Why you need to give up and quit things early
There's arguably one key to breaking into IB, and that is persistence. You see it mentioned here over and over. Keep cold emailing, keep developing your skills, keep networking. Even once you're on the job, keep grinding, keep researching your next step, etc.
This article here dives into the topic of persistence and basically says it may be overrated. There is one thing in life that you'll never have more of, and that's time. Basically, any time you decide to do something, you sacrifice doing something else. The article centers around a disabled guy who seemingly has crushed it in life, but suffers from a condition which severely limits the amount of stuff he can get done in any one day. Thus, his reality was very much about choosing to do one thing over another.
This article actually dove into a few different places and I think it's worth the read. I think here on WSO we're all more or less ok with giving up watching TV or playing games to further our professional lives, but what if you realized that instead of grinding models 16 hours a day you could be becoming a master at something entirely different. It takes 10,000 hours to become world class at anything. If you put in even 10H a day, that's less than 3 years.
Do you guys ever stop and think if all this time put into your finance/consulting career is worth it? Do you stop and think about what you're giving up - not just nights out at the club, but the potential to gain and master other skills? If you're willing to work 16H a day, why do that in IB? Why not something else?
This is the question we've all been afraid of.
Do you mean, does opportunity cost exist? Yes, it exists.
10,000 hours theory from Outlier. Yes that is classic.
However, so what in the world are you mastering in instead? Coding? Data Science? What exactly is that?
The finance career is inherently for risk-averse individuals. Putting in 10,000 hours into art or a small business MIGHT yield a wild success, but carries a high chance of not working out. In finance, you put in a lot of hours, you get out a modest amount of money.
I take this a little too far.
Remember clearly how during an interview I just didn't feel a spark. Told the interviewer that it was nice speaking for the 10 minutes, and it'd be best to end the call.
Whenever people talk about time and trade-off and limitations, there are a few things that we are thinking subconsciously. And it is better to discuss those things instead, because it will help us to clear our thinking.
Death. Most of us are concerned about using our time wisely because we all make an assumption that we will live up to 80 years (average life expectancy). And everything centered around how we use our remaining hours so to speak. A few people will say things like I will spend my time from 25-45 building a career and then XYZ. But what if, you were to die before 80? Then wouldn't there be a lot of things remain left undone? Of course, then there are people who just gave up at trying in life like giving up short term gratification over long term goals; then these people when they do live pass the age of 40, they feel like they have not accomplished anything or even have access to basic needs; lack of money to sustain life.
What I am trying to propose if the following: - Assume that we are eventually going to die at age of 80 but we could also die via accident; so more or less, our time on this earth is not guaranteed; and be okay with that. - Assume that there is no heaven or hell at the end of our life time. Do as well as you can but don't try to live up to social expectation. If there is heaven and hell - if you have done your best, there is nothing much you can do to tip the scale so to speak. And if there weren't - you weren't compromising your life to live to social expectation as well; so it is fine. - Not having a complete picture in life is okay. Priority will change as we age. Not having everything figured out right now is okay. Most people in Finance have this sort of personality that they want everything under control. But in real life, there ain't. Throughout the years, what I have learned is that you can only put together a framework; if A happens, do B; if C happens, do D. - There was this story about filling things in a jar with stone, sand and water thing. The summary is that focus on the big pictures (career, health, family), then take some time to fill out complimentary things (hobby, spirituality, friends), and leave the remaining time for the least important things (pet, traveling). Of course, what is considered core and least important things will vary from individual to individual as well as for a particular person from time to time; but it is okay. - Have an internal review system. What I mean by that is compare only to yourself. Take time to be thankful for good things that happen to you rather than the bad things. Measure your own progress and set your own goals.
What an underrated comment. I agree with what you said. You should check out a blog called "wait but why" and more specifically the following article: http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html +1 SB
Few other skills pay as well as IB. And yes, I am very happy about giving up on watching useless TV.
Like others have said already, I think it is the risk averse nature of certain individuals that makes IB alluring. Sure, you could choose to practice playing basketball for 16 hours a day for 3 years, but if you're a 5'8'' white guy with average athleticism, your chances of going to the NBA and laughing to the bank are slim to none. Choosing investment banking provides a high likely risk to reward ratio being that the job is not particularly difficult (albeit stressful at times), however the average performer will be making double to triple median household income when he is 22. Not to mention the variety of options that are available to you afterwards.
While I enjoyed Naoki Hanzawa's comment about death (very introspective), I think we are beating a dead horse with the "is IB worth it" thread.
The 10,000 hours of "anything", whether it be finance, are skills. Skills that are used or can be used for other endeavors. It doesn't mean wasted time.
