Robert Vlach Why Your Good Name Beats Personal Branding

Nigel Rawlins: Robert, thank you for joining the Wisepreneurs podcast. Can you tell us where you're talking from, because I think you're either in the Czech Republic or in your favorite place.

Robert Vlach: Hi, Nigel. It's a pleasure to be here, after some time. I'm fond of what you do, and how you specialize in this niche part of freelancing that is getting more and more important, of on people who are over 50 or 60, and trying to go on, big with their careers. I think it's a very important topic and I see that it's also gaining traction, here in Europe.

So I meet more and more people who are focused on this group, and I think it's very important what you do, it's a privilege, to be here on your show. And I'm looking forward to our discussion. I'm, I'm speaking from the Czech Republic at the moment, but we'll be switching places in a couple of weeks, after some busy period when I was recording a lot of new staff interviews. We did a lot of meetups in our freelance community, and I'll be moving back to Los Palmas, the Grand Canaria in a couple of weeks with my family, and I will be going on with, writing my new book. So it's, it'll be a huge shift for me and I'm looking forward to it.

Nigel Rawlins: That's, fantastic. Yes. I do speak to quite a few people, in the Czech Republic, and you've, introduced me to a few too. And what I find fascinating about your, colleagues is the intellectual depth that they have. I don't find that anywhere. and I think it's got something to do with the history of the Czech Republic, but also I think the education that you get there as well.

Robert Vlach: I think it might be connected to, to coincidence that you, that I recommended you to speak to Thomas Barnick, right? Yes. And, he's definitely one of the most, influential intellectuals around here because his publishing house is very exceptional. And so he connects to, quite a number of, outstanding individuals.

So I think that gives you the good impression you may have about, our social bubble here. But it's, I think it's, a lot of it is due to him and his outstanding network. So if he recommended you some, guests on your show, I think his recommendation can be 100% relied on. He's a great, connector and also as I said, like very important, and influential intellectual here in the Czech Republic because he picks, the books and the topics that his publishing house will cover and that creates new discourse, when they publish a new important book on a new theme, it gets into media, it gets into conversations. People tend to recommend the book, buy it, discuss it and so on.

Nigel Rawlins: But it seems from talking to him that the Czech people are big readers of actual books.

Robert Vlach: If he says so, it's probably right. I'm not really, familiar with the data, or current data. I know that, the Czech, publishing market and the book market goes through ups and downs, as anywhere in the world. there are like new habits, new technologies coming into, this area. So people tend to switch between things, right?

For example, more and more people listens to audio books as far as I can see. which also means that, some of them will be switching or are switching to podcasts, right? This is a, this is a still a booming, format. it's hard to judge. I don't know. I think people read a lot. it's also, I would say connected to a social status in a way, in a nice way, around here.

So people who, read a lot and who can share their. Insights from what they read. They're valued as intellectuals, around here. So it may be connected to that as well. I'm not really sure. But, definitely I like the reading community. I'm very much into reading myself, so it's a very important topic for me.

Nigel Rawlins: Okay. We might come back to that as we go through. So maybe we should start with talking about freelancers and yes, I do want to talk more with you about the area that I like to focus on, which is the older, independent professionals because I'm older now too, and I don't feel like giving up work. And I'm gonna hit 70 next year, so love that. Put that in. But I want to talk, 'cause the issue of freelancing and I'll be honest, I've been totally confused about what, what terminology to use, self-employed freelancer, independent professional. So I'd like you to maybe unpack those differences and then maybe tell us why did you arrive at this particular perspective? And obviously your book, drove this, so you've done a lot of thinking about it. So could you differentiate between freelancer self-employed and the independent professional?

Robert Vlach: A very good question. and I think it's pretty much, I impossible to answer it objectively because, first of all, the term freelancer is very informal.

It is used in like different circumstances for different people. And what I see is that different parts of world. Use it in a different manner. In a different manner. So for example, in the us, when they speak of freelancers and when they, even more importantly, when they do service, about the phenomenon, they tend to define freelancers pretty broadly.

So when you read these news headlines that, a third of Americans is freelance, basically, I think this all comes down to a supervised definition of freelance work. So when you actually dig into these service and their, data, you may actually notice that they tend to define freelance work as any sort of income beyond a regular employment.

So if you have a income from a free market, somehow, so you men, you may be, renting, a room or on Airbnb, you may be babysitting for your neighbor or twice a year, whatever. you may driving for Uber, sometimes OC occasionally. And if the definition in the particular survey is that brought, it would count you in as a freelancer even though you are full-time employee somewhere.

So this is really confusing, I would say, somehow. We got in the situation where we speak about freelancers who are actually full-time employees. this doesn't seem, or this doesn't feel right to me, I think it makes sense in a certain way, because that way we can also monitor or study how people actually get into freelancing, because many freelancers actually start by doing some side gigs, some side jobs.

So that, that makes sense. I think even the creators of these studies, try to distinguish between the, these stages because, for example, MBO partners, state of Independence, study, which covers freelancing in a, regular and high quality way, they, as far as I can remember, they define full-time freelancers, or full-time independence, sorry, they use the word independence.

They have their own, definition, which is okay, I believe. Then they have, part-time independence, and then they have occasional independence. So if you switch independence for freelancers, that would create three categories of people who are either fully freelance, part-time freelance, or they are really just getting once in a blue moon income from a free market, and that would constitute, them as possible future part-time or full-time freelancers.

so, in general, and it's not, only about MO. MBO partners. There was also, there were also studies by Fiverr, by Upwork, by, freelancers Union who tend to have this broad perspective on the freelance market. we may speculate about the reason why they use the supervised definition.

I think there are several, and one of them, especially with companies that are publicly traded, probably would be, trying to suggest, the investors that the addressable market is really huge, that so many people, are into this and we have a plenty of room to grow. So that would be one case, I think with the, communities, that may be also a case of, telling, the public.

We represent a large proportion of the public, so there are different incentives. I don't, really judge like what these are. This is, totally my individual perspective, how I see it from the outside. I can only guess what are the real reasons behind, using this supervised definition.

What I find very problematic from the expert perspective, of, this is that if you define freelancers in such a wide way, that would include people who are full-time employees and who would never, ever, define themselves as freelancers. So that doesn't make much sense to me. And it's also problematic, from a, like a practical perspective, because.

if you are a full-time freelancer, you tend to perceive yourself as a business person, as an entrepreneur, per perhaps, and you would have like totally different mindset and priorities and, ambitions than the person who is just babysitting for their neighbors. it, creates like a huge gap between these two approaches.

And I, and that's why I find it, really, not the best way how to address the problem or how to define finances, but I still admit, and I completely accept that it's an informal term. Anyone can, define it in any way almost, and that's why I believe some service, including MBO partners, tend to use their own word, an independent or, pink, uses his own favorite, term free agent.

That's also interesting. Somebody who is like a free agent on a free market. That's also his own term, and he can define it the way he likes, and, why not? then when you look, across the Atlantic, especially in the uk, what I see is that, their discourse seemed to be on the opposite side of the.

Definition problem. They tend to define freelancers in a more conservative way. So in my book, I actually quote, from, Ipsy, from one of their papers about how they define freelancers. They already define them as more qualified experts without employees, and with having a certain qualification.

from their perspective, or at least, at the time when they were writing about it, they seen freelancers as people who actually have some expertise that they publicly declare and who are somehow active on an open, free market under their own name without employees. So it creates a much more, much more precise, picture of an individual who probably tends to, identify as a free agent in a pink sense.

that makes much more sense to me because, from my 20 plus years of working with freelance community on a daily basis, I can see pretty clearly that people who identify as freelancers, they are very much similar to this description. So these people, they are experts. They are proud of being, of having the expertise, of having the autonomy of, having the, the competence of doing something well, and they tend to do it more or less as their, as a source of their income.

And of course, there are. Gradual levels. So you may be a part-time freelancer doing it as a side job or doing it as a, as a transitional sort of work between, your studies or your employment and towards greater autonomy. this is quite common, but you identify as somebody who is already defined as an independent expert.

And that's why, I also tend to use this term independent professional because I think, it's much more descriptive than a freelancer, in, in two ways. First of all, professional is something that is very deeply embedded in our Western culture. there were professionals, centuries ago you had certain sorts of professionals or tradesmen, independent tradesmen in Asian Rome, people who were free traders, who, did a certain expertise profession.

They had their clients, they were serving their customers. They had to, own their skills. they had to, manage their small business in a way. And a term professional means something to all of us. what I love about the term is, when you actually ask just almost anybody how a professional should behave, everybody will give you an answer.

the answer would be slightly different. the different people. So we would have slightly different expectations, but we would probably say that it's somebody who has the real skill and knowledge about the matter of the profession itself. So somebody who is educated experience, who was actually, or who has been actually doing the work itself for a couple of months, or at least, or years probably, or if not decades.

and then we have a set of expectations about the behavior of the person. So it would be, overall, I think it would all come to, it would all come, come down to being reliable, expert in two ways. First, explicitly. So if you promise, you deliver, if you sign a contract, if you promise certain quality, if you promise to deliver on time, you will do it.

So our expectation is that a professional is someone who is, who can be rely on, right? And then, there is this implicit, reliability, which is not in what it's promised in advance, but we rely on these people to behave in a certain way. So we rely on a professional that they would, be diligent, that they, would keep confidentiality, that they would keep, information as confidential, that they would, inform us about important.

Matters that would be related to the, to, to this assignment, for example. And there, there are dozens of things that we rely on in a professional that don't have to be said because it's part of our collective cultural consciousness. You may have even some stories for children or fairytales that include this professional element.

Now, for example, in the area, I don't know how in Australia or in the States, you have all these stories about three tradesmen. One of them was really bad. One of them was really, lacking attention, and one of them was really, dutiful and diligent and really, attentive to details. And you have a story created around that.

So it's included in, in the cultural history somehow embedded. So I think the word professional is important in this, culturalism and independent is also very important. It means that it's somebody who is independent on the free market, in my opinion, because you may have also people who have this status of being self-employed, but they're dependent on somebody.

It may be a platform, it may be a free freelance platform that basically manages your work, your clients, and you have to, strictly follow the conditions of the platform itself. Or it can be a major important client You. Actual self-employed professionals who work for a single client for years. So formally they are self-employed.

They, are, independent from the point of view of the law of order, the regulatory, regulation, of the legal frame framework of that country. But informally, they are completely dependent on that, single client. That client may have a certain attitude that they would treat them as employees.

So they would give them assignments that were, they would, try to, make them comply with the company arrangements, rules, everything. So I think both, of these words are really important. Independent makes you a free engine. Somebody who can freely choose their clients, conditions for the work, who can negotiate, who can set prices, who can work anywhere they like, who can, who may change the course of their business or of their career pretty freely.

