Has anyone's ambitious drive declined post-Covid?

In some ways yes, in some ways I think ambition needs to ebb and flow, you can't be super ambitious all day everyday. 

1. Doing something all the time at a high level can just lead to burn out of wear and tear. The mind is somewhat like a muscle, if you were at the gym super heavy squatting every day, you'd have issues after a while, same with the mind. 

2. I'd also say there has been a lot of financial gains for people over the past decade and couple of years, so maybe you have somewhat hit your number and maybe haven't fully realized it yet. 

3. Back to ebb and flow, sometimes you have the same level of ambition, you just spend it in different ways. If you only have your job, you can focus 100% on that. Add in a wife and two kids, to be fair to everyone, job, wife, kid, kid, each can only get 25% of your energy, so maybe ambition goes down. 

100%. The market has been so bad for the last four years that I’m losing faith. Mid 30’s with twins on the way so a career change isn’t likely at this point but boy was I hoping I would’ve been further along by now.

Graduated recently, feels like the money printer after COVID has distorted reality. 

Think I’m younger than some of the folks who commented so might be a helpful perspective. I started my work in May 2020 and moved into my current field Feb 2021. It’s hard to gauge what my ambition would have looked like in a workplace pre-covid as I only know post-covid. But if I look at how I worked in college v now, I’d say now is higher. But I’m slightly less risk-averse. I was super entrepreneurial in college and now, while I still have plans to one day take the leap, I like my job and my W-2. 
 

another thing I think about is I truly believe today’s workers are bifurcating - the inverse of a bell curve. It’s probably been a lot like this way all along but I’m just starting to notice, or maybe it’s more prevalent post-covid/ crazy phone addiction/mental health deterioration. But this pushes me to be on the right side of the bifurcation. My 2 cents anyways, I’ll take a double double and a fri.

I started FT post-covid, but the ambition completely died a few months into the job. Worked so hard to get into the industry, and when I join I am just being told what to do and don't actually do anything to use my brain. Felt like I've made it, and instead of progessing through better and better internships at bigger and bigger names, I'm at the top, and the path forward is to simply continue operating at this level and I will get steady raises going forward.

If so many of us on this site are intelligent, hard working, have already made enough to pay off our loans and have a decent amount of savings, why don't a bunch of us start some businesses and work on them together? Plenty of ppl on this site with enough ideas for everyone to find a business they can get behind. Perhaps we should start a thread or new section on this site specially for business ideas and people interested in joining can PM the OP. Once enough people are on board they can actually try kicking things off.

Everyone knows human capital is the hardest resource to acquire and here we all are with access to each other and same desires to do something exciting again. Would be a tremendous waste of we didn't use this site for this purpose.

Pretty simple in my mind (late 30's / early 40's):

When interest rates were low/stable and underwriting was straightforward, 2x effort led to 2x results and 2x compensation. 

When interest rates went through the roof (and you're blindfolded on underwriting/valuations/business plans and bid-ask spreads exploded), 5x effort led to 1.1x results and 1x compensation.  

So unless you're a psychopath with no concern for your return-on-effort and unlimited willpower, then it's demotivating.  Sure people put on a happy face at conferences, on calls, etc etc (and delude themselves about 'sentiment turning'), but it's just BS puffery (in an attempt to keep their jobs) if we're being honest.  Just look at transaction volume.  And those who are stepping up to do deals, there's a very decent chance they're catching a falling knife and will regret doing these deals for the sake of doing deals.  

So yeah, I'm getting in after 9, scrolling the interwebs multiple hours and leaving before 5 to hit golf balls.  

There is a lot of wisdom in this thread. I feel completely dead ass right now. I was a hustler and hard worker at a small shop and at my current firm for the last several years, but in the past 9 months, I’ve seen my brainpower and motivation sapped.

First off, with my wife and kids, I obviously feel more and more like work just isn’t the most important thing in my life. Others have articulated that well. 
 

I’m 36, in AM, at a firm where my responsibilities were once very rigorous but are less so now. I’ve always tried to take on more and to be a good resource, and my reputation is good AFAIK. But at the end of last year, I got caught up in some dumb office politics bullshit at work. My boss backed me up, which was good, but my assignment changed and I’m pretty sure that I was put on a “can’t handle the hard ones” track - which is unfair bullshit because I have always handled harder deals well.

