

What should I do with my life? - mcbeth

Given the previous post on the same subject I was inspired to tell my story and ask HN community's introspection.<p>While I had very humble beginnings, in a poor but well educated family I managed to achieve pretty much everything I've set my mind to, including going trough school and university and being self sufficient (money-wise) since I was about 15.<p>After finishing university I worked on 3 continents with some very large manufacturing, engineering and construction companies, always overachieving (and being also a cheap worker since I come from a 2nd world country). I've got promoted quickly and very recently I have reached a senior management level in large company. Just to be clear my expertise is in IT infrastructure and telecom and I'm 29.<p>However, job satisfaction is low now because this company is a politicized beyond my liking and also I enjoy engineering a lot more than meetings and people-management.<p>How many of you have been in the same situation and what did you do? Did you stick with the cushy salary or did you spend your last penny on some startup idea? Did you wind back on your career and invest in your personal life (get married, have kids, all of which I haven't done yet) or did you decide to push further the corporate ladder? Or did you all try to "balance it out" and manage the routine?
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fttechfounder
mcbeth,

We have a similar background, and in similar situation I left my job to go for
it. I'll share my story here:

After graduating from university, I joined HSBC's international management
program where I worked for 3 and a half years. I was living the dream: getting
paid a six figure package, living in a nice house and working decent hours
(i.e. I had most evenings and weekends free and about 6 weeks of holiday a
year). In a large organization like HSBC, getting work done takes time and a
lot of consensus building. Sometimes the pace got frustrating but this was
compensated by getting to travel the world. As part of the international
management program, I moved to a different country about every 2 years to work
in a different part of the bank. Traveling when you're young is exciting. I
didn't have a girlfriend and in the short time I was with the bank, I lived
first in London for 2 months, before moving to Shanghai for a year and a half
and finally to Mexico City for two years.

3 months ago, at 25 years old, I left my job to start learning to code from
scratch and start a start up. I left for some of the reasons you gave:
politics was getting worse and I found myself taking more time trying to
convince different parties and teams of my work than the time I took to do the
work itself. But I didn't leave because the bank was so much more political
than it was when I had started, I left because I wasn't prepared to put up
with the politics and the red tape anymore.

The difference was that I realized I didn't want to work for anyone anymore. 2
years ago, while living in Shanghai, I stumbled into the local start up
community and befriended some start up founders who completely changed my
perspective on life. Until that point, most of my friends had been working in
banks, consultancies and law firms. It was normal to sometimes spend 6 months
building consensus and convincing teams to work on a project that might only
take 1 month of effort. We accepted that it was normal for the perception of
hard work to be more important than hard work or even effective work itself.
We put up with corporate life because it was normal and because we didn't know
any other.

The start up life I saw wasn't glamorous but it so much more exciting. While I
lived in a 2 bedroom penthouse apartment in a fancy part of Shanghai, my
friend shared an apartment with his co-founder and 4 other hackers he hired to
work out of his living room. But unlike me, he wasn't worrying about deadlines
and making a good impression. Instead, he was working on things that mattered
like figuring out how to get through the month with enough cash to pay his
employees. His life was the life of an entrepreneur, a roller coaster ride of
emotions with very high highs and very low lows, and I wanted his life.

And so with a promising career ahead of me, I quit. I figured that in the
worst case, I would fail multiple times, burn through my savings and get a job
at 28. Of course, I had already decided that I wanted more than anything to
start a start up.

My advice, as some have already suggested, is to find out what you value. If
you value being at the top end of the corporate ladder, keep pushing, it's a
long road ahead. If you value having disposable income and the opportunity to
travel, keep your job. If you value your personal life, keep your job but take
your pedal off the gas a little and prioritize your personal life.

If you're serious about a start up, ask yourself if you can afford to quit and
then ask yourself if there's any other alternative. Start ups are difficult
and demoralizing, even if you're wildly optimistic and the kind of person who
normally achieves what you set your mind to.

