John Legend hoped to work as management consultant for year before career took off

msn.com:

John Legend planned to work as a management consultant for just a year while he worked on his music - but he ended up staying for three.

After he graduated from college, the All of Me singer got a job as a management consultant to pay the bills while writing and recording music in his spare time.

In an interview with The New Yorker, John admitted he did pretty well doing "the market research and presentation-writing and number-crunching" the job involved, but he was there much longer than expected. "I was pretty good.

I could have been better, but I was genuinely determined to try to get a record deal. I spent a lot of energy and lost a lot of sleep focusing on my side hustle as a musician," he explained. "I needed the job, but I was, like, 'I want to be out of here in a year. ' It took three years, and even then I had to work a bit before I was able to live off the money I was making from music. " The 43-year-old acknowledged that he was "extremely lucky" to be able to leave that job behind after he got a record deal and his 2004 debut album Get Lifted put him on the map. "Think of how many musicians who want to be where I am just never make it.