Rhonda Byrne
Rhonda Byrne is an Australian television writer and producer whose 2006 book The Secret became one of the best-selling self-help books in history, with sales exceeding thirty million copies worldwide and translation into more than fifty languages. Born on March 12, 1951, in Melbourne, Australia, Byrne worked in television production for many years before the experience of personal and professional crisis in 2004 led her to a discovery she describes as the “secret” — the law of attraction, the idea that thoughts and feelings attract corresponding events and circumstances into one’s life.
The Secret presents the law of attraction through interviews with coaches, authors, and motivational speakers including Jack Canfield, Bob Proctor, and Lisa Nichols, combined with Byrne’s own narration. The book argues that by focusing thoughts and emotions on desired outcomes, individuals can attract wealth, health, love, and success into their lives. The book was preceded and accompanied by a documentary film of the same name that was distributed virally online before the book’s publication.
The phenomenal success of The Secret made Byrne one of the most commercially successful authors of the early twenty-first century. She followed it with The Power (2010), The Magic (2012), Hero (2013), and How the Secret Changed My Life (2016), each building on the law of attraction framework with additional practical guidance and inspirational stories.
The book has been both widely celebrated as life-changing by its readers and criticized by scientists and psychologists for its lack of empirical foundation and for implying that people attract negative events including illness and poverty through negative thinking. Regardless of scholarly assessment, The Secret‘s reach and impact on popular culture and the self-help genre are undeniable.
