You know when your looking for a career you try to find something:
You enjoy
And
You're good at .
What do you do when you're not really good at anything and you have no passions and you wanna make enough money to keep being upper middle to upper class?
I'm willing to work hard tho so at least that's a plus but I know not much of one.
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Looks like INVESTMENT BANKING is exactly what you're looking for
See, I was scared of this answer...
Define passion. I don't know too many people who have a true passion for what they do, the ones I do know are artists or athletes. I know one business owner and he loves what he does, I guess they have a passion for building their business (even though it's not that sexy). In finance, I don't know anyone who has a passion like that. It even sounds kind of funny saying "I have a passion for finance."
So with that, does nothing in finance interest you at the very least. I always thought my "passion" was medicine, I wanted to be a neurosurgeon when I was in highschool and then it became engineering, I wanted to work for SpaceX or Lockeheed Martin but that faded too. I wasn't willing to put in the work to achieve either of those things and I didn't care for them beyond the percieved "coolness" of the jobs. With finance and more specfically real estate, it's actually fun to me, I enjoy my internship and the people I work with, the career path I want is something I am working hard to get. So maybe I'm not "passionate" but I am very interested in the job, like to learn as much as I can and looking forward to a career in the industry.
But that's just me. As for you, why are even in finance? Just because the pay is good? There are other industries that pay well. I don't really know where I'm going with this but find something that interests you and see where you can go from there. If nothing else, go into IB, get some bonses and become financially independent and then go do what you want when you're like 45.
I was kinda afraid of this answer.
I guess I could "generate" an interest ( the thought of buying and selling and merging companies is sort of cool) but the only other interest I had beforehand was "Suits" and "Billions" like. (I am aware that those shows aren't in any way realistic)
The only other interest I had was Econ but the more math and stats I do the more I want out of this major. I'm hoping it gets better when I get out of my theory classes.
I hate coding so CS is off the table. If I fuck up in Law or Medicine the consequences are extremely severe (not to mention the investment of even getting in). I was like you and thought about engineering ( in high school I was pretty good at science and math) but I just couldn't see myself in an engineering role (Hence why I'm an Econ major).
So I guess the IB work till I'm old then live from there route is the only one I have left (and that's if I make it in).
Thanks for the advice tho. Really appreciate it. Our experiences have actually been pretty similar.
I guess there are things you just have to power through to get where you want, boring shit you don’t want to do but the end result is worth it. If you don’t like banking, don’t pretend. Working as much as bankers do is hard if you don’t have some end goal in mind besides collecting checks. Plus whatever “interest” you might have generated will get thrown out the window when fixing whatever little shit you messed up in PowerPoint at 2am.
Go be a porn star. If you can’t perform in front of a camera, be the director. Go to Hollywood and try your luck. Earn money in banking then go finance movies, become a producer/media mogul. I don’t know dude, just throwing stuff out there.
In a career, usually there are three factors:
- What you’re good at
- What you’re passionate about
- What makes you money
Usually people get 2/3 or maybe 2.5/3, but if you follow your passion you may be able to get 3/3. Think of someone like Warren Buffett hitting 3/3 or Mother Teresa hitting 2/3 (no money for her).
The key is to follow your passion. Some people have families and have to sacrifice their happiness for money in a job they hate. Whatever the case, it’s important to think of these three things in career navigation.
Thx for the advice man.
The thing is tho: what if you have no passion? should you just do anything?
If you have no passion, it is your duty to research and find one. Read a lot of books, travel, do things that challenge yourself and you should find it.
IB may be too intense for you. I'd say corporate finance or corporate strategy in the industry would be better.
I was thinking this too ngl.
The horror stories are starting to get to me.
i thought thats how you became a consultant?
Low-key considering that route. Is it too late for me?
Passion is overrated and arbitrarily non existent if you do not actively seek it. People typically become passionate by being average at something and pursuing that something for a decent amount of time to achieve mastery.
