The Course in Mastery Day 4: Taking Responsibility

Day 4 of a 30 day challenge designed to help you gain balance in your life. Today, Tom Wood and John Foppe show how taking personal responsibility in every area of your life gives you the power to take control of the direction your life takes.

Tom Wood

1. Study of Rock climbers
2. Top rock climbers took more personal responsibility for the rock climbing than the others, never complained about the weather, the rock, the situation.
3. Personal responsibility seperates you from every aspect of your life.
4. Take responsibility first before having great success
5. Take personal responsibility for EVERYTHING that happens in your life, your success and failures
6. Allow other people to take personal responsibility themselves
7.  Take personal responsibility and things will change in a big way


John Foppe

Born without arms, John Foppe has had to break down and re-think every aspect of day-to-day life. He learned that the inability to do something didn’t rest on the lack of resources or vision. Instead, it has more to do with one’s subconscious perception to meeting a challenge head on.

His compelling story and methods caught the attention of the legendary Zig Ziglar, who broke his long-standing rule of promoting from within and recruited and mentored John. He is the author of What’s Your Excuse?, which has been translated into six foreign languages. In addition, John has been a contributing editor for "U.S. Business Review".


1. If you don't have the best of everything, then make the best of everything you have.
2. If you will never change now, you'll never would.
3. While some of us cannot choose what we can do or where we will go, all of us can choose who we will be.
4. We can deceive, disappoint, even destroy each other, or we can give, build, discover, and love
5. In choosing to be different, we do things differently.


OJ Lopez

1. I am responsible for my success and more so for my failures
2. From now on, I will take personal responsibility for everything
3. I can choose whoever I want to be
4. I am the who decide whatever it is that I do
5. I am my own boss. I am the CEO of ME