It never occurred to me that was entirely possible… Especially, if I was prepared to do a bit of work here and there. But in hindsight I’m not sure if it was that I didn’t think of doing this, or I did and I just didn’t have the courage to reject what everyone expected of me.

So like most people I knew, I moved to London, bought some suits and joined the rat race.

My Time In The Rat Race

One thing I will say about lawyers, which I may not have appreciated at the time, is that the people I worked with were by and large really good decent people especially if you compare them with the people I’ve encountered in the property industry over the years where ethics can be in very short supply.

However, despite working with nice people, I realised very quickly that this was not something I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I looked around at the partners in the firm – those in positions we were meant to aspire to – and saw how stressed and unhappy they were; how hard they worked, never seeing their families; and how grey and tired they looked.

It really cemented the notion in my head that money was not everything. And even if I could earn a 7 figures income as a partner in a big law firm I valued by freedom much more than money.

Anyway, though I found it dull, I was reasonably competent at the work. But unlike many of the other young lawyers I really resented having to work much longer than the contracted hours often being expected to give up weekends at a moment’s notice and sometimes working through the entire night.

The firm seemed to want my entire life in exchange for a pay check, and I wasn’t prepared to sell it that cheaply.

I lasted six years working mainly in the music industry which admittedly had lots of perks like famous clients, free tickets to gigs and VIP passes. But no amount of celebrity parties with free alcohol could compensate for the fact I hated going to work each day.

So much so, that at times, when walking down Fleet Stret on the way to work with all the other besuited ‘rats’, feeling trapped and miserable, I seriously considered walking in front of a bus.