• I'm the youngest of three siblings — and the only Gen Zer.
• When I graduated this year, I faced the realities of job-hunting and adulthood.
• I learned lessons from observing my sisters and other millennials navigate their 20s.

After 16 years in the education system, my time as a student ended on a random Wednesday afternoon in April. I was finally free from lectures, tests, and group projects — but thrust into the realities of a scarier world: adulthood.

In this world, there were no set milestones to tell me I was on the right track. Everyone seemed to be on a path to something greater, but I felt directionless.

I know I'm not alone. Every 20-something has probably felt at least a little bit lost in life. But amid mass layoffs and the threat of AI replacing jobs, stepping into the job market as a fresh graduate in 2024 felt like diving head-first into an abyss.

An August report by an early careers platform, Handshake, surveyed 1,925 graduating students. They found that 57% of the students felt pessimistic about starting their careers — an increase from 49% of graduating students last year. Of the 57%, 63% said the competitive job market contributed to their pessimism.

The stress of not knowing whether I could secure a job was compounded by uncertainty about my career. I had studied journalism but wasn't sure if it was the right fit. I had the irrational fear that if my first job turned out to be the "wrong" choice, I'd be relegated back to the start line of the rat race.

Amid a brewing quarter-life crisis, I looked to my sisters, aged 28 and 31. They do many things that people of my generation may scoff at, like watching Instagram reels exclusively and using the laughing emoji. But they seem to have figured out one thing: life after college.

Here's what I've learned from watching them conquer the Roaring Twenties.

Life doesn't end when school ends

Toward the end of college, I mentally prepared myself for the fast-approaching expiration of youth.

"You must treasure your university days," relatives constantly reminded me at yearly Lunar New Year gatherings. They painted adulthood as a bleak portrait of bills, mundanity, and loneliness. So, when the time came, I was reluctant to let go of my identity as a student.

But as the youngest sibling, I also watched my sisters graduate from college, get married, and build their own homes. I saw them achieve promotions at work, find new hobbies, and start a life outside the one I knew of us growing up together.

Adulting isn't easy — I now know that. But there are also so many new milestones and freedoms that come with it, and there is so much to be excited about.

A job is just a job

My elder sister works in communications and the other in architecture. Even when their hours stretched into the night and weekends, they built a whole life outside work.

One started a sticker side business, and the other is now an avid runner.

It wasn't always smooth. My second-oldest sister burned out after working too much in her first job and took a career break. She prioritized work-life balance at her next job.

In that way, millennials and Gen Zers are alike. A 2024 report by Deloitte found that work-life balance topped the priorities for both generations when choosing an employer. When asked which areas of life were most important to their sense of identity, both generations agreed that jobs came second only to friends and family.

Distancing myself from the idea that my job had to be my one true passion lifted a weight off my shoulders. As much as I still want a job that gives me purpose, I also make time for other aspects of life that fulfill me, like working out and spending time with friends.

Just give it time

As with most worries, the fear that I'd never find a job was unfounded. In July, I started my first job as a junior reporter. But when the first day at work finally ended, I trudged home in a daze.

"I have to do this every day for the next 40 years?" I asked my second-oldest sister, who laughed. It wasn't that I didn't like the job. It was the change in routine from school life to a 9-to-5 that unsettled me.

"You'll get used to it," my sister said. Six months in, I still don't know if I will. But seeing my millennial counterparts thrive has encouraged me.

It's not just my siblings who have set an example. At work, my millennial colleagues are a constant source of guidance to the Gen Zers in the office. On social media, millennial influencers brand themselves as "internet big sisters" and give advice on navigating the complex years of their 20s.

Older millennials are now turning 40, but they were once in the position of Gen Zers, being scoffed at by the older generations for being "lazy" and changing work culture.

Now, they've drawn the map for Gen Zers' entry into the strange world of adulthood. It's made adulting just a little less scary.

• Many older Americans regret some career choices that affected retirement plans and job prospects.
• Regrets include not prioritizing education, frequent job changes, and involvement in office drama.
• This is part of an ongoing series about older Americans' regrets.

For millions of Americans, retiring at 65 is just a dream.

Since September, BI has heard from older Americans about their career regrets in two surveys it conducted.

Over 3,000 people between the ages of 48 and 96 completed a voluntary BI survey or emailed reporters about their life regrets. In a separate survey, over 300 recently laid-off Americans over 50 shared their career regrets. We followed up with 13 interviews to learn more. This is part of an ongoing series.

Some common themes people discussed included not prioritizing education, switching jobs too frequently, and struggling to navigate office politics. Many also cited age discrimination — data from AARP found that 64% of those over 50 have either seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace. Nearly all said they were passed over for some roles in favor of younger applicants with lower pay expectations, particularly in white-collar roles where hiring has slowed.

We want to hear from you. Are you an older American with any life regrets that you would be comfortable sharing with a reporter? Please fill out this quick form.

Bureau of Labor Statistics data found that 18.9% of Americans 65 and older — about 11.4 million people — still work, many for financial or social reasons. Some returned to work after retiring, citing financial concerns.

Not prioritizing or getting the wrong kind of education

Lou Nelson, 63, was an executive assistant in the medical devices industry for 25 years but faced two layoffs since 2021. She hasn't had luck securing work since January.

