F*ck It, I Quit: Why I Left Banking After 15 Years | The Data Shaman, Season 2

For fifteen years I hid my tattoos under a suit. Then one morning, measuring my own blood pressure in front of the mirror, I asked what the hell I was doing, and I quit.

This is the opener of Season 2, Fuck It, I Quit. No guest, just me on why I left a Director role in global banking after fifteen years: the HSBC lions photo, the family script, the masking, my diagnosis of depression, ADHD and autism at forty-five, the panic attacks, and turning down a safe job in London. And what I found instead, an executive coaching practice, a meditation book, and becoming a Reiki master.

If you left the safe thing and built something truer, come on the show. All episodes and transcripts: https://www.danieleforni.com/podcast

If you want to know more about Daniele Forni, go to www.danieleforni.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

When the meadows full of strangers Hello, okay test test all right. I keep so for fifteen years I hid my tattoos under a suit. I told myself that it was fine, the salary was good, the job was safe, and to be honest, everyone would kill for the job I had. And then one morning I stood in front of the mirror, measuring my own blood pressure and I thought what the hell am I doing? And why the hell am I doing it? So I said the two words fuck it and I quit. So welcome to the Data Shaman. I am Daniela Forni and this is my new season. I'm calling it fuck it I quit. It is about that exact moment when you stop pretending. The moment the life you build stops fitting the person you actually are. In this fourth episode, I'm not interviewing anyone. It's just me and you. And you'll have to put up with my Italian accent. I'm sorry about that. Because I thought that if I ask other people to tell me their story, it is only fair that I tell you mine. So let me tell you why I left global banking after fifteen years. And here is a small confession to start. I haven't really told that many people that I left. It's been four months now, and I've kept quite quiet about it. But a couple of weeks ago I finally did the thing that every self respecting ex banker has to do. I shook the photo. You know the one. If you work for HSBC, you know they should be standing next to the bronze lions outside the headquarters. Those two lions have been guarding the building for longer than any of us have been alive. And standing there with my long hair and my earrings, next to this giant symbol of establishment, I had one thought. The lion must be proud of my hair. And most of the time now I'm actually wear my hair tied up in the back. So if you're watching this you're not gonna see them. But if you happen to be in Milan, sometimes in London or in Sondrio, which is my hometown, you will find me with my long hair. So let me go back to the story. And actually that is the whole story. Me and the bank. The person I had become standing next to the person I was supposed to be. So why did I leave? This is what people keep asking me. And the honest answer is this. I finally realized I don't belong in corporate anymore. And maybe I never did. I went into banking partially for family reasons. My dad worked for a bank, my granddad worked for a bank. So I told myself, well, that's what the Fourney is supposed to do. And the other reason, let's be honest, really honest, was the money. It is a very lucrative career. I know people will say tech is better these days. And funny enough, I mean this is a very big admission, but 15 years ago, straight out of university, I had an offer from Google. And I had an offer from Deutsche Bank. And as life happens, I chose Deutsche Bank. In hindsight, vision is always 2020. But leaving that aside, none of these was who I really was. As a teenager, I had hearings, I had a mohawk. My first passport photo had a mohawk. I owned a kilt and I played in a metal band. You will find this band on Spotify under Dr. Shellbourne. You know, don't ask questions about the names, you know. When you are in your late teens, early twenties, uh things happen. And so was eccentric. I was a bit of a rebel. I mean, again, in hindsight, my autism and my ADHD should have been far more clear to me and to the people around me, but it was in the early 2000s in a small town in Italy, so I was just the odd guy, the weird guy. And probably as important as has been your divorce, I was also the second child, so you know, I had to act out in some way or another. Going back to my life, so I did the study. First study in Italy, then I went to the UK. And then armed with lots of degrees, I started the usual career in banking. I say usual because it was was it was what I was told to do. I wasn't really following my feelings. I was following what other people thought a good career looked like. But there was something that still wasn't sitting good with me. Because I remember it was maybe the couple of months in Deutsche Bank, and I would spend maybe five minutes every day looking at pictures of mountains on Google, of course Google Maps and go around the world. And that probably was one of the early signs that there was something that I was striving for. And over time a part of the life started to grow, like a part of the identity. I couldn't really show it to anyone. I was too busy climbing with the corporate ladder, and I was too afraid of being judged. And there is a word I didn't have back then, but I have it now. It is called masking. It's putting on the acceptable version of yourself every single morning, and actually the acceptable version of yourself that you think other people will like. And when I came back home, exhausted, I will peel it off. I thought I was only masking the tattoos and the earrings, but I was masking something much deeper. Something I wouldn't have a name for it until years later. And it was only when I made director in investment banking that I thought well, no one is going to stop me now. People like me. I do a great job. And even if I start to look a bit like I did in my early twenties, nobody's going to fire me. So little by little things starting to appear. Started with an earring. Then a tattoo. Then more earrings. Then the long hair. And all of those things were just clues. Clues that the person I really wanted to be was starting to detach from the life I was actually living. They were me quietly saying I don't want to belong here. I'm not willing to keep compromising. But here is the thing about a big steady salary. It is a very good reason to keep going. It is a very good reason to keep pretending. It is a very good reason to keep pretending you're living somebody else's life. And the whole time without really noticing, I was creating a crack. A crack between who I was inside and who I was performing on the outside. And let me tell you something I've learned. The crack, once it appears, never stays more. It is only a matter of time before the two versions of you start to pull apart. And all you need is a trigger. For me, the trigger was health. I have struggled. I have struggled with mental health for as long as I can remember. I was diagnosed with depression, ADHD and autism, F forty-five. And I have a medical history that's longer than probably I would like to have. And honestly, that diagnosis rewrote my whole history. All of those years of feeling like I was running a marathon