Too many interests? How about a portfolio career?

Ever find yourself pulled between multiple I-wanna's as you look at potential career paths? I wanna do this - no wait! I wanna do that!

If it's hard to choose, take heart. You may not have to. Maybe what you really need is a portfolio career. What's that? According to this article, it's part of a growing trend...

Gold is one of a growing number of professionals who are opting out of the traditional one-job track. Instead, they are crafting a portfolio of careers comprising multiple part-time jobs that, when combined, are equivalent to a full-time position. The number of people pursuing these dual - or even tri - track careers has doubled in the past couple of years, said John A. Challenger, president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an the outplacement consulting company.

Before I discovered my Passion Catalyst work, I had my fingers in multiple pies. A bit of my income came from this. A bit more came from that. I seemed to have an inability (not to mention a complete lack of desire) to focus on any one thing.

When I heard about the idea of portfolio careers, I thought, "Whoohooh! I'm not scattered - I'm a Portfolio Careerist! I belong to a category now!"

Even since discovering the focus of my current path, my work has had a portfolio career flavor. There is one core focus - helping people create careers that energize and inspire them - but I do that in multiple ways. I'm a coach, a writer, and a speaker. And these days I'm feeling increasingly drawn to developing more products to help people along that path.

For me, having that central focus has played a key role in shaping my portfolio career. For others, as the article describes, the focus might be more diverse.

This alternative approach to work isn’t just about cobbling together a patchwork of freelance gigs, but rather is a distinct career path that allows people to combine their interests and not be seriously penalized in the process. “You want to try to find a combination of things that work well together like writing, teaching, speaking and consulting,” said Marci Alboher, who calls these multipronged careers “slash careers” in her book One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success. Alboher said she knows successful portfolio careerists who have become both a pilates instructor and an art dealer; an attorney and a minister; a psychotherapist and a violin-maker; and a teacher, dancer and puppeteer.

How about you? If you were to create a portfolio career, what would it look like?

--

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

Comments

[David Zinger]

At 53 years of age, I have had a portfolio career for over 25 years. I have not had a "job" since I was about 28. I love it and would not change it for anything. My current portfolio is heavily weighted in employee engagement and strength based leadership with a minor in social media. Previously my portfolio was weighted in teaching educational psychology and counselling psychology with a minor in employee assistance counsellor. I can't wait to see my portfolio when I am 70 and I do plan to be working then because I love what I do.

[Curt Rosengren]

David, I hadn't thought of that, but one of the benefits of the portfolio career idea is just what you're describing. It seems to be really conducive to growing and shifting and morphing as you do.

[Frederick]

I have been wondering for years if I had something like Career Attention Deficit Disorder (which I sorta just made up). I could not stay motivated in a position beyond 1-3 years. I would constantly have to move on to a new industry. Now this could be the answer.

Great post. Keep up the great work.