For most of her career, she had few regrets about not having a bachelor's degree because she worked for top healthtech companies and said she was well respected. However, after sending out over 50 applications, she suspects not having a degree has impeded her search.

"Nobody wants to hire someone that's 63 years old, and I don't know if it's because of pay or experience," said Nelson, who lives in Texas.

A college degree is still a big boon to finding and holding a job. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest jobs report showed that Americans with a bachelor's degree or higher had an unemployment rate of 2.4% in November 2024, while those with only a high-school diploma had an unemployment rate nearly twice as high, at 4.6%.

Grover McBeath, 79, said not having either limited his career options. He struggled through school and dropped out in eighth grade.

He joined the Air Force and worked in electronics for most of his career, but he lacked job satisfaction. Though he traveled the world for work and his salary peaked at $38,000 a year, he said he had an "unstable, nomadic lifestyle." McBeath took Social Security at 62 and relies on the $1,108 a month he receives. He lives in affordable housing in Nevada and receives SNAP benefits to help pay for food.

"I was in a career field that I didn't have an aptitude for, and many times, I just felt so lost in what I was doing, which is why I bounced around a lot," McBeath said, adding he wished he prioritized education.

Still, many believe a college degree isn't worth the financial burden. A Pew Research Center survey of US adults conducted at the end of 2023 found that just 22% of respondents believed a four-year college degree would be worth it if they had to take out loans.

Some older Americans BI spoke with agreed that their degrees haven't helped further their careers. Lynda Namey, 54, was a healthcare business manager for two decades, making $62,000 a year at her peak. However, after a divorce that put her in debt, she said she panicked and returned to school for her master's and doctorate degrees in counseling from Liberty University. She had no strong desire to pursue the degrees but did it because she expected them to help her land higher-paying roles.

That hasn't panned out. The Alabama resident removed her doctorate from her résumé to not appear overqualified. While searching for a full-time job, she's held part-time consulting, life coaching, and independent contractor roles. She also teaches meditation.

"I'm a middle-aged woman who has to completely support myself. I pay for my own insurance, and I've got to think about my future," Namey said. "I can't afford to take a job that pays $17 or $18 an hour. But those are the only jobs I get interviewed for."

Switching jobs frequently instead of building a cohesive career

Though a few job seekers regretted not looking enough for new roles, dozens said they regretted bouncing between jobs and career paths and not being more intentional about growing their networks.

After working in various industries, Dawn Habbena, 63, fell in love with human resources. But after her company was sold, she took a job in compliance for a wealth management company, which wasn't as satisfying as HR.

When Habbena faced a layoff during the pandemic, she struggled to get back into HR. Six months later, she got an HR job for a manufacturing plant, but she took another HR role after moving to help her aging mother. She described that role as "absolutely horrible," and she's since struggled to find another position — even as a grocery checker — after sending out over 1,000 applications.

Habbena wished she'd stayed focused on HR to accrue more experience and kept building her computer skills. She lives in a one-bedroom apartment with her 86-year-old mother and drives for DoorDash to stay afloat.

"I wish I had more confidence in what I did because I was easily knocked off," said Habbena, who lives in Texas.

Many older Americans, like Chuck Smith, 60, couldn't control how long they stayed in roles because of layoffs but wished they had settled somewhere more stable. Smith, from Massachusetts, worked in tech marketing for most of his career, making as much as six figures.

Smith was laid off in June 2023 and said he's since applied to over 2,700 roles and landed about 100 interviews. Though he and his wife are financially comfortable, Smith said he's worried about how quickly he's spending down his savings without a stable income.

Though hiring has remained steady for lower-income workers, the job market for six-figure earners has slumped. New LinkedIn data found hiring has fallen 27% in IT and 23% in product management and marketing since 2018. Middle managers have also faced hiring challenges — hiring levels fell 42% between April 2022 and October 2024, data from Revelio Labs found.

To be sure, recent data reveals that switching jobs often yields financial gains. A September Vanguard report found that the median job switcher received a 10% increase in pay. Still, it also showed a 0.7 percentage-point decline in people's retirement savings rate when switching jobs because 401(k) plan benefits can vary and people often make mistakes when rolling over retirement accounts.

AARP found that older workers who voluntarily change roles or industries in their 40s and 50s tend to retire later and have better work outcomes than their peers who stay in one role.

"They have better wage growth. They've experienced a higher success rate of staying in the workplace over those who might have been forced to change jobs later in their career," said Carly Roszkowski, the vice president of financial resilience programming at AARP.

Taking a risk on a business, contract roles, or an 'office bully'

Some respondents took risks that hurt them financially.

Michael R., 70, opened toy stores in New York throughout the 2000s, thinking they would grow enough that he could retire comfortably. However, when his businesses crashed amid the 2008 recession, he lost over $650,000 and declared bankruptcy.

"If I didn't do the business, I would have bought a house," Michael said, adding that in that scenario, he could've helped his whole family by selling his mom's house and gifting his siblings the money.

However, he had to move in with his mother, and after she died, he rented a studio apartment. He said he works nearly every day of the week at his friend's toy store and earns about $8,000 a month between his paycheck and his Social Security benefits.

