UNSCRIPTED: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship

by M.J. DeMarco

Momentum paralysis is why people lose fortunes in the stock market.

Whatever the rationale, it compels unchanging and continuing displeasing momentum.

What empty outcomes are you walking toward?

damn frankenphrases. Stop asking if something is “Fastlane” or a “start-up” or “lean,” and start asking what needs to be done to win your first customer.

Kevin O’Leary gives advice, I know I'm not being greased for a sales funnel or a back-end agenda. When Peter Thiel speaks or writes a book, I listen because I hear authenticity—I know he isn’t at the Hilton Garden Inn hosting $10,000 seminars for “silver-bullet” entrepreneurs who are urged to “act now, grab your credit card, and run to the back of the room.”

Real change comes from identity and self—not from interim motivations jump-started by books or YouTube binging. Basically, you have to BE what you want to become FIRST so the actions can follow. Don’t TALK about it; BE about it. BE. ACT on being. Then HAVE.

And this highlights the ultimate irony: the secret to success isn’t “do what you love” but “do what you hate.” How much pain and anxiety you’ll endure tells me how much success you’re willing to achieve.

“This is awesome” or “I like this; here’s my cash,” you too will love what you do. Let’s look back at the motivation cycle.

Passion is self-replicating and greases the entire system. Your positive impact generates passion. Don’t be passionate about what needs to be done; be passionate about what you WILL BECOME.

Be passionate about your vision as it compels doing whatever it takes. Passion focused

buying an old dresser down at the Goodwill, stripping it down, refinishing, and reselling it on Craigslist. Or you could write a short story and sell it on Amazon for ninety-nine cents. Whatever you do, the key is to create value for someone else AND do it by a new process (or skill) that you must learn on the

Whereas a meritocracy pulls power to the skilled, a productocracy pulls money to the value creators, businesses who grow organically through peer recommendations and repeat customers, compelled by a distinguished product/service not readily offered elsewhere.

The essence of a pull is word of mouth, social proof, and satisfied users.

In fact, sales, advertising, marketing, and copywriting are probably the most critical life skills you can have.

story. Entrepreneurship is about problem-solving, creating convenience, satisfying desires, and becoming valuable.

Again, the difficulty is the opportunity. The magnitude of the problem solved is the magnitude of the money you can make.

Any venture crowded with opportunists and easified entrepreneurs will require executional excellence for victory. And that means, prepare to do what others will not.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

When a business goes from zero to billions in just a few years, you’re witnessing a productocracy powered by a value skew, which goes beyond a good price. Multiple attributes

You see, it states nowhere in the entrepreneurial rule book that you have to be an avid user of your product in its industry.

an UNSCRIPTED entrepreneur upholding the fiduciary mindset, your primary stakeholder at all times should be your customer. And in most cases for young, growth companies,

Your business bull’s-eye is a productocracy and fiduciary entrepreneurship.

Much like value is a predecessor to money, a systemized productocracy is a predecessor to passive income.

To honor the Commandment of Time, simply forget about it. Yeah, forget about it, but only in the short term. Instead, focus on legacy value systems (LVS) for the long term.

If the Commandment of Time were a fruit tree, legacy value systems would be its seeds while its fruit would be passive income. When you

value’s seeds, eventually passive-income fruit sprouts. And you can’t enjoy the fruit without first caring for and cultivating its seeds.

Your scaling long-game is helping as many people as possible. However, the short-game is like the Time Commandment: Forget about it. Impact one through a productocracy. Scale will work its way through by design.

You can scale anything: a laundromat, a retail store, rental houses, your husband’s secret mustard recipe, anything. The question is, how difficult will it be?

You don’t know what you need to know until you know.

the end, we confuse preparation

and busywork for execution, when the real mettle comes from entering the forest and experiencing firsthand what the game demands.

headed. One week of real market engagement is more valuable than one month of market research and analysis.