By: John S. Morlu II, CPA
Let me say it plain: disrespect is a fast-track ticket to loss. You don’t always lose instantly, but once the rot sets in, it’s game over. Whether it’s people, money, health, time, or opportunities—once you treat them like trash, they walk out of your life without even slamming the door.
And let’s be real—disrespect has always carried consequences. In the 1990s, when we were young men in America, shootings over “disrespect” became so common they made national headlines. Vice President Al Gore even addressed it directly, warning young people that pulling a trigger over hurt pride was destroying communities. The message was clear: the cost of disrespect could be instant death.
Today, the response has shifted. Disrespect isn’t usually repaid with bullets—it’s repaid with something quieter but just as final: silent treatment, distance, and detachment. People no longer shoot you in the streets; they erase you from their lives. In the workplace, it looks like being ghosted by colleagues who no longer trust you. In relationships, it’s being blocked overnight without explanation. In culture, it’s being “canceled”—not with violence, but with total social erasure. Different weapon, same outcome: disrespect still kills, only now it kills opportunities, reputations, and connections instead of bodies.
1. People: The Loyalty Boomerang That Never Returns
You disrespect loyalty, you disrespect trust, you disrespect someone’s effort—and guess what? They don’t come back.
📌 Fun fact: Julius Caesar learned this the hard way. He kept disrespecting senators, ignoring their dignity, and flexing power without tact. They gave him the ultimate disrespect in return—23 knife stabs. Talk about fast loss.
📌 Everyday example 1: Your best employee brings results, but you nitpick them, ignore their ideas, and give raises to your cousin who plays Candy Crush at work. Congratulations—you’ve just lost your best talent to your competitor. And here’s the irony: you’ll end up begging that same competitor for mercy when your business starts sinking.
📌 Everyday example 2: Disrespecting someone who stood by you when you were broke, sick, or struggling—forgetting their sacrifices once you’re comfortable. That’s how loyal friends, mentors, and even family quietly walk away. They may not announce their departure, but you’ll feel the silence like a funeral.
📌 Everyday example 3 (relationships): Taking your boyfriend or girlfriend for granted—the one who supported you, believed in you, and stayed loyal when you had nothing. Maybe you dismiss their efforts, stop appreciating the small things, or treat their love as a background noise instead of the soundtrack of your life. That’s not just a mistake; it’s emotional bankruptcy rolled into one. Respect is a bank account that, once emptied by neglect, rarely gets refilled. The sad truth? You don’t just lose the person—you lose their protection, their encouragement, their belief in you. And what’s worse? You earn a reputation that follows you longer than your apology ever will.
📌 Everyday example 4 (relationships): Ignoring your partner’s struggles because you’re too wrapped up in your own. They’re silently fighting battles—stress at work, health scares, family drama—and instead of being their safe place, you brush it off with, “You’ll be fine.” That’s disrespect. That’s emotional abandonment. Nothing stings more than realizing the person you show up for daily won’t show up for you when it matters most. You don’t just lose a partner that way—you lose the very intimacy, trust, and bond that make relationships worth having.
📌 Historical betrayal: Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor, but disrespected the loyalty of allies, overreached in arrogance, and ignored the warnings of those closest to him. His empire collapsed faster than it rose. His disrespect for counsel and loyalty led to Waterloo—and exile.
👉 Rule: People don’t usually leave jobs—or relationships—they leave disrespect. Once they pack up, they rarely ever unpack again in your life.
2. Money: The Fastest Runner on Earth
Disrespect money, and it leaves faster than Usain Bolt on a sugar rush.
📌 Fun fact: Lottery winners go broke at an alarming rate. Nearly 70% are bankrupt within 5 years. Why? Because they disrespected money. To them, it was a toy, not a tool.
📌 Everyday example: That guy who buys $1,200 sneakers but hasn’t paid rent. That girl who posts champagne bottles on Instagram but has $47 in her checking account. Both are disrespecting money—and money doesn’t like disrespect. It ghosts you faster than a bad Tinder date.