If you're still serious, put together a budget, and see how long you can last
just on your savings. If you don't have any liabilities like a mortgage or a
family and you've saved some of your cushy salary over the years, you'll
probably find that you can survive for a while.

For me, it came down to asking and answering these questions:

Q: What will I regret when I'm 80 years old? What am I going to regret more:
taking a shot at a dream and failing, or never having taken a shot at all?
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwG_qR6XmDQ>)

A: Taking a shot and failing.

Q: What's the realistic best case scenario end game? I.e. If I look at someone
who's 15 years ahead of my in the same career path and has done a good job of
getting promoted, recognized and rewarded, am I happy doing what he's doing in
15 years?

A: No.

Q: What's the worse thing that can happen?

A: I'll get a job at 28. I'll probably make less money, but I'll at least have
3 years of international work experience at a major bank.

Q: What if you never get such a sweet job? Six figures is a lot of money for a
25 year old!

A: I don't have kids, I don't have a mortgage, I don't have debts and I do
have a enough savings to tide me over for a few years. It means that I won't
live with the same degree of financial freedom (e.g. watching my spending,
going on fewer holidays, eating out less, etc.) but it's a price I'm prepared
to pay.

For most people, the last few questions about financial security are the most
difficult. At 29 without a family, you're young enough that you can start over
if things don't work out. If you have enough savings and you're serious, go
for it.

Good luck.

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Blackradio
Seriously? Go, find a hobby. And then invest in that - time and money. That's
what I do. I am nowhere near your position, but I find great comfort in
donating money to witty lil' startups on kickstarter, buy random electronic
crap for my modular synthesizer and even think of a start-up.

------
wccrawford
Figure out what you like. Go do that.

~~~
mcbeth
I suspect that happens a lot more often in movies than in the real world. In
the real world you have to figure out if you will be able to make a living off
your passion, raise a family in the near future, save some money and tend
after your parents in their last years (depending on your culture YMMV).

Of course, every once in a while you hear about somebody who did exactly that
and it worked out for them. It that an exception or the norm?

~~~
csomar
Well. You go do what you want. But you should ensure that you don't come back
with your hands empty.

For example, you take one year off to study and experiment with JavaScript.
You waste one year and burn all your expenses and makes no money but you made
something amazing (let's say a popular JavaScript library).

Since you come back after that one year and your hand are not empty, you
should probably find a good job at a nice company or startup.

------
penguat
Personally, I'd like you to raise kids. I think there should be more people
who apply their intelligence in the world.*

However, I think you should find something that interests you, something you
enjoy doing overall, and do that.

This could be:

\- Entrepreneurial - see a gap which needs filling, and start to fill it.

\- A pure hobby - something you could never make a living out of.

\- Changing the way you make your living, working at a startup, or teaching
others what you have learned.

\- Studying something interesting.

*I come from a moderately poor area in the UK, there are plenty of people I know who don't apply themselves. You are a welcome contrast to this!

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Nicolas___
Set your main goal in life to "Share that knowledge".

29 is stupidly young to be a mentor, but it's a great moment to start working
on helping others in your field of expertise.

I think HN is not a place for that kind of posts. It's a place for people like
you to post about their incentives to help the world (and succeed in the
process), thanks to what they achieved in their field of expertise. Otherwise,
just open a blog.

~~~
mcbeth
Thank you, best advice so far. I find I am slightly lacking in soft
skills/mentoring skills. I mostly come across as edgy on first meetings which
scares some people off- it is related to my cultural background where smiling
is only done for a reason, not as a courtesy. However people which have known
me for more than a few days find that I am quite friendly/useful.

Where do you think I should start? How do you think I should improve my
mentoring skills?

~~~
Nicolas___
There are many ways to share knowledge.

The most obvious would be "write a blog". But to be honnest, you may as well
use your knowledge in the process of building a tool to share it :)

Here comes the engineer approach : List your knowledge, structure it, and
think about how people would like to get access to what you have to offer. You
might come pretty close to what Khan has done with
<http://www.khanacademy.org/>

Feel free to contact me (nsebban at google's mail thingie) if you want to talk
about this topic in more details...

