I have a lot to be grateful for, and some days i really don’t appreciate it properly. The first 6 months of 2007 truly have been mad season. A few days have barely gone by where someone hasn’t said to me “there is something in the air at the moment“. There’s been something weird in the air for months. New romances, deaths, happenstances and unexpected madness have been rife. I had big plans for 2007, and a game strategy all worked out for the way i wanted it to go. But life had bigger plans for me it would seem. I forgot that the most painful times in your life are almost always the most transformative. It certainly has been painful, and we’ve yet to see exactly how transformative. I know i will end up being grateful, and the sun’s already appeared on the horizon.

So far this year I’ve:

• Thought about the idea of marriage and settling down for the first time;
• Had to deal with the girl i loved going completely, utterly mental;
• Been told I’m going to be a dad 4 times;
• Set out my 5-year masterplan;
• Been heartbroken and emotionally paralysed for months;
• Spoken in front of 3,000 people in Manchester;
• Visited Italy, Ireland, Belgium, the US and France;
• Made a new best friend in Josephine;
• Been told i have “supernatural” qualities;
• Started drinking and getting trashed again;
• Learnt the concepts of forgiveness and unconditional love;
• Launched the first international content exchange (DMEX);
• Been offered the $20M job of a lifetime in LA;
• Confirmed the investment timescales and business plans for Prophecy;
• Started my course of £1,000/hr executive coaching;
• Lost loads of weight;
• Completed over half of my first screenplay;
• Had my ex reappear in my life as one of my best mates;
• Spoken in front of the UK and EU Parliaments, the House of Lords and their commissions;
• Been profiled by the world’s most famous business journal;
• Launched the world’s most visionary and advanced TV prototype system;
• Started talks about having a TV documentary following me;
• Spent weeks looking for a place to live in Clapham;
• Had my first book printed and published, and had to get my 2nd ready;
• Had several wonderful whirlwind romances;
• Made a whole new circle of new friends and rebuilt the bridges with all my old ones;

That’s really not bad going. I’m not trying to prove anything or brag; its my way of reflecting. I look around at the stars outside with my cigarette in hand and wonder exactly how i missed all the things around me happening when all i could see was abject disaster. I’d been thinking all was lost and i’d lost track, when the world had carried on around me and the people i love kept me alive and gave me the momentum i needed. I have more friends around me now than ever, and all my old friends have been re-introduced into my life. I have more support around me now than i have ever done, and people cheering me on and believing in me than i can remember. Everyone says i look fantastic, although its weird to have so many things going well and people saying that when you feel the opposite inside some days.

I have been to hell and felt the flames, but i’ve also been led out of it stronger and clearer than i can remember. I’ve noticed something happening and changing in me. My voice is louder and stronger, my body is fitter and leaner, my attitude is more assertive and i’m more in demand than i have ever been. I’ve been surrounded by people who care and have been a voice of reason 800-people/crowd strong. I learnt that the true nature of love is calm, simple and balanced, that there are those in this world no-one can reach and not to throw my pearls to swine. Putting myself together again wasn’t nearly hard as i expected, in fact it was almost automatic. I have a confidence and bounce that i’ve never experienced before. I know where my boundaries are and never again will i be convinced i am going mad and/or am an evil person.

I guess the important part now is to try not to allow myself to become too cynical and find the balance between being tough and being overly negative. Its hard not having your best friend around, as much as everyone is sick to death of hearing it - everything i thought was in the pipeline is gone and i still have no idea why or what is going on. The storm that always seems to follow me keeps raging whether i like it or not and there are pockets of fire burning away in my chest that i just can’t seem to put out. I know time is slipping away because as soon as Prophecy kicks off, i have the most intense year of my life to deal with that i’ll need everyone’s help to get through. I’m kind of getting tired of the ground always breaking and collapsing under my feet and would like the concrete to set so i have some stability.

I don’t know whether my faith has been lost or whether it burns brighter than ever. Perhaps i’m more grounded and self-aware from being stripped to the bones, criticised and abused so badly. A little adversity can reveal genius and backbone strength that had eluded you before. So many things lay unresolved and its scary to know you’re moving so fast and are leaving people and things behind even though you can’t cheat or slow down the relentless pace of life. It was 10 years ago that i left college and i ask myself whether i’ve done enough, or met any of objectives i wanted to back then. I’ve changed so much i can hardly recognise myself. I have so much to do and i don’t know how i’m going to do it all, as organised as i seem. On nights like these i look back at the trail of chaos and destruction behind me, and the battle scars that i never know are healed or not, and my fears and the world in general seem much bigger than they did this morning.

But now’s not the time to slow down or hesitate. Faster, further and deeper. I can’t wait around forever for the world to get its act together and fall in neatly to the slot i’ve set out for it. So let me fall in love, build this global TV platform, celebrate my victories and losses with friends, toast the failures, be magnanimous over the defeats and write the next chapter of an evermore intricate and random road that never seems to go where i want it to. Who knows where i’m headed. All i can ask if you come along with me for the ride, because having you around is the only way i got this far.

“Let start over / Try to do it right this time around / It’s not over / But a part of me is dead and in the ground”
“Its Not Over” by Chris Daughtry