The Secret (to marketing The Secret and our laziness)
October 17, 2007 by gbrown
We all place a premium on the squeeze, the short cut. The 10 insider tips that Real Estate Agents don’t want you to know about, the 4 secrets of the Rich and more recently… “The Secret” itself. Each promises a magic silver bullet that will remove the pain.
The book’s website tantalizes us with glimpses of this “insider knowledge” as if the author herself had discovered the dead sea scrolls or some other mythical tome, missing piece in the jigsaw that will make mankind’s story complete: “Rhonda Byrne’s discovery of The Secret began with a glimpse of the truth through a 100 year old book.” It continues “One spring day towards the end of 2004, Rhonda Byrne discovered a secret - the secret laws and principles of the universe.”
There was this movie I saw in my teens… he accidentally discovers by mixing some random elements in his chemistry lesson at high school, the secret to female attraction… and even though they knew the plot was far-fetched every teen boy secretly harboured the fantasy. (Coincidentally I aced Chemistry with a straight “A”). Now what was that movie called again?
Anyway, back to “The Secret”…the marketers are very clever. They know 3 key facts about people in general that will make this book work:
1) They know the title causes us discomfort, so we buy the book to take it away. You mean, there is a
“secret” that I’m not privvy to?
2) They know that most people see success as “arrival” rather than a “journey” i.e. a stage that is reached rather than the a more labourious daily practise. Consequently, we are more inclined to seek solutions that appeal to this worldview - the quickfix, the “learn Japanese in 10 minutes a day”, “How to beat Wall Street day-trading before breakfast”, the insider stock tip and so on.
3) They also know that we will add points 1 + 2 together and arrive at the need for the missing piece in our personal jigsaw, the last chapter in our personal and collective biography that will make the story complete. And, by coincidence, that piece of the jigsaw is only $13.17 from Amazon (a saving of $10.78 on MRP).
It’s as if once learned, the doors will close as if on some trashy wedding scene in a Hollywood flick..”The End”, and with the credits, we will all live happily ever after. The journey is over and we can go back to enjoying our lives.
Yet none of these books provide closure because the two tenets on which they are marketed are fundamentally short term focused, and success never came from focusing on the current.
If there is a secret, it’s not in quantum physics, but in the power of Focus…
Let’s assume you decided your next car would be a Park Lane Blue Mini Cooper “S”, for whatever reason. That same day, the world would manifest numerous Park Lane Blue Mini Cooper S’s. Suddenly, everyone has one. Ask a 10 year old boy to go find coins in the parking lot and he will come back with a hand full. Did he have the power of the “Secret” or was he just focusing his attention where others weren’t.
Our brain only processes 5% of the information it receives at any given time, and “gates” the rest. Where we focus that 5% is critical. The mythical “midas touch” is no more than the boy in the parking lot… Some people always can find the money in a situation, where others fail.
But, that requires hard work. It’s a daily (and endless) discipline of self-governance that means gaining control over our own thoughts and habits, a more challenging prospect than a “squeeze” that will put everything right. And we’d rather read the book, watch the DVD than make it happen.
No doubt in time we will see the copycats. “The Secret to a great body” (without leaving your armchair), “The Secret to marital success” (without changing your lifestyle and work habits)…
Unfortunately, the prospect of ‘no end’ instills fear and uncertainty in most, and just as those who choose to live in avoidance rather than acceptance of fear, we shut it down, seek closure. But, as Leo Buscaglia says, risk is the mother of growth:
“The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing and becomes nothing”
So in summary, The Secret is merely a clever marketing exercise that plays straight into our laziness.
There is no secret beyond the reach of mortal man. From Onassis to Rockefeller to Buffet, the story of hard work, habits and a the power of faith (in oneself) emerges that is as democratic as it is open to all. And it’s not a story that grew hand in hand with the industrial revolution and the works of people such as Napoleon Hill, Stone (not Sly) and Carnegie but itself is timeless. As Aristotle, himself, said “Excellence is a habit”. But then, we’ve already had Stephen Covey’s “the 7 Habits”, so would any publisher respond to a book pitch on “More habits”?
Success is not gained from insider secrets but a daily practise of excellence, a journey that has a beginning but no end. But that sounds like too much hard work…
“We shall not cease from exploration, and at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time” TS Eliot
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I would offer that The Secret is the latest and by far the worst example of a HIGHLY profitable trend where self-help gurus with fabricated new age titles and little relevant education, credentials or legitimate expertise brainwash us into believing that they know what is best for us, our marriages and our families.
Often their only contribution to society is introducing some exotic sounding, new age philosophy. However, they often cleverly form an incestuous group of like-minded “experts” who cross-promote each other by swearing their success is due to following the beliefs of another member of their “cult!” All the while, they ply the airwaves jockeying for an ever-larger audience by appearing in the national media to garner third-party endorsements.
The Self-Help Movement has become the Self-Destruct Movement by diminishing or destroying our critical thinking skills to choose and evolve on our own. We have given up the freedom to build healthy lives, marriages and families based on our unique history and life experience. Instead many victims, blinded to the value of their own life experiences, are attracted to the latest secret in self-help, in an attempt to find out what they should think, feel and how they should act… this is the definition of a cult.
The solution is a return to our (common) senses! The best way out of this learned “self-helplessness” is to go cold turkey. Stop following ALL self-help gurus now. Begin, instead, to reclaim your natural, God-given ability to think for yourself. The common sense that was once readily available to all of us is still there free of charge and waiting to be applied to just about any challenge we might face in life… all you have to do is use it.
Please, let’s all work together to stop the flock of “sheepeople” who blindly move from one UNPROVEN concept to the next, looking for the answers to life’s challenges that you already possess and that is the OBVIOUS!