Before anybody comes at me with a knife, I just want to say that this is not a post dissing prayer. I understand the benefit of prayer, but if you leave all sentimentality aside, we all know that no matter how great it is to pray, we can't just depend on it alone. Nowadays, you see people selling various 'power items' such as mustard seeds or prayer handkerchiefs or even prayer incense but if you rely on just that, you might as well be deceiving yourself.
Prayer is good and all, but what's the use when you don't use anything else to back it up. You can't pray to be a doctor and then wait for the degree without actually attending the classes and passing the exams, or you can't have upcoming tests or exams and then just pray about them and then expect to pass, yeah life doesn't work that way. Doing these or even similar things, I'm very sorry to say will surely lead to failure, no matter the amount of prayer. Forget Ben Carson, God doesn't shell out cheat codes.
How many mustard seeds or prayer handkerchiefs did Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg use?, Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that prayer or faith is wrong, I'm simply saying that we shouldn't rely on it solely but we should also augment it with hard work. Your success in life isn't going to waltz into your life, you have to work for it.