Opinion: I recently graduated. Here’s why I don’t want to give up my life for a job

Editor’s note: Jane Bernhardt The former actor and Columbia Business School MBA graduate will be launching a podcast called “Your Career, Unscripted” on July 15, where he will interview business leaders and recent graduates about their career paths and values. LinkedIn Subscribe to her newsletter here. The opinions expressed in this commentary are her own. Further comments On CNN.

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As recent graduates across the country prepare to start new jobs, many will feel pressured to sacrifice time with the people they love in order to advance in their careers. I’ve been there too, chasing a career at the expense of everything else. I urge you not to neglect the most important part of life: the people you spend it with.

I’ve always been a highly driven and creative person. I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre and continued acting in theater and television throughout my 20s. Work was my life. I did countless 14-hour rehearsals, moved to different states multiple times a year, performed in eight shows a week, filmed audition tapes whenever I had time off, and stayed up all night memorizing 40+ page scripts.

My personal life took a huge hit and was put on the back burner as new opportunities arose. I was forced to miss funerals, trips, classes, and was constantly advised not to take time off because I had to attend a last-minute, potentially life-changing audition. The pressure was intense. I don’t remember the audition, but I regret the time I missed with my friend.

Then COVID-19 hit, productions around the world shut down, and I was forced to stop and reconsider the course of my life for the first time. Was I too scared to let go of something I’d poured my heart and soul into for over a decade? The answer was that the most meaningful times of my life weren’t spent on stage or on a screen, but with the people I love.

It was at this point that I completely changed course and chose a career path that would allow me to spend more time with friends and family, or at least that’s what I thought.

My ultimate goal in attending Columbia Business School to get my MBA was to build a career in technology, entertainment strategy, and marketing that would not only fuel my creativity with financial stability, but also give me the space to build personal relationships and decompress.

The volatile market for established companies in industries I am passionate about led me to consider the traditional MBA path – consulting, which offered higher pay and a good learning experience – and tech startups, where smaller companies were hiring at a time when larger companies were tightening their purse strings.

But the world I was entering was all too familiar. My peers in investment banking, consulting, and early-stage tech startups were working around the clock, hustling M&A deals, and taking calls at 2 a.m. to appease high-handed clients. I expected this lifestyle to be very different after moving to a slower-paced city.

That didn’t happen. At the end of a job interview, I asked the recruiter what the work-life balance was like at the company, and was often told that I was wrong because I didn’t want to wait until 3 a.m. because I didn’t fit into the traditional MBA grad box. But my goal wasn’t to fit into the box, it was to break out of it.

I was offered and considered for the job, only to find out later that it would require 90-100 hour work weeks and frequent late night calls. When I turned it down due to the long hours, I was told I was missing out on 10 years of what should have been a busy life, and that I was lazy for finishing work before midnight. As someone who started working professionally at age 14, it’s disheartening and frustrating to think that 16 years later, some people might think I’m lazy for pursuing balance.

While traditional consulting is not for me, I realized having my own consulting firm was and started it. While I understand that my work is not my identity, I put all my effort into my work while working on many demanding side projects, including a podcast and a book. I prioritize financial stability while deciding my own hours. In the future, if I find a job that aligns with my priorities, I may open that door. For now, I am paving my own path.

Throughout my independent study at Columbia University, I interviewed many business leaders and recent graduates to learn about different career paths, and I interviewed hundreds more after I finished writing my dissertation. Interestingly, many executives said the advice they would give to their younger selves would be to spend less time in the office, noting that it had come at great personal sacrifice.

A former CEO of a prominent entertainment company spoke about spending too much time traveling and being away from his family, and the sentiment resonated strongly with tech executives as they talked about all the moments they missed as kids, how work meetings felt urgent and important at the time, but in retrospect, they wished they’d gone to their kids’ sports games.

Furthermore, when asked if they thought they could have achieved the same level of success without making the sacrifices, they responded that they probably could have, but that success would have looked different.

Well, a different approach works for me: I pinned these vulnerable insights on the wall to remind myself that, at the end of the day, it’s not how you work that matters, but how you live.