This has a greater effect than we can know. Everyone has dreams and ambitions, some grander than others, but who has the time to fulfill them whilst stuck running round and round in the rat race?

If you've ever seen "Coronation Street", you've seen the type of property that was my first home. I was born into that environment in Liverpool, England. My Dad was a Postman, with the belief that if you got a good job - especially working for the government - you'd have the two things everyone wanted... the security of a job for life and a good pension on retirement. He started work at 15 and progressed, still working for the government, to the Ministry of Transport to work as a Driving Examiner, which he did, at various levels, until he retired.

Following this auspicious start, I had a series of jobs, took a college course in office commerce, engineered getting the sack from my oil-related job in Aberdeen (after bunking off for the afternoon to attend a Bon Jovi concert) moved to London to work in the music business (succeeded - worked with Mr. Bongiovi and various other big name rockers), managed a couple of fairly successful glam rock bands and ended up working for a US law firm in the City of London - PHEW!

It was at this firm that I moved up the ranks, eventually becoming European Manager of Information Technology. During this time, I also took a management degree with the Open University and passed the Mensa exam and was invited to join (I actually didn't go ahead with membership because the member magazine they sent me was soooo boring and it didn't seem quite the right street cred for the Rock Chick that I was... and still am!).

Whilst all this was going on, my youngest sister had, in 1990, called me up and asked me a question... "Do you want to buy a flat?" which, translated, meant "I can't afford to buy a flat here in Putney so do you want to help me out by buying half of it and living with me, your messy sister?". There was, of course, only one sensible answer to this question - a resounding "NOOOOOO". I was living in rented accommodation just south of Tower Bridge, which meant no transport costs because I could walk to work. I was also living there rent free because I was subletting the other two rooms, which covered the entire rental. But....

Well I got to thinking -and that's always dangerous. You see, the firm I was working for offered a mortgage subsidy, but only if you owned a property. Since I didn't, I was losing out on about £300 a month. So I called my sister back with a proposition. If we bought a 2-bed property in Putney, she could choose her flatmate but they'd pay my half of the mortgage, which also meant I'd get my mortgage subsidy. Sweet! I'd become a (half) property owner AND increased my income.

For anyone who's thinking of using this as an excuse "See, it was okay for you, you got that subsidy, I wouldn't get that, it wouldn't be that easy for me", etc., I should point out that this was in the days before buy-to-let mortgages came into existence. Back when I started, you had to qualify through your income to get a mortgage. Since the launch of the first buy-to-let mortgage in 1996, qualifying for buy-to-let funding has got easier and easier.

After this first property, I started to get it and began to buy more, but not as much or as quickly as I now know I should have (isn't hindsight wonderful?).

So there I was, making the kind of salary my parents would only have dreamed of but well and truly in the rat race as far as my City job was concerned. After meeting my future husband (in a gents' toilet in a sleazy rock club in Wardour Street in London's Soho - that's a whole other story) and moving out of London, I was also undertaking a stressful commute for four hours a day on top of the high-powered job.

Then, a breakthrough... I got sick. It was one of those things that isn't easily identified with multiple symptoms that really needed complete rest and a change of life-style to eradicate. I needed to give up work, chill out and get my health and strength back together. But how was I to do this when I was the main breadwinner at the time. My husband had, at my urging, given up his job to concentrate full-time on his music.

Fortunately, we had another source of income... the properties. We were able to tighten our belts, cash in some policies and found that, with what was coming in from the properties, we could keep our heads above water with the intention that we'd do this until I got my health back together and went back to work.

However, that day never came.

When you move away from the path you've been following you start on a completely new journey and, naturally, meet different people. In the City I was, of course, surrounded by colleagues with the same mentality that I'd grown up with - "get a good job and work hard until you retire with a pension". Suddenly, I was meeting people who didn't have the same values. I met Gill Fielding, herself a property millionaire with a very similar background to me, and the final scales fell from my eyes.

Over the last few years, since leaving that City job, I've discovered network marketing (MLM) - a great souce of residual income and tax advantages, with terrific self-improvement training when you find the right company. I also discovered the final pieces of the jigsaw that were missing for me when it came to property, i.e. how to run my portfolio as a business.

Having given many presentations during the course of my City job, I honed this skill at network marketing meetings and was introduced, by Gill Fielding, to property investment speaking and that's been my main speaking subject for the last five years.

So now I live in a big house in the country with my very successful musician husband and three cats. I have a flashy car (as well as an unflashy one), gorgeous clothes, lovely jewellery, luxurious holidays and a lifestyle to be envied, but look at where I started.

Now tell me again.... why can't you?