It’s Not all Peaches

So the other day I was at the gym playing a pick up basketball game. It was just a couple of guys gathering around to bring out their inner Kobe Bryant. Anyways I came across a guy, who said he was 28, but he had an interesting story to share with me (if it is true that is). I have never had any experience working with an actual stock brokerage, so I don’t know what all the legalities are, but, until proven otherwise, I will give him the benefit that he is telling me the truth.

While we were playing he asked me if I worked. I began to tell him about my investing, and right there an immediate bond formed. His story goes as followed (we will call him Fred):

As an undergraduate Fred was admitted to Wharton where he was in the process of pursing a degree in economics. According to him lot of students begin to get recruited by great firms on Wall Street during their junior years, since it is one of the best finance schools in the country I didn’t doubt that. Fred apparently received an offer from a very prestigious firm, which enticed him enough to drop out of school and move straight to New York to begin working on Wall Street.

After getting all the necessary certifications, he instantly began seeing 6 figure paychecks, he had a great condo in NYC, and drove around in a Jaguar. Life was great, and he was living large. Fred was working with clients that dealt with millions of dollars; however, things suddenly changed.

Fred’s firm decided to relocate him to a suburb of D.C, which for those that don’t know is nothing like NYC. Moreover, Fred went from dealing with clients that had millions of dollars to clients that would be lucky to get half a million. From there his passion was starting to spiral downhill, and he came to conclusion that he just couldn’t do it anymore. So he quit.

After 3 years he is still unemployed and running out of the funds that so graciously let him live a lavish life for years prior. To make matters even worse, at 28 he doesn’t have a college degree. So now he is contemplating going back to school, or working in a department store. Throughout the game he kept stating how cut throat Wall Street is. If you have one bad period, then you will probably be out, which didn’t surprise me.

Was this a matter of too much success too early? I could only imagine that making so much money before finishing college probably gave Fred a sense of immortality. Lot of people get fired, but manage to move on to another job. Perhaps Fred felt that, if something happened, he could easily get back onto something else.

Was he wrong to leave college early? There are those that argue for either side of the issue; however, I think someone can never truly answer the question unless they are actually put in a situation. For example, if an athlete is debating whether or not to leave school early to enter the pros or wait it out, many people will answer differently. You never know what will happen tomorrow, so should you jump at every opportunity? But then again the odds of you living for a long time are greater, so shouldn’t you plan for the future?

The real point of this story is how quickly somebody can go from being successful to losing it all.