When do you stop sacrificing and start being happy?
Maybe this is more geared to the older monkies on this forum, but id love for anyone to chime in if you provide some meaningful perspective. I’m in my last year of university, and to this point, I feel like I’ve sacrificed a lot just to maybe get a shot. These past couple of years have flown by, and I feel like I haven’t been living life. To make matters worse, I’m graduating late (changing majors, transferring). Im just hitting the books, rolling over in the mornings and signing on to work, prepping for interviews in my free time, etc etc. Ive come to the realization that this might not change when I start working. I’d be very hard pressed to say I’m happy, and I don’t know that a larger number in the atm is going to alleviate this. I don’t look forward to anything anymore and it just feels like I’ve been grinding. I know sacrifice is necessary, but at what point is enough, enough ?How do I start living again?
It ultimately comes down to what you value.
Many people on here value and prioritize career success. I am sure that for some of them what you consider sacrifice is what they like because it leads them to accomplishing that personal goal.
I used to be extremely career ambitious too. When a close family member passed, my values changed. I decided that the “sacrifice” wasn’t worth it because what you are sacrificing is time, our most valuable resource. I value my work/life balance too much to sacrifice for a small marginal increase in $. There are plenty of careers, including within finance, that offer enough compensation and enable you to enjoy your life outside of work.
The sacrifice should end when you find something that shares your personal values as long as it is at least adequate in its other factors (compensation, role, etc). The values are a lot more meaningful and are much stronger indicators of whether you will be happy.
Similar situation here man. I have somebody close to me on their deathbed and that’s what got me second guessing everything. I think what makes it tough for me is that I do want to be wealthy. I grew up poor and my parents were immigrants. Every fight my parents ever had was about money. I feel like I owe it to them and my future family to be very well off.
This forum and banking in general skews heavily towards middle to upper middle class so they will not understand the struggle and suggest a work life balance but I grew up poor as shit with immigrant parents so I understand the need for money.
If your primary goal is strictly to become wealthy do not follow this golden path spewed by ignorant undergrads. It is all one mirage about prestige and fulfilling someone else's definition of success. You need to either start, invest or acquire a business that can scale well in a growing industry that has minor risks.
Obviously easier said than done but that is truly the only way to make incredible amounts of money. Maybe you need to do stints in banking and pe to gain the experience and capital before moving to a cushy role that will allow you to use that capital but hedge your risks in case you fail. Maybe you do not care and want to become the next Leon Black but you're going to need a ruthless approach of getting to that spot or start your own fund in the belief of being an early player to a new billion dollar industry in order to gain the trust of the LP.
TLDR - A lot of ways to make $$$$
First time post. I’ve worked in banking and investment/private equity.
You’re right that it doesn’t get easier. Your intuition is communicating with you. As you walk further along the road, the voices become louder and the grind becomes harder.
The grind/process should be what makes you fulfilled and happy. If it’s not doing so, you need to change what you’re doing or do something else.
Don’t believe the herd BS that success and money is a good bet in finance. The majority of those in industry are extremely risk conservative financially (antithesis to wealth-creation and this will grate at you if you are not) and live upper-middle to middle class lives. Great if you want this, but it’s not financial wealth.
You can achieve success in almost any field by working hard, having some talent and capitalising on opportunities. But if you want happiness, you must absolutely derive fulfilment in the grind for what it is you’re working at.
This makes all the sense in the world. It’s funny, because as helpful as this site is, I do feel like I’m competing with all these people I’ve never met in order to fit their idea of success. I come on here regularly to check what people think of x firm, and what material everybody else is studying etc etc. I guess the hard part is finding the grind the brings me joy. I don’t want to sit on my hand because I haven’t found it, however.
You’re saying mid level to senior people in private equity live middle class lives ?
Would love to hear from people that have derived a lot of satisfaction and fulfillment from their careers - how did you find what made you happy and successful? What decisions did you make?
I decided to stop working for others and letting them use my capital for their gain. If your young without too many obligations to family etc financially, then you need to risk it if you want the ultimate reward. I won't get into details but there's a reason there's so many fuckin boutique / EB's founded by ex-BB heads
i'm more miserable the more i make
Can't tell if this is tongue in cheek or not...but why is that? Are you sacrificing considerably more time for only a marginal amount of money?
Not a ton more time but more shit to worry about. I keep taking on more properties and doing more shit but I already have everything I could realistically want any time soon materially. So I don't even know why I do it. Oh right. To pay all this fucking overhead I decided I needed to run a family. Which I kind of do. But yeah basically just a lot of bullshit in exchange for at this point just numbers in my investment account and nothing tangible for my life. And a lot of it is just personal shit tbh having nothing to do with business
Prospect and am curious too. Bookmarked.
Faced this conundrum a year into PE and it has been knocking louder than ever now that I'm about to move onto my third year. Basically my head has aligned with my general intuition that despite my ability to grind and work my ass off, it's not really something I want to do going forward both in the near future and later in life. I knew that I'd live the majority of my twenties tethered to a desk and have done so for quite a while upon entering banking but now having been self-aware of the fact that I plain don't like planning my life around work things, I'm geared towards finding a "lifestyle" or "happy" role. Now ideally I'd like the least amount of pay cut and the best trade for work-life balance but hey you can't always have the best of both worlds lol. But still I strive to find this mythical job
Same exact boat bro. You considering trying a smaller fund before exiting completely? Headed back to school?
Same boat but honestly don’t think there is a linear relationship between fund size and work hours, if anything at a small fund you might grind just as hard (albeit on different things) since there are less people / resources. I’ve come to the conclusion that there truly isn’t a job that pays well with a path to increasing income and has good work / life balance. Maybe a hedge fund, but you need a lot of confidence in your abilities and at the end of the day may have more hours out of the office, but still insane stress given the constant mark to market / risk of a fund blowing up
You are not alone.
This is pretty common with everyone at a given point. I love what I do and right now I'm stressed to the max. Woo good times. All I can tell you is keep going or change directions. It's entirely up to you, but to repeat, everyone feels demoralized/depressed and even just fucking miserable with their lives at some point. Be thankful for what you have and access how you want to move forward. We're all gonna make it
For me, it was when I got out of that school/analyst/associate grind and my day to day had actual meaning. When your work isn't mindless memorization or busy work, you get that sense of real accomplishment that can be like crack to a high achiever.
All that said, I've never been someone who is 100% all in on school or work, so I can't emphasize enough the importance of having friends, hobbies, significant others, families, vacations, etc.
No idea dude but fwiw I make half a mil a year and still hate my life.
Hit up the gym, set goals, challenge yourself. Repeat.
That's tough man. Do you have back breaking/unfulfilling work? Or what do you think causes this ?
I think I just have a very low tolerance for people full of shit.
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