CREATOR of “THE SECRET” Reveals How The LAW of ATTRACTION Actually Works! 🤯 | Rhonda Byrne

Every human being is a creator and they are creating their life. So it's not that our thoughts are powerful, it's that we are powerful. And so when we focus on a thought and we really hold that focus, that thought will manifest in our life.

You are always being moved toward magnificence, even when we're in breakdown, stress and feel like we're suffering. How are we on track when we're in that moment?

Well, we are. And that night that I talked about where everything collapsed in a heap and I was going to be broke, My health was really bad. My relationships were in a mess. My father had died really suddenly. He was young. But if any of those things hadn't happened, I would never, ever have discovered the secret.

Should we be thinking more about our thoughts or our feelings when it comes to manifesting and attracting abundance?

Good question. You know what I would say? I would say.

I think you gotta have a dream. The School of Greatness. Really?

Yeah.

Please welcome Lewis Howes. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Rhonda Byrne in the house. I'm so grateful that you're here.

Oh, thank you so much for having me here.

We were just talking about this right before that you have sold with the Secret almost 34 million copies are in print around the world, translated in over 50 languages. And I believe this is one of your first sit down interviews in person since you did Oprah about 16 years ago.

That'S true.

You-'Ve done a few virtual interviews. So over Zoom, we did one that got millions of views around the world. And you are back in person. I'm so grateful that you're here because there is definitely an energy about you in person that brings a different element. And I'm excited to talk about the things, some things that we covered in the previous interview, but even more because you have this incredible piece of art that you've come out with called these manifestation cards. The Secret Manifestation Cards, which are beautiful. And I want to go through a number of these today and talk about this. But you have received so much celebration over the last 16 years since the Secret came out.

Yeah.

But you've also had criticism of the Secret and what this is.

Yeah.

And so for people that don't know what the Secret is, if they didn't see our previous interview, and this is their first time hearing about you. And it's their first time saying, what is the law of attraction and the secret? Can you explain what the law of attraction and manifesting actually is in simple terms before we dive in deeper?

Sure. It would be interesting to see how I describe it now after all these years. Basically, every... not basically, actually, every human being is a creator. And they are creating their life. And we don't know, for many of us, we did not know that that was the case. And we are creating our life through our thoughts. So it's not that our thoughts are powerful. It's that we are powerful. And so when we focus on a thought and we really hold that focus, that thought will manifest in our life. And so we create our own life through our thoughts and through the mind. The mind, our mind is super, super, super powerful.

Yeah.

For good or for worse?

Yes. So, for example, We can talk about what we want and we will manifest that. And so some people, they just see the abundance in the world. That's all that they see. They don't see any lack. They just see abundance. And everything seems to go right for them. Everything falls into place for them. They invest in this and it skyrockets. And they buy a house in this place and that suburb goes crazy. And it's like everything they touch turns to gold. But it's because they have the mindset that is toward wealth and abundance, and they don't have a mindset toward lack. And we have a lack mindset when we say things like, I'm broke, I don't have enough, I don't have enough to pay my bills. And you see, whatever we say is what our life will be. And so if we are saying, I don't have enough money, then by law of attraction, we will not have enough money. We will continue to not have enough money. So what we have to do is we need to speak about what we want. And we need to talk about, for example, if it's money or if it's health or if we're not feeling really great, then we can talk about what it feels like to be really well instead of talking about not being well, right? Because if we're talking about not being well, we're attracting more of that, more of that, more of that.

Right.

And so that's basically law of attraction. I mean, it is so wonderful and it's so intricate. And the more that you, the more that it becomes a part of your life, the more you see the little kind of twists and turns.

Synchronicities.

Yeah.

Like, for, for example, if, if you're saying, you know, I'm so overwhelmed. There's just so much going on at the moment, and I can't get on top of things, and I'm just overwhelmed. Guess what? Guess what's coming here? More overwhelm. You know, so when we speak about.

Things that are frustrating us, that are overwhelming, that are stressing us out, that we're in lack of, when we speak or we're constantly in a loop of thinking of those thoughts and then speaking them to ourselves or to others. What I'm hearing you say is it's gonna be a lot harder to get beyond those struggles than to speak in a different way or think in a different way. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

That's the case. And in fact, until we think differently, it won't change. Really? It wouldn't matter all the action in the world, all the action in the world will not override a belief. that we have. And usually when we speak, for example, if I'm saying, I'm so overwhelmed, so much is happening. And when we're saying, I'm so overwhelmed, we believe it like we're saying it with conviction.

Right.

And so the fact that we believe it, it's not going to change. We're going to keep, more things are going to come, more things are going to come.

And even if someone, let's say they, they did work hard for a long time and they're feeling this overwhelmed and All of a sudden, they started to make a lot more money, but it's not going to change the overwhelm if they keep thinking it. That's right. So more money might come because you spent more time in this world and worked hard.

