From the lawyer who became a human cannonball, to the pharmacy manager who went to live on a desert island, five risk-takers share their stories

From City trader to Craft beer brewer

Jaega Wise, 26

I used to laugh and say my job was sending emails. Lots and lots of emails. On paper I was organising the movement of chemicals around the world, but in reality I was just at my desk sending emails. I’m going to be honest: I hated it.

My degree was in chemical engineering, and after I finished I was keen to move to London. I decided to go into trading – buying and selling chemicals.

I lasted there for about three years. The nature of trading is that you don’t hear back about a job unless it’s gone wrong. Then you get a phone call with someone screaming at you. It’s a lot of pressure for something that you don’t care about in the grand scheme of life.

Meanwhile, two of my best friends, Will and Andy, from back home in Nottingham, were talking about turning their homebrewing hobby into a business. Nottingham is well known for its beer and when we were younger we spent a lot of time going to beer festivals, visiting breweries and drinking a lot of beer. We even made the jump to brewing our own using homebrew kits. I told them I wanted to leave my job and managed to elbow my way into their scheme to open a brewery.

Quitting my job was the biggest sense of relief I’ve ever felt in my life. Even though I was worrying about how I was going to make money, it was amazing not to be kept awake at night worrying about a tank stuck in China. I had gone back to zero, starting anew, but this time with a bit of knowledge and experience. I took a part-time bar job and did session singing to pay the bills.

We started with absolutely no money. We put our first batch of beer – our ruby ale – in other breweries’ bottles, and I drove the van to bars and restaurants trying to sell it. We got enough orders to justify doing a whole batch as cuckoo brewers – borrowing other people’s equipment. The first batch was 20 casks, around 1,000 bottles, and we stayed up late hand-tying our labels to every single one.

Our original plan was to build a nano-brewing kit in a basement under a pub in Walthamstow and be a small brewery. But it quickly became apparent that we were getting too many orders and would need to find a bigger place.

We applied for a loan from the Brightside Trust, and also did a call-out on Twitter to raise money, tweeting: “Do you want to invest in a local business?” People had spotted us in the area and drunk our beer, and they lent us bits and bobs. They got loan terms and an awful lot of free beer.

I’m now head brewer of Wild Card Brewery, and we have a home on an industrial estate in Walthamstow village. I would say it’s changed me. Being involved in a start up means you have to adapt. If something needs doing, you do it. I get to work at about 7am and the first thing I do is go to the speakers and turn my playlist up ridiculously loud. My life is completely different now. There aren’t a lot of women in engineering and there also aren’t a lot of women in beer, so it has that in common.

The difference is this is a hell of a lot more fun. In what other industry would you attend a serious business meeting and get a funny look if you don’t have a pint in your hand?

As told to Becky Barnicoat

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Gary Stocker, who have up his previous life to become a human cannonball. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

From lawyer to human cannonball

Gary Stocker, 32

Magic was my favourite hobby as a child. I’d regularly visit Covent Garden with my dad to watch the street performers. When I was 15, I plucked up the courage to perform there – a 40-minute magic show I had developed myself.

I loved performing but I’d always been good academically, and when I was offered a place at Oxford to read law, I took it. Afterwards, I tried to keep the magic going, but all my university friends were heading off for careers in the city, and street entertaining doesn’t pay well.

Ten years later, I was a lawyer, with a six-figure salary and a house in Waterloo complete with swimming pool. I could easily have continued on that comfortable path if an old friend from Sweden hadn’t called. We’d known each other as street performers and he’d recently won Sweden’s Got Talent and been given his own television show. He wanted to use some of my old material, including a cannonball stunt I’d always dreamed of performing in public. When I said yes, it felt like I was handing him the remnants of my dream.

We agreed that any props he built using my ideas would be mine to keep, which is how I came to be a lawyer with a cannon. Then another friend got in touch to say he was starting a circus and would I be part of it? My human cannonball could be the finale in the show. When I told colleagues my plan, they thought I was having an early mid-life crisis and that I’d be back at my desk in weeks.

