The Master Key System by Charles F. Haanel. I have read hundreds of personal development books, but this is the one that clearly showed me how to visualize, contemplate, and focus on what it was I truly wanted. It revealed to me that we only get what we desire most, and to apply myself with a laserlike focus upon a goal, task, or project. That in order to “have” you must “do,” and in order to “do” you must “be” — and this process is immediate. Although it takes time for these desires to manifest in our material world, you must see the thing you desire as completed, finished, and real, now. The better you can do this, the more you can accomplish. I have bought several copies of this book and distributed it to family and friends. I also reread it probably once a month to keep my vision clear.

In Ge Hong's A Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies (肘后备急方), I noticed one sentence "A handful of Qinghao immersed in two liters of water, wring out the juice and drink it all" (青蒿一握, 以水二升渍, 绞取汁, 尽服之) when Qinghao was mentioned for alleviating malaria fevers. Most herbs were typically boiled in water and made into a decoction before taken by the patients. This unique way of using Qinghao gave me the idea that heating during extraction might have destroyed the active components and the high temperature might need to be avoided in order to preserve the herb's activity.

Read Becoming a Writer, by Dorothea Brande. Then do what it says, including the tasks you think are impossible. You will particularly hate the advice to write first thing in the morning, but if you can manage it, it might well be the best thing you ever do for yourself. This book is about becoming a writer from the inside out. Many later advice manuals derive from it. You don’t really need any others, though if you want to boost your confidence, “how to” books seldom do any harm.

It was probably a series of biographies of scientists like Pasteur, or even earlier ones — Leeuwenhoek inventing the microscope and Madame Curie. I forget how many others, but it was really just, for me, a fascination to learn about these great heroes. At that time, of course, they were totally inaccessible, almost non-human, to me. It became very interesting to me.