Right.

And it's just your time to make more.

Right.

But you still might say, well, I'm still overwhelmed. It's not enough.

Yeah. Right?

It's not enough feeling. Even though you have more. Yeah. You're still stressed and overwhelmed. You're still stressed. That's why you see people with money, some people with money who aren't fulfilled are happy. They're still overwhelmed. That's right.

Yeah.

So how do we shift it so that when more comes our way, we're actually not feeling more overwhelmed, but more in abundance and grateful for that.

It's so simple. It's so easy. We just have to talk about, think about what we want. And do we want to feel overwhelmed? And no, we don't. So what do you want? I want all of the success, but I want it to be effortless and easy. And I want to have lots of spare time, and I want to really be enjoying it. And I want, like, talk about what you want and talk about what you want until you have what you want.

When people talk about what they don't want consistently, what typically happens?

They get that. That's what they get.

More of what they don't want.

Yeah, they get more of what they don't want. If we could just talk about what we want, our life would be incredible, incredible, amazing, spectacular. That's it. Just to talk about. But we are so, we have a world that's very beautiful, but orientated towards drama and you know, news is negative. And so, you know, it's. It's challenging for people, but we're all in it together.

Yes.

Because we're all dealing with the mind and the mind that might be delivering a whole lot of negative thoughts. But not one of us. It's not harder for one or easier for another. We all have this mind that can be like a flat mate and chatter, chatter, chatter, non-stop chatter. Keep going on, you know? so we all, we're all dealing with that. And the mind, it's just a, it's just a program. It's not an entity, it's just a program. And so through, I think, because certainly through my experience, through the secret, we, you can totally train your mind to be positive so that it is not leaning toward the negative all of the time. And positive is just what you want.

Right.

When someone is thinking or speaking about what they want, does that mean that they are in lack of it? Or how do they speak about it where it's not from a place of lack?

Right. It's a good question because- you- know what I mean?

If I'm like, I want this, I want this, but I don't have it. So how do we speak about it where we're in gratitude and positive around it as opposed to, I really want this thing, but it's not in my life right now, but I really want it.

Yeah, but the problem is you just canceled out the manifestation when you said, but it's not my life right now. Yeah. Because if you, if you're saying that I, you know, I. Well, you could say it like this. I would really love to have this. It's a little bit softer, right? Than I want. But you, but to manifest something that you, to deliberately manifest, you have to want it, but then you can't have any thoughts of, well, it's not here yet. Because the moment you say it's not here, what does law of attraction do? It's not here yet.

And it's constantly not here yet. So say this again. How do we really manifest something? We put it out there, we speak it or we think it, but then we detach from it.

Yeah.

And you know, here's the thing. We so don't realize our own amazing power that we can just ask for something and it will be given. to us.

Now here's what the criticism online is for the Secret or the Law of Attraction or anyone talking about manifesting. This is what I'll see people, and this is typically people in lack or maybe people with more of a negative frustration because they don't have what they want. They will say, or these are comments that I'll see, you can't just think something and expect it to appear. without putting in the hard work, without action, without consistency. It's just the world just doesn't work like that. When you see comments like that or people say this, how would you respond to someone saying thinking that or saying that?

Well, I don't, I always kind of feel that everybody has the right to think what they want and believe what they want and I. I know it's not the case. I remember Lester Levinson said something so incredible. He was a wonderful teacher. He's not alive anymore, but he was very simple in the way that he talked. And he. He told these students that if you want something, I could lock you up in a room and padlock that room and you. ask for that. And you know you have it, right? You know you have it now and it will come.

Really? Yeah.

It will come. And nothing in this world can stop it.

Wow.

Right?

What are some examples in your life where you've. You've thought or spoken about something you desired or wanted, and it has come effortlessly? Or maybe an example of people that have written about their success stories. Is there anything you can think of?

Right.

Or maybe for a long time they'd struggled in manifesting or attracting what they wanted, but they started to apply this and really believed it, and that thing came to them.

Right. Well, when I did a book signing and I got to talk to all of these different people and every single person at that book signing told me about how their life had completely changed.

Wow.

And what was amazing was, so somebody would say that they wanted to have their working, I don't know, cleaning a bank or something, and they wanted to have their own sound studio. And that is what they decided to manifest. And they visualized and visualized, and they felt it, and they wouldn't allow any thoughts of doubt to enter their mind. and they are now running one of the top sound studios in LA.

Wow.