,I started practising the trick in the grounds of my house, using the swimming pool as a soft landing, testing the elasticity of the cannon mechanism and gradually building up my confidence.

Today, I am the human cannonball at Chaplin’s, a circus-themed show. It took a lot of money to get the circus off the ground, and we employ and house about 25 people full-time, so initially the stakes were high. But the elation I felt the first time I performed the stunt in public was incredible.

You can sense huge anticipation in the audience when the cannon is wheeled on. Meanwhile, I’m waiting in the barrel, tensely going through a mental checklist of safety measures – has the firing mechanism been pulled back enough? Is any of the metalwork bent out of shape? Then suddenly I’m flying though the air and everything’s in slow motion until I hit the net, when I’m overwhelmed for a moment by a sense of invincibility, even though I know that no matter how much care I take, every flight could be my last.

I’ve always been driven by the need to feel free, and waking up somewhere new every few weeks gives me that. We perform nine shows a week and I work longer hours than I ever did in the City. But every week we pitch up on grounds that had tents just like ours 200 years ago. I love being part of that tradition.

As told to Chris Broughton

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jessie Tuckman, who gave up her previous life to become a surfer. Photograph: Molly Johnson for The Guardian

From loans officer to surfer

Jessie Tuckman, 26

I left school at 16 with mostly A grades and my parents expected me to go to college, but I wanted to start earning. I took a job at a call centre and they trained me up as a loans officer. At first I enjoyed it; I was earning enough my firstanto buy my first apartment when I was 18. But when the financial crisis hit the industry became gloomier and I started to wonder if there might be something else.

One weekend my cousin invited me to go surfing in Scarborough. It was freezing cold and windy – nothing like the vision in my mind of blue skies and white sand. The water was brown and my wetsuit was too small. I didn’t even manage to stand up on the board – I just clung to it as I hurtled towards the shore. But it was a great feeling. I was 20 and had never surfed before, but after that day I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Surfing made my office job feel boring. I joined a surf club and went on trips every weekend. I stuck a photo of a wave above my desk and my bosses joked they were going to lose me to surfing – which they did. At 22, I quit my job and, with £150 in my account and no job or accommodation lined up, moved to Newquay. I got a bed in a bunk room above a pub. The window didn’t close, but it only cost £60 a week including breakfast.

All I had were my clothes, my guitar and my surfboard. I thought: “What else do I need?”

That first winter was tough. I earned £65 a week in a nightclub and lived on noodles and bread and butter. The town was cold and quiet, and I felt lonely – I’d left behind all my home comforts and my friends. But by the summer the atmosphere changed – everyone seemed happy and spent more and more time outdoors.

That was three years ago; now I call Newquay home. I work as a cleaner in a pizza restaurant on Fistral beach for two and a half hours every morning. Then I rush to the surf club, get into my gear and I’m in the sea. I spend four to six hours a day surfing, six days a week; I’m in the open air and I’m healthier. I’ve got sponsors behind me and my coach is an ex-British champion. Last year I finished 13th, which is pretty good for someone who didn’t touch a surfboard until they were 20.

I still don’t earn much. Some weeks my fiance and I only have £40 to spend on food, but we survive. The locals thought I was mad when I moved here. They couldn’t believe I would leave behind a stable job and good income. But even though I’d had the money, I didn’t have my freedom – or the beach, which is my favourite thing in the world. BB

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ian Usher, who gave up his job as a Pharmacy manager to become a desert islander. Photograph: Solo Syndication

From pharmacy manager to desert islander

Ian Usher, 51

It was the breakup of my marriage that forced me to re-evaluate my life. I’d moved from the UK to Australia with my wife, had a job managing a pharmacy and built our own home. After we separated, I wanted to cut my ties with the past. I sold everything except a few clothes. At 45 I was suddenly free – no ties, no home, and all the money from the sale.

