Psstttt. . .The Secret Is Out

The Secret is out. Sold out, that is. When I went into the bookstore to buy it, the clerk laughed at me. Three million copies of the DVD and book sold within three months and there were, he assured me, “no more to be had within 500 miles.”

The massive run was unplanned, but undoubtedly added to the mystique of the book. After all, a secret that’s hard to get must be a better secret. Add to this the reclusive nature of Australian-born author Rhonda Byrne. Her “teachers,” a team of 24 self-help writers and public speakers, are available for interviews, but she, with very few exceptions, is not. Even better. A guru should live in seclusion.

Why is The Secret (Atria Books/Beyond Words, 2006) so hot? Self-help books are often big sellers but this one – basically a compilation of pop psychology’s greatest hits – has become a media darling. Oprah devoted two shows to the subject and it’s turned up on Larry King and CNN. The Secret may have entered a somewhat-saturated and cynical self-help market with material that’s been seen before – but instead of responding “been there, visualized that,” self-improvement seekers are eating it up.

The success of The Secret comes down to three things:

1. Title. PR and marketing people all over the world are kicking themselves for not coming up with this one. Everyone wants in on a secret, and the book/DVD cover, which features sealing wax on an ancient scroll, is designed to exploit Da Vinci-code fever. It implies an arcane knowledge passed down through history from one master to another, withheld from the common people – an effect that is only heightened when you can’t find the book in your neighborhood book emporium.

2. Technique.The Secret uses the classic formula of positive thinking books, that is, quotes from celebrity philosophers interspersed with inspiring stories of people who put these directives into action and thus changed their lives. But where most positive-thinking books are long on theory and short on technique, The Secret focuses on the actual implementation of its theories.

3. Timing.The world is ripe for this message and, ironically, the fact that The Secret seems like something the reader already knows may be part of the appeal. “It speaks to something innate within everyone,” says Bob Doyle, one of Byrne’s teachers and creator of the Wealth Beyond Reason program (www.wealthbe yondreason.com). “People think ‘I knew this stuff, it’s just affirming to hear other people talk about it.’” Another teacher is former street kid turned best-selling author John Assaraf, who built four multimillion dollar businesses from scratch and shares money-making ideas with entrepreneurs and small business owners at www.onecoach.com. Assaraf points out that “The Secret debuted as a film, a Hollywood production that presented the story in a visual way. It’s entertaining, it’s practical, and it’s not too New-Agey.”

The Secret certainly has its critics, based mostly on the fact that its methodology sometimes seems to “blame the victim.” After all, if our thoughts bring about our circumstances, did you subconsciously cause that car wreck? Byrne received a lot of flak for saying that readers who wanted to lose weight should avoid looking at heavy people. But The Secret team isn’t shaken. Their press kit contains negative articles as well as positive ones, an unheard-of level of confidence in a business that usually involves a lot of spin. In fact, The Secret team seems blithely unconcerned about bad press. Perhaps it’s because they’re taking their own advice.

The cornerstone of The Secret is the law of attraction. In other words, like attracts like. Since your thoughts operate like a magnet, whatever you think about, you’ll bring into your life. For Secret teacher and author Mike Dooley, this comes down to three words: Thoughts become things. “For me, that’s the crucible of existence, the one immutable law that governs all time and place,” says Dooley, who was a CPA with Price Waterhouse before starting a successful gift and t-shirt business and founding the philosophical Adventurer’s Club. “Thoughts, once they’re thunk – and that’s a real word, by the way – become the stuff of our lives.”

Sounds simple enough. So why aren’t we all rich, beautiful, and happy? The problem is, most people use their massive mental powers to think about what they DON’T want. We nervously flip through our bills, fretting about debt…we anxiously keep checking that funny looking mole on our arm…we get in the car for an important meeting chanting, “I hope I’m not late.”

“The law of attraction doesn’t care whether you perceive something to be good or bad, whether you don’t want it or you do want it,” says Bob Doyle. “It’s simply responding to your thoughts. Most of us grow up collecting limiting beliefs. Our parents and teachers may have been well-meaning but their messages – things like ‘Life is hard’ – have become ingrained in us. Those negative emotions can emit a strong energetic force field that just gives you more and more of what you don’t want.”

But it’s not just your conscious bad thoughts that create problems. Doyle points out that “most of us attract by default. We think we don’t have any control over our minds so we go through life with our feelings and thoughts on autopilot, and everything is brought to us by default.” The law of attraction doesn’t take a holiday. It doesn’t cut you some slack by saying “But she only feels like a failure subconsciously so we won’t manifest that.” You attract your predominant thoughts day in and day out, consciously or unconsciously – a concept some Secret devotees initially find terrifying. After all, you can’t possibly monitor every thought that comes into your mind.

