Benjamin Franklin wrote about the need for hard work in The Way to Wealth, over 150 before Wallace Wattles’ The Science of Getting Rich, the book that inspired The Secret. Even if you adopt the premise that magical thinking works, it is traditionally thought to operate contrary to the way professed by The Secret. Magnets actually attract their counter; that is, positive attracts negative. Consequently, boasting about or predicting a positive result means it is less likely to come true; we jinx the outcome by tempting fate. It is why we knock on or touch woof after reporting good luck or health, in an effort to avoid the curse and allow the good luck to continue.

Piers Steel, The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Things Done, Harlow, 2011, p. 150