The Start Up of You / Introducing Ved

Recently, i read a book that resonated. It was The Start-up of You which was co-authored by Reid Hoffman (the founder of LinkedIn). I believe its the best career book for this generation and the generation to come. Specifically, to me, it introduced, it highlighted and reinforced in a simple and elegant manner - the future of our careers and how to be prepared for it.

The authors' called it Plan ABZ. Plan A is your current career path. Plan B is your career that you need to pivot to, if needed and lastly Plan Z is your ideal career choice. The book highlighted clearly that all of us need to first understand what it is we want in life and in our careers. The authors' wanted everyone to understand that it's ok to be on Plan A but each and everyone of us should know that Plan A is never certain and we need to be prepared to 'pivot' to Plan B if things take a turn for the worse and in the current environments, Plan A can fail because 1) the economy for the business that your Plan A is on is failing or 2) the company that Plan A supports fail or even the 3) boss that was driving Plan A decides to quit. All 3 are hardly within our control.

I had a Plan A failing moment in 2009.

I was working for ABN in 2008 and after the hardest year of my working life, we were moving into late 2008, early 2009, firing on all cylinders. I was part of a dynamic trading group that was led by a very charismatic, hard working American. He had a vision and he led the group well and we were delivering on that vision. That year, our group made EUR350m and were on track to being the most profitable division in our space. It was fantastic. Our division was not only profitable but also very efficient. Unfortunately, ABN as a group was not. It had a terrible cost culture and the profitable divisions were supporting the weaker group and no one at the top was making the right choices. We were an ideal take over target and RBS fought hard to take us over.

Now RBS was a disaster in waiting. It was the most leveraged institution in the world and had made huge profits (easy to do with leverage) in good times. As such they felt that their cost to income ratios were the envy of the global banking community. They unfortunately did not have a low cost base but an inflated income base from leverage. When the deleveraging process started in 2009, their income contracted significantly leading to negative cost to income ratios as the cost base was just too high. The boss that we worked for tried hard to keep the business growing but lost faith with the RBS management and he decided to leave.

Here i was, happy and highly motivated on my Plan A within ABN and i never contemplated another job but suddenly i found my Plan A failing not because of me but because of the firm, my bosses and the economy. Thankfully, things worked out as i had another boss who was planning a Plan B himself and when he could decided that i should join him as well.

Since then i have always told myself, that i will never put myself in that position again. This book actually gave me an elegant way of expressing this goal - Plan ABZ. Its ok to be on Plan A but we must always be ready to pivot to plan B if the need arises.

So now i am working for a new organisation and it is going very well but I feel with the way things change in the world and the speed of it, everyone needs a Plan B. The book spoke about aligning goals and aspirations and character in designing an appropriate Plan B.  I wont try to elaborate further but i strongly recommend this book for everyone.

Now Plan Z is even more interesting. Plan Z is your ideal career choice. For me, its to have a global financial planning company that starts in South East Asia and then extends globally. I want my company to be on the cutting edge of using technology to allow every person the ability to reach financial freedom while enjoying life as well. Plan for the future, enjoy the now. I would love to put myself in a position to drive my own business that i am passionate about. The book speaks about having the buffers in place to go for Plan Z. What i like here is that they have not done the normal RA RA - " Follow the dream, all will be well!!!". They have taken the pragmatic approach and stated clearly, to pursue plan Z, you also need the ability to manage/pay for your life. Reid Hoffman cited his first company that he started which was an online dating company and how he moved back to his father's house so that he could safely run his business for a year knowing that he was covered.

Now they broke down buffer to not only financial buffers but also the 'soft' buffers like experience and skills. The book highlights that all of us have to continue building our financial, experience and skills buffers. For me, to achieve Plan Z or to pursue plan Z, i need to know that i have provided for my kids and my wife well (financial buffers). I also need to show people (and myself) that before i talk about financial freedom, i need to achieve it as well (experience buffer). Then i started to assess what are the skills that i lack to run my own business and i found 2 early issues - the lack of management experience and my inability to present well.

The book asks you to assess your weaknesses and then put a plan in action to resolve or work on those weaknesses. For me, i immediately made clear to my bosses that i wanted management experience and they felt that i was ready and recently promoted me and gave me extended responsibilities where i am involved in now looking at a team and also building new markets. With this, i found i was doing a lot more presentations to high level individuals and groups within my organisation but still found that i lacked the ability to present topics well and so i started to volunteer to carry out case studies and career advice to young students at universities in Singapore. I hope to do more.

