“Go West Young Man: My Story So Far…………”
I grew up in the industrial North-West Midlands of England in a town called Stoke-On-Trent, the third eldest child in a family of fourteen. Due to the rapid decline of the pottery, steel, & coal mining industries, which resulted in subsequent high unemployment, life was certainly a challenge in those early years. Although family life was full of happy memories, financially my father understandably struggled, in no part due to his lack of endeavor.
Unfortunately, scholastically I was a classic underachiever, much preferring to play football (soccer) than attend classes; thus the age old adage of “work hard in school, get good grades, & you’ll get a good paying job” did not really apply to 
me. Therefore, I decided at an early age to take a different direction, & took the advice of “go west young man” quite literally. The allure of such well documented wealth & prosperity in the United States of America far outweighed any prospects I had in the depressed industrial pottery town in central England. So, in 1987, 20 years old & still wet behind the ears, I left my homeland, journeying to the “Land of Opportunity” in search of my “American Dream“.
My first port of call was the island town of Nantucket off the coast of Massachusetts. The nations wealth was certainly on full display; ocean-side vacation homes, yachts, five 
star restaurants, expensive cars were all commonplace. The only problem was that I found myself washing dishes in an Italian restaurant for five dollars an hour; my American dream was suddenly a terrible nightmare! Convinced that an opportunity would eventually come my way, I decided to knuckle down and work hard, praying that someday someone would surely reward me for my efforts. Eight years past, and I was still working hard. Now a waiter in a Mexican restaurant in Boston, working with a bunch of Brazilians, I was more confused than ever, barely knowing what language to speak! Here I was at 28 years of age living in the wealthiest country in the world working harder and harder each year, yet I was living paycheck to paycheck barely paying my bills, essentially broke. Time for a change I thought, so I went into the world of sales………….