Now, my current portfolio needs very little minding. It’s cushy but it’s also hard to carve out much of a path to advance when you’re on a quiet/less challenging assignment. I feel as though Ive gotten worse at office politics for some reason. I tend to thrive on open conversation and collaboration and my shop is oddly both laid back yet clannish and people don’t tend to communicate well. I feel like I don’t fit in.

I honestly feel stupider now. Prior assignments and jobs had me hustling to figure stuff out and the time flew by. Now, I feel like I’m just herding cats and sending emails all day. 
 

Call me out if you wish, but I don’t have that grindset mindset that a lot of the more cutthroats bros here have. I saw a very insightful comment the other day. Someone said that you go into this business to learn it so that you can do it yourself, or you end up a corporate drone. I am never going to have the means to do that while preserving the lifestyle I want to have in terms of attention to my family, etc. I don’t come from money and have had to save and live more frugally. So for me, it’s corporate drone living, I guess.
 

I’ll also echo that a contributing factor is that all the deals out there suck right now. My faith in this entire REPE establishment is at an all time low, perhaps unfairly, I admit. Our acquisitions team underwrites very unrealistically, with huge revenue numbers and low expenses that I know we are never going to be able to hit. Our valuations are artfully spun so as to be positive while still being defensible each quarter. A lot of the financial data that we traffic in and rely on just feels artificial and massaged to the point of irrelevance. It’s made me feel intellectually and philosophically dead inside, unable to mentally engage since I know most of the premises we are working under are bullshit. Our 2022 vintage of purchases are performing almost comically poorly versus their inflated and unrealistic UW.

You bet your ass that I’m prioritizing WLB. I will never be unavailable, and pride myself on being there when called on, but I’m currently going with the flow and I’m not working late or anything. Why put in extra hours and brown nose? My team is too heavy, and as a firm, we have way more people than other firms I’ve been at (surprisingly so - we seem to hire when all others are laying off). 

Maybe a change would help me get my fire back, or a new batch of responsibilities. I sometimes fear being in my 40s and being that guy who isn’t as far along as he should be. But on other days, I think to myself, what’s wrong with being that guy in his 40s who has free time, a decent paycheck, and perhaps only an average standing in the estimation of a bunch of people who don’t really give a fuck about him anyways? I like my coworkers but I’m past the point where I’m making serious personal friends at work and if I left they’d all forget me immediately. 

For sure. I used to be ambitious, stay late at work, and chase career growth, but not anymore. I work from home now in a very flexible (but very boring) job where I’m paid fairly well, and I could never go back to the office full time. I have accepted that this will likely limit my career growth. That said, the job market is terrible so even if I wanted a change, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. I have no desire to put the effort in to change jobs anyway or to take a pay cut for a career change. The thought of having to network my way into a new job or career is nauseating. I’m almost certainly in a state of burnout and I should probably take a sabbatical, but my situation is too good to leave.

I unfortunately derive no satisfaction from work besides the paycheck. I’m beyond tired of staring at screens all day. If I could drop down to 3 or 4 days of work a week I would do it in a second. It seems that the reward for going above and beyond is more work, so I’m disincentivized from working too hard. I work just hard enough and my work product is always good. I’m mid 30s for reference and can’t imagine putting more than another 5 or 10 years into this career.

I am ambitious outside of work when it comes to my hobbies and this is where I try to find fulfillment.

same boat. i think part of the demotivator for me was covid and the work from home impact it had. now i'm semi pema work from anywhere and i go to the gym when i can during the day and log off whenever i'm done. most free time ive had and most piece of mind i've had. 

dont get me wrong, i'm still looking to move up / keep going, but i've also had the thought of: this isn't so bad, good (not great) income, okay (not good) job security in a pod, but my boss leaves me alone and i'm mostly a one man shop day to day. 

think close to leaving the days behind of moving city for another job / starting over. harder when you have a family, mortgage, close friends, etc. 

mid 30s fwiw, been in "high finance" (i cringe at that term) since graduation. not where i want to be yet, but goal posts keep moving, which is natural.