And professional means that you declare that you have a certain qualification and that you are very serious about it, because you may also have a certain subset of freelancers, especially if you, use these super, these supervised definitions, freelancers who actually don't have a qualification, I think you call them temps in, in English, some, somewhere in some, countries.

So these are people who would be hired. As freelancers through an, through an agency doing anywhere at all, and it's also embedded in the culture. you have this, great series of novels, by JK Rowling as aro, Robert Galbraith, about the, detective, CB Strike who hires a temp from an agency, Robin Kott.

And because she's so smart and competent and really into the subject itself, that she will eventually become the partner in the detective agency. And she, you actually can see her grow into an independent professional over, over the series of the novels. So that's what I, that's what I particularly like about this, line of work by JK Rowling that she created, not only the, the finished professional, the CB tribe, the detective who is fully competent, but also the temp who comes in as a freelancer, but who grows into, being really serious about what she does and what does it mean to take, to, do this job and to be a partner in an agency.

it's a masterpiece in a, telling how it becomes, the becoming, of a professional.

Nigel Rawlins: I'll have to read it. It does,

Robert Vlach: yeah. Yeah. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's a, it's also a great, piece of, detective novel. It's, I think she's, I think she's the best at the moment at writing these stories.

I liked before her, I liked, STIG Larsons Millennium Trilogy. The girl with the dragon tattoo, and so on. that was a great piece of art, I would say. And from his work, I think this is the next big thing in detective stories, in my opinion.

Nigel Rawlins: Does sound like it? Alright. It might be on, the TV soon.

I suppose Amazon might pick 'em up or something. what I was thinking about what you were saying about self-employed, because it's, I've obviously since reading your book and talking to you and talking to another, a range of, freelancers, and I guess that's where I was confused about self-employment, solopreneurs and all that.

And I think the distinction could be, and like the other day, I live in a house and we've had a couple, three tradesmen come in recently. They're self-employed. They worked for themselves. had a young 22-year-old who came and cleaned all the concrete driveways. And at 22 I was very impressed.

Young fellow did a beautiful job. But he's, not a freelancer. He's self-employed, isn't he? or you could call him a solopreneur, The guy who dug the Roots app before we had the fence done. the fencer and the electrician who, and there was also an NBN and still I've had four or five trades tradespeople come through here in the last several weeks.

They're not freelancers, are they?

Robert Vlach: That's a great question. in short, I think we are discussing two different categories here. in most countries, being self-employed is connected to a certain legal status of registering as a business person. So that doesn't mean if you are self-employed from this legal perspective, that you are also a freelancer.

Because, and, there, there was a great, there was actually a great, study, that was done in the European Union that illustrated, illustrates this, perfectly, that, within the self-employed population, you may have a, vast amount of people who doesn't, who wouldn't fit with our definition of a freelancer, of someone who is, defined as a professional, on a free market, working under their own name, for example.

So, what I'm, what I mean to say is that a freelancer doesn't describe a legal form of doing business. It describes a certain approach, and being self-employed. Is this legal or being a solepreneur like in certain countries, because each country has a different, framework for categorizing and registering as a business individual.

what I mean is that within this, for example, within this, European study, you have people who are formally, self-employed, but who pose as businesses with the brand. So if you actually come in contact with a business, you would see it as a company, as a small, perhaps one person or two person, or like several persons in the company.

They are self-employed who have employees. I actually have clients who are self-employed, but have dozen or more employees. So they present themselves as a company to their customers. you may also have people who are self-employed, who are registered as self-employed, but who are, misclassified employees.

yeah, so, they have a single client that client treats them as employees, and this is all due to certain, tax evasion or, optimizing their payments to social or any sort of national security scheme, the scheme that there is. then you may have these, platforms that say, Hey, our drivers or our workers are self-employed, they're independent, but in reality, the platform actually manages their work to the, full extent.

So they are not really free to do whatever they like. They have to follow the rules, and if they don't follow the rules, they are limited or kicked out of the platform, for example. So that's why you have this ongoing discourse, in many countries. I think Europe is, there is a couple of them where they are trying to define.

What actually makes you the self-employed as an independent and what actually, makes you a misclassified employee if you are working under this platform. Because sometimes these people who work for these platforms, they complain that, that they are forced to accept, something that is really beyond a certain

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah, I was gonna come back to this a bit later in the, talk about, yeah, but I think it's more, a European thing, but it is here too where people ask them to become a sub subcontractor and then they don't have any insurance and stuff like that.

So it can be a bit dangerous if you're working for one employer.

Robert Vlach: Yes, exactly. so going back to your question, if you have people who are doing some small works for you, in your house, for example, legally they may be self-employed, registered as a business individual, business person. Whether they are freelancers or not is a different matter because if they present themselves, as professionals and in this particular field, if they are working on themselves, under their own name and are dealing with the customers on the free market, I think we may pretty easily call them independent professionals, if they're presenting themselves as a company and who will eventually grow and hire employees.

They are less freelancers are probably more business owners. They tend to think about their business operation as a sort of group think. and when it's a group think, you start to manage other people. You start off, you start thinking about, creating a certain business culture so that every time a customer gets in touch with your services, they have a certain level of quality.

So that's a different story. So sometimes people are

a border case where they have certain elements of still being a freelancer, being this person, who is responsible to their clients and who takes the full responsibility of the quality, but they already start hiring others, thinking about expansion, perhaps creating a brand that is, subsidiary, to their own, personal identity.

So I think that is precisely would makes the discourse so difficult for you to, understand. Because when we speak of self-employed of Sopr, this is usually somehow defined legally, formally. But when we speak of freelancers, independent professionals, independents, free agents, these are terms that doesn't describe the legal status, but rather a certain approach to doing business.

And that's where you have this misunderstandings and confusions. and. I'm just on the side of being a bit slightly more conservative about these definitions, even though I respect that some people just define it in a very broad way. And the only reason behind it is that I tend to look, from the perspective who actually identifies as such.

So who are the people who, say I'm a freelancer and in my experience, these are not the full-time employees who have just some side income. So they may informally say, I freelance occasionally, but it would be just a, like a side expression. They wouldn't identify as somebody who's independent and who is actually seeking more independence and, seeking to expand their individual business.

so I'm more, on the side of like more narrower definitions of a freelance work. You may call it independent professionals. You may call it any way you like. It's not really that important. I'm just looking at the, I'm just looking for and on the individuals who actually identify as these independent professional experts and who see it as a career, who are really serious about it, either part-time or full-time.

I don't care because it depends on other things, but who are actually thinking about themselves as such?

Nigel Rawlins: I think, I think when I first started many years ago, I actually set myself up as a company. So in Australia that's, a proprietary limited. I was gonna grow, but for the last 15 or 20 years I've been working on my own.

the unfortunate thing about being a comp, there are a couple of benefits from being a co company, and there are some unfortunate parts of being a company is that you continuously have to send in your, financial reports every year and you have to pay fees to. in Australia it's called asic.

but there are some benefits too that, the company, I guess can be sued, but you can't lose your house as a result. So the company can go bankrupt, the person will end up bankrupt as well. So that's where I've been a bit confused about the whole issue of what I am. But I've had a number of clients now for about 15 to 20 years.

I've still got many of them, and I just look after their websites and things like that. So I assume I'm a bit of freelancer, but I pull in other freelancers as well when it gets a bit complicated. So if I have a really difficult technical problem, I have a technical person I call on who solves that? I have another web guy who does a bit more design work than I can do.

And then I have a graphic designer who does some lovely work who does the promotions for me when I do the podcasts. But we, so we talked about the professional

Robert Vlach: one more thing.

Nigel Rawlins: Oh yeah.

Robert Vlach: I think you, you just said a very important observation, because it's a part of the story. You may be a freelancer, you may totally identify as an independent professional, and at the same time be set up as a limited company.

That's a completely regular thing. I know a great number of freelancers who actually invoice. As a company and doesn't matter because from what we've said, there is this legal status that you have, and then there is this self description or self identification, or even perhaps the outward identification, who is a freelancer.

So if you identify as freelancer, you describe as a freelancer and you invoice as a limited company, who cares? It doesn't matter. but if you present yourself as a CEO, that's a different story, right? that's where you actually, it's quite obvious that you have this, mental image in you that even though you are single CEO in a one person company, that you have this vision for something to grow, to expand, to employ more people to, to behave like a business.

and it's not a side issue because if you present yourself as a company, customers usually, if they understand it that way, that's a different story. but if they understand it this way, they would have different expectations from, somebody who describes themselves, some themselves as independent experts, and somebody who describe themselves as a, as a company manager or company owner from a company, you have a different set of expectations of behaviors and so on.

That's. A normal differentiation between, the, two subjects?

Nigel Rawlins: yes, I think that's the interesting thing because as a company, there's expectations from the government on me, that I have to kick my finances, correct. and taxes that I have to do the annual report that I send off often several months later that I have an accountant who makes sure everything's working properly.

So it does force you to be more of a business even. and, it gets quite interesting 'cause we will talk about the business side of being a independent professional a bit later. Alright, let's have a little talk about some of the things. So to me, an independent, when I think about freelancers, I keep thinking about software developers, but I think it's more than that.

It's, subject matter experts, content creators, thought leaders, speakers out there, consultants. But one of the things I'm most interested as I get older, obviously, is those people have had a career and they've clocked up some, career capital, I suppose some knowledge they come to about the age of 60, they're starting to get ageism or they're starting to get treated differently.

Where would they find a natural ENT entry into independent work? So they're working, they've worked in a company all their life, they're probably getting sick of it. Or they can get to retirement age like I did about two or three years ago where we can qualify for a pension in Australia. I wanna keep working.

So somebody who's worked all their life in a company, they're a professional, they're gonna shift out. How do they make that shift and, who's making that shift? Is it men? Is it women?

Robert Vlach: Let me first, go back to what you've just said that you imagine freelancers as software developers. Yes, I think, I think it's useful to have a much broader perception of who freelancers, of who independent professionals can be.

And I don't think it's a, useless discussion because, when you actually have this narrower vision of who freelancers are, it creates certain me mental limitations about, for example, how much a freelancers can earn it. It's, not purely academic or, or theoretical. Think, let me just give you a couple of examples.

