Many people might find it difficult to walk away from a million-dollar salary, no matter how miserable they are. But taking the leap to explore a different career can make you realize how much happiness money can’t buy.
That was the case for 44-year-old Khemaridh Hy, who I interviewed for my book, “Next! The Power of Reinvention in Life and Work,” about how to navigate change and find meaning in the way we live and work.
Hy left his $2.3 million-per-year Wall Street job without anything lined up. It was a scary few years that followed, but he’s never been happier, despite earning much less.
He credits his successful career change to two things: setting the groundwork before quitting and being vulnerable enough to seek guidance.
Following the first-generation playbook
The son of Cambodian immigrants who settled in New York, Hy was a studious, dutiful son: he got good grades, went to Yale, and pursued a career in finance.
At 31, he got promoted to managing director at BlackRock, the prestigious investment firm. He had financial security, a great job title, and was rewarded with the envious glances of his peers. Yet “something was still off,” he tells me.
Hy was toiling through 12-hour days and feeling “comfortably numb,” in which he describes as: “You’re not unhappy, but you’re definitely not happy. You don’t particularly love the work you do, but you don’t hate it.”
“I had a lot of insecurities that I grew up with as a result of being shy and nerdy. You think much of that goes away with success and money,” he says. “Then you have a taste of it, and you realize that money doesn’t make your insecurities go away.”
To ease his boredom, Hy threw himself into side projects. He blogged, hosted networking parties, and played around with various kinds of productivity software.
He didn’t know it at the time, but this groundwork would later be essential to building a happy life after BlackRock.
During a vacation, he started a newsletter he called “RadReads,” sharing life hacks and links to interesting pieces he was reading elsewhere. “Those things lit me up. I realized that 5% of my activities were bringing me 99% of my happiness,” he recalls. “I said, ‘Imagine if you could do that all day.'”
Hy’s feelings were further crystallized after he and his wife had a baby. When he had saved enough money to last at least 18 months, he quit his job.
A mentor can help you find your way
Leaving BlackRock was a fraught decision. It didn’t help that almost every day Hy would get a text from a friend or former colleague casually asking, “What are you doing these days?”
The lack of a professional identity was crippling. “It almost drove me back into the workforce,” he says.
But then, Hy hired a life coach. Some people might scoff at the thought of some know-it-all telling you what to think. But Hy is proof of how an expert companion can give you feedback in ways that will motivate you to see things from new perspectives.
Hy’s life coach gave him the tools to navigate his emotions and helped him explore questions like, “Why am I so obsessed with work?”
He eventually realized the kind of life he did want. The family moved to California, where he could indulge in his passion for surfing. He focused on his weekly newsletter and found that his musings on life resonated with other mid-career professionals.
Hy’s posts ranged from “Why do so many successful people fear being broke?” to “How Jeff Bezos does $10,000-per-hour work?”
Growing the business
Hy now has full-time employees to help run the business. He teaches a productivity course that combines his time management coaching with his philosophizing on life issues.
Hy is an excellent example of someone who engineered a career that allows him to fit his work into his life, rather than vice versa. He doesn’t schedule meetings before 11:30 a.m., so that he can surf in the morning and help get his kids ready for school. He has dinner with his family every night.
In his best year, his businesses generated a total of $250,000 — still an impressive amount, although just a tenth of what he was making at BlackRock.
But it’s not about making more money, he says. Hy currently works 30 hours a week. If he wanted to earn more, he would have to work longer hours, he reasons, and “all I would want to do is buy back time, to surf more.”
And because he already has the time, “I don’t need to do that.”
Joanne Lipman is the bestselling author of “NEXT! The Power of Reinvention in Life and Work″ and “That’s What She Said: What Men and Women Know About Working Together.” Previously, she was editor-in-chief of USA Today, USA Today Network, Conde Nast Portfolio, and The Wall Street Journal Weekend. She is also a Yale University lecturer and on-air CNBC contributor. Follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn.
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