Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep89: Does your career or job title define WHO you are?

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.meiping.com. This is Mei Ping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Grow Your Career Online and Offline podcast. This is Mei Ping and welcome back to another episode. So today, let's actually talk about whether do you feel that your career defines your overall identity so this was a topic that

Starting point is 00:00:48 popped up a couple of days ago when i was talking to a few of my clients and for one particular client that i spoke to she was really very stressed out even the fact the thought of changing a job like moving to a less glamorous industry, having a less glamorous business title is something that she was very resistant towards, even though that's something that she wants to do. She still finds it, I guess, highly resistant to the change because she feels like, what if somebody judges her or what if somebody sees her as less successful, right? You know, she's downgrading her career and all those other things, right?

Starting point is 00:01:31 So that was a topic that pretty much popped up a couple of days ago. And that kind of got me thinking a little bit on how so many of us are really defined by the job title, right, by the business title and our overall career and i sometimes wonder whether whether um have we kind of lost ourselves in in a way and i can share a very very interesting example and in the past when i was in the corporate world i used to travel quite a bit visiting clients from different countries and particularly for certain countries if you work in the public sector right meaning like you know the government sector certain certain jobs are like very very prestigious for lack of better word so what is very interesting

Starting point is 00:02:20 is that the people who work in these prestigious jobs, the moment they retire, you'll notice that they feel extremely lost and the people around them also don't see them to that level of respect or seniority. And I think that kind of scares a lot of people in that sense. So that was why I think the topic around whether does your career actually define your identity is really a good question for you to ask yourself from time to time so that you don't get too caught up in a job that you forget to actually live a life right and i don't mean it in a very um rude or sarcastic way but i think it's just a good point to reflect as to what are we actually working so hard for? Like, why are you working so hard? If it's for your family, then make sure

Starting point is 00:03:12 that you are spending time with your family. And if it's for something else, then make sure that you also enjoy your time while you're working towards that direction. Because if you remember, if you go to networking events, people tend people tend to ask you oh so what do you do and 99% of the people will answer with their job title and sometimes I find it extremely boring that does your job actually fully define you and if it really does fully define you then are you really missing out on something else in life right so it's just a bit of a food for thought and i know that you know for a lot of us our career is really a very big part of our life and you know as it should right either your career unless you're transitioning to a business then i

Starting point is 00:03:56 guess your business is like the biggest part of your life for sure but like i said right while you're working hard in your career at your your job, right, or maybe even in your business, like never forget why you are actually putting in all this effort, right, because I've worked, you know, overseas for a very long time, and particularly for me, I made it a point every single month to actually travel back home and spend time with my parents, and, you know, until today, I still think that is the best decision ever particularly when my mom was a little was ill and i left and i returned back to penang malaysia to spend time with her and really no regrets because every single month right even though

Starting point is 00:04:36 i was working overseas i always travel back um to my country to my hometown just to spend time with my parents but sometimes i hear conversations or i have conversations with my ex-colleagues and they will say things like, oh, Mei Ping, why are you spending all your money traveling back home every single month? It's such a complete waste of money. So they sometimes lecture me on all these things, but I really disagree. I think time is way more precious than money for sure and you can make a lot of money but if you miss out time with your family if you you miss

Starting point is 00:05:14 out on rest time or you're finding your time you know finding yourself spending time doing a lot of things that like makes you tired or this unproductive then yeah basically it's like a it's like a complete waste and you maybe might regret it in the future so i think for some of my ex-colleagues in that sense like i noticed that they work really hard at their job and they just spend all the money away because they want to reduce their stress then they don't they don't spend money on, I guess, what matters, which they say that they care about their family, but they don't really spend time or money on that. And then they only go back and like,

Starting point is 00:05:54 you'll see their parents like once a year. But let me tell you, coming from an accountant, right? Where you spend your money is really what you care about, right? Where you spend your time, really what you care about right where you spare your spend your time your effort energy and money that is that 100 thing that you care about regardless of what you tell me because honestly action speaks louder than words and that is 100 true so if you feel like you want to be known right you want to build a brand or you want to be known, right? You want to build a brand or you want to be known as a,

Starting point is 00:06:27 I don't know, a hardworking person or a smart person or whatever, then are you putting in the effort to develop yourself as such, right? So rather than to be defined by a job, then are you working on yourself, right? How can you be better as a person or how can you be better

Starting point is 00:06:44 as a corporate professional that can you be better as a corporate professional that can actually transition across different industries, across different companies, across different jobs and still be seen as something really valuable? I think that is actually a much more important question to think about and I think a much better goal to work towards rather than saying that, okay, I am an accountant or i'm an engineer or i'm a banker and then particularly during the pandemic right now a lot of jobs are changing a lot of like companies are also evolving and if your job or your qualification is like that

Starting point is 00:07:20 100 of your identity you may find that this is actually a very challenging time for you to really figure out what is going on. And particularly for people who may be asked to transition to different roles or to take up different responsibilities, which they feel are not equivalent to what they should be doing as an accountant, as a banker, banker as a whatever then you're going to face a lot of internal resistance because at the end of the day inside you you are there's

Starting point is 00:07:51 a conflict going on inside you and this is because you have pretty much tied your um your value to to that job title right to that identity that you have created for yourself as a professional but my suggestion here is why not see yourself as growing as improving and basically understanding what your strengths and weaknesses are what your skills are what your expertise are and how you can contribute whether in your current job, and really having the confidence to say, hey, even if I choose to move to a different industry, and I choose to go to, you know, somewhere else, or do something else, I can contribute the same, because I know that I have put in the time to gain the knowledge, I have put in the time to

Starting point is 00:08:42 gain the skills, I have put in the time to gain the skills, I have put in the time to gain the competence that I can wholeheartedly say that I will do a good job. I can and I will do a good job because you have pretty much put in the time to develop those skills to be able to do a good job. So, you know, again, a quote that I like to share with all my clients, hope is not a strategy. And that is something that I continuously say all the time. Hope is not a strategy. So if you are finding yourself, right, getting very fixated on a certain job, right, a certain job title, a certain award, a certain achievement, then a good self-reflection is to then ask yourself, okay, like what? But if this thing disappears tomorrow,

Starting point is 00:09:27 then who am I? What am I? I mean, do I still see myself as valuable? And if you cannot answer yes to these very simple questions, then you might have a bit of an issue with your overall identity as a professional because you may be seeing yourself in a certain way that is not exactly aligned with where you want to be in the future or yada yada yada and that might create a little bit more a bit of an inner conflict for you later on so just a little bit of a food for thought in today's episode and i hope that you find these questions

Starting point is 00:10:02 are very interesting ones for you to ponder on because at the end of the day, regardless of what job you work in, which industry, which company, which whatever, we are all unique individuals and that is really the truth. So I hope that you find this episode thought-provoking and I'll see you in the next one.

Starting point is 00:10:21 Cheers and bye.

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep89: Does your career or job title define WHO you are?

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