"I'm still struggling just to pay my rent, my groceries, and my car. We don't get a raise. We don't get a bonus," Michael said. "I'm grateful I'm employed, but I can't go out looking for another job. Nobody's going to hire somebody who's 70 years old."

Some regretted taking risks working in contract roles instead of prioritizing full-time work. Mauricia Day, 74, never finished her degree and said she's held over 40 jobs — many contracted — in radio, tailoring, and office administration, making $30,000 a year at most. After a layoff in 2020, she hasn't found secure work. She works at a nonprofit in a part-time contract role that ends in December.

Day said because she knew little about saving and investing, she lived paycheck to paycheck. She wished she'd focused on securing full-time employment in one field instead of relying on unstable income. She receives $1,136 in Social Security and $317 from her pension each month, which is slightly more than her house payment.

"I wish I had focused more on a career; it would have probably helped better with retirement and investing," Day said, adding she stayed home for nearly 18 years raising her children. "I have a lot of friends who have been retired for 10 years, 15 years. I'm unsure why I'm still looking, but I know I'm still looking."

A few wished they took fewer risks navigating workplace dynamics. Robbi Sera, 59, said she had a stable career as a biotech project manager and made good financial decisions, such as maxing out her 401(k). However, she said she took a few risks at work that backfired.

Sera said she gave constructive feedback to a "company bully," which she said contributed to her layoff in February. She wished she'd stayed quiet until she locked down a different job, as she said the hiring landscape is "dismal."

Sera, who splits her time between California and Hawaii, said even though she's financially stable, she and her husband have cut back on spending significantly, rarely eating out or traveling. She earns $20 an hour as a contracted customer service agent for the aviation industry while searching for higher-paying roles.

"You just keep swimming and hope that something gets better," Sera said.

Are you an older American with any life regrets that you would be comfortable sharing with a reporter? Please fill out this quick form or email [email protected].

• Last week, Jim Carrey said he came out of retirement to star in "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" because of money.
• A day later, he clarified to Comicbook.com that he wasn't really retired, just "power-resting" between projects.
• More older Americans are unretiring — either out of financial necessity or to stay active.

Jim Carrey, 62, walked back on his comments about coming out of retirement because he was strapped for cash.

At the London premiere of "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" on December 10, Carrey told the Associated Press that he signed on for the new film because "I bought a lot of stuff, and I need the money, frankly."

In an interview with ComicBook.com published a day later, on December 11, the actor clarified that "it's not really about the money. I joke about the money."

While he acknowledged that he previously spoke about retiring, he added, "You can't be definite about these things."

"I said I'd like to retire, but I think I was talking more about power-resting. Because as soon as a good idea comes your way, or a group of people that you really enjoyed working with and stuff, it just — things tend to change," he said.

Carrey added that with the "right idea," he's even open to reprising his role in sequels to "The Mask" or "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

While doing a press tour for "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" in April 2022, Carrey told Access Hollywood that he was "fairly serious" about "retiring."

"If the angels bring some sort of script that's written in gold ink that says to me that it's going to be really important for people to see, I might continue down the road, but I'm taking a break," Carrey said.

"Sonic the Hedgehog 3" is Carrey's first film since then.

Carrey isn't the only Hollywood celebrity who has spoken about retirement.

Last week, David Letterman, 77, told GQ he wasn't ready to retire because "retirement is a myth."

"Retirement is nonsense. You won't retire. The human mechanism will not allow you to retire," Letterman said.

In response to the interviewer's point that people do retire, the former late-night host said, "But what do they do? Sit there and wait for — give me the name of a show — 'Judge Judy' to come on?"

The average retirement age in the US is 63. But the sudden transition from a 9-to-5 job to having endless leisure time can leave retirees feeling restless.

Edelman Financial Engines's 2024 Everyday Wealth in America survey found that 37% of the 3,008 respondents aged 30 and above say they want their post-working life to be different from previous generations, with many saying they are seeking a more active and adventurous lifestyle.

As such, some older Americans end up unretiring after some time, either to stay active or due to financial necessity.

A representative for Carrey did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by BI outside regular hours.

• Haley and Shane Mahabadi left corporate jobs and a six-figure salary to travel full time.
• The married couple planned and saved for years before heading to Southeast Asia.
• They're living on savings and some freelance work while exploring different income streams.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Haley and Shane Mahabadi, a married couple in their late 20s who lived in Denver until August when they started traveling full-time in Southeast Asia. Haley left her corporate job in 2023 and Shane left his this year so they could travel.

Haley: After graduating college in 2019, we did a two-and-a-half month-long backpacking trip through Southeast Asia. It was extremely life-changing and impactful.

But of course, we had that tug of responsibility that brought us back to working and doing what everyone else was doing. We started working in corporate America 9-to-5, five days a week, no flexibility, no freedom, just feeling chained to the desk. And I just wondered, "Is this what the next 40 years is?"

We started wondering, "What if we could make traveling full time work?" After five years of daydreaming, planning, and saving, we made it happen this year.

We've been traveling around Southeast Asia for over three months. We were in Indonesia for a month, Thailand for month, Vietnam for a few weeks, then the Philippines.

