Andrea Constantine found her ikigai - reason for being, which the Japanese say is found at the intersection of what a person is good at, what a person loves, what the world needs, and what a person can be paid for - in 2019. Achieving this self-understanding was a journey that can be broken down into three phases. First, in 2011, she decided against law school (even though it had been her lifelong goal) after doing a ROI analysis on her future and realized that it would be unwise to incur more student debt, especially in the post-Recession environment. This 11th hour decision put her in a predicament because she knew she would be graduating with nearly $200K of student debt in 9 months, and absolutely needed a high paying job. Fortunately, she ended up receiving three job offers in April 2012, one month before graduation. Second, since 2012 she has worked at Estee Lauder Companies (Presidential Associate & Corporate Marketing Analytics Associate), Bloomberg Tradebook (Electronic Trading Marketing Associate & Equities Trader), Rosenblatt Securities (Investment Banking Associate), and Goldman Sachs (Electronic Trading Marketing Associate). Each of these companies and positions helped Andrea narrow in on her true talents and introduced her to a network of amazing people who helped guide her, directly and indirectly. Third, in 2019, Andrea met four people who helped her finally understand her ikigai: helping people understand what it takes to achieve Fiscal Happiness (the empathetic understanding that our emotional and financial well-being are intertwined). Access to career opportunities, solid professional and personal relationships, dealing with student loans, and personal finance knowledge are core to our Fiscal Happiness. Today, Andrea writes about all of these topics and posts her articles to Medium. She is also starting a new position as a Talent Research Insights Manager with a start-up that she learned about simply because a new acquaintance invited her to the start-up's book launch. If Andrea's background teaches you only two things, it's to have a growth mindset and express a genuine interest in all people.