quit finance to pursue a writing/novelist career...struggling with the mental side of leaving the industry
hey guys...really struggling and looking for some wisdom here. all my life, i was told finance or medicine are the only routes worth taking, even tho i loved writing and art, and was good at it. i unfortunately was also passable at math and finance so ended up attending a target in massachusetts and doing internships at JPM and Goldman my sophomore and junior summers. I got a job at Goldman in IB out of college, then moved onto PE, and then moved to a HF all in NYC. throughout all of this i felt terrible about myself and was so depressed, would cry every day locked in my bathroom, hated the toxic work culture, and my parents would constantly criticize me to do better in my career and gave no support, so i felt like i had to keep going. i know how this sounds, i know most ppl wouldn't care to give me any sympathy or empathy. but just know my struggle was real.
all thru my time in finance, i just wanted to do what i loved -- creative writing. i was lucky that when i applied for an acclaimed creative writing graduate program in nyc, the school offered me a full scholarship with living stipend. so i quit my HF job to embark on this program. i love writing, but the artist's life is tough and there isn't very much money, at least at the start. but the biggest thing im grappling with is just this weird...grief(?) over quitting finance, and what was supposedly the golden ticket to a respectable, well-off life. i feel like i've been indoctrinated my entire life thru family and peers that if ur not working in finance or making a ton of money, you're worthless and deserve to die. that anyone not in PE/HF world is a loser. that being an artist and following your joy and passion is shameful, and therefore i have become a total shameful loser. my parents disowned me after i started my graduate program and told me as much as well, which ddnt help.
it's not that i necessarily want to go back to finance -- i don't need endless money, and i luckily have a spouse who has a stable job. i already own a house. i'm ok with slowly building towards retirement over time. it's more the psychological side of things that's causing me so much distress, and making me feel like i should return to finance to be a "legit person" again. i don't know if any of this makes sense. i don't kno anyone else with my background who's quit to become an artist. even tho i should be so happy to be pursuing my dreams, i feel such shame at being a "good-for-nothing writer," and feel like society thinks my life has no worth or value anymore becos im not working in IB/PE/HF. working in finance, you feel "special," even tho day-to-day, things are not glamorous at all. but as an artist/writer starting out their career, u not only dont feel special, but u have to deal with societal stigma of how everyone thinks ur scum. or maybe its just my parents and some peers in finance who i talk to. i dont kno. my father in law is a HF manager and tho he doesnt say anything and is outwardly supportive as my spouse is supportive of me, i can kinda feel he's judging me and disapproving too.
has anyone who has left finance to pursue something less conventional, like art, or entrepreneurship, or a lower paying role, or even just quit to not work, felt this at all?
I generally think that individuals in hyper competitive fields (Medicine, Finance, Law, etc.) value output. Hence, why they look down on a lot of professions. If you are some creative writer that never publishes, and never actually does anything then, yeah people from finance will probably look down on you. If you are publishing, getting recognized as a best seller, winning awards, I bet you a lot of Finance people would probably actually find what you are doing as interesting, even if you do not make as much as them.
well my intention isn't to ultimately get validation from finance ppl for my creative career, but rather hear from ppl who've made similar transitions on the mental shifts that have helped them get out of the mindset im in - but appreciate the color
Amongst those hyper competitive fields, I often think they look down on a lot of other professions because it comes from insecurity.
Not trying to single one of those fields out but I see this so often from American born and raised medical doctors with immigrant parents who had dreams of them going down that path, especially those who particularly don't like their profession and always finds way to make it sound like their job is more impactful/important for society than yours.
i totally see this...it's like projection almost borne out of their own dissatisfaction
Your parents are truly horrible people man tf.
yea they weren't great
You've clearly had great commercial success and have now found your artistic passion, which you are pursuing. You have a spouse and a house of your own, so the typical indicators are there too.
