More than any other factor, perhaps, the unsuccessful person can usually be identified with a group that is at the mercy of events. The unsuccessful person has things done to him or her. The successful person seeks autonomy and makes his or her own plans and has the self-esteem and inner excitement and knowledge to know that those plans can be followed, barring a calamity over which he or she can exercise no control.

Everything is reflected through our minds. Anything that comes to us in the future will almost certainly come to us as a result of the extent to which we use our minds. And yet, it's the last place on earth the average person will turn to for help. You know why? You know why people don't automatically turn their own vast mental resources on when faced with a problem? It's because they never learned how to think.