7 Things I Wish I Knew When I Was Starting My Career

Three years ago I took a leap of faith and left a company I had been with for 9 years, to go to a competitor, and work in management for the first time. As much technical knowledge and experience as I had, I was definitely nervous about what was in store. 

Now I am celebrating my three year anniversary at First Business Bank, and almost twelve years in banking.   (Did I really just say 12 years???)  I will never claim to have things all figured out, but I have learned a lot of lessons along the way.

Here is my list of the 7 Things I Wish I Knew When I Was Staring My Career:

1 – ASK.  Ask questions, ask people for their opinions, if you’re not sure why something is done a certain way, ASK.  Asking questions is important, and asking powerful questions is even better.  It can be easy to only ask questions when it’s absolutely necessary.  You likely want to fly under the radar when you’re starting out and just learn to do things the way they’ve always been done.  Asking questions shows that you are thinking and that you care.  If you ask bigger picture questions, it shows you will go above and beyond in your thinking, and your work. 

2 - Eat lunch and attend happy hours with people outside of your department.  Building connections with people in your company that are in other areas will pay dividends.  You will have more allies at work, and when you are tasked with something that involves these other departments, you’ll have a smoother go of it if you’re already familiar with someone involved. 

3 – Remember people’s names and use them.  I have always struggled with remembering names, and last year I made a conscious effort to use people’s names when I greet them.  It was amazing how people’s responses to me changed! People are always at least moderately friendly, but when you use their name it becomes a much stronger link between the two of you.  Even Dale Carnegie knew this when he wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People back in the 1930’s.  He said that hearing your own name is the sweetest and most important sound in any language.  He’s right.

4 – Become the expert in areas people shy away from.  You will learn quickly in a new job that there are tasks people willingly take on, and then there other things people will groan about and try to avoid.  In my first bank job people dodged participation loans, SBA loans, report writing, and New Market Tax Credit loans.  So what did I work hard at specializing in?  Participation loans, SBA loans, report writing, and New Market Tax Credit loans.  This will quickly set you apart as someone who doesn’t back away from challenge, which is invaluable when you’re trying to stand out in a positive way.

5 – Dress for the job you want, not just the job you have.  Starting out I could barely afford groceries, let alone a wardrobe of dress clothes.  I would buy things cheap, and wear them till they wore out.  Over time I learned through observation that there was a difference in perception of people who barely met the dress code, and those that put themselves together well daily.  Now before I go much further, I don’t think you should be judged by your looks and clothes.  We’re all glorious people full of potential no matter what we wear.  BUT, most of the information someone gets from meeting you once is from your appearance.  You have a choice to use that to your advantage or not.

6 – Respect those who aren’t present.  a.k.a.  Don’t trash talk co-workers.  When starting a new job it is very easy to cling to the first group of people that accept you.  If you quickly find they are a group that will gossip and talk badly about other employees whenever they have a chance, graciously distance yourself from them.  They’re the toxic ones everyone knows about, and you don’t want to be in that category.   People watch new employees closely, so this is a great chance to show your integrity and gain trust.  If you rise above the shit talking and instead spin conversations in a constructive way, people will respect you, and will know you won’t trash them as soon as they leave the room.

7 – Relationships are JUST as important as tasks. This threads through everything I’ve written about in this post.  It is really important to be knowledgeable and great at the work you are required to do, but the other side of the equation is the people.  You will never know which co-worker will eventually be your boss, or be close to someone in HR at a competitor.  The absolute best thing you can do is make it a point to get to know people, be sincere, take the high road, and manage yourself with integrity.  There’s no telling how one bad relationship could ruin your chances at your dream job, or one good relationship could open the door to a golden opportunity.

There's no shortage of fun relationships to build at First Business!