I have two comments on the 10,000 hour rule.
First, it only argues that the successful people in Gladwell's sample worked 10,000 hours. This is fundamentally different than the claim that if you work 10,000 hours, you will be successful. The first may be correct; the second statement cannot be inferred from Malcolm's research logically, because correlation does not equal causation.
Secondly, the academic support for the 10,000 hour is scarce. At best, the 10,000 hours of deliberate explains 1-26% of variance.. The worst critiques state that it is complete BS, the most positive academic support only holds that it explains a reasonable portion of individual performance (say 25%).
Thus, your original premise that if you would simply dedicate the hours you currently spend in consulting/banking to sports or creative endeavours you would be highly successful is not supported by Gladwell's logic or academic literature. Finally, you are really underestimating how important context is. In banking everyone works dog hours. I guarantee that if you would move to a corporate development group where people go home at six you would struggle to work as long, let alone spending 100 hours a week at a basketball court shooting hoops.
False, persistence is everything. If she wont lay you the first time you ask, take another frat lap around the bar and give her some time to crush another Kamikaze shot. Then buy her another drink and ask again. Still no? Take another frat lap, time is your friend, time correlates with drunkenness. Every second I'm alive on this planet I'm getting drunker, and so are the girls I'm trying to cop a handy from.
Poetic.
That only works in Uni, m'boy. Try that in an outside bar, and let's see your numbers then.
Also, TIL, Victoria's Secret's first store was inside Stanford University.
Do you guys ever stop and think if all this time put into your finance/consulting career is worth it?
All the time. Its because of the "grass IS greener" mentality I've adopted and also because my current role isn't going to open up the opportunities I'm seeking quite like an IB stint at GS or a consulting gig at an MBB will.
**Do you stop and think about what you're giving up - not just nights out at the club, but the potential to gain and master other skills? **
I do this also but not because I'm concentrating my time and effort on achieving my goal of breaking into IB or MBB. Its more about reflection on where I am in life, where I went wrong, and how drastically different my life would be had I done XYZ instead of ABC.
If you're willing to work 16H a day, why do that in IB? Why not something else?
I don't work 16H per day per se but if you combine my side business, volunteering, and taking Coursera courses or reading than yes, 16+H is the norm. I do this because I want to be a well-rounded individual and constantly train myself.
Getting a college degree and working until you're 60 is no longer "good enough." Being the natural pessimist I am I'm already seeing people become obsoleted by technology so fear is motivating me to work harder and train myself for the "What if."
This is exactly what goes on in the minds of most entrepreneurial types. I have seen a number of varied types of budding entrepreneurs who react differently when faced with this dilemma. And I'm fortunate enough to be buddies with all kinds of people - a good friend is a rich aristocrat, a couple of distant uncles are billionaires, another good friend is almost a billionaire, lots of friends in consulting and IB, and many with fucked up careers too.
From what I've seen, the ones who ended up being billionaires and close were almost always the ones with an entrepreneurial mindset from the start. They were willing to lose, and willing to gain too. Some of them had the family wealth to make it happen, most grew it over the years mainly in real estate, and some cashed out during the tech boom. But the common denominator was that they were willing to risk a significant amount to make it happen.
Next come the IB and consulting folks. These guys are often the ones who aced high school, went to top universities, maybe went to B schools like Harvard or GSB. These folks worked in IB or consulting, and in order to "escape the grind", decided to move out and create a startup after a couple of years - because it's one of the exit opps, right? Truth is, having a half-hearted approach to doing things in your own company isn't going to cut it. Plus the illusion of having a "safety net" to fall back into, which is prevalent in MBBs and BBs. That's why we don't see many of these folks create the billion-dollar companies that the media loves to tote.
Not to mention none of them will be successful - one notable example is Brian Slingerland, CEO of Stemcentrx. Grounded guy, ex-BB/EB MD, but quit the rat-race to create a billion dollar firm from scratch. Oh, and he's from VTech, not Harvard. And if you look closely, he was a serial entrepreneur like the former type of people - he was a cofounder at Qatalyst.
TL;DR:- You can only succeed if you've got that mindset to make a thriving profitable business. If you're looking at easy money, check out that McFarland guy instead (Fyre festival). Or a couple of no name VCs and startup folks in Silicon Valley.
Surprised to see a Brian Slingerland mention on here. I've searched high and low for information about him and come across very little. He should be a more frequently noted entrepreneur than he currently is.
Cutting your losses can sometimes be the best choice, but it can still be an incredibly difficult decision to execute. My previous job wasn't good for me on any fronts but I was terrified to leave, even after signing another offer. I look back now and have absolutely no regrets.
No point throwing good money after bad.
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