Third-quarter bank results landed this week, and the investment banking picture was mixed.

Goldman Sachs reported investment banking fees of $3.22 billion, up 21% on last year but down 5% on the second quarter, with advisory fees of $1.65 billion. Its fee backlog also fell from the end of the second quarter. At JPMorgan, investment banking fees were up 14% year on year but down 8% on the second quarter, and Jamie Dimon noted that client activity “did moderate somewhat during the quarter.”

Strong year-on-year numbers, softer quarter-on-quarter activity, a lower fee backlog at Goldman and rising rates. Every banker reading this has seen that combination before.

So, I went back through our podcast conversations to see what leaders who have lived through several cycles say about quarters like this. A clear pattern emerged. The people who built the strongest careers rarely described down markets as something to survive. They described them as the place where careers were actually made.

Larry Grafstein, has advised on roughly $1 trillion of completed transactions across a 30-year career. He has been through the tech bubble, WorldCom, the financial crisis, the end of zero interest rates and Covid.

His starting point is simple: stop treating cycles as a surprise.

That is a striking thing to hear from a senior banker. Early in your career, a bad year costs you less and teaches you more. Larry was promoted to MD after just four years on Wall Street, something he said probably would not have happened without a couple of very tough years at the firm.

He also pointed to the part of a downturn that does not appear in any league table: learning how people behave under pressure, with clients and with colleagues. As he put it, you learn “the behavioural aspects of economics.” That education is hard to get any other way.

Jason Murgio, bought his firm in May 2008, with a strong pipeline and a plan to keep doing what had worked for years. Then the financial crisis arrived.

There was no playbook. He told us it forced him to become a capital allocator, a leader, and a risk manager overnight, and his main lesson was this:

What he did next is worth noting. While competitors pulled back, Jason leaned into hiring, because the downturn had made talent available that normally would not be. He believed the cycle would normalise, and that once it did, that talent would not be on the market again.

“I decided to lean in when others pulled back a bit.”

Today his firm completes 15 to 18 deals a year with a team of around 16 people. The decision to invest when it was uncomfortable is part of how it got there.

When deal flow slows, many bankers retreat. Two of our guests argued the opposite.

Allan Bertie, has worked through the dot-com bubble and the financial crisis across US, UK, Swiss, and Australian firms. His advice is to use quiet periods to be visible and useful.

Greg Rodgers, Vice Chair of Latham & Watkins’ corporate department, saw the same principle from the legal side of the table. After Lehman collapsed, Latham offered free legal advice to people who had been displaced and even let bankers use its conference rooms while they got resettled.

His broader advice for anyone building a franchise: look out for your contacts in hard times. Even the smartest people in this business undergo setbacks. The relationships you invest in during those moments are the ones that last.

Piers Ronan, lived through the financial crisis and the collapse of Credit Suisse, where his securitization business lost three out of four people in a single day. It was a hard experience, and he was direct about what it taught him.

It is easy to nod at that sentence and quickly forget it. The leaders who handle volatility best have decided in advance how they will respond before the market gives them a reason to.

Greg Rodgers made one more point that every ambitious banker should consider. After three market corrections in his career, he sees the same sequence each time.

“Every recession we go through seems to hurt the weaker firms while benefiting the stronger ones… in difficult times it’s easier for the stronger firms to hire away top talent. And then when the market returns, clients naturally turn to industry leaders to de-risk.”

Put Greg’s observation next to Jason’s hiring decision and Allan’s advice on client contact, and a common thread appears. The people who gain ground in uncertain markets are not necessarily the loudest or the busiest. They are the ones who stay visible, invest in talent and relationships, and are ready when volume returns.

If your pipeline is full but your closings feel slow, or your market feels quieter than the headlines suggest, here are five questions worth asking.

Who have I not called in six months? Allan’s point is that clients remember who showed up when it was quiet.

Who is available now that was not available last year? Jason’s hiring window may be open in your market too.

Which contact is going through a setback, and how can I help? Greg’s advice costs very little and is rarely forgotten.

What am I learning that a strong year would not have taught me? This is Larry’s point about cycles making you better.

Have I decided how I will respond to volatility? Piers’ advice is to prepare before the market forces the question.

A good quarter tells you what your market gave you. A hard one tells you what you are made of.

The leaders in our podcast did not wait for perfect conditions. They treated difficult markets as a training ground: for judgment, for relationships, for talent decisions and for character.

So, if this year feels harder than expected, do not only ask when the market will turn.

Ask what this cycle is teaching you, and who you are becoming while you wait.

Because the best time to build your franchise is rarely when everyone else is busy. It is when some are retreating, and you choose to lean in.

Listen to the full conversations with Larry Grafstein, Allan Bertie, Jason Murgio, Greg Rodgers, and Piers Ronan on the Investment Banking Leaders Podcast.