But not just that. They met their perfect partner. They bought their dream house. They have, you know, two children, or they travel every, every single thing that they wanted, they received and that was what was so amazing about all of these people when I was signing books. It wasn't just one thing in their life, but these people were amazing. They did gratitude all of the time, or they did affirmations all of the time, and they had a complete change within themselves, you know, to be kind, you know? to other people. And so they would think positively, they were aware when negative thoughts came and they would stop them in their tracks. And so for me, I think the biggest manifestation for me was the secret.

Yeah.

Because I was a mother of two children in Melbourne, Australia. I had this night where Henny Penny, the sky fell in, everything in my life completely collapsed, right? And I had a huge awakening that night, pardon me, and realized how I realized all of this and how incredible we are and what we can do and what mastery we have over the world. And there and then I looked out at the world and I'm like, no one knows this. No one knows this. And so I was determined that I would find a way to take this to the world. I had no idea what shape or form it would take or, or, but that night I determined that that is what I would do. And so eventually a whole team were gathered. I had a production company at that point. And everybody might think, oh, if you had a production company, it's so easy for you to make a documentary. Aha, but let me tell you, Ah, there's a snag. I was $2 million in debt.

Really?

That production company was $2 million in debt, and my accountant told me, you,'re going to be broke in 30 days and lose everything. Lose everything. And to this day, I don't know how it didn't happen. I do know, because I didn't allow that thought. I only allowed the thought of taking this to the world, and nothing else mattered.

Wow.

But getting this out into the world. And so, yeah, but getting back to your point, I would like, I don't want to, I remember when I did Time 100 and they had all the cameras, that was an interesting experience. We were in Carver and walking down and they were all like, what do you say to the naysayers? and I said, good for them. Good for them. Because I think one problem we have in the world is people wanting other people to believe what they believe. You know, I discovered something incredible. I absolutely know it's the case through my experience, through tens of thousands and millions of people's experience. I know it's the case. But if there's somebody that isn't ready for this in their life, that's fine.

Yeah.

Right, right. That's totally fine.

Well, because a lot of people feel like they might be in a breakdown, you know, during that moment of your life, you have, were struggling with, you know, business, different things in your life that were happening, relationships. It sounds like there were some challenges boiling up.

Yeah.

But then this wisdom within you.

Yeah.

Came out.

Yeah.

And you decided to act on it.

Yeah.

And one of these cards, again, this is this is a beautiful piece of art, these cards, these manifestation cards. And I want people to get this. We'll have everything linked up. And I've gone through a lot of these already. They're amazing. I wish I would have created this. This is incredible. It says, this card is great for this point in the conversation where it says, everything is always on track. Always. No matter where you are in your life currently, and no matter how difficult things might appear to be in this moment, you are always being moved. toward magnificence.

Yes.

So why are we moved toward magnificence even when we're in breakdown stress and feel like we're suffering? How are we on track when we're in that moment?

Well, we are though. We are. And I mean, if I use myself as an example and sometimes excuse me for doing that, but that night that I talked about where everything collapsed in a heap, and I was going to be broke. My health was really bad. My relationships were in a mess. My father had died really suddenly. He was young, and he had died really suddenly. And my parents just had the love affair that I've most beautiful love affair I've ever seen. So my mother was in terrible grief, and so I had all of these things, and then I was going to be busting 30. 30 days.

Wow.

So I was able to turn all of that around. And if that hadn't happened that night, and I've thought about all of the things that led up to that night, and, you know, I was making six documentary films about murder. Can you imagine?

Wow.

Yeah. A subject. and it was heart-wrenching because these were unsolved murders and talking to the families and everything like that. But it was perfection the way that all of these things lined up, that I was making these movies and then that I plummeted into grief with my father, that I was so stressed about my mother. And all of these things led to this incredible night on the 9th of September. at 9 30 at night and.

Where.

Everything fell in a heap. And I. We could all say, oh, but that was so terrible. All those things happened. And not long before that, you know, years before that, I'd been fired and never imagined I'd ever get fired. But if any of those things hadn't happened, I would never, ever have discovered the secret. And so. And I've been through lots of tough things since, you know.

It hasn't been perfect.

When, no, when we're human, you know, we're going to have things, we're going to have things that will come that will have us go further, reach further, be more magnificent, be more understanding, be more compassionate. You know, when you lose somebody really close to you, you become very compassionate. You know, it helps to instill all of that. And so absolutely, I say that we are all on track. The first thing people always ask me is, what do you feel about the world? Do you know, oh, my gosh, it's a mess. And I just say, everything's unfolding perfectly. It really and truly is. It's unfolding perfectly. and the same for everybody. And somebody might be going through a really rough diagnosis, but from where I am, there's no end for any of us.

Really?

No. We are consciousness. There's no end.

Right, right.

Yeah.

So it's not going to end even if there's a bad diagnosis in our life.

No, this is just, this is just the vehicle. This is just the car, you know, that we're, that we're using to travel around in the world. And so, Yeah.

