Leaving Banking. Fold.

When I was in banking, I lost nearly £17,000 spread betting on the Goldman Sachs SEC trial. I lost another gut wrenching chunk of money in Vegas playing poker with the big boys. Sucks right? But "life is long, I'll win it back".

And so I went on, and yes, from time to time I also made healthy profits spread betting and gambling, if ever there was a difference. From time to time, I still dabble. The truth is I'd been gambling all the way through my late teens and through university, in fact more than half the draw to banking was the 'make a fast buck' appeal of it. The rush of free money, of free surplus, of sudden rockstar freedom.

But soon enough I realised that there was little difference between the win or lose; it was just stuff in, stuff out, and nothing seemed to fill a hole that I up until that point hadn't realised I was trying to fill. It was the gamble that was the fun, the corrosive pleasure of standing on the edge of a building and letting go of your responsibility, to let fate decide which way to blow you. Burnout or blow-up.

After a while 'on the ride' of gambling, I felt so removed from the aspiration, inspiration and movitavtion which initially drew me in. I just wanted to keep going to that edge, like a junkie to his dealer.

Soon enough I lost all that mattered to me. I don't mean financial. I mean I was broken. I had gambled friends and girlfriends for the job, the job won, I lost. I had gambled my youth, I was losing. I had gambled fun and freedom and that nonchalant pleasure of a summer evening for long nights in an air conditioned office, and I was repeatedly losing. I'd win once a month on payday, then spend the rest of the month gambling everything I cared about away. How did I break out of the cycle? Well to quote (I think) Chuck Palaniuk, it was only when I 'lost everything' that I was free to do anything!

I snapped, I quit my bullshit job, and I chose to chase my dream, hoping for all the emotions and excitements that would come with that. I decided I wanted to be a musician. I'd had enough of the banking bullshit, the job itself was insipid and dull, and the life it allowed me to live was as fruitless as pointless. I wanted to find passion again. I won't go into the details of this journey. But in short, it started on the street as a busker, and if we cut to today, I have just finished being a small part of an online Google+ TV show. One of the producers of this show said I could play one of my own songs one time, so I sat down I thought about the road I'd travelled, and I wrote a song about the moment before my tipping point, and all the moments described above that led to this tipping point. This is that song...

I hope a few people on here can relate,
As always, feel free to DM me if you want a soundboard or a shoulder, you can also message me on

www.facebook.com/stephenridley.official

My love,
Stephen Ridley