I’d like to preface my story by saying that I haven’t yet seen The Secret. But I think this story will be of interest to anyone who thinks that there is more to life and prosperity than meets the eye.

About 20 years ago I worked for a small sub-division of a very large company. I’ll call it Company X. It was my first real job and I worked for them for about 10 years. I left them on good terms and went to school full time to complete my college degree. I had been putting it off for a long time and decided to bite the bullet before I got too “old”.

Fast forward to two years ago. I had been laid off from an IT job and was under-employed doing some contract work. I had long ago lost contact with any of my co-workers at Company X and had even had some problems contacting the company for work references. The small sub-division I’d worked at had long ago been closed and employment records had been shuffled around the country during various mergers.

I have been meditating on and off for many years, but I began a steady meditation discipline during that time to try and handle the stress I was feeling. Somewhere I came across a “money meditation” which I included at the end of each day’s meditation. It involved imagining that I was a money magnet. As I breathed, I would imagine a large coil running up my spine which glowed brighter as I inhaled. I imagined that the glow spread out into the world and as I exhaled, it would return to me and pull a pile of money back with it. My real inner goal was not to find a pile of money, but find a steady, good paying job.

I did this for about two months and the most money that ever came to me was a stray coin as I walked my dog around the neighborhood. Each time I thanked the universe for the money. Still, began to feel a little foolish. But I had determined that I would do this meditation daily for six months. If nothing happened in that time, I could safely tell myself that I had “tried”.

One day I found a letter in my mailbox from “Company X Litigation”. It was a generic brochure saying that some kind of lawsuit was happening involving my old employer and I may or may not be a party. At first I was mildly excited by this, but I had received these sorts of class action notices before and had never actually gotten anything from one. Still, I stashed the notice in the back of my filing cabinet.

A few more months passed and I was about to give up on my money magnet meditation. I had pretty much forgotten about the Company X notice. Then I received another actual letter from a law firm saying that I was indeed a party to the litigation and I needed to fill out a form and return it to them to verify my claim. It seemed that, for employees who had left between a narrow set of dates and cashed out their retirement plan, Company X had somehow miscalculated the payout. Now, I had indeed cashed out my $15,000 retirement plan when I left and spent the money on my college tuition years ago.

Based on no concrete numbers I did some quick mental calculations. I figured that if they mis-payed by a couple of hundred dollars, I might be entitled to a thousand or so, accounting for interest over the years. For some reason that seemed to me like a reasonable number. While it wasn’t a pile of cash like I had been meditating on, it would still be a nice boost to my finances. I filled out the form and returned it to the law firm.

Another month passed. I determined to continue my money meditation due to the chance of gaining a small windfall. Finally, I found in my mailbox a receipt for a registered letter. I quickly went to the post office and signed for the legal sized envelope. Back in my car I ripped open the top. My mind was racing, wondering if I would get the $1000 dollar figure I had in my head or if I would be disappointed. Before I pulled the letter out of the envelope, I took a deep breath and cautioned myself that it would probably be check for $10. I reminded myself that things never worked out as well as I hoped they would.

I took the letter out of the envelope. It was three pages. I scanned them quickly. The first was an overview of the lawsuit. The second was a bunch of figures showing the number of employees and the amount Company X settled for. Then on the last page I saw a separate section that looked like a bank statement. At the very bottom I found the amount to which I was entitled. It was $32,000!!

Now I can’t say for sure that my money meditation during those months brought this money to me. It could be a complete coincidence. Soon after cashing the check I stopped my money meditation. I can’t tell you exactly why. I think that I was so struck by my good luck that I felt that continuing would be greedy! But this sequence of events has always stuck in the back of my mind. Did I somehow magnetize that money? I think it might be time to start that meditation again.