I’m having a mini crisis as of last night. I’m pushing mid 30s and I have nothing to show in terms of work. I have a masters that I’m not using. I’ve been bouncing around jobs. Currently working 2 jobs that combine to 150k.
I’m looking into the mirror going — WTF am I doing? Where I’m I going?
I’ve done the psychologist, career coach, career tests, tried a business and still haven’t found “the it” for me yet!
tl;dr — I’m scared to reach 40 and still trying to figure it out.
I was looking into going back to school but the end goal there was just to make more money! I was looking into — law, medicine, MBA, or dental school.
looking to make 400k+.
in all honesty it’s the prestige, big paycheck, fancy title that I’m after, if I’m being honest. that c-suite corporate Exec.
help..??
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What in the humble brag is this?
You already make enough to put yourself in the top 10% of Americans, and you want to be in the top 5% but “you’ve done nothing”. You’re doing a lot better than most.
Maybe try practicing mindfulness and gratitude. The rat race will never end.
Imo at mid-30s stop trying to figure out the perfect path to be on and start trying to identify ways forward on the path you’re on. You can go left and right but be sure you’re moving forward each time – if you want to move up you need to stop going back to the start.
To answer your question, about 30 I applied to a management position on my team not expecting to get it and I did. That accelerated my career greatly.
If you want corporate exec, that easily rules out medicine/dentistry.
So you want either MBA or law.
Are you a people person? Do you have a good academic background? If so, go the MBA route and try to get in a top school, and then network like crazy. Succeeding in the business world with an MBA is more about connections.
If you like reading/are very analytical, try law.
What is your Masters in?
I would challenge the notion that “growing up” has much of anything to do with money.
You make double my income. But you work two jobs — do you want to live to work or work to live?
Chasing status is immature IMO. It’s fine to want nice things because you want them, but do you want them for you, or to impress others?
If you’re after a leadership role, find a good company and stay there for a while. Leverage your connections. Or start your own business.
If making money is your goal, then you can do just about anything to make that happen. No amount of folks who provide you with guidance can change that desire. The corner office, the perks, the trophy this, the big house that, all those things can be yours if you just keep on going with what you are doing. But, that crisis. Somehow you are seeing that, possibly, that is not what you are meant to be doing. It is nice to have cash flow, I know, but as I have made my way through my career, master’s degree in hand, I have always found that expenses always rise to meet the income, but more, that the higher up I went, the less satisfied I was with what I was doing. I prefer to work with people in a front line kind of way. I want to feel as if the work I am doing has meaning. Money has no meaning, it is just a symbol of status. In order to get past that crisis you need to be honest with yourself: what is more important? A job that satisfies you or a job that just brings in the dough? At the end of your work life will you be happy or sad for the choices that you have made? C
Well, that’s your problem. Chasing the capitalist “dream” always turns into a nightmare.
How many rich people do you actually respect, besides their money and power? In my experience they’ve all made choices which tore apart their soul.
Not to the specifics of your post, but to the question on the title:
Newly unpopular take here, maybe, but I grew up as a professional when I started dressing nicer than what was required. A guy I worked with, former Navy officer, took a shot at my clothes on Veterans Day, and I said, “what? I’m dressed appropriately within the dress code, and I’m even wearing red, white, and blue.”
He said, “they make these in red, white, and blue,” and held up his tie.
Because I had tremendous respect for that guy specifically and all service men and women, I wore a tie the next day, and a bunch of people commented on my appearance. I decided to wear ties through the week so that I didn’t look like I was being disrespectful by wearing it just the day after he called me out, but I started to notice how much better people were treating me and respecting me. After that, I wore ties four days a week (not casual Friday) for about 15 years.
When I left the job for a new industry, ties were not considered appropriate, but I still made sure I dressed better than the other managers. I got promoted past guys who had been there longer than I had so fast that it pissed them off; now, to be fair, I also worked a lot harder than they did and was/am successful at the job, but the clothes are totally a part of it.
Six years into this new job, I’ve had five promotions and six raises. It isn’t just because of my clothes—that’s for sure—but it sure as hell helps. And I was conscious of it as a pivotal moment for me growing up in my career.
2 jobs that add up to 150k.
Shut up
Fuck money. It doesn’t matter. I make enough to pay bills and make memories. I can’t afford to save money and won’t sacrifice my life to have a retirement. I’m enjoying life while I’m young.
