We Are What We Think

A fair warn­ing: this post delves into some­thing I’m pas­sion­ate about, which is some­what philo­soph­i­cal in nature. So if you’re of a cer­tain reli­gious per­sua­sion and eas­ily offended by oth­ers, then please skip over this blog post. If not, read on…

“The Secret” is tak­ing the entire world by storm. It deals with the “Law of Attrac­tion,” in that we attract to our­selves what we think and feel, and that our per­cep­tions mold our reality.

As Earl Nightin­gale pro­claimed in “The Strangest Secret,” one of the first self-​​help pro­grams I’ve ever bought: “We become what we think about.”

You may have seen it talked about on Larry King, Oprah, and many other talk shows. It’s the most suc­cess­ful Inter­net launch of any prod­uct. It hit Alexa #1 soon after its launch, and pro­pelled to the Amazon.com’s #1 best sell­ing book and DVD within a few months.

It appeared in The Wall Street Jour­nal, New York Times, and Time Mag­a­zine, and even on the cover of Newsweek, which came shortly thereafter.

But is “The Secret” truly worth the buzz? Or is it just an old-​​world phi­los­o­phy pack­aged in some new­fan­gled mar­ket­ing? The answer to the for­mer is def­i­nitely “yes.” But for the lat­ter, it’s “yes” and “no.” Let me explain…

My favorite quote of all time is from René Descartes, which in Latin, goes: “Cog­ito Ergo Sum.” Trans­lated, we all know it as: “I think, there­fore I am.” And yes, it’s some­thing that’s been around for ages.

My own life is liv­ing proof that it works. If you know my story, then you know that I went from being an abused child of an alco­holic and under­go­ing two bank­rupt­cies, to becom­ing a suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neur. My life lit­er­ally turned around when I applied “The Secret” to my life. So I per­son­ally believe it to be true.

(It was a plea­sure when I was asked to write the copy for John Assaraf, one of the authors behind “The Secret” and whose life seems to par­al­lel mine. From a “street kid” whose teenage years were plagued with vio­lence, drugs, and crime, to a bil­lion­aire and now moti­va­tional speaker, John’s story, like mine, is another per­fect exam­ple of the Law of Attrac­tion in action.)

How­ever, the recent hype, which is indeed a sim­ple mar­ket­ing twist on an age­less axiom, may be a lit­tle over the top for some peo­ple. But crit­ics and cyn­ics aside, I also do believe that it’s about time the word got out to reach the masses the way it has.

It’s def­i­nitely noth­ing new. It’s been around since the begin­ning of time. But there are some impor­tant rea­sons why this meme is finally becom­ing so pop­u­lar — and I’ll come back to this in a moment.

One of my great­est pas­sions is soci­ol­ogy. I love learn­ing about his­tory, cul­ture, lan­guages, and human behav­ior. It’s been one of my most fas­ci­nat­ing top­ics — some­thing I’ve stud­ied in both for­mal and per­sonal education.

I love to learn who we are, where we come from, what makes us unique. I stud­ied many cul­tures, nation­al­i­ties, and lan­guages, as well as their ori­gins and the behav­iors that are innate to spe­cific cultures.

And one such soci­etal sta­ple is cer­tainly religion.

One of my favorite classes in col­lege was stud­ies in com­par­a­tive reli­gion. And unlike many peo­ple who seek out what makes us dif­fer­ent, I’ve been more fas­ci­nated by what makes us similar.

I’m not here to pros­e­ly­tize for any reli­gious per­sua­sion. How­ever, in my stud­ies and per­sonal research, I have read and stud­ied the “bibles” of most reli­gions, such as the Bible, the Torah, the Dhamma­pada, the Baghavad Gita, the Qur’an, and more.

I’ve stud­ied Chris­tian­ity, Judaism, Islamism, Bud­dhism, Theosophism, Con­fu­cian­ism, Tao­ism, Hin­duism, Shaman­ism, Objec­tivism, Pagan­ism (from Greek and Roman poly­the­ism, all the way to Wicca), and more. And yes, even the Church of the Sub­ge­nius. (R.A.W., may you rest in peace!)

I’ve stud­ied all the great spir­i­tual mas­ters, lead­ers, prophets, philoso­phers, and writ­ers. One of my favorite con­tem­po­rary authors is the great mythol­o­gist Joseph Camp­bell, who taught us to “fol­low our bliss.”

I have also immersed myself in the teach­ings of Flo­rence Scovel Shinn, Wayne Dyer, John Ran­dolph Price, Paul Solomon, and many others.

I did so in an attempt to try to find the one com­mon denom­i­na­tor in all reli­gions, in all cul­tures, in all soci­eties. Some peo­ple say it’s love. That may be true, but what I have found is, in almost all cases, the com­mon denom­i­na­tor has been “You are what you think.”