We've had some of the most incredible adventures. We've met really interesting people. We've gotten to meet locals and try local cuisine and do all these things that we always were daydreaming about. So it's kind of a "pinch me" that we're actually out here.

I just thought, if we never take this leap, I wonder if, when we're in our fifties and we'll look back and say, "Why didn't we do that?"

We kind of joke that we're pulling a year forward from retirement and traveling now while we're young and able.

Leaving a job with a six-figure salary was hard

Haley: In 2023, I was working as a creative director at a marketing agency, and I just found myself unhappy and feeling a little bit unfulfilled. I decided to quit my job to freelance and work my own hours.

I am still able to work while traveling. For clients, I do social media management as well as photography and video creation.

Shane took a massive leap because he was getting a high-paying six-figure job in corporate America.

Shane: It was definitely scary to take the leap because I was doing well in my career and moving up, but we'd been fantasizing about it for five years.

I was working as a manager of strategy and analytics at Dish Network, where I'd worked for about four years.

I really liked the role. I loved my team, loved the department I worked in. I guess the downside was it was just like an old-school job — five days a week in the office, not much flexibility. I wanted something that would allow me to travel more or work from other places. I thought if I don't do this now, before we probably start a family, it's going to be essentially impossible to do it then.

People at work were sad to see me go but they were supportive. My boss offered to write a letter of recommendation and to help me when I want to reenter the workforce. That was a big relief to know that I have people on my side who can vouch for me that I was a good worker and I'm not just a crazy guy traveling the world without plan.

When I come back, it might take a little bit of time, but I think I'll be able to find something eventually.

Our goal is to travel for a year. We're paying for it with savings, and then Haley's consistent stream of income. If something crazy happens and we're able to make a bunch of other streams of income that are doing really well, we could potentially extend it.

When we were planning I made a spreadsheet with roughly what I thought we would spend per day on hotels, food, activities, flights, and jotted it out from there.

We also saved our credit card miles for the past few years, so we really haven't had to spend money on any of the big international flights.

The cost of living is so much lower here in Southeast Asia that you don't need quite as much saved or you don't need to be making as much to extend your time and travel for longer.

We hope we can keep this flexibility forever

Haley: We don't plan to travel forever. We miss our families and community back home. But now I'm wondering how we can we make this flexibility work forever.

Our main priority right now is traveling, but we are also trying different things in our free time and seeing if we can create multiple streams of income, because even when we go back to the states, it would be amazing to continue to have a more flexible lifestyle.

We've been trying all these things that we probably wouldn't have if we didn't have all this free time. We've been hiking, swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving.

We did the Ha Giang Loop in Northern Vietnam. You motorbike for three days through the most incredible landscape you've ever seen. Just driving on the back of the motorbikes with the guide, wind in your hair, down winding mountain roads. You just felt like you were living.

I think in that moment I felt so glad we did this. There was not even a question in my body of regret.

Shane: Deciding to do this was hard, but one of the things that mentally helped me was saying, "What's the worst that can happen?"

The worst that can happen is we're going to lose out on some amount of money, but we'll have traveled the world for a year.

That's not that bad of a worst-case scenario.

• Charles Yu adapted his 2020 novel, "Interior Chinatown," into a Hulu series starring Jimmy O. Yang.
• Yu had a long career as a lawyer, during which he published several works of fiction.
• He pivoted to writing full time after getting staffed on the HBO series "Westworld."

Charles Yu's "first love" was literature, but before he became a novelist and showrunner, pragmatism led him down another path.

As an undergraduate, Yu pursued a pre-med track with a minor in creative writing at the University of California, Berkeley. After he failed to get into medical school, Yu flirted with a job in finance. Eventually, he settled on a career in law — practical, but something that played to his literary sensibilities.

The Columbia Law School grad worked as a lawyer for the next 13 years with stints at the top firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and the electronics company Belkin. All the while, he stayed creatively busy, publishing three books he'd written in his downtime.

"I didn't have to worry about where the mortgage payment was coming from, so I could just write when I got to write," Yu told Business Insider.

For more than a decade, Yu balanced his career and his passion. By 2014, he came to a crossroads when a major opportunity came his way: He was offered a staff writer position on the hit HBO sci-fi series "Westworld." He had to make a decision.

Yu's choice led him to where he is now, a decade later, as the showrunner of the Hulu series "Interior Chinatown" — based on the book of the same name that Yu, incidentally, also wrote. The high-concept comedy, which boasts Taika Waititi as an executive producer, follows Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang), a background character in a police procedural who desperately wants to become something more.

Yu spoke with BI about what convinced him to take that leap from law to TV and how he built up his writing career while maintaining a high-demand full-time job.

Before you got staffed on "Westworld," you had a pretty lengthy law career. How did you balance writing with working?

It changed every day.

My then fiancée, now wife, was very understanding and patient and knew that I had this passion. So before we had kids, especially, there was enough time to write. It got trickier after.

But it was a demanding job. The thing about it, though, especially with writing, is that I wasn't trying to be a film director. I wasn't a saxophonist. I could practice my thing in the car, in a café for 30 minutes, lunch even. Scribbling a few things down, it felt like a good refuge.

