Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep245: MAKE MORE vs SAVE MORE money?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Hey, welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast with me, Mei Ping. So today I want to share with you a very important piece of advice that if you get it, you can really level up your career to enjoy the lifestyle that you want for yourself and for your family.

Starting point is 00:00:40 Now, if you're listening to this episode live when it's released, this is the weekend of the Chinese Lunar New Year. So I've been spending a lot of time with my friends, family and acquaintances. And there was a conversation that I had with a friend that inspired today's episode. So this person is someone who is working in a big company, pretty senior position and is making multi six figures. So pretty good title, company, and salary. So what really stood out during the conversation with him is that he told me that maybe I feel like there's just not enough money for me to spend. There's just like always not enough. And I don't feel like I can save a lot because we want to enjoy nice things.

Starting point is 00:01:18 So I thought, hmm, interesting. Because as someone who, you know, in a pretty prominent position and makes a lot of money it was kind of a surprising comment so i asked him i said oh you know what why do you say that why do you say that you know that's not enough and stuff like that then he said that oh you know i don't feel like i can save enough money and it's just like i'm not making enough now what really stood out to me in this conversation is that the way he made it sound, like, he's just, there's nothing he can do about it. Like, the vibe that I got from him, like, the tone that I got from him is just, like, helpless. But I'm like, bro, how can you be helpless, right? Because you are in a pretty prominent position, pretty senior position,

Starting point is 00:01:58 right? You are very qualified, very experienced, and stuff like that. but what i'm trying to say here is that like the mentality of feeling like he was helpless i think that is an important lesson that we can all learn so the advice i'm going to share with you and this is actually something that i've used in my career as well now most of the time right when we think about you know lifestyle and stuff like that we tend to think about the mindset of let's just try to save more money. I think that's fine, right? It's important to save money for a rainy day for the future, right? So it's kind of like the mindset of like, let's just save, save, save. Now, my question is that if you're making barely anything, then what is left to save? So the other strategy, which personally I find most useful, is don't be too fixated on saving the small, small pennies that you are forgetting that you can always grow your career so that you can grow your salary and continue to level up.

Starting point is 00:02:57 Now, let's imagine that you are making, let's say, $3,000. How much can you save? Okay, maybe you save $1,000. That's a lot. But what if you learn how to level up your career, you're so good at your job, you're very confident, you believe in yourself, then you move on to the next company, you impress your next boss, and gradually you are getting paid, maybe let's say $10,000. Then at that time, it's going to be so much easier to save that $1,000, and maybe you can easily save $5,000. So just compare and contrast.

Starting point is 00:03:29 And what I want to raise this to you is because I have heard from a lot of people that they feel very helpless. Oh, you know, I can only make this much. This is all that I'm worth. Then my question to them is, but what have you tried? Have you tried applying for different roles? Have you tried, for different roles? Have you tried, you know, being so good at your job and really making sure that your boss recognizes your hard work to ask for that promotion, ask for that salary increment to change that career,

Starting point is 00:03:53 no matter how scary it feels? Because you know that you want to grow your career so you can grow your income. Like, have you done that? So if you, if you, it's like, if you haven't done that, then obviously it's always going to feel like helplessness. It's always going to feel like, oh, I'm a victim. I can't do anything. So this tells me that you're not taking charge of your career. And I really, really want you to start thinking of like how you can really take charge of your career because you don't have to be like the smartest person, but you need to be the

Starting point is 00:04:23 person who is most courageous and knowing that ultimately what do you want? If you want to make more money, right, it means that you need to convince a hiring manager or a new company that you are worth the highest salary that you're asking for. So in order to convince them, there are two things. The more immediate thing is that obviously, you know, interview skills, you know, packaging your value in your resume, right? Interviews and so forth. That's like, I think the more immediate thing, but foundationally, what do you need? You need to be very good at your job, like knowing that you can be successful at any job. So you will not go in with any imposter syndrome and you know that that is the value that you bring. So even in my career as well, like I don't have

Starting point is 00:05:02 the mindset of, I need to stay in this company for a very long time because I know that I'm very good at what I do. So if I give more than 100%, I expect to be rewarded with a promotion and salary increment, then I will stay. If not, I feel like, like it's a contract, right? It's an employment contract. You give 100%, the company pays you.

Starting point is 00:05:24 And if you know you're very good, then it's time to move on. And the company pays you and if you know you're very good then it's time to move on and that is how you have that confidence and then you can change companies level up promotions or whatever and gradually you can still enjoy the lifestyle that you want and obviously i leave it to you to decide you know what is considered a good lifestyle like the kind of money that you need to spend to maintain the lifestyle that you want. But the point I'm making here is that instead of focusing on like saving every single cent, why not you learn how to make more money? Why not you learn how to grow your salary? And how you're going to do that is to make sure that you have the career confidence to level up. You are taking charge of your career. You're learning how to become successful at any job.

Starting point is 00:06:02 You're learning how to work with everyone so that you know that, yes, if there's time for me to make a career change, I know that I can easily land a new opportunity. It's a career level up. It's a role that I can succeed in because I know how to succeed in the corporate world. It's me. It's not the job. And if I know my value, if I know my skills, I know my experience, I can bring more and the companies are willing to pay me. Okay. Okay. Thanks. Bye. Right. I'm moving on to the next thing because I am focused on what I want for myself and for my family. If I know that growing my career equals growing my salary, therefore growing that pot, right? That money pot that will be so helpful for my future, my family's future, then I am going to make sure that I take charge of my career. I'm not going to leave it to my boss.

Starting point is 00:06:51 I'm not going to leave it to my company to plan my career for me. I am going to take charge and learn how to become successful at any job. I'm going to learn how to level up. I'm going to pick up all the skills and I am going to advocate and I'm going to fight and I'm going to learn how to level up. I'm going to pick up all the skills and I am going to advocate and I'm going to fight and I'm going to take charge of my career because no one else is going to do it for me. So I hope that you take on this piece of advice and I wish this year is the best year ever for your career. Good luck and I'll see you soon.

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep245: MAKE MORE vs SAVE MORE money?

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.