Before you get all excited, I’m not talking about me – though that would make an excellent storyline for this blog. I’m talking about Veronica Vain, who decided to leave her blossoming cushy career as a Wall Street intern to instead, well, be cushed. Repeatedly. On camera. Over and over again. She’s competing in a new reality tv series hosted by the “one and only” Duke porn star. Apparently, “Veronica’s” rational for leaving Wall Street and getting into the Adulty Industry was that if she’s going to get screwed for the next decade she might as well get into the hall of fame for it. Fair enough.
While not everyone is going to leave a stable career for one so fickle and disrespected, and mostly not everyone has a desire to become a porn star, there is something to be said about following your dreams and going after what you, deep down, feel most natural doing. Of course, for a job like that, it’s the rare few who get to stardom levels where their salary would be comparable or better to that of a financial analyst. Even with 15 minutes of fame, the longevity of a porn career is short in most cases. What next? That said, if she’s smart enough to be a financial analyst she’ll be fine, if not permanently sexually harassed at jobs filled with lots of nerds.
For everyone else out there, what would it take to leave what you’re doing to today to do what you love most? Do you know what that is? I think I’m actually very close in a lot of ways. I love creating, and being a leader in a young company teaches me a lot about entrepreneurship and business. That said, I think my long-term goal would be to come up with a product idea that can be pitched on a show like Shark Tank. Something that could be useful but also innovative. I want to be an entrepreneur, but I’m not cut out to the a tech entrepreneur. Tech requires too much up-front capital and it takes too long to build something really useful that by the time you have a product the market needs, it’s a few years too late. That’s just the nature of the tech industry. And it’s on marketing and sales’ shoulders to convince everyone what you have today is what they actually need. That’s the case in 99% of tech businesses.
As I think more about myself and what I really like about my job/career/industry, there is a lot of good there. I just realize that while I fell into technology and feel so fortunate for my time in the industry, as well as in learning more about business by being part of companies selling to other businesses, I don’t feel quite comfortable here, and I never will. I do enjoy being in Silicon Valley — finding myself feeling the epic rush of being smack dab in the middle of the innovation world is something I’ll never, ever regret. But I still wonder if this is sustainable, and if this is where I can add the most value.
I’ve been thinking a lot about getting an MBA, then reading lots of blogs that say do not get an MBA. Most suggest that if you want to change careers, though, an MBA can be useful. I would want to have a very solid goal before enrolling in any such program. I’d also have to be accepted to a top 10 school – which on its own is unlikely due to my schizophrenic undergrad transcripts and my test-taking challenged mind. That said, I don’t need an MBA to be a real entrepreneur. I need some chutzpah and an affinity for risk that was zapped from my psyche by an actuarial father whose entire life’s work was to reduce any uncessary risk.
But I have realized that money doesn’t drive me. I mean, I like money, and I like having money, and building my networth. And I spend money reasonable well. So I guess it does drive me. And this month when the stock market sharply shot down and I lost a good $3000 in networth, that was mitigated by earning and not spending enough so my networth stayed flat. I would like to get to $500k in networth because while it’s not enough to pay for the rest of life, it is enough cushion to move somewhere with a much lower cost of living and, I don’t know, focus on building a life that is a bit less stressful.
Maybe these women who leave their stable jobs and lives for a short-term, financially lucrative career in pornography have it all right. I’d never do that for a multitude of reasons, but perhaps there is still time to change careers, at some point, and find something I’m more naturally equipped to do – whatever that is.