Where do I go from here
At the risk of getting ahead of myself, I think I'm about to be at a career crossroads and I have no idea what to do next. Here is some background info:
Age: 32
Degree: Mech Engineering from large state school with decent rep, not a finance target school though
Work Exp:
- 2013-2017 large independent E&P co doing a variety of engineering funcitons in an early career training program
- 2017-2018 PE Backed portco, small oil company. Successful exit in 2018 netted me ~$650k
- 2018-present Same PE backed portco (just added a 2 to the name of the company and ran it back). Anticipating another successful exit this year that will net me ~$1.4 but will only get to keep ~700-800k (don't get divorced kids)
I currently work a very soft "40 hours" per week, in reality it is much much less. I am good at my job and have found ways to make it easy for myself. My total comp has gone up steadily and is $229k this year, and the equity has obviously worked out well. Joining this company has been the best career decision I ever made from a compensation and work/life balance, but my skills have gone stagnant. We have 6 employees and I am the only engineer so I have not continued to learn and develop skills as you do in a large competitive company.
Net worth after this next exit will be around 2-2.5mil at age 32, but I have a pretty good indication that we aren't gonna run it back again. The CEO and President will each have netted close to 20 mil out of the 2 sales and I think just don't want to keep coming to work every day, plus our business model will not be as successful going forward.
I have always been interested in finance, but I think I am too soft to commit to breaking into high finance with the grueling hours if I am really honest with myself. I feel a stirring inside me to go do something meaningful, to find or create a job that will make me happy and also provide a good living. I don't like my current job, but it is easy and pays me very well for the amount of effort. I have only lived in Texas my whole life and have thought a lot about living elsewhere. I love the energy of big cities, but also enjoy skiing and being outdoors, etc. But my family is in Texas.
I have considered getting an MBA and did well on the GMAT (770 in 2016) but that score is expired and I'm on the older side of normal for going to get an MBA, and I feel like post-MBA salaries would be a step back. I guess I have to realize that most jobs I can get would be a step back in terms of compensation.
Here are some things I love, maybe writing them down will help me gain some inspiration:
- Dining/cooking/mixology - in an online cooking club and participate every week
- Personal finance - have always enjoyed learning about how money works and making it grow
- Technology - have always been a "gadget-y" type and have learned/taught myself to code some but definitely not qualified to be a developer
- Travel - very into the points game and always planning the next trip and figuring out how to spend as little cash for the bougiest experience possible
I'm not really sure why I'm writing this or what I'm expecting to come from it. I am grateful for the position I am in but I'm a pretty anxious person and thinking about the next phase of my life is starting to really eat at me. I am a planner and have always had a vision for what's next, but this time I am at a loss.
So what should I do?
you're thinking too short term. write out goals in 1, 5, and 10 year time frames, narrative form. not just career, family and life too. do you want to be married again? do you want kids? where do you want to live?
see what bubbles to the top (what's important will tend to resurface in each time period), and then pull on that thread. let's say you've always wanted to own your own business, when do you need to start working on that? what about if your goal is to become a chess grandmaster or learn a new language? I say this because a lot of times when we feel lost, it's because we have a million different directions to go and each of them seems good. only when you put things in long term plans and focus on your priorities will you see where you should guide your focus.
do this exercise a couple more times (find one thing in your narrative that needs work and work on it). check in with yourself annually or every 2y to see how you're progressing.
what I would aim to figure out if I were you is the following:
and then at the end of that, if it were me and I didn't have a huge need to not do this (like a spouse, kids or something), I'd take 6-12 months off and travel. me personally, I'd buy a 4WD tacoma/tundra, put a snorkel on it, and surf my way from Alaska to Chile. or maybe that thing is the long route of the camino del santiago, maybe it's spending back to back ski seasons in USA and then in south america, whatever. I would use your travel hacking prowess to explore without an expiration date for a while
TLDR - think long term, go from abstract ideas down to tactics, focus on priorities, and highly consider a sabbatical
This is great, thank you. Goal setting is an important skill that I should practice more. To this point I have been a bit haphazard with my main goals being "make money" and "have fun".
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