The Not-So-Glamorous Thing About Glamorous Things

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After graduating from college, I landed a job at a prestigious asset management firm with over $2 trillion in assets under management. I felt like I had hit the jackpot, and in some ways, I had.

I was living in LA, a city I had dreamed of living in for years and working for a company that was highly coveted in the finance industry. The pay was great, the work-life balance was even better, and I participated in a rotational program that allowed me to try out a variety of different jobs before committing to one.

At 22, I was being flown business class internationally, attending luxurious work retreats, and sitting in meetings with some of the greatest minds in investment management.

It was all very glamorous.

The West LA parking lot was full of some of the most luxurious cars on the market, including $250,000 Aston Martins, bright orange Lamborghinis, shiny red Ferraris, and of course, many, many Teslas (this was California, after all).

From day one, I was completely enamored.

And who wouldn't be?

Investment managers at my firm easily made hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars, managed some of the largest portfolios in the world, and were never in the office for more than 9 hours a day. When compared to investment banking and private equity’s 12-15 hour workdays, it was pretty clear who was winning here.

I wanted that life for myself, and so did half the company. But since only a few investor positions opened up each year and turnover was low, the competition for these coveted jobs was fierce.

There were only a few ways to land an investor role at this asset management firm: through a highly selective, early career rotational program, by earning an MBA from one of the top 8 business schools in the world, or by moving into the role laterally from another asset management firm. And even then, there was no guarantee that one would get the full-time role.

Nevertheless, I was determined to land one of these investor roles.

Over several months, I had countless coffee chats with investors at my firm and took financial modeling courses to prepare for a career in this field.

However, it wasn't until one of my last coffee chats with a prominent portfolio manager at the firm that something clicked for me.

"Do you really want this career, Sabrina?" he asked. "It may look glamorous from the outside, but as a fixed-income asset manager, you'll spend the next 30 years of your life looking at the same set of companies every single day. If you get assigned to paper companies earlier on in your investment analyst days, you'll be researching paper companies, meeting their leadership teams, and analyzing their financial statements day in and day out.

Do you have a genuine passion for investing, or are you willing to do something you don't necessarily enjoy for the next 30 years solely for the money? Is this the path you truly want for yourself, and can you see yourself doing it until you're 65?”

The short answer to this, I realized, was no.

While I was drawn to the concept of investing and having a prestigious role in high finance, I ultimately didn't enjoy fixed income enough to envision researching the same set of companies for the next several decades.

Yes, I wanted that glamorous life, but not at the cost of doing all the not-so-glamorous things that came with the role.

I came to the realization that, ultimately, there were other things I was more passionate about. In fact, I even enjoyed the unglamorous process of doing those things. I didn't mind taking on 80% of the tedious tasks, because I enjoyed my work so much that I didn't mind the less glamorous aspects of it.

And isn’t that what it's all about?

When we look at entrepreneurs, creators, investors, and corporate leaders, we only see what they choose to share with us. We see how they built multi-million dollar products that people love, 20x'ed their following in five months, made millions from their investments, and quickly climbed the corporate ladder to lead a Fortune 500 company.

But we don't see everything they sacrificed on their way there.

We don't see the breakdowns they had in the middle of the office, the countless mistakes they made over the years, or the thousands of hours they spent creating content to finally crack the content game.

The truth is that you have to be willing to do mostly unglamorous things to achieve the glamorous end result. And even then, it's not all that it's cracked up to be.

The pursuit of glamour is often the pursuit of an idealized image that we have of success, but we forget that success is not just about the end result, it is about the journey that we take to get there.

It is important to remember that the path to success is often paved with unglamorous tasks, and it is up to us to find enjoyment and purpose in the process.

Because at the end of the day, it is not the glamour that matters, but the passion and fulfillment that we derive from the work that we do.

Until next time,

Sabrina

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🌊 Dive Deeper

1. My title was inspired by The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. If you haven't already read it, make sure to check it out. A must for all entrepreneurs out there.

2. I'm a big fan of the Brain Food Newsletter. Published every Sunday, it's always full of bite-sized insights.