Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying

“Get busy living or get busy dying,” is one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption. Maybe it’s a tenuous link for this post but bear with me.

Something we can’t escape is that kids today are getting smarter and smarter (or at least appear to be). Those of you that have been in the banking game for a fair few years take note. The sooner you adapt to that fact, the better.

I was recently involved in the interview process for a guy looking to join the team to provide data analytics support. As I arrived at the meeting room, he stood up and gave a firm handshake. He was pretty well turned out as well.

As I read through his resume once more, I could only admire it. Yes, there probably was a bit of embellishment here and there. You can’t expect an early-20-something year old to have all the trappings. But there was enough there to remind me that a lot of us have to be prepared for our career obsolescence. Or, at the very least, work hard to adapt. The changing of the guard is real, folks.

It wasn’t so much the degrees, the work experience across different financial institutions, the three languages, the reading for the CFA Level 1, or the array of technological skills on show. No, it was the fact that someone with so much to offer was going for a lower-level role. It’s tough, even for him, to get a high-flying role. Everyone he’s up against has an array of letters after their name and has played the internship game to within an inch of their lives.

Competition out there is crazy in certain fields. Not like in my day. Back then, the firm I first joined was simply happy to find someone that had a degree to their name. And while this new guy won’t be direct competition to me per se, the very fact that he can put my own resume to shame in many ways is something that hasn’t escaped me.

So what does it mean?

What does it mean? Maybe not a lot in the near term. I can still do my job reasonably well. I’ve put in the time, which still has value in parts of the banking world. But playing the long game, I’m not the future. I may not even be the near future, if COVID-19’s impact on the industry has anything to say about it. Smarter people than myself get let go in challenging environments.

When it comes to life and career I always look out for wake-up calls. A newspaper article talking about new technology changing the face of the industry. Something I see on TV about the number of fresh graduates. Pub chat about friends in various fields being let go. The signs are out there all the time. They always are. It’s whether you choose to acknowledge them and then do something about it.

A lot of us live in denial, hoping that things will work themselves out. Unfortunately, hope is not a strategy. It’s time to step up and take ownership of the situation. At the very least think about a Plan B. Get busy living.