This morning I had a great phone conversation with James Ray (
James Ray International | Create wealth in all areas of your life: Financial, Relational, Intellectual, Physical and Spiritual. Practical results through spiritual growth.), one of the people who appeared in
The Secret. He's the second cast member I've had a chance to speak with directly; the other was John Assaraf (
Home - OneCoach).
One topic James and I discussed was how intention relates to direct action. A lot of people seem to think that you can just sit on your couch intending good things to arrive while behaving like a lazy bum. James' response to that was (I'm paraphrasing): "Do that and you'll lose your furniture AND your house. Soon you'll be doing your intentions from a park bench."
James said one of the problems with
The Secret and similar products is the speakers who talk about the LoA professionally aren't fully aware of all the factors that contribute to their results. Often they downplay or fail to stress the importance of action because it's automatic for them. They're so inspired by their work that they don't feel like they're working at all, even though they may be putting in long hours. They've developed unconscious competence with the action part, so they end up taking it for granted. The problem is made worse when infomercial-style marketing is then applied to those products.
Another topic we discussed was the difference between knowing something intellectually and really owning it as part of your identity, like knowing how to eat and exercise vs. actually using that knowledge to become healthy and fit.
I really enjoyed talking to James, and his background reflects many of my own lessons and insights. We seemed to be in complete agreement on the importance of blending focused intention with practical action. Your thoughts, feelings, and actions must be aligned to produce results.
As soon as we can arrange it, I'll be doing an interview with James to be posted in the blog. If you're familiar with
The Secret and/or James' work and want to suggest interview questions for me to ask him, please feel free. I'll see what I can do to work the best ones in.