How did you conceptualize the two kinds of work? Was it like, "I have a vocation, and I have a career?"

Yeah, I liked the way you framed it. I mean, it was a vocation. I had a career, and that was my livelihood. I did not think of writing as a viable livelihood up until literally the moment it became my job through TV.

I think it's easy in hindsight to sort of make the path seem smoother or more deliberate than it was. Honestly, there were moments where I had doubts about both sides of it: "How can I get out of this law career, 'cause I'll never really know what I can do?" and the other side just like, "Am I wasting my time?"

I struggled with that a lot, because a lot of days, nothing productive came out. That feels terrible, you know?

When you got staffed on "Westworld," were you deliberately trying to move away from law and into TV at the time?

It came about over the course of a few years. I had a book agent already. He's not my current agent, but he hooked me up with a film and TV rights agent at United Talent Agency. They, at first, represented me for just rights to my fiction.

But I think, maybe partly because I live in LA and partly because I showed some interest, I got to meet executives and producers and see if there was anything in addition to my books and short stories that I might want to pitch to them — or just to develop a relationship.

Over the course of a couple of years, I got a little bit more comfortable with that, and I started to think about writing scripts. I actually wrote a terrible pilot based on one of my own ideas. I mean, it's truly terrible. My agents were probably really — I mean, I'm sure they'd seen it before, but they were like, "Yeah, we maybe don't send that out."

But they did send it out. They sent it to a couple of people, I think, that were very kind and patient. And I started to think about maybe doing that. I didn't think about staffing on someone else's show, which is ultimately how I got that call and got staffed on an HBO show.

I threw my hat in the ring, and over the course of two, three years, I somehow found my way onto a list and was able to get a job interview.

What made it feel like a viable career move at the time?

Two things. One, health insurance. That was very important to my wife, especially at the time. We still have two kids. We had just moved into a new house, and we'd moved a little bit out of LA to Orange County, but we had a mortgage, and we needed health insurance. So it was like, "Can you get that?" And I could, thanks to the Writers' Guild.

And two, it felt like the kind of thing you would take a leap for. It was a sold series, so I knew I would have at least six months of guaranteed employment at this show. I definitely didn't take for granted that I would get another job after that.

Quite honestly, I'm pretty risk-averse. But I think it was just the nature of this opportunity, a real decision point. I couldn't do both, obviously. I couldn't be in a writers' room and be practicing law. So that was when I finally took the leap.

I did keep my bar license active for a few years after.

How did your writing experience eventually inform "Interior Chinatown"?

I think I wanted to write something a bit more personal, not that I'd shied away from it before. It just felt like there was something in me that wanted to talk about this story, about this family, in a more direct way than I had.

Willis is not me, but I think there was an internal pressure to want to write about this family as a kind of fantasy or alternate-reality version of how my parents talked about their lives and people in their community.

Was it always a novel to you, or was there ever a point where you thought, "Maybe this is a television pilot?" When it started to become a television series, did you feel strongly about becoming its showrunner?

I didn't think of it as anything other than a novel. I actually thought it would be pretty hard to film, and it turned out it was!

So when they did approach me, I was amazed, but I sort of immediately had this feeling of like: "Oh, how am I going to do this? This is going to be tricky." And they knew, too; Hulu understood the challenge.

I think despite that on the surface-level it looks like a script, that it is a script, the trick would be figuring out how to translate it.

"Interior Chinatown" is now streaming on Hulu.

• Business Insider selected 25 young professionals, 35 and under, as its rising stars of Wall Street.
• We asked these up-and-comers what TV show, book, or movie best represents the finance industry.
• They shared some parallels and even pointed to works about nonfinancial subjects.

There's no shortage of colorful characters depicting Wall Street. There's the serial-killer investment banker, the corporate raider who declares that "greed is good," and the crooked, if charismatic, stockbroker, to name a few.

Two of those are fictional movie characters, and one was based on a real person, but they've all shaped the public's perception of what working on Wall Street could be like.

If you ask successful people at some of the biggest banks, asset managers, trading firms, or hedge funds whether they see their reality accurately perceived on the screen or in books, they'll tell you that working on Wall Street is a little less colorful than it's often painted to be.

"I don't know that there's a great movie or book depicting life on Wall Street," Mark Zhu, 34, a managing director at Blackstone, told Business Insider. "The day-to-day is a lot more boring than you think. It's a lot of calls and a lot of emails. There's not as much flamboyance or out-there behavior. It's almost not movie-worthy. Why would you pay money to watch somebody just sit in front of a computer doing Zooms?"

So maybe they think all that partying on HBO's show about twentysomething investment bankers, "Industry," is a little overdone, but there are still some elements the entertainment industry gets right occasionally.

We asked up-and-comers on Wall Street about the shows, movies, or books that best represent their daily lives. While no one representation was perfect, the young professionals talked about some of the parallels they saw. Some even shared some nonfinancial references that give a window into their world.

Here are the shows, movies, or books that give a flavor of what it's like to work on Wall Street.

Shows: "Industry"

The hit TV show "Industry" — full of sex, drugs, and spreadsheets — just wrapped up its third season.

