Stop Making a 5-Year Plan (Do This Instead)

"So, what's your 5-year plan?"

That was the question posed to me by a mentor in January 2021. At the time, I was about seven years into my career, on the "track" in finance.

Climbing slowly up the mountain, I had started to wonder if it was the wrong one. I just didn't seem to have the same energy for the work as most of my colleagues.

All of the future mountains I envisioned were (at most) one degree of separation from the mountain I'd been climbing.
As I reflect back on that moment now, in July 2026, at the endpoint of that five year plan my mentor asked about, I have an interesting realization...

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