The Secret To My Success

Now that I’m back from my hon­ey­moon, my inbox and forum have been flood­ingly busy! In fact, one thread on my Copy­writ­ers Board gar­nered so much inter­est that it cre­ated close to 10 pages worth of posts.

It’s a member’s take on “Michel Fortin’s Suc­cess Secret.”

Dale King, the author in ques­tion, pos­tu­lated that in every post and arti­cle I write, there’s a “secret” to my suc­cess. Although he hinted that the secret can be found in the book “Think and Grow Rich,” the rea­son why the thread became so pop­u­lar was because Dale never revealed it until the very end.

It’s a great exam­ple of the Zeigar­nik effect and keep­ing peo­ple inter­ested in your copy. It was so pow­er­ful that some peo­ple became out­right pissed off at Dale’s reluc­tance in reveal­ing “the secret” and posted harsh com­ments as a result.

In order to assuage the dis­grun­tled, here’s what I said. The secret is…

… Not in the know­ing but in the application.

It’s in the “being.”

You see, I don’t know the secret either.

If I were to ven­ture a guess on what the secret is, I’ll be com­pletely off-​​base I’m sure. And what I think the secret is may be com­pletely dif­fer­ent than what Dale proposed.

But that’s all unim­por­tant. Dale may have found some­thing impor­tant — some­thing impor­tant to him. And he’s try­ing to share it with us in his own way. And that is what’s important.

He is not try­ing to be disin­gen­u­ous. He sim­ply wants us to think. And what Dale is teach­ing us, whether he real­izes it or not, is just impor­tant as his so-​​called “secret.”

You see, rec­og­niz­ing the les­son is one thing. Learn­ing from the les­son is a step beyond that. But apply­ing the les­son is more impor­tant than all the gold in the world. (For me, anyway.)

It’s in the appli­ca­tion. Not in the know­ing. In the expe­ri­ence. Not the knowledge.

How many times are we taught “secrets,” whether we rec­og­nize them as such or not, but don’t do any­thing about them?

For exam­ple, how many times a smoker is told to quit smok­ing, and is told over and over that smok­ing is bad, but never quits? Appar­ently, they know it’s bad. They know the secret. But they don’t “get it.” Why? Because they don’t appre­ci­ate it. They are not pas­sion­ate about it. They are not ready for it.

I know, for me in my early career, this was true. I lis­tened to all the moti­va­tional tapes, read all the books and attended all the sem­i­nars. I was prac­tic­ing all the steps they taught. I was writ­ing down goals, visu­al­iz­ing pros­per­ity and doing affir­ma­tions. But…

… Noth­ing happened.

Until I learned that, as Lao-​​Tsu once said, “When the stu­dent is ready, the teacher will appear,” I applied the les­son only when I was truly ready for it. And “teacher” here could be a per­son, an event, or a “secret.”

So for me, Dale and many oth­ers who tried to guess are nev­er­the­less right in their own way: all of their sug­ges­tions are impor­tant, regard­less — whether you call them “secrets” or not. And what­ever the secret is (I pre­fer to call “les­son”) is what­ever you pull from this.

That is, it’s what it means to you.

I’m so thank­ful for what Dale and oth­ers have said here. You guys have taught me, and always are teach­ing me, so much in your own way. Thank you so such and amaz­ing thread.

But in an attempt to “throw a dog a bone,” let me take a stab at this. (And Dale, you can cor­rect me or not.)

Here’s my take.

(I’m going to be a lit­tle philo­soph­i­cal for a moment, if you allow me. I just returned from a won­der­ful hon­ey­moon with my new bride, and have so much to be thank­ful for. So I may be a lit­tle biased, I guess (or is that a lit­tle “blessed?”), in my answer here. So bear with me.)

My life started to turn around when I started to attract what I wanted. Because the secret, to me, is hav­ing an abun­dance men­tal­ity.

It’s not some­thing you seek and find, either. You do it because it’s nat­ural to you. It’s auto­matic and almost if not com­pletely uncon­scious. And to get to that level, it’s not about know­ing but about being.

It wasn’t like that in the begin­ning. I used to “think and grow rich,” but out of a scarcity mind­set. I then under­stood that it’s not “think and grow rich.” It’s “think rich and grow rich.” There is a difference.

I’ll explain what I mean in a moment.

My “secret” or my les­son is, stated dif­fer­ently, the law of attraction.

My favorite quote is from Descartes: “Cog­ito Ergo Sum.” (I think, there­fore I am.) In other words, what­ever you think will come true. (That is, what­ever you feel, believe in, focus on and are pas­sion­ate about, will come about.)

Think­ing alone is not the point. I mean, if you think you’re a fly, do you become a fly? Of course not. It’s in the how, not the what.