 

 

Now Let's Get a Handle on That Inner Crazy

In my last two blog entries, I talked about things in our speech that we can pay attention to in an effort to change our mindsets.  Now we’re switching gears and will be talking about our thoughts.  We as humans have the blessing and curse of conscious thought – we can solve problems, generate ideas, analyze, and create actions plans with our thoughts.  We can also drive ourselves bat shit crazy with them! 

I am sure that all of us have an incident from our past where we let our train of thought completely derail and we escalated to a level of insanity from it.  In my past I have been certain that someone was in a car accident, arrested, having an orgy, you name it… I have a very vivid imagination which helped me fill in a blank with an absolutely unfounded, horrid, worst case scenario that absolutely didn’t happen.  I have dished out some of this crazy, and have also been on the receiving end of crazy, as recently as this week!  

In this entry I will share a strategy to help tame the mental beast. And you might not believe it, but it's simple. Probably the most simple thing I will dish out in the blog series.  It will make you stress less, help your relationships, and keep you off the crazy train.

This is seriously my favorite :)

 

Let's start the intervention!   When was the last time you jumped to a conclusion, and then later found out you were wrong?  I’ll let you marinate on that for a second.  This is important. 

Got it?  It’s very possible that this happened recently to you, as it is a very natural tendency for us to interpret a situation based on our own personal experiences.  We all think that we are exceptionally smart and are better than Dr. Phil as interpreting situations whether they involve body language, use of emoticons in text messages, or lack of communication from someone. 

Come on Dr. Phil, you know it's not polite to point.

 

A great example of this is mentioned in Stephen Covey’s ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’.  He talks about being on a subway, and a man and his two children board.  The man sits down and the children run around yelling, knocking things over, and are very disruptive.  Stephen looks at the man and says 'Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more?'  The man looks up at Stephen and says 'Oh, you're right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don't know what to think, and I guess they don't know how to handle it either.'    Can you imagine?  It is SO easy to assume that he was just an inattentive father, it’s easy to assume the person who cut you off in traffic is just a prick, or that someone not inviting you to a party they’re throwing means they are angry with you.  The list can go on and on. 

So instead of inventing a story to help draw a conclusion, what to do you? 

ASK.

It’s that simple.  ASK.  Doesn’t that sound simple?  I started really challenging myself to do this a few weeks ago and let me tell you – it makes things so simple!   You no longer need to expend so much energy imaging horrible scenarios, worrying, inventing situations that have no basis on reality – you just ask.  You don't sit there and tell yourself a 'story' that whatever is going on is about you.  (He's mad at me. She doesn't care about me anymore.  I must have done something wrong...) Newsflash - it's almost NEVER about you, but you don't know if you don't ASK.

A friend is having a birthday party and you didn’t get an invite yet, so ask them about it.  A co-worker seems irritated, instead of assuming you did something wrong, you ask them if they’re okay or want to talk.  You’re in a new relationship and you hadn’t heard from the person yet today – instead of assuming they lost interest, ask them how their day is going. Just ask!  It’s seriously that easy. 

I had a good friend in high school.  We lost touch for a few years after graduation, but then re-connected.  We were catching up and I said I wondered why we lost touch for so long.  He then told me that when I was back in my hometown for graduation of a younger friend, he was there and I allegedly looked at him and gave him a dirty look.  For a few years he was convinced that I didn't like him and didn't want to talk to him because of the 'look'.  I don't remember seeing him there, and for all I know I just had resting bitch face because it was so hot in there.  All he had to do was ask.

We all have times that we turn into a modern day Ernest Hemingway and craft these elaborate, yet completely off base stories in our head to fill in blanks in our lives, when all we need to do is ask a question.  Isn't that amazing?  It's seriously the shit to start doing this.  You may even start to laugh at yourself when you begin falling down the rabbit hole of story telling and initially thinking it's truth, until you ask yourself - can I prove this to be right?  Can I even know if this is accurate?  Probably not.  Let Jodi Picoult craft the stories, you just ask the question and enjoy your new found inner peace.