As we begin the year 2025, I was reminded that this upcoming year will mark 10 years into my banking career.
During college I did an internship with a local bank who then offered me a job once I graduated. I stayed with that
bank for over 8 years, primarily as a Credit Analyst, before accepting an opportunity to be a Credit Analyst in the
Capital Markets Department at a $45 billion company. I have always enjoyed writing so thought I would take a
minute to think about and share a few lessons I have learned over the last 10 years that might be of use to someone
starting out in their career.
Stand Out From Your Peers
I graduated college a year early so was only 21 years old when I began working at the bank. My boss, mentor, and friend, Jim McAlister, played a big role in my early career. He was a very successful banker and took it upon himself to give me advice and share his knowledge that he gained from over 40 years in banking. 10 years later I still remember one of the first pieces of advice he gave me. He said “if you want to succeed in your career, you need to make sure you are one step ahead of your peers”. Some things that I did early on and continued in the early years was to get to work early, make sure I completed work ahead of deadlines, volunteer for special projects, and attend events I knew senior management would be at so they would know who I was.
Get Outside of Your Comfort Zone
As I previously mentioned, the first step to getting into my banking career was the initial internship. This was in 2014 and all the counselors at college were urging us to apply for internships online, using the college’s portal, primarily with large corporations. I told my dad that this was how people applied for things these days and he told me that I needed to schedule a meeting and go in person. My introverted self was mortified at this prospect. I would much rather just apply online. He gave me the name of an ag lender he knew of and told me to just call him, not email, call - on the telephone (torture for a 20 year old college student). I did what he said and called him to ask to come to his office to speak to him about an internship that didn’t even exist. The meeting went well and while the bank did not have a formal internship program at the time, they agreed to bring me on and create one in real time. That one phone call led me to an amazing 8-year career with that bank which put me in a position to be qualified for my current job. You need to be willing to leave your comfort zone once in a while or you may miss out on life changing opportunities.
Overcome Imposter Syndrome
Ten years into my career I still sometimes struggle with imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is when you feel incompetent even though your performance is adequate or above average. Being a 21 year old female in the banking industry definitely had some challenges. Especially considering I could have passed for a middle school student if I tried to. If you ever feel inadequate at your job, don’t be afraid to ask your manager for feedback to ensure you’re meeting all expectations. Positive feedback helps ease imposter syndrome, along with the fact that you have the job in the first place. It is likely that your employer went through a stringent hiring process to bring you on and you wouldn’t be in that position if you weren’t qualified to do it. Give yourself grace and know that you have worked hard and deserve to be where you are.
Save As Much Money As You Can in Your 20's
Without kids to occupy my time in my early 20’s, I usually would spend every free moment I had reading finance or self-help books and listening to finance and self-help podcasts. I am a naturally frugal person but I have to admit, this was an extreme version of myself that I’ve since outgrown, thanks largely to having two children extremely close together. Kids are expensive and divert your attention from other things so after the kids, I wasn’t as harsh on scrutinizing every penny that went out. If I could go back, I wouldn’t have changed anything about how critical I was about our spending. Delayed gratification has put us in an advantageous position, now being in our 30’s, that the advantage of time is allowing me to not worry if we will have enough money to retire, thanks to compound interest. Albert Einstein declared compound interest as the eighth wonder of the world. Benjamin Franklin summed it up as “Money makes money. And the money that makes money, makes money.” Save as much as you can, as early as you can.
It's Okay To Not Be 100% Optimized With Your Money
This is a concept that has taken me ten years to become okay with. As long as you are saving enough to be able to have a comfortable retirement, it is okay to not always be 100% optimized with how your money is invested. This concept came into focus for me when we decided to buy a farm to build our house on two years ago. You might have heard the saying “How do you make a million dollars farming? Start with two million.” While not completely true, farming does not provide the highest return on the capital it takes to get it going. Buying and living on a farm was 100% a lifestyle decision for us because we wanted to be somewhat self-sufficient and raise our kids on a farm. This lifestyle decision was possible because we took the steps needed beginning ten years ago to get to a place where a majority of our finances are optimized and we are doing what makes us happy with the rest. Ramit Sethi talks about this in his book, “I Will Teach You to Be Rich”. Set your finances up so that you can save and invest what you need to be saving and then allow yourself to “create your rich life” with what’s left over. If you’ve been accustomed to only saving money your whole life, sometimes you can feel like you need permission to spend. As long as you are saving what you need to be saving, let yourself spend the rest on what you consider your rich life.
Desire To Be A Lifelong Learner
If you want to be successful in your career and in life, you need to have the desire to be a lifelong learner. Learning doesn’t stop when school ends. For many, and me in particular, this is when true learning begins! Charlie Munger said, “In my whole life, I have known no wise people who did not read all the time”. Over the last 10 years I’ve read over 300 books. The number is skewed more heavily to me reading more in the first 5 years versus the last 5 since life and kids have made things a little crazy. I’m trying to get back into a reading rhythm and am at 27 books read so far in 2024. My top 4 finance book recommendations are “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, “The Simple Path to Wealth”, “Your Money or Your Life”, and “The Millionaire Next Door”. These four books can be life changing. Books and our ability to consume books have always fascinated me. Isn’t it amazing that we are able to read in just a few days what took someone a lifetime of experiences and research to write? Set a goal to read one nonfiction book per month and see how it changes your life.
Do What Successful People Do
Working as a commercial Credit Analyst at a community bank, I got to review the financials of a lot of successful people and businesses. Learning how to read and analyze financial statements is a very important skill-set that would be beneficial for everybody to know how to do and not just people in the finance industry. After spending so much time studying other people’s financials and what they did to become successful, I decided I would try it out for myself. A recurring theme I was seeing was using real estate to build wealth and leverage the bank’s money to help you purchase it. Please keep in mind, this was long ago in 2017 when real estate prices weren’t crazy and interest rates were low. Maybe we’ll get there again someday. When I was 22 years old, shortly after finishing Robert Kiyosaki’s book, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” I found a foreclosed house for sale. With $11,000 cash and a bank loan I was able to purchase my first rental property! Luckily my fiancé, soon to be husband, knew how to fix things and got the house ready for its first tenant. Over the next several years we were able to repeat this process a few more times. I don’t think I ever would have taken that initial plunge if I hadn’t seen the process successfully done through the financial statements I reviewed as part of my credit analyst duties.
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| My first day at the bank after graduating college in 2015 and now - 10 years later. |
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