When to Dress Your Future Self

We’re always told to dress to impress. But it’s worth having some context, particularly after to want to work in banking.

Many years ago I used to hang around with a friend with expensive tastes. Let’s call him ‘John’.

We had both just left university and the world was our oyster. London was exciting, vibrant and full of promise. It was the time of Cool Britannia and life seemed to be one big party.

John wanted to be a trader in the now-defunct Bear Stearns. He had always wanted to be an investment banker. I, on the other hand, was stuck in the “what am I going to do with the rest of my life?” vortex that catches us all at some point between the ages of 17 and 70. 

We both held casual jobs to help make ends meet, while trying to find our feet and still enjoy the delights of our home town.

John worked in a record shop and I had a variety of low-paid admin and warehouse jobs. At the same time, we applied for job after job. It was a great time, despite both of us being a bit short on funds and struggling to find a “proper job”.

So back to his spending and dress.

He had a taste for designer clothes, Gucci loafers, and high-end accessories. He walked around with a trendy satchel. True, he wasn’t going into debt. But he certainly wasn’t putting any money away. In fact, he was spending big bucks on flashy dress stuff.

But looking back now at that time, he spent more consciously than I had assumed when I was living through it.

Yes, he had champagne tastes and beer money. He was a bit flashy sometimes with his purchasing. But he spent with intent. It was pretty inefficient and misguided, perhaps, but it was purposeful.

What Was His Point?

The thing was, he had a plan that went beyond the dress.

He had networked, been on training courses and this was simply an extension of that. Essentially, he was applying the principle of living “as if”.

He always felt that if he was going to get a job at Bear Stearns he was going to have to look as if he deserved to be at Bear Stearns.  Don’t dress where you are, dress where you want to be. That was his unconscious mantra.

Ok, he never did become a banker. But he did do very well for himself within the commercial sector.

Time has probably given me a more favorable interpretation of his spending. This post could easily have been about people wasting money that they should be saving on things they don’t need.

But if I spoke to him now he would probably say the expenditure was simply an investment in his career. He was building his personal brand. Plus, his spending calmed down once he started to move up the ranks in business.  

Maybe the lesson here is simply that we should all appreciate the “why” behind our spending patterns.