First of all, it's not about people who are more, of course software developers are great example, because this particular field is greatly populated by freelancers. So it makes sense that you have this impression. It can also be a digital marketer, or it may be like a translator. Most translators are actually freelancers.

so it's quite normal that people have these associations like a freelancer and you have these professions pop up, but my dentist is an independent professional. He is set up under his own name. He has one or two employees, so is like his assistants, but he's a like totally independent professional in any,

in any aspect you may think of. It's him, his professionalism, his expertise. I picked him because it's him, because I got a great recommendation that he's the best dentist in town, perhaps in the whole region where we live. So he's not a company, he may be registered as a company, but to me he's an independent professional, he's an entrepreneur as well as a doctor.

But think about sports, for example. Most of the professional sports people, they're not employees. They are individuals who sign time limited contracts with their clubs, or if they do individual sports, for example, tennis, players, golf players, whatever. These people, they're totally independent professionals and not only, the independent professionals, they may have incomes that go up to millions and millions of dollars a year for independent professionals.

So when you actually count in professional sportsmen and sportswomen, when you actually think of people who work in the entertainment industry. Show business. These would be all independent, professional or most of them. Think of any actor you like, your favorite actor, whoever that is, it's highly probable they're not employees.

Somewhere they're independent professionals during contracts with, production companies negotiating. They are actually, I don't, remember what was the medium, but there was a series of, fabulous articles about leaked contracts of Hollywood stars with the production companies, what they have in the contracts, how much they ask in terms of money, and how much they ask in terms of benefits, private jets, five personal assistance makeup artist.

That's all part of the contract that they make. And they negotiated on that. So I think this perspective is like super important because when you actually count in these individuals who make millions and millions of dollars for what they actually do individually, it's their individual uniqueness and quality and they are able to trade it.

That changes your perspective about who the freelancer is and how much they can earn. Bruce Springsteen, a musician, is an independent professional. He may have, a band who is also consisting of independent music, musicians, I would say. he may have, people who help him to achieve what he does.

He may have a team, he may even employ people, but. It's all centered about his unique perspective on art. And if he goes on tour, he himself, with the support of this great ensemble of people, creates a great value for the fans, and he's able to earn a substantial income from producing unique individual art for the masses.

So I think it's, if we speak about the definitions and about who I perceive as independent professionals, I think it's very important to say that it's not about software developers or language professionals only. It's also about these professions, about tradesmen, about people who work with their hands, who present themselves as experts, about people who work in medicine if they're not employed, because you may be also employed there, of course, about people who do sports, who do arts, who do music.

And these people sometimes

create one person businesses that create millions and millions, if not billions in the revenues. They were, there were series of articles about Taylor Swift, for example, how she was fighting for her artistic independence to own her own masters about being able to freely choose what she publishes, to own the rights, and so on So it's all, An important part of this discussion to, to redefine who a freelancer is. Because if you count in these people, it clearly creates a much broader pricing spectrum. So you may suddenly imagine yourself as somebody who is in the same group as these people and who may eventually not in every profession known, not in the same way, but somehow leverage what they do to a greater audience, to help greater number of people.

And you actually have examples of people who do regular professions, but through their social media presence, they may become sort of celebrities. I will definitely go back to your original question, but I think this is such an important point that I, want to finish it. I just finished watching the series four of, Clarkson's Farm.

Do you know the show? Oh,

Nigel Rawlins: yes.

Robert Vlach: Very good. Yeah. In the series four, the Caleb, the tractor driver who is contracted to Herb Jeremy. Herb Jeremy, he's actually away on, on a tour. He goes around England presenting, like doing a talk show or that thing. So he is actually becoming a celebrity in his own right as a tractor driver.

I, I think isn't that exciting?

none: Yes,

Robert Vlach: it's, like you may actually live, leverage your work. Through association and through media presence while still keeping your job. he's not going to become an entertainer. He will probably still be a farmer like 10 years from now, but he will be a special kind of farmer.

And there is another new character, which I really loved, who I really loved. her name is Harriet. She's a young farmer and she's really very sympathetic. she's helping Jeremy on his farm when Caleb is away. And what she does is that she posts everything she does on her TikTok, right? and so this sounds funny.

It seems funny, right? it's, it seems like trivial. But when there is this conversation when they drive to some farm, market, when they are going to buy cows for his new pub or restaurant, whatever, they have this conversation, then she does it because she wants to enlight the public about how lonely sometimes young farmers are because they spend these long hours lonely driving somewhere in a field.

They don't have much connections, so they tend to be depressed. I think she mentions, even some cases of suicides among farmers. And I think this is such an important topic, worthy of independent, professional, that you not only do your work, do your daily work, but you think on different plane you publish what you do.

You are getting really philosophical about. Some aspects of your work and you inspire the public. That's awesome. That's beautiful. I think this is what makes independent professionals that you have this attitudes, you have these tendencies, and you have this like overreaching tendency that if you are really into what you do, you eventually graduate into something different than just doing your regular stuff, even though you may do just that.

It's, nothing bad about it. It's, just that I like these examples of people who somehow leveraged, technology, power of association so that they can somehow push their profession to new heights. And that's very important. So I don't tend to, think of, freelancers as only certain professions.

I really think that the phenomenon is much broader and much deeper. It includes professions like farmers. That's, by the way, Clarkson Farm is like amazing tv. I think it's the, I would say that it's the best reality TV ever, created. And, it's no wonder that it took, UK by storm.

it basically wiped out the new, a lot of the rings production from the top, spot as, as far as I remember, because it's so good. It feels so true, even though it's entertainment, even though it's edited heavily, obviously, but it's still something. That could not be seen elsewhere. And I'm glad that you like the show as well, because I'm a huge fan of it.

Nigel Rawlins: No, I love it. and they're so down to worth and real. And I, think that's the lovely part about it's that they're human. And what you just said was quite interesting because I have a company called 13th Beach Marketing, and it is about providing marketing services. But Wisepreneurs is a project where I spend most of my time.

The marketing services company pays for all this. So I can do the Wisepreneurs podcast, which, the company helps pay for all that. And what we're doing now is Wisepreneurs, which is wiser older people who are independent, encouraging the independent professional. that's, I've done 72 episodes now, which is, I think the average is about eight.

So to get through 72 is pretty amazing. So I'm thanking you for, joining me in that. But this is like a hobby to me. What we're doing now, what I have to do for clients, it's completely different, even though there is a bit of overlap. So yeah, I think you're right about independent professionals, you'll widen the definition.

and so when we're thinking about it, the, trades people that I've, or the trades men, because most of 'em are men that I've employed, just know their tools, know their job, they get in, they get it done quickly. And, what's surprising about them all is they now clean up. I don't think they used to clean up like they did in the, past.

My electrician takes his shoes off when he comes in the house. So there's a whole lot of stuff that's changed over the years. But you're right, I think the definition is wider. And obviously some at the top earned most of the money and some down the bottom, which we'll talk about, don't earn a lot of money.

Come back to this one about, how I like to help. I especially like to help women because most of my clients tend to be women, whether they work for another company, they tend to be the ones who I deal with. So I prefer to work with them because I find them easy to work with. and I'll be really honest, when I work with men, I find it a bit more difficult, for several reasons.

I think they expect me to do the work, which I do like to do, but I expect them to do some of it or feed me some of the stuff so I can do my job. Whereas the women will work with me, which is quite interesting. And I think that's part of about being professional as well, is being able to work with people to create value.

And I guess these words sound a bit funny when we say we create value, we create something together that they want. For example, you'd laugh. I, as part of my work, I, write the, all the articles for a construction company, a fairly big company that does, alpine work and underground car parks and all sorts of things.

I write their articles, and also write articles for a specialist medical practitioner, write all the articles. Obviously I vet them because he's professional and we can't send out anything that's not professional and they will vet them, and that's creating value as well. But they work with me to do that.

and this is where I see, the independent professionals, when they're working with their clients, they're creating something together. they're not just being employed to do this. Maybe the software developers are, but I think when you're a consultant or you're a training professional or a range of these other professionals, the value you're creating is together.

But, and, that's why I see some of the older professionals. Who are coming out of work, who've spent maybe 20 or 30 years working with people and working on projects, whether they can find something that they can continue to do if they love what they do. Do you have some thoughts on that or just me babbling away?

Robert Vlach: Yeah, I thought about this a great length, before our conversation because I knew from your notes that, this is an important, area of your interest. I have many observations about it. First of all,

I think, what happened until this, no, until this moment is important. So if somebody hasn't built an expertise until now when they are 60, the age wouldn't turn them into a better professional. like everything you do, everything you have done in building your expertise and your knowledge and experience really counts.

So probably people at this age, they are not starting from scratch. They have something behind them. Yeah.

second thing I think that all the people, they have certain qualities, they are undervalued or under undervalued. one of them is say you are an expert in a field. It can be, it can be something related to tech, it can be something related to social sciences, whatever. I think if you are in your profession for 20, 30 plus years, you have a great advantage in, remember, in remembering the history, one of the aspects of modern market economy or modern capitalism is that it creates this cycles.

you, may say, you may call them fashions or trends or hypes. And quite often it happens that a certain profession is in this hype cycle that you have a certain trend or technology hype to, to disguise. And then after few years everyone realize that it was just, that end, or that it was just like overestimated and they go on with their profession.

So I think many professions have these periods when actually everybody seems to be excited about something that is new that can be sold to clients. And, of course they're trying to sell it. clients are not really educated enough to distinguish between the real thing and the hype, and so they may jump on buying debt.

Investing into something that eventually turns out to be a problematic piece of technology or some outdated approach. And I think that young people, they're much more likely to jump on these hypes without actually being able to Evel to evaluate what is the real deal, what is the real thing, and what is just another phase of this like huge market cycle.

When you hype something, then you go over it and then you create something new. And this is very important because if I'm a client and I hire, for example, a construction consultant, I don't want him or her to sell me on the latest hype, right? I want them to tell me what is the real value in what I can purchase?

What is a proven technology that would probably work in 20 plus years when I buy it for my house or for my building? how reliable it is, how proven it is. And I rely on these people that they have this extensive knowledge of what works and what is probably just another hype because I cannot really judge it myself.

I may do research, I may. Check GPT, is it a warp already to check G to check GPT something? No, I'm joking. I may, resurge it in any, way I like, but it's still in, in, in, most, in in the complicated professions. It's not enough. I really need that long-term perspective from a professional to be able to distinguish the hype from the real thing I'm speaking in, simple terms, but that's essentially what I'm, what I mean,

Nigel Rawlins: I was gonna say, what would be easy to do is look up something on chat TPT and assume without the knowledge that's, appropriate.

Whereas an expert, and, this is one of the benefits I think from somebody who has built up some career capital, is that their expertise comes from that deep knowledge. Maybe they can't explain how they know what they know. Yes. But I can give you a fairly good, example, like one of my clients is a product safety specialist.

