SUCCESS

The Law Of Attraction For Skeptics (Like Me)

Here’s the undeniable truth

One night in 1988, Jim Carrey was driving up Mulholland Drive, a winding road in the hills overlooking L.A.

He pulled over, got out of his car, stared out at the city and imagined that his life was what he wanted it to be.

At the time, he was earning a living doing standup comedy whenever he could get a gig, and he barely managed to pay the rent on his one bedroom apartment.

He wanted to be a movie star, and he stood there visualizing exactly what that would look like.

He imagined big directors calling him to say they liked his work. Agents telling him he got the big parts.

He pictured himself as a movie star.

He did this a lot. But on this particular night, he pulled out a checkbook. (This was before Venmo.)

And he wrote himself a check. He made it out to Jim Carrey and wrote down the amount:

Ten million dollars and zero cents.

On the memo line, he wrote “for acting services rendered.”

He signed it and dated it five years in the future, for Thanksgiving, 1993.

He put it in his wallet, and he carried it around everywhere he went for five years.

In October 1993, he pulled that check out of his wallet.

At this point, it was pretty tattered. But he could still read it — and his eyes teared up while he held it.

He’d just been told that he got cast in Dumb and Dumber.

He was going to get paid ten million dollars.

Carrey told this story to Oprah in an interview on her show.

And it was, for her, the embodiment of the Law of Attraction.

When Oprah introduced the world to The Secret, a book written by an Australian reality TV producer, she said,

“It’s what this show is all about — and has been all about for the past 21 years.”

Oprah was talking about the Law of Attraction, which was the subject of the book.

Here’s how she explained it:

“We create our own circumstances by the choices that we make, and the choices that we make are fueled by our thoughts.

That’s why everything that happens to you, good and bad, you’re attracting to yourself. The energy you put out into the world will always come back to you.”

This is the Law of Attraction.

And The Secret wasn’t the first bestselling book about it.

Think and Grow Rich came out 93 years ago, with exactly the same message.

And it sold 15 million copies, which is half as many as The Secret.

It’s not hard to see why the message is so popular. It’s basically wish fulfillment.

If you really, really want a McLaren F1, like this one — which sold recently for 19.8 million dollars — and you work as a barista at Starbucks….

You print out photos of that car and stick them up on your vision board, which you look at every day before you put on your green apron.

You say to yourself, “I own a McLaren F1” over and over in your mind, while you’re making Frappuccinos.

And that will result in you owning a McLaren F1.

Examples like this make the law of attraction seem kind of silly. That’s why, until recently, I totally dismissed it.

I thought it was at the same level as tarot cards and voodoo dolls.

Plus, the main people talking about it used all kinds of scientific sounding language, like this, from the movie version of The Secret:

“Every thought has a frequency.

And so if you’re thinking a thought over and over and over again; if you’re imagining in your mind having that brand new car, having the money that you need…

If you’re imagining what that looks like, you are emitting that frequency on a consistent basis.

Your thoughts are sending out that magnetic signal, which draws the parallel back to you.”

For me, all the talk of frequencies and magnetic signals made it hard to take this seriously, since that part of it has no basis in science — at all.

But I’ve changed my opinion.

Partly because there is real science that supports the key ideas behind the law of attraction, and partly because I’ve found it to work in my life.

So, if you’re a skeptic like me, let me lay it out for you.

And, if you’re a true believer, then you can feel the vibrations of my thoughts right now! (And you know I’m on your side.)

If I had read what you’re about to read, back in 2007, I would have been all in, from the jump — and I’d probably have a McLaren F1 in my driveway right now!

The first thing you need to know is that this is not a new idea.

Two thousand five hundred years ago, Buddha said these three awesome lines:

“What you think, you become.

What you feel, you attract.

What you imagine, you create.”

That’s what The Secret is about.

And Buddha said it so much better — without talking about frequencies and magnets.

It’s also in the Bible — ”as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

And, more recently — 150 years ago — Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I am what I think about all day long.”

Not too long after that, Winston Churchill said, “You create your own universe as you go along.”

So, we have smart people throughout history all saying the same thing.

For this skeptic, that counts for a lot.

Now, what exactly is the law of attraction, in plain language?

Well, in The Secret, they boil it down to these three words: ask, believe, receive.

And Jim Carrey gave the best summary I’ve heard. Here’s what he said:

“I believe in putting a rocket of desire out into the universe.

And you get it when you believe it.

People say, ‘When’s it gonna come? When’s it gonna come? When’s it gonna come?’

That’s the wrong way. You’re facing away from it.

You have to say, ‘it’s here. It’s here, it’s here.’”

