“I am larger, better than I thought; I did not know I held so much goodness. All seems beautiful to me. Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me: Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.”
– Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

When you look in the mirror, whom do you see?
To make providing an answer easy, I’ll give you some prefab choices. Don’t think about it—just choose the one you’re most comfortable with. Or even choose two or three! There are no rules here. No wrong answers.
Okay? Here we go:

When I look in the mirror, I see a person who is….
     A. Confident and has a career goal.
     B. Not sure what I want, but eager to try many different things in life.
     C. Bewildered by the complexity of the world.
     D. Totally dazed and confused.
     E. Not interested in taking a stupid quiz.

Again, there are no correct answers. There’s only you and who you are at this moment. Not last year, or when you were a little kid, or in the future. Just right now.

I ask you this question because if you’re capable of self-reflection and recognizing the person you are, you’re already halfway to becoming a successful human being. If you know what you want from life—or even what you don’t want—it’s a million times easier to go out and get it, without wasting time. That’s why your ability to Know Yourself is the very first Actionable Life Skill.

Just for fun, let’s say you know exactly your direction in life. Let’s say you’re like Bill Gates, who has had the same passion since he was around your age. He’s a computer guy. Always has been, always will be. He even dropped out of college (Harvard!) to start his software business (Microsoft) at age 20. And he made a ton of money by taking the road less traveled! If this sounds like you, then I wish you every success. But stay open to new roads! Later in his life, Bill Gates, the computer geek, developed a profound interest in eradicating global infectious diseases.

But if certainty is good, or if you don’t know what you want right now, are you doomed to failure? Absolutely not!

The world is full of super-successful people who, had they taken my little quiz when they were still in school or just starting out, would happily have chosen D or E. They were not yet ready to say, “This is me. This is who I am.” It took them a while. Their path in life was not clear. Well, that’s okay. These people were able to look in the mirror and say, “Hello, there. Nice to meet you. I have no idea who you are and what you want.”

It’s perfectly alright to be restless and unsatisfied, and to have no clear ideas for your future. Lots of people have felt the same way. But eventually, even the people who have no direction and who don’t know themselves have one thing in common:

         They do something. They take action.

They don’t just sit around and moan.

They say to themselves, “I don’t know what I want, so I’m just going to try a bunch of stuff and see what I like. I’m going to learn about myself and the world.”

That’s the key! To succeed in life, we all need to keep learning and experiencing new things.

In fact, if there’s just one thing I want you to take away from this book, it’s this:

“The minute you stop learning about yourself and the world, you become like a compass without a needle: unable to find any direction.”

Life is change. Life is action. Life is growth.

It’s fine to not have a clear direction at first, as long as you’re in motion.

I don’t mean literally in motion. When you read a book, your body is at rest. It’s your brain that’s in motion!

I can hear some of you say, “How about meditation? Can’t that be useful for learning about yourself?” Yes, it can—in moderate doses. Nothing wrong with meditating! But unless you aspire to become a monk in a Buddhist monastery, you need to handle the practical aspects of life:

earning money, supporting yourself, and finding your place in the world.

There’s no greater satisfaction in life than being able to support yourself (and your family, if you have one) and being a contributing member of society. This is why, as you get older, you want to make the shift from being a consumer to being a producer.