Anonymous wrote:There are 2 ways of making big money from your profession that's legal in life.
The first career track is sales. That's bringing in new business whether you are a Partner in a Law Firm, Managing Partner in Professional Services, business owner in any industry incl blue collar trades or just having a sales title and being really successful in that job (obviously the industry will determine your on target earnings -OTE). This is how you make big money. Every person I know who retired early or well were able to do BD regardless of industry.
The second way is through professional jobs requiring knowledge ie technical, legal, financial careers requiring typically a grad degree. Usually this involves pedigree on the educational front and I include I-banking here.
Often you still need to BD to make it to top of the field to make more money and be more "successful."
Undergrad does not matter if you are Sales. It's the Grad degree that matters if you are 2nd track.
When pp said A students work for B students and C students invent and become impactful this is fairly true in my experience. I would actually say C students make the most money and A students work for C students. I don't know that many A students who have their own companies. Maybe they do but I know a ton of B/C students who have. C students often don't like being told what to do. But many have a sales personality. Selling is to me the number one skill to career success regardless of field. Sociability and relationship management is where it's at. Grades get you the college to get in the door.
This is very mainstream. And I'm not talking happiness. But your middle managers earning $150k or $200k - it's good money but it's not the money I know everyone on this board wants - I am talking big money goals. My parents were multi millionaires and DH parents as well. One family came up grad school the other via military but both small business owners. Both sets of our parents were B/C students, more C

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I tell my kids it's never where you start and where you finish. It is however a matter of ambition, passion and drive. It doesn't have to come before or even during college as long as it comes sometime in your life