With inflation, your salary may never be enough

In the journey of life, if we do not put things in perspective, we may end up moving in the wrong decision and wasting time. If it is true that our lives move in the direction of our most predominant thoughts, we must take a pause and examine what those predominant thoughts are or risk moving in an unintended direction or getting to an average destination. Why do you work? After your years of work, what comes next? Are you optimizing yourself? What do you want to start doing now that will set the tone for what you want to be in the future? What were those goals you set out to achieve 5, 10 or 15 years ago? Are you living your dreams or you are just passing time and tagging along? Thought provoking or table shaking? Maybe. If we cannot shake tables, then we must be sure that the status quo is all there is to be. If not, we are in serious danger.

In some cases, external situations help us check what we have on the inside or what we have as potential that we have not harnessed as finished products. For instance, for the working population, the external circumstances, can be a bit overwhelming:

• inflationary trend of over 150% over the past 2 years. A bottle of groundnut has moved from N1,000 to N2,500 over a 2 year period. A paint bucket of garri (processed cassava) has moved from N2,000 to N4,500 over the same period
• in an import driven economy, the US Dollar has consistently appreciated against the Naira. With the devaluation that followed, the Naira has fallen by over 100% driving an increase in the cost of business operations, cost of living and rising inflation amongst others
• government change has brought about a change in government policy. The monetary policy rate has been changed twice in 6 months to over 26%. With this for instance, mortgage rates have surged higher from 21% in January 2024 to 28% in the present day. One should expect a few other policy summersaults.
• hundreds of businesses have packed their bags to leave the country. There has been immense capital flight. Big names in the manufacturing, energy and telecommunications space have either closed operations in Nigeria, reduced operations or sold their majority shares to other companies. In some cases, job losses have followed. We may have a situation of fewer jobs and more applicants. Where jobs exist, the workload may be potentially increase.
• it is getting clearer by the day that the country is running a third world economy with a high level of poverty and outstanding national debt in hundreds of billions of US Dollars. It is therefore not surprising that the leading private refinery has to now explore sourcing crude oil from far away Brazil as most of our crude oil has been traded away to pay national debt whilst there is a high rate of crude oil theft. If one is expecting much from the government, that may be too risky a venture to undertake given the underlying antecedents

For the working professional, a few things have become clear:

• advocacy for wage increase by employees may not be the most viable, feasible and sustainable option as most companies are battling to stay afloat. If businesses and organizations do not survive, the employees also will not stand a strong chance. If the boat makes it to shore, the passengers will also get there.
• job security has become the new reality rather than job change
• business sustainability has become the new reality rather than isolated business profitability
• it is clear that enterprise survival is one channel by which personal survival can be guaranteed. This is the time to be business savvy and understand how sales, operations and profit work together and identify your vital contributions as an employee.

How then can the working professional stay afloat in the midst of worsening economic crisis, rising inflation and challenged household savings? A few options exist with their own merits and demerits. The list is by no means exhaustive:

1. Cost cutting: Adjusting life choices can have an impact on household savings. However, when inflation is continuous, there is an extent to which cost cutting can no longer be feasible. Too much cost cutting threatens to reduce the quality of life. If fuel prices surge, we are at least not going to move to riding bicycles or walking long distances.
2. Skilled and valuable contributions: The narrow mindedness of professionalism may have to go for a more well rounded working approach. In this sense, professionals may need to avoid specialization boxes and limitation to vertical movement but rather exploring more horizontal career paths, generalist coverage and utilization of a wider professional and/or functional value chain. Who says for instance, that an Accountant can not also wear the hat of an Administration Manager? With the changing dynamics, companies may begin to look for utility players and not just role specialists. Multi-functional utilities can drive better job security and an upward move in salary income. If you can do more, you may get more.
3. Financial Intelligence and Investment: We spend decades building functional experience but many lack the financial intelligence to manage the financial rewards of a thriving career. Money mastery is the next career skill that you need to master that will help you sustain the period of retirement or career inactivity. Unfortunately, academic and theoretical perspectives have brought narrow focus on specialization and expertise areas whilst creating blind spots in other areas such as financial intelligence, money management and investment. If you have not picked up books such as "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and "Cash Flow Quadrant" by Robert Kiyosaki and books like "Fire your stock analyst" by Ayo Arowolo; "Think and grow rich" by Napoleon Hill and the likes, you may need to pay attention to more learning to help you in financial matters. The reward for work is pay. However, pay cannot be optimized unless it is well managed.
4. Creating more income channels: Not all people are entreprenueurs. A lot of motivational speakers have misled some people by stating everyone must run a business. There are always different sides to a coin. You may be an investor, you may also on the other hand, be a business owner. Are there any skills, passions or hobbies that you can commercialize? You can sew dresses. Are you making the most of it? You are an eloquent speaker. How many public speaking events invitations have you honoured? Money flows in the direction of creating value. You may be making a huge assumption or a costly mistake (no pun intended) by limiting all your earning potential to what you do on Mondays to Fridays, 8am to 5pm or 6pm, 7pm or 8pm as the case may be. Take a mental note of the successful role models the world celebrates. Amongst plenty observations, you may realize that they are majorly multi-dimensional. Cristano Ronaldo, in his late thirties, asides being a footballer in a well paying league, is also a model, a brand ambassador, and a major investor in hospitality and real estate amongst others. If you introspect, you may find out what else you can do on your free time and within weekends. in addition that can add more earnings to you in a manageable way.
5. Finding the right balance. In managing these scenarios, several factors are key. It is good to find a balance, identify your priorities, avoid potential conflicts of interest and manage your health and obligations to others carefully so that you do not solve one problem, and then create another. It takes learning, growth and mastery. To become, it has to start with you. You must first of all become a better version of yourself, and then be able to expand the scope of your life pursuits. That journey may take you to areas such as time management, work life integration, project management and the likes. If you want change, the first change must be you.

Thankfully, I have answered some of these questions and made a number of personal discoveries myself. In my journey, I have traded clothing and footwear, authored and sold books, managed an investment fund and sold a few properties over weekends. I have found my own path and I am on the journey of becoming. Master your own path and take charge. Happy finding, happy discovering and happy becoming.

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Governments, policies and economic conditions will come and go. However, we must be intentional about taking our destinies in our hands and becoming all we set out to be and avoid the trap of the monotonous routines of our present day whilst forgetting the pictures we should be paining for our desired future. Have a wonderful week ahead.