Your worries are over, the secret of happiness, it’s all sorted, they’ve figured it out, and you can go back to bed.

After extensive research and countless bags of tax payers’ money, the scientists somewhere up a Norwegian fjord have done something useful for once, and rather than inventing a new wax that helps us to ski backwards, they have gone balls out and discovered the secret of happiness.

The secret of happiness is not as some of the poor and deluded suspected, oh no: it’s not a 1954 Mercedes 300 SL Gull Wing, in silver, with a gently worn and unrestored deep red leather interior – stuff that, we don’t want one of those; the secret of happiness is not that fisherman’s cottage on the outskirts of St Tropez, the one with fading but still cobalt blue shutters, orange tree littered gardens and a sun baked pan tiled roof, vines aplenty, rustic breads, and a slow cigarette on the jetty…you know, the one that can only be reached by your Italian Riva boat, all dark wood, understated power and the promise of ambassadorial arrival – sod the Cote d’Azur. Nor is it not a Russian ballet dancer called Nikita, who can do an unusual trick with the banana she keeps stuffed up her tights , or a Californian easy rider called Brad, all tanned, dripping with poetry, and happiest when hoovering naked.

Far from it, and none of the above – the secret of happiness is in fact – managing expectations. Not hoping for too much, and keeping one’s powder dry…etc.

And in a funny sort of way, isn’t managing our expectations at the heart of running a successful clothing brand?

It would be quite normal for hopeful new brand owners to assume, that because they have a mate, who knows a bloke, who once sold Jonny Depp a stick of eye liner, that they should be on a rocket ship to fashion superstardom. Or that because they have a social media following of well over 100, that every time they post a picture of what they’re having for dinner they’d better wolf down those fish fingers sharpish, and stand by the lap top waiting for it to catch fire with orders.

The secret of happiness is not hoping too hard for the above to happen overnight…and perhaps in the top five reasons for the failure of any clothing brand, we might be expecting too much too soon.

The secret of happiness is, perhaps, not worrying too much if you don’t sell any T-shirts week one?