18 LEARN THE LESSON AND START AGAIN

‘I’ve had many failures. The biggest were at times when I believed my own hype.’

SIMON COWELL

Success attracts excess. It encourages your ego.

The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent reality TV shows are the creation of Simon Cowell, the music and entertainment mogul who has influenced our viewing tastes for decades. From One Direction to Little Mix, Susan Boyle to Leona Lewis and Jedward, these household names were created by his shows, which have the power to transform the lives of contestants, ordinary people who are launched into galactic stardom.

Simon Cowell seems confident, cocksure even. He is charismatic with a certain bravura, which you surely need to rise through the ranks and become a supremo in your chosen field.

Immense power can also lead to feelings of invulnerability. He’s the exec who let a young Kylie Minogue, fresh out of Australia, wait in reception... He passed on Take That and was pointed in his criticism of the lead singer, who he judged to be too overweight: ‘I said I’ll sign them without the fat one.’ Ahem, that’s national treasure Gary Barlow he’s talking about.

Now in his fifties, Cowell is fabulously wealthy and feted wherever he goes. He’s supremely self-assured, of course, but he has tasted the bitterness of failure. In 1989 he made and lost a fortune, forfeited everything and was forced to move back home to live with his mum. He admits he had been rather caught up in the whole flashiness of having loads of money. Cowell was, as the cliché goes, a victim of his own success. But he grappled his way back to be the mega-millionaire of today.

It is easy to feel invincible when a huge amount of success comes your way, but that can lead to arrogance which can in turn make you out of step with those around you, and the inevitable stumble can become one almighty fall from grace. Salutary lessons sometimes just have to be learnt the hard way.