Things To Consider While Working- (5)

Cont…

xiii. Let people know who you are
In any system you may find yourself, let people know the kind f person you are. The earlier this is made known the better. If you cherish your integrity, from your day one at the work place, maintain same throughout. This is often difficult to some when things started changing and they need to change with the environment. The inability to retain what you are known for from the beginning often put some people into trouble at their later part in life. Temptations often come in various forms and shades but maintain your identity. Losing your identity just for ones means losing it for life.

A story of a young man who everybody in the workplace knows to be a strong Christian believer, passes through persecution in his working place for many years. He was by-passed whenever it comes to some evil management secrets, until there was a change in the ownership of the company. While the new owners were looking into the records, this man was found worthy enough to be promoted to become the general manager of the company. This new position more than compensated all the years of his persecution from his former boss, as all other management staff were either sacked or demoted with immediate effect.

xiv. Save.
Saving no doubt has become increasingly difficult with the quantum of income people earn. Savings require some level of discipline. It is however very important that you learn how to save early enough in life. The attitude should be cultivated from the day you resume work. You might even open a bank account dedicated for your retirement. Because large enough people cannot excursive the much needed discipline to save towards their retirement, the Pension Reform Act 2004 in Nigeria, made it as one of the reasons for the reform as ‘to assist improvident individuals by ensuring that they save to cater for their livelihood during old age’.

xv. Invest
you need to investor your future financial gain. Your investment might include the purchase of financial assets, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds or life insurance. You can also invest in property, particularly landed property as this appreciates more often than others e.g. motor vehicle.

Try to have periodic review of your investments, as things are prone to change. This will enable you to determine ahead of time what to do before it is too late. Where the investments are doing well, the review works to your advantage and if not, you have the opportunity to decide changing them.

In your investment strategic review, you look at your asset allocation. Asset allocation talks about how you distribute your money among the three investment groups:
Cash (savings accounts, bank certificates of deposit and money market funds)
Fixed income (usually bonds)
Growth (usually stocks)

How you distribute your income among the three categories depends essentially on the amount of risk you want to take, your age, your worth (wealth) and what you want to achieve; your goals.

xvi. Be Idealist and relevant
Never be bereaved of ideas. The man with ideas will always win the show. Give yourself to creative thinking. Be realistic in your action. Widen your scope beyond your immediate horizon. Anywhere you are, make yourself relevant. Leave a landmark and pursue a glorious goal.

xvii. Give help
learn to give help to others. this could be inform of counselling, money, gifts, time and in any other way that you may be in the position to help. When you help others, you help yourself. There is no one who does not need help. There is no on who cannot give help. The person you helped today may become your helper tomorrow. Do not look the other side when you can help today.

Xviii. Increase your knowledge (develop yourself)
In all, try to increase your knowledge and develop yourself. Times are changing. Don’t be behind time, a lady secretary who was an expert in the use of manual typewriter in her office became redundant and eventually eased out of the system because she became outdated and irrelevant as she could nit operate a computer. Yesterday she was an expert in what now becomes obsolete in today’s system. Keep on learning, keep on acquiring knowledge.

Adapted from the book Planning  A Blissful Retirement by P. Tai Adediji. pg. 29-36