Life has ups and downs.  Ambition isn't the only thing.  For a certain small percent of people, nothing is more important to them then bossing other people around and waging war against others of their type.  The human race is steadily weeding them out of the genome but for the rest of us, you have periods of ambition and periods where other priorities come into play.  Starting a family changes you.  COVID changed everything.  Plus as you age your brain changes and you prioritize different things.  Ambition does tend to strike people as their kids get older and they have the headspace for more work, so that's a thing.  I've seen it over and over with execs that have a kid go off to college and suddenly start shooting up the higher ranks because they're not going to school plays or sports games or whatever, so they start putting in the extra hours at work.

I can share in my own life, I made it a point to 'acculture' myself to the income class I'm in now.  This is my new normal, and the new normal for my children.  I'll probably get super ambitious in a few years, and probably in a different industry (not sharing that bit) but for now I want to make sure this is the new 'floor'.  Maybe it's a function of making more money than anyone in my family history ever did, but I want to lock in the gains.  Maybe I'll own a Lambo in a few years, maybe not, but for the rest of my life I'm able to by a new Lexus in cash when I need a new car.  It's weird to think that I still see myself as a small fry compared to industry titans but I have a godlike amount of money compared to people I grew up with - they can't imagine flying to Europe for a week on a whim, etc...

Narrowing this down: COVID gave most people something they've never had.  A chance to pause and reflect on their life.  America keeps you so busy producing and buying that you generally don't look at the big picture.  What am I doing with my life?  Is this how I want to spend the handful of years I have on this earth?  Can I do better.....for myself?  I know a lot of people who redefined their idea of "success" during COVID.  Society says buying a better car/house/watch/etc is the metric for success but there's far more to life than spending more money on status symbols.  What's a successful life?  More time with family?  Free time?  Producing art or spending the time making music?  Working at a charity?  Learning to hunt?  Finally going out on my own and starting a business?  A LOT of people are grappling with that now that otherwise would have continued to be good little corporate serfs had they not had some downtime to look around.

Frankly COVID is the best thing that ever happened to a lot of people. 

Remember: in a thousand years, everything you see will be gone, virtually no one will be remembered, and humans might not even exist.  You're currently caught up chasing money, and everyone around you is drinking deep the cultural koolaide of amewika.  It's good to have goals, but in the big picture: NONE OF THIS MATTERS.  So you have to ask yourself: what matters to me?

That's just my take, let the WSO autists all throw poo and tell me I'm wrong.

I certainly work less today than I did five years ago. Some of that might be a hangover from COVID, but my life changed as well. I'm married, have two kids...life is different and working from 9 to 7 or 8pm means that I would only be seeing my kids for 30 minutes in the morning and on the weekends. It's just not what I want, and work isn't asking that of me either. My wife works...has a good job...I have to co-parent (I also want to). I do feel that sometimes that is a foreign concept for older people in the industry. Picking up your kids from daycare or staying home with them when they are sick is just not something the bread winner of the house was expected to do 25 years ago. Does that make me lazy or unmotivated? No, but it does take away from work. 

I find myself thinking about work more than ever, though. I would be flat out embarrassed if my family ever realized how much I am thinking about work. It's constant, and I am well aware it's selfish and not healthy. That's definitely something that I want/need to get better at. I just can't separate work from the rest of my life. 

Covid made me realize how important health is. 

Not slamming on IB bros. However, what's the point of 6 figures if your job is so demanding you get diabetes and die early anyway etc... 

The post-covid money printer and inflation has made me a lot more skeptical of this entire system, tbh. Like building wealth and grinding hard feels more pointless if it can all be destroyed by the Fed, or the next global crisis or government borrowing, or whatever. 

For me, as a 42 year old, two kids and plenty of ups and downs along the way, I have lost some of the ambition and risk taking attitude.  There are more important things in my life, mainly spending time with kids and maintaining health, and living in peace.
 

Valuing Peace & Positivity: Being involved in expensive lawsuits and business wars gives you the appreciation for “peacetime.”  While you spend a lot of money on lawyers, you also lose yourself into the hostility.  You can lose years of your life mentally.  Having a free mind that is positive and not carrying the weight of endless strategic positioning, is priceless.  I can be present.
 

Relationship with Money: Having some financial security and actually thinking how compounding can be your friend, makes you think how money can work for you - rather than you working for the money.  