If you focus on what you lack, you will attract more lack. If you focus on what you want, what you want will come true, too.

The para­dox here is that they are both the same. You can lack money and want money, too. The dif­fer­ence is not what you think about. It’s how you think about it. It’s “I wish I had more money to pay all these bills and get out of debt,” ver­sus “I’m thank­ful that I’m blessed with so much abun­dance and the cer­tainty that more will come my way.”

Let me say it another way.

When I say “focus on what you want,” do I mean money? (Or any other mate­r­ial pos­ses­sion?) Not really. If you focus on what money means to you, you will attract money in your life, even though money may not be the main desire.

It’s how you feel about money.

And again, this is not just related to money. It can be the same about suc­cess, love, peace, health, and of course, prosperity.

When your think­ing starts shift­ing from a scarcity mind­set to an abun­dance mind­set, mir­a­cles will start to hap­pen in your life. (They did in mine.)

And again, I didn’t say “when you start think­ing.” I said, “when your think­ing starts shift­ing.” There is a dif­fer­ence. One is delib­er­ate, inten­tional and “forced.” The other is nat­ural, auto­matic and unconscious.

So how do you get an “auto­mated” pros­per­ity consciousness?

Here are my three steps.

1. Give.

The act of giv­ing cre­ates a vac­uum. The more you give the more you open your­self up to receive… and will do so. But remem­ber, you can­not give what you don’t have. So it often starts with you and lov­ing yourself.

Think­ing and accept­ing that you deserve wealth, health and hap­pi­ness is the seed of an abun­dance men­tal­ity. And the sheer act of giv­ing becomes an almost nat­ural byproduct.

Don’t give with the expec­ta­tion of get­ting some­thing in return. Why? Because, indi­rectly, you are still think­ing on what you lack. It’s scarcity con­scious­ness. Giv­ing with the expectancy of a return is just as worse as hoard­ing and block­ing nature’s vacuum.

Give because giv­ing is fun. Give with the aware­ness that there’s plenty to go around. Give because you want to — not because you have to.

“We are what we think. As sure the cart fol­lows the ox, think pure thoughts and good­ness will come about.“
— The Buddha

2. Thank.

Be appre­cia­tive and thank­ful for what you have. Because grat­i­tude helps you focus on what you have, so you can attract more of it. (And con­se­quently, it forces you NOT to think of what you don’t have, and attract­ing more lack in your life.)

Be thank­ful for all the bless­ings you now enjoy. Even the lit­tle things. And yes, even the “bad things.” In other words, in every chal­lenge or adver­sity, be thank­ful for the les­son it gives you.

This is prob­a­bly the biggest hur­dle. I, myself, am still work­ing on this. But I do know that, once you see every prob­lem as a les­son, and every per­son as a teacher, you are shift­ing your mind­set from scarcity to prosperity.

“A thank­ful heart is not only the great­est virtue, but the par­ent of all other virtues.“
— Mar­cus Tul­lius Cicero

And finally…

3. For­give.

For­give­ness is the most pow­er­ful act of an abun­dance mind­set, and prob­a­bly the most chal­leng­ing one for most peo­ple. For­give­ness is about let­ting go. I’m sure you’ve heard of that. But I say for­give­ness is also about let­ting “in.”

An abun­dance men­tal­ity comes about only when you’ve cleared your mind of neg­a­tiv­ity. Since nature abhors a vac­uum, if you’re filled with neg­a­tiv­ity, there’s no space for pos­i­tiv­ity. A mind clut­tered with hate, indig­na­tion and resent­ment is a clogged one.

Peace of mind should be your ulti­mate goal in every­thing you think or do.

When I started let­ting go and let­ting in, that’s when I started to see the lessons in all things. I stopped blam­ing other peo­ple or cir­cum­stances. (When you do blame, you are still get­ting your mind to focus on the very things you don’t want, and there­fore attract­ing those things.)

There’s a lot of power in humil­ity. But don’t be hum­ble for humility’s sake. Be hum­ble because you are hum­ble. Look at it this way: You don’t attract what you think. You attract what you are. Because what you are will dic­tate what you think.

Hence, that’s why I said it’s not “think and grow rich.” It’s “think rich (thoughts) and you will grow rich.” Or put another way, “Be and grow rich,” as in be giv­ing, thank­ful and for­giv­ing, and your thoughts will shift as a byprod­uct. And as you think, so shall you be.

“Cir­cum­stances do not make the man; they only reveal him (to him­self).”
— James Allen in “As a Man Thinketh”

If you want a good les­son on every­thing I just told you, check The Secret. It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. Take it with a grain of salt if you will, but like all copy, don’t dis­count it until you’ve tested it.

Thank you for listening.

About the Author

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