You can’t be defined by just one thing. There are a variety of ways to describe who you are, what you do and what you stand for. You’re multi-faceted and multidimensional and that’s important.
We all have many talents and attributes, a unique mix of traits that no one else has in quite the same way. Even if you aren’t sure what they are yet, they are there. Our work should reflect these varied interests, otherwise it’s easy to feel constrained if you’re focused solely on one job.
More than just a slanted piece of punctuation, a slash can help us quickly summarize the variety of ways we describe ourselves — especially professionally.
I’m a marketer / freelancer / coach / instructor / speaker, but it wasn’t always this way. I kind of fell into this path. I used to have a full-time job (12+ years ago) that I thought was my ticket to long-term stability and success. That feeling and reality didn’t last.
I’m certainly not alone in being a multi-career person as many people today elect to take on several jobs or projects at once.
This distinct group of people who have ‘portfolio careers’ are known for their original approach to working on their own terms.
Many choose to add slashes to their title to have control of their work life, act on their passions, create a new source of income and reduce risk.
My life got significantly better when I was able to create a flexible career for myself in the long-term, which brings me a lot of pride, control over my time, the ability to work on projects I’m excited about, and income from multiple sources.
Society is pretty good at making us feel like small parts of a larger system, as well as perpetuating an overarching need to fit in. This manifests in many ways like trying to limit your weirdness or most relevant to our conversation, the establishment of the norm that having a single full-time job is what’s “normal” to strive for.
Screw that. If you’re satisfied with your full-time job, then cool. Go do that.
But, if you’re looking for something more, then I encourage you to build a many-sided career for yourself that fulfills your different passions and interests, that makes you feel good, offers financial stability and provides you with more control over your circumstances.
Operating outside of the one track world isn’t a new concept as the term polymath has been around since the 17th century. The “old school” version of having a portfolio career if you will.
A polymath is a person that has expertise across different fields, often referred to as the gifted and geniuses of our time. But really, everyone can become versed in different professions with the right approach.
For ten years Nyomi E. worked hard as a healthcare professional to help support her family. It felt like she was doing what she was supposed to be as a 43-year-old mother of two. But, it was far from a perfect arrangement.
She was frustrated to not have a creative outlet. She wasn’t paid what she felt she deserved and her schedule was too rigid with her supervisor always breathing down her neck. And for a long time, it felt like she didn’t have options.
“It seemed like I was just spinning my wheels, doing what you’re supposed to do to make things work,” she said.
One Sunday morning, Nyomi decided that she’d start doing wedding and event planning on the side as it was something she’s always wanted to try.
“Even if it didn’t make any money, it felt good to take a crack at it and do something different for once,” she added.
Nyomi did event planning on nights and weekends for six years from there forward and she absolutely loved it and she kept getting booked.
The additional income for her and her family was a wonderful benefit as well, but not enough to quit her full-time job quite yet.
With the success of her event planning side business and the confidence it brought her, Nyomi wanted to leave her restrictive full-time job, but still needed another source of income first to equal her current salary.
She decided to become a licensed notary and drive for Lyft in addition to her event planning business to make it all work.
Is she as passionate about being a notary or driving for Lyft? Not really. But by testing out Lyft one weekend and asking a colleague about their experience as a notary, she learned she wouldn’t mind doing either job.
Both roles offered a great deal of freedom and flexibility that she didn’t have before and that was worth it for her. Once she got setup with Lyft and got certified as a notary, she quit.
Nyomi is now a Lyft driver / event planner / notary working 40 to 50 hours on her own schedule, making more than she did at her full-time job and above all, is happy to get to spend more time with family.
She didn’t have a trust fund to rely on or extensive training in multiple fields prior to exploring career diversification.
Like her, it’s up to you to craft a fulfilling career that suits you and your varied interests. And now is the time to protect yourself for the future and no longer rely on one job for all your needs.
Opportunity amongst uncertainty
Career diversification isn’t new, but it is becoming more prominent and less optional every year. Taking on independent work is becoming the new norm for many reasons, mainly good ones.
I’m defining independent or alternative work as any project, role or gig where you’re not a full-time employee of a company.
This could mean you’re a freelancer with multiple projects, a contractor taking on one long-term job at a time, or otherwise.