My dad had died at 61, leaving his plans for retirement unfulfilled, which gave me a sense of urgency. I decided I wanted to settle somewhere tropical, and discovered Panama through an internet search. I contacted an estate agent and the last place he showed me was an island – part of the archipelago of Bocas del Toro in the Caribbean Sea northwest of Panama. It was two acres of overgrown jungle, roughly circular, and about 100 yards across. I made what I thought was a stupid offer and, unexpectedly, the owner said: “Give me a couple of thousand more and it’s yours.” How could I resist?

A little under £18,000 changed hands and the deed was done – I owned a tropical island.

Even though I’d barely seen what I was buying, I knew it had the makings of paradise, though it took another two years to reach that point. When I arrived, you could just about battle your way round the edge with a machete, but it was impossible to get to the middle. With the help of locals I cleared the land and built a house, complete with solar panels, electrics and a water system.

For the first couple of years I was mostly alone on my island – I’ve always been happy in my own company. There was a lively pizza restaurant on a nearby island if I wanted a chat. Then, on a visit to London, I met Vanessa, who had recently divorced and wanted to start a new life. She shared my love of adventure and asked me questions about the island. “Come and visit,” I said. She did – and within a fortnight, she’d resigned from her job and arranged for her possessions to be sold.

At first, we felt like we’d achieved the perfect life – sunny days skimming across the water in our little boat watching dolphins, snorkelling in clear water through shoals of fish. We were living on fresh seafood, bananas, pineapples, coconuts and eggs from the chickens that roamed freely across the island.

But after a year, we realised we couldn’t spend the rest of our lives in a hammock sipping margaritas. We started to ask: “What’s next?”

So now we’re on to a new chapter, working as language teachers in China and the island is back on the market. Everything I’ve done seems incredible, but when I look back on it, I can’t help thinking: “Well, that was easy.” CB

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Zan Kaufman, who gave up her former career in New York as a corporate lawyer to run her burger takeaway company “Bleecker St.”. Photograph: Frantzesco Kangaris

From litigation lawyer to burger seller

Zan Kaufman, 35

Ten years ago, I was working as a corporate lawyer in New York City. My father had been a lawyer and it was what I’d always seen myself doing. I imagined living in the city, earning a big salary. What I didn’t imagine was the reality: it was stressful, with long hours and a strict hierarchy.

In 2011, I offered to help in my friend’s family burger restaurant on Sundays to break up the monotony of my day job. I thought I’d be their bartender. I wasn’t much of a cook and I’d never cared for burgers – I usually found them disappointing. But the burgers there were amazing – the perfect bun and meat combination, like some kind of magic. I knew then what I wanted to do for a living.

Two weeks later I quit my job and began working in the restaurant full-time. It seems extreme, but I was moving to London the following year anyway to marry my girlfriend, and I knew this job could travel. Looking back, it should have been daunting – financially, it’s difficult to get a restaurant off the ground. But I think my passion overcame my fear.

In the end I couldn’t get funding for a restaurant, but I had enough money to buy a truck, so Bleecker St. Burger launched in London in the summer of 2012. I had to hustle constantly for pitches and for custom, but I fell in love with trading on the streets. It’s instant gratification – everyone tells you what they think of your food and you’re face to face with your customers rather than hidden behind a wall of waiters and a kitchen.

I didn’t know many people when I arrived in the UK and a lot of my customers have become good friends. Plus there are the other traders – it’s an amazing community.

We’ve now opened a permanent kiosk in Spitalfields Market, but I’m still tied to the streets and we pitch up there in the summer.

Looking back at everything that’s happened is surreal. There are sacrifices – I have very little separation between work and home life, and my wife and I have had to postpone our plans for a baby.

But I get real perspective when I take my truck to trade outside the Gherkin in the city. I see the rat race, with office workers scurrying to their offices with their Pret coffees, and I think: “Thank God that isn’t me.” CB