Our Bodies Are Here Today Gone Tomorrow: Having cared for my dad who had a stroke and a long journey with dementia, makes me care about how I can live a more healthy life (quality of health span).  My dad once had a big strong body and muscular calves being a former football player.  In the last years and days of his life, I saw his leg dangling from the hospital bed, super skinny and light, as if his knee joint wasn’t there.  No more big calves that I admired when I was a kid.  I realize in my 40’s, I have a narrowing window of time to gain more muscle. So, I gained 20 pounds in the past 12 months from going to the gym more (also drinking protein and feeling less stress).  

Titles Not Titties: I work from home doing what I know very well, but I don’t care about titles and if work pays me low enough, I hope it justifies giving me less work to do, but our company is growing so there is more and more work. 
 

A motto that will never leave me due to prior long term unemployment during the GFC: “busy is good”

I’m still that “busy is good” guy but I now have more responsibilities beyond work. I’m grateful to be working, don’t get me wrong.

I’ve had a higher title when I owned my own company and now that I work for other people again, I don’t care about titles anymore.  In fact, I’d rather have less liability, less HR and investor and partner relations complications.  Just pay me, let me do a good job, treat me like a professional, leave me alone, and let me do my creative pursuits.  In return, I’ll deliver more value than I take.
 

My Hero’s are not who I thought they were: I think a lot of this losing ambition feeling is from losing the sense of unfettered worship for the captains of industry or those who you feel you should envy career and money wise.  I’ve sat in the partners’ chair, worked with other owners, and see the same thing over and over - selfishness, wanting more, disregard for people, willingness to cut out others, short term thinking, recency bias, and mix that in with personality disorders, health scares that create more short term thinking.  I think of all the high profile founders, what happened to their co-founders - how they disappeared - how people changed or showed their true colors, how the mission changed. My general observation is that “nobody gives a s*** about you.” I’ve realized that I’ve put my family through a lot and that they give a s*** about me.  
 

Alligators: I reflect that I put my hand in an alligator’s mouth, grabbed a bunch of cash, and pulled my hand out without losing it.  I’ve taken massive risks that I justified as betting on myself.  I convinced my wife during the bad times to focus on the long term.  I’m more afraid to take risks again and again - why would I?  I was lucky once, twice. When do I stop?  The feeling is now. Btw, I stopped riding bicycles after getting hit by an out of control Chevy Silverado head on.  I gave my lucky outcome a 20% probability.  I’ve stopped riding bikes.  Same thing. 20% outcomes can do that to you. 
 

“Mid Life Reflection”: It’s a big coping mechanism that I should feel contentment, but I think it is showing wisdom as well.  Both my wife and I are 42, and our 7 year cycle is starting a new one.  35-42 was a lot of sacrifice, I did not travel internationally on vacation for 7 years while starting some businesses; this year I’ve been aboard twice with the family (Italy, Korea, China).  I’ve missed weddings and reunions because I was unemployed, and I will try not to miss those (attended my 25th reunion in Hawaii this year).  I call people up.  I email people to show my appreciation. Wish them a good weekend.  Thank them for hiring me.  Show gratitude. Who knows, people can die tomorrow.  Don’t wait.
 

I realize that I have just one more 7 year cycle with my oldest who is 10 years old, and 10 years left with my youngest, before they graduate grade school.  That time seems so fleeting. 
 

WFH Changed Me: When I was working for corporate, I used to work at the office everyday.  I’d get home at 9pm or 10pm, but my oldest we would keep her up until 10:30pm when she was 2 years old, so I would have half an hour to an hour with her.  The cheap window blinds that we bought would have holes from falling apart because she would bend them back to look out the window to look for me to come home.  WFH has been a blessing.  Now the kids come home to me after school or I pick them up.
 

So, is it that your level of Ambition has decreased, or you realized that what you were seeking was an illusion?  Maybe the journey was supposed to lead you here, in your special way. 
 

Thank you all for sharing.  Thanks for reading. 

Absolutely. Almost all of this is noise, they can have it. I'll do my duties, get my check and hopefully retire in my 50s. Easier said that done but its simply not interesting or fun anymore. I look around my org, noone is happy no matter how much they make 

I grinded to get the prestigious REPE fund job in my 20s. Now I’ve had it for a few years and I really struggle to give a shit. I just want to make $200k and work 8:30-5:30 Monday through Friday. I don’t need to work all weekend or all night for an extra $100k per year (50k after taxes). 
 

problem is no jobs are open right now. Would love to semi retire to a lifeco but they don’t even pay $200k, more like $140k for associates 

Guess my situation is a little different. I'd quickly regain motivation if the market self-corrected. But after two years of my team underwriting and trying to get deals to pencil, I'm more or less giving up until somethings changes (or breaks). Either this happens or the company I work for will have to close up shop due to lack of deals/fees coming through the door.

