If you want small changes in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm.

Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make

While values drive behaviors, principles govern consequences.

In addition to self-awareness, imagination and conscience, it is the fourth human endowment - independent will - that really makes effective self-management possible. It is the ability to make decisions and choices and to act in accordance with them. It is the ability to act rather than to be acted upon, to proactively carry out the program we have developed through the other three endowments. Empowerment comes from learning how to use this great endowment in the decisions we make every day.

People who end up with the good jobs are the proactive ones who are solutions to problems, not problems themselves, who seize the initiative to do whatever is necessary to get the job done.

The key is taking responsibility and initiative, deciding what your life is about and prioritizing your life around the most important things.

Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.