------
ricardobeat
I'm even younger to give out advice, but why not try talking to your superiors
and finding a compromise? If they don't see the value in keeping a senior
engineer instead of a bored manager, then go find something else :)

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qiaolongji
well,this is my story. I am born in a rural place in China, and my family is
poor, I have a elder sister and she leaved school after she finished high
school, while I got a graduate degree. Last year I enter a big IC company, and
do embedded system programming. However after less 1 year, I find I can't
learn a lot from this job, what's worse I am not interest the job, so I quit
last month and now I'm finding a new job.

------
NanoWar
Donate everything. Restart your life.

~~~
mcbeth
Considering that. But how do I make sure I won't get to the same point again?

~~~
csomar
Okay. You can cross the street and have an accident and be handicapped for the
rest of your life. You can't make sure of anything. You can estimate the
probability of happenings. That's what makes you feel sure.

Do you have a family? If not, go pursue your dreams. I'm dropping Medical
studies to do... well...freelancing on the side and coding stuff. No clear
idea, but I like to start something (a small project/SaaS) and get busy with
it.

I only can say one thing, I learned hopefully after not so long time (I'm 20):
Stop doing Shit! Go and do something you like. Period.

------
pknight
answer this question?
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tClHDEoje6Y&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tClHDEoje6Y&feature=player_embedded)
[ted talk]

------
GregoryK
well, for a start read the Big Kahuna epilogue, simple with a touch of humor
<http://www.makemagic.gr/node/312>

~~~
mcbeth
While I appreciate the comment (I'm a fan of that essay too), I think you
should read it in full, as written by Mary Schmich:
[http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-schmich-
su...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-schmich-sunscreen-
column,0,4054576.column)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_Sunscreen>

~~~
GregoryK
Thanks, now mentioned.

------
BasDirks
You only live once, don't be bored, ever.

------
ignifero
Do you have money to stay a year off work? If yes, quit your job and work on
something yourself (you sound like you could figure out what it is).
Reclaiming those 8 most creative hours of your life can make a huge
difference. Even if you don't have an absolute business plan right now, having
an open horizon will give you a new perspective.

I took a year off at 28 after 7 years in a small company to do a Master's
programme. I ended up becoming an indie developer and its only gotten better
since. We live in great times, take advantage of it. If, OTOH, your plan is to
start a family etc., it would be better to stick to the corporate safety.

But most of all, you should not take other people's advice too literally; life
doesn't come with a manual, and nothing can guarantee happiness.

~~~
mcbeth
I'm pondering that but the current situation in Europe (I'm European but don't
work in the EU) worries me that I might not be able to find a job one year
down the line.

Are there any engineers out there that did a complete career shift and went
into the medical field or law? For some reason that tempts me but soot it
might be too late to make that change.

~~~
ignifero
You need lots of patience for such a shift, esp. with medicine; think twice
about it. You sure you can't find another discipline? On the other hand, it's
never too late (me i started a PhD in neuroscience at 29). I would definately
not worry about finding a job in IT in a year.

~~~
mcbeth
Do you have a medical background?

~~~
ignifero
I studied physics.

------
donnaware
listen, OK, here is my story, 10 cent version, way back in 1985 or so, sorry
if it is a little hazy, I was developing GUI for network management systems
for a Big Blue type company. I interviewed with this rinky dink company in,
what was then, HQ'ed in Bellevue WA (now they are in Redmond), to work on
their top secret "windows" project. Wow, what a POS that thing was at the
time. They offered me $10K/yr less than what I was making at the time and this
fantastic stock option plan. But hey; all they had going for them at the time
was DOS and this crappy windows where the windows could not overlap, wow. They
did not stand a chance against Apple who was way ahead of them with the Mac.
So I turned them down. That was the smart move on my part? OK, so the moral of
the story is this, take chance when you are young, go for it, do what excites
you. So what if you fail. Try it, do it, go for it. Do NOT stick with the
cushy salary.

