February 7, 2025 • 30 mins
Welcome to Part 1 of a powerful new series on The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale—an audio that has transformed lives for decades. If you’ve been on the path of personal growth, manifestation, and self-empowerment, this episode is for you.
We’re breaking down why success isn’t a finish line—it’s a way of thinking. You’ll learn how to shift your mindset, take back control of your thoughts, and start working with the Law of Attraction in a way that truly works. No more waiting, no more hoping—this is about real transformation, starting now.
If you’re ready to break free from limitations, step into your power, and start seeing results in your life, this episode will give you the inspiration and tools to make it happen. Part 2 is coming soon, but your shift begins today!
✨ Hit play and let’s manifest the life you know you’re meant for.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Manifestation Lounge.
(00:05):
I'm your host, Melissa Field, and this is a cozy space where we talk about all things
related to the law of attraction, manifesting, energy, working with the infinite possibilities
of the universe, and just going through life feeling empowered, feeling passionate, knowing
(00:26):
that your dreams are not random, but they were put within you for a reason.
I have been passionate about learning about the law of attraction for almost 20 years
now.
It really ties into our biggest question of who are we and what is our relationship to
the universe.
(00:48):
Over the years, I have read so many different books, listened to different audios, listened
to different speakers, and it's something that I always find there's more I can learn
about.
And when I recently listened to this audio called The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale,
I felt an excitement for all of this that I haven't really felt in a long time.
(01:11):
A lot of it started to feel very familiar to me, and I kind of lost that spark of what
is this that we are doing?
What is the magic that resides within us?
And I'd say that that's what this audio really did for me, is it reminded me of just
how magical and mysterious this existence is that we have, that it's just interwoven
(01:35):
into the fabric of quantum energy and higher dimensions and our own higher guidance.
We really are magical, existing in a magical universe.
So after I listened to it, I thought, I need to listen to that again.
There was something about that that was really powerful.
(01:57):
There was something about it that just felt like I had been awakened, and I had, and it
was like that feeling when you go outside in the morning and the air is cool, and there's
just that energy of morning, of possibility, of a whole day in front of you.
It just felt so, it just felt so awake and like something had happened.
(02:20):
And I am not the only one who felt this way.
When I went to look into it, I found that this record has had quite the effect on people
since it was recorded in 1956.
So what I want to do is talk about what is it about this record that continues to just
motivate and inspire and really electrify people.
(02:44):
And I want to talk about it through this perspective of what it is I'm passionate about, the law
of attraction and visualization, and how we can reclaim power over our own minds and how
infinite the power of our own mind is.
So we're going to kind of break it down and dive deep into it.
And because I wrote quite a few notes, I am thinking this is going to be a multi-part
(03:07):
episode.
So I'm just going to cover the first section of my notes today.
So let's get into it.
Let's dive into this and talk about The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale.
It was originally published in 1956, and it was a record that Earl made.
He recorded it for his team.
I believe it was insurance sales.
(03:28):
He had a team of salesmen and he was going away and he wanted to leave them with something
that would really just kind of fill the void that he felt he was leaving as their leader,
mentor, boss in his absence.
And so that's what it was made for.
But the men who listened to it were like, what was that?
(03:49):
I'm going to need a copy right now.
And thus began this wild, mystical journey in itself of this becoming one of the most
popular self-help audios of all time.
If you haven't heard of it, you're not alone.
I mean, it was recorded in 1956 and a lot of stuff has come out since then.
(04:10):
And a lot of stuff that came out since then can actually be tied back to this.
So since Earl Nightingale recorded this, we've had a lot of really popular motivational speakers
come up such as Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer.
Well, they had all listened to The Strangest Secret.
So in a funny way, it's kind of like you do hear it, but you're hearing it through the
(04:33):
perspective, through the words of people who it was passed on to.
And of course, Earl Nightingale had been influenced and learned from people before him.
It's just kind of like this lineage where we're all trying to get each other to wake up and
hear this message of how your thoughts are creating your reality.
So Earl was influenced by Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich.
(04:57):
And before Napoleon Hill, there was Florence Scoville-Shinn, who wrote The Game of Life
and How to Win It.
And she wrote that in the 1920s.
So Earl is just kind of in this chain of people who are trying to remind all of us of who
we really are, of how capable we are, of how much potential we all hold within us, and
(05:20):
how there is this greater divine force working on our behalf.
That we're not in this alone.
You don't have to figure it out.
But you do have to harness the power of your mind and use that to work with this infinite
energy that is interacting with everything we are thinking and kind of commanding of
(05:40):
it.
We are putting intentions, beliefs out into the universe, and it's reflecting them back
to us.
So a couple of other things about how it just took off.
Within a year, through word of mouth alone, he didn't really advertise it.
He hadn't even intended to sell this.
As I said, he made it for his team when he was going to be away, I guess, working or
(06:03):
something.
And within a year, it was selling 2000 copies a week, which for the 1950s is astronomical.
And then within a year, it sold over a million copies.
It was the first spoken word album to go gold.
And as I was talking about Wayne Dyer and Tony Robbins, and we have these other people
(06:24):
who really have kind of carried this torch forward, we can give a lot of that credit
back to Earl Nightingale because he proved there is a hunger for this.
This is something that people want to hear about.
We're wanting somebody to really awaken and stir our soul and remind us that yes, there
is infinite possibilities in this world.
(06:44):
So I came to this audio in a kind of funny way.
I was watching The Founder, which is about the supposed quote unquote founder of McDonald's,
Ray Kroc.
But as you go through the movie, you find out that Ray did not found McDonald's.
