This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Vincent Chan, a YouTube content creator. It has been edited for length and clarity.
In college, my competition was other students who were also looking for finance jobs. But most of them came in with connections — they already had networking opportunities from other banks, and so on. But it eventually gets to the point where everything is very monotonous and there is too much bureaucracy. For example, I created a lot of PowerPoint slides and Excel spreadsheets. Everything had to follow existing procedures and formats, so there wasn't room for much creativity or innovation. And since I worked with higher-level executives, a lot of the work required several layers of approval across multiple teams, which would sometimes take weeks, or even months.
These experiences helped me realize that I had nothing. I had no time to live after work. I wasn't the nicest person to my family. I had no time for friends, I had no time for my social life. And essentially everything I did, I lived to work for this company. It was an accumulation of all these things that convinced me that this job isn't for me. If I don't build my own dream, someone else will hire me to build theirs.I work on a couple things now: I primarily focus on content creation. This includes my presence on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.
So at that time, I saved enough for a little over a year. The worst that would happen if my YouTube channel didn't take off or my own businesses failed is I would just look for another job, and I would end up in the same exact place that I currently am in.