When I started out my working career, I worked in factories and low paid menial labour. I had always done well at school but I had a lot of pressure to live up to the high standards of success that my father had achieved and that he subsequently expected of me. Instead of striving to live up to those expectations, I rejected them and did my own thing.

One day, I was offered a job as a field service engineer for a computer maintenance company. I enjoyed the freedom of not having a boss breathing down my neck and I enjoyed the challenge of working with computers. What I didn’t enjoy was the low wage. To be honest, I also didn’t enjoy having to deal with irritating personalities and having to spend such a high proportion of my life at someone else’s beck and call.

At about that time, in the late 90s, there was a very real shortage of skilled IT personnel in U.K. and a friend suggested that I try contracting. I landed my first contract and went immediately from a full time salary of £13,500 per year to £45,000 (pro rata) overnight. I quit after 2 weeks because I had to work for a person that I found unbearable. The important thing for me was realising that you could do less work and get paid an awful lot more.

For most of the next decade, I worked short term IT contracts. As soon as I had some money in the bank, I quit working and took time off. I was lucky enough to travel to many countries and I can honestly say that I spent less time working than most people. I was also lucky in that I had bought some property at the start of a 15 year property boom. Remortgages and low interest rates kept me in the picture.

Unfortunately, as the years went by my debts were mounting, and my outdated skillset was driving my earnings potential down. This coincided with me starting a family and I suddenly had the realisation that I had better sort my shit out or I was going to spend the next 20 years doing a poorly paid job. Not my idea of fun. I then retrained as a Business Analyst and after some stressful blagging, managed to land a few contracts doing that.

Around this time, I decided to investigate using the internet as a viable method for making a decent living. I wish I had done that 10 years earlier! The thing is I’ve always been a bit obsessive. Over the years, I’ve been obsessed with photography, sport, fly-fishing, music festivals, fish keeping, scrabble, pool, computer games (ex U.K. Doom finalist), cooking and socialising and clubbing. Unfortunately, I’ve never obsessed about making money.

All my friends always used to tell me that if I could only direct my enthusiasm into that, that I would be a success. Well the thing is, they were right. I have found my vocation and I love it. Every day, I wake up looking forward to my “job” and a hidden benefit that I never imagined is that I can be extremely successful and I can help other people achieve their goals. I can actually make a difference to other people’s lives and to my own.

I believe that you are  paid directly in proportion to the value that you deliver to your market and I have made a commitment to be honest, direct and ethical.