Rumi- "As you walk on the way, the way appears."
Start taking more risk and start learning from your mistakes. Figure out what you want out of life and why you want your life to be lived this way. "Why" is a very important question when you are looking for meaning in your life.
if you don't have passion I'd just get the best paying job you have skills to succeed at and relentlessly try new shit
one month it may be chess, next month martial arts, then art, then language, then volunteering, then writing, then coding, and so on.
you may not find it right away, but the pursuit is a helluva lot of fun, you'll learn a ton about yourself
Damn thats pretty good advice.
Thx man
don't beat yourself up about not having passion, so many kids are told to just study hard study hard study hard and plus you're young so you have no clue what the hell you want. embrace curiosity, don't feel bad about trying something and then going "nah that's lame." it's way more productive and fun to live an examined life than follow whatever predetermined path people told you to go on.
How possible do you think it is to work a demanding career and find fulfillment/passion outside work?
Edit: and also do family shit and stay healthy, get enough sleep and not go crazy all while busting your ass at work
Maybe the key is to do stuff that hits multiple areas...like play chess with your kid or hit the gym with your buddy. I guess I'm just scared of having to balance all this stuff in the future. I want to achieve career success and provide for my family while also enjoying life
difficult to tell you exactly how possible it is because so much depends on job, location, etc. let me tell you my story a bit
once I became client facing, it was hard. I didn't work IB hours, but was 100% commission and essentially ate what I killed. still kept workout discipline but social life suffered. the good news is many of my friends were also early in career so we'd all commiserate and still do friday beers + saturday debauchery, even if we were constantly working off 5-6 hours of sleep. so those early years I had to sacrifice sleep a bit.
more recently, it's gotten easier. I sleep 7-8 hours a night, exercise daily, spend a lot of time with my wife and family, and tend to my habits (at the moment surfing and language are at the top), and doing well professionally. I think it's less about what job you have/what you do do and more about what you DONT do, so this addresses the "how easy is it?" part. it's easy if you're willing to cut things out of your life. but your life will be miserable if you try to do it all.
for example I don't go out late at night unless it's a bachelor party or guys weekend, I don't do social media outside of WSO, I maybe watch 2 hours of TV a day (30 mins in morning, 90 mins of shows/movies with wife at night), and I don't watch much sports either anymore, maybe once a week. so I guess you could say my "sacrifice" is social media, shows, and the subsequent group chats where all my friends seem to care about is GoT or LeBron or something else. in my mind, that's a favorable trade. I've also designed my life to be simple and low maintenance. I've got a find house but not one that needs constant attention. I don't enjoy shopping or material possessions so that saves a ton of time, stuff like that.
so back to your original question - working a demanding career and finding fulfillment/passion outside work. it's all about identifying and then honoring your priorities. fulfillment for me is being able to tend to my responsibilities, grow professionally, and still have time to dedicate to my various passions at the moment. I spend time journaling and thinking about how I can do that and more often than not it just causes me to rearrange my schedule. I'm fortunate that I'm in a place where I have a lot of autonomy, so maybe that's why I don't find it difficult (though I didn't always feel this way, for years I wanted to do it all!), so I can't tell you how easy it will be for YOU.
what I will say is this - spend time thinking. spend time with yourself. spend time reflecting. what do you actually care about? what is important for you? when you identify your priorities, it'll become easier to cut things out of your life that don't further those priorities.
Thanks for the detailed response, extremely insightful. I definitely have some thinking to do. I know that a lot of this stuff you learn through experience, but is there anything you read or a philosophy you adopted that went into developing the balance of your life/priorities? Obviously it varies and will come down to what I, myself, value. I don't think I worded that quite right, but hopefully you see what I'm asking.
short answer is yes, but I can't tell you in a WSO comment everything over the past 10 years that's shaped how I currently think. I don't want to rush a response to let me think on this and come back with more details.
full disclosure, I will ramble. blame glenfiddich though ;)
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