The good news is you have an easy way to gauge what’s going on in your head: your emotions. In order to know what you’re thinking – really thinking – just ask yourself what you’re feeling. Bob Doyle says, “Our emotions are an incredible gift to let us know what we’re subconsciously thinking. You’re not going to be happy all the time. We’re not robots, we’re humans who have a range of emotions. The key is not to wallow in grief, worry, or fear, but instead to use these negative emotions to correct your path. If you’re feeling bad, it’s a signal to stop and think ‘Something’s out of whack here. What change do I need to make?’ And if you’re feeling good – then great, you’re already there, just do more of that. Feeling good, even more than thinking right, is what keeps it working.”
So exactly what is this “it” that’s working within us? It’s the vibrational frequency that our thoughts are putting out into the world and the way that these vibrations in turn attract certain experiences back to us. Everyone knows the paranoid co-worker who expects to be treated badly and plods through life collecting evidence that the world is against him. Likewise you probably know a self-proclaimed “people person” who easily makes friends everywhere he or she goes. In both cases, whatever the person believes to be true…is.

The Secret teachers offer these practical tips for how to make the law of attraction work for you.

» WATCH THE SELF LANGUAGE, especially when invoking the all-powerful “I am.” If you walk around thinking “I’m fat, I’m old, I’m clumsy, I’m in debt…” the universe will give you more of the same. Better to use positive self-descriptions such as “I am strong and confident,” “Money comes easily to me,” or “I am grateful for my healthy body.”

» GRATITUDE, in fact, is a great way to turn your thinking in a whole new direction. Meditate or pray on the subject of thanksgiving. Make a list of things you’re grateful for, people who have helped you. Write notes of gratitude to friends and clients – or that encouraging math teacher back in 10th grade.

» VISUALIZATION is the common denominator of almost all positive thinking books, and The Secret teachers urge you to visualize with as much detail and emotion as you can muster. John Assaraf created vision boards on which he pasted images of everything, from romance to a mansion, that he wanted to bring into his life. “When we’re visualizing,” he says “we’re programming the subconscious mind to create an imprint, a neural pathway in the brain. We’re instructing the brain to find a match for what we’re visualizing in the physical world, essentially training and conditioning it to find the outer correlation of the thoughts within.”

» BRING ON THE DETAILS. Bob Doyle admits, “It’s easy to say that you must focus on something to attract it, but that’s hard to do when you don’t see it around you.” He suggests you test drive the car you crave or visit the model in the condo sales office. The Secret webpage (www.thesecret.tv) offers visualization tools to help you brush-stroke details into your vision. You can print out a blank check and fill it in for whatever amount you intend to make the next month…write your ideal weight on a piece of duct tape and place it over the readout on your scale…create an Assaraf-style vision board with images of your dream house or perfect vacation. Anything to help you understand exactly what it feels like to have that experience.

» SEE THESE THINGS AS ALREADY BEING YOURS. “Don’t see yourself as attaining your vision, see it as having already happened,” says Mike Dooley, who advocates a five-minute visualization meditation every day. Most of the time when we visualize, we project into the future. While thinking, “Someday I’ll be a vice president” is certainly better self-talk than thinking, “I’ll never be vice president,” it’s still not the perfect message to put out into the universe. It keeps your dream job out ahead of you, always in the future. In order to manifest the job in the present, feel, speak, and behave as if you already have the position you seek. Dress the part. View office politics and situations from the perspective of management.

» PHYSICALLY MOVE IN THE DIRECTION OF YOUR DREAMS. “It’s imperative that you begin to move toward the end result you seek,” says Mike Dooley. “Don’t worry so much about how you’re going to get there, just start moving towards it. Feeling resistance is normal but it doesn’t negate the process, and belief is a muscle that you develop over time. As you witness success, as the visualizations begin to work, it becomes easier to believe in the process. The business world and all capitalistic models are in some ways already aligned with The Secret, because business is efficient and always gravitates towards what works. Salespeople can be especially good at moving toward the end result because they’ve seen the law of attraction already at work, even if they didn’t call it by that name. It’s just important not to bog down in worrying about how all this is going to be done because ‘worrying how’ is the bane of our existence. If you believe in your vision and move toward it, the ‘hows’ tend to take care of themselves.”

» BOTTOM LINE: IF YOU DON”T FEEL IT, YOU CAN’T MANIFEST IT. The message of The Secret is that we live in an abundant universe and anything you desire can be yours. But in order to get there, you have to feel good now. Because you get what you’re feeling about even more than what you’re thinking about.

Our culture teaches us to think “I’ll be happy someday when I get that car…that girl…that job,” but The Secret stands this conventional thought sequence on its head. It says “Feel happy now and then you’ll attract that car…that girl…that job.”

And here’s the secret behind The Secret. Once you’re in a state of gratitude and positive thinking, you may find you don’t need that car/girl/job as much as you thought you did. “Our society is very attached to ‘When I have this thing, then I’ll have this feeling,’” says Bob Doyle. “But it isn’t the million dollars that makes you happy. If you do what makes you happy, the million dollars will follow. The money’s great, but it’s just an extra. The real secret is living every day in feelings of happiness, gratitude, and abundance.”

So better get started on that letter to your 10th grade math teacher now.
FEEDBACK: WILEY@SELLINGPOWER.COM