This is another one of your cards that I love that speaks into this. And I hope you don't mind me.

Reading some of these. Not at all.

This one says, Be grateful for your challenges. And you wrote all of these from your wisdom, which I think is amazing. It says, Be grateful for your challenges. It's all of the hard things and apparently negative things that happen to us which give us deep desire to change our lives. be grateful for them because they have given you the strength and determination to manifest something different and you will change your life. And we were talking about this beforehand, about how hard it is to watch people suffer, how hard it is to watch people you care about suffer, people struggling in the world that you don't know about and seeing suffering happening. It's very challenging to witness, especially if you have a lot of compassion in your heart if you're empathetic towards individuals and if you felt pain yourself.

Yes, yes.

Very challenging.

He's very.

So how can people be grateful for their challenges? Even though we know, I know you know and I know that our biggest challenges of our past got us to where we are today.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like those moments of complete pain and suffering taught me my biggest lessons, which have given me strength and courage today.

Yeah.

But how can people fully understand that when they have a horrible disease, when they've lost someone in their life too soon, when there's an unfortunate war in their individual life or in their country, they're going bankrupt? How can we empower people to be grateful for their challenges when there's so much pain and suffering in their life?

Because being grateful is what will change their lives. And so the difficulties that they're facing, I mean, I, we, we have a lot of stories on our website about people with health challenges and how those, those health challenges just disappeared with love and gratitude.

So.

And just being grateful. Being grateful is I mean, that, that is just number one. That's the fastest way for anybody to change their life. And I think if, if you went out and asked most people, they would be, they would say, oh, yeah, I, you know, I know it's important to be grateful. I think most people would agree with that. Grateful isn't spiritual or, you know, it's just being grateful. And I, I just, if you want to see the power that you have to change your life really fast, then start doing gratitude and it will just blow your mind.

It changes everything. Again, the next card I just turned to it is gratitude is the great multiplier. Set the universal forces in your favor for tomorrow. Tonight, before you fall asleep, go back over your whole day in your mind and replay each good moment, feeling genuine gratitude for each one. This practice ensures the universe will make your tomorrow a day filled with good moments and plenty to be grateful for for the next day as well.

Absolutely.

And when we are ungrateful, when we are not in appreciation for the good, the bad, the ugly, what happens in our lives when we lack gratitude?

We're taking things for granted. which means things will be taken from us.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

When we take things for granted, they. They get taken from us. Yeah. Gratitude will hold absolutely everything to us in our life. But what it just. It will stick everything to us.

How do we be grateful when we're in suffering or sadness or loss?

I know it's really hard, but there's. I guess there's, like. There's like suffering, sadness and loss.

That.

Continues in that way. Or there's suffering with gratitude and the suffering gets easier. Right. Well, there's sadness with gratitude and the sadness begins to lift. Or the loss with gratitude. I know because of my mother was so grief-stricken with my father having died, and what brought my mother right out of it was gratitude. She was just so grateful that they got to have all of the years together that they had, that they had five children, there are five of us, and they had five children that they had an incredible life that they loved. They loved each other, was love at first sight, and they loved and adored each other until the last moment. and she was so glad that he didn't suffer. She just found so many things to be grateful for. And this was the love of her life. But from doing that gratitude, she just lifted herself up and began to live a new life, you know, so. So what happened was she reduced the, you know, reduce the pain. The pain and the grief, because eventually it will lessen. But she, and she just felt absolute love for everything that I remember her saying to me, she's not alive now. But I remember her saying to me, you know, I've had such a blessed life. It was like, wow, you know, you went through a war, you went through you know, they didn't have, like, I came from very humble beginnings that my parents did not have much. And yet she saw her life as rich and blessed.

Wow.

You know, that's beautiful.

Isn't it?

A lot of it is perspective, you know? And if we hold on to resentment or a lack of forgiveness in our life. Yeah. Are we able to manifest and attract beautiful things if we hold on to resentment and anger and. Don't forgive?

I think we can still, because we're attracting every day. So I think we can still attract things. But will those things bring us peace and happiness? Not when your heart is full of resentment. Because if you're full of resentment, what you will attract is more people's circumstances and events that will cause resentment.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

And that's just to show you that there's something to let go of. You know, everything's very beautiful. Everything's beautiful.

Can you explain that? What does that mean? Something to let go of.

So it's time to let go of that resentment. Because that original resentment is attached to some story or another that we have about somebody did something to us. And isn't it crazy that Maybe somebody did, but then that we would carry that for years. And by carrying it, we keep attracting more and more and more of it. So that just shows you how all of those religious texts and everything, they got it really right.

Yeah, of course.

When they said not to, you know, love thy enemy and all of those things that were said, All of those things make total sense. Don't carry those things with you.

