The Law of Attraction: Here’s Where You’re Wrong

If you build it, they will come - Field of Dreams. This is also the mentality behind any number of businesses that go into the market without a clear idea of who they serve. On any given day you can see a hundred different brands hoping that if they make the right product in the right way, with enough clever features and flashy copy, an infinite audience will arrive to buy their product hand over fist.

First, build it, then they will come - the shortcut to the Law of Attraction. The trouble is: the Law of Attraction is a strategy, not an excuse. Popular culture has taken the Law of Attraction to the extremes of absurdity. Use a positive mindset, focus your intentions, manifest your destiny, and you will drag it kicking and screaming into reality.

As if.

While your mind and mindset are a potent part of your being, it is not the thing that leverages the laws of attraction. After all, do you simply stare at your inbox and try to will your dream clients into sending you a retainer check? I bet not.

Three things we want to focus on in this article:

• Where the Law of Attraction came from and what it really is.
• How to engage the Law of Attraction.
• How to use the Law of Attraction to attract audiences that work for your brand.

Partial-Truth and Unconscious Design

Believe it or not, there is a history to the idea of “The Law of Attraction.” Unsurprisingly, the roots of the practice trace back to a world of theories, pseudoscience, and the New Thought movement that gained traction in the 1800s. 

Around 1812, Phineas Quimby - a clockmaker, mesmerist, and the foundation of the New Thought spiritual movement - came down with a bad case of tuberculosis. He noticed that the excitement he got while riding a galloping horse alleviated his symptoms - leading him to theorize a connection between the mind and the body. He rode so many horses that he claims to have cured his tuberculosis. 

In 1877, the phrase “Law of Attraction” appeared in the writings of Helena Blavatsky - a Russian Occultist and the founder of the Theosophical movement. She was giving context to the connection between nature and spirit. 

In Prentice Milford's 1886 text “Your Forces and How To Use Them,” an entire chapter is dedicated to the Law of Success - more work, more returns. However, Milford was a failed prospector, lost an election for the California Congress, and had a short career at sea that ended with him dead in a boat.

Around 1890, Ralph Waldo Trine expanded on the laws of attraction to include everything in life - nature, work, health, family, love - and his way of thinking was massively beneficial to his close friend Henry Ford. This very well could have served as the foundation of the assembly line, which rocketed the growth of capitalism, means of production, and all of the permutations of the industry we’ve seen since then. Can we really tie all of this back to a few writings from a New Thought thinker?

An Occultist, a man who cured himself of a fatal disease by riding a horse, a motivational writer who couldn’t find success, and a confidant of Henry Ford - all tied to the New Thought movement, all who contributed to the modern misconception of the Laws of Attraction. Weirder things have happened. As they say, give a cult a thousand years and it becomes a religion.

And while the “Law of Attraction” may be the latest derivation of this school of thought, looking back through the ancient texts of civilizations throughout history, there have been some concepts of “attracting good energy” all along the way. These schools of thought come and go, but they all hold a common theme: alignment.

As we have written before, alignment starts with you. 

Carl Jung - a grandfather of modern psychology - believed there was a spiritual drive behind the reality of the human psyche. However, being a man of science, Jung couldn’t say “spiritual.” Instead, he named it the Unconscious Design in his professional publishings. The Unconscious Design starts with the universal, archetypal idea of knowing thyself and our ancient desire to find the eternal patterns throughout every aspect of our lives. 

After all, humans want to first know WHO we are before we can reason with the WHY, HOW, and WHAT that is our purpose for being. The Unconscious Design drives the narrative behind our existence, and our lives. From there we discover that it is the body, not the mind, that needs to take action to alter the reality to attract what we’re all really after. 

Just as no one stares at the phone willing it to ring, one must dial the number and get the prospect on the phone for something to happen. You must take action with intention and purpose. We all know a new habit doesn’t just happen. Studies show that it takes three 21-day cycles (63 days!) to create a noticeable change in your actions. You can say “I will attract my ideal clients,” but until you take physical action, they will never be your clients. 

It is only after the Unconscious Design and the engagement with the physical self that our minds enter the picture. The body changes the mind - the neural pathways created by habit building, new experiences, and trauma all shape your grey matter. 

Unconscious Design, Physical Self, Mental Acuity. When all three are aligned, something impressive happens: we engage the Law of Attraction. 

Changing your mindset means first understanding your Unconscious Design. To help you do this, we built upon the extensive work of Carl Jung to design a quiz that shines light on your archetypal mix. It’s free, and it’s a great place to start. 

Complacency & Authenticity

How do you truly engage the Law of Attraction? How do you make it work for you? 

Live Authentically. 

That’s it. 

A dead-simple answer with a wildly complicated process. The weird thing about living authentically: it often means you have to walk an uncomfortable path to get there. You have to abandon the thoughts and critiques of the people you have considered friends and peers. You have to just be and understand that your contribution is a single thread woven within the giant tapestry of the collective unconscious. 

You are here to solve a particular problem with your creative solution. Your unique offering and the path you walk to your success may be similar to someone else’s, but it is still wildly unique. This is on purpose. Yet, there are eternal, archetypal patterns found throughout our world that hint at the universal paths we take to speed up our journey. 

“...the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”  - Henry David Thoreau.

Most people are just fine living compliant, complacent lives. Things are easier when the expectations are lowered. Living authentically is no easy task. It requires looking inward and taking the time for serious self-reflection until the light flips on and you find clarity. How this happens is different from one person to the next, but it almost always means someone has understood who they really are. 

We are living in an age of identity crisis. Globally, worldwide, almost everyone you know is having a crisis of identity and are spending loads of time trying to convince others that they know who they are, rather than just being who they are. While this crisis feels insurmountable, it is nothing new. Every age has a crisis of the self that shifts the course of human history - empires rise and fall, new worlds are discovered, new limits are pushed. There is a fundamental human desire to belong to something bigger than ourselves. We want a purpose and for the purpose to have a significant value. This probably isn’t going to happen on TikTok.

But this desire is part of the Unconscious Design. Lucky for you, there is a tribe out there who is ready to accept you for who you are. They need your message because it will provide them with something to help complete the process of fulfilling their own. 

Living authentically takes courage. It means you are regularly facing fear, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Fear is the resistance you need to push forward.   

The Good Type of Influencer

Live Authentically. Engage the Law of Attraction. Find Your Tribe. 

How does this all happen? 

What you want to be known for and who you are known for being are one and the same.

Again, a simple answer with a complicated process. It’s going to take a lot more than just riding a horse to get it all to knock into place. 

You need to understand your sphere of influence. There are places you should exist and lanes you should stay out of. You need to understand who you are and what you represent, which means understanding the intricacies of your identity as a brand. WHO you are as a brand drives the narrative for the WHY of your existence, HOW it can help your tribe, and WHAT solution you can offer to resolve their pain. We also understand that putting this all together, especially when you start from zero, can seem wildly overwhelming. 

Fortunately, we created a brand strategy process to help you understand the intricacies of your identity as a brand. We call it the Big BAM Process, and you can learn more about it here.

When you have an authentic brand, you can hear the unique message that resonates with your tribe. Seemingly, out of nowhere, you see it unroll across social media and in your brand’s visual elements. We’ll be diving into this in our next article. 

But for now, you have a crash course on how to engage the Law of Attraction to find the tribe that needs you - which is far different than your “target audience.”

Live Authentically. 

Think you’re up for the task?