By the end of 2006, I was single, unhappy, looking at the end of my career, and worried about not being able to have children. I have always had a reputation for being a whistling optimist, and have been nicknamed Pollyanna by my friends, but by last winter a near death experience followed by a cancer scare had pretty much left me out of optimism. All I wanted was to have something to do, a goal to set and a direction to take in my life and career, and a vocation that would allow me to live and support myself while supporting the arts, and be surrounded by beauty and music again. I had known that my life needed to involve art since childhood; I had also known that my eye was far better and stronger than my drawing hand. At thirty-two I still couldn’t find a way to combine my love of art, a desire to help artists (the poorest professional group you will ever meet), and use my degree in PR. If you’ve ever been at the end of your rope, you’ll agree with me that the suggestion from someone that you should “think positive” or “visualise your way to success” is enough to make you want to throw something – or that someone!

It’s just under a year and a half later. I’m sitting in my office in the artist’s loft in Yorkville that I converted into a gallery. My website had almost a thousand visits in the last 24 hours and I’m about to break even. I represent some of the best artists I know of, sell kickass art, both emerging and Masters, and help to support a field and industry that makes me happy, proud, and excited every morning. Just writing all this down makes me realise why people call me Pollyanna, but frankly I don’t quite know how it happened, how I did it, how I didn’t freeze, starve, or otherwise perish, nor how someone with my learning disabilities has managed to learn how to use a spreadsheet, balance books, memorise inventories, lose a stutter, talk through shyness, be an audacious salesman in the face of penny pinching collectors, and make a go of this.

It doesn’t make sense to most people who know me well, nor does it make sense to me when I try to explain it or tell this story, but the predominant factor in this change was learning the practice of closing my eyes, envisaging beautiful things, happy people, and as a result you have this renaissance that I’ve experienced.

I think that if I had wished for a car or a house or a kid, that the chances of me getting them would have vastly improved post-Secret. The importance lies in what you want, what you ask for, and how you go about it and go on. The fact that I don’t drive works on my side, I suppose, and I don’t have extravagant taste, except for in art. So if you’re at the end of this thesis I’ve created, and you are still critical, I strongly urge you to watch and read again, and this time be careful what you wish for, even if it’s just to be happy.