The Way of the Wall Street Warrior

CHAPTER 29It's Quitting Time: Exit the Stage

Business was good. In fact, it was great. My team was on a roll and we had invested almost 15 years building our presence in Silicon Valley. I had developed a strong personal brand in the Internet sector and I was finally getting the coveted inbound calls—less pounding the pavement in search of new deals and more harvesting the fruits of my labor.

However, I had the classic conundrum that faces a lot of executives. You want to leave on your own terms, when you're on top, but you're really hitting your stride and getting paid like a bull in heat. You tell yourself, “I could hold out for just another year,” and then another, and another, until one day, life has passed you by. Your two sons have left the roost and are now married, your wife is hanging out with the gardener, and you're approaching 60 years old with the body of an 80-year-old.

For me, I never wanted to become one of the older bankers ahead of me: unhappy, bitter, and a stranger to their families. So I stuck with the plan to exit on my own terms, like Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls. I took his Gatorade commercial, “Be Like Mike,” to heart. I didn't want to overstay my welcome.

Why We Stay

I've often wondered why people stay in crappy jobs. If it's for the money, I totally get it. For some, the word enough doesn't exist. Even though we learned that $85,000 per year—less than the starting compensation of many first-year analysts on Wall Street—should be enough to ...