What’s so cool about that is it’s exactly what he did.

Writing that 10 million dollar check to himself was him saying “it’s here.” And then, before the date he put on the check, it actually was there.

Now, if you’re a skeptic like me, here’s what you’re saying to yourself:

“Yeah… this is the same thing that happens with psychics.

You pay attention to the times they’re right and ignore when they’re wrong.

How many waiters at restaurants in L.A. have seen themselves as movie stars, but they’re still waiting tables?”

Alright, you’ve got a point. So how about I approach it from a totally different angle?

I’m going to break the Law of Attraction down into five simple ideas based entirely on science and common sense.

You’re not gonna be able argue with these.

Simple idea number one: VISUALIZATION

There’s a massive body of scientific research that says visualization works.

My favorite study on this looked at basketball free throws. The subjects in the experiment got divided into three groups:

Group one practiced free throws on a basketball court for an hour a day for 30 days.

Group two practiced free throws — in their minds — for the same period of time.

They never touched the ball!

But this group saw a 100% of the shots go in.

Group three didn’t practice at all.

The result?

Well, group three didn’t get any better.

But groups one and two showed equal levels of improvement.

There’s no denying that seeing something happen in your mind can make it happen in real life.

It’s how Steph Curry gets all those threes.

Simple idea number two: FOCUS

You have a choice, every moment of every day, between focusing on problems and focusing on solutions.

You can focus on what’s bad or focus on what’s good.

You can focus on where you’re going or on what’s getting in your way.

Whichever thoughts you feed are the ones that are going to grow.

The line that Tony Robbins says more than any other is this:

“Where focus goes, energy flows.”

It’s a fact of life that you get more of what you focus on.

I’m pretty sure you can’t argue with that simple idea.

Simple idea number three: UNSHAKEABLE BELIEF

Jim Carrey would not have become a movie star if he doubted his ability to make it happen.

Getting through the years of rejection in his 20s would have been impossible.

If he didn’t have the absolute belief that he would succeed, he would have given up.

This one’s pure common sense.

As we’ve all heard people say, “Those who think they can and those who think they can’t are both usually right.”

Simple idea number four: INTENSE DESIRE AND DETERMINATION

The author of Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill, said it best:

“Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.”

The way Tony Robbins puts it,

“You’ve got to take your SHOULDs and turn them into MUSTs.

You’ve got to want it so much that not getting it is not an option.”

Simple idea number five: POSITIVITY

Now, this is where they lose me, because they start talking about what frequency you’re vibrating at. But it’s way simpler than that.

Imagine yourself in two different states:

One, feeling great about life and about yourself. 100% positive.

The other, feeling frustrated and down and stressed.

Now, think about two things:

The effect your state has on other people. And the effect it has on you.

Are other people gonna be eager to be around you, to work with you, to invest in you, to hire you… any of those things, if you’re in a negative state?

Not so much. But what about the effect on you?

Well, according to Shawn Achor, a Harvard researcher whose book, The Happiness Advantage, is on my must-read list, you’re 31 percent smarter when you’re in a positive state compared to a negative state.

But we don’t need science to tell us that.

We know that everything in our life goes better when we’re in a positive state.

We think better. We’re more productive. We connect with other people better.

Doing what it takes to keep ourselves in a positive state as much of the time as we can is actually the single biggest thing we can do to improve our lives.

If you’re not convinced yet…

For the heavy-duty skeptics who still aren’t 100% convinced, here’s what I have to say to you:

You can focus on reasons to doubt the wisdom that people have been sharing for thousands of years.

Or you can hear what I and everyone else has to say on this topic… and focus on what has value for you.

I can now see clearly that my skepticism was not serving me.

So I choose to listen to everyone with an open mind and an open heart.

And I choose to believe that we all have the capacity to make incredible things happen in our lives.

I choose to believe that I can achieve anything that I can see clearly in my mind.

And I have no illusion that it will be easy.

But that’s fine with me, because it wouldn’t be worth doing if it was easy.

We can all make the choice, today, not to settle for anything less than what we dream of.

Not to stick with what’s practical or realistic.

But to see in our minds the ultimate vision of our lives. To see whatever would give us the most joy and fulfillment.

And then to send a rocket of desire out into the universe, knowing that we have the power to make it real, right now.

All we need to do is believe.

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This article is an excerpt of the forthcoming book, Your Best Life: Tactics, Tools and Insights to Create a Life of Fulfillment, Joy and Abundance, by Mike X — to be released in October, 2022.

For more on Mike X, see mikex.blog.

And check out his YouTube channel, YouTube.com/mikeXtv.