Brian Tracy and now the movie, The Secret talk about the Law of Attraction. This says “like attracts like”. That is, you attract into your life the people, ideas, and experiences that are in line with your most dominant thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of the world. Sounds great and I believe it, but I want to give it some credibility. Often these self-help gurus declare these laws and use them as the basis for their methods but give little to no evidence that they are laws at all. And that, of course, is one of the major complaints of the whole self-help movement. Law of science? Law of the State of
Kentucky? They don’t really say, and scientists are quick to brush them off as speculation and non-sense. And of course they are right to shoot down statements with no scientific basis. But I believe some statements do have a scientific basis to them. Let’s see if we can explain this one.

Let us first take a quick look at human behavior and the behavior of systems. It is well known, but often forgotten, that humans behave largely on a subconscious level. The fact that we forget this is a funny little reminder of this conclusion. I mean, if we were constantly aware of it, it wouldn’t be true - we would be living consciously all the time. But most of the time, we’re on auto-pilot. Dealing with the infinite number of stimuli around us is just too much for the conscious mind to handle. Systems have been put in place millions of years ago to allow us interact with each other in order to help us survive and pass on our genes. The subconscious mind is simply a grouping or “individualization” of these systems. Evolution is a marvelous system put in place to see that our genes are passed on to future generations. Even though evolution occurs on the gene level, for simplicity’s sake, let’s assume it occurs on an individual level - as if an individual is trying to pass on all it’s genes, not that a gene inside an individual is simply trying to get passed on (which is actually the case). Imagine two people, one who is an achiever and one who …is not. The achiever has everything he can ask for in life and continues to produce and achieve and feels supreme confidence in his ability to continue this way. The non-achiever is the opposite - can’t seem to achieve anything, is non-productive and unhappy. May have wishes to do things but has a lack of self-confidence in achieving the things that he wants (or says he wants). Evolution says these two people will not have anything to do with each other. The achiever, in the long term, is in a better position to have his genes passed on. Having healthy kids takes effort and resources, and the achiever has more at his disposal. Again, this is long term or over a large statistical population. Of course, any non-achiever can have kids and pass his genes on to future generations, but take a large population of maybe 1000 achievers vs. 1000 non-achievers over many many generations, and you will see the achievers doing a better job of passing on their genes. Yes, I know it’s hard to test this in a lab, but computer simulation programs actually do a pretty good job of proving this type of phenomenon.

How would they interact together? We are social beings and much of our gene passing is done with the help of other members of society. The non-achiever will want to hitch on to the coat tails of the achiever. “Friends in high places” so to speak. This is a natural tendency to want to be friends with powerful, successful people. The achiever on the other hand, will experience the non-achiever as a burden, and would want to avoid interaction. This is a simplistic view, but you can see how the achiever would want to hang out with other achievers, and the non-achiever, is left no choice and will have to pair up with other non-achievers to, just like everyone, find strength in groups. All these tendencies are hard-wired into our systems and operate at a subconscious level. This is not to say that successful people never socialize with non-successful people, but the tendency for like to be with like is a part of nature. We tend to be attracted to people like ourselves as an adaptation. Unsuccessful people are also attracted to successful people, but the relationship takes on a different tone. Not one of equals but rather one party trying to profit and the other trying to maintain his position. And since the bell-curve dictates that there will always be many more unsuccessful people than successful ones, the unsuccessful have some lobbying power by the size of their numbers, so the powerful do have to stay friendly with the masses or risk being ousted all together. Is this recognizable?

But what about this successful guy? Has he always been this way? Or did he make a decision somewhere? Perhaps either one. But in either case, at some point, he felt some internal feeling of success and other people saw him as such and treated him as such. Maybe by giving him a good job. Maybe by entrusting him with a certain task. Or maybe even by giving him something in exchange for his attention, association, and knowledge on success itself. He will have a tendency only to engage in any of these activities with people or groups which he sees as equally or more successful. Doing so with less successful people or groups would go against nature. Like attracts like. And what about the unsuccessful, non-achiever. Was he born into this circumstance? Or did things simply go wrong for him somehow? Again either way, at some point, he had internal feelings of being less and manifested this by poor and irresponsible behavior, and other things which would show others that he was not interested in achieving. And others would treat him as such. They would not trust him with responsibility, and not want to be around him in a professional setting. So where does he turn? On a professional level, he will associate with others like him. Not because the successful people are jerks, but because of the tendencies nature has built into us all. “If you have resources and potential, see to it that you keep them. If you do not, try getting some from those who do - failing that, group together with others who will associate with you…other non-achievers”. We see examples of this everywhere. Hollywood stars who can only really hang out with other
Hollywood stars - because everyone else is trying to milk them dry. Rich people who only hang out with other rich people. And on the other side of the spectrum, gangs in poor neighborhoods who work together to achieve a level of power which they lack as individuals. Same with soccer hooligans.

So, we see here the natural tendency as built by evolution itself. These mechanisms, again, are all done on a subconscious level. If you want to be a part of the successful people, then you will need to start acting like one. Adapt their attitude, their ways, their confidence, and their values, and they will entrust you with their resources.

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