In November 2015, I booked a suite in a midtown Manhattan hotel and spent the night pacing, rehearsing my presentation in an empty room. The next morning I would host the first breakfast workshop for my new wealth advisory firm. I had left a prominent position as a director of wealth management at Morgan Stanley to build a company based on a radically different idea of wealth.

My guests included a senior partner at a private equity firm managing more than $10 billion and the head of a major firm’s wealth management division. I was about to tell them, “You’re chasing the wrong prize.” I was worried: What if they laughed when I said words like “heartfelt” and “holistic”?

But I couldn’t help myself. For years I’d privately suspected I was climbing the wrong mountain, and I’d realized it wasn’t just me.

Working on Wall Street had become an object lesson in the drawbacks of ceaseless competition. I loved my job, but there was no denying that it was an industry built on the glorification of money, privilege, and power. In finance, relentless pursuit—of richer clients, bigger accounts, and fatter fees—was a given, whatever the personal cost.

It isn’t just finance. Modern life trains all of us to pour most of our energy into our careers, even when the payoff is anxiety, exhaustion, and a nagging sense that something essential is missing. We’re overinvested in a faulty vision of success that pushes us constantly toward achievement, often at the cost of our health, our emotional well-being, and our relationships.

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