The bar is whoever wants your job next

Welcome to Nights & Wknds, a weekly newsletter for ambitious professionals building successful careers and lives.

Honest reflections. Practical frameworks. Lessons learned the hard way, written by someone who's been in the trenches and is still learning.

Whether you're weighing your first offer or wondering what you signed up for three years ago, this newsletter is here to help you play the long game.

This week…

Three months into banking, I chose a different path than everyone else was on. Here's the one decision that was actually mine to make.

What I wrote down before I signed, what I didn't, and why the second list matters more.

Let's get to it!

Aaron

Three months into my first year as an investment banking analyst, I chose a different path than the one people around me were taking.

The private equity recruiters had started calling. That's just how it worked (it’s even earlier now). You take the internship, you sign the full-time offer as a junior, and before you've finished year one, you've accepted a PE job. Then the eighteen months you owe the bank. Then two years at the PE firm. Then the PE firm tells you it's time to leave for business school. You said yes to one job with three months of experience, and the next six years were already written.

Law has the clerkship version of this. Consulting has its own.

To be clear, that's a great path. A Wall Street job and a top-tier MBA deserve the world’s tiniest violin.

I remember the conversation that opened my eyes to this reality and challenged me to think harder about that one decision. And thinking harder led me to opting out of the defined path. I skipped the big-name firms. I wanted a small shop, a career-track seat, somewhere I could stay if I liked it. I found one with less than thirty people, and I got to decide the next step myself.

I got a version of this from a group of students last summer. Nobody can tell you whether it will be worth it for you. But there is homework you can do before making such a big decision, instead of eighteen months after.

When you're in a competitive field, the bar is whatever the person who wants your seat is willing to do. Read that again. If you're not willing to outwork the person next to you, that's fine. Really. But they'll probably get the job, the promotion, the opportunity over you. That's how it tends to work, for better or for worse.

I know that sounds harsh. Maybe it is. But it also takes the argument off the table. You don't get to negotiate the bar down. The only thing you get to decide is whether you're willing to make the tradeoffs to clear the bar… or not.

I went into banking knowing I was going to hate it. I knew it would cost me holidays, trips with friends, and most of my Monday through Thursday (and Friday and Sunday) for two years. I was okay with that. I'd decided, before I started, that work would be most of my life for the first ten years, and that at the end of that window I wanted the flexibility to think about family and everything else. That was an active tradeoff, a decision I was purposefully making.

What I hadn't done was write down the other side. The things I wouldn't give up. Don’t be like me… write them down!

It looks like ambition. It feels like ambition. And it might just be ambition! But if you haven’t considered both sides of the tradeoff (what you’re OK sacrificing and what you’re protecting), it slowly drifts away from being an active choice. The job is working you, and it will keep working you until you stop it.

Many of the people I admire professionally are, in their own way, a little off center... a bit obsessive, a bit of a workaholic. But every one of them, as far as I can tell, knows exactly what tradeoffs they’re making and where they draw the line.

Tonight, take one sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. Left column: what you're okay sacrificing for the next three years. Right column: what you're not.

Be literal. "Thanksgiving with my family." "Sleeping seven hours." "One trip a year with my college friends." Skip the values. Write things with dates and names.

If the right column is empty, think harder. I try to journal about once a week and I'm not always good at it. A half-finished list still beats a blank one.

If you write yours, reply to this email with one thing from the right column. I read every reply.

I did SEO's career program in 2014, on the investment banking track, without knowing what investment banking was. If it hadn't been for that program, I would never have thought to look for a job in finance. It changed my life.

The Soirée raises money for the part of the organization that starts even earlier: SEO Scholars, a free, eight-year program that takes public high school students all the way through college graduation. In high school, Scholars get 600+ additional hours of English and math, plus mentorship and college guidance that continue through college. SEO reports that 100% of its Scholars are accepted to four-year colleges and 85% graduate.

On Wednesday, November 18, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., SEO's National Leadership Council, the junior board I serve on, is hosting the SEO Soirée at Libera at the Ace Hotel NoMad in New York. If you're in the city, come join us. If you can't make it, a donation of any size goes to the same students.

One of my favorite parts of writing this newsletter is hearing how these ideas show up in real life.

If something from Nights & Wknds helped you make a decision, navigate a challenge, land an opportunity, or simply think differently, I’d love to hear about it. Leave a quick testimonial here ↓