People imagine my life in numbers—bonuses, valuations, market caps flashing across giant screens. They assume certainty, confidence, control. What they don’t see is how much of my time is spent managing doubt, quietly, between meetings and market opens.
My day starts before the city fully wakes up. The screens are already alive when I arrive—futures moving, headlines shifting sentiment before coffee has a chance to work. In this world, information ages fast. What mattered last night can feel irrelevant by lunch. You learn to think in probabilities, not promises.
The job demands precision, but it also demands performance. You speak in calm tones while millions hang on the outcome. You learn how to sound sure even when you’re still calculating. There’s an unspoken rule: hesitation is allowed internally, never publicly. That tension becomes muscle memory.
What surprises people is how repetitive the work can be. Deals feel glamorous from the outside, but inside they are built line by line, model by model, revision by revision. Long hours aren’t about intensity—they’re about endurance. Staying sharp when your brain wants rest is a skill you train over years.
New York doesn’t slow down for anyone, and neither does this job. I’ve missed dinners, birthdays, weekends that blurred into conference calls. At first, that sacrifice feels temporary. Then it becomes routine. The city lights outside the office window start to look the same at midnight as they do at dawn.
Still, there’s something addictive about the pace. Being close to decisions that shape industries. Watching capital move like weather systems—unpredictable, powerful, impersonal. You develop respect for risk, and humility when markets remind you who’s really in charge.
Lately, I’ve been paying attention to the quieter moments. Walking home after a long day. The brief silence when markets close. The realization that value isn’t only something you price—it’s something you choose how to spend.
In finance, we’re trained to maximize returns. I’m slowly learning that time, energy, and attention deserve the same discipline. Because when the screens go dark, that’s the only balance sheet that truly matters.