The relationship between a parent and a child is one of great lifelong interdependence. The myopic see it as one that only lasts the first 18 or so years of the child's life, but the fulness of the dependency goes far beyond this. Adults do best when they have good relationships with their parents into their adulthood. Parents do best when they are seen to by intelligent children, rather than the amorphous nursing-home-neglect-state. Children should want good relationships with their parents for their emotional health. Parents should want good relationships with their children to avoid bedsores. I have seen the nursing home industry. Even at exorbitantly expensive places, no one will take any better care of an older person than their intelligent, caring child. No one.
Finance jobs have only come about in societies with high degrees of division of labor and significant classes of people working for far less money. This is a historical fact. To say that people not working in high earning jobs deserve to die is to say that the high earners deserve to die in some sense as well, for they could not work in these jobs but for the lesser earners. This is a self-defeating (another word is in my mind, but I self-censor) ideology.
Do your parents like any literature whatsoever? Have they ever liked any literature? Tap into that side of them. There is part of me that believes that your parent's beliefs have come about because of some life circumstance, and that by understanding this circumstance, you may be able to address their limiting beliefs. Yes, it is emotional labor for you, but it may be the path to rebuilding your relationship with your parents.
i appreciate this. i've tried to reconcile w my parents but i dont think we're ever going reunite again, my aunt has tried to facilitate being the mediator of a repair convo but even that my parents refused. they've fully cut me off and i have no way of contacting them, nor they of contacting me. i wish i had loving parents, trust me lol. i understand their life circumstances caused their POVs, but tbh their lives haven't been that bad...not like they were escaping war or living in poverty or anything. they just look down so much on ppl who are poor (or even middle class...) and anyone who isn't "perfect" in their eyes, even though they are far from perfect themselves. even when i was in finance they'd criticize me for not getting promoted fast enough or playing office politics well enough so i guess unless i started my own firm they'd never be happy
I'm so sorry. Forgive me if my advice seemed callous in any way or impracticable due to the degree of separation that's currently there.
OP, do what makes you happy. I've known people who grew up in this type of environment and eventually implode. Try to avoid that.
thanks. ive seen this too. i haven't had that long of a career in finance compared to those ive seen totally self-destruct but i feel like im at that point where im losing it and unable to function lol
I didn’t quit finance so to say—but I did pick the most hilariously unfortunate time to go out on my own. Plenty of time to myself these days twiddling my thumbs.
Anyhow, I just finished my first novel I’d consider publishable. You should 100% write the damn book. It’s good for you. Just please go in with eyes wide open about the realities of the industry:
A $50,000 advance is considered fantastic. $100k is exceptional. Most books get $10k advances. And that’s for 3 years of work—1 year for writing the book, 1 year for querying an agent and going on submission, and another year for editing and publication. Most books never earn out their advance.
At each step in the process (finding an agent, going on submission, etc.) your book can just die on the vine at no fault of your own, which only extends that measly advance further. Even if you do get published, if a publisher doesn’t put marketing money behind you, your book won’t sell, and they’ll use the fact that it didn’t sell to deny your next book even though their thumb was on the scale the entire time. Sure you can self-publish, but you’re just trying to manipulate the Bezos algorithm at that point and your books won’t be in bookstores.
I know a couple of authors personally with 6+ books published who still work their day jobs. Just something to consider.
congrats on finishing the novel! and congrats on working for yourself, that's the dream. yeah im aware of the industry, im in my graduate program right now for creative writing in nyc so getting lots of exposure to publishing and agents and i also work for a pretty legit lit mag rn. it's pretty harrowing odds of success, i agree. im not as worried about the money side of things moreso the psychological mindset side of things. even if i only make 10K a year that's okay. even if i need to get a full time corporate job again, 10 years down the line, i kno ill be okay, i'll figure something out or go get a MBA. it feels like im shackled by the stupidest of things, the mental barrier of feeling like im a "failure" in society's eyes becos i left finance and a "legitimate track" career for something more amorphous. of course i worry about failing as a writer and never publishing a successful book but somehow the greater worry for me is not being seen as "respectable" or "successful". Writing it out I see how silly it sounds...
That’s because we live in a society that devalues the arts. We’ve been taught to laugh at liberal arts majors, let alone fine arts majors, and to aspire to be the best little corporate drone we can be. As if accounting is somehow more respectable than painting.
