Doing a Ben Rickert
Has anyone ever felt like doing a Ben Rickert and just completely 180ing on everything to do with finance. In the film the character says he hates how banking just reduces everyone to a number and ends up doing some off-grid farming and growing seeds, living a simple life. Feel like there must be more people out there who are just sick of the finance industry for more than just poor WLB. Curious to hear your personal takes/stories if it applies to you. I appreciate the irony of asking on WSO but at the same time, best place to ask if these people are lurking.
I did this (albeit less extreme) after reading the book “Ego is the Enemy” by Ryan Holiday.
Once you realize that you make enough to happily provide for yourself and your kids, it’s pretty liberating. Unless you are on a quest for power, in which case having a huge capital base + connections would help, then you are kind of wasting your time if you are just trying to fill a void or overcompensate for other shortcomings.
For every decision you make, look deep inside as to WHY you are doing it. People burn out in this industry (or anything) when they aren’t absolutely clear on their why.
I've never posted on this website, but I do love The Big Short and Brad Pitt's portrayal of Ben Rickert. I was in a MM TMT coverage group for 6 years before I decided to make the plunge into (not farming) but software engineering. I somewhat stumbled into IB after college (studied math and economics) but was never quite sold on it. I did good work for the MDs I worked with and did well with office politics so I was taken care of. However, I consistently found myself way more interested in what our clients were building from their products/services perspective, then necessarily caring about their financials/business plan viability. Ultimately I was promoted to VP, stayed for a month and then resigned to start learning how to code. I know there's been several threads on SWE vs IB and I would say that I wish I had made the move earlier. I've grown to really value time and that given the hours are much less, working as an SWE gives me back the power to decide how I want to spend/monetize my time. When you stop working ridiculous hours for someone else, you start to think differently about how to use your time during non-work hours. I've picked up a few hobbies that I never had the time for and am now looking into doing freelance work in addition to my full-time job. I could speak more about it, but in general I took a look at what I wanted in the content of my profession for the next couple of years, didn't want to live with the "what if", and just decided to make a switch.
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