Brother, I need to talk to you about something that sounds too simple to be true. But stay with me, because what I'm about to share has the power to transform everything.

I've just started reading The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, and while I'm only a few chapters in, something hit me hard. The core message aligns with everything I've learned through my own journey from living in shelters to building the life I have now. Here's the truth: what you focus on, you create more of.

The Law of Attraction says that your thoughts are magnetic. They pull experiences, people, and circumstances toward you that match their frequency. Think about money problems all day? You'll find more money problems. Focus on what you've lost in the divorce? You'll keep losing. But shift your thoughts to possibility, to growth, to the man you're becoming? Watch what happens.

Here's what gets me excited. This enhances everything I teach through Broadcast Your Inner Champion and Rise Above the Rim. This gives it rocket fuel.

The Science Behind the Story

Look, I know some of you are thinking this sounds like wishful thinking. Trust me, I get it. The intellectual side of me needed proof too. So let me share what research tells us.

Brain studies confirm that visualization activates the same neural pathways as actually performing an action. When you vividly imagine yourself succeeding, your brain processes it similarly to real experience. Research published in studies on athletic performance shows that athletes who visualize success before competitions demonstrate significant performance improvements compared to those who don't.

A Harvard study by researchers Crum and Langer found that simply thinking about a goal can positively impact your physical health. Another fascinating study showed that participants who mentally rehearsed muscle training increased their muscle strength by 35 percent without physical exercise. The link? Visualization strengthens neural pathways.

But here's the critical part that The Secret and many motivational speakers miss: positive thinking alone can actually sabotage your goals. Research by psychologist Gabrielle Oettingen found that people who only engaged in positive fantasy were less likely to achieve their goals. Why? Because imagining success without planning for obstacles tricks your brain into thinking you've already done the work.

The solution? Oettingen developed the WOOP method: Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan. You visualize success AND you anticipate the obstacles AND you create a plan to overcome them. This mental contrasting is what separates dreamers from achievers.

Where Faith Meets Focus

In my book Broadcast Your Inner Champion, I wrote about my decades-long battle between faith and fear. My faith told me that my diamond would shine for all to see. That I would live in my purpose and help vast numbers of people. My fear told me that the mud, dirt, ash, and blood that life heaped on my diamond would keep others from seeing its sparkle.

I'm sharing my journey here—what worked for me and why. Your path might look different, and that's exactly as it should be.

The details of your battle are different from mine. But we all struggle with faith versus fear. We all stand at that precipice, looking either at what we've lost or at where we're headed.

Here's what I discovered during my darkest hours in that shelter, when I had every reason to believe I was finished. My grandfather's stories about our family legacy were programming my mind with possibility. When I remembered those stories, I stopped seeing myself as a divorced man who lost everything. I became the latest chapter in a story of people who refuse to stay down.

That shift in focus? That's manifestation in action.

The Double-Dutch of Your Life

I've written before about faith being like jumping double-dutch. You stand outside the ropes, swaying back and forth to the rhythm of your life, watching and waiting. Do you wait a little longer, or do you jump? There's something in you that tells you when the timing's right.

The Secret teaches the same principle through different language. Ask. Believe. Receive. It's a three-step process based on Matthew 21:22: "Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive."

But here's what people miss. Asking requires clarity. Believing requires consistent focus. Receiving requires action.

When I left my job and founded The Berlack Method, I didn't just visualize success and wait for it to appear. I asked God to guide me to my purpose. I believed He would remove obstacles and open doors. Then I did the work. I developed my message. I spoke. I wrote. I showed up.

The manifestation happened in the doing, not in the dreaming.

Your Mind Is Your Hardware

Let me tell you about a moment that changed how I understand manifestation. One day, while seeking mental refuge from the strain of rebuilding my life, my PlayStation crashed. I was upset because gaming was one of my few escapes from stress. After hours of research and calls to technical support, I discovered the solution: a hard reset of the entire system.

As I watched my PlayStation restart with a clean slate, something hit me. Whenever I have problems in life, I usually solve them by resetting my hardware—my way of thinking. This became invaluable insight.

