I was 13 when I moved from a rather poor area to what I thought was a wealthy one. A kid on my street had two Mercedes cars on his drive and his parents were working on building him a swimming pool in their back garden.

Home as I new it was a place where you moaned about bills and took a bollocking for ever leaving a light on, yet these guys across the road where keeping a pool heated all year round.

As I settled into my new living arrangement and made some local friends, it became clear that any new hobby or craze that came into fashion their parents could afford to kit them out with all the best gear, while I’d feel too guilty to even ask mine and so found odds jobs cleaning cars or doing a paper round just to keep up.

Whether it was skating, hockey, football or YoYo’s, I would always find myself practising more than any of my friends and so I would quickly become much better. While they relied on their fancy equipment, I put in the leg work and soon enough they wanted to find a new hobby.

Looking back, at times I felt really angry that I couldn’t have some of the things my friends had but it has helped to make me the tenacious person I am today.

Don’t look at your circumstances as a disadvantage, show gratitude, because sometimes being on the back foot is exactly what you need to light that fire inside of you.