At the time, my wife and I had four young children. We were living outside London, and I was commuting into the big city every day to work. Each morning, I would get up while the rest of the family was asleep, and begin my two-hour commute to the office – first a trip on an over-crowded bus, then a journey on a train that was invariably late, and finally an unpleasant half hour packed like a sardine into a tube train.
In summer, the tube trip was unbearably hot and stuffy. In winter, the bus stops and train stations were freezing cold and miserable.
When I got to the office, I would hang around outside the office waiting for the exact stroke of nine o’clock – I didn’t want to spend a minute more in my cubicle than I had to.
I was usually obliged to work late, and by the time I had done my two-hour commute in reverse to get home, my children were in bed and asleep.
Committing to Change
I resolved then and there that the situation had to change. I had been experimenting with online marketing for a while in the evenings, and was making some useful extra income. I decided that if I was going to be a full-time figure in my family’s life, I had to turn this part-time hobby into a full-time business.
It wasn’t easy, for sure. For much of the next year, I worked on my project after work every night. Eventually, the late hours paid off, and by the time my daughter’s fourth birthday came round, I was earning more in my online business than in my day job.