She's been on the podcast twice and we're working on hoping, we are, putting together some materials. So we're going to train the future product safety specialists because there's not a lot out there. So we are working together to create some stuff there. But if somebody was to call her up and they sometimes do, she's able to tell them which way to go.

Whereas if you were to check with chat GPT, you could end up making a fairly expensive mistake. 'cause in terms of product safety, there's some very big fines if you get it wrong. And, so that's crazy. But what you're saying is correct, an expert has got, and we're talking about professionals have got that deep knowledge and expertise, but if you are young, you haven't got it.

and one of the things I, I've seen is everybody at the moment on social media and everywhere is selling how to do ai. and it's, a fad. Very clearly a

Robert Vlach: fad. What are they selling? sorry, I didn't get it.

Nigel Rawlins: How to do ai, how to use AI for writing it, how to do it p business. But several years ago, I dunno if you're using any of the note taking apps, I used to use Rome research, now I'm using obsidian.

This is my note taking app. But there were multiple, every new one came out and the people who were doing the old courses suddenly jumped on the new one and then the new one, and it just got silly. And, yes. you just really needed to choose somebody, or, something and stick with it and learn it.

Yeah. So anyway, I think I've just galloped off somewhere there. Where are we to on this?

Robert Vlach: no. I think I'm, I, keep the line. you said it precisely, to, get to that level of healthy skepticism and critical thinking. It takes the experience of the history of your profession.

That's a very important part. But there is a drawback, I believe, because if you are too skeptical,

you may actually. Be skeptical about everything new, and you may stop learning. So I think what makes outstanding professionals senior ones is that they balance being skeptical about hypes, about these fats that go, come and go while still learning new things and being open to new knowledge.

Because new knowledge objectively is being created all the time. So actually making the distinction, being able to, to, locate the new, the new cache of new knowledge within your profession is actually part of what I look for in a professional. I think that these people who are real professionals, who are real deal, they're learning constantly, but they are very picky about what they learn and they disregard the rest that may be just over marketed.

Think, so I think the, my first observation about these aging professionals or people who are just coming into retirement age and who want to keep going is actually three things. that they have, what I would expect as an, as their client is that they have a real proven expertise with a quality delivery.

That, that's a, that goes without question. But I would also look for their, healthy critical thinking and skepticism about what's on the offer so that they would guide me through what is there and help me to select the really helpful, useful, and valuable items from the market. And I would also like to see that they are still learning, that they're not completely closed to a new knowledge that is being created.

So a healthy mixture and balance mixture of these three elements, that would be something I would be looking for. And if it's well balanced, I think that the, age is actually a plus, not the minus. yeah, I'm somewhere in the middle. So I see both, people who are real experts in what they do.

They do it whole life. But I also see the young people who don't have the experience yet and who basically te take every new hype as a real thing. And of course they have to go through the cycle themselves. That would eventually make them much more critical about, what comes new that would enable them eventually to, locate the true new knowledge and become better experts.

So I think it's, like ever going cycle, and I don't. Think that the AI tools we have at the moment, would change that. I think there would be, have to be some ne next level of this technology to actually, be helpful in this regard. Because if there is one thing where,

from my experience, LMS are really poor, is real critical thinking, it's not able, it's not really able to do that. It's, it has so many flaws in reasoning that it is, at least on the level where our work, it's for this kind of work, it's completely useless. Yeah, it can You wanna come back to that?

Yeah. Yeah. It, can do some research, it can do some support work, whatever. But I wouldn't rely on that tool for real reasoning and critical thinking. And there is one more very important observation that you've said. You've mentioned that there is this, non, non scribble knowledge, relevant to most professions, that cannot be taught to models.

it is gained by experience and by, actually doing the thing. And if I just go back to this Clarkson Farm, Clarkson's farm show one more time. I think that show in particular is full of people who are highly practical and. Who actually see the problematic decisions before they're being made. So they would say to Jeremy, you cannot do that because if you do this will happen in a year or two.

So this is that kind of, deep knowledge that is not included in the manuals. It's not included in, the descriptive, in the described, or written, descriptions of the universe, but it's embedded in the experience of these professionals. So that's a great example how the knowledge, how the new knowledge can be created by living it.

And even though it's not described somewhere, it's just lived through as an experience.

Nigel Rawlins: what I wanted to do was, obviously when we're talking about independent professionals, we've gotta be able to choose one if we're seeking the help of one. And there's two ways to do that. and I now, I run a company, and so I guess I've got a bit of a brand though.

Nobody knows what my brand is. Wisepreneurs, I guess is a brand in a sense, but my company name is 13th Beach Marketing, which is named after a local beach. I used to walk along. but Wisepreneurs a brand. Now I'm Nigel Rollins. It's becoming pretty obvious nowadays. If you're going to, be an independent professional, you need to be known by your name, not necessarily by a brand, because anyone with AI can create, a fancy looking website, fancy looking graphics.

And believe it or not, Gemini ai, if you tell it you want to do some writing on a book, on a desk, it can actually put the words incorrectly. You asked some of the other ais that can't do it quick, correctly. So anything can be generated with AI to make somebody stand out, but a good name is something else.

It's built through that trust and reliability over years. And I don't think people realize that reputation that you built is an asset. And I've been working now probably 20 years or more in this business. I dunno if I'm that well known, but maybe I'm better known through Wisepreneurs than through my legitimate business name that I'm registered in.

So one of the things that I wanna talk about is building that secure asset, which is worth money, obviously, to an independent professional, is creating a motor around themselves by having, a good reputation and an ability to do work. And I know you've said one of the things is deliverable deliverability.

So tell me about building that trust reliability over the years. Does it take many years? What do you think?

Robert Vlach: Yeah, I think what you are referring to is, it's, a crucial, it's an absolutely fundamental concept in freelance business. if we do service among our members and freelancers and ask them about the most important success factors in their, line of work, they usually mention two things, or three things. Reliability, good name. And expertise, which is all related somehow.

especially the good name, I write at the great length about this phenomenon in my book, because there is an, there's often a confusion about how this term is understood in a general discourse. A good name is, like a good reputation for somebody, but with independent professionals it means, something more precise.

It means that there is a, there is not that it would have a completely different meaning, but the way it is understood, it's often related to a particular expertise. So I would say that the good name, but independent professionals actually means an established association of quality between the person and their expertise.

So it's, not a general reputation, but it's a reputation for being great at what you advertise or proclaim that is your expertise. So it's, connected to a certain knowledge, which may seem trivial, but it's not trivial when you are actually trying to change your profession. Right?

so if you would be renowned as an, I would say dentist or electrician that we have mentioned, so any profession, and then you declare where arm going into selling insurance. people won't start buying insurance, at great numbers from you because you were a great dentist, obviously. quite the opposite.

Like they may be pretty skeptical about your ability to, take in the whole new subject, that takes years to, really understand truly. And so they may be polite, but not really willing to go all in because of your dentist quality, just to buy really price insurance for me, right? That's the one thing.

another thing is that, this good name phenomenon is really, ancient. It's as ancient as the civilization itself because it,

at the, beginning of civilization when people were living in tripe and they already had no, knowledge of language, they were speaking mostly about other people. who is dangerous, who is good hunter, who is lying, who is, reliable, trustworthy person. So, this good name phenomenon is very robust.

it, it's created mainly by people talking about you behind your back that's completely not transparent for most people. What people tell about them when they have a private conversation. so it's something, good reputation is not a personal brand. Personal brand is. Basically a marketing, discipline.

and it's pretty new. It's, it's, it was, it's a, blend of several things, but I would say that it's, in its purest form. It's, inspired by, show business. So there are actually books I've read about how to create a great image for a actor, actress about somebody who is, who is in show business.

How, is it created? Like how to think about photography, how to think about media, how to think about creating something around that person. I think one of these books is, adult to icon, but it's not really a, like bold described subject because I think most of it is actually this

living knowledge shared amount professionals in various fields who help these outstanding, creators to present themselves. but as you said, as the technology progressed and there were means to present yourself to a much greater audience, there was this new notion that actually you may brand an individual as an artificial brand, as a company of sorts, creating an image that is artificial and useful for marketing purposes.

I think to certain extent it's. Reasonable for independent professionals to think about this layer, especially when you have many touch points where people get in touch with your, professional activities. So for example, as you said, you have this Wisepreneurs podcast. you, have your own company.

You pub probably publish something on social media and so on. So a reasonable level of personal branding for you might be to harmonize all these touch points to tell a com well, to, describe a similar picture so that you wouldn't come out on each or these touch points as a completely different person.

So it's about unification, about harmonization of what you are actually doing and it makes sense. Where I think personal brand branding is getting more problematic is when it is employed to create a completely new image for a professional. Why I think it's problematic is that when you actually look how personal branding is employed in show business.

So it's with famous actors, musicians, artists, they have means they have contacts and they have capital to employ the very best, professionals to help them elevate their image to a completely different level. I think. You may pretty easily use makeup or makeup artists as an example. What is, what is the level of professionalism quality there?

I think in some regards you may say that, the very top makeup artists can

put on makeup in a way that it looks like completely natural and you look much better than you would actually look when you are, when you wake up in the morning or whatever. But when you actually employ a makeup artist next door, who is cheap charges you like, I don't know, like 20, $50, they do their work.

Okay. But there is distinction, right? it's not a job that is like on that level as if you work with a top level, a class Hollywood star. So, I think that with, doing the personal brain branding yourself with the support of cheaper profe professionals may actually create something that is a parody on this level of really professionally well done image.

And it gets, it may seem cheap, it may seem artificial. It may, be really expensive in a certain way, and unless you are really well off and being able to finance it over long term, it may be pretty unsustainable. While, on the other hand, good reputation. A good name is something that you mainly create by doing great work by, raising awareness about your profession.

And it's way, more natural for professionals to do long-term and to be sustainable. there, there is one other great drawback with doing personal branding on your own. And it is

a problem where professionals may lose themself in it. In a way. If you are a marketer and you promote a certain product, the object and the subject are different things. So you have a outward outside perspective on you have a certain taste and even, if you have a bad taste and you totally screw up with branding or marketing the product, like that product can be renamed, rebranded, you may start all over again.

Somehow that is not the luxury you have with an individual. If you do a really bad job with the, branding someone, it may damage their reputation for years to come. There is a digital footprint, but most importantly, because so many freelancers actually do the personal branding themselves, they are both the object and the subject.

And there is this loop that is being created that they Promote themselves and if they lose touch with the thing or if they lose the perspective, if they don't ask for perspective of others, they may come across as being really like too self-promotional to self selling, being really artificial.

and what's the result of it? Sometimes I don't say every time it is like there are pretty good examples of great personal branding with freelancers. So it's not, it's not necessarily coming the direction always. But there are plenty of examples of people who have, who are who are

well known, who are known, I would say, who are known, but they are not renowned. So people know them, but if you actually ask their colleagues or peers if there are any good in the profession, they would say, I would never work with that person. so you may create actually like very paradoxical situation where you invest a lot of energy, money, and your attention into promoting yourself as being the best while most peers in your profession or people who worked with you in the past know that you are not even close to that, right?