📌 Bigger picture: Nations too. Venezuela once had more oil reserves than most of the world, but through corruption, waste, and disrespect for resources, it lost wealth at lightning speed. Now, citizens are forced to barter food for survival. When you disrespect money on a national scale, you don’t just lose—it collapses everything around you.
📌 Corporate betrayal: Enron disrespected money through lies, manipulation, and fake numbers. They didn’t just lose their billions—they lost their reputation, careers, and freedom. Disrespecting money doesn’t just bankrupt you—it can jail you.
👉 Rule: Respect money, and it multiplies. Disrespect it, and it evaporates.
3. Time: The Silent Assassin
You disrespect time every time you say, “I’ll do it later.” Later is the graveyard of opportunity.
📌 Fun fact: Leonardo da Vinci took 16 years to finish the Mona Lisa. Imagine if he disrespected time completely? We wouldn’t have the world’s most famous painting—we’d have “that blank canvas Leonardo kept promising to start.”
📌 Everyday example: You binge-watch Netflix while your competitor binge-builds their business. Guess who’s cashing out in 5 years? Spoiler: not you.
📌 Expanded detail: Time doesn’t scream. It doesn’t text you reminders. It just slips away, silently, while you waste it on gossip, scrolling, and procrastination. That’s why the most successful people treat time like gold—because unlike money, once it’s gone, you can’t make more.
📌 Historical betrayal of time: Ancient empires fell because leaders wasted time on indulgence instead of preparation. Rome disrespected time with decadence, ignoring its enemies until the barbarians were already inside the gates. By the time they woke up—it was too late.
👉 Rule: Time is undefeated. Disrespect it, and you’ll wake up old, broke, and Googling “ways to rewind life.”
4. Health: The Bill You Can’t Negotiate
You disrespect your body, and it sends you an invoice with compound interest.
📌 Fun fact: Winston Churchill smoked cigars and drank whiskey daily—but he still lived to 90. Outlier. For every Churchill, there are a million people who disrespect their health and lose fast—mobility, energy, and years.
📌 Everyday example: Eating wings at 2 a.m. every day, ignoring workouts, and saying “I’ll get in shape next year.” Disrespecting your body is like disrespecting gravity—you’ll learn the lesson, but only after a painful fall.
📌 The Catch: Health doesn’t forgive. It remembers every fried meal, every cigarette, every drink, every shisha puff, every vape cloud, every late-night party, every sleepless night. And the scary part? When the bill comes, it doesn’t ask if you can afford it—it just collects. Hospital beds are filled with people who thought their bodies would tolerate endless disrespect.
📌 Real-world reminder: Look at Amy Winehouse—her talent was world-class, but years of pushing her body past its limits ended in tragedy at 27. Or Diego Maradona—soccer genius, yet decades of health abuse left him battling complications until his early death. Both remind us: disrespecting health doesn’t just shorten your years—it robs your gift, your greatness, and your future.
📌 Corporate metaphor: Steve Jobs himself once admitted—at the end of his life—that all the wealth in the world couldn’t buy him a healthy body. He disrespected health for decades in pursuit of genius work, and even he had to face the invoice no one can escape.
👉 Rule: Your body remembers every disrespectful thing you did to it. And it always collects.
5. Opportunities: They Don’t Knock Twice
You disrespect an opportunity by showing up late, unprepared, or arrogant—and you’ve lost it. Forever.
📌 Fun fact: Blockbuster once had the chance to buy Netflix for $50 million. They laughed, disrespected the idea of streaming, and dismissed it. Today, Netflix is worth over $200 billion. Blockbuster? Dead.
📌 Everyday example: That job you blew off because you thought you were too good for it—the same job that could’ve been your stepping stone to something bigger. That connection you ignored because they didn’t “look important”—only to see them later running the company you now dream of working for. That partnership you dismissed because it wasn’t big enough—yet someone else took it, nurtured it, and now they’re cashing million-dollar checks while you’re still waiting for “the perfect deal.” Opportunities rarely wear a neon sign. They often come disguised as small, humble, or inconvenient. Disrespect them, and you’ll watch somebody else build an empire from what you tossed aside.
