2006 saw the release of Rhonda Byrne’s self-help smash hit, The Secret, as a movie followed by the book. At its core, it’s an examination of the Law of Attraction, which proposes that our thoughts can directly influence the reality we experience. Like many, reading the book marked my first steps into manifestation and the Law of Attraction. Here, we’ll discuss a bit about The Secret and its impact, and then dive into some great quotes from the author herself.
Launch and Impact
The numbers are staggering – topping the New York Times bestseller list for 200 weeks following its release in November 2006, the book went on to sell 34 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 50 languages.
As of February 2024, it has 4.6/5 stars on Amazon from just over 43,000 ratings. 78% of those are 5-star ratings from some very happy customers! There are five brilliant follow up titles on Amazon that have equally high star ratings. The official website also offers other products such as manifestation cards. And, not forgetting “The Secret: Dare to Dream”, was a feature film released in 2020.
Perhaps less quantifiable is the huge cultural impact The Secret has had. In May 2007, Rhonda Byrne was named one of the most influential people in the world by TIME Magazine. And yes, sales were massive but the concepts of the Law of Attraction and more broadly manifestation, have continued to grow in popularity throughout the 2010s and up to today.
Social Media and Continued Popularity
Something we can quantify to a degree is social media usage. Check out TikTok if you want some evidence of the latest trends. For example, as of February 2024, there have been 1.05 billion views of videos tagged with #thesecret (Ok, they’re not all for The Secret we’re discussing, but scrolling through the results, a substantial amount are) and 26.3 million tagged with #rhondabyrne.
More broadly, #lawofattraction tagged posts received a mind-blowing 14.0 billion views on Tiktok. Variations such as #lawofattractiontips have racked up 428.4 million and similar hashtags also number in the hundreds of millions. And how much of that is down to The Secret? I suspect more than the 1 billion hashtag views mentioned.
There were big numbers too on Instagram, though they count posts rather than views – #thesecret was used in just over 3.7 million posts, #rhondabyrne in 230,441 posts, #lawofattraction in almost 16 million posts, and #lawofattractionquotes in just over 2.1 million.
Bear in mind, as Lewis Howes points out in his 2020 podcast episode with Rhonda Byrne, she had barely done an interview in 10 years. And this is the decade when social media use has exploded.
That 2020 interview with Lewis Howes has now amassed 2.9 million views and if you need a dose of positivity, just read the comments in response to the video. See that episode here...
There are two further episodes of Lewis Howes’ podcast featuring Rhonda Byrne about how the Law of Attraction actually works and manifesting money with the Law of Attraction.
And if that isn’t enough to sink your teeth into, please visit and subscribe to The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, her very own YouTube channel.
In other words, it’s a brand that’s still widely known, respected, and incredibly influential, even well after its initial launch way back in 2006.
Takeaways From the Secret
The Secret, no doubt, has been a catalyst for a global movement that took shape in the second half of the noughties and that has blossomed in the age of social media.
With such large numbers and positive sentiment accrued over the years, The Secret’s message is as powerful as ever. But what makes it so popular?
If we think about some of the top line key concepts – i) There is a Law of Attraction that’s in constant operation, ii) It’s a straightforward concept, iii) The Universe wants what’s best for you, iv) You have a powerful mind that can attract amazing things into your life such as wealth, love, and health outcomes, but you must follow some learnable steps, v) You can use it for free.
There’s an inspirational narrative to the book which is that anyone can learn to harness the power of their mind to manifest their dreams into reality. There’s no bias, prejudice, or preference on the part of the Universe. It isn’t interested in who you are, or what your background or current circumstances are. Armed with the right skills and knowledge, the Law of Attraction is as much yours to use to your advantage as it is anyone else’s.
It’s certainly a message of hope.
Look forward to a book packed with examples along with quotes from past practitioners and featured co-authors of The Secret. This includes such stellar names as John Assaraf, Dr. Joe Vitale, Lisa Nichols, Jack Canfield, Michael Beckwith, and many more.
Quotes by Rhonda Byrne
It would have been an easier job to simply pluck sentences from the summaries and the end of each chapter. That summing up is something the book does incredibly well. But The Secret is just so quotable! It’s packed full of everything you need to understand about the Law of Attraction, and its structure and style make it a pleasure to read. So, I re-read it and pulled out my favorite quotes.
- “It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are, the law of attraction is forming your entire life experience, and this all-powerful law is doing that through your thoughts.”
- “Your life right now is a reflection of your past thoughts. That includes all the great things, and all the things you consider not so great. Since you attract to you what you think about most, it is easy to see what your dominant thoughts have been on every single subject of your life, because that is what you have experienced.”
- “Thoughts are magnetic, and thoughts have a frequency. As you think, those thoughts are sent out into the Universe, and they magnetically attract all like things that are on the same frequency. Everything sent out returns to the source. And that source is you.”
- “The Law of Attraction doesn’t compute ‘don’t’ or ‘not’ or ‘no’, or any other words of negation. As you speak words of negation, this is what the law of attraction is receiving: ‘I don’t want to spill something on this outfit.’ ‘I want to spill something on this outfit and I want to spill more things.’ ‘I don’t want a bad haircut.’ ‘I want bad haircuts.’ ‘I don’t want to be delayed.’ ‘I want delays.'”
