Diandra Collins

I'm a big proponent of learning on the go, so I love to read and ingest information via books. I put a heavy emphasis on study and constantly push myself to do things that are a little bit more uncomfortable or outside of what would normally be my wheelhouse. That's what I would attribute my success to - just continuously challenging myself and never stopping the learning process.

The best career advice I've received is to go with your skills and go with the joy in your field. Don't chase goals that other people set for you - instead, go with what you enjoy doing in your career, and it will navigate you towards work that will benefit you the most and that you will do the best at. Another piece of advice that really stuck with me is to not limit yourself to one avenue. Try to move around and study more than just your individual financial field. You never know what hobbies or what other fields you might have taken a one-off course or seminar in that would be able to benefit you in the future.

My advice would be to definitely put an emphasis on learning as much as you can. Everything that is great in this world, in my opinion, has been found in a book. Anything that you could want to learn about your field, anything that you could need to learn about your field can be achieved through study. Make sure that you are putting great emphasis on the type of relationships that you cultivate within your career - you never know who or what connection might help you. Remember that there are no small jobs, so whatever you have done in the past, know that it's leading you to a more centralized and fulfilled position in your career. Never go without appreciation for every job that you come through.

The biggest challenge is just working with the technology that's available and trying to find ways around some of the solutions that might not be apparent. There might be some missing information, there might be some technology that's out of date, or there might be some security measures that are kind of hindering progress. What I like to do is stay in contact with my clients and read up on the newest technologies and study them so that I can find ways around these challenges that are more creative.

I really value customer service in my professional life. I feel like having a good relationship with not only your managers or coworkers, but also the clients you work with is paramount, especially in the U.S., though I've found it benefits me in interactions with different countries around the world. Continuous learning is one of my biggest values - I love to see what and how this world connects through what I can learn about the past, the future, and different communities and cultures. I also value continued improvement and pushing yourself to grow. Gratitude is one of my biggest values as well. I feel like sometimes we can get lost in our careers or in a certain space where we feel like we're not making any movement or we're not where we want to be, but I believe that it's all connected in season and that it will all make sense in the end.