Currently...

My day-to-day is unpredictable. I don't know what will come in 3 months, but I know that it will be up to me to make it happen. I love this! Broadly, I divide my time between:

• Performing; playing internationally in a variety of places; everywhere from the streets to infamous music venues, corporate events and fashion launch parties to the underground art scene
• Composing; currently writing a second album and working with some very exciting and talented people on that project
• Practising; 2-4 hours each day of piano practise and 1 hour each day vocal training
• Other projects; working with some fantastic people on related projects, particularly those which can benefit charities
• Pleasure and leisure; love, life, travel, art, family and friends! A great thing about my life is that I get time for what is important, and after my stint in the City, this is something I appreciate now more than ever!

Before I escaped...

I used to be an analyst in the top IBD team of an investment bank. For all the hype that surrounds this job, the reality is exceptionally long and tedious working hours. People told me this job was all models & bottles. To my disappointment, the stark reality is that the only models are Excel models, and the only bottles are the coke bottles I used to chain-drink to stay awake.

I was a grey person, trapped in a grey world, with a grey future. I looked above me and I didn't see these sharp, shiny, successful men that I imagined I'd one day become by working at an investment bank. No. I saw uninspired, bland, middle-aged men, drearily pushing their crushed souls through another long day of the same old slog.

The whole rat race was draining and insipidly unfulfilling, and even those who 'won' were still rats in a cage made of money. There had to be more to life than this. I wanted passion, I wanted excitement, I wanted to feel alive. Feelings I had once felt and forgotten.

My moment of truth...

One day I snapped. I became sick of how hopeless and empty I had let myself become. I suddenly went from deflated to restless to angry. 

I was angry that I was living a life which brought me no joy, I was angry that I didn't have the guts to spread my wings and take a leap of faith, I was angry that I was too crushed and scared to even have a dream, much less pursue it.

I was sick of reading about people with inspiring lives and not living one of my own. I was sick of money, sick of caring about whether or not the font 'gave the right message' in the pitch book I was working on, sick of having my weekends crushed by another heartless nerd on a power-trip.

My present was intolerable, my future looked bleak. "This is my time" I said to myself! I should be out making great stories to tell when I'm older; stories of which I look back on with fondness and pride. I should step out of my comfort zone and stumble and fall and grow and live. I was sick of being a dreamer, I wanted out.

Planning for it...

I didn't really. I was tired of making plans, as the process of doing so allowed my risk averse nature to guide me towards something safe and boring. After interviewing at some other city jobs that didn't excite me, I just walked into the office one day and quit.

I had no idea what I would do, but I had faith in myself. I'd spent 20+ years developing my brain and now it was time to really use it!

A baby doesn't learn to walk by making plans, and reading book after book. A baby learns to walk by taking risk, by stumbling and then having the perseverance to dust themselves off, get up and try again, taking what they learnt from the last tumble! We were all once babies, we all have that inspiring attitude and strength within us.

Somehow we have come to look at tumbles as failures, whereas we ought to see them as an exciting part of the adventure that is life, and a step closer towards learning how to walk. You have to take a leap of faith - faith in yourself. You can do anything!!!

The worst and best bits...

The best bits:

• I used to work a job I hated, and nobody liked me any more for doing it (often the contrary, because I wasn't the best friend to have around, miserably cursing at my Blackberry every 2 minutes). Now I do the thing I love the most, and when I stop and look up, everybody is smiling and made happier by what I do.
• It's genuinely heart-warming to connect to people who often don't even speak the same language as me on that kind of level.
• I've got to travel and meet some inspiring people living extraordinary lives in beautiful places.
• I'm genuinely excited to go to work nowadays. I've become a much better person as a result; I'm a much happier, kinder, and more loving person.

The worst bits:

• Uncertainty is without a doubt the worst bit of being in music. You don't get an appraisal every 6 months to tell you how you're doing, and I've had to forgo the Prada shoes to live on the scratches of a dream for a while!

Best advice...

• As a boy, my Italian uncle told me "When you find something you love, you will never work another day in your life". 15 years later I got it! 

• Don't be scared if you don't know what that is yet; just know that the only way you will find out is by leaving your situation, listening to and following your heart, no matter how crazy your dream is - it is possible!

• Will Smith (my hero) says "Stop being realistic". Once upon a time it wasn't 'realistic' to flick a switch and then a light comes on... luckily Edison didn't think so!

Useful resources and information...

1. Surround yourself with inspiration. All the way through banking, I surrounded myself with the stories of people who inspired me, with music that inspired me, with philosophy that inspired me. I looked at these things all the time and started imagining myself in those shoes.
2. Talk to people. Talk to people who are in the same situation as you, and talk to people who are in situations you'd like to be in. It was only through the strength of those around me that I was able to get the self-belief to take the leap. I think that the Esc meet-ups are a great way of meeting such people, allowing you to keep sufficient anonymity to feel safe opening up to each other.