Proverbs 23:7 states, “For as he thin­keth in his heart, so is he.” “Life con­sists in what a man is think­ing of all day,” said Ralph Waldo Emer­son. Or, as the Bud­dha said in the open­ing line of the Dhamma­pada (1:1): “We are what we think. All that we are is the result of our thoughts.”

These are just some exam­ples. I’ve seen this again and again. In almost every reli­gious book, teach­ing, phi­los­o­phy, or the­ol­ogy, there has been some ref­er­ence to this time­less wisdom.

Again, I’m not here to enter into a the­o­log­i­cal debate of any kind. But I do believe in the law of attrac­tion. And for the longest time, sci­en­tists have worked hard to dis­prove the exis­tence of a Supreme Being, and to prove the irra­tional­ity of reli­gion, prayer, and worship.

But lately, and prob­a­bly why “The Secret” is mak­ing such a splash, is that sci­ence is finally, and para­dox­i­cally, prov­ing what schol­ars, spir­i­tual lead­ers, and philoso­phers have known to be true all along.

In movies like “What The Bleep” (which I highly rec­om­mend), quan­tum mechan­ics the­o­rists and quan­tum physi­cists dis­cuss that sci­ence is indeed prov­ing that we are what we think.

One of the most fas­ci­nat­ing stud­ies in this area is Dr. Masaru Emoto’s water crys­tal­liza­tion exper­i­ments. It’s amaz­ing that thoughts can actu­ally alter the com­po­si­tion of water. And since we are mostly made up of water our­selves, this is proof that thoughts and feel­ings affect phys­i­cal reality.

This phi­los­o­phy has lit­er­ally changed the lives of mil­lions of peo­ple. For many oth­ers, “The Secret” is just a bunch of hype. And I can cer­tainly appre­ci­ate and respect both sides.

But in the mid­dle, we find the major­ity of peo­ple try­ing to make sense of it all.

When we see the movie, and per­haps even adopt its con­cepts, some of us are prob­a­bly left scratch­ing our heads try­ing to fig­ure out how it works, seek­ing real-​​world appli­ca­tions of the Law of Attrac­tion. If only there were prac­ti­cal, easy-​​to-​​follow steps we can take.

That’s why it is cer­tainly no secret that, when I was asked to review “The Secret Sci­ence of Get­ting Rich” home study course via ReviewMe​.com (as a paid review request), I was utterly thrilled to do so.

It’s a course based on a sem­i­nar given by sev­eral authors of the run­away best-​​selling book and movie, which helps its stu­dents apply the teach­ings behind “The Secret” to their lives. I haven’t taken the sem­i­nar or bought the prod­uct, so my knowl­edge is only lim­ited by the con­tent on the web­site. But one thing I do know…

There is a ten­dency for naysay­ers to look askance at pro­grams like this, but never has there been a pro­gram offered that com­bines the cred­i­bil­ity of teach­ers like Jack Can­field (Chicken Soup for The Soul), Bob Proc­tor (suc­cess coach), and Michael Beck­with (spir­i­tual leader) with a run-​​away-​​best-​​selling book and movie.

The teach­ers are inspi­ra­tional. And the cur­ricu­lum itself is worth a look.

The pro­gram includes 10 jam-​​packed CDs, over 15 hours of MP3s, a 180-​​page work­book and plan­ner, the book itself, a vari­ety of tools to guide you, all included in a beau­ti­ful, leather-​​bound brief­case to carry the course with you, wher­ever you go.

And the course even includes access to a pri­vate mem­bers web­site, where you can net­work and rub shoul­ders with like­minded stu­dents and experts.

A great bonus is that the course also comes with it’s own busi­ness oppor­tu­nity. If you’re so inclined, you can pro­mote the course your­self, with a pre-​​designed web­site and ready-​​to-​​use pro­mo­tional mate­ri­als, so you can make money pro­mot­ing the seminar.

At the very least, check out the web­site and signup for the free 7-​​part email course. It’s a worth­while read.

Nev­er­the­less, if you have always won­dered how you can achieve suc­cess in your life, what­ever “suc­cess” means to you (and being “rich” doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily mean it needs to be of a finan­cial nature, either), then I rec­om­mend that you check out The Secret Sci­ence of Get­ting Rich.

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

• How to Capture and Captivate Attention
• The Real Problem With The Flaw of Attraction
• Two Shining Stars in an Age of Darkness
• Changes, Relaunches, and Extreme Makeovers
• Superior Value Equals Superior Sales

Other Related Posts

• Risk-Reversal's Role Reversal
• From Puffery To Praise: How to Turn Hype Into Sales
• Does Your Copy Have Personality?
• Are All Business People Dishonest?
• Your Reader Wants To Know These 5 Things