The way you use your spare time could change your future.

This idea came to me when reading the story of MJ Demarco in The Millionaire Fastlane. Demarco is a businessman, but before that he was a limo driver. What interests me, though, is the way he used his spare time as a driver.

I’m not saying that you can’t do things other than reading in your spare time. What I’m saying is that you should also use your spare time to grow yourself. Use it to learn new things. Use it to explore new interests.

You might not realize it now, but doing so may open a new door of opportunity for you.

He had a lot of spare time as a driver. He could spend hours waiting for his clients. So, how did he use that spare time? Most people might use it to rest, chat, or play games. But not Demarco. He used it to read books. Lots and lots of books. He used it to grow himself as a person.

As it turns out, that simple practice opened a new door of opportunity for him. It was in the late 1990s, in the height of the dot-com boom, and his extensive reading gave him the knowledge to launch an online business. Long story short, the business was successful and he has been a successful businessman ever since.

Reading his story made me think: who would have guessed that such a simple thing could change his life in such a dramatic way? It all came from the way he used his spare time.

Along the same lines, another example that came to my mind was Theodore Roosevelt. Like Demarco, he filled his spare time with reading — whether in the field when he was a cowboy, or in the presidential yacht when he was a president, he used his spare time to read books. As a result, he had the knowledge to perform his duties with effectiveness.