So, that's also why I include this topic in my book to actually. Make the distinction that the good name is something ancient. It's very robust. That's other people, mostly talking about you behind your back and forming their own independent opinion no matter what you say. And there is this personal branding phenomenon, which is quite new.

It's mostly you talking about yourself, how good you are, and it may get out of hand pretty easily and create a situation where you are known, but you are not well known or well regarded or, or renowned. So that's one thing. The second thing about a good name is that it takes years to build. It depends on the profession, of course, because different profession have different professions, have different

learning curves. I would say there are some very conservative fields. Certain fields in medicine come to mind, or it may be a certain, craftsman ships where you learn to do that profession well for 20 years perhaps to be really good. so naturally your colleagues or the public would expect that you would really be a long term in the profession and, they would start appreciate your expertise after a longer period of time.

But you may also have professions where the learning curve is much steeper and where after a couple of years, if you. A fast learner, you may already have a good reputation, or if it's like a completely new profession, something that didn't exist a couple of years ago, you may be, a top of mind expert within just a couple of years.

So the speeds are different, but in general, with most professions, I think it takes five, 10 or more years to actually build a good name where people actually have time in time to take in who you are, who, what's even more, most important, that you have like enough clients to actually say and testify.

I worked with this person and it was like a top level professional work. It's not about reading that person article or listening to that person podcast, but I really worked with that person for five years and it was a top-notch work all the time. That's what I say when I talk about that's what I mean when I talk about a good name.

It's not, a public image that you create by publishing content because, and that's something I come across very often. You may have professionals that they, ha they have, they're re known for publishing content. They, come across as well solid, educated, really, valuable professionals because they do some public awareness work, but when you actually work with them, it's a completely different story, right?

so I would make a distinction there that the most valuable is a personal testimony from someone I trust. That is not made in a public, discourse, but over private conversation when I get a private intel, like how that person actually really is.

This is very important. And, I would end with a quote by Charlie Munger, who wrote, it's, I wouldn't say wrote because it's a, book, of his talks that he made over a longer period of time. he's of course, Warren Buffet's, partner in Berkshire Headway and a prime exam, a prime example of elderly professional who is at the top of his work even when he was 90 plus.

So he's a great role model for anybody, I would say, who is, ambitious to, to go on with their profession. And he has a quote, that I really like in this book, which is called titled, pool, Charlie's Almanac. That, that the peak of the civilization is not

creating complicate, complicated bureaucratic systems, but a collaboration of completely trustworthy individuals who rightly trust each other. I think that's a very deep and important observation because in Berkshire they tend to work with people who they know for decades, who they trust. They make deals even on the level of perhaps billions of dollars.

They're based on a simple individual trust between people who know each other for decades. And sometimes it's just a handshake that is subsequently, put in some contract, whatever, but basically they can trust each other that they were doing business with each other for a long period of time.

And somehow this is much simpler than creating a really complex corporate structure with the bureaucratic apprentice, to push these deals through much more slowly, much more clumsily than just being a real entrepreneur, being able to make decisions, work people they trust. that's something that can be pretty easily related to independent professionals working with their clients is not about big words and about big appearances about big personal brands.

It's about building trust with people, with clients who are important to you, clients, business friends, colleagues, and creating a network of trust that can be leveraged and elevated to actually get to the best deals available on the market deals that people who are not good enough don't even know about.

So that's, very crucial and important. Topic to discuss that what is discussed in public, in a public discourse about what are the prices like, whatever. This is not the real picture of the, real economy, of the real market. The invisible, the, invisible part where people are able to charge more to do my much better contracts, and they just don't publicly talk about it, is much more interesting to me because I see that some of these deals are in a completely different leak than what is talked about as a regular price, whatever we may call it.

So, there is a public discourse which has a merit. it's important that we have it. But then there is this private business discourse where

deals made on trust and on a long term reputation are made. And these are two different, completely different levels. This is a level where your work is no longer treated as a com commodity with a, like a price sticker. This is a level where you actually leverage the trust to become an actual partner in the business, either by actually forming a partnership, being a, being part of the company of a project, or having some alleged claim on the capital that is being created or informally, that you are actually being to charge more and more given the greater, trust responsibility.

The quality of your work accumulated over the long term. So very, important subject. A good name is not artificial. It's something that is crucial, that it's totally underestimated by younger people or people who are new to freelancing because they actually don't realize that there is this hidden level of the market that is not in the public discourse, but where the really big things are going on.

Nigel Rawlins: it's probably disheartening for some people to listen to this to say, wow, I've gotta last five to 10 years. And that's the issue, is they've gotta be able to run a business that they can bring in some money to last that long and build up that reputation. now it's interesting. I can't get some testimonials from some of the people I've worked with, even though I've worked with them for 15 years.

'cause some of those organizations have changed management over time and I work with different people, so I have no idea who asked. The fact that they keep paying me is not sufficient for me to say, look, I've worked with this one for 15 years. That one for seven years. That one for 10 years. that must be reputation, but how do you sell that to people?

I just say, look, I don't really need any more clients. I might take,

Robert Vlach: it's not as hopeless as you think because in five to 10 years, if you are doing an excellent job with one client that has a potential to grow, you may elevate that work and your responsibility and the trust on a level that is definitely not there at the beginning.

So it also depends how you actually work with that client, how good match it is. So if you have less time, you may probably be a bit more picky about, who you want to work with and to estimate in estimating the potential for that particular clear clients to be a perfect match for you to create growth, both for them and both for you.

Because unless you created value, there would, they probably wouldn't be, the greater trust probably wouldn't be, useful enough for you to create much greater revenue there, right? So there, there have to be certain elements in play and aligned in order to create an opportunity for much greater growth.

that's first thing. The second thing would be that there are of course, exceptions where, for example, if you work for corporate clientele and your work is actually deeply hidden, or you have very few clients that would be able to spread the word. That means how you can elevate your good name, your reputation, in different manner.

So some of these practices include publishing use cases or publishing case studies where you anonymize the data or present the client case. In a way that is beneficial both for them and for you. And it's a sort of testimony that you did this, it led to that result. There is this useful takeaway for public, and it creates good reputation because you share knowhow, you share knowledge.

You, you may even create new knowledge, which is even better. I think new knowledge. I, it's my favorite new keyword, new knowledge. I saw cash. I saw cases where publishing a single case study led to a skyrocketing, demand for a single independent professional because it was so well executed, so well described. It was heavily shared over social media. They even promoted it using some Facebook ads, whatever. But it was used basically to elevate a single good, client case to show hell, Hey, here's the knowledge I share with you.

This is the client I work with. if you are interested to work with me, I'm open to a discussion. But there are also much less selling ways of, building your reputation. You may do some real deal public awareness work. So talking about important things in your profession, educating the public about, How to interact properly with your professional or with experts in your field. These things tend to have impact on, good name in a certain way because they involve human to human interactions. If you do talks, if you do meetups, if you do some sort of like social networking in, the real life, people ask you for advice.

people have some impression how you behave, how likable you are, how easy to inter interact you are, they may be already willing or starting to recommend you to some acquaint acquaintances with some caveat that they haven't worked with you, but that you made a really good impression and so on. So there are strategies that freelancers employ to accelerate, their good name and reputation building in cases where they have too few clients or where they have clients who are somewhere deeply hidden within an institution or a corporation.

And so they use these smart and well proven strategies to elevate their professional status. And it's all right. this is, this, I wouldn't say that this is a personal branding. This is something different. This is, this may be. Partly artificial, partly authentic. but what I like most is when, where this is something that looks like a professional mission.

I like people who are on a professional mission. it's, very important medium. when you have somebody who has a, who has something above the transactional level of their daily business, they have some sort of mission in their profession, in their field that they are trying to talk about.

Raise awareness, educate the public that makes the, that professional if it's authentic, really unique and really distinguished among the field. for example, in my case, I am an entrepreneur. I have like dozen different activities and projects going on at the same time usually. But my professional mission is to support independent professionals and to be really knowledgeable about how they conduct their business, how they differ from other businesses, how this approach to business is completely, unique in certain aspects.

And to raise awareness about us both for the benefit of freelancers and the public and the clients of the freelancers. I think this discourse is like super important, not only to me, but hopefully also for the public, and that constitutes my professional mission. So, basically these are like several elements that I would mention that can accelerate reputation building for somebody who is really serious in what they do.

If you think you have, five to 10 years left, I think it's, it may be a huge underestimation because of course you may have, or somebody may have health issues, but also the work, the purpose, the mission actually is one of the longevity elements that we may look into in the future. Because if people have purpose, they're much more likely to be around for longer, right?

Doing nothing. Sitting at home is not only boring, but it's somehow, it seems to be somehow problematic in relation to longevity and to staying active and staying, engaged with society, and with the activities that you see as useful.

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah. I reckon we should shift the focus to what you do with the freelance community in Europe.

Now you've got a, check group and you've got freelancing with you. Can you tell us about what's going on there and what you do with 'em?

Robert Vlach: Yeah. there is also this third part, which is related to my book, the Freelance Way, which is a sort of community work as well, because I think what we do is probably mostly related to my book.

I don't know how you came across. My work in the beginning, it may be through Aleena, probably, yes. Who, has a online, freelance community on her own and she's doing a great job at, taking care of it. so, there are actually three levels where, I'm active. One is the book being published in various places and people contacting me and, it's connected to a certain discourse.

I may do interviews, I may do talks, I may do book tours and so on,

which is very important for me, especially on the international level because as I travel across countries and talk to freelancers in different locations, I can pretty easily see like what we all have in common and what is particular and specific to that culture or country due to certain legal conditions, tax conditions or cultural elements that present there.

So, that's a very, important source of new knowledge for me, coming to a new country and talking to freelancers there. and I would, again, stress the importance of these private conversations. People in private conversations or close debates tend to tend tell different things that what they write about on social media or in the blog post that there are two different discourses, and I'm mostly interested in this private discourse.

So that's, one thing. Traveling, meeting people as many as possible, talking about their business, about what they really struggle with is something completely different from the picture that is mentioned in the media or in the, in other forms of discourse. Then, there is this Czech community, which is celebrating, 20th anniversary, this year.

