Dog has caught the car bumper, now what?

I have no idea what is my next step on my professional career and it worries me every day.

I am currently a VP1 in an IB Power and Utilities group. I was born outside of the US and spent almost 10 years of my life building a good career in my home country, a career in which I climbed positions very rapidly and eventually became senior management for a mid-size Energy company starting from manager. Even though I was extremely lucky and felt very proud of that, the scale of business and professional development back home was simply not enough for me and I felt I needed to play in the big leagues. I decided my best option was to go to business school and try to enter private equity. 

I went to Cornell and $250k of debt and two years later (including COVID) I landed the highest paying job I could find at a BB in IB (thinking it was a good move to PE eventually). I didn’t mind stepping down a few titles and being an Associate again if that meant at least the same money I was making before business school and a way for me to stay legally in the US and work towards my goals of PE. 

I totally hated IB at the beginning, pitching all the time for something everyone knew was not happening, being treated like a monkey who was completely dispensable and whose only value was the capacity to stay awake 20 hours per day and type “will do”, etc. I started having actual physical health problems, having nightmares in which I choked MDs to death and more. Despite this I had my eyes set on getting a private equity gig in less than two years or being early promoted to VP so my workload decreased.

I never let anyone see how much I hated the job and I tried to fake it until I made it. I always had a positive attitude, tried to be highly self-driven, looked for new business via relevant transactions in my home country (in which I had a good network) and was willing to work more and add value, traits that were discovered by several nice MDs. This dynamic actually made work better and eventually I started to like the job. I originated a big M&A mandate for a Power plant and leading the transaction felt incredible.

Fast forward a year and I was liking my job more than what I was hating it. Liked the exposure and dynamic work, hated the hours and all the fights with my partner (they understood why I was doing IB but was very concerned with my health issues which starting to get worse). 

I was on track to early promotion to VP and PE now seemed like a very stretch. I wanted so much to become a VP so my workloads would decrease and I would earn again some seniority. 

Given I was so uncomfortable with my job at the beginning I kept recruiting, nothing was paying as good as IB and a lateral move to another BB was not something I was interested in pursuing. In the meantime things at my bank got horribly bad, 10,000 people were fired and compensation was terrible.

I started recruiting more actively and I landed a very attractive offer at another IB, not a BB. The new bank was thriving, escalating league tables and growing its IB division which was launched only a few years back. I was offered a VP role (this was 1.5 years after graduating from business school) and a very attractive economic package. I got that offer just in time before my group at the BB was cut in half and several MDs left leaving everyone hanging.

I decided to take the offer and it has turned out great. Good culture, significantly less hours and great growth dynamic. However, given the recent launch of the IB practice it does not carry the “prestige” of BBs

I am making double what I made at the BB and working probably half (9 to 7 daily and no weekends), MDs are nice and I have started to make room for my ideas and started to ramp up my deal list.

It all sounds great, however, the issue is that I have absolutely no clue of what to do next in my professional career. I have always planned for 3-5 years ahead and I am unsure of what my next step would be. 

I am not convinced I would like to continue doing banking and become a Director, nor that I want to continue living in NY or that I want to build a career at my new bank. I now find Finance and Energy very dull (used to feel truly passionate about it) and I feel I have no impact whatsoever in anything, just arranging logos and if things go well allowing one party to sell something to someone else for a price none of them believe it’s worth only for the new party to sell it again in 5 years. 

I am making good money, but in this city rent increases 30% per year and I have not been able to save a penny in the last 2 years and it just seems like a rat race I am never going to win.

On another hand, changing careers would have a high cost now and would be difficult to start over in an entry level job (I am 34 y/o with 2 kids). Even though I don’t discard it, it would be challenging.

Should I just play along and see where the tide guides me? 

Thanks for reading.