I’ve spent over 15 years in the merry world of banking.
It won’t shake your cockles to hear that life looks very different today than it did a decade and a half ago. Work looks very different too.
And I’ve been wondering…
If I had the chance to jump into my Buddha of Banking Time Machine™ and travel back to Tom on his very first day in banking knowing what I know now, what would I say?
Truth be told, I remember that first day like it was yesterday.
It was September 2008 when I donned my dandy suit & tie and gingerly took the half hour walk from my old Clarence Street flat in Edinburgh along the cobbled roads, up towards Princes Street, past Hogwarts Castle and then onwards to Banking HQ.
It felt like a big day, for a number of reasons.
It’s certainly shaped a lot of what’s happened in my life since.
And if 2026 Tom had the chance to give 2008 Tom one nugget of wisdom as he strolled into the office that morning, I think it would be this:
None of this means what you think it means
2008 Tom thought his job wasn't just something he did. He thought it was how you become somebody. So every mistake felt like he was becoming less of a success, every promotion was proof he was one step closer to becoming somebody and every performance review wasn’t a reflection of his work but a reflection of him.
That’s why work got tangled up with meatier questions too.
Questions like whether he was living up to his potential, whether he’d chosen the right career and whether he even belonged in the merry world of banking at all.
I know exactly what 2008 Tom would say to this, mind you.
He’d say:
"But those things DO matter, 2026 Tom. Performance reviews, promotions and making mistakes impact your career. You're acting like none of that is real. But it is real”
I’m not sure if pointing out I’m the same Tom as him would convince Tom all that much.
So I think what I’d say is this:
“Yes, it’s real. And I'm not saying don’t care about doing good work. All I'm saying is your work doesn’t mean what you think it means. It only feels like it defines you because you're living inside your stories about work, not the work itself."
No doubt that would fall on deaf ears too. Or maybe it would plant a small seed.
Either way, once I quit my job for two years, I started to see I never needed work to make me into somebody. And that’s the perspective I’ve brought with me now I’m back in the merry world of banking.
So yes, our jobs and achievements change what we do.
But they can never change who we are.
As it happens, that’s a nice way to describe my coaching too nowadays.
It’s a way to untangle what you do from who you are.
If that interests you at all, you might like this:
https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com
To fulfilment,
Tom