1271: [Part 1] What is a Portfolio Career & How to Build One by Daniella of I Like to Dabble on Modern Work Culture

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[00:00:30] This is Optimal Work Daily Episode 1271. What is a portfolio career? And how to build one?

[00:00:36] Part 1 by Daniella of iLikeToDabble.com

[00:00:40] And hey there I am Dan, I'm your host and narrator here. I'm with you every single day reading from

[00:00:45] these great work life blogs that we find, we get permission from the authors,

[00:00:49] and then we share this content with you. So kind of like an ongoing audio book.

[00:00:53] And sometimes the articles are on the longer side like today, so to keep each episode short,

[00:00:58] we split them up and then read them across two consecutive episodes. So for now let's get to

[00:01:03] part 1 of this post from Daniella as we optimize your life.

[00:01:11] What is a portfolio career? And how to build one? Part 1 by Daniella of iLikeToDabble.com

[00:01:19] A portfolio career might be the new way you define your work. That was scrolling through TikTok

[00:01:24] one day when I came across a video that said that calling your income streams side hustles

[00:01:29] could negatively impact your mindset around the work you do. Using a term like portfolio career,

[00:01:34] more accurately represents a multi-hyphenated approach to work without diminishing it.

[00:01:40] They depicted this reframe with the idea that the wealthy don't call what they do for money

[00:01:44] side hustles and it did have me thinking. Could this just be another rebranding of the term

[00:01:50] side hustle and a classist one at that? In a way, yes. But the word side hustle has been rebranded

[00:01:56] and rebranded many times before. I personally love the idea of reframing a collection of our work

[00:02:02] as a portfolio career. It gently forces me to take a more organized and intentional approach to my work,

[00:02:09] much like an actual portfolio but a portfolio of passions. It also happens to perfectly

[00:02:14] represent what I do as a former software engineer and now current writer, blogger, educator

[00:02:20] and business owner. What is a portfolio career? A portfolio career is essentially a collection of

[00:02:27] the different ways you make money. In the past this has been called multi-hyphenate, multi-passionate

[00:02:33] and slasher. A portfolio career involves monetizing your skills in a variety of ways that generate

[00:02:39] multiple income streams. These could be different and separate jobs or they could be the different

[00:02:44] income streams within a business that you operate. What might also be called a side hustle stack

[00:02:49] is also a portfolio career. For example, when I had my day job as a software engineer and would

[00:02:55] spend my nights blogging, I was a software engineer slash blogger. That was a portfolio career

[00:03:00] of two entirely separate careers that were also separate jobs, one that was a W2 job and one that

[00:03:06] was freelance. After leaving that job to run my blog as a business full-time, I took my portfolio

[00:03:12] career one step further in a more focused direction. I was now a blogger, freelance writer, educator

[00:03:19] and business owner. The biggest element to a portfolio career is self-management. I decide when

[00:03:25] I work, how long I work, who I work with and how much I charge. I don't answer to anyone but I do

[00:03:31] have to confront myself to get my job done. If your portfolio career involves a W2 job,

[00:03:37] you have to do all of that on top of being an employee with another set of expectations

[00:03:41] and responsibilities. Examples of a portfolio career. Some popular examples of a portfolio career

[00:03:49] are when someone is a photographer and designer, a writer and illustrator, or an author and podcast host.

[00:03:56] We actually see tons of portfolio career examples in our everyday life, online and offline.

[00:04:01] Some online examples are several of your favorite YouTubers also make money in several

[00:04:06] other different ways like selling digital products and merchandise online, selling tickets to meet-ups

[00:04:11] and live shows, partnering with brands for projects and writing projects in addition to the

[00:04:16] writing they're doing for their own YouTube channel. Several online careers actually operate

[00:04:20] like this such as blogging, podcasting, streaming, freelancing and more digital careers.

[00:04:27] Is a portfolio career right for you? How do you know if a portfolio career is right for you?

[00:04:32] If you want to do everything, a portfolio career is probably right up your alley. Fellow ADHD kids,

[00:04:38] I'm looking at you. You were never wrong to not be able to hone in on one thing you wanted to do.

[00:04:43] A portfolio career might have made more sense for working with ADHD than a traditional one.

[00:04:49] The status quo of how most careers go in the American dream is people would stay in the same

[00:04:54] field and even at the same employer for 20 or 30 years or more. That rarely happens anymore as

[00:05:00] people are becoming more independent with how they work, not to mention companies are burning out

[00:05:05] their employees. It only makes sense that the career of the future is a portfolio approach where

[00:05:10] we no longer depend on one income stream and employer, but instead take over the employer role

[00:05:16] and multiply the way we bring in money. You can still keep an employer for financial stability

[00:05:20] as you start up a business on the side, which is exactly what I did for many years,

[00:05:25] and you can have a portfolio career with many employers, with one employer and yourself for the other,

[00:05:30] or yourself as self-employed. Pros and cons of a portfolio career. There are several pros and cons

[00:05:38] to a portfolio career, but it depends on the person and what type of work they prefer.

[00:05:43] If you're someone who's happy doing one job and one job only, that's great. Keep doing that.

[00:05:48] If you're someone who thrives with different challenges from different types of work that

[00:05:52] help you to develop new skills and explore yourself deeper, whether that's to build your personal

[00:05:57] brand or just because you're curious, a portfolio career is probably going to be your route.

[00:06:02] Here are some of the pros and cons to this path. You can hear them in tomorrow's episode.

[00:06:08] You just listened to part one of the post titled, What is a Portfolio Career and How to Build One

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[00:08:33] And thank you to Daniela for a great start to this post. A little bit about her,

[00:08:37] Daniela is a software engineer and sidepreneur who's gone from zero to 12 income streams in just

[00:08:43] four years. She's paid off over $40,000 in debt in the process and moved 2100 miles cross country

[00:08:50] with her wife Alexandra to live in their dream location. And I'll tell you more about Daniela tomorrow

[00:08:55] after part two. So be sure to come on back for that in the Monday show where your optimal life awaits.