while everyone else seems to be jogging suddenly made sense. I wasn't broken. I wasn't lazy. I wasn't trying to be difficult. I was only a new to the board and person trying to survive in a world built for a different kind of brain. But nobody had given me the manual. In the summer of twenty five, I had to take four weeks off work. And for probably the first time in my life, I had to measure my blood pressure every single day. Something just wasn't sitting right with me. If any one of you ever suffered from panic attacks, then you understand the feeling. You know that you're supposed to feel good, that you're safe, but your body reacts in a way that you can control it. And because here is what nobody tells you about masking for that long. It comes with a bill, and sooner or later your body is the one that pays it. And on top of that, people with my family were also dealing with illness. And all of these things made me rethink what I actually wanted, what my values were, who I wanted to be. That time forced me to sit with the question I have been avoiding for years What am I actually doing? And why? And the answer when he finally came was embarrassingly simple. I needed to get back control of my life. I needed to get back agency. I needed to get back my health. So fuck it. I quit. Now what happens after you quit? What do you actually do? Most of you will imagine taking long holiday, maybe going somewhere with a nice beach, but I'm not like that. And honestly, because of all these feelings, it's a bit more complicated. And especially because at least for me, the last few months have been really wild. And here is the part I don't usually admit. I was supposed to start a new job in London. You know, I'm not so stupid that I quit without something lined up. I mean, I am maybe stupid, but not that much. But somewhere in there I realized I didn't want to repeat the same life just in a different building. So I didn't take it. And honestly, I was a bit scared. But it turns out I had been planning for this, secretly and maybe even unconsciously. For about ten years, very quietly and very informally, I had been coaching senior managers at the bank. Some of them now sit on very successful boards, and if I tell you their names, you will definitely know them. Some of these people are the very top echelon. Some of these people sit at the very top of Global Bank. And I was very good at it. They were telling me that. So I thought to myself, could I make this my thing? Could I make a career to help other people? To help people become a better version of themselves. Could I be able could I help executives to become even more successful? The funny part is that at the time I didn't really know what executive culture was. And to be honest with you, I am sure that if you listen to this, you have no idea either. And that's okay, you don't need to know. But it took me a year of study at Cambridge to look back and realize, oh wait a second, this is really a thing. Ah, and I've been doing this the whole time. The only difference is that right now I'm not getting paid for it. And here is where it clicked. This is the part I most want you to hear. I've always been the person who says what everyone is thinking, but is too scared to say out loud. And as you may know, people with autism don't have to have much of a filter. I really took that to heart, and it probably got me into a lot of troubles, and probably cost me some raises and promotions, but let's leave that aside. That's my past life. I always been the one challenging the status quo, asking those awkward questions. I've always been the creative one, looking for solutions outside the box. You know, if the autism is no filter, looking outside the box is ADHD. The brain that will not sit still, that connects things that have no business disconnected, that gets bored to death the moment something becomes routine. Now, if you're an employee, those traits are horrible. They can really get you into trouble. But if you're a coach, those are exactly the traits you need. That's a whole job. So that was it. My vocation was always hiding in plain sight. Like most things. They're just there. We are just not paying attention to them. And the strangest part, those same wirings that made me a nightmare in a corporate meeting room is what makes me very good at this. My neurodivergent stopped being a bug. It turned out to be the feature. And the lo and the solution in the end it was so simple. I just changed the focus. From me to others. So where am I now? So let me be straight with you about the trade. I'm not here to convince everyone to drop everything and follow their passions. Yes, I gave up steady money. Yes, I gave up stability. I split my time between Hong Kong, London and Milan. But in exchange I got something I hadn't felt in years. I feel fulfilled, and I feel free to actually chase my own goals. Three months in the coaching practice is going okay. I have happy clients and new ones every week. I've somehow found the time to build an app for coaches and for people to who want to work on themselves. It is called squirrelcoach.com, but I will talk about it maybe in the future. Squirrel, like the animal that keeps on running around, you know, like a person with ADHD. And there is also something a bit more surprising. I've made peace with a title that I never expected to give myself. A holistic healer. Over the past year, once I finally stopped masking, my mind suddenly had this bandwidth it had never had before. I wrote a book about one of my passions, which is meditation, specifically to help people with neurodiversity to stop listening to the standard rules of how you're supposed to meditate and actually follow the brain. And finally, I did all the certifications to become a Reiki master. Maybe this is something I'll talk more in later episodes. So now my whole life is about helping other people get to where they want to go and feel better about who they are. And you know what? There is no better feeling than watching someone else succeed. Alright, so there you go. This is the first episode of Fuck It Aquit. You listen to me for probably half an hour. And um So there you go. The first episode of Fuck It Acquit, an Italian accent monologue about my life. Talking about how I help others while I'm actually talking about myself. But you know hypocrisy is part of who we are. But I'm he I'm doing this because I know that I'm not the only one. I think almost everyone listening has their own version of this, sitting quietly on the shoulders. That little crack between the two identities of you, the one inside and the one outside. So for this season I want to hear those stories. If you walked away from the safe thing and built something truer, or you know someone who has, I want to talk to you. And especially if, like me, your brain works a little bit differently, and you spent years being told that that was a problem to fix rather than a gift to use. Come and be a guest. Get in touch, and the link is in the show notes. Let's grab a coffee. And if any of this looks good, do me a favor. Send it to the one box that you thought of. I keep my colors for the telephone. This is a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

And this is It's not that I've no glory. It's not that I've no fire. I just hold it close and quiet. Till the moment lives higher.