4 Reasons I Quit my $100K Job to DAY TRADE
I thought I was going to graduate college, get a nice degree, start a well paying job, and live happily ever after. Well, the reality was far from that.
Yes, before day trading, I had a “real job”. In this article, I’ll be telling you my story of why I QUIT my $100K job to day trade and most importantly, how I prepared for that big transition. A quick pro tip kids: you gotta plan for this, so don’t just quit cold turkey.
Background
I graduated from college with a degree in Film & VFX. I wanted to create 3D computer generated films like the ones you see nowadays in Hollywood blockbusters like Lord of the Rings, Marvel superhero films or animated films like anything from Pixar.
I worked my ass off during my four years in college; most of my fellow students did as well. We pulled all-nighters, did extra credit, read industry papers and did whatever we could to keep up with the constantly changing industry. After all, we were paying upwards of six figures in student loans to achieve our universal dream.
I thought my life would be fulfilled if I ever could get my name on a movie credit. That would be the height of my career, a pinnacle moment for my lifelong achievements that I would one day tell my grandchildren about.
I would also be surrounded by like minded people who are all super talented, friendly and getting paid to create art. We’d be a part of stunning visual experiences and shaping America’s entertainment industry together.
And boy was I wrong.
After I graduated, I started working in VFX. That's where the big disappointment dawned on me.
Reasons for the Big QUIT
1. Passion alone, isn’t going to pay the bills
Many industries like graphic design, architecture, UX design and VFX underpay their artists.
My employers would say, “You are working on it because of your passion for film and animation. It’s an incredible opportunity for you to be a part of a global team of talented artists creating stories that will shape generations to come. That's the reason we’re only paying you $20 an hr. You’re welcome.”
When I worked in the industry, that's the one line I hated the most. Was I also skilled and talented? Yes, absolutely. Was I passionate about film making? Yes, absolutely, but guess what, passion alone isn’t going to pay for the bills. If anything, the artists should get paid MORE for being so passionate about the craft.
I'm definitely not saying only passions or interests that make you money are worth pursuing, but if you have to spend an extended amount of your days, which are usually the best hours of the day, working for a company, you should get paid what you're worth.
As I said before, many artists in the industry had to take on six figure student loans to enroll in college just to pursue their passion for this craft and have a chance to work in the industry.
How is it possible that we have Hollywood blockbusters that make millions of dollars in its first week at the box office which sees producers getting bonuses and actors walking away with fat stacks, but the thousands of artists behind the scenes creating the memorable stories and incredible visuals have to live paycheck to paycheck.
The artists are truly the foundation that lift up the movies. Without them, many movies would look more like a homemade project.
There have been so many instances where I see studios paying some incredibly talented artists, often fresh grads, minimum wage, or I’ll see my friends getting paid as a mid level artist while having to take on responsibilities as a supervisor or a senior. More often than not, it’s all because the studio refused to give them an official title that deserves a big raise.
So ask yourself this now: how can you not feel disheartened when the industry you loved and spent years of your lives devoted to, doesn’t love you back?
2. Lack of Security
To sum it up, artists are treated as disposable articles rather than valuable human resources that lift up the entire industry.
Full time, permanent positions are very difficult to come by in film and VFX. Everything is based on short term contracts that could be only 3 or 6 months. I have done contracts that are as short as 2 weeks.
Since most VFX animation artists are on contract terms, that means studios can easily let go of people, often with no prior notice. Often, in between contracts, artists have several weeks or months of break and that is without pay.
This practice creates a vicious cycle and constant instability of income. When I did have work, I would constantly be worried about whether or not my contract would get renewed in a few weeks. There were months where I had to start looking for another job, right as I had just started a new contract and there was always the constant worry that I may not have a job lined up in two weeks.
A lot of times, artists are constantly moving, in order to find jobs. That was the reason I moved from LA to Vancouver.
I know many others who were constantly on the move every other year, chasing after a contract moving from LA to Vancouver, from Montreal to Austin and from London to Sydney. It's no wonder the divorce rate within the industry is so high. It's impossible to have any job security and you always have to worry about your bills despite working insane hours.
Let's be real; the last thing you want to do once you get home after a long week in a dark dark studio is your dishes or to take out the trash. I’m just saying this for a friend, you know.
3. Lack of Meaning
At first when I started working, the dark offices with no windows looked edgy. The long hours during the week sounded like a chance to get great team building experience and the overtime on weekends was a great chance for me to pay off my student loans faster! How cute.
After a while, I no longer found what I was doing day in and day out meaningful. You could say I was jaded about the career, but after what I've described in the previous two reasons, would you be surprised that an overwhelming amount of VFX artists in the industry all eventually feel the same way?
I remember in one of the last major film productions I had worked on, I was surfacing a very minor background prop. This little prop went through, I kid you not, 37 revisions. It was a busy production seeing as I had ten other more important environments to model and surface.
With the amount of time I spent on this thing, one would expect this prop to be a prominent thing you’d see on screen again and again like the one true ring in Lord of the Rings or the dragon’s egg in Game of Thrones, but guess what happened to the little prop I designed.
