After a rough day at the picture car company when a film industry worker had threatened to bring a gas can and set the place on fire, I went home and thought to myself, “This can’t be all there is to life.” Working fifty hours a week at a place where they threw chairs and humiliated anyone who had figured out a way to get a job in Hollywood was hardly living the dream. It was actually more like the film, Swimming With the Sharks, starring Kevin Spacey. I found myself lying awake most of that night pondering why we are all here. Then the next day, I noticed my friend idly scrolling through documentaries on Netflix and suddenly passing over one called The Secret. “Hey, hey, hey, what’s that?” I asked, “Go back.” It turned out to be no less than a turning point in my life.
There are many amazing speakers in The Secret, but the one that spoke to me the loudest that day was Jack Canfield, author of Chicken Soup for the Soul. I sat mesmerized as Jack spoke about focusing on what it is that you want. He used an analogy about vehicles, of all things, and explained that if a person thought about a blue car, he would start noticing all of the blue cars on the road. It sure made sense to me. I had actually been trying to find a blue Geo Metro for a TV series earlier that week and had encountered the same experience. Then Jack said that he had focused on getting advertised in the National Enquirer for the purpose of selling his book, and voila! A reporter for the National Enquirer had attended his seminar and asked to interview him.
For the next several months I did everything the speakers in The Secret said to do and it completely changed my way of thinking. Then on Thanksgiving Day of 2013, I finished a true crime book and realized that it had the same layout as the book I wanted to write about my father’s murder. I could see it literally unfolding before my eyes and could hear Jack’s voice in my head telling me that when the opportunity came, I would see it. I wrote the first page right then and there and knew that all I had to do was write the other 299 pages and I would have my book. It was that simple once I started.
Over the following year I watched at least one video each day featuring another amazing speaker from The Secret: Bob Proctor. I also did everything Bob said to do. I ordered the CD, The Strangest Secret, on the Internet and listened to it every time I got into the car. Soon I could hear Earl Nightingale’s quotes in my head: “…never again submit to failure!” and “Everything comes if a man will only wait.” These men have drastically changed my life. I am forever grateful to them and the same thing can happen for you. I hope you check them out.
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