He discovered it.
It was founded by the McDonald's brothers.
There were actually two people whose last name was McDonald's.
(07:06):
And they had innovated this whole kind of fast food system.
Fast food was not a thing before this.
Walk up counters were not a thing.
They created this whole system.
It was extremely successful.
And then Ray came in wanting to franchise it.
And he just took over more and more until he just strong armed them out and became the
(07:28):
CEO of McDonald's.
And then he erased them, or did his best to.
He did his best to claim that he had founded McDonald's.
And he had done all of this.
And he kind of tried to erase their legacy.
And so the movie, it's complicated.
It's not really this heartwarming journey.
But despite that, I did find it to be really inspiring because the McDonald's brothers
(07:50):
themselves had tried several things before they had this really successful restaurant
that they had already turned into a bit of a chain.
So Ray was not the first one to take it and to add more restaurants to McDonald's.
I think they had like 10 by the time he came along.
And at one point in the movie, they say McDonald's is an overnight success 30 years in the making.
(08:13):
So just for them to get to this point where they had a successful restaurant, they had
tried so many different things that didn't work.
And then Ray himself had struggled for a long time.
And Ray was ruthless.
But the thing about Ray is he was really persistent.
So even though I wouldn't consider him a good or really moral person, he definitely was
(08:35):
inspiring in his own way.
And just the fact that he didn't give up and he saw something and turned it into a billion
dollar industry.
So he thought, again, he stole the idea and erased the actual founders from it, but it's
still a really good movie.
And in the beginning, he's listening to this record.
And I was so captivated by what it was saying.
(08:56):
And then he's repeating it back.
And it's just about persistence and being the type of person who doesn't give up.
And I was like, what is that?
I want to know what he's listening to.
Is that real?
And I couldn't find any actual evidence of Ray saying, yes, I listened to Earl Nightingale.
I listened to these motivational talks.
(09:18):
I read Thinking Girl Rich.
But Ray is not the type of guy to give credit.
He's the type of guy to actually erase people's contributions.
So I don't think we could ever really know for sure where he got his motivation, where
he got his ideas from.
He's just not somebody that was going to say.
So I couldn't find, did Ray actually listen to this record?
(09:38):
I don't know.
But what I found was that some of the record that they did in the movie was actual words
from Earl Nightingale.
So it led me to this record, The Strangest Secret.
And that's when I played it and I just went, wow, what was that?
And why haven't I heard that before in all of my years of looking into all of these people
(10:03):
who are really just guiding us back to our own self?
It was really exciting to find it and in such a random way.
The way Earl's record took off, especially in the 1950s, I think really speaks to the
fact that deep inside we all know that there's something more.
There's truth to this.
There's something we aren't collectively embracing and using, but we know there's some truth
(10:31):
to the fact that our thoughts are powerful and that there is a divine force working on
our behalf.
It's just something that you can feel it.
When somebody brings it to you, you know that, yes, there is something to this thing called
the law of attraction.
And yet, despite the fact that it really stirs something with us, it awakens something within
us, a lot of people aren't into it or don't believe it.
(10:55):
And I think a large part of that is just because this is not something that really shifts instantly,
even though a lot of people will tell you it is.
A lot of people will say that it's like a genie.
You just make a wish and you get instant results.
You get instant results if your thoughts are in alignment with what you're asking for.
(11:16):
And this is the part that can start to take time.
What are you actually thinking?
What are you actually projecting out to the universe?
And I think this is also part of why Earl's record was so popular because he understood
that this wasn't going to be something where you just said to yourself, oh, okay, I'll
change my thoughts and I'll start getting what I want.
(11:36):
He understood that changing your thoughts, it's a process.
And he even writes out a 30-day test in order for you to start this process of really looking
at, what are you thinking?
What are you focusing on?
And he says, if you get halfway through it and you find yourself overwhelmed with negative
thinking, start again.
And then at the end of the 30 days, do it again.
(11:57):
And he really puts it out there in an honest way of this is going to be something where
you get out of it, what you put into it.
So a lot of times we disregard the law of attraction because looking within in this
way, changing our thoughts, it can take effort.
It can be uncomfortable.
It can be really uncomfortable to get honest with ourselves, with how we talk to ourselves,
(12:18):
with how we interact with the world.
And I really appreciate that Earl was so honest in this.
And he just makes a good point of if this is work, why should anyone do it?
Because you deserve a happy life.
You deserve a good life and you deserve a life that's free of the burdens of all of
this false messaging and programming that keeps getting passed on, that keeps getting
(12:41):
us locked into this thinking that kind of does make this stuff seem like a secret, but
it's not a secret.
It's just who we are.
And we've been programmed to believe we are not magical.
We have been programmed to believe something different.
And so he really makes it clear that you're going to have to kind of roll up your sleeves
and dig into this in order to get it to work for you, but it will be worth it.
(13:04):
Because don't you want to live a life where your dreams are coming true, where you have
abundance, love, ease, flow.
It doesn't really matter how long it takes.
The time is going to pass anyways, and every step, it gets better.
That's what I found about this stuff, about working with the law of attraction and doing
(13:25):
something where you challenge yourself, okay, I'm going to do it for 30 days, and then I'll
do it for another 30 days, and then I'll do it for another 30 days until I get where I
want to is that along the way, it keeps getting better.
Your life just keeps getting better.
So it's not like you have to wait for something to happen where it kicks into place.
It just keeps getting better.
And that's a reason to do it because as you think more positive, you're going to feel
(13:47):
better that in itself is an amazing result.
You're just you're going to be less stressed.
You're going to be worried less.
