I just had an advert for a hypnotherapy CD come through my email by a Glen Harold. No disrespect to the man. I have listened to some of his CDs when I am drunk because I am no longer allowed to take drugs. I have to try alternative therapies to get high.

The CD is called the Law of Attraction and I know that even if you are the most Avante-garde artist or most highly esteemed professor you would have heard of this term. It was no surprise that he had stooped so low seeing as he was hawking hypnotherapy CDs at ten bucks a download. The ad-text read, ‘It will realign your central vibration with your universal vibration so that all will come to you effortlessly’ How do they get away with this? Where is the advertising standards authority? Don’t they work across cyber-space?

I read a recent newspaper article against a Nurofen advert that had to be pulled as it suggested the pill would go directly to the back pain, and because that was not true, then they were not allowed to say anything. So how the hell do they get away with saying if you just ‘align the non-existing thing that is not alignable’ all your dreams will come true.

I know what you’re thinking. ‘Dave. You’re being negative. That means good things will not come to you. No wonder you’re not getting more business.’ Baloney! I know why I am not getting more business and that is simple. I hate monotony. And the reason that makes sense is that to make it big as a writer you need to create a big list of all the creative writing agencies and then start to call them again, and again, and again, and again. Then times that by a thousand.

I know it’s true because my salesperson friend has that kind of robotic mentality. That means he is able to pick up a phone again, and again, and again until he lives in a million-pound mansion. And he does. And you probably think I dislike him but I don’t. The people I dislike are the ones that peddle the myth that, just by listening or imagining success or writing down the goals on a piece of paper. It will somehow come to you.

Richard Branson has specifically stated the reason why he donates to charity and helps other people is because he knows that out of the thousands that try. Thousands will fail. We ourselves are a product of a system that is reliant on errors. Our perceived perfection as human beings is the result of millions of years of errors. That doesn’t mean that we don’t try. Many that have gone before us have failed and that is part of the human spirit. Part of the fun of existence. I rely on the simple rule of numbers. That is you keep trying until you succeed or you can’t take no more.

Some will make it and some will not. It’s better than selling the myth that there is another mystical dimension to success or that it is linked in with a positive mentality when so many city brokers are pulling in millions without a smile. The simple truth is that it is the law of the jungle and sometimes the most aggressive are the most successful. That’s why we see so much poverty in America and in other rich nations. And the poorest buy those CDs and e-books on ‘How To Win.’ by our modern day snake-oil salespeople.