The prominence of taking on multiple gigs today can be linked to many factors, one of which being the greater availability of alternative work arrangements on established tools and platforms from Airbnb to TaskRabbit.
This specific type of independent work is often called on-demand jobs, the gig economy or the sharing economy.
Most of the on-demand jobs found on these platforms only require entry level skill sets, so the learning curve is low, making it quick and easy to take on these types of gigs.
Doing independent work is becoming more normalized too as 29.8 million solopreneurs working today represent 81% of all small businesses in the U.S and contributed 6.8% ($1.7 trillion) of total economic activity in 2022.
One big difference is how much more accepting people are today of the idea of going freelance, given many of us have seen entrepreneurs featured on Shark Tank or stayed in an Airbnb where the hosts are earning side income from running a short-term rental.
Likewise, increased access to educational resources online has provided professionals with the ability to learn new skill sets across industries at their own pace with course-driven sites like LinkedIn Learning, edX or Coursera, online classes from most universities, the ability to connect with mentors and colleagues across the world, and more.
At the same time, a Princeton University study found that a majority of the net employment growth in the U.S. economy from 2005 to 2015 appears to have occurred in alternative work arrangements, not full-time roles.
Rising costs for employers have also led to a smaller number of workers receiving health care or pension benefits than they did in the 80’s, according to Pew Research, reducing access to one of the main benefits of full-time employment. Capitalism at its worst.
Sadly, layoffs are more common now too as they’re the highest they’ve been in the U.S. since 2020, the unemployment rate is 4.3% higher than its was in 2021, and nearly 26% of unemployed people have been jobless for more than six months.
All the more reason to start taking control of your circumstances and protect yourself with a few different sources of income so you don’t get stuck.
Author Charles Handy said it best, “No longer is there the feeling that somewhere someone is thinking about your future, watching your development, planning your next steps.” It’s up to you to get things in motion.
It does take nerve
Without knowing it at first, I cultivated two career paths at once: one as a marketer and another as a writer, mainly covering marketing.
While working at LunaMetrics, a marketing analytics agency in Pittsburgh, and then at Marc Ecko, the clothing brand in NYC, I wrote regularly in my free-time.
Writing about best practices and how to guides for marketing gave me a voice in my industry at large, supported the work I was doing full-time and was enjoyable, almost therapeutic to share my ideas and experiences as a marketer.
After writing publicly for three years, companies started to reach out to see if I did any freelance writing after they’d read my articles in industry publications.
At first I was like, “No thank you, I have a job.” I’m sure I wasn’t that rude over email, but that’s what I was thinking. As if I was allergic to actually getting paid to write instead of doing it for free.
Eventually, my job start to go south and I was seriously unhappy with working at Ecko, so I started interviewing at lots of other agencies, brands and startups in all different industries to see what my options were. I also decided to start taking on paid writing gigs, reaching out to everyone I previously said no to.
I received a couple job offers at great companies, but something felt off. I wasn’t thrilled to be starting a new job at any of these places even though the roles I was offered were cool, I got along with the people there and they paid well enough.
The freelance writing I was doing at the same time was going well and I enjoyed the flexibility and the hard work needed to bring on more clients, so I decided to quit my job, stop applying to new full-time roles and focus on writing full-time.
I didn’t know it, but I had been learning how to improve my craft as a writer for three years in a non-risky way. So now, when I needed to fall back on this skill I was well prepared to do so.
One of my favorite quotes from RuPaul is, “Don’t take life too seriously, don’t take your identity too seriously. We are all shapeshifters.”
I’ve done both things RuPaul called out. Early in my career I took myself too seriously as I hesitated to start writing publically at first because I was nervous and insecure of what others might think and when approached with the option of doing freelance writing gigs at first I thought, “that’s not for me.”
I was eventually able to get over my mental barriers and find the nerve to shapeshift into a freelance writer in the early days, running my own business. It was scary at first, but then quickly became empowering to focus on a new path.
From there, I continued to evolve what I’m doing to move into consulting for companies on their marketing, teaching courses, coaching marketers and business owners, and speaking at conferences and company events.
I want you to work up the nerve to start diversifying your own career ASAP as it’s usually a lengthy process and it’s better to start taking action now.
This starts with understanding why it matters to diversify your career in the first place.
Designing your version of stability
Feeling trapped, powerless or apprehensive about your work situation is a shitty feeling that most of us have experienced at one point or another. I know I have.
