I really enjoy the Forbes rich list every year, but it has a really bad case of survivorship bias and it doesn't control for independent variables very well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_variable
I'm sure there are lots of people who work very hard but don't have very much to show for it, so there must be a set of variables that are positively correlated with success. It's hard to know which things have a greater than average chance of improving a person's chances of getting rich without comparing them to an equal set of people who are poor and seeing what the differences are.
Even if you believe in an objective reality where thoughts don't affect outcomes, successful people are measurably more positive and optimistic and spend more time thinking about what they want.
(and yes, I know it's ironic that I'm discussing statistical biases after talking about wacky ideas like thoughts creating reality)