Not everyone who wants out of investment banking wants PE, corporate development, or another finance job. And not everyone leaving has something obvious waiting for them. In my own analyst class there was an Olympian and a founder who had already exited a company for seven figures, not a massive outcome, but a genuinely impressive one. Most people don't have that. If that's you, here is what I actually tell the people I mentor.
The short version
You don't need a pre-existing talent or a family cushion to figure out what comes next. What actually helps first is trying a lower-hours, still finance-adjacent job before deciding IB was your life's ceiling. Not because you'll necessarily love it, but because it clears your head and gives you real perspective on what a normal working life, one with room for kids, relationships, and an actual social calendar, actually feels like.
If it's a mental health issue, don't wait for the perfect exit plan. Leave. You have years ahead of you, more than you think at that age. I'd go back and tell my mid-20s self exactly that: stop caring what other people think your job says about you.Not everyone has an Olympic medal or an exit
I want to name something directly: a lot of the career content aimed at people leaving IB implicitly assumes you have something else going for you already, family money, a pre-existing talent, a side project ready to become a real company. In my own analyst class, there genuinely was an Olympian and someone who had already exited a company for seven figures. Those are real, impressive outcomes, and they are not the norm. Most people leaving IB don't have either of those things sitting in their back pocket, and that's fine. This isn't written for the outliers. It's written for everyone else.
Try a lower-hours job first, on purpose
My actual advice, if you don't want PE, corp dev, or another finance track but you're not sure what you do want: try to find a job, ideally still somewhat finance-adjacent, with meaningfully lower hours before you make any bigger decision. Not because you're guaranteed to love it. The point is different: it clears your head. A lot of people I've watched leave IB treat that moment like it's the lowest point of their life, because to them, the bank name on their LinkedIn had quietly become the biggest thing about who they were. Taking a normal-hours job, even temporarily, is often the fastest way to get enough distance to actually think clearly again.
What a normal corporate job actually shows you
Working a genuinely normal corporate job, even for a stretch, shows you something IB structurally doesn't: what it actually looks like to have kids and an active social life while working. It's not effortless, having both is genuinely hard no matter what your job is, but in a normal corporate role you get to actually see that version of normalcy up close and find out whether it appeals to you. I say this constantly to the people I've mentored over the years, including people who grew up in genuinely wealthy families. That might sound strange, why would someone from money need this kind of mentoring, but I enjoy mentoring people from every background in this industry. Some grew up upper-middle-class or wealthy. Some came from nothing. Their stories are all real, and none of them are exempt from needing to figure this out for themselves.
If it is a mental health issue, leave anyway
I tell people to try the lower-hours path first, but if you need to leave the industry entirely because of your mental health, do it. Don't wait for a perfect plan. At the age most people are doing this, you genuinely have years and years ahead of you, far more than it feels like in the moment. That runway is real, even when it doesn't feel that way from inside a bad stretch.
What I would tell my mid-20s self
If I could go back to my mid-20s, I'd do a few things differently, and the biggest one has nothing to do with career strategy. As you get older, you realize that whether you quit or not, whether people approve of the decision or not, matters far less than it feels like it does at 24 or 25. There is a real strain of FOMO at that age, and a real tendency to let your job stand in for your entire identity. You're allowed to feel that way if it's genuinely true for you. But don't force yourself into that belief system if you don't actually hold it, because doing that is a fast, reliable way to make yourself miserable for no real reason.
The intern who became a traveling painter
One of the people I directly mentored, an intern during my time in IB, didn't come from a wealthy family and isn't some obvious outlier talent. Today he does contract finance work remotely for an agency to cover his costs, and spends the rest of his time traveling the world doing what he actually loves: physical paintings, which he makes and sells. He's genuinely thriving. People like him are largely invisible online, not because they're failing, but because they're actually living their life instead of documenting it for anyone else, and they have no real need to show up in a feed to feel like the choice was worth it.
The fisherman and the investment banker
There's an old parable about a Mexican fisherman and an investment banker that I think about often here. A banker meets a fisherman who works a few hours a day, spends the rest of his time with family and friends, and is genuinely content. The banker tells him if he worked harder, built a fleet, and eventually sold the business, he could retire rich and then spend his days fishing and relaxing with family, exactly the life the fisherman already has. I think about that story a lot, and I want to be precise about what I take from it: there is nothing wrong with making millions in this industry. I have genuinely great relationships with people who work in IB, and I love talking M&A and capital markets with them, hearing their read on the market, listening to people who authentically love this industry talk about it. The point isn't that banking is wrong or that the fisherman's life is automatically better. The point is that both are only right for the person who actually wants that specific life, not the version of it they think they're supposed to want.
What this actually means for you
If you're in IB right now and quietly wondering what comes next, and you don't have a talent or a cushion sitting in your back pocket, that's the normal starting point, not the exception. Try a lower-hours job first if you can, specifically to get the distance and perspective a 90-hour week never lets you have. If it's genuinely a mental health issue, don't wait for the perfect off-ramp, leave, because the years ahead of you are longer than they feel right now. And however this plays out, stop outsourcing the verdict on your own life to what a job title says about you at 25. Some people genuinely love this career, and I mean that with real respect. Some people find their actual life somewhere else entirely, quietly, without ever posting about it. Both are fine. The only real mistake is forcing yourself into either one because you think it's what you're supposed to want.
This account is drawn from my own experience leaving IB and from mentoring people across a wide range of backgrounds in and after finance. Individuals described are intentionally anonymized to protect their privacy; nothing here is a composite or invented example.
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