Whether you’ve been laid off, too afraid or unable to quit a dead-end job or not progressing in your career like you think you should be, it is easy to feel like the only other option is to find another job.
Mainly because that’s what we’ve been taught for generations. Ever since we were little it’s been made quite clear that holding a full-time job to support yourself is the standard.
You work hard at your job, advance at your company, maybe move to few other employers throughout your career and you’ll have enough to thrive at life.
But more than ever, that’s just not the case anymore. Focusing on one job alone with blinders on is riskier than we’ve been taught as U.S. layoffs are the highest they’ve been in years and economic uncertainty is the new norm.
The speed at which technology is progressing is also disrupting, evolving and even shuttering entire industries and companies.
You actually have to design your own stability in order to protect yourself from unforeseen circumstances, get out of professional situations that no longer suit you and control your life. And the exact definition of “stability” looks different for each of us.
The most successful professionals across industries are already doing this to have a greater command of their finances, mitigate risks and guarantee the longevity of their careers.
When you think of the term ‘Renaissance Man’, people like Leonardo da Vinci, Oprah, or Kara Swisher come to mind. I tend to think of RuPaul immediately, but that’s just me. This makes sense as these are some of the most visible people to reach high levels of success in their careers with multiple endeavors.
But there’s also an understanding that their level of success is unattainable. They’ve struck it big through some semblance of luck, hard work and charisma that you or I can’t duplicate.
And there is a reality to that. It is unlikely you’re going to become the next da Vinci and that’s actually a wonderful thing. We’ve built up this pressure of what success is “supposed” to look like, what success is “supposed” to feel like and in actuality, it’s all defined by you.
The element you can duplicate that each of these Renaissance people have in common is that they’ve got multiple slashes in their titles to reflect their variety of talents, projects and professional ventures they’re invested in.
Oprah for instance is a producer / magazine owner / philanthropist / actress / brand spokesperson / and more, while Kara Swisher is a journalist / podcaster / documentary host / author.
What they distinctly have is options and control of their careers by diversifying. And you can too by embracing a portfolio career to develop the stability you’re after and reduce risk on your own terms.
If you are successful at focusing on different projects, you’re able to generate money from a few sources, instead of relying on just one means of income to fund your life.
Additional streams of income can support you during a gap in employment, as a jumping off point to work for yourself completely or help you more quickly take your dream vacation.
This might mean you’re a business owner, independent contractor offering a variety of different services, you’re employed full-time but also work part-time once a week or you’re focused on a few side hustles in addition to full-time work.
You could deliver food for Postmates, do freelance writing and hold a full-time job in an unrelated industry to better secure your finances for the good times and the bad.
That’s what Rick R does. A 46-year-old Philadelphia resident, Rick works full-time as a senior mortgage loan officer, while also driving for Lyft eight to ten hours a week on the side. He likes the additional income to support his lifestyle and vary how he spends his time working.
This way he’s limiting the risk of his full-time job going south and cutting off his only means of making money, while having extra spending money to enjoy the Jersey shore every year.
You can’t control getting laid off or hitting a dead-end at work. It is out of your hands. But having other career options to focus your time on, that develop additional skills or allow you work on your passions is under your control.
Prior to adding more endeavors to my career, I stayed at a job that I was no longer happy with simply because I didn’t think I had anything else lined up.
I actually did have options. Had I better understood going after multiple career pursuits sooner I could have saved myself from six months of soul-crushing work and spared my employer from having another jaded worker impacting their bottom line.
I don’t want you to be in the same situation I was.
You’ve got too much ahead of you to oversimplify your work and put all of your time and energy into one role.
Think of each slash in your title as one step closer to controlling your circumstances and one step further away from being boxed into a corner.
Key Takeaways:
- There will always be certain aspects of your career that can’t be controlled like being laid off or hitting a dead-end on your path to a promotion.
- Most of us have bought into the myth that having a single full-time job is the norm, when in actuality, we set the norms for ourselves.
- Investing all your energy in a full-time job alone is too risky. Instead, spread your time across multiple career pursuits.
- Career diversification allows you to create stability for yourself to mitigate risk since you always have more than one project to rely on at a time.
