PUBLISHED/Beaufort Books memoir
Live From Mongolia: From Wall Street Banker to Mongolian News Anchor
Patricia Sexton
It’s not every day that the Executive Producer of the CBS Evening News gives out blurbs, but here’s what Rick Kaplan had to say about Live From Mongolia! From New York Banker to Mongolian Anchor by Patricia Sexton:
“Leaving a good job on Wall Street for the unknown in Mongolia?! I’ve never heard
of a more ill-conceived plan. But although author Patricia Sexton achieved what she
set out to do—change her life—hers is a journey that is by no means finished.”
And he was right. Mongolia? The only experience people have with the country of Mongolia is from the game of “Risk.” Isn’t it somewhere near Irkutsk or Kamchatka? Mongolia is a world unto itself.
When Patricia Sexton couldn’t take one more day at her Wall Street currency trading job, she wanted to get as far away from all those money-obsessed jerks as she could. It wasn’t an overnight transformation—it had been building for years. First there was the dream, to become a journalist. To travel. Then the inertia she had to overcome, the nerves, the uncertainty of whether or not leaving a high paying job was actually a good idea. When Patricia landed an internship in Ulaanbaatar with Mongolian National TV and told her boss she was quitting, her boss thought it was the craziest thing he’d ever heard—yet told her that he wished he’d had the guts to do something like that earlier in his career, before he’d gotten sucked in so deep he couldn’t escape.
It was to be a life changing experience in ways Patricia had never imagined. From her Mormon host family to her young and beautiful roommate who becomes her rival in her quest for her unrequited love, Patricia's social life becomes as entangled as her professional career. She goes from learning the ropes of reporting the news to making news when Patricia became the first American woman to anchor the English language Mongolian evening news. Her reporting took her to the far corners of Mongolia to explore the land, the history, and the people of this strange and far-off place. From crashing the 800th anniversary party of Genghis Khan’s founding of Mongolia to meeting and interviewing Mongolia’s top hip hop star, Patricia came into her own while she fell in love with the country that has a population barely larger than the Borough of Brooklyn.
“Leaving a good job on Wall Street for the unknown in Mongolia?! I’ve never heard
of a more ill-conceived plan. But although author Patricia Sexton achieved what she
set out to do—change her life—hers is a journey that is by no means finished.”
And he was right. Mongolia? The only experience people have with the country of Mongolia is from the game of “Risk.” Isn’t it somewhere near Irkutsk or Kamchatka? Mongolia is a world unto itself.
When Patricia Sexton couldn’t take one more day at her Wall Street currency trading job, she wanted to get as far away from all those money-obsessed jerks as she could. It wasn’t an overnight transformation—it had been building for years. First there was the dream, to become a journalist. To travel. Then the inertia she had to overcome, the nerves, the uncertainty of whether or not leaving a high paying job was actually a good idea. When Patricia landed an internship in Ulaanbaatar with Mongolian National TV and told her boss she was quitting, her boss thought it was the craziest thing he’d ever heard—yet told her that he wished he’d had the guts to do something like that earlier in his career, before he’d gotten sucked in so deep he couldn’t escape.
It was to be a life changing experience in ways Patricia had never imagined. From her Mormon host family to her young and beautiful roommate who becomes her rival in her quest for her unrequited love, Patricia's social life becomes as entangled as her professional career. She goes from learning the ropes of reporting the news to making news when Patricia became the first American woman to anchor the English language Mongolian evening news. Her reporting took her to the far corners of Mongolia to explore the land, the history, and the people of this strange and far-off place. From crashing the 800th anniversary party of Genghis Khan’s founding of Mongolia to meeting and interviewing Mongolia’s top hip hop star, Patricia came into her own while she fell in love with the country that has a population barely larger than the Borough of Brooklyn.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patricia Sexton grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. After earning her Bachelor's degree from Cornell University, she moved to New York City where she worked as a banker. After spending several years working overseas in Tokyo and Singapore, Patricia returned to Asia to spend a summer in Mongolia interning for the national television station. Patricia is the host of Sinovision's WE Talk, a talk show profiling people who purse their passion. She has worked for CBS News, Britain's International Life, and writes "LIVE from Mongolia!", a weekly blog about people who follow their dreams. Along with her director, she founded Morpheus Pictures, a production company dedicated to telling stories of people living passionate lives in the most far-flung places in the world. Patricia lives with her husband and daughter--commuting from their new home in New Zealand to her old home in New York City.
