The Real Secret

"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there."
Yogi Berra

The Secret, the book and the film, is the self-help sensation of the decade. It was featured on two episodes of Oprah and as the DVD reached number one on Amazon in March 2007, the book version reached number one on The New York Times bestseller list. In April of 2007 Simon & Schuster released the biggest order for a second printing in its history, 2 million copies.

There are 3 steps taught in The Secret: ask, believe and receive. I agree that these are vital steps on the way to getting what you want. However, if this was all there was to getting from where you are to where you want to be in your business and your life, we’d all be retired with billions in the bank before we were 30.

There’s something missing, and that is persistent action. In 2005 there was a study done on visualization. Two groups of students spent time daily visualizing getting an A. One group focused their thoughts only on the outcome. The other group focused their thoughts on the outcome and about what it would take to get there. The second group enjoyed the course more, had less anxiety and was more successful in getting an A.

Thomas Edison has a vision of streets being lit by electric lamps. He kept that vision in his mind and had total belief in what he saw until he turned it into a reality. There was no such thing as a bulb, and he did not know how to make one when he first had this vision. So the real secret to getting what you want is to ask, believe, take persistent action, and receive.

In order to achieve your goals, you need a clear picture of them, take persistent action towards them, and have the self-esteem to know that failures along the way is just part of the learning curve.

That’s the real secret, and there's no need to keep it to yourself!