One of the main reasons I wanted to pursue a career in finance and ultimately join a hedge fund is because I wanted to get rich. Even though I grew up in a nice middle-class family that didn’t struggle much with money most of the time, I always had a drive to one day become rich.

It’s not that I care that much about spending the money. I couldn’t care less about the materialistic things. But I knew that being rich would one day allow me and my future family to do whatever we want whenever we wanted. It was the freedom that I craved and the stability to never have to worry about money.

Even though there are thousands of different random articles and guides on how to get rich or pursue a career that would make you rich, nobody really talks about what happens when you do achieve that Top 1% Net Worth.

Let’s dive in to the top 10 things people realize when they become rich.

Money Doesn’t Make You Happy

I know, such a cliché statement… But the reality is your emotional well-being is not going to change whether you have a lot of money or not. Sure, for those who live paycheck to paycheck, having money will solve all those money related issues in life. But once you make enough to not have to worry about those monthly expenses that much, happiness will be less driven by money and more driven by other factors.

I’ve found that these other factors, at least for me, come down to two things:

• Your relationships
• Personal goals/sense of purpose

While being rich can provide comfort and security, true happiness comes from how meaningful your relationships are and whether you think you are living a purposeful life chasing certain goals.

I remember the day I saw one of my first hedge fund bonuses hit the account. It was the first time I ever saw $1,000,000+ in the bank account. More money than most people save throughout their entire careers. I’ll admit over the next 6 months to a year, I was pretty happy. Worked really hard throughout my 20s as an investment banker and ultimately on the buyside at a hedge fund. I felt like I had achieved a major goal in my life, and it wasn’t just given to me. It took years to achieve.

But the initial thrill of growing your pile can quickly fade. You start to question, “is this really it?” After years of cancelling on friends, events, failed relationships, you really start to question whether all that work was worth it or not.

It was the months that followed after seeing that seven figure paycheck in the bank that I realized that money alone cannot buy happiness.

Loneliness

Like I mentioned before, to get to the point of being richer than your peers, you have to do something different and most likely you’ll have to make a good number of sacrifices. Whether that is sacrificing your time and working around the clock, or moving away from friends/family to pursue that opportunity, or giving up your high school/college friends because they may be holding you back… the path to get rich is not really an easy one.

Wealth can be isolating. As bad as this is, you will realize that as you get richer, you can’t relate to those who don’t have the same drive as you. You start to think things like $1MM is not a lot of money even though that amount can change a person’s life forever. Throughout finance there are plenty of people who have been in the industry for a while who don’t even think $10MM is a ton of money.

Your perception of the world changes and with it the people you want to spend your time with. The social circles of wealthy individuals often change. You don’t want to feel like you are being taken advantage of by others – when people know you have a ton of money, it makes it harder to form real relationships.

Money Stops Being a Good Motivator

When you start out with a negative net worth after college, the motivation and drive to work hard and make money is the highest. With the right mindset, being broke can be very powerful as there is no fallback for failure. It forces you to do everything you can to get out of your situation and figure out how to become financially stable.

But once you’ve made it out and have saved enough money to live for 10+ years without needing to work, you’ll find that money no longer is a good motivator. After a few big pay days working at a hedge fund, I realized that I lost my drive and sense of purpose in life. I worked so hard to get to where I was climbing the finance ladder to the buyside working at a large multimanager hedge fund and then a large single manager fund.

I started to question, “what’s next?” What am I working towards now? Since I made enough to not have to work for 10+ years, making more money no longer was a good motivator like It used to be in my 20s. At the very least, at least I work in an industry that I really enjoy.

Rich people often need to find new sources of motivation. Whether that’s personal growth, philanthropy, traveling, creative hobbies, new businesses that solve problems, etc… there needs to be another goalpost to work towards or else you’ll lose that one sense of purpose you had to get rich and start to feel lost in life.

What You Have Is Still Not Enough

If you’re like me and have wanted to be rich since you were in high school, you’ll never be happy with how much you make if you constantly compare yourself to others. In many finance industries and in entrepreneurship, there will always be someone who makes more than you or had a bigger exit.

When I started out in investment banking right out of college, my target net worth number was $3 to $5MM. Then it gradually went to $10MM and now it is probably somewhere around $20-30MM. The number keeps rising once you’ve made it to a certain level.

Usually the more people have, the more they may want. Even though I could care less about materialistic things, my target still moves higher, which has led to a never-ending cycle of dissatisfaction. And for those of you who care about materialistic things, you end up moving into a bigger house, buying nicer cars, and spending more on vacations/experiences. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of constantly wanting more… But once you get those things, you start eyeing the next level up. The goalpost keeps moving, and it becomes harder to feel satisfied.