So it's a long term, long running, community. We actually support quarter of a million Czech professionals. Also some Slovak ones because we have the two languages are pretty close. So Slovak professionals tend to follow Czech discourse and vice versa. and, there is this new project Freelancing eu, five year, five years running, that was originally conceived, as, parallel project to the English publication of my book.

And original goal was to replicate something we did with the Czech community. On an international level. I think it works pretty well. we only tend to have like different means, to achieve this goal because, for example, in the Czech Republic, we run. Really the biggest open directory of freelancers.

So it's basically a go to place if you want to hire a check freelancer. And it's open, which means that we are not an intermediary. So you, there are context pop, context information published there. So you make contact that professional directly and have their direct negotiations, which is great that, that supports them.

As entrepreneurs, we don't manage them, we support them. I think it's very important to make the distinction here. I,

I think there is a huge difference between an open platform and managed platform like five oh or Upwork or similar ones where you are intermediary. I don't say they are, worse, they're just different. It's a different setting. It's a different setup. And the platform itself is actually becoming a third party to the deal.

It's, something different. So what we do is that we are not party to the deal. We just present our members as best, as we can to highlight their expertise. The qualities, it's a paid directory, so they pay for the membership. in the membership. There are much other things included. So it's really like a community project where we not only run the directory, but we also publish News Newsletter podcast and we take care of a much greater community that follows us online with a freelancing EU project.

It's slightly different because, we created the most complex directory of freelance resources in Europe. So if you actually go to freelancing.eu/countries for each country, there are all the resources, communities, platforms, even sometimes individual blog or podcasts that we found for that country.

So you may actually use it to orient yourself. Within European freelance economy, we publish news and newsletter where I write op-eds and editorials as a bonus content to news items. So we have a, group of editors that follow couple of hundreds resources for freelancers all over the world. We pick the best quality content and we publish it as news content.

So we tend to be curators, and a quality filter for people who follow us and who don't want to do that work themselves. I think it's a good service for the community because we save time and we as curators can distinguish the weeds from the real deal in quality content. We try to be as good. As possible edit.

And what we also started doing is organizing international freelance meetups within Europe, because nobody was doing them actually there, there were local meetups. We also do a lot of these local meetups within our check community. But with freelancing eu, we tried to organize and, we did organize an international tour of events where people can come from a different country to have a meetup in Dresden, in moderate in Barcelona.

We did one in Antwerp in collaboration with Alina and, freelance business community that she runs. That was amazing. That was a part of, it was an opening ceremony of her freelance business month. And I'm definitely looking forward to, to do it again in the future. Everything I did with Alina was a top notch.

She's a like top professional, a person I highly respect. She's very important for this movement within Europe. And there are a couple of other, yeah, there, there are a couple, there are couple other individuals, I admire and respect within this field, so it connected us somehow. So it creates like a good atmosphere between people who manage, take care of communities or some platforms, whatever.

It's pretty open informal. I love that. And I particularly loved that personal meetups, they were not huge. they were, they tend to be several dozen people come in. the meetups we do in our Czech community, which has a longer tradition, are much larger. So if we organize something in Prague, for example.

100 people may show up just to have like conversations, some debates, talks, whatever they, like to meet. And it has a tradition with freelancing. Do. We are just starting with it. And, I think I will come back, to this idea next year, when I finish my new book, because right now I'm working on a book and, it's it really doesn't really go well with traveling a lot and organizing stuff.

So we have, we closed one tour and another is hopefully coming in a year or so. so that's basically in a nutshell what we do and what I do on the, on this third level of being a published author because the book was published by Harper Cos so it's available worldwide and people who buy it tend to reach out to me.

And we may have a nice conversation like I have with you.

Nigel Rawlins: I was thinking when you talk about international, you, are talking about Europe. you can virtually drive around Europe. being in Australia it's mile, a long, way from any other country and a long, way all over Australia. I think internationally, you, are fairly close, so you can get around a bit more there.

And, yeah, each one's contained is they're their own countries. So I'm not too sure how many countries are in Europe. I drove around many, years ago. It was wonderful, but,

Robert Vlach: many, there are many and, yes, I'm, focused on. Europe because, I think that European freelancing has minor, but some distinctive elements to it.

The business culture is different, and I think that we as freelancers, visually all know how, what is the US business practice because everything comes from the us. most of the books about freelancing, are published either there or in the uk. the blocks, the podcast, most trends, begin there.

So it's definitely the most important freelance economy in the world in terms of influence. also in terms of size, I would say, yet I thought that some things within Europe are different. We have a slightly different business culture and the feedback we get from people who follow us, confirm this, assertion because the feedback I get most often is that people from all around the world, obviously you may be the case as well, since you've made so many, conversation and interviews with European professionals, they are interested.

Like what is, the European perspective, what's our take? I don't say it's better. I don't think it's more important. I just say that it was somehow, not present that much in the discourse and we are just doing our little piece of work here to. to represent the European perspective, that's it.

So that's why I'm, concerned about Europe. I think, while in the US it's completely common that us freelancers get together. They have a shirt, common discourse about their way of doing business in Europe. Previously, there were no ongoing projects unifying this European discourse on freelancing.

So we are just part of it, a small part. People like Alina, leaders and founders of other platforms, other communities are somehow like co-creating it. It's a new thing. I'm excited to be part of it. Part of it, I'm also working with the,

people who are interested in, academic discourse on freelancing. So it's it, is a different levels and I'm, I, made it part of my professional mission to to be involved in this conversation is not really, it doesn't take that much time for me, and I think it's useful. so that would be the description of what we do.

Nigel Rawlins: So you've highlighted that ai, rather than being a threat, actually opens up new op opportunities for professionals, especially those that can help other organizations with this transition. So AI's taking over routine tasks. What high value consulting roles do you see emerging for independent experts?

Specifically ones that, leverage the human skills, empathy, creativity, relationship building, and other qualities that AI can't replicate. So I'm asking there is what do you see the opportunities for ai for the independent professional?

Robert Vlach: first of all, this is a topic that greatly interests me as somebody who has been involved, with technologies all professional life.

I don't know if you know that, but I started my career in 1990s as a web developer. So I was around, the first internet era where, before the.com bubble basically. And I'm still engaged with this community of developers, of people who create websites who, who publish valuable stuff on the internet.

So it, it's very interesting for me professionally, and I'm reading a lot about it, I'm also doing deep dive interviews with people I trust to be experts on the subject, on, the subject. And one of the perhaps, slightly disappointing things about it is that. Beyond that hype discourse that we see on social media.

When you open X, for example, and you see all these workflows and how to dos and whatever, if I actually speak to people, I trust on their expertise about knowledge work, about ai, about implementation of AI in various areas. these are two different discourses. It's, like I don't see much in common.

I think that what I see in my ex newsfeed, for example, is 95% hype and 5% of

skeptical, informed, knowledgeable discourse. So that would be my first distinction because I think it's very important points to make, at least from my perspective, what comes out of these deep conversations I have either privately or in our podcast is a bit more disappointing because the informed discourse is much, much wider.

So there are people who employ the technology every way in every way, every day. who has a who have good match between. What they do and the ability of the current technology. And they are very straightforward about already being able to employ it in a very important way, elevating what they do to a different level.

I would say that this group is a, is minor one, much greater, is formed by people who are top level experts in what they do. They use AI for,

support work, translations, some research, perhaps coding support and so on. But they are skeptical about, AI supplementing their top expertise work. I think. I believe, I think I count myself in this category. I, IFI found that, even the paid tools I use have very grave problems in real reasoning.

Yet I believe that, within a couple of years we may be really surprised

about the abilities of the new next generation, tools to reason beyond current human capabilities. I don't believe that it'll be based. On the current LLM systems, I think there would have to be some kind of real important breakthrough somehow. I don't see it as a, gradient where we just improve the technology the way it is now and arrive at the point where it'll be better at advanced reasoning than a regular human expert who is knowledgeable, deeply knowledgeable about what they do.

Yes,

Nigel Rawlins: I think that's right on where you just said deeply knowledge where they are is gonna be very difficult to replace with an ai. Yeah.

Robert Vlach: But, and then, sorry, just I was gonna say, finish the sentence here. There is this third group who is very concerned about the risks of ai. I would conclude with that. I think that's, that group is becoming

it. I think, they're being ostracized a little bit from the public discourse because of the situation in the US where, the people who are very optimistic and progressive about the use and unrestrained development of the technology, they have a real influence in the current administration. So I think the people who are skeptical and who are warning about, potential grave risks, it may have got ostracized a little bit from the discourse, but I think their voice is very important.

And I like to talk to these experts. So if you would like to have a. A guest that is deeply knowledgeable about this, I would definitely recommend Rum Portal. Also a Czech guy, and I think he's one of the top European voices on the subject, and he would have much deeper, insights from him. He tends to be skeptical.

He gravitates towards predictions where AI will actually disrupt the whole labor markets. I don't subscribe on this vision. I think it's less likely than, the vision I take at the moment that the current tools are pretty limited. But if he's right, we are up to, we are up for great upheaval in certain fields, for sure.

But I think at the moment, nobody knows. And that's why I'm so interested in this discourse because I see how wide it is, which means that the uncertainty about the future is currently high. It may turn out to be another sort of hype before the new technology catches on and comes with some new innovation.

But no, nobody's sure. But the way I see it and my perspective is definitely limited. I'm not an expert on ai. I'm just like, I would say advanced user. I see great limitations in what I do. Especially since I've write, working on this new book, that tries, to break some new grounds in, the field of personal finance and financial solve management.

I see.

How, limited the systems I work with actually, or really are they present only the mainstream common knowledge. They're not able to think from themselves at all. At all. Even if you try to make them, to diverse diverge from the mainstream opinions, then not really able to do so, they eventually admit something.

But you can see that it is just part of the, post training that they're trying to be, compliant with the user. They're not really able to go into a deeper thought process to evaluate different facts, to put them together to make conclusions. It's, I think it's, it looks real, but, I don't think that the underlying process resembles a real critical thinking.

That's my current opinion. I may be wrong. Of course.

Nigel Rawlins: No, I think I agree with that. my thought about, because I work with older professionals is that they've got that depth of knowledge to have a sense of what they want. To do, but they can use the AI or the chat GPT to help them manage or manage what they're trying to put together.

yeah, that's the point I was gonna make is that, the hu human skills of empathy, the creativity, the relationship building that AI just can't replicate that. That's so for an older professional who's gonna work on their own and use ai. Now, I, have another opinion on AI because I have been writing quite a bit about using ai and I've suddenly realized, we're gonna be more productive if we can actually use the programs on our computers properly.

not just using the AI to be productive because it's no good if we dunno how to use our, Word document or our email document properly. So for the ongoing learning that's required, there's a whole lot of other stuff that's fairly basic. now I did use AI before because I had a bit of a crash with my software before I started with you.