Well, that lack of forgiveness, that resentment is an energetic force that's almost attracting more of those things and resisting the abundance.

It is.

Peace and harmony.

It is.

When you're carrying and holding on to that anger, you're resisting peace.

Yeah.

This is another card. Again, I'm just in the flow right here that says feelings are powerful manifestors. Remember that worry attracts more worry, just what you said. Unhappiness attracts more unhappiness. Fear attracts more fear. And remember that joy attracts more joy, happiness attracts more happiness, love attracts more love. And it's the times, what I'm hearing you say, the times when it feels like it's the hardest is the times when it's the most important.

That's right.

To be in a state of gratitude, happiness, and love.

Yeah.

Because holding on to anger, unhappiness and worry only attracts more of that.

More of it. And I think everybody experienced that right during COVID Yes. Right? With all of the worry about COVID which then turned into fear and people became more fearful, more fearful, and then things seemed to get worse and then more fearful and things got worse and.

Things got- it did.

Right? When you got the whole world, when you got the, when you have the majority of the world in so much fear, It's going to get worse.

It is.

Yeah.

Should we be thinking more about our thoughts or our feelings when it comes to manifesting and attracting abundance?

Good question. You know what I would say? I would say for people to choose whatever's easiest for them. I did thoughts. I became very aware of my thoughts. But two, I have to say, I also became super, super sensitive to what I was feeling. So much so that if I wasn't feeling good, I would not open my computer or any emails.

Why is that?

Because if I'm on a frequency, if I'm on a frequency of frustration when I open up those emails, In comes frustration. In comes problems. And so I wouldn't answer my phone if I wasn't feeling good. And in fact, the whole secret team knows very well.

If you can't get a hold of Rhonda.

For them, I said to them, if you don't feel well, please don't touch the secret. And if you had an argument with your spouse, or you got really, you know, fell out of bed the wrong way. Take the day off. Don't touch the secret.

Unless you can shift out of it quickly. Yeah. If you're unable to shift.

Which they all can now. Yeah, but this was early days. Right.

Yeah.

So I was really, really careful to... So feeling good, I guess if you ask people how they feel, they might say, oh, yeah, I feel, you know, I feel pretty good. Or they. But what I want to know is, do you feel happy? Because if you're not feeling happy, then you're unhappy. Like, we could say there's just two, you know, two.

Black and white.

Right.

Happy or not happy.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And so if you're not feeling. And if you think about a time in your life when you felt happy. And I don't mean over excited or what I mean is just happy, you know, just feeling full and happy and it's a great day and you're really positive and friendly to everybody. Yeah, that's happy. And the other, that kind of numb feeling or, you know, it's another day kind of. That's unhappiness.

I will say, Rhonda, I, I grew up not thinking that I was very smart or intelligent. I struggled in school. So I had this belief that I wasn't smart enough for really anyone or anything. And I was never going to be able to figure things out because I had this kind of belief based on testing poorly, just struggling in school. It was hard to read and write. And I just felt like everyone around me was smarter based on kind of school system and tests. Now, I had learned later that that wasn't true in other areas of life. I had more street smarts rather than school smarts. But I remember in my early 20s not thinking I had skills to go into a career because I lacked success in school. And early on, I was trying to figure out how can I start to make money? How can I get opportunities for me when I don't have these skills? And what I said to myself early on was I'm going to bring joy and happiness everywhere I go. When I would enter a room, I would think about, okay, this is a pathway to joy. And I would smile as I would cross the doorway. I would cross it. I would just open my heart to joy and smile and enter a room and smile at people. And when I would smile at other people and just ask them a question, How's your day? They would smile back and bring that mirroring energy. In this next card here, you say, Live in Joy. Humanity needs your joy. Planet Earth needs your joy. The universe needs your joy. And that's why you are here. Find what brings you joy, start living it, and you will have a fulfilled, you will, you will have fulfilled your purpose. And when I didn't know what my purpose was, I just said, I'm going to be joy, and that is purpose. And things started to unfold in my life. financial opportunities. People wanted to be around me more and they wanted to help me. I didn't know why, except for that I brought joy and happiness. So I want people to know that, you know, when you bring joy, even if you don't know what direction you're heading or what, what should I do next to the next chapter of my life? Joy unlocks opportunities, like you said. And I love this message in this card here.

Well, that that was just such an insight that you received, you know, where that's like a divine message to you to do that. Because on the frequency of joy is everything that you could ever want.

Really?

Yeah. Everything.

Yeah.

It's not when you're in anger.

Joy. No. But I mean, people must notice, you know, I just think. It's so obvious. Look at your life and you can see how you're creating it. Like you get angry and then one thing happens and then, oh no, something else happens and then something else happens and something else. You know, I mean, we've all had those days.

Like a snowball of bad things.