"My friends in the last few years have nonstop bothered me about 'Industry,'" Justin Elliott, 29, a vice president of institutional rate sales at Bank of America, said.

"They see a crazy show about the industry and say, 'My God, I can't believe that happens in your world every day.' From what I've seen, there's definitely some thrills from getting a trade done that might mirror the show a bit, but it's a very exaggerated depiction of life on Wall Street."

"I don't know that any of them do a great job, but I am quite a fan of 'Industry,'" Erica Wilson, a vice president at the private credit firm Blue Owl, said. "I am still behind on the third season, but I think that show is fun."

"Succession"

Though the blockbuster show "Succession" isn't specifically about the banking industry, Daniela Cardona, a 29-year-old investment banker at RBC Capital Markets, watched it in its entirety and found some similarities in high-stress moments.

"In the last season, when they're trying to merge the two companies, there's one scene that always makes me giggle. I don't think this is fully accurate, but I do think it's funny — they're in a conference room, and Kendall says, 'Just make it up!' and they're all with their laptops sitting in the middle, and the consultants are looking at him like, what do you mean, make it up?" Cardona said.

"There have been instances where it sometimes feels that way — where you're in a time crunch and it's 3 o'clock in the morning."

"Scrubs"

Ben Carper, a 34-year-old managing director at Jefferies, pointed to the medical comedy sitcom "Scrubs" as a better representation than anything that features board rooms and trading floors.

He said the show had a "similar high-pressure environment where there are some opportunities for amusement and humor, but generally a pretty vigorous focus on doing a job well done."

Movies: "Margin Call"

The 2011 drama "Margin Call" follows the 24 hours after an analyst at an investment bank discovers it has taken on more debt than it can handle — illustrating the early stages of the 2008 financial crisis.

"I think it picks up the cadence of working at a big bank the best," said Austin Anton, 32, a principal at Apollo Global Management.

"The Wolf of Wall Street"

"The Wolf of Wall Street" follows the story of Jordan Belfort, who actually only worked at a Wall Street firm for a few months before the 1987 stock-market crash. He goes on to run his own brokerage, which ultimately scams several people, but the movie highlights the debauchery, opulence, and excess that ensued during his run.

"This almost sounds weird, but I'm going to say 'The Wolf of Wall Street,'" Matt Gilbert, a managing director at Thoma Bravo said. "The absurdity of that movie, to some extent, I do think, kind of incorporates some aspect of our job."

While finance is the backbone of the economy and certainly has global implications, what bankers and investors do on a day-to-day basis isn't saving lives, the 35-year-old added.

"I think the fact that you could have a comedy wrapped around the finance world is important, and it always makes me take a step back and think through, sure, I want to win every deal," he said. "Our fiduciary duty at Thoma Bravo is to produce the best returns for LPs, but this job is supposed to be fun. I'm supposed to work with great people. We're supposed to laugh together. I think if people take this job too seriously, that's when burnout and other things happen."

"The Big Short"

"The Big Short," the movie based on the financial journalist Michael Lewis' book, chronicles how Wall Street helped fuel the US housing crisis in 2008 and the investors who profited from it.

"It's not our day-to-day, but I think it is an OK representation of what happened at the time," said Chi Chen, 34, a portfolio manager at BlackRock. " Maybe it is not all factual, but it is a good one that is representative."

"The Internship"

Patrick Lenihan, a portfolio manager at JPMorgan Asset Management, said "The Internship," which features two old-school salesmen trying to restart their careers through an internship at Google, reminds him of the importance of having and supporting a diverse team.

"I feel like that team with Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, the rest of them, and how they come together at first, you see there's just a variety of different people that you're like, 'Oh, this is going to fail,'" he said. "But I think a large part of my success is going back to that teamwork, getting the right people in, and ensuring that diversity of opinions."

Books: "Market Wizards"

BlackRock's Chen, who focuses on fixed income, said that to really gain insight into the investing industry, it's best to read the "Market Wizards" book series, which features interviews with top traders.

"A lot of those investing stories for that book series are more from two, three decades ago, when market volatility was much higher. But we have seen a comeback of market volatility since 2020," she said. "So I have always enjoyed that whole series of books."

"Free Food for Millionaires"

Elliott, the Bank of America VP, recommends Min Jin Lee's novel "Free Food for Millionaires."

"It's about a Korean woman navigating life who ends up on Wall Street in an admin capacity. But really, it's a story about belonging and identity — about trying to make it in a world and industry you didn't initially know much about," he said.

"To me, it's a lot more humanistic. It gives me a bit more of a personal perspective when I think about my journey on Wall Street. When I think about the people — and understanding people is so much of this job — I go back to 'Free Food for Millionaires.'"

"The Man Who Solved the Market"

There's no fictional piece of media Bridgewater's Blake Cecil has found to reflect life in finance; he said shows and movies "feel quite distant" from his day-to-day.

A biography of the late hedge-fund billionaire Jim Simons, "The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution," reflects how the deputy chief investment officer and his colleagues approached challenges.

"It resonated with my experience of working with people who are using algorithms to solve problems that often hadn't been asked before," Cecil said.

"The Inner Game of Tennis"

Harrison DiGia, a vice president at General Atlantic, had another book recommendation: "The Inner Game of Tennis" by W. Timothy Gallwey.

