The phrase ‘check your privilege’ is over-used and mocked in some quarters but its ubiquity should not diminish its importance

I became interested in the power of positive thinking when I was 17 and found a copy of You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay on our bookshelves at home.

After a week of repeating ‘I love myself’ while I stared in the mirror — as deeply uncomfortable as it sounds — I abandoned the book, and didn’t return to new age spirituality until The Secret was released in 2006. It was based on theories of quantum physics, theories I couldn’t understand and therefore was wildly impressed by.

And so, despite other people rubbishing the book’s claims one could simply imagine great wealth into existence, I began to believe that success was based on wealth consciousness; that if you wanted something enough and you worked hard, then you were destined to succeed. It was that easy.