For decades, running a mile in less than four minutes was considered impossible, beyond the physical capacity of the human body. But in 1954, Roger Bannister, a 25-year-old British medical student, proved this belief wrong by running a mile in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds on the Iffley Road track in Oxford, England in front of 3,000 spectators.

More amazing than the achievement itself was the aftermath.

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I tried writing this week’s post three times. Couldn’t do it. The kitten needed spaying. My teeth needed cleaning. My closet needed organizing. And a million other things that come up when I’m supposed to be writing, and I’m just not ready.

But then, I remembered a story scribbled in a notebook that I had tossed onto the top shelf of the closet. Funny, those million things just weren’t important anymore. I yanked the closet door open and rummaged around the top shelf, empty hangers raining down on my head til I found the notebook.

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The 2007 runaway bestseller, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne drew both fierce devotees (who thought of it as a kind of magic) and fierce detractors (who called it pseudoscience). The book’s premise is that there is a great secret available to anyone — a type of energy that attracts everything that we want if we know how to harness it.

Like most breakout ideas, it has some validity, and the book makes important points. There actually is science to support the idea that we “live into” what we focus on. Essentially, when we believe something is possible, we start to see it showing up in our lives. Read More