How Noel became positively happy
Aug 17 2006 By Emma Pomfret, The Journal
Noel Edmonds has reordered the TV schedule, now he wants to reorder your life, as Emma Pomfret explains.
Having fallen out with the BBC after a successful career on prime-time television, vanishing from the public eye and getting divorced from his wife of 18 years, Noel Edmonds never dreamed that he would make a comeback.
"I'm the luckiest guy alive - I never thought that I'd have a fourth decade in television," he says. "It's bonkers how huge Deal Or No Deal has become. It's a very deceptive format as it looks really simple but it actually ticks all the boxes that every TV producer dreams of.
"It has the human elements of ambition and greed, it has the wish fulfilment, and it has surprise, drama - in fact, it embodies just about every element of life.
"I wasn't expecting for it to happen, it came completely out of the blue. I didn't particularly want to come back to television but I did recognise in the end, after I'd turned it down twice, that it was different to anything else on the box and that it would be something that I could perhaps do well."
After a rough few years coping with the loss of his beloved mother and aunt, and watching his marriage to Helen deteriorate before his eyes, the 57-year-old concedes his return to the media spotlight is more than just a lucky break.
He says: "Having gone through a really difficult period in my life I suddenly realised that I've always been a very positive person, and when I've been in a positive frame of mind I've noticed that opportunities always come my way. I did ask for a personal challenge but it could have been anything."
He is referring to his discovery of `cosmic ordering' which he explains in detail in his new book, Positively Happy: Cosmic Ways To Change Your Life. The general idea is that being positive has changed his life and can now change yours.
Noel says: "I've always had a strong faith but it's nothing to do with religion. It depends what shape does your faith takes. Do you believe in heaven and do you see a place with the pearly gates, or is it something different? If I was to try to define the cosmos I'd say it's a good space to put your faith, where you can ask what life is all about, and address some of the issues that we all worry about, like is there life after death, and do people who you love and who are gone still influence your life, that kind of thing."
The cosmic ordering part of this, according to Noel, comes from the premise that we have one body, and at least one life, and therefore we have the right to make the most of it.
* Positively Happy: Cosmic Ways To Change Your Life, by Noel Edmonds, (Vermilion) £9.99.