- “The law is simply reflecting and giving back to you exactly what you are focusing on with your thoughts. With this powerful knowledge, you can completely change every circumstance and even in your entire life, by changing the way you think.”
- “There is no such thing as a hopeless situation. Every single circumstance of your life can change!”
- “No one would ever deliberately attract anything unwanted. Without the knowledge of The Secret, it is easy to see how some unwanted things may have occurred in your life or other people’s lives. It simply came from a lack of awareness of the great creative power of our thoughts.”
- “Seize those moments when you are feeling good, and milk them. Be aware that as you are feeling good, you are powerfully attracting more good things to you.”
- “Make a list of some Secret Shifters to have up your sleeve. By Secret Shifters, I mean things that can change your feelings in a snap. It might be beautiful memories, future events, funny moments, nature, a person you love, your favorite music. Then if you find yourself angry or frustrated or not feeling good, turn to your Secret Shifters list and focus on one of them.”
- “Step One is simply your step to get clear about what you want. As you get clear in your mind, you have asked.”
- “In the moment you ask, and believe, and know you already have it in the unseen, the entire Universe shifts to bring it into the seen.”
- “You must believe you have received it. You have to emit the feeling frequency of having received it, to bring those pictures back as your life. When you do that, the Law of Attraction will powerfully move all circumstances, people, and events, for you to receive.”
- “When you book a vacation, order a brand new car, or buy a house, you know those things are yours. You wouldn’t go and book another vacation for the same time, or purchase another car or house…That is the feeling of believing you have it already. That is the feeling of believing you have received.”
- “How it will happen, how the Universe will bring it to you, is not your concern or job. Allow the Universe to do it for you.”
- “Trust the Universe. Trust and believe and have faith. I truly had no idea how I was going to being the knowledge of The Secret onto the movie screen. I just held to the outcome of the vision, I saw the outcome clearly in my mind, I felt it with all my might, and everything that we needed to create The Secret came to us.”
- “The power of gratitude stands above anything else. If you only do one thing with the knowledge of The Secret, use gratitude until it becomes your way of life.”
- “When you are visualizing, you are emitting that powerful frequency out into the Universe. The Law of Attraction will take hold of that powerful signal and return those pictures back to you, just as you saw them in your mind.”
- “Your picture in your mind is seeing it as done. Your feelings are seeing it as done. Your mind and your entire state of being are seeing it as already happened. That is the art of visualization.”
- “Expectation is a powerful attractive force. Expect the things you want, and don’t expect the things you don’t want.”
- “At the end of the day, before you go to sleep, go back through the events of the day. Any events or moments that were not what you wanted, replay them in your mind the way you wanted them to go.”
- “Focus on not enough money, and you will create untold more circumstances of not having enough money. You must focus on the abundance of money to bring that to you.”
- “The blank check is for you, and it is from the Bank of the Universe. You fill in your name, the amount, and details, and place it in a prominent place where you will see it every day. When you look at that check, feel the feelings of having that money now. Imagine spending that money, all the things you will buy and the things you will do. Feel how wonderful that is! Know it is yours, because when you ask, it is.”
- “If you have held thoughts in the past that the only way money can come to you is through your job, then let that go immediately. Can you appreciate that as you continue to think that, it must be your experience?”
- “Give money in order to bring more of it into your life. When you are generous with money and feel good about sharing it, you are saying, ‘I have plenty.’”
- “When you do not treat yourself the way you want others to treat you, you can never change the way things are. Your actions are your powerful thoughts, so if you do not treat yourself with love and respect, you are emitting a signal that is saying you are not important enough, worthy enough, or deserving.”
- “The reason you have to love You is because it is impossible to feel good if you don’t love You.”
- “When you don’t feel good about You, you are on a frequency that is attracting more people, situations, and circumstances that will continue to make you feel bad about You.”
- “When you want to attract a relationship, make sure your thoughts, words, actions, and surroundings don’t contradict your desires.”
- “To make a relationship work, focus on what you appreciate about the other person, and not your complaints.”
- “As you focus on the negative events of the world, you not only add to them, but you bring more negative things into your own life at the same time.”
- “You have the ability to give so much to the world by emitting feelings of love and well-being, despite what is happening around you.”
- “You are the master of your life, and the Universe is answering your every command.”
- “Your ability to think is unlimited, and so the things you can think into existence are unlimited.”
- “What you resist, you attract, because you are powerfully focused on it with emotion.”
- “We will never run out of good things because there’s more than enough to go around for everyone. Life is meant to be abundant.”
- “Instead of focusing on the world’s problems, give your attention and energy to trust, love, abundance, education, and peace.”
- “When you think about what you want, and you emit that frequency, you cause the energy of what you want to vibrate at that frequency and you bring it to You! As you focus on what you want, you are changing the vibration of the atoms of that thing, and you are causing it to vibrate to You.”
- “You are energy, and energy cannot be created or destroyed. Energy just changes form. And that means You! The true essence of You, the pure energy of You, has always been and always will be. You can never not be.”
- “Be happy now. Feel good now. That’s the only thing you have to do. If that’s the only thing you get from reading this book, then you have received the greatest part of The Secret.”
- “The Secret is within you. The more you use the power within you, the more you will draw it to you.”