"This book is all about the mental game and trusting your intuition and yourself. You use practice and your preparation before a competition so that when the time is right, or you have a big opportunity, you're ready, and your mental game is as strong as it can be," DiGia, 31, said.

"When I think about investing, a lot of it is setting yourself up to get that big opportunity and making sure you're prepared and can have a clear mind when that pressure situation comes. I'm a huge tennis fan, so I think about this when I'm on the tennis court, but I think about it in a professional setting as well."

"Unreasonable Hospitality"

In the book "Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect" by Will Guidara, the co-owner and general manager of Eleven Madison Park describes how he manages his business, his customer-service style, and the things he'd do at Eleven Madison Park to go above and beyond.

Craig Kolwicz, an investment banker at Moelis, said the "unreasonable hospitality" described in the book (such as having an employee run out to get a hot dog for a customer who you overheard saying they hadn't had one in New York yet) isn't dissimilar to the type of service that could differentiate an investment banker.

"It depicts a restaurant that's an extremely expensive restaurant where there's an extremely discerning clientele base. They could go to all these other really fancy, really nice three-Michelin-star restaurants in New York or in the world," the 35-year-old managing director said.

"How do you differentiate yourself? There's a lot of investment bankers out there and there's a lot of really smart clients and folks that we work with all the time — and how do we get them to stay with us? How do we get them to hire us on the next deal? It's some of the stuff that we do," he said. For example, he'd recently flown to Los Angeles for an 11:30 a.m. pitch meeting and flown back.

"It's like hospitality, but it's kind of an unreasonable client customer service to do something like that," Kolwicz said.

• Patrick J. Adams left "Suits" after realizing he only stayed for the money.
• He added that he wanted to focus on his marriage to Troian Bellisario.
• The legal drama experienced a resurgence in popularity after being released on streaming platforms.

Patrick J. Adams knew it was time to leave "Suits" after a conversation with his mom.

On Tuesday's episode of "Dinner's on Me" with Jesse Tyler Ferguson, the Canadian-American actor said his character's storyline on the legal drama had played out by the end of the seventh season.

"It just all had happened, and I was like, where do we go from here?" said Adams, who played Mike Ross, a Harvard Law School dropout turned unlicensed lawyer.

At that point, he knew his costar and on-screen partner, Meghan Markle, was leaving the show. "And I was like, the only reason to do this was money," he said.

The "Plan B" actor talked to his mom and thought she would ask him to stay. "It was like, financially, you have to do this. It's responsible. You've already put in this much time. Just put in two more years," he recalled. "But really, she was the one who was like, 'Is the only reason you're doing this for money?'"

Adams added that he had no issue with anyone on the show. "It was just like, I've done it. When you reach the end of the thing, there's nothing more. I don't know what else to offer," he said. His mom responded, "Then you should go. You should be done," he recalled.

While Adams left the show after the seventh season in 2018, Gabriel Macht, who plays Harvey Spector, stayed on for the final two seasons.

"Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and think about the money that Gabriel made those last two years," Adams said. "But I never regretted the decision for a second. I knew it was the right thing for my marriage."

Adams, who married "Pretty Little Liars" star Troian Bellisario in 2016, had been in a long-distance relationship with her for seven years.

"It was time for us to start our lives. We wanted to be together. We wanted to have kids, which we knew would take a couple of years before we were comfortable doing that," Adams said.

The longer he stayed in Toronto to work on the show, the longer he was "putting on hold this life that I knew I wanted," he said. "It was time to realize that money is great, but, you know, I'd made enough money that I could go and have my life now."

First released in 2011, "Suits" experienced a resurgence in popularity after being rereleased on streaming platforms like Netflix. Nielsen, a media audience analytics firm, found that the show topped its list as the most-streamed television series last year, with 57.7 billion minutes streamed on Netflix and Peacock.

With its resurgence, the show's creator, Aaron Korsh, is developing a spin-off show called "Suits L.A.," which features Macht. Adams is not part of its cast.

A representative for Adams did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

Knowing when to leave your job

In the corporate world, feeling unfulfilled in your job may indicate that it's time to move on.

AJ Eckstein told BI that he left his 6-figure consultant job in his dream company after feeling unfulfilled.

"When I started, my self-worth was high, buoyed by the excitement of a new career. As the years passed and my fulfillment waned, my sense of self-worth plummeted, too," he said. He eventually decided to leave his job to build a startup. " Leaving a stable job is risky, but so is staying when you feel unfulfilled," he said.

Similarly, Ashley Tan left her job as a JP Morgan analyst after feeling like she was wasting her life.

"I found it frustrating to have to stick to the old ways of doing things and I didn't feel fulfilled because I knew I didn't want to pursue marketing long-term," she said. Upon quitting, she decided to travel and explore DJing.

"I realize it's up to me to make the life I want a reality. It's been an enlightening change."

• Keira Knightley says she had to step back from her career because she chose to have kids.
• "I've been really surprised in the past few years about what I've said no to," Knightley told The Times.
• Working women across industries are often forced to choose between their careers and having children.

Keira Knightley, 39, chose to prioritize motherhood over her career.