You're going to believe in yourself more.
So every step of the way, it gets better.
Now at this point, you may be getting really curious about this audio and wanting to listen
to it yourself, which I would highly encourage you to do.
I think it's one that's great to listen to on its own.
(14:08):
But just keep in mind that it was recorded in the 1950s in America.
So Earl really at that time probably couldn't even conceive of a worldwide audience listening
to his records.
So he so he does kind of address the audio to an American audience.
And he also references things of a certain time and place about like being a salesperson
(14:30):
is the number one job, which it no longer is and things just related to like the economy.
There's things in it that are just dated.
But for the most part, it's still relevant to anyone who listens.
So just go into it knowing there's going to be things he says that don't apply to you
and just think of it in terms of how would this apply to you.
(14:51):
So as I went back to and listen to it a second time and write and started to write these
notes on it, what stood out to me is how it has a layering effect and it builds on itself
as it goes themes he brings up in the beginning are connected to and enhanced later on.
Nothing he says is arbitrary and it's all kind of building on itself.
(15:13):
And there's some things that repeat because I'm sure he understood the power of repetition.
And you start to just kind of understand what he's saying deeper and deeper as he goes.
And that's part of what it made it made it so exciting for me was like, I really felt
like I was hearing some of this stuff for the first time, like, it was really just connecting
and I was understanding these principles and the power of our thoughts.
(15:38):
And so it's really interesting that he didn't write this as something to be sold, because
it does seem like he really put a lot of thought and intention into what he was doing.
And I think it's because he wanted it to be effective for his team, he really wanted it
to work for them.
And it just has this uplifting effect in that, you know that he wanted this to work, and
(16:01):
that he really wants you to have a successful life.
There's some kind of energy in it that says, I want you to succeed because you deserve
to succeed.
And maybe part of this is the fact that he wasn't trying to sell it.
So there's nothing gimmicky about it.
He's not trying to get anything from you.
He's just sharing something that he's really passionate about that he feels is important
(16:23):
that he believes is already within you.
He believes in your success before maybe you even do.
The first line of the record, he says, I'd like to tell you about the strangest secret
in the world.
And for me, it was a really captivating opening, especially for a man who wrote this in the
1950s, saying these things like, this is going to be strange.
(16:47):
And this is a secret.
It's just not really a way that people express themselves in a very conservative, very time
of conformity, and he definitely gets into conformity and kind of, and just kind of like
addresses that head on of, hey, if you want to be successful, you have to think for yourself.
(17:08):
And then as he gets further into it, he says, here's the best definition of success I've
ever been able to find.
Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.
Now this in itself is really interesting, because we often come at success as some kind
(17:28):
of fixed thing.
It's an amount of money.
It's a position.
It's being the CEO.
It's a destination you arrive at.
And he kind of turns that around and says, success is the progressive realization of
a worthy ideal.
It's working towards something that you really believe in.
(17:51):
If you have something you believe in and you are working towards it, you are a success.
And he says, if a person is working toward a predetermined goal and knows where they're
going, that person is a success.
If they're not doing that, they're a failure.
And then I just found this so interesting, because he starts it off by saying, if you
know what you want and you start to move towards it, you are succeeding.
(18:16):
And this really ties into everything he's saying, which is that your thoughts are powerful.
So you need to determine right here and now, are you successful or are you not?
Do you see what you're doing as meaningful, as being a success along the way, or do you
not?
And he's really kind of working with the power of belief, with the law of attraction, without
(18:39):
saying it.
What he's really getting you to do is decide, because I have this goal and I'm moving towards
it, I am a success.
And as he says throughout this audio, what you think about, you become.
If you're thinking of yourself as a success, you will succeed.
It's kind of like deciding before you get anywhere, I'm going to succeed, I am a success
(19:01):
now.
And if you're really into energy, this is really the power of radiating a belief.
You're radiating with the sense of success, therefore success comes to you.
It's kind of like reverse engineering it.
So many of us believe success is something that's going to happen when we get there,
when we make this amount of money, when we have this number of clients, when we've done
(19:24):
this, when we have that, when we have this house or this car, then we are successful.
And what this really gets me to realize is that how many of us kind of hold success out
at arm's length, saying it's some destination we haven't arrived at.
And again, if you don't believe you're there, you cannot get there because your thoughts
(19:45):
are creating your reality.
And so it's just so interesting that he starts it off in this way that, again, in the 1950s
was not how people thought of success.
Success was not an abstract thing.
But he's saying, determine now that you are successful, and that's how you will be successful.
You're really just wiring this belief into yourself and removing the option that you're
(20:10):
not going to get there because you've already decided, I am successful.
This is something that a lot of us will struggle with and we want to say that that's not how
it works.
You can't claim success before you've gotten there.
But this is really the heart of what Earl is saying and what so many inspirational speakers
say, you become what you think about.
(20:30):
So if you want to arrive at success, then you must decide success is who I am.
I became successful the moment I chose my goal.
I became successful the moment I took the first step.
So let's just hear Earl's words one more time.
Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.
Now you might still be struggling with this, your ego might be kicking in like, no, that's
(20:53):
not how it works.
Success is when you achieve something.
Success is when you've written the book and it sells.
And Earl again is saying success is deciding on something and continuing to move towards
it because it's meaningful to you.
Getting yourself to accept this really does mean opening your mind to new definitions
(21:16):
and new ways of looking at things.
And this in itself is really what we are doing when we start to work with the law of attraction,
with energy, we're letting go of everything that's been programmed into us, which can
be scary, because now we're starting to think different.
