The global financial industry is a vigorous business where change is the only constant. Successful professionals share the common characteristic of energetic, intense, knowledgeable, highly disciplined and extremely driven. Most of them have also probably been humbled by the experience of market turbulences and the often-unsuspecting factors that contributed to these unusual periods. Beneath their successes, each one of them is a dedicated professional who had committed huge personal efforts in their career. While different types of careers within the financial industry require different skills and talent, there is no question that these successful professionals take their respective career a long-term commitment.

　　As a beginner, you should develop the mindset of taking this career seriously with a long-term view. You must be prepared to adjust your way-of-life to maximize your learning experience. Many young people have great interests for the business, but are unable to sustain it over the long haul. They are anxious to have their fair share of victory, but fail to understand the commitments and sacrifices, or are unable to pace themselves and “burnout?after several years in the business.

　　The bottom line: One has to make sacrifices for a successful career in the business.

　　Examples

　　Securities Sales

　　As a securities salesperson covering the U.S. market in the Asian time zone, you need to stay up throughout the market trading hours (9:30 pm to 4:00 am China time) to monitor the live markets and corporate news coming out from the news wire. However, you need to get up the next day during Asian business hours, after having only a few hours of sleep, to communicate with your clients who are based in the region. This will almost rule out any social or family time on week day evenings. You must be highly disciplined in your life style and live this routine as long as you are in this career.

　　Foreign Exchange

　　FX traders of major banks in Asia are in the office invariably before 7:00 am in the mornings, and stay late into the evenings for US economic and fiscal announcements that will impact their outstanding positions. At times, they stay until the US market closes at 4:00 am if it is especially volatile. (They do not go home on such occasions; they rest in the office, as they have to be in early the next morning. ) Most of these traders do not follow the local calendar when it comes to local public holidays; instead, they have days-off when the US markets are closed for holiday, and the U.S. has the least number of market holidays in the world.

　　Investment Banks And Global Securities Firms

　　Another example is the requirement for people working in investment banks or global securities firms to follow in-house rules and policies on “employee account trading? restricting you, your spouse and dependents on personal investments and trading accounts. The standard practice for all employees, spouses and dependents is to open brokerage accounts in-house or with designated brokerage firms. This would enable centralized record keeping, surveillance and compliance checks for possible violations of securities laws and regulations. Prior approval by the immediate manager and compliance are required before placing orders. The objective is to ensure that employees are not involved in speculative trading, and to avoid any apparent conflict of interests with the firm’s official business.