Attract Success: The Secret to Visualizing Your Future and Achieving Your Goals

Good morning, Believe Nation. Today we're going to talk about 5 ways that you can attract success. My favorite part is the "why" clip, and I'm curious to figure out which one you guys like the best.

Basically, the message of The Secret is the message that I've been trying to share with the world on my show. For the past 21 years. The message is that you're really responsible for your life. You are responsible for your life. I've known this. I've known this since The Color Purple in 1985. I've probably told you the story when I did The Color Purple, but in 1985, I did The Color Purple. Prior to that, I had read the book, Larry. This is when I got the secret thing, but I didn't know it was called The Secret. I read the book The Color Purple and then went out and got books for everybody else I knew. And I was obsessed about this story. Obsessed about it. I ate, slept, thought all the time about "The Color Purple." I moved to Chicago. I get a call from a casting agent asking would I like to come and audition for a movie. I've never gotten a call in my life from anybody for a movie or anything like that. And I say, "Is it 'The Color Purple'?" And he says, "No, it's a movie called 'Moonsong.'" And I go, "Well, I've been praying for 'The Color Purple.'" And I go to the audition, and of course it was "The Color Purple." I audition. I don't hear anything for months. And I go to this fat farm, and I think it's because I'm fat, 'cause I was about 212 pounds at the time. And I think I didn't get the callback because I'm so fat. And I'm at this fat farm, and I'm praying and crying, saying to God, "Help me let this go," because I wanted to be in this movie so much. I wanted it, I wanted it, I wanted it. I thought I was going to be in the movie. There's all these signs that I should be in the movie. And I go to this fat farm and I'm praying and crying. And as I'm on the track singing the song, I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all. I'm singing that song, praying and crying. A woman comes out to me. And she says, on the track, it's raining. And she says, there's a phone call for you. And the phone call was Steven Spielberg saying, I want to see you in my office in California tomorrow. Now, what I learned from that— that moment absolutely changed my life forever because I had drawn The Color Purple into my life. I didn't know Steven Spielberg. I didn't know Quincy Jones, who saw me in Chicago. In 1984, he was there for a lawsuit that was being filed against Michael Jackson because he'd been working on his Thriller album. And he saw me on AM Chicago and said, "That's Sophia." Now, I didn't know him. I didn't know anybody that had anything to do with that. But I knew that I had drawn that into my life. And it changed the way I thought about my life forever.

So you're not surprised at the success of The Secret?

I am— I'm thrilled for the success of The Secret. I think that the message needs to go further because I think the mistake that was made with The Secret is that they tried to— they, don't know who they are— that they tried to let that be the answer to all questions. It's not the— it's just one law. The law of attraction is one law. There are many laws working in the world. But it is very true that the way you think creates reality for yourself. There are other factors going on, so it's not everything, but you really can change your own reality based on the way that you think. Obviously, you knew somewhere inside yourself that you were destined to be famous, because I think it's really a marvelous thing, that visualization thing you did. Do y'all read about this or hear this, that you used to go up on Mulholland Drive and park every night and visualize seeing yourself as Yeah, I would visualize—

yeah, I would visualize—

This is when you were broke and poor.

Right. Having directors interested in me and people that I respected saying, you know, "I like your work," or whatever that is. And I would visualize things coming to me that I wanted or whatever.

This was in, like, 1987, '85?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And did you— I had nothing at that time, so it was like— but it just made me feel better. It made me— at that time, all it really was for me was, kind of making me feel better. I would drive home and think, "Well, I do have these things. They're out there. I just don't have a hold of them yet, but they're out there." Okay, so you would get this from what, self-help books or whatever? Yeah, yeah, self-help section.

Self-help section.

They renamed it the Jim Carrey wing.

So didn't you write yourself a check? I heard that you did. Is that true?

I wrote myself a check for $10 million for acting services rendered, and I gave myself 5 years or 3 years, maybe. And I dated it Thanksgiving 1995. And I put it in my wallet, and I kept it there, and it deteriorated and deteriorated and stuff. And— but then just before Thanksgiving 1995, I found out that I was going to make $10 million on— I think it was Dumb and Dumber, maybe.

