15 Crucial Career Currencies from a nomadic banker (2)

Your Fulani Banker is here again with the 15 crucial career currencies from a nomadic banker. Last week, we considered five crucial career currencies – Trust, Respect, Adaptability, Humility and Empathy. Today, we will be considering six more crucial career currencies….. Let’s go on the ride…..

• Positivity

Positivity is about seeing the best of every situation. Just as life can be filled with many twists and turns, so also is the career journey, what will differentiate you is your ability to turn your lemons to lemonades. When i started my banking career, i was legit called “naive”, maybe rightly so(lol). I was ambitious, passionate and goal driven. This often rubbed off negatively on some people. This means some managers would naturally not want to work with me and will find a way to give/sell me out (lol)… while some saw the positivity in my traits and would request for me to work with them. This led to a rotation across all the units in my department for one reason or the other… Talk about the unwanted child .

While i was going through this, i focused on my job delivery, knowing i wasn’t liked by a lot of folks. I just focused on my goals and my job. When i started building my CV to seek for another job in another bank, I demonstrated the breadth of my network of clients and industry knowledge based on the continuous rotation (lol). Talk about bringing out the best from the situation which ended up being my major differentiating factor … and i was able to stay within the same unit in my new job with a positive attitude and a good team. At the point i was constantly being rotated, I thought i was in a really bad shape, but i made the best out of it. In the words of a colleague in new bank in question,”we are not here to be liked”. That got stuck with me even though she just always said it casually. So, when your career gives you lemons, make lemonades from it. Remain positive.

• Reputation

Maintain a reputation of a value-adding professional and fight any misrepresentation with your tooth and nail, i mean with every nerve in you, if your career is very important to you. Reputation may not necessarily be your character, but it is what people are saying about you at the pub, behind close doors, in church, at the mosque, at their community gatherings….. You will not be there most times to defend yourself. If it’s a good reputation, it will fetch you referrals, new clients, new businesses etc.

In a world, where any narrative can be generated and where stereotypical biases, unfortunately exists….Please do not learn the hard way. Even if it is a seemingly harmless joke, correct it jokingly too…. Let people know what you stand for, what you can do, what you won’t do, avoid uncompromising situations. You don’t want to stress yourself defending a misrepresentation of facts…

*****Caveat: If defending your reputation however is beginning to hamper on your mental health, please choose currency one above again, make lemons from your lemonades, be positive and let go.. Sometimes, defending yourself may be an insult to you….

• Curiousity

Science as proven that curiousity is one of the signs of intelligence and one of the most sought out skills in the VUCA world – ( Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambigous). Every leader and follower should welcome questions and curious challenges, you deepen your knowledge by so doing and also gain breadth, you may find innovative solutions through your curiousity. I had a colleague who worked with me and embodied some of my traits. We easily laughed at the same jokes and she can ask questions for Africa. I liked it, because i am also a curious person, it usually sparks engaging conversations and deepens my knowledge base. This curiousity stood her out. She wasn’t afraid to look stupid for a second but gained knowledge for ever.

• Kindness

People will always remember how you made them feel. Always choose kindness. While we are all striving for perfection and have both off days and on days, just ensure there are more kind days in your calendar. On my very first day of resumption in my first job, i was offered free ride to and from home by a female colleague. She offered out of kindness, realising we lived in the same hood. I never had to sweat the thoughts of easy commute to the office till i got my own car. Kindness is as simple as such a gesture. This is a very strong and valuable currency that can be shown in different ways. It’s a deposit that will be returned, not necessarily from the same beneficiary. Nature rewards kindness.

• Flexibility

There is a popular quote, one of my brothers favourites “Be stubborn about your goals but flexible about your methods”….I can’t overemphasise this, especially in the post covid world, most employers already appreciate the importance of flexibility of work arrangement and methods in attracting the best hands. The same goes for an employee, flexibility in learning new skills, assuming new responsibilities, wearing differents hats will enable you grab numerous opportunities available to enable you achieve your goals. A little bit of knowledge here and there won’t hurt you, while deepening the skills in your area of core competence.

• Courage

Courage is not the absence of fear but the willingness to embrace your fears and face it heads on. Every venture in life has some element of risk, so also one’s career. Making career moves is essentially leaving your comfort zone to chart unknown waters. I once got a job and few weeks after resumption, all i wanted to do was go back to where i was coming from. My thoughts was ” i wasn’t laid off for pete’s sake, why am i even pushing myself into this drama? (lol). I sprung into action and started talking to my former employer, they were so willing to take me back,my name was even out on salary increase list the week i joined my new employer (lol). Like the yoruba adage ” Bi iwaju o se lo, eyin se gbada si” If we can’t move forward, we can go backwards and fire a longer shot like a catapult….. Let me go back like a prodigal daughter .

With my partner’s insistence, i went to discuss with my then mentor who said , ” Never, forward ever, backward never”. You will pray, and summount every obstacle.(lol)…. I had also called my pastor, who had prayed with me and blessed my new journey. Armed with these and some courage, i faced my fears. The job turned out to be one of my best experiences though quite a challenging one, i had a good on-the job learning experience, robust exposure and a rich network of clients and colleagues. So will you calm down and face evrything and rise or will you forget everything and run?

Join me next week as i round off with the last four currencies as we save the best for the last, till then….. Bye…

#careercurrencies, #careerinsights, #careerstories, #careermoves, #nomadicbanker,