This website, this blog, this online magazine is kinda like a Hail Mary pass. It’s exciting. There could be huge upside though. I’m throwing deep to try to gain ground and put more points on the score board.
But it’s kinda risky. There’s no guarantee that it’ll be any sort of success. I pray that it will work.
Oh man. I’d give pretty much anything to break out of my day job, the banking sector. Been doing that for too long. It’s too detail-oriented. Too many spreadsheets. Too regulated. Too much lying, backstabbing and soul crushing. Too many inconsequential revisions to the analysis of a company some successful person has gotten rich from. I’ll earn a relatively fixed salary helping that business owner get even more rich.
But it’s my turn.
My bank is a small bank. This is the kind of bank that got arguably incorrectly punished for the monumental failures of the sub-prime credit crisis and high finance big bank leaders like Dick Fold and Angelo Mozilo. With leaders like these at the top, the US banking system bankrupted the world.
People died. Forbes ran an article titled “More Than 10,000 Suicides Tied To Economic Crisis, Study Says” in 2014 describing a British Journal of Psychology study that found just that. Over 10,000 people took their own life thanks to the failures and deceits of the banking system. That’s my industry. I’m so proud. NOT!!!
Yes others are to blame too. The credit rating agencies rated mortgage securities containing sub-prime loans way higher than they should have been rated. And politicians encouraged home ownership for the masses. Lastly, the borrowers should have known better than to go into so much debt. The abuses were rampant and fueled by greed.
While top bankers at big financial institutions got rich, and maybe lost their job (but not their fortune), small banks like the one that I work at, have paid the price thru crippling regulation, which then drove the advantage to private capital, which is now taking all the business because they have less red tape to deal with than the banks.
A “gatekeeper” at my bank was telling me yesterday how I’ve been falling behind other people at the bank. I’m pretty ashamed. I want to do better. I don’t want to let people down. But I’m just painfully unenthused to be working there.
In the same discussion this gatekeeper told me how he doesn’t love the bank. He’s “certainly not there because he believes in the bank”.
That doesn’t work for me. I want to work on something I can be proud of. Something exciting. I want adventure. I want to believe.
I can hear it now. “you’re naïve” “Suck it up and just work hard”
Depending on who you’re talking to, I’m either a Gen Xer or a Millennial. Or maybe I’m a “Xenial”. Don’t get me wrong. I get it. I sound like a whiny toddler right now. But the heart wants what the heart wants. Right? After 15 years as a banker, and having just paid off my student loans, I’m just yearning for some adventure. Yes I also think there are more efficient and profitable uses of my time.
I do work hard. But I want to pocket all the fruits of my labor. Why should I let lazy bank bosses have any profits from hard work?
I’ve only gained technical computer chops on the periphery so far. I don’t have in depth technical skills in the big scheme of things. No programming languages. No cloud experience. And I’m sure it can be argued that running a WordPress blog site doesn’t qualify as technical skills.
But this site is my current attempt at learning a new trade. I’d love to “reinvent” myself to become a writer, an online marketer, or an entrepreneur.
I think successful reinvention would certainly mean that I can support my family from the income. So that’s my goal.
Hopefully you’re enjoying this. Sometimes I feel like I’m just complaining. So here’s something exciting for you to think about.
The sky is the limit. With enough well executed Hail Mary passes, maybe some slant passes, some flat routes and posts, balanced with a solid ground game, the sky is the limit.
It’s not easy, but with some hard work, big things could happen. When you’ve got things humming along right, when you keep forging positively forward, when you put the hours in and execute a well thought out plan ……… the sky is the limit.
I’m more versatile then just being a banker. So I’m going long.