This is similar to the Law of Attraction, a practice which is recommended by books like The Secret which goes so far as to suggest that you can write a check to yourself for any amount your heart desires, stick it on your refrigerator and, lo and behold, the money will just arrive – The Secret’s website goes so far as to enable you download the blank check (from the Bank of the Universe) for you to fill in.

Now, I’ve been studying psychology and quantum physics for many years and, unfortunately, nonsense like cosmic ordering or writing your own blank check only trivialise important underlying facts.  Not only that, the same nonsense preys on vulnerable people – people looking for an easy solution to life’s woes – and, as a result, they end up being more vulnerable and more disillusioned.   Indeed, over the last couple of years, I’ve picked up the pieces of more than a couple of people’s lives who have been misled by such a nonsensical and simplistic approach.  In fact, the ideas are not just nonsensical – they are dangerous.

First of all, the idea that you can order what you want and wait for it to arrive is dangerous because very few of us really know what we want.   And some who do know what they want have such a warped perception of what is good and right for them and those around them that in setting their minds to get their desired outcome, they wreak havoc.  Adolf Hitler is a case in point – a man who single-mindedly pursued his desired outcomes – but there are few, if any, who would believe that his desires were the kind of thing the universe or cosmos would simply deliver.   Closer to ordinary everyday life, we have the greed of bankers and property developers, again single-mindedly pursuing their desired outcomes.  But, in the process, many have suffered.  Surely the cosmos had no hand, act nor part in that.   And, even closer still to ordinary everyday life, I constantly recollect the words of a client who, on achieving his life’s ambition in business, told me “I’ve reached the top of the hill and, not only do I not like the view, I think I climbed the wrong hill!”

We do not know what is best for us.   For example, many people want to win the lottery but a study of lottery winners (in fact “pools” winners in pre-lottery days) found that not one of the major winners was happy and that, in fact, sudden wealth had ruined their lives.  And, yet, a client recently told me that they had a Universal Bank check for $10m stuck to his refrigerator – “My lottery winnings!”

So, for starters, the idea that we can simply order what we want is dangerous, because we’ve no idea what we truly, deeply want.   Secondly, as I’ve already said, the manner in which you can put in your order for anything you want and then wait for it to materialise is highly, highly misleading and it is not the way the universe actually works.  Indeed, if you follow the line of “logic” suggested by cosmic ordering, you could write down that you’ve won the lottery and win it – without having bothered to purchase a ticket!!   I don’t make this statement as a joke – I make it for an extraordinarily important reason – and it is the piece of reasoning that is left out of either cosmic ordering or the law of attraction.   You must take appropriate action yourself to bring about what is best for you.  That is the most important piece “appropriate action”.   If you take appropriate action your mental energy will, indeed, evoke a response from universal energy – quantum physics’ law of potentiality have proven that conclusively.  

But what is “appropriate action”?  Or, more to the point, can a normal person even take “appropriate action”?    The answer to the second question is “No” – because decades of research prove that normal people never take action, they live their lives reacting automatically to everyone and everything they encounter.   Research indicates that normal people use about 1% of their mental energy – not the level of input that is going to evoke any great universal response!!   You have to be abnormal to take appropriate action – and there are enough example of abnormally successful people around (we all know their names) to prove that mental focus and clarity create the ability to take appropriate action.

Put simply, however, appropriate action can be defined as wholeheartedly (in other words more than 1%) doing what is most important to be done now.   That could be playing with your children, it could be making a presentation, it could be talking to a stranger in the airport.  Wholeheartedly doing what you’re doing now requires clarity and presence of mind – and presence is the hallmark of abnormal success. 

Abnormal success comes effortlessly to those who pay an abnormal amount of attention to now.  It comes to those who invest an abnormal amount of mental energy in now.  It comes from the energy of a responsive universe which provides top-class investment returns – all we have to do is invest our energy now.