3 minutes
Discover how embracing challenges and betting on yourself can turn obstacles into opportunities, leading to growth and transformation in your professional journey.
Challenges or opportunities? We are presented with these choices daily, and we choose how to look at them.
How many people do not think twice about placing a bet at one of the many conferences they attend in Las Vegas for a chance to “win it all,” but would they place that bet on themselves? After reading my story, I hope every one of you believes that, unlike betting it all on the blackjack tables, betting on yourself is an opportunity, not a risk.
Almost 10 years ago, I came to a fork in the road of my professional journey and had an opportunity to place the biggest bet of my life. After a career of progressively increasing responsibilities in sales, operations, and lending, I had honed my skills and felt ready to be a Chief Operating Officer. The combination of financial experience gained through my Accounting degree, understanding of consumer behavior cultivated by my Marketing degree, and broad and deep knowledge of running a credit union learned at Western CUNA Management School all pointed to my next position as a COO.
What was the bet? After interviewing to be the next COO at a credit union in Texas, I received a call and an offer, which went like this: “We just finished our strategic planning session, and everything we are facing in the next three years hinges on technology. I think we need a Chief Information Officer more than we need a COO. Are you still interested?”
What went through my mind at that moment? A million things. I love a challenge. Place one before me, and I’ll turn it into an opportunity. Helping people solve complex problems lights me up inside. I grew up around technology and loved it, and I loved people more. This could be an opportunity to use everything I’d learned preparing to be COO to revitalize a team that had never had a CIO, creating a service culture that would serve as the foundation for their digital evolution.
Did I place the bet? Did I take the offer? ABSOLUTELY. But why was I confident betting on myself when I had never held a technology position, let alone led a technology team? By understanding my odds. Knowing what I knew, knowing what I did not know, and using both set clear expectations. Despite what you hear to the contrary, there is no “faking it till you make it.”
I knew I was comfortable with technology. While I might not be able to “roll up my sleeves” to the extent I had with other teams and help them reconfigure our network, I knew I loved to learn, and I could understand what I needed to know about technology to support the good people on my team. Knowing these things makes it easy to align expectations and focus on leading people through the organization’s strategic objectives.
Along the way, I had the honor of mentoring executives while reinforcing values and beliefs in our credit union movement with my Credit Union Development Educator (CUDE) certification. I chaired a new leadership development initiative with our league and completed my Certified Credit Union Financial Counselor (CCUFC) certification. Always leading with head and heart.
This gamble has led to others. During the pandemic, I began my MBA and was also selected to join Filene’s prestigious i3 strategic innovation and leadership program. While making time for both would sometimes prove challenging, work-life harmony prevailed, and I finished. Ultimately, this bet to become a CIO and the subsequent series of seemingly smaller bets I made on myself led to the opportunity to lead Synergent.
If we bet on ourselves, we’ll turn today’s problems for our communities and the credit union system into opportunities and change the world; I know it.
Randy Stolp is President of Synergent, a Maine-based fintech managed services CUSO. Synergent provides core processing, digital banking, payment solutions, and marketing services exclusively to credit unions across the United States. Randy has served the credit union industry in multiple capacities for 24 years and actively seeks ways to serve and better the credit union movement. He is a technology philosopher, guiding teams through the intersection of people and technology.
