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I know this is a completely theoretical question for 99.9% of us, but I like to think about it anyway.
I spent the last 10 years of my career, before launching Work It,
Mom!, doing work that was interesting, stimulating, often exciting, but
work that I was not passionate about. Due to a lot of factors, not the
least of which is being an immigrant to this country, I’ve always known
that I needed to support myself and in addition, be able to help my
parents (and my grandparents), if possible. This meant that I chose my
career path with money very much in mind.
Money was never my main consideration, however. For example, I had a
chance to go into investment banking, where people make mad money, but
I didn’t, because I had no interest in it. I left a successful career
in consulting for a much lower-paid job with a smaller company, because
I found that type of work much more engaging and impactful. In other
words, I tried to balance money and interest level when choosing jobs,
compromising a bit on each with every opportunity, but not willing to
give up completely on either to maximize the other.
And then I made the leap and gave up a high-paying job I didn’t enjoy to do something I was passionate about — starting Work It, Mom!. This time, I am doing something I LOVE, and am extremely passionate about, but it’s something that only has a promise of money in the future, not at the moment. I let my idealistic gene take over for the first time in my career.
I know that I am lucky to even have a chance to try this passion-instead-of-money career experience — we have savings that we can rely on for a limited period of time and I am married to someone who makes a good salary, which, while not enough to sustain us, is extremely helpful. I’d also like to think that with a lot more hard work, I can turn this into passion-and-money job, so this is a temporary situation.
But thinking about my own experience and reading what members said in response to a question about how much money has to do with your career choice, made me wonder how others have chosen to optimize either money or interest or something else in their careers. So please sound off in the comments:
If you could afford to make less money, would you choose a different career?
Nataly Kogan is the co-founder and CEO of WorkItMom.com, an online community for working moms.
Check out Nataly's recent posts on the Work It, Mom! Blog:
What I envy in other momsWhen someone says I talk like a guy, should I be flattered?
