Author of the week Paul McKenna

The hypnotherapist and self-help expert explains how focusing on your goals can make them happen

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Self-help guru Paul McKenna was in the red when he first started manifesting in the early 80s, while trying to get his hypnotism theatre show off the ground in London.

He cut out the red "overdrawn" figure on his bank statement and glued in its place a new number, which said £77,000 in credit.

As he tried to manifest financial freedom, he also imagined walking out to perform to a full house, hearing the applause and feeling success.

A few weeks later, he got the London theatre show that would kickstart his career. Within months he was in credit beyond the £77,000, but only after he'd taken a photo of himself next to the "House Full" sign at the theatre before a new run, pinning it on his fridge and repeatedly imagining what it would be like to play to a full house.

The self-help superstar - who has worked with famous faces including Roger Daltrey, James Corden, Ellen DeGeneres and Simon Cowell, and has trained thousands of hypnotherapists - asserts that if you can visualise success and focus your energy on your goals, you can make them happen.

The former DJ rose to fame in the 90s with his TV show The Hypnotic World Of Paul McKenna and has made a fortune trying to make people sleep, happy, rich, thin, positive or confident. But he understands that the idea of manifesting, which he defines as "imagining something and making it a reality", might seem "woo-woo" to some.