Dumb and Dumber, yeah.

Yeah.

I don't want to be an icon. I want to be an idea, you know. I want to represent an idea. I want to represent possibilities. I want to represent magic, right? That you're in a universe and 2 2 4. 2 2 only equals 4 if you accept that 2 2 4. 2 2 is going to be what I want it to be. And there's a redemptive power that making a choice has, rather than feeling like you're at effect to all the things that are happening. Make a choice. You just decide what it's gonna be, who you're gonna be, how you're gonna do it. Just decide. And then from that point, the universe is gonna get out your way. It's like, it's water. It wants to move and go around stuff, you know? So for me, I wanna represent possibilities. I wanna represent the idea that you really can make what you want. One of my favorite books is "The Alchemist," Paulo Coelho. That's just— I just believe that. I believe that I can create whatever I want to create if I can put my head on it right, study it, learn the patterns, and, you know, I just— it's hard to put into words. It's real metaphysical, esoteric nonsense, but I feel very strongly that we are who we choose to be.

I remember a time early in my career, I was about 24, and I went to do a seminar in Boston, And in those days, a big seminar for me was like 125 people. It was a 3-day seminar, and we worked around the clock, and people made such extraordinary changes in their life. And at the end of it, I was feeling so fulfilled. I was thinking, my God, I'm 24, maybe 25 at the time, and I am so happy because I have found my mission in life. I'm doing what I love. It's making a difference in people's lives. This is extraordinary. So we finished about midnight on the Sunday night, and around midnight I'm still wound up, so I don't feel like going to bed. So I decided, okay, let me take a walk here, and I decided to go through Copley Square. If you've been through Copley Square, you know it's a pretty neat place. Because in Copley Square, you can look up and you can see buildings that were here before we were known as the United States, and beside them you see skyscrapers that are new. It's a pretty cool place. So I'm walking around midnight on a sunny night. There's nobody in Copley Square at midnight on a sunny night. And I'm walking along, and I see this guy in the distance, and he's kind of stumbling back and forth between between the gutter and the sidewalk. He had a long trench coat on, his head's down like this, he's holding a brown bag, and I can start to smell him even before I get there, and I'm thinking, "This guy's obviously drunk." And as I started to get closer, I thought, "I bet he's going to beg me for some money." And sure enough, whatever you focus on in life tends to happen, doesn't it? So sure enough, he gets real close to me, and I thought all of a sudden he wasn't going to do it, and all of a sudden he popped his head up, it was really weird, and he went, "Mister!" He had this really bizarre looking, sounding voice. He went, "Mister, could you loan me quarter?" And I thought, do I want to reward this behavior? And then I thought, I don't want him to suffer. Do you have this dilemma sometimes? Like, you know, I'm not here to judge. So years ago, I finally decided I always just give, even if the person's pulling a scam. That's for them to deal with. If I have the ability, then I give. And so I thought, well, could I teach him something? So I asked him a question back. I said, is that all you want is a quarter? He goes, yeah, just one quarter. One quarter changed my whole life. One quarter. I said, really? He said, yeah, one quarter. So I reached in my pocket and I pull out my money clip. And in those days I was very young, just starting to succeed. And my original mentor was a man named Jim Rohn. I don't know how many have heard of Jim Rohn. Yeah, he's a great guy. And Jim told me, he said, Tony, look, you've come from a poor background, you got a poor psychology, you got to change it. He said, you don't have any money, so pretend you do. He said, start training your brain, condition it. He said, go save all your money, get $300 bills and put them on the outside of your money clip, even though you only have $5 in between that. So every time you pull it out, you'll see that, you'll feel inspired, you'll feel better. He said, you'll feel better, you'll do better. So I was like, okay. So I did. So I pulled my money clip, and sure enough, I got $300 bills in. I made sure he saw the bills. So I'm tearing through that, right? Looking in between there, see if I can find some change, but I made sure he saw it. Sure enough, he's looking at the $100 bills, checking it out. I find the quarter, I pull it out, take the money, put it in my pocket. I notice he's watching my hand going into the pocket. I took the quarter and I looked at him and I said, "Sir, life will pay any price you ask of it." I gave him the quarter. Then something really interesting happened. He took the quarter He looked at the quarter. He looked at me. He looked at my pocket. He looked back at the quarter, looked at me, looked at my pocket, looked at me again, looked at the quarter, looked at my pocket, looked back at me and said, "You're weird." And then he shuffled on off like this, right? And I thought to myself, wow, what's the difference between him and me? I mean, I was 24, 25 at the time. Doing what I love most, have my mission in life, and he's in his early 60s, drunk on the street, begging for quarters. What's the difference? And I thought, well, maybe God's blessed me because I'm such a good person. I thought, oh, and he's such a bad person. That's such bull. And I thought, wow, maybe the answer to that question is what I just told him. Life will pay whatever price you ask of it. But you know what's interesting? You got to ask intelligently. In the Bible it says, ask and you shall what? Yeah, pretty good formula. You ought to look into it. But you know what? It says, ask and you shall receive, but I'm sure it meant ask intelligently. I'm sure that's what God meant. I'm sure he didn't mean bitch and you will receive, whine and you will receive. I don't think that was the instruction. Now, if you're gonna ask intelligently, there might be 5 elements of that. Number 1, you'd have to ask specifically, wouldn't you? You wouldn't ask in a general way. People do it all the time. They go, "I want more money." Fine, here's a dollar. Get out of here. Very often you're getting what you're asking for. You're just not aware of how general you're asking. Clarity is power. The more clear you are about exactly what it is you want, the more your brain knows how to get there. Your brain is a servo mechanism. It's like a bomb. Those bombs, those missiles, they have a servo mechanism. So if the target moves, it knows what the target is. It follows it. Your brain, when you condition it, knows exactly what to go for. It'll find a way to get there. Do you ever buy a certain outfit or a certain car and suddenly see that car outfit everywhere? How many ever had that experience?