- Stability looks slightly different for everyone. A portfolio career provides you with the framework to protect yourself financially, act on your passions and develop consistency in your work life.
Move beyond the rainy day fund
With more unemployed people being out of work for six months or longer, having some sort of savings is a smart idea.
What if you lost your job tomorrow? What if the company you started fails? Do you have enough money to sustain yourself and your loved ones for a month? Two months? Six maybe?
This is where setting up a rainy day fund comes in handy to help account for a time when you’re unexpectedly unemployed or need extra cash like when your basement floods or you’ve got a mountain of medical bills.
But there’s an even better way to protect yourself. Multiple. Sources. Of. Income.
Instead of just saving some of the money you’ve earned, protect your ability to keep generating income for the future.
If something goes wrong, like a lost job or a failed business, you’ll have another source of income to focus on right away that you’ve already figured out.
This way you continue to make money, while you sort out what other your projects you’ll take on as a part of your overall mix to fill the recent opening.
Ideally, your stress will be reduced significantly as you don’t need to scramble and search for the next opportunity right away.
It’s the plan B for your career that you’re cultivating as you go.
There are two types. Passive income, which are sources of income that require time and effort initially, but far less upkeep in the long run like owning real estate.
And then there’s active income, which is any project or role you’ve got to consistently spend your time and effort on in order to earn money like graphic design work or being an au pair.
Supporting yourself with the income provided by a variety of jobs you already have in motion can help protect you during the good times and the bad.
The improved financial security resulting from multiple sources of income allows you to:
- Support yourself during any gaps in employment.
- Collect extra income for both rising daily expenses and spending money.
- Allocate extra money to real estate and other investment opportunities.
- Invest in your career to create the ideal mix of jobs you’d like to take on.
Think of a slash in your title as a form of insurance, so if your company goes under, a project falls through or you get laid off, you’re not left high and dry without scrambling to find a way to make money.
Before I quit working at Ecko, I saved $15,000 to support myself for a few months and took on two freelance writing gigs to start collecting income from elsewhere.
At that point, I hadn’t quite matched my salary of $70,000. But I still quit because I had a safety net of savings and additional income to rely on while I focused on building up my freelance writing business.
I was able to reduce the risk ahead of me, decreasing the chances I’d go broke as I fully immersed myself in a new career direction.
Today I’ve got a six-figure income coming from a mix of consulting projects, teaching courses online and IRL, hosting corporate training workshops, and one-on-one coaching sessions. But this took years to come together and is still a work in progress from where I started.
Originally, freelance writing was an additional source of income before I left my full-time job. But once it became my sole means of making money, it became clear that it was time for me to diversify into other areas for a few reasons.
Freelance writing paid well, but I didn’t want to lock myself into just one discipline as there are multiple ways to package my expertise and provide value.
The whole process of job diversification is an ongoing, long-term evolution with different stages.
That’s what Chelsea H experienced firsthand.
29-years-old and working at a bakery full-time, Chelsea was frustrated by how little she was making as compared to the high cost of living in New York City.
To earn extra spending money, she started selling the clothes she didn’t wear anymore on Poshmark, an online marketplace for women’s clothing.
Throughout the process she slowly started to notice that certain brands sold really well on Poshmark.
Since she genuinely enjoyed the process and is really interested in fashion, she decided to not only sell her own clothes, but begin sourcing clothes from Goodwill stores in the area to sell on the platform for profit. Instead of flipping houses, she’s flipping outfits.
For eight months she sold over 1,000 pieces of clothing, while maintaining her bakery job, generating the much-needed money she was looking for to feel more comfortable.
Eventually, she listed another 1,000 items to her account, accumulated 105,000 followers and earned an additional $28,000, giving her the financial cushion she needed to leave her job and focus on Poshmark full-time.
Focusing your time across projects can not only help you earn enough to protect yourself on a bad day, but give you the ability to invest in the projects that help take your career to the next level.
Key Takeaways:
- Working on a few gigs at the same time protects you financially by splitting your income across multiple sources.
- In addition to saving some of the money you’ve earned, diversification protects your ability to keep generating income as you go.
- A diversified income allows you to support yourself during gaps in employment, generate extra spending money, fuel investment opportunities and advance in your career.
- The whole process of job diversification is an ongoing, long-term evolution with different stages.
[This article was originally published in my newsletter: Career Freelancer.]
