swollen scrap heap of residually accumulated consumption. Then I thought: Someone once opened their wallet, swiped a credit card, and bought this stuff. And now, here it lies as worthless junk, while its debt probably remains.

Complaints are a beautiful thing. They represent free feedback and expose unmet needs in your business. They represent the journey’s road noise.

Time has no leverage

My repeated and often preached motto to my employees was, “The customer pays your paycheck, not me — keep them happy.

The glory of the hard work was this: It didn’t feel like work; in fact, I enjoyed it.

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