Jim Rohn (1930-2009) was a pioneering American entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and author, born in Yakima, Washington. Rising from humble beginnings, Rohn found success in direct selling and became a prominent figure in the personal development arena. Mentored by John Earl Shoaff, he developed a philosophy centered on personal responsibility, goal setting, and positive habits. Renowned for his captivating speaking style, Rohn delivered motivational messages worldwide, influencing countless lives. Author of impactful books like “The Art of Exceptional Living,” he emphasized the importance of continuous learning and disciplined living. Jim Rohn’s legacy endures through his enduring impact on individuals seeking personal and professional growth, making him an enduring icon in the self-help and motivational space.
Jim Rohn Quotes
1. “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
— Jim Rohn
2. “Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”
— Jim Rohn
3. “Either you run the day or the day runs you.”
— Jim Rohn
4. “If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.”
— Jim Rohn
5. “Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.”
— Jim Rohn
6. “We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment. ”
— Jim Rohn
7. “Don’t wish it were easier. Wish you were better.”
— Jim Rohn
8. “For things to change, you have to change.”
— Jim Rohn
9. “Formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune.”
— Jim Rohn
10. “Focus on the solution, not on the problem.”
— Jim Rohn
11. “Don’t wish it was easier wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge wish for more wisdom.”
— Jim Rohn
12. “Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.”
— Jim Rohn
13. “You have two choices: You can make a living, or you can design a life.”
— Jim Rohn
14. “Don’t wish for less problems; wish for more skills.”
— Jim Rohn
15. “You don’t get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.”
— Jim Rohn
16. “If you don’t like how things are, change it. You are not a tree. ”
— Jim Rohn
17. “Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”
— Jim Rohn
18. “There are two types of pain you will go through in life, the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. Discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tonnes.”
— Jim Rohn
19. “When you know what you want, and you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way to get it.”
— Jim Rohn
20. “The difference between where you are today and where you’ll be five years from now will be found in the quality of books you’ve read.”
— Jim Rohn
21. “Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.”
— Jim Rohn
22. “The more you know, the less you need to say.”
— Jim Rohn
23. “Successful people have libraries. The rest have big screen TVs.”
— Jim Rohn
24. “Happiness is not by chance, but by choice.”
— Jim Rohn
25. “The major key to your better future is you.”
— Jim Rohn
26. “Time is more value than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.”
— Jim Rohn
27. “You must either modify your dreams or magnify your skills.”
— Jim Rohn
28. “If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.”
— Jim Rohn
29. “Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”
— Jim Rohn
30. “Don’t let your learning lead to knowledge. Let your learning lead to action.”
— Jim Rohn
31. “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
— Jim Rohn
32. “Success is something you attract by the person you become.”
— Jim Rohn
33. “The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.”
— Jim Rohn
34. “You cannot change your destination overnight. You can change your direction.”
— Jim Rohn
35. “Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.”
— Jim Rohn
36. “Work hard at your job and you can make a living. Work hard on yourself and you can make a fortune.”
— Jim Rohn
37. “If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.”
— Jim Rohn
38. “The few who do are the envy of the many who only watch.”
— Jim Rohn
39. “Miss a meal if you have to, but don’t miss a book.”
— Jim Rohn
40. “Set a goal to become a millionaire for what it makes of you to achieve it. Do it for the skills you have to learn and the person you have to become.”
— Jim Rohn
41. “You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.”
— Jim Rohn
42. “Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want.”
— Jim Rohn
43. “One of the greatest gifts you can give to anyone is the gift of attention.”
— Jim Rohn
44. “Discipline weighs ounces and regret weighs tons.”
— Jim Rohn
45. “Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure. ”
— Jim Rohn
46. “Leadership is the challenge to be something more than average.”
— Jim Rohn
47. “Motivation alone is not enough. If you have an idiot and you motivate him, now you have a motivated idiot.”
— Jim Rohn
48. “Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying basic fundamentals.”
— Jim Rohn
49. “How long should you try? Until.”
— Jim Rohn
50. “You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. ”
— Jim Rohn
51. “Unless you change how you are, you will always have what you’ve got.”
— Jim Rohn
52. “Now is the time to fix the next 10 years.”
— Jim Rohn
53. “The best motivation is self-motivation.”
— Jim Rohn
54. “Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.”
— Jim Rohn
55. “Only by giving are you able to receive more than you already have.”
— Jim Rohn
56. “It isn’t what the book costs. It’s what it will cost you if you don’t read it.”
— Jim Rohn
57. “Whatever good things we build end up building us.”
— Jim Rohn
58. “Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure.”
— Jim Rohn
59. “We generally change ourselves for one of two reasons: inspiration or desperation.”
— Jim Rohn
60. “If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planed for you? Not much.”
