Thirteen years ago, Carol Olmstead was a public relations consultant whose desk was facing the wrong way.A friend was reading a book on a concept with a funny name: feng shui. She told Olmstead that according to feng shui principles, she should sit facing the door, so that things weren’t happening behind her back.

Olmstead turned her desk around. Two weeks later, she got a great contract to work in Hawaii.She could barely pronounce feng shui, but she thought she might be onto something.