I'm 41 with no wife and no kids, in a city with a very tough dating scene that has gotten exponentially more expensive since COVID. It has been deflating as I felt like I was getting ahead a little bit and the COVID money printer derailed that. I have money invested (via 1031) in deals bought in 2021/2022 that I'll inevitably lose, as well. COVID really wrecked things for me and just intensified my loathing for D.C. politicians.

I know it sounds cliche, but comparison is the thief of joy and everything is relative. I agree with everything that's been said here. I've found that COVID forced me to face the fact that working is not living, and that you have to have a good balance to be happy, no matter how much you're getting paid. Even if it doesn't seem like it all the time. 

Obviously, '24-'25 has been slow, and while it's starting to pick up, I used this summer to travel as much as possible and leave if I was done with work, because when the cycle resets, I know I'll be super busy then and will want to be in order to achieve my goals and definition of success. But you have to have those lulls to avoid getting burnt out. In RE, specifically, it's not a business where you can just keep grinding on a spreadsheet till 2am to get something done. Sometimes, especially as a developer, you've got everything out to consultants/partners/municipalities, and it's time to just sit and take care of the other half of your life that isn't work. At times, I've felt I'm being lethargic, but then I realize that I have to appreciate moments in time like this and reflect on it in order to really excel when things get going again.

Everyone is different of course, but this line of thinking is how I've come to terms with some of what I think you're describing. 

Those of you that replied to this thread...do you think you're less ambitious now, because your dreams just aren't big enough?

For example, if you're goal was to get to partnership/director/VP level or at least close, and you come close to it, I think your certainly less motivated to continue growing given you've come within striking distance to accomplishing your ultimate goal. BUT, if your goal was to say, build a company the size of Related, Hines, Starwood, etc, you're likely to stay more ambitious, longer, until you can get closer to achieving Billionaire status. 

No way, I am pushing harder than ever!

Living life post covid is more fun. I'm in a good spot career wise. Time to live!

What a great thread. I remember following the careers of some of the commenters in here from ~10 years ago, and it's amazing to see how similar each of our trajectories have been. We started as bright-eyed kids ready to take over the world, only to learn that those developers we once admired are really just greedy, divorced assholes that we despise.

...I can't say I've lost motivation "post-covid" due to covid, but rather, alot of life has happened since 2020 and my priorities have changed. Since covid I've bought a house, gotten married, and now we have 2 kids.  I think what tends to happen when these milestones occur is that it puts a premium on what's important in life.

Combine that with a few professional reality checks along the way and you have a recipe for a big "fuck off" to what you thought was a "dream" career. Since 2020 I was able to work a job that I thought was my dream, only to find out that it was a terribly managed firm with a selfish CEO who re-traded me on comp once I hit my targets. Then you look around and realize that most CRE firms have the same setup, where a family resides in the executive suite, with nepotism and family drama in tow. At a certain point you realize your job is solely to make this rich family richer. It's a bitter, sobering realization.

Nonetheless, the beauty is that I've learned how political corporate life can be, and I've been able to move from CRE development and acquisitions to a more stable role in AM where I clear $240k a year and dont have to open my computer after 4:00pm. Oh, and no weekend work as well. I can't stress how much this increase in time has led to an exponential increase in happiness not only for me, but my family.

Life is good, and I hope each of you is able to find your own happiness. 

Would I do it again? Without a doubt. I still know that fire is in me to own my own properties one day, but for now, nothing makes me happier than being a great husband to my wife and a great father to my kids.

Cheers.

I’ve definitely felt it but mine is less Covid-related and rather just discovering about the whole “financial freedom/passive income” idea (yes I drank that kool aid). When I first started my career I wanted to be the next Scott Rechler but now all I want is ~$50k/month in post-tax net cash flow coming in. My goal is to get to that in the next 5 years — if I can do that by advancing my career to the VP level (anything above that is bureaucratic and political), getting some basic carry, and investing into cash flowing properties with some equity potential — I’ll be all set.

Idk how people can sustain wanting to climb the corporate ladder and deal with all the bs that comes with it. But to each their own.