Your happiness quickly returns to a baseline level regardless of significant positive or negative changes in your life. Once you reach a certain level of net worth, figure out how to break free from this cycle and shift focus to more personal goals, relationships, experiences, etc. that will be more meaningful.

Without New Goals, You’ll Ask Yourself, “Is This Really It?”

The typical path for a finance career is 1) graduate from a target/semi target school, 2) land a job as an investment banker and 3) break into the buyside in PE/VC/HF and then start making millions off carried interest.

It’s a pretty straightforward path to be in the top 1% in finance in a relatively short amount of time. The question is though, “what is next?”

Nobody really tells you what happens when you’ve accomplished all the goals you had in your 20s/30s. Becoming financially successful can lead to a sense of emptiness if you don’t have new goals to strive for. Many wealthy people end up finding themselves asking, “Is this really it?”

I promise you that if you have made it or are ever going to make it in life, you are guaranteed to come across this problem. So setting new goals and finding things to keep your mind occupied is crucial to maintaining a sense of purpose and fulfillment.

You’ll Always Find Someone Who Is Richer Than You

There is no doubt in my mind that, despite how wealthy you are, there will aways be someone richer than you, especially in the finance world. You could be making a million dollars in any given year, $10 million a year or even $20+ million a year. It doesn’t matter. No matter how many zeros are in your bank account, there’s always another portfolio manager, partner, or hedge fund founder with an even more staggering net worth

The problem is as you get richer, you become more exposed to higher levels as wealth. This constant comparison can be demoralizing. You start to question your own accomplishments and feel like you’re not doing enough, even though you’re the top 1%. So it’s important to focus on your own achievements and not compare yourself to others.

Anxiety Creeps in on How to Manage Your Money

This is undoubtedly one of the biggest issues with making money. Managing large sums of money ($1MM+) can be stressful and anxiety-inducing, especially when you don’t know when your next big payday will come. You end up worrying about making the right investment decisions and constantly questioning whether you made the right decision. This anxiety can really cause a lot of stress in your life and prevent you from enjoying the money.

Fortunately for those in finance, you hopefully know a thing or two about what makes a good investment. Even still, just cause you made a lot of money in your finance gig or through some entrepreneurial venture doesn’t mean you’ll be good at managing money. What people don’t realize is that once you have made some real money, you end up thinking you know everything about how to manage it and will likely initially make poor investment decisions.

Once they make a few money management mistakes, a lot of people who work at hedge funds or private equity firms, despite making investments for their funds for a living, stress out constantly about how to properly manage their money.

Friend and Family Expectations

When you become rich, the expectations from those around you can shift dramatically. Friends and family may start to assume that because you have more money, you’re responsible for helping them out financially. It can start out as small as picking up the drink tab or dinner tab and then grow into bigger items like paying for travel expenses with buddies or helping family members with their bills.

Of course, it is nice to have made it and want to help others who may be struggling financials, especially if they are your close family members/friends. But overtime, you may start to feel taken advantage of or pressured to pay for this and that when you don’t want to.

Easiest way to avoid all this is to not let others outside of your close circle know how rich you are.

Public Scrutiny / Lack of Privacy

This only applies for those who are uber wealthy and/or celebrities. The more wealth you accumulate, the more attention you attract. Elon Musk is the best example. Every word, tweet, move he makes is constantly analyzed and can be potentially criticized by the media. The wealthier you are, the more people want to know about your life.

Some will admire you, but others will judge your choices—how you spend your money, how you run your business, and even how you live your day-to-day life. Everyone seems to have an opinion, and I guarantee you not all of it will be positive.

The constant judgment and invasion of privacy can feel overwhelming. It forces you to live in a bubble where your every move is calculated to avoid controversy or backlash. Again, this is only an issue if you are rich enough to garner media attention.

That said, there are many uber wealthy private equity and hedge fund managers who managed to stay out of the public eyes by not putting their name out there. Just scroll through the list of the top 100 richest people and I you probably haven’t heard of many of them.

Prepare for the Unexpected Once You Get Rich

Given this is a finance blog, everyone likely dreams to become really rich one day. But just be prepared that, while money solves certain problems, it can introduce a whole set of unexpected problems that can make you more anxious than you were when you were poor.

The key is to keep your expectations low and understand that being happy, or fulfilled or having a sense of purpose won’t necessarily come once you’ve made a lot of money in life. If you don’t focus on personal growth, relationships, and finding new purpose once you’ve achieved prior goals, the realization might hit hard that money alone is never enough.