Now people might not like what we're saying, they might think we're weird, they might think
(21:38):
we're ridiculous, we might have to face judgment.
And that's a lot.
That is a lot.
And Earl doesn't shy away from talking about this.
Earl quotes a man named Rollo May, who was a psychiatrist at the time who wrote Man's
Search for Himself.
And what Rollo May said that Earl quoted was, the opposite of courage in our society is
(22:01):
not cowardice.
It is conformity.
And there you have the trouble today.
It's conformity.
People acting like everyone else without knowing why and without knowing where they're going.
And for Earl to say this on a motivational record in the 1950s, that was bold.
And I think that's part of why this record is so electrifying, because the 1950s was
(22:26):
conformity in every way.
And we often think of conformity as really social and cultural things, how you look,
how you dress, maybe the job you do, maybe the relationship you're in.
But conformity, it's also how we think, what we believe.
And so for Earl to say, stop conforming your thoughts to other people's idea of success
(22:52):
and decide now for yourself what is success, that must have just been like so, like an
earthquake for the people who listen to this.
And it really helps to clarify why this record was so profound for people when they listened.
And even though we have less conformity now, but there's still a relevance to what he's
(23:13):
saying, and there's still just that energy of boldness that in this recording of stop
thinking like everyone else.
And a lot of times we are afraid to go against the crowd.
But then when we think about all these people, and if you really ask yourself, do you agree
with everything they say and do?
The answer is no.
(23:33):
There's a lot of people out there who you would never want to be like that person.
And yet, we want to conform to how they think.
When they say that success is this finish line, this moment, we go, okay, yes, but it's
just kind of funny because like, we don't actually agree with that person, we don't
(23:54):
share opinions with them, we don't need their approval, and yet we want it.
And so that's what you really have to let go of is letting go of this mass consciousness
that says success is this one thing, it's this definition that is outdated and arbitrary,
and often makes us feel bad about ourselves.
And redefining success, that really means breaking free of group think, breaking free
(24:19):
of how people have thought for a long time and defining success on your own terms for
your own highest good, for your sake, so that you can start to think about your own self
different and start to radiate a different energy.
Because if you start to radiate the energy of success now, your life really will change.
(24:40):
You really will not only radiate a different energy, but you will feel different about
yourself and you will take action from this place if I am successful.
Not that I need to cross this finish line and get this thing, get other people to approve
of me and to say, oh now you can feel successful.
It's determining from within what is right and true for you.
(25:03):
Okay, so I think that's a good stopping place for part one.
I covered a lot of stuff and I can't wait to come back and get into my notes further.
I have so many and there's so much more just juicy exciting stuff that I want to talk to
about in this audio, the strangest secret, which is such a funny name and he even says
(25:25):
in it, this is neither strange nor a secret.
It's been with humanity since the dawn of time.
We have no idea who said it first, but everybody who discovers it thinks they've discovered
something new.
When it's not new, it's not a secret.
It's actually very normal to us.
We've just been programmed to believe it's not normal.
And we're going to get deeper into this.
(25:46):
We're going to really break down the resistance to working with the law of attraction, with
our own infinite energy, with our just ability to create something that has meaning to us.
We're going to go deeper into this.
I have so much more to share and I can't wait to come back with part two in a week.
(26:06):
And if you're someone who is really into the law of attraction, manifesting, creating your
dream life, I want to invite you into my membership, which has three tiers.
So based on your budget and what you have time and energy for and what you're really
wanting to do, you have three options.
Tier one is $5 a month and it has thousands of dollars worth of content, even though it's
(26:29):
the first tier, it is by no means not effective or less than the other ones.
It's just that it has only meditations and visualizations, but these are so powerful.
And I've been working on building this part of the library for almost 10 years now.
It's something that I have been creating as I really learn how to work with focus and
(26:55):
meditation and visualization and connecting our energy into the quantum field.
These meditations and visualizations are so powerful.
There's almost 300 of them and that's tier one.
In tier two, you will get courses that will take you deeper into aligning your energy
and you get workbooks and exclusive podcast episodes or discussions for things like act
(27:17):
as if and working with auto suggestion.
Auto suggestion is something that I am going to be talking about in future episodes of
this series.
So I am going to explain what that is and why it's important, but that isn't something
that's in tier two is these audios that are kind of ways of rewiring or reprogramming
(27:38):
your mind on the deepest levels.
They are not meditations and they are not visualizations and this is explained in the
course.
You get a podcast episode for that.
And then tier three is all of these courses, all of these meditations, plus my deepest,
most powerful course for manifesting, manifesting magic.
And if you're working on your wealth consciousness and calling an abundance, you get 35 days
(28:04):
to a millionaire's mindset and there's the money reprogramming, which has more auto
suggestion in it.
Just go to the website, it'll tell you what's in each tier and your first week is free.
So you can actually join at tier three if you want just to check out what's all in there
and then decide what you want to do.
And I've structured this in a way that you can move about the tiers as it works for you.
(28:27):
So you don't have to stay in tier three, which is $49 a month in order to continue to gain
benefits.
If that is a price point that is not something that you can stay there for a long time, you
can go down to two or one and just move about as it works for you.
This membership is designed to be flexible and to be something that you kind of move
(28:48):
up and down in it as you're working on things as you're maybe integrating things.
So that is the dream life portal.
And I'll put the link to that below.
And and then maybe as you're waiting for next week's episode, go listen to The Strangest
Secret by Earl Nightingale.
(29:09):
Or you can listen to some of my other episodes.
I've also got meditations on the podcast that you can see when you look at the other episodes
if you want to just kind of see like what are they about?
What are these meditations that I'm referring to?
