Can You Afford Not To Quit Your Job? -Part 1

By: Jordan Cheng




A couple of years ago, I quitted my corporate job to venture into business. The response from friends and colleagues were anything but encouraging. A few of them had sincerely and sympathetically wish me well.

During that time, the responses from friends had indeed affected my enthusiam for the business venture, and put me in the mode of constant self-doubt about whether I had made the right decision.

Over the years, having weathered through a series of ups and downs in my life and business, I am now convinced that it was one of the best decision I had grown made in my life.

In fact, right now on hind sight I even feel strongly that staking the entire career in a corporate job is much riskier than most would think. The reasons are as follows:

1. When Work stop, Income stop

The single most dangerous thing about a full-time job is that you are trading your time for money. If for whatever reason you lost your job, your source of income stopped. Fair and square. Is that what you think? This time-honored way of making a living may look perfectly reasonable and intelligent, and has been deeply rooted into the mind of many people, especially the more highly educated ones who seemingly have a higher chance of a good corporate career. The cruel fact is, it is actually a lousy idea for people who is smart and resourceful enough to think of other alternative - multiple stream of income.

Let me share a parable I read years ago, the concept of which has create life-changing impact in my life:

Two young monks from two neighboring monasteries go up to the mountain everyday with two buckets to fetch water from the well and bring back to the monasteries. As they always bump into each other on the way, they soon become good friends. They would labor the whole day, making trips after trips to the mountain to bring back enough water for everyone in the monastery. Everyday they would retire at the end of the day with aching body all over. Life is indeed hard. They do complain about the hard work, but both seems to have resorted to the reality as this is the only well they know to get water.

One fine day, monk A do not see Monk B like he always do on the way up to the mountain. He though he might have fell sick. In the following days, Monk A again do not see Monk B. For the next one month, Monk B seemed to have been missing. One fine morning after the long disappearing act, Monk A see Monk B again on the usual path. He was curious and asked Monk B what had happened to him. Monk B told Monk A exactly what he has been doing in the past one month. He has come out with a plan to build water pipe using bamboo stem, so that water could flow through the pipe from the well in the mountain all the way to the monasteries. He had spent the entire month conceptualizing, planning and designing the piping system. The pipes are ready, and he is about to implement the pipe connection from the mountain to the monastery. With detailed and thorough planning, the implementation was extremely successful. The brilliant young monk had created a system such that he does not need to work anymore.

In fact, his enterprising drive did not stop at the pipe system. He started thinking what if the well runs out of water one day, which is highly possible. He started looking for people in the village who is knowledgeable about how to find the right location to dig a well. Before long, he dug another well near the monasteries that could supply more than enough water to the monastery. With the excess water, the monk started constructing piping system to supply water to the villagers.

If the young monk had resorted to the fate of carrying water from the mountain everyday, and not dare making any attempt to improve the situation, he would still be laboring everyday like the other monk.

The moment I read this story, it felt like a powerful shift in my mind. I looked at my lackluster corporate career then, and started asking what am I going to do with my life. One thing I knew for sure, I will find my own well one day!

2. Limited Experience

In a corporate job, the only possible chance to acquire significant experience is at entry level position. (Hence, I would strongly recommend that fresh graduate go find a corporate job to gain some "experience", and confirm whether what I said here about corporate job is consistent with your experience.). You probably will learn a lot in the beginning (since you started with zero base), but will get stagnate very soon. However, there may also be exception, where job at the entry level are nothing more high-class data entry clerks. Beyond certain number of working years, you no longer have the privilege of the freshies. You are expected to "contribute to the bottom line" of the company's performance. Whether you know or not how you can contribute to the "bottom line" is a separate issue altogether. Thanks to the management guru who postulated the theory that job specialization create efficiency (which make perfect sense!), most corporate slaves are given tasks to be specialized, and are expected to perform with accuracy and efficiency of a machine. That will be the contribution of each corporate slave in the corporate factory.

At this point, you start rationalizing whether it is time to make a move elsewhere, even though it may be a fairly short stay in the company. Looking out for new job is a fashionable trend among the young working class. It is a constant and perpetual exercise. People make no bone about it, with proud justification: " I am always open to better opportunity". However, this privilege does not last long. When you cross the thirty-five years old mark, you find your market value being downgraded significantly.

With the exception of the lucky few who still managed to find a new job, most who stayed on find themselves doing the same old thing day in and out. They will find themselves get stuck in the old job, watching their market value depreciate as their new skill sets acquired could not catch up with the relentless time they had spent in the company. "What are the skill sets you have acquired in the last one year?" You know you have to face the music meeting the human resource people who are trained to assess your qualifications.

So much about gaining experience in the corporate job. You will be lucky if you don’t find yourself rotting there mentally and even physically.



About The Author

Jordan Cheng is the author of http://www.jordancheng.net/ - a resource site dedicated to development of Mind, Body & Soul for Wealth, Success & Happiness.