It took a little bit of time, but AI helped me solve it. So for solving basic problems, it's pretty good. But maybe coming up with, groundbreaking stuff, I don't know yet. But I, think as a collaboration between AI and somebody who's deeply knowledgeable and creative, I think some interesting things can come out of that.

But the other thing I was gonna say is, evaluating and assessing if, you are a deep expert and you've had 20 or 30 years in your, expert area, you can call bullshit fairly quickly, I say. And you'll see it. and the danger is somebody who hasn't got that depth of knowledge and they're using AI is probably not gonna see it.

and I've gotta admit, I've noticed AI is trying to be a bit friendly too, so it's not necessarily serving up really good stuff. It depends. I, switch between them. I use Gemini, I use grok, perplexity, the paid ones, and chat GPT. And sometimes I'll just have to shift outta one because it's just giving me rubbish.

And you've just gotta know it's rubbish. and that's what I think with the older professional, I th I think it's gonna be really, beneficial provided they just don't go along with it. but our other danger too is social media and blog posts are gonna be full up with, basic boring log articles and social media posts.

Robert Vlach: Yep. I think it's pretty much already happening. Yes, I

Nigel Rawlins: think so. Yes.

Robert Vlach: yes. I, think we may get a little bit

philosophical and peculating here, but it's worth noting that, this may be a beginning of something much more, disrupting and disappointing that we may expect. if people will tend to rely of advice of a system that looks extremely knowledgeable and convincing, even though it's, it is not, that may create all sorts of.

Totally unexpected, results. I'm not, I haven't really done much thinking in this area. I think that, Hari wrote a whole book, titled Nexus about this subject. I haven't read it myself, but, too much. Barnick and Melville has just recently republished it in a new edition check. I just hope that, this is not the scenario we will be heading into where we would be just flooded with artificial, not only boring, but highly persuasive, not true content.

I think that is one of the most negative outcomes that may come out. Out of that, I just hope that we will go on a slightly different trajectory where these tools will improve and would be eventually elevated to support more objective and truthful understanding of the world around us. If we are actually only getting what we are getting now, only more convincing

and not truthful at all, I think we are up for a major disappointment. somewhere down along the way. I think it may eventually really disrupt, Whole societies. And I don't, I just hope it's not the most probable outcome. I just hope that, it's just a middle face, of this technology and that it'll be eventually improved to actually support more objective, more reasonable assessment of the subjects.

but it's completely understandable to be skeptical because if you would just say that it's going to be the current technology only improved in a way, that's not the future I would like to see. It's, I think we need, I think we really need some, qualitative improvement in terms of, doing objective, truthful, and reasonable assessment with these tools. If it's just generating stuff that looks convincing, but it's not really true, and more of it, it, is not a good, it's, it is not a good future, I believe. Yeah. So I would be concerned about it. that's one of the extremes I've seen in this discourse. and I think. it's completely possible. I just hope it'll not go on that particular trajectory in the multiverse.

Nigel Rawlins: that's why I've got a lot of hope for people like my age who aren't digital, who didn't grow up with digital.

we grew up with black and white TVs and spent all day outside, and we didn't have phones. So there's an element there where the older professional, I think, can see a bit more clearly and is a bit, more critical of what they're seeing. and I think that's a benefit for that group to use ai, but to use it critically and to use it as a tool, not just to accept what comes outta it.

yeah,

Robert Vlach: totally. So that's, there's no question about it. I think that, for knowledgeable people, it's, it is actually really useful, for the most relevant use cases. the dangers I was talking about is probably more with the broader public and with the young people who would rely on these tools.

At the full extent without actually building their own independent, critical thinking abilities and so on. yeah, I agree with that. I think with the, most independent professionals I talk with these days, it's a common knowledge that these tools are useful. They're already using it at the great, at great numbers, and they're trying to figure out what are the limits, where it can help, where is, harmful.

And that's also why we, covered this extensively in our interviews within the podcast because it's like, it's such a wide topic and it's, and it's important to people I work with and freelance friends in our community.

Nigel Rawlins: it's, interesting 'cause you do say that there's one thing about independent professionals that really stands out is they're continuously learning.

Yeah. They're very agile. And when they go into an organization, often they're way ahead of the workers who've been working in a bus, sorry, an organization. 'cause they don't get to have to play with these things or confront these things. So I would say independent professionals are way out in front with this.

Alright. So are there any other particular skills that you think independent professionals need to focus on? Because one of the things about that AI is pretty obvious. It's handling some basic things that, are easily automateable. So what are some other core skills do you think the independent professionals need to focus on to stay relevant?

You mean business wise? Oh, we could go into business if you like. 'cause I'm thinking about you. you've been involved in the university Core Avenue and freelance Yeah. With a curriculum to understand business. So I'm assuming that answers that question really is they should learn about business.

what foundational concepts about business do you think independent professionals need to understand?

Robert Vlach: Yeah, it's, it's an interesting question. first of all, I usually make a distinction between three areas of freelance business. I think it's good to outline what they are. The first one is really minor, but it's,

but it's, it looks bigger from the media perspective and it's this, legal, administrative and tax obligations that people as business persons have towards the state, or thirties. So you have to pay taxes, you have to be registered and so on. So it looks like, especially to beginners, it looks like a really big part of the thing, right?

But when you actually freelance, and you are small, it's not in every country, but in most countries, the small, the self-employed STA status doesn't involve that much, obligations that could not be cheaply outsourced, to tax advisors, legal advisors, accountants and so on. So, I think I.

In, advanced countries. This part is, minor. It can be outsourced. It's not as big as it seems to newcomers. but then there are two major parts. The first one is expertise, where you are actually advertising, as we said, like you are an independent professional in some fields in, you have a certain knowledge.

and I think that as freelancers, we tend to prioritize education in our primary area of expertise. So we tend to be better dentists. We tend to be better AI consultants. We tend to be better software developers, and it's something we graduate towards naturally and it attracts us. And we love our profession.

We love talking to our colleagues to network with them, and it's, very stimulating and satisfying to be involved in a profession. That's for sure. Then there is this third area that is actually running the business itself. And I think that the, one of the gravest errors freelancers make is that they don't focus enough on the business side of things.

That's what my whole book, the Freelance Way is about. It covers basically all the necessary, areas, that constitute this business side of things. So it would be. Understanding what freelancing is, how is it related, and compared to other approaches to doing business. So did you learn to distinguish what knowhow is suitable for freelancers while some other business knowhow maybe really only useful for startups or small companies or family businesses, whatever?

so one of the useful skills for freelancers is actually apply your critical thinking to selecting business knowhow that is relevant to running a business as a freelancer. And then there are long-term business and career strategies I cover in the book. And then there are particular areas that are very important, such as personal productivity and time management, business negotiations, pricing, elevating, your personal it.

'cause somehow, historically, in the last 20 to 30 years, freelancing has been, I wouldn't say like technologically progressive, but you said it yourself that freelancers tend to be invested in new things and it involves technologies. And of course, internet, was a great enabler for freelancers to get to new clients.

So it's important to, this area is important. It is important to us somehow, even though we do some manual freelance work now, or if we are in a manual profession, Then there is the whole client care, like how to actually treat clients, how to take care of them, like what is important in our relationship to clients.

Then there is, personal marketing, personal finance and financial solve management and, couple of other major areas that I cover in the book. But I would say if I would put it in one box, the problem with the many, if not most freelancers is that they neglect this business side of things.

They have blind spots, many blind spots there while they hone their skills as experts. So they, tend to get educated in their profession. They don't tend to be educated in doing and improving their business itself. So we may call this part perhaps a business alphabet. It's a b, c of running a business.

And I think

it's important for independent professionals, especially the beginning ones, to make sure that in your A, b, c of doing business, you are not missing the B and c and that an n that you don't have these important blind spots because then you have a like completely normal phenomenon where you have somebody who is obviously a top expert, but they are totally lame as business persons.

They don't know how to set the right price. They're always busy, always late, even though they are good experts. nobody's disputing that they understand their craft, right? But as a client, I not only care about, the profession itself, but also about the professional delivery and about, and, I rely on the expert that he or she sets the right price.

So they are not like over flooded with the unfinished tasks. And they are really being able to, take in the whole context of the assignment and to keep it that way. as a client, for example, I hate when I work with a professional occasionally on a project and after half a year or so, they completely forget the context of the assignment or, of that client or whatever.

So I would have to explain everything again, because they lose the touch. They don't make notes. They, are, they are lost in their transactional business. And I hate it because I basically see that they're not professional enough that I have to do the work for them to introduce them against, to something I said already three times.

And I just see it as a better service as a client. Yeah. so to answer your question and how we actually. Design the course you were talking about. It's, on the Maek University in Bruno. It's one of the best universities in Central Europe. they made really the full, semester course on freelancing.

It's called, in English. It would be from student ID to business id. I, love that name. and what we do is actually that we, based on my book, we cover 10 most important topics, like teamwork, pricing, negotiations, personal finance and financial settle management, personal productivity. And another crucial point that we make is that we are not trying to force a unified framework on these students because I realized perfectly well that there is no such thing as a universal business framework in freelancing.

Because every industry, sometimes even every profession may have a different ways of doing things. They may have like different habitual ways of running the business, of doing the deals, negotiating the deals of pricing, of managing the flows, of, works, the workflows and the flow of assignments, whatever.

So we are doing something counterintuitive and, completely different. We are trying, during the course to expose the students to people from different professions and to see how their individual testimonies about how they run their business and about what they do in profession, basically. Something quite different from people from other professions.

So they may already see within the course that freelancing is extremely diverse and that people from different professions and different industries treat the same areas from different perspective. So they very early in their careers may realize, this freelancing thing is different. It's not that you study MBA and you have these like unified and formalized ways of managing things.

Freelancing is highly idiosyncratic. Like anyone in freelancing may actually craft their very own way of running a freelance business if it works for them, for their clients who are both happy and you are happy by earning a living. who am I to say that you are doing it wrong? doesn't make sense.

if it works for you and your clients, it may be a perfectly leg yet unique approach to doing a freelance business, right? so we are trying to show these students that the individual approaches and perspectives differ. And yet there are some common themes, common something that all freelancers share.

So what they get isn't a unified framework. They get 10 or more different perspective on the subject of doing a freelance work. And they may also have a glimpse of what is similar or the same for all freelancers as we speak, or as we present and these similar things maybe. The values, great need for independence, for flexibility, for freedom, for autonomy, for being your own boss.

These would be some common themes. So they would get this idea that this bunch of freelancers that are pretty diverse, but they are similar in a way. They are their own bosses. they, make decisions. They form their own career strategies, and they craft their careers in a way that they can do long term, what they like and work with clients.

