Michael Lewis is one of the most influential authors and leading social commentators. His work has inspired Oscar-nominated movies, and he is widely recognized for his best-selling books including The Big Short, Liar’s Poker, Moneyball and the The Blind Side. But when he left finance to become a writer, his first book had the opposite effect he intended.
Michael Lewis delivered the keynote address on February 11 at the Inside ETFs conference in Hollywood, Florida.
He is a fine storyteller, publishing on both conservative and liberal subject matter.
Whether he’s turning his attention to the practice of finance (read more here) or governance in the age of Donald Trump (see here), he tells fascinating stories that grip the reader’s attention.
Lewis used his keynote to share stories from his multi-faceted career that entertained his audience of advisors and financial professionals.
This time Lewis engaged the audience even more than usual for one simple reason.
Instead of discussing an upcoming book or commenting on the economy, he made himself relatable, revealing mistakes he made that helped him develop professionally. He told stories of unexpected instances, including when he accidentally found himself in perplexing positions where he learned lessons the hard way.
There’s one lesson from Lewis’s career that will surprise you – his first great success accidentally resulted in the opposite outcome he intended.
That success was in writing his first bestseller, Liar’s Poker, and serves as an insightful reminder from which all advisors can benefit. I will share stories and explain how writing that bestseller helped Lewis learn from an outcome he never expected.
Why Lewis wrote a bestseller that was accidentally inspirational
After earning a degree in art history at Princeton University and completing his graduate studies at the London School of Economics, Lewis started a career on Wall Street as a junior bond salesman for Salomon Brothers.
Poised to become one of the investment bank’s top executives, Lewis found himself earning a $250,000 salary at age 25 in the 1980s. Not only did he receive that compensation, but he had the added potential for a year-end bonus. Lewis considered himself wildly overpaid.
That was an extraordinary amount of money to be earning, not just at that time, but at such a young age, he recounted. “It’s an incredible sum,” he said plainly.
“My father basically thought I was working for a criminal enterprise,” he added comically.
But after having grown up modestly in New Orleans, Lewis astounded his family when he ignored their advice and left his prestigious position in finance to become a writer.
What most people don’t realize is that Lewis also found himself astounded again a few years later.
Not only was he surprised that his first novel became a bestseller, Lewis said, but he later learned that his book had the opposite effect he intended it to have when he set out to share his story.
When Lewis decided to leave a profitable investment bank job to write his novel, he essentially had one reason– to pursue a career that he was passionate about and to encourage others to do the same.
By age 25, Lewis realized that it’s easy, and very common, to give up on a passion in exchange for more favorable compensation. For instance, his college roommate had given up his dream to work in marine biology because Goldman Sachs had “thrown so much money at him,” he said. Lewis said he was realizing that he was at risk of doing the same.
Looking at his Salomon colleagues 10 years older than him at the time, he described them as “unbelievably aged,” he said. Lewis could see how his life was going to progress if he continued on a Wall Street career path, because he would never be able to leave the jobs that would pay millions of dollars each year.
Finding himself saying, “If I don’t get out, I’ll never get out,” Lewis left the industry when he discovered it would be possible to earn a living by following his passion, becoming a professional writer.
Lewis left Solomon Brothers to chronicle experiences in Liar’s Poker. Published in 1989, the novel painted an unflattering portrait of 1980s Wall Street culture, and went on to become a bestseller.
But when he wrote that book, he was surprised to discover that it had the opposite effect he expected–he had accidentally promoted the pursuit of a career on Wall Street.
Countless students contemplating a career in finance read his novel, inspired by his accounts.
“There’s the book you wrote, and there’s the book they read, and sometimes they are not the same thing,” he said.
Lewis explained that after the novel came out, he received thousands of letters from students seeking advice and sending messages to him opening with, “I read your how-to guide on Wall Street.”
While trying to expose some of the despicable aspects that come with the pursuit of a financial professional position, Lewis accidentally inspired a generation to pursue a career in the field.
So what can advisors learn from this?
Despite being one of the most engaging writers in a generation, even he couldn’t persuade readers blinded by biases to see the risks and issues he highlighted for them.
This serves as an insightful reminder that advisors need to be attentive to what risks blind their clients, and adjust for these biases to help investors achieve their financial goals.
Marianne Brunet is an economic analysis manager at Advisor Perspectives.
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Michael Lewis is one of the most influential authors and leading social commentators. His work has inspired Oscar-nominated movies, and he is widely recognized for his best-selling books including The Big Short, Liar’s Poker, Moneyball and the The Blind Side. But when he left finance to become a writer, his first book had the opposite effect he intended.