Yeah, and we just keep creating one after the other. But yeah, on joy, because joy is at the same frequency as love. So it's right up there and it is incredible and that's why in the secret documentary and in the secret why I say nothing is more important than that you feel good. Because when you feel good, you're on a feel good frequency and absolutely everything you encounter in the day, all the people, all the circumstances, all the events will be feel good. They will be things that make you feel even better, even better, even better, even better. So, yeah.

There's a quote from a famous football coach in America. His name is Vince Lombardi who passed away, but he was a, he won a number of championships for the Green Bay Packers, I believe it was. His quote that he would say to his, you know, his team, his, his athletes was that you'll, he, what did he say? He said, either be fired up with enthusiasm or you'll be fired with enthusiasm.

Right?

It's like you either got to bring the joy, as what he was saying, bring the energy, bring the positive excitement, or you'll be fired passionately.

Right.

Because it's hard to manifest or excel at a high elite level in sports or something if you're not bringing passion and joy in a loving, happy, joyful way. It's hard to, maybe you could have some success, but to kind of maintain that level of opportunities and flow, it's hard to do that without it, right?

Wow, that's really interesting, because that's the same with life too.

Right?

It's really, like for example, when you're in joy, you will manifest so fast. It's a really high frequency and you will manifest really, really quickly. The thing is, if you're in grief and despair, it's very slow.

Right.

And that is, so that's a protective mechanism. for all of us because I had one time in my life where I hit depression and because I was extremely worried about my daughter. And I just, there was just like this black cloud and I thought, I have completely thought myself to here. I could see all of the scary thoughts that I believed and that and I am here now. Here is where I am. And I knew I was here because to experience it so I could help people out of depression. And so, so no one else created.

You to get there.

Oh, I did it.

You created yourself.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Because I just believed all these thoughts that I was all these scary thoughts. I was just believing them all. My daughter's fine and well today, you know, they were just all thoughts. And yeah, so now, I mean, I'm really, I guess, really fortunate. I tried everything that I knew, which was to be grateful and to think positive thoughts. So I tried thinking positive thoughts. I could feel how weak they were.

What do you mean by that?

Like, they. They didn't have a lot of power behind them.

So they were like, I'm gonna. I'm happy, but I'm not really happy.

Yeah, because you're feeling it. Because the depression was, you know, it was strong. And so what I did was I decided to not resist the depression, but to love it.

Tell me more.

And it melted away.

What does that look like? If someone's going through three to six months.

I had to imagine this. I had to create, like, a picture. of this, but I kind of, like, I could feel the sensation of it because depression is just a sensation. All of her feelings are just sensations, and they're not actually us. They're just a sensation. But I would get that sensation, and I would feel that sensation of depression, and then I just imagined putting my arms around it and pulling it into me. And that was hard to do.

Not pushing it away or resisting it.

Because that's what we do. You see, we push away bad feelings because we don't want to feel the pain.

Right?

We numb them. We try to escape from them.

Exactly. We do everything. But I did the opposite because I knew what you resist persists. Right?

Yes.

And so I just imagine putting my arms around the moment that I did it. It just evaporated that whole feeling of depression. And then a couple of hours later, it started to come back, not nearly that same level. Did it again in three days, was totally gone.

How long had you been experiencing the depression for? Was this weeks, was this months?

It was like a couple of weeks.

Couple of weeks. And if you would have resisted it or numbed it, or tried to escape it.

Yeah, I'd still be there.

Really?

Yeah.

So what I'm hearing you say is that you embracing the sadness, the pain, the grief, the loss, whatever it might be, but embracing it and creating a relationship with it.

Yeah.

As opposed to pushing it away.

Yeah.

Allowed it to flow through you and leave you.

Yeah, it can't stay because nothing negative can remain in the face of love.

Wow.

Love is the light and everything negative, you could say is darkness. There's one way to look at it. And so if there's love, the darkness just disappears. And that's why it just evaporated. It was the most incredible feeling. And I knew I'm experiencing this so I can share it with people.

How does someone, I mean, the secret 34 million plus copies, you know, tens of millions of people have watched the movie, all the other books and programs and products that you have have been, you know, sold by millions of people have been bought these things. How does someone believe they are worthy of great things the way you have been able to do great things in your life and impact the world in such a magniTude that you have done. How can someone know and trust that something is destined for them? Maybe it's not at this level, but something is great is destined for them. How do they know that? And did you know this your entire life leading up to this, that something like this was supposed to happen?

No, I didn't.

Really?

No. But the moment I discovered it, I knew it. I absolutely knew it. I knew this is why I was here. I knew it with every fiber of my being.

Yeah.

So. But prior to that, I didn't. I was really ambitious. Okay.

You were driven. You had a business.