They prefer to work with that, that, that's in a nutshell, what I see as essential and what is also, reflected in the course itself for the Maser University.

Nigel Rawlins: Yes. No, that sounds like exactly what it's about. And that's what I love about, what I do is that autonomy, choosing the clients and the projects I want to work on.

But it's interesting, at my age, I'm suddenly finding I do need better systems to keep an eye on, some of the things I'm doing because it starts to, to, mount up. So if you don't have some system of the projects you're working on and the bits and pieces you have to do and the information you need to pull in it, it does get messy.

And My, my office at the moment is like a bomb has just hit it to, do tonight's talk. So hopefully I'll get it all back to normal. But if this is the normal state of affairs, I'm gonna be very non-productive. Alright. So do you wanna talk about LA Palms or do you wanna start closing up? I think

Robert Vlach: no.

I, I, would have add, I would have a additional comment to what you just said. Okay. I think systems are very important. I just see that freelancers, since they are so individualistic in their businesses, they tend to create their own system that, is reflective of the state of affairs in their own business.

So they, to create their own workflows, they tend to share these workflows with, their colleagues. Sometimes they get inspired, so they use bits and parts and pieces of other people's systems, but they're very systematic in general. I think being systematic is actually very important in running a business.

That's for sure. a second note on systems would be that what I see in, in, in a real market practice is that people get influenced by the tools they use. So if you start using a certain, a particular software for, I don't know, managing your projects is highly probable that you would be subconsciously influenced by the designers of this software.

How to, how they imagine, projects should be run like. So I think it's, one of the important. Aspects or attributes when looking for, when looking for a suitable tool is that it should be somehow compatible with how you think about organizing your work and how your own system is constructed.

Because there is always, this, very often undeclared, ideological side of these software tools where the developers themselves have strong opt opinions, how projects should be run. And not always are these opinions, legit. They may be totally nerdy, views on how things are in the wild.

And my take from a business consultant perspective is that my skepticism should also extend to the ideologies behind the software. You cannot actually develop, a project management tool without actually having some concrete ideology how the projects should be run. So either they're based on some real project management schools of thought.

When it is established, as is described, there are certain certifications and these software tools reflect that particular way of running, projects. Which may be the case for huge projects. They are, also contracted by public institutions and so on. So it creates a sort of like unified environment where you have certified professionals, certified or compliant and and, compatible tools.

And, somebody who is assigning these projects and who has a certain expectations in terms like how the project and everything should be run. but you have like different sort of tools, more flexible agile, where is it mostly based on the opinions of the developers? my skepticism lies in that, that not always there idea have a business or a business project should be land, is compatible with what we do in that particular line of business.

So yeah, impor systems are important, but I would put this there as a sign note because I think it's, it's relevant. It's, my brother is like a top level professional in project management, so we had a lot of interesting discussions how projects are actually run in the wild, how the certification looks like what is, what are the upsides and downsides of the flexible and agile movements and so on.

So it's like quite an important topic to me.

Nigel Rawlins: Alright, we're coming probably to the end here. Yeah. Do you wanna talk about La Palmas Las Palmas as a getaway. Yeah. And some of the problems that are probably being faced at some of these getaways 'cause they're very attractive locations.

Robert Vlach: Yeah, I was thinking about it. I don't know how Las Palmas is

relevant or attractive for people from Australia.

none: That's a long life,

Robert Vlach: but I can certainly tell you that it's pretty unique within Europe because for us, Europeans within the U European Union, it's one of the very few places, if not the only one, where you can go during winter to have really warm weather.

So we can go to Las Palmas, and that would be, there would be like 20 or 18 to 33, degrees Celsius during winter. It's pretty normal. The, weather is very stable, very calm, but it has other greater benefits because it's a part of the European Union that comes with a, cheap mobile phone roaming.

it comes with payments in Euro. it comes with the European level security. So it's really safe to be there. it comes with a European level of, culture of, healthcare, it's really accessible from the European continent, via airplane. So it has a good connection. And besides it has a great, beach strip.

So you have a, especially the Las count zone, it has it's a big, I think Two to three miles beach trip that, has a quiet part without too much waves. because there is a, there is a natural barrier in the ocean that, blocks the waves at least partially. So it's ideal for elderly people, for children that there is not a big danger of, big waves and, so on.

But you have also the other part which is open to the ocean where you can surf. So at within two to three miles, you have a full extent of open ocean, huge waves, hipster culture of doing these, water sports, but also the area for the elderly and for the children, for the families. the whole infrastructure of the city is also built, on the urbanistic level for families.

So you have basically anywhere you are, within the city, within 200 meters, you would have a playground for kids and, you have a great vibrant, Castro scene. So there are restaurants, the bars, the Spanish, because it's part of Spain. the Spanish bar culture is, I believe one of the best in the world.

Spanish bar is a cultural institution. It's, it's, it is one of the center pieces for their societies. It is where the community meets. for example, when I was working in Spain, and I did, I, started my work as a freelancer in Spain actually. So when I was 20, I was working as a freer in Spain, and I was working for a company where there were like various people from workers to management to to, dealers.

And we were all starting our day at bar, that was the f Yeah. In the morning, like you go for a coffee, you go for a chat, you, go for your, quick snack, a breakfast perhaps. And only after that you go to work. And then when it's midnight, you go for lunch, you again go to the bar and you may go to that bar after the work for beers.

So it's really, it's a very, it's, not everywhere. it's something unique to Spain that some of these bar bars open as early as 6:00 AM or 7:00 AM. all the workers come in, they grab some something for a snack, they grab a coffee, they, they got. They get pumped up. they get this morning vibrant atmosphere and they're excited to go about a day, so I, absolutely love this about Spain.

I have, even in Las Palmas, I have places like, a street bar where you actually go in a morning just to get the wipe because it's all buzzing with the energy. With people who are working, they are like manual workers. They just go there to grab their morning breakfast, beer, coffee, whatever, and they go after the work.

And when you spend a 10 minutes there you are, like completely, energized to do whatever hard work you are about to do that day. I love that. It's it's more, it's different from a cafe in Vienna, it's, it's special for Spanish culture and Las Palmas is a definitely unique place.

I would say that it has the most beautiful beach trip in Europe. sorry, city beach trip, because it's part of the city. It's a big city. It's not big in, global terms, but it's still half a million, people, inhabitants plus the tourists. So I think it's the seventh or eighth, biggest city in Spain.

Wow. That's so it's not small. Yeah. And that makes it interesting because, it is, when you are there, it doesn't feel like a tourist resort. It feels like a regular city. So you are actually living a city life in a sunny, in a sunny weather, warm weather. And the local people there are.

They're extremely kind. I would say They're not only kind to, in incomers foreigners, they are kind to each other. So, it's completely normal that you go shopping and, the, cashier would tell you like, here's your change DAR link, something like that. So it's like they call each other darling Carino, and it's like a normal thing to do.

So they're very nice, not only to each other, but they're also very nice to children. not every country within Europe is really, I would say, like really respectful to children in terms of respecting their completely different way of seeing things and doing things. Some, young children and as they get really noisy.

And some countries in Europe are pretty strict about it. you would get really, bad glances if your children would misbehave or like being noisy in a restaurant or in a cafe, not in Spain. They love children and they are really extremely tolerant to their excessive, and really expressive behavior.

So our children, they love Spain because they feel that they are being respected as, humans with full rights there, so that's something unique to Spain as well. and I love that it's definitely not come on to every country in Europe. They have also some pretty, loose attitudes towards, following street rules.

So in Spain, many things just get habitual in a way. People are crossing the street on the red lights is normal. There are countries, even within Europe where you may be standing in the middle of the night on a rainy street where there are no cars, no people inside, but you would still stand on that red light, that wouldn't happen in Spain.

They, would just ignore it. so I have really this strong relationship with Spain. I started my career there every year. I spent at least a couple weeks, if not months, in Spain. and with children, we especially like Las Palmas, the Grand Canaria because of this unique, because of these unique qualities that this city have.

Of course, the whole Canarian Islands archipelago is interesting. So if you actually go there as an Australian, you may actually get pretty wild hikes, not only on Grand Canaria, which is called sometimes, a miniature continent because the nature there is pretty diverse. It has huge canyons as well.

but different islands have different, ecosystems. the Eastern Islands, they are really dry. There are deserts. There are, I think, some movies were actually short there because it has really, the landscapes are really interesting. while the Western Islands, they are really humid. There are jungles, a lot of trees, a lot of humidity, a lot of rain, because the rain is coming from the North West usually.

So it rains on the Western islands while the islands are almost. Dry and desert-like, and if you go even further east, like I think 150 kilometers, there's Sahara Desert. So sometimes when the wind is coming from Sahara, you have a, I don't have to tell you, you are Australian, but you have this sand in the air, so it's really dry and hot and it creates a phenomenon that is called Kama, they call it that way, which is dry hot weather with the sand like particles in air.

that can be the most hot days during the year. Sometimes it's even dangerous if the con, if the concentrations of the dust particles is really high. I think, some people have respiratory problems, but it only happens occasionally. You have warnings everywhere in that case. So people are advised to stay at home for a day or two until it gets improved.

But extreme Kama can be like, one two meters and there's like a white, not that there's yellow fork, really. It's it's the really that extreme sometimes. But apart from that, it's very beautiful and definitely recommended to visit. I think for Australians. I'm not sure how unique it is, but it's a nice spot for Europeans for sure.

Nigel Rawlins: No, it does sound lovely, especially in winter. we've got parts of Queensland that, winter's about 23 degrees centigrade in winter, which is quite nice. Yeah. here, we don't get down to freezing where I live gets down to about, it can fill about three degrees and our temp this winter here now.

So yeah, our top temperature today was 14 degrees, so Uhhuh, but that's still quite good. I've got a heater on in this room, so that's, why I'm keeping nice and warm. I think we've touched on everything, haven't we? Just about, we could have talked for another hour or two, I reckon, but, enough's enough probably.

Yeah. So we call it quits.

Robert Vlach: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Nigel, for the conversation. It was very pleasant. I'm, I'm a little proud here that I challenge you to do, something new with your podcast because like I'm a strong believer in long form podcasting. I think that's really

unique media format, and I'm just so glad that we did this.

Nigel Rawlins: That's all for today's Wisepreneurs podcast. Age is no barrier when you're a wise preneur crafting a purpose-driven career. If you found value in this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network. Visit Wisepreneurs dot com au to join my newsletter for exclusive strategies and ideas, and connect with me on LinkedIn for more insights.

I'm Nigel Rollins, and I'll see you next time to keep building your future with impact.