— Jim Rohn
61. “The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them.”
— Jim Rohn
62. “Activity leads to productivity.”
— Jim Rohn
63. “We can have more than we’ve got because we can become more than we are.”
— Jim Rohn
64. “Finding is reserved for those that search.”
— Jim Rohn
65. “You cannot make progress without making decisions.”
— Jim Rohn
66. “Don’t just read the easy stuff. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it.”
— Jim Rohn
67. “If you want to have more, you have to become more!”
— Jim Rohn
68. “I will take care of me for you, if you will take care of you for me. ”
— Jim Rohn
69. “Those who will not read are no better off than those who cannot read.”
— Jim Rohn
70. “Success Recipe: 2 cups faith, 2 cups love, 1 cup hard work, 1 cup persistence, 1 tbsp vision and a dash of swagger.”
— Jim Rohn
71. “The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become.”
— Jim Rohn
72. “Everything you need for a better future and success has already been written. And guess what? All you have to do is go to the library.”
— Jim Rohn
73. “Managers help people see themselves as they are; Leaders help people to see themselves better than they are.”
— Jim Rohn
74. “Discipline is the foundation upon which all success is built. Lack of discipline inevitably leads to failure.”
— Jim Rohn
75. “Commit yourself to something bigger than yourself.”
— Jim Rohn
76. “My father taught me to always do more than you get paid for as an investment in your future.”
— Jim Rohn
77. “Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.”
— Jim Rohn
78. “The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized – never knowing.”
— Jim Rohn
79. “Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary. We must not permit anything to stand between us and the book that could change our lives.”
— Jim Rohn
80. “What is powerful is when what you say is just the tip of the iceberg of what you know.”
— Jim Rohn
81. “Goals. There’s no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There’s no telling what you can do when you believe in them. There’s no telling what will happen when you act upon them.”
— Jim Rohn
82. “The book you don’t read can’t help.”
— Jim Rohn
83. “Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion.”
— Jim Rohn
84. “Start from wherever you are and with whatever you’ve got.”
— Jim Rohn
85. “For every disciplined effort there is a multiple reward.”
— Jim Rohn
86. “You can’t hire someone else to do your push-ups for you.”
— Jim Rohn
87. “If you just communicate, you can get by. But if you communicate skillfully, you can work miracles.”
— Jim Rohn
88. “Good service leads to multiple sales. If you take good care of your customers, they will open doors you could never open by yourself.”
— Jim Rohn
89. “Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.”
— Jim Rohn
90. “Service to others leads to greatness.”
— Jim Rohn
91. “I’m working full-time on my job and part-time on my fortune.”
— Jim Rohn
92. “The only thing worse than not reading a book in the last ninety days is not reading a book in the last ninety days and thinking that it doesn’t matter.”
— Jim Rohn
93. “Giving is better than receiving because giving starts the receiving process.”
— Jim Rohn
94. “Some people claim that it is okay to read trashy novels because sometimes you can find something valuable in them. You can also find a crust of bread in a garbage can, if you search long enough, but there is a better way.”
— Jim Rohn
95. “Personal development – the never-ending chance to improve not only yourself but also to attract opportunities and affect others.”
— Jim Rohn
96. “Learn to hide your need and show your skill.”
— Jim Rohn
97. “Income seldom exceeds personal development.”
— Jim Rohn
98. “The rich invest their money and spend what is left; the poor spend their money and invest what is left.”
— Jim Rohn
99. “By constant self-discipline and self-control you can develop greatness of character. Grenville Kleiser Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”
— Jim Rohn
100. “Attitude drives actions. Actions drive results. Results drive lifestyles.”
— Jim Rohn
101. “Dreams are a projection of the kind of life you want to lead. Dreams can drive you. Dreams can make you skip over obstacles. When you allow your dreams to pull you, they unleash a creative force that can overpower any obstacle in your path.”
— Jim Rohn
102. “When you invest in people and lift them toward their potential, they will love you for it.”
— Jim Rohn
103. “The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keep out the joy.”
— Jim Rohn
104. “You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.”
— Jim Rohn
105. “Big achievements come one small advantage at a time, one step at a time, one day at a time.”
— Jim Rohn
106. “Those who seek a better life must first become a better person.”
— Jim Rohn
107. “Remember that all success is based on long-term commitment, faith, discipline, attitude, and a few stepping stones along the way.”
— Jim Rohn
108. “An investment in your personal development is the best investment you can make.”
— Jim Rohn
109. “Profits are better than wages. Wages make you a living; profits make you a fortune.”
— Jim Rohn
110. “It’s a new day, a new beginning for your new life. With discipline, you will be amazed at how much progress you’ll be able to make. What have you got to lose except the guilt and fear of the past?”
— Jim Rohn
111. “What is easy to do is also easy not to do.”