Sometimes our mental operating system gets corrupted by stress, failures, and disappointments. We start running slow, glitching, freezing up.

Most divorced men over 40 are walking around with corrupted mental software: "I failed at marriage. I'm starting over too late. I'm damaged goods. My best years are behind me."

The Law of Attraction says you're manifesting more of exactly that. Every time you think those thoughts, you're placing an order with the universe for more evidence that you're washed up.

What if you did a complete mindset reset? What if you installed new software that says: "My marriage ended, which cleared the deck for my next chapter. I'm starting over with 40-plus years of wisdom. I'm refined by fire. My most powerful years are ahead of me."

According to research on neuroplasticity, your brain will start finding evidence for whatever you focus on. This cognitive confirmation bias means if you believe you're rising, your brain will spot opportunities for elevation. If you believe you're stuck, your brain will spot obstacles everywhere.

The Missing Piece Most People Skip

The Secret teaches visualization, gratitude, and positive thinking. All valuable tools. But after working with hundreds of divorced men, I've learned that most guys miss the foundation these tools must be built on.

You can't manifest from a place of desperation. You can't visualize success while your self-awareness is corrupted. You can't think positive thoughts if you don't trust yourself or believe in your ability to rise.

This is why the 5 Steps to Power are sequential:

Self-Awareness gives you clarity about who you are and where you stand. You can't manifest what you want until you know who you are. When I rediscovered my Berlack legacy in that shelter, I wasn't just learning family history. I was recalibrating my identity. That foundation made everything else possible.

Trust provides the springboard to believe in your ability to rise. You must trust yourself before you can truly believe the universe will deliver. Trust says, "I've survived before. I'll figure this out." That's evidence-based faith.

Mindset Shift transforms how you interpret reality. This is where The Secret's Law of Attraction becomes practical. You stop seeing the rim as your ceiling and start seeing it as your launching pad. Every obstacle becomes preparation. Every setback becomes a setup for a comeback.

Organization creates structure for manifestation. Dreams without systems remain fantasies. You need clear goals, boundaries, and action steps. This is where WOOP comes in. Wish for the outcome, visualize obstacles, plan your response.

Leveraging Connections amplifies everything. Your thoughts are powerful, but they become exponentially more powerful when combined with the right relationships. The men you surround yourself with will either reinforce your corrupted software or help you upgrade to your highest operating system.

The Equation That Changes Everything

Here's an equation I developed years ago: Faith + Self-Awareness = Attitude. That attitude allows you to overcome obstacles, ignore hate, and reach any peak.

The Law of Attraction operates through that equation. Your faith focuses your thoughts on possibility. Your self-awareness ensures you're manifesting from authentic desire rather than ego or desperation. Together they create an attitude that broadcasts at a frequency the universe responds to.

I choose faith over fear. I choose the peak over the precipice. Which means I choose to focus my thoughts on where I'm going, not where I've been.

The Choice You Make Today

Brother, here's what I know from living this. Your thoughts today are building tomorrow's reality. What you focus on grows. What you rehearse in your mind, you prepare your body to execute.

The Secret isn't really a secret. The Bible taught it. Your grandmother probably taught it. "As a man thinketh, so is he."

The question is: what are you thinking? What are you focusing on? What reality are you manifesting through your dominant thoughts?

I spent months in shelters thinking about what I'd lost. Every day I rehearsed my failures in my mind, I was manifesting more circumstances to feel like a failure.

The breakthrough came when I remembered who I am. When I started focusing on my purpose instead of my pain. When I began seeing the rim as my launching pad instead of my ceiling.

That shift in focus didn't instantly fix everything. But it changed what I was attracting. It changed which opportunities I noticed. It changed how I showed up.

I'm not asking you to pretend everything's fine. I'm asking you to shift where you place your attention. I'm asking you to do the hard reset on your mental operating system. I'm asking you to focus on the peak instead of the precipice.

Your thoughts are that powerful. Your focus is that magnetic. Your vision of yourself is that influential.

The universe is listening to what you're broadcasting right now. What signal are you sending?