From Virtual Financial Advisor To A Real One Thanks To Eve Online

I never thought I’d count myself among those fraternity of turbo nerds who took skills developed in a MMORPG and turned it into a career and here I am doing it for a 2nd time in my life.

My first opportunity came following the path of a manager in retail. I went in with no formal training but after spending years leading a guild in FFXI I was able to adopt skills learned in running groups of hundreds to help thousands of employees over a 17 year career.

But now for my next major career change: The world of finance.

A few years ago I set out to make enough money to own a few expensive eve items including a titan. Fast forward a year I was able to afford a Molok and all the fittings I could desire. I did so by managing people’s money.

When I started I only had a little bit of capital. I found very profitable ventures in the eve market and aggressively pursued them. I quickly found myself needing more capital as I was burning isk faster than I was getting it back. That said, when I got it back, my returns were upwards to 30–50% with a few rare actual “double your isks”

I asked a few close friends for some isk and over the coming months it turned into a fully fleshed out Hedge Fund with many players and much of my own corp’s isk.

I had built a reputation of trust that allowed me to not only handle players personal wealth but 3rd party transactions and even help move expensive assets. (Despite moonwalking my Molok out of battles where I was the target 3 times, nothing comes close to a move op where I was moving 3 faction titans)

At my peak I had 2T in my fund. Half mine, half players.

I exited the year long project with making my group billions and myself a Molok. But most important to me I valued the trust they provided throughout that time. (I could write a whole segment on how trust in MMOs is among the most rewarding feelings above drops, battles and achievements)

During the last fanfest I was asked about my venture by CCP Ghost. He invited me to come to CCP HQ and we chatted for 2 hours about my MMO career path.

I left the interview, as well as fanfest, with a seed in my mind that I might be able to replicate this in real life given the opportunity. But I put it on the back burner because my career at the time was still going strong.

Right as Covid hit, I lost my career of 17 years. I was taken care of and did not struggle financially but what I did grapple with was “what next”. I can tell you right now: Not having a degree and chasing a new career that isn’t entry level, can be tough. I had over 150 applications and no traction.

During that time I was encouraged, by my best friend, to reach out to a financial team that his wife worked for. I was able to get a conversation started and it turned into a fully fleshed out interview process.

What worked against me, in my eyes, was the lack of formal education and licenses to trade. But what kept me in the running wasn’t even necessarily the skills to hand money. It was the skills of working with people to gain their trust and help the same people see their financial dreams come true.

The company spent nearly 3 months getting me through a grueling process and then had a 3rd party company reevaluate the work and interview me again. They even had me spend an entire work day as an advisor, no skills, just to see how I could handle it.

The 3rd party company’s feedback was that I was an ideal candidate .

It’s been over a year and a half since the process started but I’m proud to say I’ve been offered a position with Edward Jones, as a Financial Advisor. This will be the most challenging career of my life but also the most rewarding.

(Hopefully they are OK that I asked for not only Video game money from people, and their internet corpses as well)