You can try them out through the podcast and then join me in the membership.
I would love to see you over there because it's honestly life changing content that is
(29:31):
not about results that don't last.
It's about lasting change.
That is the thing that I'm most passionate about is how do we change in a way where it
really does feel like we stepped through a gateway and now we're in this beautiful, bright,
new chapter of our lives.
The changes that I intend for you to experience are lasting and profound.
(29:53):
So that's it for this week as we covered the first part of The Strangest Secret.
This was so fun for me.
I am so excited I get to be sharing this with you and diving into it and just diving into
these things I'm passionate about.
I can't wait to see you next week for part two.
I'm your host, Melissa Field.
(30:14):
This is The Manifestation Lounge.
Hello and welcome to the Manifestation Lounge.
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I'm your host, Melissa Field, and this is a cozy space where we talk about all things
related to the law of attraction, manifesting, energy, working with the infinite possibilities
of the universe, and just going through life feeling empowered, feeling passionate, knowing
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that your dreams are not random, but they were put within you for a reason.
I have been passionate about learning about the law of attraction for almost 20 years
now.
It really ties into our biggest question of who are we and what is our relationship to
the universe.
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Over the years, I have read so many different books, listened to different audios, listened
to different speakers, and it's something that I always find there's more I can learn
about.
And when I recently listened to this audio called The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale,
I felt an excitement for all of this that I haven't really felt in a long time.
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A lot of it started to feel very familiar to me, and I kind of lost that spark of what
is this that we are doing?
What is the magic that resides within us?
And I'd say that that's what this audio really did for me, is it reminded me of just
how magical and mysterious this existence is that we have, that it's just interwoven
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into the fabric of quantum energy and higher dimensions and our own higher guidance.
We really are magical, existing in a magical universe.
So after I listened to it, I thought, I need to listen to that again.
There was something about that that was really powerful.
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There was something about it that just felt like I had been awakened, and I had, and it
was like that feeling when you go outside in the morning and the air is cool, and there's
just that energy of morning, of possibility, of a whole day in front of you.
It just felt so, it just felt so awake and like something had happened.
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And I am not the only one who felt this way.
When I went to look into it, I found that this record has had quite the effect on people
since it was recorded in 1956.
So what I want to do is talk about what is it about this record that continues to just
motivate and inspire and really electrify people.
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And I want to talk about it through this perspective of what it is I'm passionate about, the law
of attraction and visualization, and how we can reclaim power over our own minds and how
infinite the power of our own mind is.
So we're going to kind of break it down and dive deep into it.
And because I wrote quite a few notes, I am thinking this is going to be a multi-part
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episode.
So I'm just going to cover the first section of my notes today.
So let's get into it.
Let's dive into this and talk about The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale.
It was originally published in 1956, and it was a record that Earl made.
He recorded it for his team.
I believe it was insurance sales.
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He had a team of salesmen and he was going away and he wanted to leave them with something
that would really just kind of fill the void that he felt he was leaving as their leader,
mentor, boss in his absence.
And so that's what it was made for.
But the men who listened to it were like, what was that?
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I'm going to need a copy right now.
And thus began this wild, mystical journey in itself of this becoming one of the most
popular self-help audios of all time.
If you haven't heard of it, you're not alone.
I mean, it was recorded in 1956 and a lot of stuff has come out since then.
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And a lot of stuff that came out since then can actually be tied back to this.
So since Earl Nightingale recorded this, we've had a lot of really popular motivational speakers
come up such as Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer.
Well, they had all listened to The Strangest Secret.
So in a funny way, it's kind of like you do hear it, but you're hearing it through the
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perspective, through the words of people who it was passed on to.
And of course, Earl Nightingale had been influenced and learned from people before him.
It's just kind of like this lineage where we're all trying to get each other to wake up and
hear this message of how your thoughts are creating your reality.
So Earl was influenced by Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich.
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And before Napoleon Hill, there was Florence Scoville-Shinn, who wrote The Game of Life
and How to Win It.
And she wrote that in the 1920s.
So Earl is just kind of in this chain of people who are trying to remind all of us of who
we really are, of how capable we are, of how much potential we all hold within us, and
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how there is this greater divine force working on our behalf.
That we're not in this alone.
You don't have to figure it out.
But you do have to harness the power of your mind and use that to work with this infinite
energy that is interacting with everything we are thinking and kind of commanding of
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it.
We are putting intentions, beliefs out into the universe, and it's reflecting them back
to us.
So a couple of other things about how it just took off.
Within a year, through word of mouth alone, he didn't really advertise it.
He hadn't even intended to sell this.
As I said, he made it for his team when he was going to be away, I guess, working or
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something.
And within a year, it was selling 2000 copies a week, which for the 1950s is astronomical.
And then within a year, it sold over a million copies.
It was the first spoken word album to go gold.
And as I was talking about Wayne Dyer and Tony Robbins, and we have these other people
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who really have kind of carried this torch forward, we can give a lot of that credit
back to Earl Nightingale because he proved there is a hunger for this.
This is something that people want to hear about.
We're wanting somebody to really awaken and stir our soul and remind us that yes, there
is infinite possibilities in this world.
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So I came to this audio in a kind of funny way.
I was watching The Founder, which is about the supposed quote unquote founder of McDonald's,
Ray Kroc.
But as you go through the movie, you find out that Ray did not found McDonald's.
He discovered it.
It was founded by the McDonald's brothers.
There were actually two people whose last name was McDonald's.
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And they had innovated this whole kind of fast food system.
Fast food was not a thing before this.
Walk up counters were not a thing.
They created this whole system.
