When I turned 25 in 2021, a boss at the time excitedly told me it would be the best year of my life – I don’t think that happened. It was a unique year though. I had solidly been in the career start phase of my life for a little over 3 years. I was in San Francisco after moving from NYC – and really I (maybe lazily) just thought it would continue that way for a while longer.
I was still a part of Wall Street, just not on Wall Street. I was doing things that were new for me (becoming more of an ‘investor’ after being on the ‘sell-side’ aka an advisor that gets paid for the advice it gives to big companies). Truthfully, up to that point, I was never really an advisor or even an investor – I was learning about advising, investing, and finance while completing my actual job of processing data and information. Making presentations, getting comfortable with excel, wrangling numbers, becoming super efficient – this is where one learns finance. Getting good was fun – I’ve always enjoyed a good challenge and finance took me a while to crack, but when you get good enough – what’s next?
Obviously, you get promoted to a slightly higher role – taking on new, different kinds of work, directing the younger guard as to how to do the things you had been focused on earlier. If you are savvy enough, this process sort of continues until there aren’t any more promotions – and maybe then you’ve ‘made it’? I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to roll the dice on seeing what my final conclusion would be 15-20 years from now.
That’s when I reached a sort of mental tipping point in the summer of 2022 – I finally acknowledged the question that had been lingering here and there but wasn’t concrete – am I happy? First, I won’t fully define happiness, but briefly I will put it as being genuinely excited to get up and do what you do on the day to day – whatever that is. Am I happy? The answer was no. Let me give some context. The question wasn’t really that relevant before because I went into the industry to ‘learn finance’ whether I was going to like it or not. I felt there was value in that skillset and that was enough at the time. I didn’t care about being happy in a broad life sense, which I don’t regret looking back. It was a tradeoff. A decision that has benefits and consequences.
More importantly, I didn’t go into the industry to be ‘The Man’ on Wall Street (an alluring idea I must admit but what a tradeoff to make that happen) – so I kind of knew there would be a point when I’d leave – just not when exactly. I had figuratively closed my eyes and went through the process – parts of which ended up being super rewarding. I left the judgment call on when to leave to future Erick, and it turned out my 25th year of life was that moment. No more hiding behind the decision past Erick made. Life is moving on and I have to choose – what am I going to do now?
My first thought, as is often the case – I don’t know. That’s when I started telling myself maybe one more year of this would actually help me. It’s not that bad, it’s actually pretty good. I don’t have a plan – I should probably have a plan if I am going to leave. And then the question is asked again – am I happy? No, I am not. Okay, well that settles it. I am leaving. If I wait to have a plan I might not leave, better to just take the first step and as a mentor taught me ‘bet on myself’. I was ready to bet on Erick, not just use his skills to work somewhere for a lot of money.
So I did that. The logistics of it all took a while longer, but in the end that process was the turning point in my life that led me to step into the unknown. Now, I live in Tampa and, yes, excited about what I am doing day to day. It’s not perfect, but it’s better. Ever since arriving in Tampa, the theme of my thoughts has been ‘life is short’ – the urgency is all around me, in a good way I think – I have such an opportunity to create meaning for myself. Anyways, enough for now, I’m sure I’ll have more to say on that topic.
Copyright © 2023 Erick Meza
