Held together,
not traded off.

I spent more than twenty years in investment banking across Europe and Asia — capital markets, then advisory, then leading operational teams regionally and globally. Most recently as a senior leader at Goldman Sachs, here in Hong Kong.

I say that because the story only means something if the leaving wasn’t an escape. There was no collapse. What happened was slower: the definition of a good life I’d been running on had quietly stopped being large enough. Everything on it was still true. It just no longer covered very much.

Leaving took longer than the decision did. What eventually moved me wasn’t clarity — it was getting tired of the argument. What came after isn’t a clean second act: coaching, writing, community, and a training habit I still keep. It’s a change I’m still in the middle of, which is also why I can be useful to someone starting theirs.

Training, early. Reading, usually something older than me. Writing, whether or not it’s going well. Coaching. A conversation with someone I’m not billing. And some deliberate time doing nothing useful, which took the longest to learn.

I miss days. I’m not above the work — I’m in it most mornings, with roughly the same reluctance as everyone else.