By Mr. Mark Goh
Founder and Managing Director of Vanilla Law LLC
I have a question, and it involves what people refer to as the Gig economy. I have always wondered, what is the difference between being in Gigs and being self employed?
Being in Manchester, gave me an insight about this concept of being a "working man". It seems that Mancunians pride themselves to being working men/women. After all, their emblem here is the Bee; as in "busy as a bee". I have nothing but profound respect and admiration for the working man/women/mum/father. But, I am equally concerned that many a working man are not aware of the "working man" syndrome.
The symptoms of the syndrome are when you are working on your daily job so intently, that you forget to take time to reflect, learn and strategise for a day when muscles and sinew fail you. What then? Physical failure is inevitable; no one escapes the grim reaper.
I suffered this syndrome as a dispute resolution lawyer for more than 20 years. As a working man with a young child at the time, I worked more than 12 hours daily. My clients' problems became my personal problem. At the peak, I had in my head more than 30 sets of problems at any point in time; to solve for other people. I slept poorly and I ate equally poorly. Ironically, I was just accelerating the working man syndrome. Around the age of 45 years old, I had a wake up call from my doctor who told me if I did not take time to de-stress; I would die in less than 5 years! Is this familiar?
Ever since, I have taken on less cases and only the ones from close and good clients. I have become more reflective and selective. I decided also to invest in Intellectual Property. This is something which separates the Gig workers from the self employed. Being your own boss and owning your own business, gives you the incentive to accumulate, invest in and protect the wealth of experience stored in one's brains. I did this my capturing my know-how in contract drafting and contract pit-falls into a software called VanillaLaw Docs. Gig workers are like nomads, they do not stay long enough in any job to be able to accumulate any experience. Even if they did, many do not see it worthwhile to invest their time and resources to build, own and eventually market their Intellectual Property.
Intellectual Property; I think is the real key and asset for all mature men in this community. It's the one thing that we can use to secure our legacy.
Founder and Managing Director of Vanilla Law LLC
I have a question, and it involves what people refer to as the Gig economy. I have always wondered, what is the difference between being in Gigs and being self employed?
Being in Manchester, gave me an insight about this concept of being a "working man". It seems that Mancunians pride themselves to being working men/women. After all, their emblem here is the Bee; as in "busy as a bee". I have nothing but profound respect and admiration for the working man/women/mum/father. But, I am equally concerned that many a working man are not aware of the "working man" syndrome.
The symptoms of the syndrome are when you are working on your daily job so intently, that you forget to take time to reflect, learn and strategise for a day when muscles and sinew fail you. What then? Physical failure is inevitable; no one escapes the grim reaper.
I suffered this syndrome as a dispute resolution lawyer for more than 20 years. As a working man with a young child at the time, I worked more than 12 hours daily. My clients' problems became my personal problem. At the peak, I had in my head more than 30 sets of problems at any point in time; to solve for other people. I slept poorly and I ate equally poorly. Ironically, I was just accelerating the working man syndrome. Around the age of 45 years old, I had a wake up call from my doctor who told me if I did not take time to de-stress; I would die in less than 5 years! Is this familiar?
Ever since, I have taken on less cases and only the ones from close and good clients. I have become more reflective and selective. I decided also to invest in Intellectual Property. This is something which separates the Gig workers from the self employed. Being your own boss and owning your own business, gives you the incentive to accumulate, invest in and protect the wealth of experience stored in one's brains. I did this my capturing my know-how in contract drafting and contract pit-falls into a software called VanillaLaw Docs. Gig workers are like nomads, they do not stay long enough in any job to be able to accumulate any experience. Even if they did, many do not see it worthwhile to invest their time and resources to build, own and eventually market their Intellectual Property.
Intellectual Property; I think is the real key and asset for all mature men in this community. It's the one thing that we can use to secure our legacy.
No comments
Post a Comment