Optimal Finance Daily · Thursday, September 10, 2026
Joshua Fields Millburn detailed his intense pursuit of corporate success in his 20s, working long hours and rapidly advancing to become the youngest director in his company's history. However, looking ahead at the VP and C-level roles, he realized the path was paved with corporate politics and unhappiness, causing him to question his ambition.
“I spent my 20s traversing the corporate ladder. Fresh out of high school, I skipped the whole college route and instead found an entry-level sales job with a corporation that let me work six, sometimes seven days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day.”
“I was at age 27, the youngest director in the company's 140-year history. I'd become a fast-track career man, a personage of sorts, which meant that if I worked really hard and if everything happened exactly like it was supposed to, then I could be a vice president by 32, a senior vice president by 35 or 40, and a C-level executive, CFO, COO, CEO by 45 or 50, followed, of course, by the golden parachute.”
“And what I saw was terrifying.”