Say aye.

How come that car outfit's everywhere? It always was everywhere, but now you notice it. And the reason is because there's a part of your brain called the reticular activating system, the RAS. That part of your brain determines what you notice and what you don't notice. Your brain spends most of its time trying to make sure you don't notice because you'll go crazy if you notice everything. But when you decide what's most important to you, your brain goes after it. Everyone I know who's successful builds what I call an RPM plan. An RPM is built on the metaphor that the way to get from where you are to where you want to go the fastest is you got to build power like in a car— RPMs. And the R stands for they know the result they're after. They know what they want precisely. If you don't know exactly what you want or you let yourself get beyond that into something general, you're not going to achieve it. Clarity is power. You got to know the specific result you're after. What do you want? If you can't answer that question right now in your personal life, in your body, in your relationships, in your finances, in your spirituality, then you're not going to be as fulfilled as you want to be. Today we're going to have you answer one of those questions at least. The second part of it, you got to know P, why you're doing it. Because you know what, you may get a big goal. Somebody says, I want to make a billion dollars. I want to bring peace to the earth. Why? 'Cause as soon as you come up with a goal, all the obstacles show up. Unless you've got enough emotional drive to break through that, you're never gonna discover what it really takes. So you gotta get yourself past that. And the way to get past that is have enough reasons. Reasons come first, answers come second. This man did not know what he wanted. He did not have enough reasons. To ask intelligently, you gotta ask specifically. To ask intelligently, you gotta know why you want it, have enough drive to make it happen, enough juice to make it happen. If you don't have enough reasons, you will not make it happen. And the M is what is your massive action plan? What is going to get you to actually follow through? Because the first plan's not going to work and the second plan's going to work, so you better have enough plans. If the first two don't work, you still got something else. Otherwise, you're going to be having excuses why it didn't work. So asking intelligently requires that. So if we're going to be extraordinary in our results, we've got to be in an extraordinary state. We got to know what we want, we got to go use it.

