PITCHERWITS TM
PIT your wits against Pitcherwits — the exciting puzzle where some of the answers are in pictures! The solutions to the visual clues fit into the shaded spaces on the grid. SOLUTION TOMORROW
ACROSS
1 Picture Clue 5 Picture Clue 7 Be on cloud nine, in complex ultimatum (5) 8 Cried out for some scrumpy! (5)
9 It’s unmanly, and not my way to invalidate (5) 11 Live in broadcasting? (2,3) 12 Picture Clue 13 Picture Clue
DOWN
1 Picture Clue 2 Determine the number of Dracula’s? (5) 3 Doctor’s one in a million with throw of dice (5)
4 Picture Clue 5 Picture Clue 6 Picture Clue 10 Broccoli, laced with bit of colour (5) 11 Upstart in love, crazy for egg cell (5)
Secret myself, eager to know more about it. I was working full-time as an accountant, back then, and feeling sad that I couldn’t spend more time with my son, who went to a childminder on weekdays.
I became convinced that if I let the universe know what I wanted, it would, once again, deliver.
Within two months of applying what I knew from reading The Secret, I set up my own company as a business coach, working fewer hours and from home, initially doing network marketing.
My preliminary earnings target was £10,000 a month, and within five months I had my first, of many, £20,000 months.
I use the Law of Attraction to bring in whatever money we need. As per the advice in The Secret, at different times I’ve written ‘pretend cheques’ to myself for £20,000, £46,000 and £55,000, which has then made its way into my life in payments from new clients.
I’ve been able to clear our credit card debts and, in 2014, raise the deposit for our townhouse overlooking a lovely park. And I have The Secret to thank for my son — the greatest gift imaginable.
HANNAH MURPHY, 35, runs fitness firm Globefit and lives in Portsmouth with her husband Tom, 37, a project manager, and three children, aged 12, nine and four. BACK in 2009, I was living in a flat with my baby. My relationship with her dad, my fiancé, had ended and now a letter arrived informing me that I’d been made redundant from my job as an air hostess.
I’d had quite a privileged upbringing and went to a private school, so I couldn’t bear the thought that my daughter was destined to grow up in relative poverty or without siblings.
I became depressed, but, not wanting to take medication, I began exploring other ways to improve my circumstances. That’s when I came across The Secret and the Law of Attraction. I convinced myself that I really was in charge of my own destiny and that our future could unfold in whatever way I decided it would.
You have to take action — these things don’t just happen by magic — but knowing that my goals were to have a successful business, a lovely home, more children (whom I could afford to send to private schools), I believe my brain helped me work towards them.
I created a ‘vision board’ — a canvas on which I pinned pictures and wrote about all the things I wanted in my life.
My first goal was to work as a beautician — which I’d trained to do years before — and have my own salon, so I found a photograph of how I’d like it to look and pinned that to my board.
Within a year, I did indeed have my own beauty business, and after two years I was making such a success of it that I’d won two beauty awards.
Fast forward to today and I have managed to create my perfect life. I have a husband, two businesses with a six-figure turnover, three children, all of whom are at private schools, and we live in a lovely five-bedroom house by the sea.
Others may doubt it, but I believe I manifested all of this into my life after reading The Secret.
One of my first steps was signing up to my pilot training in America in late 2009. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to work for an airline but I liked the idea of being able to hire and fly a plane when I fancied.
Tom — the man who went on to become my husband — was also on the course. Although I hadn’t used The Secret to visualise the man of my dreams, he was handsome and responsible, with a good job. Within two years, we were married with a second child.
In 2013, I set up my Globefit business, offering classes, workshops, parties and holiday clubs in hula hooping, dance and sports.
We started out just covering Hampshire and now operate nationwide. I also run a second company providing business coaching, and bring the teachings of the Law of Attraction into my training sessions.
When clients seem unsure of their ability, I tell them how, thanks to The Secret, I went from benefits to business success.
I BEAT DEPRESSION TO LAUNCH A COMPANY
STEPHANIE DUNLEAVY, 32, runs jewellery and gift company Soul Analyse and lives in Brighton with husband and business partner Jasper, 35, and daughter Selena, three. FOR two years after my father died, when I was 23, I felt depressed. It felt as if I had no control over my life and that bad things ‘just happened’ to me.
Concerned, my husband, who had seen the film of The Secret, encouraged me to read the book. The idea that we all have at our disposal the tools to change our lives really struck a chord. I’d already failed my driving test five times, so before my sixth test, in keeping with Rhonda Byrne’s teachings, I kept repeating positive affirmations: ‘I can drive’ and ‘I am a good driver’. I passed.
This gave me the impetus to try its teachings in other areas of my life. Jasper was a convert, too, so we decided to set up a blog, sharing daily positive affirmations. It attracted 50,000 followers.
This became the launchpad for our business, which we set up in 2017, selling necklaces, bracelets, watches and rings, all bearing positive ‘I Am’ messages, such as ‘I Am enough’ and ‘I Am Loved’. Our jewellery, which we design, acts as a daily reminder to think positively about the things you value and want more of in your life.
Initially, we got just one order a day. Three years down the line, we receive hundreds of orders a day and our company has turned over more than £1 million this year.
When we launched, we were living with my mother- in- law, boxing up orders in her living room. Now we run the business from a lovely detached home which we rent and are working towards buying our own place.
I was five months pregnant with our daughter when we set up Soul Analyse, so it’s been a busy few years. I have every faith we will have more children when we’re ready, and a beautiful rural barn conversion to raise them in.
We’ve come a long way since I was so low I struggled to get out of bed — but I don’t believe I could have done it without The Secret.