I was driven. But when I say ambitious, I was only wanting to perfect. Be great myself. I wasn't in competition with anybody. I wasn't trying to be better than that person or. I just wanted to be the best that I could be. And so I didn't, but after I discovered the secret and my whole life turned completely around 360, I looked back on my life and I saw that every single thing in my life was leading to this.

Really?

Yes. Because just even things like I worked in a newsroom for a radio station. And so when the secret went crazy, like crazy, and I just had every news media outlet in the world, in every country, coming at us. And I did very little. And because I knew that what can happen is that the media will build you up, to tear you down.

Wow.

And I knew that because I had worked in news and I'd worked in media and so I had seen it.

Is that why you did very, you did Oprah and that was really, I.

Did Oprah and I did Oprah because I knew Oprah lived this. And you see, I didn't want to go onto anything where I didn't want to have arguments with people because I'm not trying to convince you to do anything. I discovered something and I wanted to share it. And if you find that it's incredible for your life, then I'm so happy. If you don't want to hear about it, that's fine too. So I didn't want to get into situations with people where they're like, oh, this is, you know, as if the mind can do this. This is all there is, is mind. You know, they didn't even realize, like, it'll be hundreds of years before before it is realized what the substance of the universe really, really is. But right now we can use this knowledge to completely create the life we deserve to have. And what you were talking about about being this great greatness, I think some of us were born to do something like this. But then there are others. And I think about this with my mother.

Right.

My mother. stopped working when she was, like, 19 years old, and she had five children. But my mother achieved greatness because she was an incredible mother and she was an incredible wife. And so her, her level was different. And I think, you know, what you did or what I did, not everybody is prepared to take the risks. You took risks.

Yes.

You can't. You can't do it without the risks.

Yeah, yeah.

I took huge risks by. I put everything on the line. I would have been on the streets. You know, I. I, like, mortgaged overdraft. I did everything possible to get the secret out to the world, and I. I didn't care, honestly, what happened to me after it. I just wanted to get it to the world, and that was it. and, and so you, you have to have, there's something within you that really pushes you, but then there are people that they might love what they do, you know, and they don't want to be running a company. They don't want the stress of that.

Yeah.

They love their family. They want to spend as much time with their family as possible. They just really love to have a better house or, you know, And I think, honestly, if you can live your life and you can bring joy to other people just by your presence, just by your presence, if you can do that, oh my God, you've lived the greatest life possible. You really have. Because every single person, their true nature is joy and their true nature is love. and that's why you feel so good when you're in joy.

Right. Right. Yeah.

And that's why we feel so good when we're loving and being loving is smiling to that person like you did. You know, I'm opening the doors and I'm in a smile.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, you talk about kindness. This is the next thing on top of here. So you just said a kindness. We're we're in sync right here. Kindness changes everything. Want to see your life change for the better today? then be the kindest you've ever been to every person you encounter. When you do that, it's hard to have a bad day.

Or you can't. It's not possible. That's why just do that. You know, like I'm like, just do that one thing and you don't take my word for it. Try it for yourself and just see for yourself what happens.

Yeah.

I remember this person. contacted us and really early on, and he said he decided that he was just going to be happy. I think it was a hairdresser. And he said, I'm just going. I'm making a decision that I am going to be happy. And I'm going to see what happens. And it was incredible what happened in his life. Got his own hairdressing salon and all of just because he made a decision to be happy. What? What's on the happiness frequency? Everything that you want to make you happy.

Absolutely.

You know, so...

I'm curious about after the Secret came out and every news outlet in the world wanted to hear more about what you were creating.

Oh.

You do Oprah, which that, you know, blows up everywhere. You're Time 100 most influential person in the world. you're selling tens of millions of copies within the first few years. This message was everywhere. You could not go into a store without seeing this book.

True.

How did you navigate the success and not let that weight or pressure break you? Because some people want the impact, the success, but then they're not ready for it. How did you prepare yourself? And was that a conscious decision not to do a lot of interviews after that to not be picked at or try to be pulled down in certain ways.

That was a conscious decision. It was. Um...

But... Did you feel ready for the success? Did you feel prepared? Or did you feel like this was a little overwhelming?

I never felt it was me.

What do you mean?

I just... I just... It was the message. That was the star.

Interesting.

And I never felt that it was me. Like even writing the secret book, I absolutely knew that. And making the documentary, like, it was a miracle what happened making that documentary, the way everything that we ever needed just landed right at our feet.

I.

It was. It was so spectacular. It was the most incredible thing I've ever seen. And I just knew the universe, you know, just putting that in that most affectionate way, I knew the universe was with us and. so. And writing the book, it was the same thing. Like, I felt such a rush in writing that book. I couldn't write it fast enough. All the things that I'd learned and practiced and I wanted to share with people. But, you know, I had, like, I got a burst blood vessel in one of my eyes. I had my feet got all cracked. All the skin on my feet got cracked from the high frequency in writing that book.

