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&lt;p&gt;Once upon a time, required reading for entry-level Wall Street bankers and traders included &lt;em&gt;Liar&#39;s Poker,&#160;&lt;/em&gt;Michael Lewis&#39;s inside account of the bond trading madness at Solomon Brothers;&#160;&lt;em&gt;Den of Thieves&lt;/em&gt;, Pulitzer Prize-winner James B. Stewart&#39;s insider-trading best seller which made Boesky and Milken households names; and &lt;em&gt;Barbarians at the Gate,&lt;/em&gt; Bryan Burrough and John Helyar&#39;s play-by-play of the RJR Nabisco LBO which brought private equity giant KKR to the masses (and which was made into an entertaining movie starring Jonathan &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://time.com/4337568/game-of-thrones-theory-high-sparrow-tommen-secret/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;High Sparrow&lt;/a&gt;&quot; Pryce as Henry Kravis). More recently, on the post-financial crisis Street, books such as Lewis&#39;s &lt;em&gt;The Big Short&lt;/em&gt;, Andrew Ross Sorkin&#39;s &lt;em&gt;Too Big To Fail&lt;/em&gt;, and Roger Lowenstein&#39;s &lt;em&gt;The End of Wall Street&lt;/em&gt; have taken the place of&#160;&lt;em&gt;Thieves, Liars,&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Barbarians&lt;/em&gt;&#160;as must-read cautionary tales for new bankers and traders. In addition, there have been a couple of solid books written by women which deserve close reads by new college graduates entering the wild world of Wall Street.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One is&#160;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/blog/workplace-issues/the-devil-wears-tom-ford/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;Opening Belle&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, a fictional account of Maureen Sherry&#39;s experiences working as a managing director for the once high flying and now defunct Bear Stearns. Another, published just over a month ago, is former Lehman Brothers CFO Erin Callan Montella&#39;s &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/Full-Circle-memoir-leaning-journey/dp/0997382112&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Full Circle: A memoir of leaning in too far and the journey back&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Callan Montella, who has said her book is &quot;not intended to be self-help or advice,&quot; famously shot up the Wall Street ladder and became the chief financial officer of Lehman in her early 40s, but infamously held the post for just a few months before Lehman went under. Afterward, she left Wall Street altogether, went into a sort of hiding, married a retired New York City firefighter, and now, some eight years later, has emerged a changed woman. And her book has been receiving some incredible accolades.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fortune&lt;/em&gt;&#160;has called it &quot;stunning.&quot; Bloomberg has called it &quot;powerful.&quot; And, if the opening sections of &lt;em&gt;Full Circle&#160;&lt;/em&gt;are any indication, I call it a worthwhile read for any young person about to begin a career on Wall Street, or in any other industry for that matter.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The following excerpt comes early on in &lt;em&gt;Full Circle&lt;/em&gt;, just after Callan Montella has let readers in on a secret: she survived a suicide attempt not long after leaving Lehman, having swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills the night before Christmas.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;So how did I get to a hospital bed on Christmas Eve in 2008? After such a seemingly accomplished and happy life, how did I lose my way so badly? The story seems complicated on the surface, but at its heart, it&#39;s shockingly simple. By the age of forty-two, I had made my career the absolute center of my existence, consuming all my energy and focus. It appeared that my dedication had paid off when I became chief financial officer of Lehman Brothers at the end of 2007. I wasn&#39;t just the highest-ranking woman on Wall Street, but one of the highest-ranking &lt;em&gt;people&lt;/em&gt; on Wall Street, period. And I was proud of my job. I drank the Lehman Brothers Kool-Aid … I think I confused success with passion. Because I was doing so well, my career was surely what I loved. It must have been what I was meant to do with my life. I had it backward. Maybe I thought I loved it because I was so good at it. And maybe it seemed easier to be good at work than good at life.&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Later, she reflects on what she now believes to be a healthy way to look at a career, which she came to, at least in part, after watching a documentary about a professional athlete who noted that his career was not his &quot;purpose&quot; but a &quot;platform.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;That simple idea that a career could be a platform, not a purpose, was like a slap across the face. The good kind. A wake-up call. I had done the opposite, making a successful career my purpose, not a platform for something more meaningful. And, really, in and of itself, my career had no purpose. I am not talking about a job, a means to survive and take care of others. I am talking about my career. The concept of career, for me, suggests a broader meaning of a life plan marrying your interests, passions, and livelihood. What meaningful goal or agenda was I accomplishing with all that effort and energy flowing into my career? My career was not a means to an end. It was the end. When I reflect on all the sacrifices that were made for that end, it strikes me as somewhat wasteful.&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;em&gt;Full Circle&lt;/em&gt;, Callan Montella also dives into her part and other behind-the-scenes action in Lehman Brothers&#39; bankruptcy, the biggest ever in U.S. history. But the heart of her tale seems to have less to do with Wall Street and the financial crisis that nearly decimated the world&#39;s economy, and more to do with the perils of putting your career first.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bloomberg &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-21/looking-back-at-lehman-s-collapse-with-the-woman-who-fell-farthest&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;summarizes&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;Full Circle&lt;/em&gt;&#39;s intentions well:&#160;&quot;It offers a case study of the sort of overachiever personality&#160;that thrives in finance, which carried Callan to the top of the industry.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Follow me on&#160;&lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/vaultfinance&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;Twitter&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Follow us on&#160;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.instagram.com/vaultcareers/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;Instagram&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read More:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/blog/in-the-black-vaults-finance-careers-blog/qa-with-jennifer-carolan-a-stanford-mba-turned-venture-capital-firm-founder&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;Q&amp;amp;A with a Stanford Grad Who Founded Her Own Venture Capital Firm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/blog/workplace-issues/wall-streets-first-cho-chief-health-officer-and-the-benefits-of-leaving-work-at-7/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;Wall Street&#39;s First CHO (Chief Health Officer) and the Benefits of Leaving Work at 7&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/blog/workplace-issues/secrets-to-a-female-venture-capital-partners-silicon-valley-success/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;Secrets to Success of First Female Partner at Big-Swinging Silicon Valley VC Firm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Derek Loosvelt

Article

Q&A with a Stanford Grad Who Founded Her Own Venture Capital Firm

Secrets to Success of First Female Partner at Big-Swinging Silicon Valley VC Firm

Wall Street's First CHO (Chief Health Officer) and the Benefits of Leaving Work at 7

The Library