Plan your career as an investor

If you work for 20 years with an average package of 300 thousand dollars, you will earn 6 million dollars. So… how about getting started planning where to invest your workforce? *

Often when deciding to change areas, positions or companies, professionals take into consideration immediate gains and satisfaction, or even the invitation of a friend or former boss. While it is common to talk about the importance of planning, few people apply financial market logic to their career management. Most people do not take into account the impact on their “long-term cash generation” capacity and “liquidity”.

However, a professional’s greatest financial asset is his career, so decisions related to it should be made with the same caution as in building a heritage. For this it is important to keep in mind two issues, the first is the application of the methods adopted by financial market investors in each decision that may change their trajectory. The second is self-awareness, which allows you to put opportunities in perspective according to your values ​​and purpose.

First of all, it is important to ask yourself what the purpose and the term of the investment is, just as you would in a financial application, thinking about profitability (net gain), security (risk readiness) and liquidity (ability to turn an asset into cash). And for each goal set a period, knowing that you can’t have everything in the short term.

It is very common for people to spend a lot of time assessing their portfolio and investment risks, but when it comes to assessing the greatest asset, which is your job and the value you can generate through it, you don’t have to miss it. the same caution in analysis. Let’s consider the example of an executive who has a 20-year career ahead and has already saved and invested $ 1 million. He usually spends several hours a week reading newspapers and reporting on the performance of the funds he has invested in and the companies in his stock portfolio. These 20 years of career will certainly generate you much more than this, in a package of $ 300,000 per year we are talking about $ 6 million!

Therefore, when making a career decision, it is always good to know whether or not the most beneficial remuneration requires greater exposure to risks and what they are. It is also essential to apply the concept of liquidity to working life and to make sure that the change does not lead the trader to a scenario that reduces his ability to move to different positions and companies in the future. As one looks at risk readiness before investing money, it is important to ask yourself in your career what is the real willingness to risk losing, and how to be prepared for it by taking a bold step. Or on the contrary, if the risk is to stand still in an industry that has an unpromising future and the right decision is to embark on a new challenge, just as you would realize the profit of a stock that has gone up a lot and would buy another with a lot more potential. appreciation.

A smart attitude is to stay informed about the development of companies in their industries and to observe their movements, so that it is possible to map the opportunities that are most favorable in the long run.

This is an important routine that is part of the life of financial analysts and should be adopted before making a professional change decision: it is to take a look at the company’s situation in the market, what is its position vis-à-vis local and international competitors such as resources are employed, what is the vision of the leaders, if it is a sustainable business in the long run. Publicly traded companies maintain this type of information on the investor relations pages or on the CVM website, which facilitates analysis. What you see, however, is a lot of people watching over their current account investments, failing to look at the element that most tends to bring resources to a professional: his career.

* Article by Joseph Teperman published on 3/27/2016 in Estado de S.Paulo newspaper