I try to share the principles of success whenever I can because I have not gotten this far without learning the principles of success. And over the Over the years, I've just realized that common sense just ain't that common. So I often get inspiration from books, and one book that resonates with me all the time is this book right here. It's called The Secret. It is the most powerful book outside of the Bible that I have ever read in my life, and the book is based on the law of attraction. And how that principle, once you master it, can help you find wealth, happiness, better health, whatever you're looking for, relationships. So let me share some of the concepts that have helped keep me on my game. So the first one is like attracts like. You have to understand, you are a magnet. Whatever you are, that's what you draw to you. If you're negative, You're gonna draw negativity. You positive, you draw positive. You're a kind person, more people are kind to you. So you're like a magnet, and you gotta understand something about like attracts like. If you see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand. This is so true. You've got to grab this. You gotta create dream boards, you gotta put the new car up there. On your mirror. Put the weight you want to be on the refrigerator. If you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand. That's the law of attraction. That's what you bring to you.

Do you know that the law of attraction is always working? It's like the law of gravity. If I let this go, it's going to go down. It's never going to go back up. It's going to go down. That is the law of gravity. Anything heavier than Earth is attracted towards the center of the world. Well, the law of attraction is always working. Now, how does it work? Well, I use a diagram to explain the mind. Now let this circle represent your mind, and let this little circle here represent your body. Now I want you to think of this for a moment. Your body is a molecular structure. This is a mass of energy in a very high speed of vibration. If you looked at your body through a microscope, you'd see that energy dancing right before your eyes. And here's something that'll keep you thinking for the next 20 years. When you move out of it, the body does not stop moving. If you go to a funeral parlor and pick up the remains and look at it, you will see it moving. And if it wasn't moving, how would it ever change to dust? You move into your body and you will move out of it. And it's how you use your mind that's going to dictate communicate the vibration you're in. Now stay with me. You have an imaginary line right across here, and that separates the conscious mind from the subconscious mind. Now the subconscious mind has been programmed. When you were a little baby, this is the way it was. You were just like this, subconscious mind wide open, and everything that was going on around it went right in there. And all the energy that went in there when you were just a little baby formed something called a paradigm. Now a paradigm is information. It's a multitude of habits. You are the product of your environment, but prior to that, you were the product of a genetic strain that goes back for generations. Now I'm going to say that the paradigm is X-type energy. Now you've got the ability here on a conscious level to think, and you can think anything you want to think. And as you think, you build ideas. There's a power that's flowing into your consciousness. It never stops. It flows to and through you. You can actually photograph this power leaving you. It flows to and through you. Now as it flows in, you will start thinking and you'll probably think X-type thoughts. Therefore, you're going to be in an X-type vibration. And that will produce X-type results. Now it's the results you want to change. And to change the results, you're going to have to change what you attract. You see, the thoughts that you think control the vibration that you're in. Vibration is nothing but an idea. It's a law of the universe. Everything vibrates, nothing rests. We live in an ocean of motion. And it's the thoughts that you're thinking that you impress upon your subconscious mind that control the vibration the body's in, and that dictates how you act, but it also dictates what you attract. You attract energy that's in harmony with you. You attract people that are in harmony with you. You see, everything operates on frequencies. There's an infinite number of frequencies. But you and I operate on a frequency just like a radio station does. And the only music you can attract is the music that is tuned into the vibration you're in. Now it's the paradigm that has been controlling the vibration. You can change your thinking, but that doesn't do anything. You've got to change the paradigm. And if you don't change the paradigm, nothing happens. Now, talking about paradigms is another subject. We'll do that at another time. But it's the thoughts that you think that control the vibration you're in, and that dictates what you attract. So if you keep attracting what you don't want, understand this: it's the paradigm that's causing the problem. You can think a Y-type thought, which is totally different than the X-type conditioning. It isn't going to go anywhere, because when you go to get emotionally involved, and this is the emotional mind, When you go to get emotionally involved with that white-tailed thon, the paradigm will kick it out. You know why? It's so uncomfortable. That's stepping out of the box. That's doing things different. And we don't like to do things different because it causes a lot of discomfort. But understand this: the paradigm and the thinking control the vibration you're in, and the vibration you're in is going to dictate what you attract. People that are in a poverty consciousness of richness will continue to attract lack and limitation. It has nothing to do with this, what's going on here. This is your educated mind and you could gather all kinds of information. Have you ever wondered why some people have such an educated mind? They have degrees coming right off the end of their business card, but it doesn't show up in their results. Why? Paradigm. The law of attraction. You've got to change this. You've got to change the vibration you're in, and your whole world changes. Listen, in 1961, a man gave me this book, and he said, do exactly what I tell you. He was giving me Y-type ideas. It caused an enormous amount of discomfort, but I did exactly what he said. And you know something? My income went from $4,000 to $175,000 in a year, and then I took it over a million. It took me 9 and a half years to figure out what happened. This is what I'm showing you. Watch this over and over and over again. There's a number of lessons in here. And another lesson, I'm going to show you how to change the paradigm. When you change the paradigm, the change in results is automatic. You know why? You start to attract something new, something different. And what What we want to do is program in positive information and eliminate the negative. I'm going to show you how to do that. Law of Attraction: you attract according to the vibration you're in. This thing we live in is a molecular structure. Your body is a mass of energy. Do you know if you put your body in front of an infrared television camera in a completely dark room, your whole being would be nothing but a glistening radiating, gleaming form. Feeling is conscious awareness of the vibration we're in. When we don't feel good, we're in a negative vibration. You want to feel good? Move into a positive vibration. Stop and think of what you're grateful for. But understand this, you will never attract to you wealth, happiness, health until you get the paradigm, get you on that frequency.