In an interview with The Times published on Saturday, Knightley spoke about her decision to have children and the impact it had on her career decisions.

"I couldn't go job to job [abroad] now. It wouldn't be in any way fair on them, and I wouldn't want to," Knightley told The Times. "I've chosen to have children, I want to bring them up, so I've had to take a major step back."

The "Pride and Prejudice" actor has two daughters — Edie, 9, and Delilah, 5 — with her husband, musician James Righton.

Not only does Knightley now prefer roles that will allow her daughters to stay settled in school, but she's also looking for roles that aren't too emotionally taxing.

"I've been really surprised in the past few years about what I've said no to. I've wanted it to be more pure entertainment and maybe that's because I've needed that," she said. "I keep being offered things about children dying or about mothers dying. Can't do it."

Even though the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies made her a household name, Knightley says she doesn't want to appear in a franchise again.

"The hours are insane. It's years of your life, you have no control over where you're filming, how long you're filming, what you're filming," she said.

Knightley says she's also open to producing or directing a film, or even switching industries, although it won't happen while her daughters are still young.

"The world is an interesting place and there are other things in it I'd like to discover. I'm aware I've been doing the same thing for a very, very long time," she said.

The actor was 16 when she starred in "Bend It Like Beckham."

Knightley isn't the only celebrity who has spoken up about juggling motherhood and their careers.

In August, Blake Lively said she experiences mom guilt whenever she has to choose work over her family.

"When you're working, sometimes you feel guilty for, you know, not being in your personal life in those hours you're at work," Lively said. "And then when you're at work, you feel guilty by being distracted by wishing that you were at your personal life."

In March, Whoopi Goldberg explained on an episode of "The View" why she prioritized her career over her child.

"My kid came before my career, and I chose my career because I knew this would never happen again," Goldberg said. "She didn't always like it, but that is the process of being a parent. They're not supposed to like everything you do."

However, Hollywood moms are not the only ones who face this dilemma; working women across industries are often forced to choose between their careers and having children.

Part of it is due to the "motherhood penalty" — the pay gap that women experience when they become mothers, according to Claudia Goldin, a Nobel Prize-winning Harvard professor.

Her 16-year-long study found that female MBA graduates who have children are more likely to have less job experience, more interruptions to their careers, and earnings decline — something that their male counterparts do not experience.

A representative for Knightley did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.

• Auli'i Cravahlo told "Podcrushed" about deferring a Columbia University place in favor of her career.
• She said she was wary of halting her acting journey because she was the "breadwinner" for her family.
• Actors including Glen Powell and Anne Hathaway have also paused their education for their careers.

Auli'i Cravalho, the voice of Moana, said she decided to pause her education aspiration over fears her acting career would lose steam.

Cravalho began her acting career at 14, debuting as Disney's first Polynesian princess in 2016's "Moana." The film was nominated for two Oscars and grossed $643 million worldwide.

Since then, Cravalho has voice-acted in several TV shows and video games, starred in films including 2024's "Mean Girls," and appeared in multiple stage shows.

Still, Moana is her most popular role as she prepares to return the character in "Moana 2," which is out next week.

Appearing on the "Podcrushed" podcast to promote the movie, Cravalho spoke about being accepted to Columbia University in 2021 to study environmental science.

The actor told Scary Mommy last year she'd deferred her place because she was "so scared that the industry would just move on and forget about me."

"There is a sense of the train is moving and do I bring it to a halt because I know for a fact that I'm not able to focus on those two things at once," Cravalho said in this week's interview. "I know I would have to pause one or give less of myself to the other, which doesn't feel fair."

Cravalho told Scary Mommy and The Cut last year she now has to reapply to Columbia because she deferred her place too many times.

Many actors and musicians have paused or dropped out of college to pursue careers. Celebrities like Glen Powell, Anne Hathaway, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Timothée Chalamet have been successful in doing so.

Powell is finishing his degree at the University of Texas this year after becoming one of Hollywood's brightest new stars.

Cravalho said she still wants to return to her degree and would be the first in her immediate family to go to college.

"I'm also the breadwinner for my family," she said. "I'm a smidge worried about taking a break and doing all four years. I've budgeted it all out. I'd make it, but it would be close. I look forward to doing that in the next decade when I feel more secure."

The number of people enrolling for undergraduate degrees fell from 18 million to 15.4 million between 2010 and 2021, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Although the center said enrollment rose last year for the first time since the pandemic, higher education appears to be losing its appeal for some young people.

In May, Deloitte published a survey of 14,468 Gen Z and 8,373 millennials across 44 countries about their attitudes toward the world and their financial conditions.

It found that a third of respondents had chosen to skip higher education, citing financial barriers as the prime reason.

In 2023, Business Insider, in collaboration with YouGov, surveyed more than 1,800 Americans across five generations, including more than 600 Gen Z respondents above the age of 18, and found that 46% of Gen Z respondents didn't think college was worth the cost.

That poses a challenge for colleges and universities.

Joseph Fuller, a professor at Harvard Business School and co-lead of its "Managing the Future of Work" initiative, told BI last year: "They're going to have to work to demonstrate to potential students that graduates of their programs can enjoy success and a lifestyle that will support income level and support a household with a decent lifestyle."