The best time to start thinking about your retirement is before the boss does”- Anonymous
Your career will end one day, regardless of how lucrative it is. You can quit, you can retire, or you can be fired.
I’ve seen exceptional talents being asked to leave and I’ve had very difficult career conversations with staff at various points in my career.
Companies may go through a rough patch and have to right-size in order to stay afloat.
Also, mergers and acquisitions happen and staff down‐sizing often result. I still can’t forget the panic that occurred when a financial institution that I worked for acquired another institution.
It was the year 2005, in the era of banking consolidation in Nigeria, when the capital base of banks was increased to N25b. There were job losses on a massive scale. Families were torn apart when things took a downward turn for their breadwinners.
I personally witnessed how it took so many people several years to build their lives all over. Unfortunately, some would never recover.
Anyone who works in a performance-driven environment such as the banking sector in Nigeria understands that a small shift in economic dynamics can make a laggard out of a high-flier. The result can be very brutal.
Losing a job can be very traumatic, especially if one is unprepared. Unfortunately, only a few organizations pay any benefit to affected staff. Forget about gratuity. Such exist only in the public sector and even at that, you may have to wait for several years to get it.
Until a few years ago when the pension act reforms bill took effect and the contributory pension scheme kicked in, very few people who lost their jobs had something to fall back on. Even now, not all members of the private sector participate in the contributory pension scheme.
So essentially, few organizations prepare their staff for a job loss. No training is given and there is no soft landing. Many people just find themselves thrust out in the unemployment pool.
Life can happen to anyone and at any time. This is why one must be prepared with a plan B. I usually tell people that I don’t have any attachment to any high office or its perks. I only see it as the starting point.
I enter my office and I tell myself that someone sat on my seat yesterday and someone would be on that same seat when I’m gone. Consequently, I do not have any sense of entitlement. Your career is not inheritable.
This makes having a Plan B inevitable. You don’t want to be caught napping should your job or career come to an abrupt end. You plan for the rainy day during the dry season.
As you start your career, there are at least five different areas that you can take into consideration:
- Ideas
- Skills
- Relationships
- Opportunities
- Time
Don’t neglect ideas that you have. You may be sitting on the solution to a challenge faced by your clients. Since every product or service started as an idea, don’t ignore yours. An idea clinically executed can guarantee you a lifetime of financial freedom.
Also consider the skills you have. Are there things that you can do better than most people? What are the areas where you have mastery and competence? For me, I decided to utilize my public speaking and writing prowess.
As I leveraged upon my strength in these areas, I also discovered that when you play well, people will pay well.
Your career will also bring you across certain relationships. Relationships unlock doors. Don’t joke with them. A former managing director of a financial institution once shared the story of how he got a bank licence several years ago.
He had built a great relationship with a customer whose account he had managed and much later, the person provided the finance needed to get that licence. That was the secret of his success story.
Value relationships. Look out for opportunities. Take advantage of them and maximize them. Critically consider opportunities in the economy. For instance, the population is an indicator of outstanding opportunities in Nigeria.
There are 200 million people who must eat daily, thus there are opportunities in the agricultural sector. There are also areas to explore in retail. We have a budding ICT sector and that is a growth area.
You must be passionate and knowledgeable about the area of opportunity that you want to explore.
Finally, you need to figure out what you can do with your time. What do you do what any spare time you have? What can you do on the weekends?
Can you blog? Can you engage in freelance photography? You can exchange your time for money.
I believe that within these five areas (ideas, skills, relationships, opportunities and time) lies the plan B that anyone can deploy effectively. Live ready. Don’t be caught unawares.
However, having such a plan implies that one must have some form of savings. This is why you must learn to put away a certain percentage of your salary as savings.
Never spend all you earn. A rule of thumb is to have some months’ worth of salary stored away as a buffer. That can be the seed fund for your plan B.
( A Chapter from my book “30 Career Lessons I Learnt Along The Way” available by sending a DM to @rovingheights on Twitter, IG or Facebook).
