Over the years in my career, I’ve watched people sacrifice things I wouldn’t. I’ve also sacrificed things that, to others, made little sense to give up. I’m at peace with those choices — more than that, they are the source of the deepest satisfaction I take from my career.
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Marcus Aurelius, often described as the last good emperor of Rome, wrote a striking reflection on human work:
Continue reading“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?
So you were born to feel ‘nice’? Instead of doing things and experiencing them?
Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can?
And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you.”
My friends and I, all with nearly a decade of work experience, have been discussing whether to deepen our commitment to a specific industry (even while doing different roles) or to maintain flexibility by moving across industries (even while doing the same type of work).
Most of us started our careers in consulting, which gave us early exposure to more than one industry. We are now thinking about which levers matter most for accelerating our careers over the next decade and beyond.
Continue readingAbout two years ago, I applied for a job at JP Morgan that I’d found on LinkedIn. I didn’t fit the profile for the role perfectly, but it was good enough that I was invited for the first recruiter call and then to the next interview. It was at this interview that the hiring manager and I concluded that I probably wasn’t well suited for the role.
A few weeks later, I was contacted for another interview at JP Morgan, but this time for a role I hadn’t applied to. I showed up, obviously. The hiring manager informed me that I’d been recommended for the role by the previous hiring manager, who thought I might fit their team better. Unfortunately, this role didn’t work out either.
Continue reading“Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.” — Matthew 13:12
Early in my career, before I knew it had been popularised as The Matthew Effect, I noticed this phenomenon. I captured it in an article as “it’s much easier to get ‘another success’ once you get the first one.”
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At any point in time, I have more books in my library than I can possibly read. Often this makes me commit the practice of book adultery. In my local language, it means I am “ari iyawo ko iyale”. Last Saturday, as I wrote in this post, I bought 7 Rules of Power and a week later I am writing a summary/takeaways of the same. An attestation to my “ari iyawo ko iyale” practice.
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As I got my offer letter to join PwC in 2018, one of the first things that came to my mind was how to grow my network within the firm. Because as we would later be told, PwC is a congregation of the best and brightest.
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