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How a Bull Can Help Us Manage Our Careers

Career Advice

By Anthony ChanPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Photo by Giovanni Calia on Unsplash.com

During his Wall Street career, Albert was able to experience many peaks and troughs in the economy and financial markets during his career. Although most people tracking the life of Wall Street investment bankers and traders tend to focus on the positive outcomes enjoyed by members of this club, many should know that the price of riding this profitable roller-coaster involves incredible bouts of stress and challenges.

Interestingly, Albert observed that individuals reacted to such stress in different ways. Some opted to self-medicate on weekends with alcohol and other viable substitutes, while others allowed their health to deteriorate from the stress. Of course, we all know that the human spirit can survive anything in moderation, and the good news is that many pursued these strategies in moderation.

Others took up hobbies like martial arts or watching aggressive sports as a self-balancing mechanism. Along these lines, Albert began to watch bullfights on weekends to lower his stress levels while carefully observing the tactics used by the Matador to slay his prey.

To be sure, Albert became fascinated with the strategies employed by the different Matador’s seeking to generate successful outcomes. Some Matadors sought a quick end, while others were more risk-averse and proceeded cautiously to minimize the risk of being injured.

After watching hundreds of bullfights, Albert studied the risks and benefits of moving aggressively or cautiously against the bull. While taking a cautious approach might minimize the Matador’s short-term risk, it would also allow the bull to strike with an unexpected blow as a bull is often more aggressive before being stabbed with arrows.

Unfortunately, he learned that there was no magic bullet as both strategies yielded mixed results. At first, these results puzzled Albert until he realized that the variance in outcomes was simply because each bull had a unique personality in battle. That implied that to survive, one needed to react to each career threat somewhat differently.

With this information, watching bullfights became just as stressful as his work environment since Matador’s optimal strategy was not binary. Instead, a Matador needed to rely on multiple factors to formulate his strategy. Those factors included: the bull's personality, the chemistry between the bull and himself, and even weather conditions. Next, he had to assign probabilities to each of these factors for each match.

After watching hundreds of matches, Albert realized that there were no long-term winners in a bullfight. Although the bull always lost by sacrificing his life, most Matadors get injured at one time or another. The type of Matador injuries ranged from minor injuries to fatal ones. To be sure, another form of injury that wasn't visible by visiting a stadium or watching a match on a TV screen was the mental anguish that a Matador might inherit from the violent encounters on the field.

One obvious lesson is that every Matador needs to be fully prepared to lose it all or pay a heavy emotional price during their career. It is the price of admission into this fast-paced environment. The good news is that this intense battle lasts only during a person's working career.

Luckily, Albert managed to also survive after taking many blows by successfully retiring after a 33-year Wall Street career working for various entities.

His advice to prospective Wall Street candidates is to always give it your best, but be mentally prepared to walk away to your next job if you see the bull is heading in your direction and ready to deliver a fatal blow. No job is worth it if it comes at a price that taxes your health or sanity!

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About the Creator

Anthony Chan

Chan Economics LLC, Public Speaker

Chief Global Economist & Public Speaker JPM Chase ('94-'19).

Senior Economist Barclays ('91-'94)

Economist, NY Federal Reserve ('89-'91)

Econ. Prof. (Univ. of Dayton, '86-'89)

Ph.D. Economics

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