📌 Everyday example 2 (employees): The employee with a double mind—always thinking the grass is greener elsewhere. They take their current job for granted, show up late, give half-effort, and keep whispering, “I can always do better than this place.” So they jump ship with no real plan, only to spend the next 6 months to a year in unemployment lines or stuck doing manual labor that pays half of what they once earned. By the time reality sets in, the job they disrespected has already been filled by someone hungrier, sharper, and more grateful.
📌 Historical betrayal of opportunity: Judas Iscariot sold Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver—disrespecting the greatest opportunity for loyalty in history. He gained a quick profit, but he lost his place, his soul, and his legacy. Betrayal disguised as opportunity is the fastest way to lose everything. In the end, even Judas realized the weight of what he had done and hanged himself—a grim act of despair. His name is now forever synonymous with treachery. If there’s a hall of infamy in the afterlife, he’s probably seated in the same corner as tyrants like Saddam Hussein.
👉 Rule: Opportunities are like airplanes—they don’t wait for you. Miss your boarding, and it takes off without you.
6. Betrayal: The Fastest Way to Burn a Bridge
Disrespect doesn’t always look like shouting or ignoring—it’s betrayal. Taking your partner for granted, lying to the one person who defended you when everyone else doubted you, or backstabbing a boss, a partner, or a friend who sacrificed for you—that’s disrespect in its ugliest form.
📌 Everyday example 1 (relationships): The partner who pays your bills, encourages your dreams, and defends you to their family—yet you betray their loyalty because you think the grass is greener. It never is. The moment they realize their faithfulness was repaid with disrespect, they’re gone. And when loyal people leave, they don’t return. The respect you threw away doesn’t regenerate. You’ve cashed out on the one person who truly saw your worth.
📌 Everyday example 2 (friendship): That friend who stayed up late editing your résumé, lent you money when you were broke, and stood by you when nobody else would—yet you repay them with gossip, betrayal, or ghosting once you “make it.” That’s not just ingratitude—it’s digging your own grave. Because the universe has a funny way of making sure the bridge you burned is the same one you’ll need to cross later.
📌 Everyday example 3 (family): The parent who sacrificed everything—working double shifts, skipping meals, and carrying you through school—yet once you “arrive,” you treat them as an embarrassment, ignoring their calls and acting like they don’t exist. That’s betrayal in slow motion. You may gain followers and friends for a season, but the stain of abandoning the very people who built your foundation will follow you forever.
📌 Fun fact: Samson in the Bible lost his strength because he disrespected the loyalty of his calling and trusted Delilah’s betrayal. She played him, and he lost everything—eyes, freedom, dignity. That’s what betrayal buys you: ruin at high speed.
📌 Corporate betrayal: Steve Jobs was once ousted from Apple—the very company he founded—because internal executives disrespected his vision. Apple tanked after he left, only to beg him to return years later. Proof that betrayal comes with a cost that haunts the betrayer more than the betrayed.
👉 Rule: Betrayal is disrespect in its most destructive form—and it guarantees loss.
The Punchline:
What you respect grows. What you disrespect dies—and usually in public, with you as the main act in the tragedy.
- Disrespect people, you lose relationships.
- Disrespect money, you lose wealth.
- Disrespect time, you lose your life.
- Disrespect health, you lose yourself.
- Disrespect opportunities, you lose the future.
- Disrespect loyalty and love, you lose both—and regret follows faster than forgiveness.
And here’s the kicker: loss always happens faster than gain. You can spend 10 years building trust, and lose it in 10 seconds. You can save for 20 years and blow it in 20 minutes. You can love someone for a lifetime, and lose them in one moment of betrayal.
So respect what matters. Or watch it leave. Fast.
Author: John S. Morlu II, CPA is the CEO and Chief Strategist of JS Morlu, leads a globally recognized public accounting and management consultancy firm. Under his visionary leadership, JS Morlu has become a pioneer in developing cutting-edge technologies across B2B, B2C, P2P, and B2G verticals. The firm’s groundbreaking innovations include AI-powered reconciliation software (ReckSoft.com) and advanced cloud accounting solutions (FinovatePro.com), setting new industry standards for efficiency, accuracy, and technological excellence.