In case you have been living in a cave or you were marooned on a desert island for the last six months, The Secret is a little video and a book by Australian filmmaker Rhonda Byrne, about something called “the law of attraction.” I first learned about “the law” from two executive coaches: Joe Seiler, a former Canadian naval officer, electrical engineer, and serial entrepreneur; and Sharon Horne, a Nova Scotian who lives in Beijing and delivers training programs on The Great Wall and on safaris in Africa.

Byrne’s thesis is that this powerful law of human affairs is a secret that has always been known by the elites in all fields. Oprah Winfrey discovered the video and hosted several of its subjects a couple of times, causing an explosion of sales and interest.

To explore this more fully, my wife, Donna, and I drove to Ledgehill, a rural retreat centre outside Middleton in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, for an overnight program. We watched the video, participated in discussions, walked the grounds, and ate the delicious food served up by Lorraine Dezall.

Charles Bower, the co-founder of Ledgehill, along with his partner, Pauline Murray, has been following this trail for years, after reading Earl Nightingale’s The Strangest Secret in the 1960s. “We don’t have trouble getting what we want,” he told us when we arrived. “We have trouble knowing what we want. Most of us are on autopilot much of the time, repeating the same old thoughts and behaviours and wondering why we don’t get more out of life.”

In its briefest form, the law of attraction states that we create our own reality: We imagine what is possible for us and act on those beliefs, and the universe delivers what we ask for. In effect, we attract what we already are and we get more of what we already have. (Didn’t Jesus Christ make this point in several of his teachings?)

The key is to be clear about what you want, to imagine it, and to feel in advance as if you already have it. You must believe that you’re capable of getting it and also be able to receive it when it shows up, often in unexpected ways. We tend to be constrained by the belief that there is only one way to attain a given goal. The other key to the law of attraction is gratitude—to be grateful for what you have, both the “good” and the “bad.”

It follows that to get something new out of life, we have to realize it on the inside first:

We need new goals, new beliefs, new strategies, and the ability to act in new ways. This is internal work that can be slow and frustrating, but as you figure it out, your world begins to change.

The modern antecedents of the “law” include the work of Napoleon Hill (“Think and Grow Rich”), a former miner who studied the likes of Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison; Charles Haanel (“The Master Key System,” which was endorsed by two U.S. presidents); Clement Stone; and Earl Nightingale (co-founder of publisher Conant– Nightingale). All were successful in their own times and are still read today. Apparently these books are common currency among the stars in Silicon Valley, who, sure as heck, are creating a new reality.

Bower may enjoy the contemplative life, but he’s also a business guy who delights in using Ledgehill as a corporate learning centre (our group is mostly business and professional types). He’s been around. Travelling in the Third World, building houses with Habitat for Humanity, he was struck by how many of the desperately poor led enriched lives and were grateful for what little they had. “On returning to Canada,” says Bower, “I realized it doesn’t get any better than this, yet we have people here who earn $90,000 a year but complain about the weather. These negative thoughts are destructive and attract more negativity. As James Allen writes, ‘They are useless seeds that create useless plants.’ ”

One thing I have learned from investigating the remarkable people featured in The Secret is that most of them had difficult early years: financial want, abusive parents, health problems, and so on. Yet somehow they found positive role models and mentors and began to reinvent themselves; they all imagined an ideal future and began to work toward it. They eventually found an inner clarity and drive that eludes many of us. They all became successful, often in unexpected ways. As serial entrepreneur John Assaraf said in an interview, “In my companies, we are forever tweaking. We have no emotional attachment to a decision, but we are fully engaged and attached to the outcome we want to achieve. We are always trying new things.”

As one participant at Ledgehill, a self-employed engineer, put it, “The Secret is something we are all born with. We forget that as children we all had big goals and ambitions.” The Secret reminds us of the amazing power of imagination and action that all children have, and that it’s never too late to return to this natural state.