— Jim Rohn
112. “Successful people are action-oriented.”
— Jim Rohn
113. “Stand guard at the door of your mind.”
— Jim Rohn
114. “Vocabulary enables us to interpret and to express. If you have a limited vocabulary, you will also have a limited vision and a limited future.”
— Jim Rohn
115. “One customer, well taken care of, could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising.”
— Jim Rohn
116. “If you want things to change, You have to change. If you want things to be better, You have to be better.”
— Jim Rohn
117. “I wish for you a life of wealth, health, and happiness; a life in which you give to yourself the gift of patience, the virtue of reason, the value of knowledge, and the influence of faith in your own ability to dream about and achieve worthy rewards.”
— Jim Rohn
118. “One person caring about another represents life’s greatest value.”
— Jim Rohn
119. “Indecision is the greatest thief of opportunity.”
— Jim Rohn
120. “Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.”
— Jim Rohn
121. “Life is not just the passing of time. Life is the collection of experiences and their intensity.”
— Jim Rohn
122. “Goal-setting is powerful because it provides focus. It shapes our dreams. It gives us the ability to hone in on the exact actions we need to perform to achieve everything we desire in life.”
— Jim Rohn
123. “Don’t start the day until you have it finished. Don’t start the week until you have it finished. Don’t start the month until you have it finished. Plan your day.”
— Jim Rohn
124. “The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path.”
— Jim Rohn
125. “Don’t ask for security, ask for adventure.”
— Jim Rohn
126. “Time is our most valuable asset, yet we tend to waste it, kill it, and spend it rather than invest it.”
— Jim Rohn
127. “The only healthy communication style is assertive communication.”
— Jim Rohn
128. “If you don’t change what you are doing today, all of your tomorrows will look like yesterday.”
— Jim Rohn
129. “Don’t mistake movement for achievement. It’s easy to get faked out by being busy. The question is: Busy doing what?”
— Jim Rohn
130. “Don’t join an easy crowd; you won’t grow. Go where the expectations and the demands to perform are high.”
— Jim Rohn
131. “If you want to live a top shelf life then you need to stand on the books you have read. Never stop learning, never stop growing.”
— Jim Rohn
132. “The same wind blows on us all; the winds of disaster, opportunity, and change. Therefore, it is not the blowing of the wind, but the setting of the sails that will determine our direction in life.”
— Jim Rohn
133. “Life and business is like the changing seasons. You cannot change the seasons, but you can change yourself. Therein lies the opportunity to live an extraordinary life, the opportunity to change yourself.”
— Jim Rohn
134. “When you work, work. When you play, play. Don’t mix the two.”
— Jim Rohn
135. “Learn how to separate the majors and the minors. A lot of people don’t do well simply because they major in minor things.”
— Jim Rohn
136. “Days are expensive. When you spend a day you have one less day to spend. So make sure you spend each one wisely.”
— Jim Rohn
137. “If you don’t change your approach than you will never change your results!”
— Jim Rohn
138. “To be successful you don’t need to do extraordinary things, you just need to do ordinary things extraordinarily well.”
— Jim Rohn
139. “Accuracy builds credibility.”
— Jim Rohn
140. “When the why gets stronger, the how gets easier.”
— Jim Rohn
141. “Don’t let the learning from your own experiences take too long. If you have been doing it wrong for the last ten years, I would suggest that’s long enough!”
— Jim Rohn
142. “Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.”
— Jim Rohn
143. “Direction determines destination.”
— Jim Rohn
144. “None of us is smarter than all of us.”
— Jim Rohn
145. “Direction determines destination. So the question you must ask yourself is; ‘Are all the disciplines that I’m currently engaged in taking me where I want to go?’”
— Jim Rohn
146. “The key to turning dreams into reality is action.”
— Jim Rohn
147. “Do whatever you have to do as quickly as you can, so you can do whatever you WANT to do, for as long as you can.”
— Jim Rohn
148. “Always do more than what you get paid for. It makes you a valuable person.”
— Jim Rohn
149. “Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is poverty. Ignorance is devastation. Ignorance is a tragedy. And ignorance is illness. It all stems from ignorance.”
— Jim Rohn
150. “Don’t start your day until you have it finished on paper first.”
— Jim Rohn
151. “If you don’t have a plan for what you want, then you will probably find yourself buying into someone else’s plan and later find out that was not the direction you wanted to go. You’ve got to be the architect of your life.”
— Jim Rohn
152. “It’s not what happens, it’s what you do that determines your future.”
— Jim Rohn
153. “Financial independence is the ability to live from the income of your own personal resources.”
— Jim Rohn
154. “One discipline always leads to another discipline.”
— Jim Rohn
155. “To succeed in sales, simply talk to lots of people every day. And here’s what’s exciting: There are lots of people!”
