Your job can be your business!

One day, standing on one of the many ubiquitous queues in one of many Malawian banks that claim to put customer service at the core of their existence, I passed the time away listening to the many exaggerated exclamations of Malawians who claimed to have been waiting for several hours on the queue when they had only just arrived. Many of the conversations were of the mundane – nothing revealing and everything obvious! But one day, I happened to eavesdrop on a conversation between a woman and a bank teller – it was a conversation that challenged my own world view and led me to an epiphany of sorts.

Judging from the conversation, the bank teller had been noticing this woman coming to the bank to deposit money on the same day consistently for several months. Curious, the teller asked the woman a question: “What business do you do, madam?”

The woman responded after a brief pause of reflection: “My job is my business. This is the profit from my salary.”

The teller giggled in disbelief, but the woman did not reciprocate. She looked sternly at the teller, who had stopped giggling, and said “I am serious. My Job is my business.”

The transaction continued in professional silence with further conversation. But those words hung in the air like bad stench refusing to leave.

Her job was her business! 

That simple singular statement challenged me in ways I did not think possible and for all the right reasons.

This statement goes against the grain, doesn’t it? We live in a generation where entrepreneurs, for good reason no doubt, are being touted as the “engines of the future” and the “harbinger of prosperity”. All of a sudden, being a simple working-class employee is no longer sexy - one has to have some kind of business or side hustle, small scale or otherwise, to keep up with the Joneses.  

But since that enlightening visit to the bank, my understanding of “business” has changed drastically. At the moment, I don’t really understand people’s inclination to not view their job as their business. I notice many working-class people earning middle to high incomes still whining about their jobs and wishing they had their own businesses. I have often heard people giving each other advice saying:

“You can’t depend on your job – you must have a business!”

The intentions in giving such advice are well-meaning, but simple economics suggests that if too many of us are doing the same business (which is often the case), then no one will be better off as the above-normal profits dwindle due to a drop in prices as a result of an increase in competition. This benefits the customer, but not the business in the long run. So you might start a business but it earns you very little, as compared to the overall household income, to be meaningful. Oftentimes, these businesses compete with jobs and one can’t invest the needed time to help the business grow – either the business suffers or the job suffers as a result.

Don’t get me wrong I am not anti-business! But if you prefer to be your own man/woman, can’t get up in the morning and get stuck in traffic getting to a job where you hate taking orders from a superior (who is probably less qualified and less intelligent than you) then maybe starting your own business is for you. But if you are comfortable taking orders and don’t mind getting a salary for doing just that, then keeping your job is probably your biggest asset. But what has to change is that you must start looking at your job as a business.

What do I mean?

Most people earn money from their job and simply consume it on monthly expenses and luxuries without considering the future. The money you earn from your job is your “revenue” and, like in a business, when you spend on your monthly expenses you must cater for disposal income – this means adjusting your lifestyle to ensure you have disposal income left over for investments and not the other way around where your income adjusts to your lifestyle. You have to start seeing your disposal income as “profit on services rendered” during the past month and invest in securities that earn you passive income, i.e. assets that bring in money without you breaking a sweat, e.g. real estates, company shares, treasury bills etc.

If you do that then your job has become your business!

I know what you are going to say: you don’t earn enough to have disposable income. Then, in that case, the best thing you can do is to increase the value you bring to your company or organization and make yourself more visible to those that matter. Sometimes this means getting a higher qualification, suggesting a risky but bold idea, working longer hours but bringing in more customers – going the extra mile, stepping out of your comfort zone and getting noticed for it. Even more important than increasing your value is to make yourself indispensable by focusing on the tasks in your job description that are critical to the survival of your company or organization – in these tough economic times, any job that is seen to actively bring in money will be on the critical path of the any company’s or organization’s HR organogram. 

The key message: your job is your business – just adjust your spending to ensure disposal income for investment in securities that earn you passive income. Who knows! You might retire earlier than you think.

That was the free-of-charge consultancy I got from a woman I hardly know in the most unlikely of places – but it was life-changing and made me appreciate and leverage more from the one thing that many people need in this day and age - a job.