Really?

Yeah.

Because you said, you were telling me before off camera that you wrote this book in Santa Monica in an apartment.

I did. I just did.

A few miles from here.

With my laptop on my lap.

With your laptop on your lap. In a small little apartment. Were you on the beach? Were you off the beach? What was your environment like?

Off the beach, it was a very simple little Corporate Apartment. The documentary had been released and I was writing the book and I had, it was just the perfect situation. I knew exactly everything that I wanted to say. It was really just rushing through me.

And because of the frequency you had, you know, so you had your body.

Was feeling... My body really, yeah.

That is fascinating.

After it, was a wipeout.

You were like exhausted. You were like, yeah, energetically drained.

Energetically drained, yeah. And so then with each, then with each book that I wrote was, I tried to manage that more, you know, that I wasn't so wiped out. Now I could write a book and not at all.

Right, yeah. But were you a writer before this?

No.

Do you know what?

This was your first book? The secret is your first book and you sold 34 million copies. that is crazy.

I know, right? I remember when Beyond Words contacted me and said, we want you to do the secret book. Well, I knew there'd be a secret book because I'd seen it in bookstores in my mind all around the world.

Wow.

In the front window, I'd seen it. I didn't know what it looked like, but I could feel the book.

And.

And I said, yes, like, I knew there'd be a secret book.

And.

And I said, okay. and they said, and we want you to write it. And I said, I'm not a writer. And guess what? I heard those words and I'm like, Yes, I am.

You switched it.

Yeah. Because I'm not a writer means that you will not be a writer.

Right?

And I'm like, Yes, I am because I can do anything. that I put my mind to. Everybody can do anything they put their mind to.

And.

So I wrote and I was very specific. I wanted to write to people as though I was just talking to them and not any kind of incredible huge words or anything like that. I wanted it to be super, super simple because Law of Attraction was a hard concept to get your head around at that time. It's understood a little more these days.

And this is what I love about what you did because you first said you saw it in your mind and you felt the book in bookstores. You felt it, so you were connecting the thought, the visualization of what you saw in your mind in Feeling, you had those two things connected, it sounded like. And this is where I think some people get wrong about the law of attraction or the secret is they, you know, you had those two things, the thoughts and the feelings as if it was already happening. But then you took action, you wrote the book, you didn't just say it's magically going to like be in bookstores, there had to be some action. Yeah, somewhere, whether it was you or someone else.

Yeah, but I had the publisher come to me to say, you wanna write the book?

You drew it in.

So I attracted that. But do you know what? With that book, I honestly feel like I was just a stenographer.

You were just dowsing it.

That's why, in answer to your question, how did I manage all of that? Honestly, I never, I just felt like I was the luckiest person in the world to be a part of that journey. But I know without a doubt the universe was just there. It just, it, this had to come out into the world and it was there to help at every turn.

If someone is applying these principles and think they're not drawing in the person, the publisher, the right person to hire, the thing to support them in manifesting what they want, does that mean they're not ready? for that thing to come out into the world? Is it not the right timing? Because you could have wanted this 20 years prior, but it didn't happen then. It happened at the moment you were ready for it, it sounds like.

Yeah.

So how can people let go of their frustration of really wanting something to happen now?

Yeah.

Versus knowing when it's the right timing for it to come into the world.

Right. So the difference is just simply believe. So you have to believe you have it already. So if I explain what my belief was like. My belief was a notch above believing it had already happened. Mine was knowing it had already happened.

What's the difference between believing and knowing?

Because one, because knowing is the highest you can get. And it's actually knowing is beyond the mind. But believe. But you can manifest with believing, too. So I didn't just believe. this had happened. I absolutely knew it.

Wow.

And I knew it and I knew what it was going to do. And I. I. How can I. It felt. I knew it so much that I felt like I had already lived the entire journey. of making it and it coming out, and that I had such a great time that I was reliving it.

Oh, that's pretty cool.

That's how it passed.

This is fascinating what you just said. This unlocked something for me. The difference between believing and knowing. I grew up in a religion, the religion of Christian Science, which is all about healing and applying healing thinking and applying the mind, to the material world, but really there is no material world anyways. But one of the things that I would hear over and over again when I felt like something was off in my life or I felt like I was feeling a pain or something physical in my body was off out of alignment, we would have Christian Science practitioners, spiritual practitioners that would give us prescriptions, but they weren't medications. They were spiritual medications essentially, right?

Gotcha.

And it was and they were always called truths. And they would always say, know the truth. They didn't say believe this. They would say, know the truth. And when you know it, it is true. And it is a reality. And it was hard. It was confusing as a.