All human experience is 100% self created. Everything that ever happened to you, you experience right within you. Light and darkness, pain and pleasure, agony and ecstasy - all of it happened within you. If someone touches your hand right now, you may think you are experiencing their hand, but the fact of the matter is that you are only experiencing the sensations in your own hand. If your thought and emotion are of your making, you can mould them any way you like. As long as your inner life is enslaved to external situations, it will remain a precarious condition. Human experience may be stimulated or catalysed by external situations, but the source is within. Always within.
All of existence is just energy manifesting itself in different ways and different forms. This means that the same energy that can sit here as a rock can lie there as mud, can stand up as a tree, can run like a dog- or be here reading this post, as you. So, you are essentially a morsel of energy that is part of the much larger energy system of the universe. The cosmos is just one big organism. Your life is not independent of it. Although everything in the universe is the same energy, it functions at different levels of capability in different forms. The same energy functions in one plant to create roses; in another plant it functions to create jasmine. With the same material that people made earthen pots we now make computers, cars, and even spacecrafts! It is the same material; we have just started using it for higher and higher possibilities. Learn to understand the laws of energy, and realise that life will always support that which supports life.
Be Self-Observant. The mirror is a miraculous invention: without it you would commit great sins against beauty and decorum. You also need a mirror for your actions. This can sometimes come from people telling you what they see in you, but that is not the most trustworthy method: You must be the mirror, training your mind to try to see yourself as others see you. Are you acting too obsequious? Are you trying too hard to please? Do you seem desperate for attention, giving the impression that you are on the decline? Be observant about yourself and you will avoid a mountain of blunders.
Master Your Emotions. Learn to consciously respond to situations rather than acting compulsively. The only thing that stands between you and your well being is a simple fact: you have allowed your thoughts and emotions to take instructions from the outside, rather than the inside.
You are the collective result of each and every decision made. While we cannot always control the external events of our lives, we can control the way we react to them and how we respond. Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment. Yet one of the main features of human existence is the capacity to rise above such conditions, to grow beyond them. Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.
Be a source of pleasure. This is critical. It is an obvious law of human nature that we will flee what is unpleasant and distasteful, while charm and the promise of delight will draw us like moths to a flame. Make yourself the flame and you will rise to the top. Since life is otherwise so full of unpleasantness and pleasure so scarce, you will be as indispensable as good and drink. This may seem obvious, but what is obvious is often ignored or unappreciated. There are degrees to this: Not everyone can play the role of the favourite, for not everyone is blessed with charm and wit. But we can all control our unpleasant qualities and obscure them when necessary.
Alter Your Style and Language According to the Person You Are Dealing With. The pseudo-belief in equality - the idea that talking and acting the same way with everyone, no matter what their rank, makes you somehow a paragon for civilisation - is a terrible mistake. Those below you will take it as a form of condescension, which it is, and those above you will be offended, although they may not admit it. You must change your style and way of speaking to suit each person. This is not lying, it is acting, and acting is an art, not a gift from God. Learn the art. This is also true for the great variety of cultures found in the modern court: Never assume that your criteria of behaviour and judgement are universal. Not only is an instability to adapt to another culture the height of barbarism, it puts you at a disadvantage. Highly recommend looking into neurolinguistic programming. NLP Practitioner Certificate Course (Beginner to Advanced)
This answer is a birth child of the collective wisdom between three books.
Sadhguru’s New York Times Bestseller: Inner engineering a Yogi’s Guide to Joy (Jaggi Vasudev, commonly known as Sadhguru, is an Indian yogi, poet and mystic. He founded the Isha Foundation, a non-profit organization which offers Yoga programs around the world) Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev - The Founder of Isha Foundation
Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power (Robert Greene is an American author known for his books on strategy, power and seduction. He has written five international bestsellers: The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, The 50th Law and Mastery) Power, Seduction and War
Dr Victor Frankl’s Man’s search for meaning. (Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. Frankl was the founder of logotherapy, which is a form of existential analysis, the "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy”.) Viktor Frankl