I personally find it hard to attribute my success in life to one event, or book, or movie or even one song. I hear it a lot but for me it is a combo of many over time. I read widely between 9 - 22 years, work has taken my 24hr days now but the catch is, I have always known reading did the trick in my life. I learned how to read first, then how to read subtitles in foreign movies, then how to understand what they are saying in the foreign songs. It all started with the books. I cannot pick one book, but books made the difference. My current position in life and many of my childhood friends differ. That single decision to enjoy reading random novels for no reason when others are out there having fun, and those random moments in movies and songs where they say "knowing" has to meet "action" to make a difference, all gathered up to bring me here and where I am going. Hausa War Novels by Abdul'aziz Sani Madakin Gini (I found later that he was literally translating movies like Lord of the Rings or 300 Sparta etc into Hausa Novels, adapting characters to Hausa culture) I read Magana Jarice, the whole series. By 16, the series of Robert Ludlum (James Bond series) and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.... etc. They forced me to think beyond the butterflies & flowers, beyond hopelessness, and beyond the surface.