— Jim Rohn
156. “Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins.”
— Jim Rohn
157. “Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy.”
— Jim Rohn
158. “For things to change, you need to change. For things to get better, you need to get better. The good news is you can change, you can get better and you can start right where you are at and you can go as far as you want to go.”
— Jim Rohn
159. “I think everybody should study ants. They have an amazing four-part philosophy. Never give up, look ahead, stay positive, and do all you can.”
— Jim Rohn
160. “Learn how to turn frustration into fascination. You will learn more by being fascinated by life than you will by being frustrated by it.”
— Jim Rohn
161. “Poor people have big TVs. Rich people have big libraries.”
— Jim Rohn
162. “The twin killers of success are impatience and greed.”
— Jim Rohn
163. “The most important question to ask is “What am I becoming?””
— Jim Rohn
164. “The most important question to ask on the job is not ‘What am I getting?’ The most important question to ask on the job is ‘What am I becoming?’”
— Jim Rohn
165. “Set goals not for the outcome itself, but for who you get to become in the process.”
— Jim Rohn
166. “It is not what happens that determines the major part of your future. What happens, happens to us all. It is what you do about what happens that counts.”
— Jim Rohn
167. “If two or three agree on a common purpose, nothing is impossible.”
— Jim Rohn
168. “I used to say, “I sure hope things will change.” Then I learned that the only way things are going to change for me is when I change.”
— Jim Rohn
169. “Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins.”
— Jim Rohn
170. “The big challenge is to become all that you have the possibility of becoming. You cannot believe what it does to the human spirit to maximize your human potential and stretch yourself to the limit.”
— Jim Rohn
171. “If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us.”
— Jim Rohn
172. “Asking is the beginning of receiving. Make sure you don’t go to the ocean with a teaspoon. At least take a bucket so the kids won’t laugh at you.”
— Jim Rohn
173. “Don’t ask for security, ask for adventure. Better to live 30 years full of adventure than 100 years safe in the corner.”
— Jim Rohn
174. “Network marketing is the big wave of the future. It’s taking the place of franchising, which now requires too much capital for the average person.”
— Jim Rohn
175. “The worst kind of arrogance is arrogance from ignorance.”
— Jim Rohn
176. “Be a student, not a follower. Take interest in what someone says, then debate it, ponder it, and consider it from all angles.”
— Jim Rohn
177. “Your personal philosophy is the greatest determining factor in how your life works out.”
— Jim Rohn
178. “We are affected by what we know so get the information. Don’t be lazy in learning.”
— Jim Rohn
179. “It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.”
— Jim Rohn
180. “You are what you are today because of the choices you made in the past.”
— Jim Rohn
181. “On any one day, you can massively change the direction of your life.”
— Jim Rohn
182. “Failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.”
— Jim Rohn
183. “Some things you have to do every day. Eating about seven apples on Saturday night instead of one a day just isn’t going to get the job done.”
— Jim Rohn
184. “Be a collector of good ideas. Keep a journal. If you hear a good idea, capture it, and write it down. Don’t trust your memory.”
— Jim Rohn
185. “By working hard, you get to play hard guilt-free.”
— Jim Rohn
186. “Learning the art of expressing gratitude will force you to focus on the positive.”
— Jim Rohn
187. “You want to set a goal that is big enough that in the process of achieving it you become someone worth becoming.”
— Jim Rohn
188. “Be fascinated instead of frustrated.”
— Jim Rohn
189. “Always be willing to look at both sides of the argument. Understanding the other side is the best way to strengthen your own.”
— Jim Rohn
190. “Learn how to say no. Don’t let your mouth overload your back.”
— Jim Rohn
191. “To become financially independent you must turn part of your income into capital; turn capital into enterprise; turn enterprise into profit; turn profit into investment; and turn investment into financial independence.”
— Jim Rohn
192. “The greatest reward in becoming a millionaire is not the amount of money that you earn. It is the kind of person that you have to become to become a millionaire in the first place.”
— Jim Rohn
193. “If you make a sale, you can make a living. If you make an investment of time and good service in a customer, you can make a fortune.”
— Jim Rohn
194. “Things don’t just happen; things happen just.”
— Jim Rohn
195. “Real persuasion comes from putting more of you into everything you say. Words have an effect. Words loaded with emotion have a powerful effect.”
— Jim Rohn
196. “If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself.”
— Jim Rohn
197. “A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.”
— Jim Rohn
198. “Make measurable progress in a reasonable time.”
— Jim Rohn
199. “Your family and your love must be cultivated like a garden. Time, effort, and imagination must be summoned constantly to keep any relationship flourishing and growing.”
— Jim Rohn
200. “Never begin the day until it is finished on paper.”
— Jim Rohn
