The Greatest Secret / The Law of attraction

A few years ago I was given a copy of an audio recording of a speech given in 1956 by a man named Earl Nightingale. In this speech titled "The Strangest Secret" Mr. Nightingale lays out what he believes is the secret to wealth, prosperity, happiness and success and that secret is that "We become what we think about all day long." He said that in order to be successful we must picture in our minds what it is that we want or that we want to become and then act as if the thing we picture is real or will become real, and not want a hundred incompatible things at the same time.


More recently there has been a similar release of "The Secret" which is unaffiliated with the ideas of Earl Nightingale but have commonalities. "The Secret" teaches the power of the "Law of Attraction" which simply summarized says that we can draw things, people, and events into our lives simply by using imagery or imagining those things in our minds that we desire.

And here's my take on it all - there is with out question in my mind some real and unseen power in the practical application of these principles. The way it is taught in "The Secret" is a little extreme to me because it claims that every detail of our lives is a result of our thoughts and to me that is a bit over the top. However, the idea of seeing in our minds what we want and picturing ourselves having what we desire and feeling as though we already have it has some power in it. I personally tend to lean more towards the way it is taught by Mr. Nightingale in how he says we must only act as if the thing is real or will become real and it will be real.

As I have experienced the power of this secret I have come to describe it a little differently. I call it the "decide moment." I have been fortunate and blessed in my life to have many wonderful experiences, know great people, and have some fun things. Some of them I attribute to hard work, others to coincidence, and others to blessings from God. But there are other things that I fully and honestly believe came to me because of the power of The Secret and for each of those things I can attach to it a moment in which I "decided" that I was going to have, do, or become something. Then, with out any real effort on my part these things find their way to me.

For example I used to drive a 1968 Ford f-250 that I love and still have today, but one night while trying to maneuver that beast which I had loved for so long I said out loud with gratitude in my voice for what I had that I was ready for a new truck. I can remember almost every detail about the moment because it stands out to me as my "decide moment" that I was ready for a change. In my mind I had a picture of the truck that I wanted and it wasn't a week later that I got a phone call from my brother who had seen an incredible deal on the exact truck that I had pictured in my mind. I bought the truck and to this day have never heard of or seen a deal on a truck as good as I got that day.

The same principle was true recently when I got a call from a friend who called and said he had a dune buggy that he wanted me to buy. He had no idea that just the week before Sarah and I had decided that we were going to buy a buggy this year so that we could off road as a family with our little Zoey. I got the rail and made money in the process. This principle has also worked for me in setting and achieving goals that when I made them I thought that they sounded absurdly impossible yet time and time again Sarah and I have reached those goals and even over shot them.

Dave Ramsey, the talk show host of the most listened to personal finance radio show, often comments on how once we have decided to get out of debt or have made goals for ourselves that there is power in making that decision and that God may even step in and push the process along faster than we ever thought possible.

Call it what you want but for me its the power of decision. Decide to get out of debt, decide to save money, decide to buy your first home, decide to become a the person you want to be, decide to loose weight, decide to solve some problem, decide to change your situation. To me the decide moment is when I emotionally commit to the idea of something that I want even if I can't see the road of how I am going to get there. I just decide that it is going to be a part of my life and then I prepare myself to receive it when it comes.

There is real power in it that I can not explain and I hope that you can find it for yourself and use it in your life. I highly recommend listening to "The Strangest Secret" by Earl Nightingale.