Its amazing but this book did put a lot of things in perspective and even better it made me work out my own career path and my own Plan ABZ. Now the book had a few more interesting notions and 2 of the more relevant topics (to me) was the need to have a 1) personal Brand and to 2) cultivate a strong network that can assist in achieving our Plan ABZ.

So let me quickly introduce Ved - my efforts in Branding myself.

Facebook - Dev Siva Kumar
I have never seen how one website has made it so easy for us to share our memories and to keep in touch with friends. But, i am also very wary. So now i am working hard to ensure more control is in place with this account. So i now post only to my circle and my network and really keeping the periphery at bay. Here, i will be sharing my life with my family and close friends.

LinkedIn - Dev Siva Kumar
This account is my most recent account. Here i have decided to focus on postings that reflect what is Good Management and good leadership. Here, i will share all that i have read or even what i personally write related to my efforts to be a better professional.

Twitter - VedsBlog

This twitter account is my professional twitter account and has two themes currently - 1) Why be a banker? and 2) Leadership. Theme 1 is related to my own belief that everyone of us needs to be achieving a greater good. I think we bankers need to also know that what we do is serving a bigger purpose and if your motivation is money alone, there are much better ways to make money if you are willing to take risks, be creative and be driven. Banking is a great career but there are other choices in the world. Theme 2 ties very closely with my Linked in postings and is focused on Plan ABZ and what it takes to achieve those plans.

Twitter - VedsVice

Here i am focused on my vices - Wine, Whisky and Watches. I find that the only tweeters i follow are those that have a theme running through their tweets. There is continuity and consistency. I am deliberately splitting VedsBlog and VedsVice as i wanted distinct themes to emerge and hopefully, the followers would appreciate it.

Twitter - VedsWeight

Now, this is a very personal twitter account. I started this account as i wanted to be able to keep a track of my own battles with not only weight loss but also my own deteriorating health. Since December when i was told that i was diabetic and if did not control my diet or exercise, i would need medication for life, i have been battling hard and seem to be winning. But its a constant battle and i wanted to document it.

Blog - VedsBlog

This has always been my biggest personal enjoyment - the ability to share my views. The beauty about blogs is that its one way - you write what you want with no distractions and then when you are done, you get to see the reactions. It suits me and its been quite rewarding to see the positive comments i have got.

So that's it for now. The Start up Of me - VED.

For those on Plan Z, my good friends, i am envious.

For those on Plan A, but pivoting to Plan B, the best of luck.

And for the rest of us in Plan A, be the best and be prepared.

d.

A Story by Ilyana

The bottom is written by my daughter Ilyana. At school they have been studying about migration and the class decided to research Afghanistan and how the Taliban affected migration. They then had to create a story in the first person using the facts thats they had researched. She had to plan each chapter to have a flow and timeline to include the proper facts. The bottom is her first chapter.

She is 9.

Taliban Attacking Afghanistan


My mom and dad hugged me and my sister while they left the house for work. My dad was sweating, his face was red I could see my dad’s shirt was wet at the back of him. There was cold drops of tears on my shaking legs. It was mom she was crying of fear.

I normally loved reading my mystery book after mom and dad left, I was almost finished with my book but I did not feel like doing that today. Instead I looked out of the terrifying window with all those nasty Talibans with super powered black guns all over the village. I suddenly heard a lady screaming like anything, the Talibans were whipping her for not covering her ankles. I dare not go outside there. I wondered to myself if I would die or whether this tragedy will stop. I couldn’t stand it!

Soon my mom and dad came back panting real fast. I asked my mom what happened “ the Taliban band our work and told us to run fast’’, she said still panting. The next we found out was our neighbor knocking on our door saying that we must go outside for a speech by the Taliban. We went outside. The Talibans were threatening us that we should change our religion to the Taliban religion.

That night we were sitting at the dinner table as usual. Everyone was so quiet just looking at the warm candle slowly melting. My mom’s tears flowed down her face and onto the plate. I asked my mom why the Taliban came to our village, she didn’t answer. I asked my my dad “ the Taliban came here because we the Hazara’s killed a taliban prisoner in 1997 ”, he whispered. That night I hardly slept, I was so terrified if we will survive. I kept saying to myself that we will survive but that never helped. we had to leave.

The next morning I saw my mom & dad having a little conversation. I slowly tiptoed step by step closer to the door to hear what they were talking about. they were saying something about leaving, I leaned closer to hear more.