Pity poor Rhonda Byrne. Her bestselling self-help book The Secret grossed some $300m internationally, but it turns out the power of positive thinking can’t guarantee you $23.5m in a real estate sale.
The 59-year-old Australian self-help guru has had to slash the listing of her Montecito, California, estate to a more reasonable $18.8m. That’s not much more than she paid for it in 2007 – but it’s her own fault, she told the Wall Street Journal.
Byrne’s book, pushed hard by book-world kingmaker Oprah Winfrey, informs readers that visualizing success will enable them to cure their illnesses, become wealthy and heal their relationships. Byrne could have moved the house for its list price had she “put in the time and energy”, she said.
But she had other people to think of – namely, the people who will benefit from the upcoming sequel to the film version of The Secret that she is co-producing, she told the Journal – and her energy is finite. Byrne listed the house last year because she needed to be closer to the film-world folks in Los Angeles.
The estate lies across 2.3 acres of sun-soaked California land between the Los Padres national forest and the shores of the Pacific Ocean. The main house itself is roughly 8,000 sq ft, with a 65ft pool and a two-story children’s playhouse adjacent.