It was extremely successful.
And then Ray came in wanting to franchise it.
And he just took over more and more until he just strong armed them out and became the
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CEO of McDonald's.
And then he erased them, or did his best to.
He did his best to claim that he had founded McDonald's.
And he had done all of this.
And he kind of tried to erase their legacy.
And so the movie, it's complicated.
It's not really this heartwarming journey.
But despite that, I did find it to be really inspiring because the McDonald's brothers
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themselves had tried several things before they had this really successful restaurant
that they had already turned into a bit of a chain.
So Ray was not the first one to take it and to add more restaurants to McDonald's.
I think they had like 10 by the time he came along.
And at one point in the movie, they say McDonald's is an overnight success 30 years in the making.
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So just for them to get to this point where they had a successful restaurant, they had
tried so many different things that didn't work.
And then Ray himself had struggled for a long time.
And Ray was ruthless.
But the thing about Ray is he was really persistent.
So even though I wouldn't consider him a good or really moral person, he definitely was
(08:35):
inspiring in his own way.
And just the fact that he didn't give up and he saw something and turned it into a billion
dollar industry.
So he thought, again, he stole the idea and erased the actual founders from it, but it's
still a really good movie.
And in the beginning, he's listening to this record.
And I was so captivated by what it was saying.
(08:56):
And then he's repeating it back.
And it's just about persistence and being the type of person who doesn't give up.
And I was like, what is that?
I want to know what he's listening to.
Is that real?
And I couldn't find any actual evidence of Ray saying, yes, I listened to Earl Nightingale.
I listened to these motivational talks.
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I read Thinking Girl Rich.
But Ray is not the type of guy to give credit.
He's the type of guy to actually erase people's contributions.
So I don't think we could ever really know for sure where he got his motivation, where
he got his ideas from.
He's just not somebody that was going to say.
So I couldn't find, did Ray actually listen to this record?
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I don't know.
But what I found was that some of the record that they did in the movie was actual words
from Earl Nightingale.
So it led me to this record, The Strangest Secret.
And that's when I played it and I just went, wow, what was that?
And why haven't I heard that before in all of my years of looking into all of these people
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who are really just guiding us back to our own self?
It was really exciting to find it and in such a random way.
The way Earl's record took off, especially in the 1950s, I think really speaks to the
fact that deep inside we all know that there's something more.
There's truth to this.
There's something we aren't collectively embracing and using, but we know there's some truth
(10:31):
to the fact that our thoughts are powerful and that there is a divine force working on
our behalf.
It's just something that you can feel it.
When somebody brings it to you, you know that, yes, there is something to this thing called
the law of attraction.
And yet, despite the fact that it really stirs something with us, it awakens something within
us, a lot of people aren't into it or don't believe it.
(10:55):
And I think a large part of that is just because this is not something that really shifts instantly,
even though a lot of people will tell you it is.
A lot of people will say that it's like a genie.
You just make a wish and you get instant results.
You get instant results if your thoughts are in alignment with what you're asking for.
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And this is the part that can start to take time.
What are you actually thinking?
What are you actually projecting out to the universe?
And I think this is also part of why Earl's record was so popular because he understood
that this wasn't going to be something where you just said to yourself, oh, okay, I'll
change my thoughts and I'll start getting what I want.
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He understood that changing your thoughts, it's a process.
And he even writes out a 30-day test in order for you to start this process of really looking
at, what are you thinking?
What are you focusing on?
And he says, if you get halfway through it and you find yourself overwhelmed with negative
thinking, start again.
And then at the end of the 30 days, do it again.
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And he really puts it out there in an honest way of this is going to be something where
you get out of it, what you put into it.
So a lot of times we disregard the law of attraction because looking within in this
way, changing our thoughts, it can take effort.
It can be uncomfortable.
It can be really uncomfortable to get honest with ourselves, with how we talk to ourselves,
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with how we interact with the world.
And I really appreciate that Earl was so honest in this.
And he just makes a good point of if this is work, why should anyone do it?
Because you deserve a happy life.
You deserve a good life and you deserve a life that's free of the burdens of all of
this false messaging and programming that keeps getting passed on, that keeps getting
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us locked into this thinking that kind of does make this stuff seem like a secret, but
it's not a secret.
It's just who we are.
And we've been programmed to believe we are not magical.
We have been programmed to believe something different.
And so he really makes it clear that you're going to have to kind of roll up your sleeves
and dig into this in order to get it to work for you, but it will be worth it.
(13:04):
Because don't you want to live a life where your dreams are coming true, where you have
abundance, love, ease, flow.
It doesn't really matter how long it takes.
The time is going to pass anyways, and every step, it gets better.
That's what I found about this stuff, about working with the law of attraction and doing
(13:25):
something where you challenge yourself, okay, I'm going to do it for 30 days, and then I'll
do it for another 30 days, and then I'll do it for another 30 days until I get where I
want to is that along the way, it keeps getting better.
Your life just keeps getting better.
So it's not like you have to wait for something to happen where it kicks into place.
It just keeps getting better.
And that's a reason to do it because as you think more positive, you're going to feel
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better that in itself is an amazing result.
You're just you're going to be less stressed.
You're going to be worried less.
You're going to believe in yourself more.
So every step of the way, it gets better.
Now at this point, you may be getting really curious about this audio and wanting to listen
to it yourself, which I would highly encourage you to do.
I think it's one that's great to listen to on its own.
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But just keep in mind that it was recorded in the 1950s in America.
So Earl really at that time probably couldn't even conceive of a worldwide audience listening
to his records.
So he so he does kind of address the audio to an American audience.