Thank you guys so much for watching. For me, attracting success really came down to Changing my environment, creating an environment that attracts success, that, uh, that makes me think differently and think bigger. The reason why I have the people that I do on the wall is I want to walk in and see those faces and it means something to me, and I start to think like them, and some of their mindsets brush off on me. The reason why I have the Top 10 series in the Espressos is to hang around these famous entrepreneurs and people who've done a lot, and it makes me change my mindset. And I've seen so many opportunities open up that didn't come to me before, or I wasn't paying attention to before, and now they're suddenly coming because my mindset has shifted. I have more courage, I have more confidence, I'm willing to take risks, I'm willing to say yes to something that I may be afraid of, where before I wasn't doing it. And that has led to a lot of amazing things happen in my life, in my business, that before wasn't happening. And so I think the environment plays a super important role. I think we are too often subject to the environment that is given to us. You know, we just hang around the friends we grew up with, we hang around the family that we grew up with. We don't tend to change or create an environment on purpose, do things that we want to do. We don't set a goal— like, we set a goal and then we just said, here are the things that I need to do to accomplish that goal, here are the steps. But the steps often fall apart. You don't stick to the habit, you don't actually do the steps. And often that's because your environment sucks, because you may have had that one moment of boldness that makes you break out, that makes you believe in yourself, that makes you want to go do something insane and crazy and powerful and courageous, and then the next day you wake up and it's all gone. What's up? You coming in? This is Rebecca. How do you attract success? What do you think?

Very good question. Caught me off guard. Listen.

Listen?

Yeah, always listen.

That's good. Do you have a story about how you listen? That attracted success for you?

I think it's about understanding people's story. It's always worked for me.

Anyway, I like it on the spot. I like it. Have a great day, Rebecca. So yes, your goals fall apart because you don't have the environment, and people don't pay enough attention to the environment. And so super important to do— for you to do whatever goal you have for yourself, also then think about what are the habits and environment that I need to create for myself that will support me achieving that goal beyond just the steps that you need to take. So hopefully that helps. That's my take. So thank you so much for watching. I made this video because Nice Stuff asked me to. So if there's a topic you'd like me to cover in the next edition of Believe Life, leave it in the comments below and I'll see what I can do. Thanks again for watching. I'd also love to know which of your— which of the clips that we saw was your favorite, what left the biggest impact on you, and why. Leave in the comments. I'll join the discussion. Continue to believe, and I'll see you soon.