It ended up on a shelf, behind some glass cupboards, and you may see barely two pixels of it on screen.
I remember sitting there in a windowless studio in just one of the many rows of artists doing the same thing thinking, “Is this really what I went through 4 years of college for? Is this job really worth it? Where is the creativity in this? What is the purpose of this?”
Is it just so another big film studio can roll out more merchandise and sell millions of them to kids in toy stores or theme parks?
Is that it?
4. Discrimination and Harassment
On top of that, the VFX industry is notorious for gender discrimination and workplace harassment. Unfortunately, I have had a few unpleasant instances like that happen to me, and I've had to see my female colleagues experience the same.
HR did absolutely nothing. Well I can't say nothing, but they did the bare minimum to cover the company’s ass. This amounted to the courtesy one on one meeting and note taking followed by just crickets.
This is another sad realization I had from working in VFX. The job of human resources is not to enforce employees safety; it’s simply there to protect the company. Think about that!
This led me down the rabbit hole of rethinking my entire purpose in life, if this job had any meaning, and even if there was, was it really worth it at the expense of my mental and physical health?
I have tendonitis in my right arm, and that was a direct result from long hours of overtime working VFX animation.
At the height of all the unpleasant things happening at work, I also developed severe anxiety attacks. There was a period of two months where I'd wake up in the middle of the night with hives all over my body.
You see, I didn't quit my job to day trade for the sole reason of not paying me enough. Sure, all the extra overtime pay probably added up to $100K a year, but I quit because I remember near the end of my career in VFX, all that money came with an equal amount of misery at the same time.
Even after so many years out from quitting my formal career, there's still a lot of built up anger.
The Transition
Now, let me tell you how I prepared for this big transition of quitting my job to start day trading full time.
Pretty much throughout my entire time working in VFX full time, I had been day trading part time. At first, it was just a way to supplement my income, especially during the weeks or months in between contracts.
Then, as the years went by, I increasingly grew more frustrated about my full time job in VFX. I realized day trading, this little side hustle passion project of mine, could actually be my backdoor out.
Yes, you can argue that it’s equally stressful or that the income is unstable, but that is to be expected in the first year. That’s why I always stress, please start with paper trading and only after that go live, and only risk small amounts like $10, $50 or $100 as a brand new trader.
Take those losses as market tuition. We all start out losing, but you can choose how much you lose as a beginner day trader. Most importantly, don’t quit your job right away. You need a job to pay the bills and your market tuition.
That was my mindset going into trading part time, and thanks to my VFX job, I was able to refund the small accounts. That kept me going as I continued learning, testing out strategies like risk management and improved my discipline.
Since I lived on the west coast, I would wake up at 4:30-5am everyday to do the trade planning premarket. This is something I still do to this day. Then, I would trade from 6:30am my local time at the market open all the way to about 8-8:30am.
After that, I would shut everything down and rush off to work. I’d arrive at 9:30am. However, if the market was hot, if there were a lot of stocks running or if there was a sector hype, sometimes I would get into work late like 10am or 10:30am. I’d just sneak in the backdoor and hope nobody noticed.
I'm not condoning getting to work late, but if you do, just don't get caught. Do yourself a huge favor, and keep your job.
Contrary to what the lifestyle marketing around this whole day trading industry tells you, quitting your job altogether to day trade is really not as glamorous or as easy as it seems.
Just like day trading, the transition required a lot of planning and work well in advance to make sure I had enough financial runway so I didn't end up on the streets.
I budgeted and saved up one year of living expenses and made sure that money was outside of my trading account. That way, I didn’t have to worry about using the profits to pay for bills right away as I went full time. This is an immense amount of emotional pressure as well.
Whether I worked hard or slacked off playing ping pong all day at my VFX, I was guaranteed a Things to paycheck at the end of the day. I never had the risk of losing money, just the risk of losing my soul.
Things to Consider
If you are thinking of transitioning from part time to full time trading, please make sure you have at least 6-12 months of generous living expenses outside of your trading account. I cannot stress this enough.
I had some of the darkest and most unhealthy times in my life when I was working in VFX. Now, I feel so incredibly blessed and grateful to have had day trading be my backdoor out of that terrible industry.
Many people, my friends and family included, ask me if I felt like I threw away my four years of college and a passion I once had.
I don't think so, since my VFX education and career were very necessary steps that led to where I am today.
If it weren’t for the intermittent VFX contract jobs and long breaks in between, I wouldn't have picked up day trading as a way to supplement my income. If it weren't for the terrible work culture, I wouldn’t have had the courage and the motivation to start taking trading seriously by going full time.
Lastly, if it weren’t for the film production skills I learned as a VFX artist, I wouldn't have started a Youtube channel as a creative outlet.
All the struggles at my former career including the emotional and physical trauma may have seemed meaningless at the time, but the dots in your lives only connect looking backwards.
If my full time job was too easy or too comfy, it's very likely that I never would have tried day trading, let alone taking it seriously as a business.
So, to all my former bosses who didn’t want to extend my contracts, give me the earned $3,000 raise or who wouldn’t approve me revisions for the 37th time, I am extremely grateful today!