And he also references things of a certain time and place about like being a salesperson
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is the number one job, which it no longer is and things just related to like the economy.
There's things in it that are just dated.
But for the most part, it's still relevant to anyone who listens.
So just go into it knowing there's going to be things he says that don't apply to you
and just think of it in terms of how would this apply to you.
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So as I went back to and listen to it a second time and write and started to write these
notes on it, what stood out to me is how it has a layering effect and it builds on itself
as it goes themes he brings up in the beginning are connected to and enhanced later on.
Nothing he says is arbitrary and it's all kind of building on itself.
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And there's some things that repeat because I'm sure he understood the power of repetition.
And you start to just kind of understand what he's saying deeper and deeper as he goes.
And that's part of what it made it made it so exciting for me was like, I really felt
like I was hearing some of this stuff for the first time, like, it was really just connecting
and I was understanding these principles and the power of our thoughts.
(15:38):
And so it's really interesting that he didn't write this as something to be sold, because
it does seem like he really put a lot of thought and intention into what he was doing.
And I think it's because he wanted it to be effective for his team, he really wanted it
to work for them.
And it just has this uplifting effect in that, you know that he wanted this to work, and
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that he really wants you to have a successful life.
There's some kind of energy in it that says, I want you to succeed because you deserve
to succeed.
And maybe part of this is the fact that he wasn't trying to sell it.
So there's nothing gimmicky about it.
He's not trying to get anything from you.
He's just sharing something that he's really passionate about that he feels is important
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that he believes is already within you.
He believes in your success before maybe you even do.
The first line of the record, he says, I'd like to tell you about the strangest secret
in the world.
And for me, it was a really captivating opening, especially for a man who wrote this in the
1950s, saying these things like, this is going to be strange.
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And this is a secret.
It's just not really a way that people express themselves in a very conservative, very time
of conformity, and he definitely gets into conformity and kind of, and just kind of like
addresses that head on of, hey, if you want to be successful, you have to think for yourself.
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And then as he gets further into it, he says, here's the best definition of success I've
ever been able to find.
Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.
Now this in itself is really interesting, because we often come at success as some kind
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of fixed thing.
It's an amount of money.
It's a position.
It's being the CEO.
It's a destination you arrive at.
And he kind of turns that around and says, success is the progressive realization of
a worthy ideal.
It's working towards something that you really believe in.
(17:51):
If you have something you believe in and you are working towards it, you are a success.
And he says, if a person is working toward a predetermined goal and knows where they're
going, that person is a success.
If they're not doing that, they're a failure.
And then I just found this so interesting, because he starts it off by saying, if you
know what you want and you start to move towards it, you are succeeding.
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And this really ties into everything he's saying, which is that your thoughts are powerful.
So you need to determine right here and now, are you successful or are you not?
Do you see what you're doing as meaningful, as being a success along the way, or do you
not?
And he's really kind of working with the power of belief, with the law of attraction, without
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saying it.
What he's really getting you to do is decide, because I have this goal and I'm moving towards
it, I am a success.
And as he says throughout this audio, what you think about, you become.
If you're thinking of yourself as a success, you will succeed.
It's kind of like deciding before you get anywhere, I'm going to succeed, I am a success
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now.
And if you're really into energy, this is really the power of radiating a belief.
You're radiating with the sense of success, therefore success comes to you.
It's kind of like reverse engineering it.
So many of us believe success is something that's going to happen when we get there,
when we make this amount of money, when we have this number of clients, when we've done
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this, when we have that, when we have this house or this car, then we are successful.
And what this really gets me to realize is that how many of us kind of hold success out
at arm's length, saying it's some destination we haven't arrived at.
And again, if you don't believe you're there, you cannot get there because your thoughts
(19:45):
are creating your reality.
And so it's just so interesting that he starts it off in this way that, again, in the 1950s
was not how people thought of success.
Success was not an abstract thing.
But he's saying, determine now that you are successful, and that's how you will be successful.
You're really just wiring this belief into yourself and removing the option that you're
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not going to get there because you've already decided, I am successful.
This is something that a lot of us will struggle with and we want to say that that's not how
it works.
You can't claim success before you've gotten there.
But this is really the heart of what Earl is saying and what so many inspirational speakers
say, you become what you think about.
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So if you want to arrive at success, then you must decide success is who I am.
I became successful the moment I chose my goal.
I became successful the moment I took the first step.
So let's just hear Earl's words one more time.
Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.
Now you might still be struggling with this, your ego might be kicking in like, no, that's
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not how it works.
Success is when you achieve something.
Success is when you've written the book and it sells.
And Earl again is saying success is deciding on something and continuing to move towards
it because it's meaningful to you.
Getting yourself to accept this really does mean opening your mind to new definitions
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and new ways of looking at things.
And this in itself is really what we are doing when we start to work with the law of attraction,
with energy, we're letting go of everything that's been programmed into us, which can
be scary, because now we're starting to think different.
Now people might not like what we're saying, they might think we're weird, they might think
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we're ridiculous, we might have to face judgment.
And that's a lot.
That is a lot.
And Earl doesn't shy away from talking about this.
Earl quotes a man named Rollo May, who was a psychiatrist at the time who wrote Man's
Search for Himself.
And what Rollo May said that Earl quoted was, the opposite of courage in our society is
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not cowardice.
It is conformity.
And there you have the trouble today.
It's conformity.
People acting like everyone else without knowing why and without knowing where they're going.
And for Earl to say this on a motivational record in the 1950s, that was bold.
And I think that's part of why this record is so electrifying, because the 1950s was
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conformity in every way.