Starting a business is the one exception. Entrepreneurship is seen as a holy grail, but even then you only get celebrated for the type of businesses that conform to expectations.
Right now, I have two businesses—neither of which are making any money, mind you—but one of them is writing. The only functional difference between me pursuing commercial real estate deals and me writing a novel is that finance bros think one is cool and the other is weird.
If it is not terribly discourteous to ask, how old are you now that you are ready to publish? When did you start writing properly would you say? I write too and do hope to get around to publishing it one day, I am twenty-two at the moment (mentioned it a bit more in another comment on this post) so a while off. Do you know any authors who self-published or the general sentiment on that? I imagine a lot of self-marketing then. I lurk here and read your comments time to time, no idea that you were an author.
Hah, well I’m not an author yet.
I’m nearing 40. I wrote a lot in middle school and highschool (when I should have been studying or doing homework) and wrote for comedy websites in undergrad and grad school to help pay bills, but I took a decade and a half off to be a businessman after that. I did not try to write a novel properly until about a year and a half ago, but I read a lot. I know how a good book should read.
I don’t know any self-published authors personally, but I do know that it works a lot better for some genres and subgenres than others. Depends on what you write. Either way you have speed bumps though. In tradpub, it’s agents and the submission process. In selfpub, it’s gaming the algorithm and trying to stand out amidst the AI slop being poured onto that platform daily.
Not exactly in the same spot as I’m probably younger than you but I left my job 3 years ago. I used to be in a unique spot doing quanty/ Data Sciency stuff.
I left to just travel and find my “why” so to speak. And I came back from my travels - 1.5-2years or so, having become an “angel investor” while also learning how to think like “artist”. These are honestly silly terms btw and too many people conflate what this means because they think these are job descriptions while the truth is they’re really a state of mind and a way of being- thinking and feeling it all.
IMO there’s only one path that everyone converges to because we all experience deep pains in our lives and as we arise from them we come out having picked up some foundational ability that we previously didn’t possess.
Want to become a great investor? Experience enough pains and figure out how to spot people who can go fill in those gaps for the world.
Want to become a great storyteller? Experience great pain and figure out how to share your feelings with others who’ve never experienced it before so they understand the basic emotions.
Sometimes these come in the form of writing, sometimes drawing, sometimes going on stage and making a speech, sometimes being someone else on stage/on film that you are not, sometimes building something.
They way these pains and the way we arise from them manifest can be so different. Some people make conventional art pieces but don’t forget that companies, their products, etc… are all in their own way a form of art.
You just gotta find what your medium(s) are.
But first pain. Follow your instincts and make sure you can put food on the table and that you have some plan for how to do it consistently. Do remember that the journey is yours and yours only AND that you’re lucky to have people who will support you emotionally through it.
I didn’t have that luxury and I was lucky to have good Samaritans help me out. Also know that in your darkest moments, if you try to do good and spread kindness the luck will find you.
Have you tried talking to someone?
I am similar. Twenty-two. I'll tell you about it maybe it helps.
Private school, academic scholarships, advanced classes, put no effort in but got some good offers. That laissez-faire attitude should have been a sign of my overall psychological signature, I require extreme intensity of my environment and some coherent alignment to the broader metaphysical narrative of my life to function or put in any effort at all. And when I do put in effort - it is obsession. Especially physically, but also in my writing, which is why I bring it up here. A constant physiological state of manically burning Gehanna or a glacial, catatonic tundra.
I had a similar mentality from my upbringing regarding college and careers, STEM or bust. I started with engineering, dropped it after a semester and then went into finance. I could not stand it. As a side note I have always wondered how people like you could push through something that contrasts so vehemently with your instictive sense of self. I just refused to do it - much to my detriment in all aspects of my life - but I have always stayed true to that ever-defining "inner truth" as best I could understand it at any one time.
I was academically expelled from college at the end of 2024, did 6 months with the police (kicked out unfortunately for failing assessments to reckless driving and excessive force in arrests - bullshit but whatever) and then the remainder of the year with the army where I had been involved as a reservist since college. Sick to death of my shitty under-resourced no-training tiny anemic abortion unit now so I am leaving that too.
