Matching your Personality to your Career
Chapter 5

So here I was enrolled in Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in Accounting & Finance. I had always been inclined towards accounting. I seemed to excel in it through high school and knew that was what I was meant to be doing. I was on a good foundation. Back then, we did not have career counselors in school who would guide us in linking course selection to career outcomes. Most of us made the decisions on a whim and went along with it. Fast forward, 20 years later, am I still working as an accountant? Not really. That sounds like a vague answer.

Luckily, that solid accounting foundation is necessary in almost every aspect of my career life as a business owner. Running my own business has required me to have some serious finance and accounting skills. The ability to manage one’s business cash flow is not an area we can leave to chance. Accounting came easier to me than most other subjects but I would later learn my personality was more in need of a social career. True, accounting can be quite dull and not a social career as such. I pursued accounting in school while my career life was slightly heading in a different direction.

As far back as primary school, I still remember being called upon numerous times to give the vote of thanks when we had invited guests. An incident that still makes us laugh involves a prize giving day held at the boarding school I attended. I was in Standard 8 and the whole school was in the assembly hall where we sat for hours as all classes got presented their awards. We had a few prominent guests invited and as can be expected, we were all looking very presentable with hair combed back as was expected. As the occasion dragged on and it became dark outside, we knew it would be straight to the dining hall for supper and then off to bed. The hall was also a bit dark and my multitasking brain figured I should plait my hair and save time doing it later, as we were almost done. For the ladies out there, you all know those matutas on a ka steel-wool hair, facing in every direction that we make before bed-time. I was finally done with the hair and went on listening to the speeches from the invited guests. A few moments later an announcement was made. My name was called out to go to the front and give a vote of thanks on behalf of the students. Omg, my now messy plaited hair!

I knew that hair issue would land me in trouble after the event and my best shot was spinning it to my advantage. I had to give the speech of my life that day if I was to get out of punishment mode. I had been giving these sorts of speeches at school in the last few years. I would always thank the teachers for all their efforts but this time I knew I needed to do better. I knew my class teacher and matron would be the ones vying for my blood for those matutas. I needed to individually praise these two…lol (forgive me!!). A politician at a young age, perhaps! The next day, all I heard was about this wonderful speech I gave and not so much about the hair do. Later on, I would think back to this period and realise that was where my public speaking skills began.