And we often think of conformity as really social and cultural things, how you look,
how you dress, maybe the job you do, maybe the relationship you're in.
But conformity, it's also how we think, what we believe.
And so for Earl to say, stop conforming your thoughts to other people's idea of success
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and decide now for yourself what is success, that must have just been like so, like an
earthquake for the people who listen to this.
And it really helps to clarify why this record was so profound for people when they listened.
And even though we have less conformity now, but there's still a relevance to what he's
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saying, and there's still just that energy of boldness that in this recording of stop
thinking like everyone else.
And a lot of times we are afraid to go against the crowd.
But then when we think about all these people, and if you really ask yourself, do you agree
with everything they say and do?
The answer is no.
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There's a lot of people out there who you would never want to be like that person.
And yet, we want to conform to how they think.
When they say that success is this finish line, this moment, we go, okay, yes, but it's
just kind of funny because like, we don't actually agree with that person, we don't
(23:54):
share opinions with them, we don't need their approval, and yet we want it.
And so that's what you really have to let go of is letting go of this mass consciousness
that says success is this one thing, it's this definition that is outdated and arbitrary,
and often makes us feel bad about ourselves.
And redefining success, that really means breaking free of group think, breaking free
(24:19):
of how people have thought for a long time and defining success on your own terms for
your own highest good, for your sake, so that you can start to think about your own self
different and start to radiate a different energy.
Because if you start to radiate the energy of success now, your life really will change.
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You really will not only radiate a different energy, but you will feel different about
yourself and you will take action from this place if I am successful.
Not that I need to cross this finish line and get this thing, get other people to approve
of me and to say, oh now you can feel successful.
It's determining from within what is right and true for you.
(25:03):
Okay, so I think that's a good stopping place for part one.
I covered a lot of stuff and I can't wait to come back and get into my notes further.
I have so many and there's so much more just juicy exciting stuff that I want to talk to
about in this audio, the strangest secret, which is such a funny name and he even says
(25:25):
in it, this is neither strange nor a secret.
It's been with humanity since the dawn of time.
We have no idea who said it first, but everybody who discovers it thinks they've discovered
something new.
When it's not new, it's not a secret.
It's actually very normal to us.
We've just been programmed to believe it's not normal.
And we're going to get deeper into this.
(25:46):
We're going to really break down the resistance to working with the law of attraction, with
our own infinite energy, with our just ability to create something that has meaning to us.
We're going to go deeper into this.
I have so much more to share and I can't wait to come back with part two in a week.
(26:06):
And if you're someone who is really into the law of attraction, manifesting, creating your
dream life, I want to invite you into my membership, which has three tiers.
So based on your budget and what you have time and energy for and what you're really
wanting to do, you have three options.
Tier one is $5 a month and it has thousands of dollars worth of content, even though it's
(26:29):
the first tier, it is by no means not effective or less than the other ones.
It's just that it has only meditations and visualizations, but these are so powerful.
And I've been working on building this part of the library for almost 10 years now.
It's something that I have been creating as I really learn how to work with focus and
(26:55):
meditation and visualization and connecting our energy into the quantum field.
These meditations and visualizations are so powerful.
There's almost 300 of them and that's tier one.
In tier two, you will get courses that will take you deeper into aligning your energy
and you get workbooks and exclusive podcast episodes or discussions for things like act
(27:17):
as if and working with auto suggestion.
Auto suggestion is something that I am going to be talking about in future episodes of
this series.
So I am going to explain what that is and why it's important, but that isn't something
that's in tier two is these audios that are kind of ways of rewiring or reprogramming
(27:38):
your mind on the deepest levels.
They are not meditations and they are not visualizations and this is explained in the
course.
You get a podcast episode for that.
And then tier three is all of these courses, all of these meditations, plus my deepest,
most powerful course for manifesting, manifesting magic.
And if you're working on your wealth consciousness and calling an abundance, you get 35 days
(28:04):
to a millionaire's mindset and there's the money reprogramming, which has more auto
suggestion in it.
Just go to the website, it'll tell you what's in each tier and your first week is free.
So you can actually join at tier three if you want just to check out what's all in there
and then decide what you want to do.
And I've structured this in a way that you can move about the tiers as it works for you.
(28:27):
So you don't have to stay in tier three, which is $49 a month in order to continue to gain
benefits.
If that is a price point that is not something that you can stay there for a long time, you
can go down to two or one and just move about as it works for you.
This membership is designed to be flexible and to be something that you kind of move
(28:48):
up and down in it as you're working on things as you're maybe integrating things.
So that is the dream life portal.
And I'll put the link to that below.
And and then maybe as you're waiting for next week's episode, go listen to The Strangest
Secret by Earl Nightingale.
(29:09):
Or you can listen to some of my other episodes.
I've also got meditations on the podcast that you can see when you look at the other episodes
if you want to just kind of see like what are they about?
What are these meditations that I'm referring to?
You can try them out through the podcast and then join me in the membership.
I would love to see you over there because it's honestly life changing content that is
(29:31):
not about results that don't last.
It's about lasting change.
That is the thing that I'm most passionate about is how do we change in a way where it
really does feel like we stepped through a gateway and now we're in this beautiful, bright,
new chapter of our lives.
The changes that I intend for you to experience are lasting and profound.
(29:53):
So that's it for this week as we covered the first part of The Strangest Secret.
This was so fun for me.
I am so excited I get to be sharing this with you and diving into it and just diving into
these things I'm passionate about.
I can't wait to see you next week for part two.
I'm your host, Melissa Field.
(30:14):
This is The Manifestation Lounge.
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