Take Responsibility for Your Life — Jim Rohn

Jim Rohn opens with a confession: he used to keep a list. A long, detailed list of every reason he wasn't doing well. The government was at the top. Then taxes. Then prices, weather, traffic, his car, the manufacturers, the company, company policy, the training program, his negative relatives, his cynical neighbors, the economy, the community. He thought it was a pretty good list. It explained everything.

Then his mentor, Mr. Shoaff, asked him a simple question: "Just out of curiosity, tell me, how come you haven't done well up until now?" Rohn ran through his entire list. Shoaff listened patiently, then looked it over and said, "Mr. Rohn, big problem with your list." When Rohn went to work for him a few months later, he learned to tear up that list and replace it with a fresh piece of paper containing one word: Me.

It's Not What Happens — It's What You Do

The central insight that turned Rohn's life around is deceptively simple: "It's not what happens that determines the quality or the quantity of your life." The reason is that what happens happens to about everybody. The sun goes down on all of us. The same things can happen to two different people — one gets rich, one stays poor. The difference is not the event. It's what you do about it.