Honestly, where to go? Almost 24 with zero clue.

Hi all,

Been lurking here for quite a while now, and thought I'd reach out and ask you all for some advice / share your experiences and plans. A bit of background about myself: I lived briefly in America as a kid before moving back to my home country in Asia. Moved to the UK on my own at 16 to pursue my dreams of professional football on scholarship. Diagnosed with arthritis and a bunch of shit at 18, moved to Cali (practically ran away as I couldn't handle the fact the only thing I'd worked on all day, every day for 6 years just got wiped out), went to a community college there and found out I love business and started trying a bunch of ideas (none of which worked, but were really fun nonetheless) and enrolled for my undergrad at an average UK university for Business Management (little did I know it was a pointless degree), graduated with an Upper 2:1 / 3.7/4 and went back to my home country to help with family issues and took up a job as a Marketing Manager for an Agrochemical company, where I'm now set for my transition into Operations / Exports to various countries in a new product category, which also is somewhat interesting compared to Marketing (which I hate in this industry).

Now, that leads me to finding WSO two years ago, and at first it was because of my brother working in Finance in the States (not banking), and thought of the big bucks the guys make. But the more I dived deep into it, I realized hardly anyone is content with their life in banking, or post-banking exit ops. Sure, everyone is making insane amounts of money, but if you can't do things you love, with the people you love - where do you go from there?

This thought was depressing to say the least. My own situation of now wanting to break into consulting / banking with my profile is probably not possible anyway, but I'm applying to MSc Finance courses in the UK / Aus anyway with some hopes an international student will be able to land a job.

My only thing in the beginning was having tried a few ideas and them not working, it would be best to get experience in banking / pe and learn the ropes a bit and most importantly, learning how to work (if that makes sense), but now I'm unsure. I never really knew about career paths much as all my early years were spent in high-level sports and sometimes I now think if I'd taken the coaching job at a club (premier league) that was offered to me back then would've been a better route: less pay, but definitely interesting.

Any advice on where I should go? What should I do as an international student? What other career avenues exist beyond investment banking / PE that can pay me enough to live in London comfortably (don't need anything crazy) and where I could actually learn, and have my free time after work to continue working on ideas? As an international I can't just move to London once more without a good masters and a good job that'll sponsor me. Hell, do routes exist that could land me into a sponsored role at a professional football club in a management role??

Any help would be really appreciated. 24 in 2 months, with zero clue on the best way to proceed.