A Completely Attainable Guide To Getting Rich And Following Your Dreams 

I was drawn to this ridiculous New York Times styles section profile by its accompanying tweet: “From finance guy to ceramicist.” It gets better when you read the first paragraph:

When John Mosler enthuses about clay bodies, glazes and kiln design, it is easy to forget he was once a shaper of global financial markets. But after a nearly 25-year career as a pioneer in the derivatives market, he made a clean break from finance to become a ceramist.

The piece tells the story of John Mosler, a former finance guy who traded TriBeCa and finance for Gowanus and life as a professional artisté. He makes following your dreams sound easy. You could try doing as Mosler did by following this simple 11-step process:

1) Be born rich, preferably to a father who is the CEO of some highly specialized business.

2) Attend an Ivy League school, such as Princeton.

3) Take a gap year in Cambodia, for fun.

4) Get a job at Lehman brothers.

5) Remember that one pottery class you took one semester at Princeton, and obsess over it.

6) Track down your old pottery teacher and study at her workshop and get really good at making sculptures.

7) Casually take some top-level finance jobs. Stop giving so much money to charity. Stop buying fine art. Save millions of dollars.

8) Leave finance forever, motherfuckers!

9) Find a decrepit studio in a shitty but soon-to-be-hip neighborhood and convert it into your studio.

10) Host an exhibition in your studio.

11) Profit, while remembering you’re just in it for the love of pottery.

In short, you just get super rich, throw your high-paying job in the garbage, and go off and do some art to your heart’s content. It’s foolproof. It’s good to have goals.

Image via YouTube