How Many of You Love What You Do?
After ~5 years on both the sellside and buyside, I’m doing some soul searching. Coming from a non‑target, breaking in was my life’s goal after HS, and while I’m still passionate about investing, the reality is your day‑to‑day is dictated by firm philosophy, process and culture, none of which you have a say in.
The prestige of the buyside has worn off, and I’m questioning whether I even want to stay in finance. I know I don’t want to remain at my current firm, but I have no idea what I want long term, LO, L/S, corporate, or something else.
So here’s my sanity check -> how many of you truly love what you do day‑to‑day? And how many actually knew early in your careers what you wanted out of life and your jobs?
Based on the most helpful WSO content, many professionals in finance grapple with similar questions about passion, fulfillment, and long-term career goals. Here are some key insights:
Passion vs. Reality: A recurring theme is that while many enter finance with passion and ambition, the day-to-day reality often doesn't align with their initial expectations. Firm culture, processes, and lack of autonomy can dampen enthusiasm, as you've experienced.
Happiness and Fulfillment: Many threads highlight that a significant number of people in finance do not love their jobs. The work can feel mundane, repetitive, or unfulfilling, especially when driven by external motivations like prestige or money rather than personal passion.
Purpose and Autonomy: Fulfillment often comes from having autonomy and pursuing something meaningful. Some find this by transitioning to roles where they have more control, such as entrepreneurship, or by leaving finance altogether to explore other passions.
Soul Searching is Common: It's not unusual to question your career path after a few years in the industry. Many professionals emphasize the importance of exploring what truly matters to you—whether it's a different role in finance, a new industry, or a completely different lifestyle.
Advice for Clarity:
Ultimately, the journey to finding a fulfilling career is deeply personal, and it's okay to not have all the answers early on. Many successful professionals have pivoted multiple times before finding their true calling.
Sources: Are you guys happy with life? Help me please., Life after Investment Banking, Saying Goodbye to Finance?, Who is happy & satisfied with their current role?, Do you guys actually enjoy your jobs?
For context, I've been in the industry about 14 years now with effectively the same firm I started with. I've had an extremely unique career in that I've worn a lot of different hats, held a lot of different roles all within the same company and technically speaking, within the same team/role. My firm went through an acquisition a few years ago, and that significantly changed both my own trajectory as well as that of my company. Oddly, while it capped my long term prospects - coming from a privately held firm where partnership was the goal - it accelerated my immediate career, putting me in charge of over a dozen people initially with that number increasing to this day. It's a good firm, strong flows AUM wise, performance has been quite good, and we are pretty dominant within our own niche(s). I'm topped out within the function I'm running, and at some point need to figure out the next step for myself - I'm not on the 'investing' side of the house, for what it's worth, though I'm quite fluent in investments with a finance degree and, well, I don't think you can truly be successful in finance without understand what the heck you actually do - but that's a different matter. Admittedly - I never really 'knew' what I wanted to do, and still don't really know - that's the fun of it, I guress.
My point is that I empathize with you as I still don't quite know what I want to do with my career. Some days you are the janitor, others the CEO, and others still you might think 'you know, that bed and breakfast in Rhode Island sure could be a nice long term career'. Closest I've come to getting some clarity is in defining short/intermediate/long term career goals for yourself - pick something, or someone, you want to be - and chart that out. You'll never like 100% of your role - so what matters most to you? Is it maximizing your compensation? Working with people you like? Working on cool or unique projects? Do you simply love investing, and the process, so much the rest doesn't matter? I went through a lot of this - the 'odyssey plan' is something you might consider looking up, that actually did help me in thinking through the various options, paths available, and what would interest me the most.
Speaking for myself - I am fortunate enough to work at a firm where many of my colleagues are my best friends. We know each other, we've grown up at the firm together, and there's a culture - that while it continues to change over time - that's special, unique, and probably baffling if I were any objective viewer. I love managing a team, growing talent, and I'm in a leadership role where I'm fortunate enough to have a small percentage say in the strategy, direction, and overall success of the firm. The downside - the beau acracy is mind numbing, the red tape is painful, at this point I've done many of the things that have interested me, and our business as a subsidiary of a much larger firm is not even a line item in the 10k, it's simply aggregated up into another line item where we are still quite small. Compensation lags the laggards of the market, then undercuts them a bit further - I do fine relatively speaking, though I'm not sure I could afford to buy the bed and breakfast in Rhode Island - might be able to swing a few vacation days there though. Ultimately - I think there are opportunities within the larger firm, company, etc. that interest me and that's where I'm pushing to head over the next few years... though frankly, I'm keeping my options open and if something interesting comes along, maybe I'll hop to that.
I hear you — after 5+ years, it’s normal for the shine to fade. Many people enter finance driven by prestige, exit opportunities, or the challenge, and only later realize the day-to-day reality is often dictated by process, culture, and firm philosophy — not your own vision.
Some points from experience:
Don’t worry if you don’t love every day — very few do. Use this phase to figure out what actually motivates you and explore options, even if they deviate from the traditional finance trajectory.
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