I adored history and I have read it constantly since I was a child, but it never occured to me to pursue it as a career. I wish I had. It took multiple years of these failures before I realised that my life goals are unattainable with almost any wealth I can realistically accrue, so I liberated myself of the idea that I must chase it and my perspective on life diametrically changed. I'll admit it is somewhat inspired by Le Samurai and Storm of Steel, the idea of an Anarch by Junger. I recommend your reading of the latter and watching the former, it might be helpful in the same way to you.
I started archaeology at the beginning of this year and am going to Europe for an excavation end of June for a while. Like writing (I also write poetry though I will not publish anything for a long time), archaeology career options are pretty atrocious and I am almost bankrupt to fund my trip this year. But it does not matter. You are in a financial situation I'll likely never achieve unless my long term political extremist ambitions come to be, so your family will be fine (especially with your wife's father being in finance anyway). Careful with overthinking, I do it too. Sometimes you need to retardmaxx and just fuck it we ball. Sort it out in the thick of it, you'll survive. If you truly believe this you can breach unpermitting fear and only then can you hope ever to make your magnum opus corporeal on this material plane.
Success is a proximity-based spectrum to one's ideal self, and true alignment to that perfection can never be reached. It is highly idiosyncratic. It is better for me to live imperfectly my ideal path in life (my dharma) than to live perfectly yours, or anyone else's. Likewise, it is better for you to live yours imperfectly than someone else's, and it certainly sounds like yours is not the conventional path.
In calculus, the derivative of a function measures its slope. "Success" is more like the first order derivative, whereas the actual range of the function is mostly meaningless and the shape of the graph does not matter, only your gradient at each point and your degree of motion towards your pre-ordained destiny. Do not confuse the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself; do not confuse the proxy markers of success (abundance and wealth) as success in the ideal sense. Especially in this gay ass bullshit Epstein economy where nothing makes sense and money isn't real.
So I'm literally the inverse of that "worthless if no prestige" sentiment lol. I am unworthy only if I fail to develop in accordance with my nature's inner dictates, my righteous path, my destiny - no matter how violently anachronistic it is in the 21st century. To find yours, you must stop living in accord with the will of others. You must actually, genuinely, painfully look inwards. Thou must know thyself.
In my case I am again circling the prospect of joining the war in Ukraine as a foreign fighter after my degree like I was at the end of 2024 (even interviewed and lined up a specific unit and company) but practical reality forbade my trip at the time. It is very likely that if the war is ongoing by then I will make my somewhat querelous passage to war. I believe it to be my destiny. Again, the context behind this literally fills archives and I shan't relate it here, but it is the great barrier to the necessary later stages of my fate and life. Maybe I will die, but I have been chasing ghosts all my life, and eventually I will no longer be able to put off that dread decision; either I will turn my back from my past and truth - to live but only in the unforgiving shadow of my destined self - and inwardly eroding into oblivion, or I will continue chasing them, even unto my own death. Which way will you choose, western man?
I also understand it is a very haphazard, enjambed and staggering recount, mostly because I do not wish to be here all night typing, and there are hideous depths of this I haven't yet touched on that reconfigure the entire story as something much darker and tragic (Read The Radetzky March, ours is a very similar past except more bolshevik scum, and I'll probably die the same way). I don't expect anyone to necessarily read it but it always helps to write or to verbalise it to myself. I hope you are able to see past the intoxicated syntax and maybe gain something from it. You are not on the precipice of death, you are not circling an inexorable doom with constant active consciousness of it, and you have many fallbacks. You will be fine. You will have to endure the dark night of the soul and you must withstand the crushing doubt, it is requisite for what you will become if you truly commit to this path, body and soul.
Nigredo, albedo, rubedo. Know thyself.
Just made a somewhat similar transition! Grew up in the stereotypical Indian household and went from Costco FP&A -> ABCD Trader -> Commodities HF -> AWS FP&A and finally transitioned into film production last month after well over a decade of wanting it. My Dad wasn’t happy about it but is kind of getting over it. It’s just so fun and fulfilling waking up and being excited about work every morning, though, man.
Love the username haha.
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