Welcome to your mid-life crisis.
lol the fact that you think you could just “go back to school” to get a law or medical degree is comical.
If you became a MD, you would endure a grueling 10 years of wading through shit until you maybe made a few hundred thousand per year, strapped with debt, working 80 hours per week and constantly asking “why the fuck did i do this to myself?”
You have to maintain and advance. My youngest brother went from being an orderly in a mental hospital to a nurse, then got his masters RN, then became director of nursing, then got his business degree, then moved to program director and then became the CEO of a mental hospital. Now he’s being sought to become CEO of the hospital he started in as an orderly and a 70% increase over his already crazy salary. It’s consistently advancing your career.
i really found my place at 45+.
abndoning teaching was the best move i made, both for my health and for my bank account.
I grew up when I realized money wasn’t the whole objective. Don’t get me wrong it’s a big part of a job, but another part of the job is flexibility and overall morale. I used to hate waking up to go to work at my old job but now I wake up excited. I make less than $150k a year (a great sum less lol) but I love my job and it comes with minimum 6 weeks of PTO and I can honestly come and go as I’d want (as long as my tasks are getting done). I can pay my bills and still have savings leftover every paycheck. I “grew up” when I discovered balance. But everyone is different. If you can achieve that prestigious job and look back when you’re 50 without alot of regret then nothing you do know in sacrifice of that goal will matter to you. So all of this is a moot point.
Kind of late in the game to be gunning C-suite unless you’re sitting on some sort of business idea where you can build your own company.
Law or med school might pay off… in your 40s, and you’ll still have a mountain of debt.
Maybe look into buying a turnkey company with a boomer owner looking to cash out and retire?
“In all honesty”, at this point in your life, the chances of becoming a “c-suite corporate Exec” via professional school (maybe putting aside MBA) is fairly remote. How were your grades/scores coming out of college? I know “it’s never too late”, but it’s probably too late for that. You didn’t say what your Master’s is in. Do you have any entrepeneurial aspirations? If you don’t have a wife and kids yet, then that might still be a path.
never did. Lol
I got very lucky, and have a financially successful wife
Pay down your debt, pick the job out of the two you like the most, stick with that one and quit the other and live a little. It’s not that deep.
I bet if you found a hobby or something outside of work to focus on you’d be a lot happier. Also doing this may help at work, since you’ll be more relaxed and that plays a lot into promotions. You can be a company guy all day but if you’re miserable to be around to your immediate co-workers nobody gonna care what you do.
The only realistic paths to that kind of income is tech, medicine or entrepreneurship. Medicine requires a decade (at least) of training, so time is against you. Entrepreneurship needs seed capital and prior expertise (or you can take longer and learn, but time shortens your runway). That essentially leaves tech. 400k is a high end enterprise salesperson, a senior developer, or leadership. Leadership requires proven experience or you need to exhibit success in an IC role and show evidence of leadership traits. So you need to be a developer or salesperson first. If you don’t know how to code already, AI will close the knowledge gap far faster than you ever could. Unless you’re an experienced developer already, there’s too much saturation at the entry level point (with too big of a threat of ai displacing entry level jobs) that it’s not a high degree of success type of plan.
To me, the path of least resistance to your desired income is tech sales.
Big paychecks tend to come with a LOT of baggage. I’ve made more in high level managerial positions that just did not give me any sense of fulfillment. I felt stuck in meetings all day, and connecting with my team felt like the only joy I had.
I actually took a step back – and found a position that was less pay but IMMENSELY satisfying.
TL;DR don’t just focus on a giant salary. You’ll kick yourself for it, and it may affect your future opportunities.
If you’re simply chasing a big paycheck, you’ll never get it. You’ll reach 400k then you see people who are making 750k and now you need that. Next is 1 million. After that you strive to be a multimillionaire. There’s ALWAYS more and someone else with more.
Also people who make 400k are never on a set path that they decided on 10 years ago. They’re extreme risk takers. They’re the people who quit their jobs to start a business and fund it by going into debt.
The C Suite people who make that much aren’t there simply because they followed a path and grinded it out. Many of those people are executives because they have exceptional people skills, kissed the right ass at the right time, and lucked into a key role because someone left or retired. Satya Nadella can tell you exactly to a T how he worked his way up to be the CEO at Microsoft and there would be 0 chance you could do the same.