Mark Twain once wrote, “The two most important days of your life are the day you are born, and the day you find out why.”

I didn’t show up in the world on October 21st. But every year on that day, I have one heck of a celebration. You see, that was the day I “found out why.” That was the day the person I am now was truly born.

Because that was the day, 52 years ago, when I was given a copy of the book that completely and utterly changed my life: Think and Grow Rich, by the great Napoleon Hill.

Before I was given that unexpected gift, I was on the fast track to nowhere. I had no real ambitions, no prospects that I could see, just a dead-end job and a pile of debt that was very unlikely to ever be paid. I certainly didn’t have the slightest idea of the astounding potential contained in my own mind — or, for that matter, in anyone else’s.

That book changed all that for me. Instantly.

I’ve had an uncountable number of incredible experiences in the years since that day. Many moments and encounters and exchanges that have moved me further along on my journey. But none of them would have mattered — none of them would even have happened or been possible — without that first experience. Reading Think and Grow Rich didn’t merely enhance or advance my journey. It CREATED it. And in the process, it created so much more.

Every business I’ve built, every seminar I’ve conducted, every program I’ve recorded, every book I’ve written… all of it goes right back to that one October 21st. Every positive experience that any of those endeavors has facilitated goes back to it. Sandy Gallagher wouldn’t have had her life-changing day if it weren’t for that October 21st.  And I can’t even imagine the number of lives that will ultimately be transformed by the amazing Thinking into Results program she conceived of that day… but wouldn’t be, if not for that October 21st.

And of course, the magic flows in the other direction, too. There would have been no Think and Grow Rich if Napoleon Hill hadn’t had the life-changing moment when Andrew Carnegie approached him with the extraordinary idea of identifying a formula for success. Without a doubt, Carnegie had his own day, his own path-defining experience.

On and on it goes, a web of influence and impact reaching back into the past, forward into the future, and out in every possible direction. The connections never stop, and that’s the point: Your life-changing day, your “aha” moments, your transformations and improvements and breakthroughs, are never just yours. They reverberate further beyond you than you can ever know.

If you haven’t experienced your own personal October 21 yet, seek it out. You can start right here, right now, on this website. Write your vision. Sign up for our Insight of the Day, or subscribe to Six Minutes to Success. Get yourself in a position to recognize your “why” when it shows up. And when you do, know what thrilling and sacred responsibility it is.

You can have such a profoundly positive impact on the world. And all you have to do is be who you were born to be