How the concept of a 'portfolio life' has changed the way I view my career
Me and my portfolio life: aspects of myself that once seemed to be in conflict are now united.
I wrote a little bit about this concept of a portfolio life in relation to my career over on Instagram a few weeks ago. Many people seemed to be interested in this idea, so I thought I'd devote a whole blog post to it.
I'm going to start with a bit of a personal backstory about why this idea resonates with me, and then head into a deeper discussion about what it really means to lead a portfolio life in regards to your career. If you're just interested in reading about the concept (without my backstory), then head down to the second section.
Backstory: Multiple interests
I've always been interested in many different things - even as a kid: I drew, I wrote stories, I was good at spelling and maths, but I also liked to dance, and rollerblade and bike. I guess all kids are a bit like this. After all, isn't this what being a kid is all about? Trying lots of different things and seeing what sticks?
Except, for me, most things stuck. This wasn't really a problem, until the end of high school when I was deciding on a course for university - a course that would lead me to my future career.
My ideas swung widely - from music teacher (yeah, I played the flute up until year 12) to pharmacist. From doctor to writer.
Well, the admissions process ended up making my mind up for me: I didn't get into pharmacy. I didn't get into medicine. I'd decided to not even put music after I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I listened to a cellist play at the university open day.
Instead of getting into a course with a clearly-defined career end-product: pharmacy to become a pharmacist; medicine to become a doctor, I got into my third preference - Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science.
This was back when Melbourne uni offered double degrees - so that people could pursue different interests at the same time and end up with two degrees instead of one (all while shaving a year off). It was a good deal, and I'm glad they offered it when I was there.
This turned out to be my perfect option.
It meant I could do creative writing alongside organic chemistry. I didn't have to choose. I could have everything.
It was great - until I got to the end of my undergraduate degrees and the question of what I would actually do in my career resurfaced.
I felt the pressure to decide: was it arts or was it science?
Me in the lab as a postdoc.
I ended up choosing science. I did enjoy science, and I got good marks - better marks than in my arts subjects (even if only slightly). But I guess there was also a bit of fear in there influencing my choice - fear that I wasn't really good enough to do anything 'professional' with my arts degree (whatever that actually meant).
I continued on with science
I did an honours degree (basically the equivalent of a master's everywhere else), and then leaped at the opportunity to jump straight into a PhD in the same lab. I felt good about all this - the PhD meant that I would have a few years of guaranteed funding (even if it only amounted to a meagre wage compared to any other full time job I could be doing).
What felt good at the beginning, started to feel not so good about six months into my PhD.
Looking back now, I realise this was the point at which I was starting to see some red flags that science (at least, academic science) wasn't for me - but I batted them away, and blamed the situation instead. My supervisor was a bit of a hard-ass; the sort of hard-ass that expected me to work from 8 am until 11 pm seven days a week. I didn’t actually do that by the way, but I did feel that no matter how hard I worked it was never going to be enough for him. After six months of misery, I decided to move to a different lab.
The new lab was different and better. My new supervisor was much softer and never made any comments about how long I should be working each day. I enjoyed it much more, and fell back in love with science again.
But something still didn't feel exactly right.
I managed to put it into words here in my interview with Steffi - I felt like I was on a linear career trajectory and there was no way off. I could see my future: PhD to Postdoc to (with a whole lot of hard work and luck) Professorship. In my heart I knew that I wasn't really cut out to be a professor. It wasn't that I was a bad scientist, but I had grown to dislike actually being in the lab, actually doing the experiments, and actually thinking up the new ideas. I liked reading; I liked writing - but, as a PhD student, you're often told your job is to be in the lab doing experiments, not in the office reading and writing.
I finished my PhD and again stayed on the same trajectory.
Even though I had the feeling that I should stop there, I just wanted to finally experience getting paid a proper wage for doing my science and seeing whether the fresh start of a postdoc would be enough to rejuvenate my passion. Perhaps, as a postdoc, I would feel more confident in my position and be able to work differently.
While my postdoc started out well, the same issues kept reappearing - my new supervisor was keen on people being in the lab all the time. I was still required to work much like a PhD student - the only real work in my supervisor’s eyes was experimental work, not written work.
Then, with my pregnancies and maternity leaves, things really fell apart and I finally admitted to myself that I wanted to jump off this train and do something else.
What that something else was, I didn't know.
And, in some ways, I still don't know. I just had this feeling in me that there was something else I was supposed to be doing. Not that I didn't still love science, but I wanted to instead do something in science that didn't involve experiments, and I also wanted to write.
It started out small at first (you can read more about my reawakened passion for writing here) - I had the fleeting thought that I could start a blog, after reading so many in the time after my first son was born. I thought it might also be nice to write a book, but I didn't know what that book would be about. Then, with my second maternity leave, knowing I wouldn't be returning to my postdoc, and the pandemic - it all just started tumbling out of me. The writing, that is. I developed a daily writing practice for a longer piece that I started, and then I expanded out to the blog. Now I write a lot everyday, and more ideas propagate the more I write.
I've realised, through all this, that don't want to do just one thing.
Actually, I never really did want to commit to just one thing.
Doing that felt scary to me - like putting all my eggs in one basket.
Now I see clearly that I want to live a multi-faceted life, with a multi-faceted career, involving at least these things:
Blog and article writing (for my own blog and other publications) on a range of topics and in a variety of forms - this is why this blog is so expansive, because I want to cover different facets of my life. I can't pinpoint only one thing.
Book writing (both non-fiction and fiction/memoir).
Potentially teach courses (in writing).
Science writing and communication.
Maybe other things that pop up….
Somehow, I think freeing myself from the postdoc, freed my creative spark - not only in writing, but also in how I want to live my life.
Then I came across the idea of a 'portfolio life' and my heart almost burst with excitement - this was the concept that made everything make sense.
What is a portfolio life?
I first heard about the concept of a portfolio life on Jeff Goins' podcast of the same name. He discusses this idea in detail on the podcast, as well as on his blog.
Goins' definition of a portfolio life:
'A portfolio life was a life in which you did not have to pick one vocation, where what you did was not confined to or constrained by a solitary interest. With a portfolio life, you could treat your career like a series of investments of time and energy that, over the decades, accumulated in value.'
I actually don’t like that he puts it in the past tense. I think if we are striving to cultivate this life, we need to refer to it in the present tense. So, here it is in present tense:
'A portfolio life is a life in which you do not have to pick one vocation, where what you do is not confined to or constrained by a solitary interest. With a portfolio life, you treat your career like a series of investments of time and energy that, over the decades, accumulate in value.'
Basically, you can treat your career (and life) like a portfolio: made up of many different aspects.
Goins admits that he didn't come up with this concept; he heard it from Ian Morgan Cron, who lives his own portfolio life, as a writer, speaker, psychotherapist, spiritual educator, Episcopal priest, and song-writer.
But the idea goes back even further than that. In his book, The Age of Unreason, Charles Handy describes it as having ‘a portfolio of activities - some we do for money, some for interest, some for pleasure, some for a cause... the different bits fit together to form a balanced whole greater than the parts.’
I love the idea of a ‘balanced whole’ that is ‘greater than the parts’ - it suggests that seemingly unrelated passions, interests, and skills, can feed into and promote one another.
This concept has also become the subject of the books: You Unlimited, and Building a Portfolio Career, which are both co-authored by Christopher Lyons, Adrian Bourne, and Colin McCrudden.
While most of these people use the term 'portfolio' to refer to an investment portfolio - where you are spreading risk and gains over a number of different investments - the first thought that came to my mind when I heard the term, was a writing portfolio. I like to view it as having a number of different smaller pieces that make up my career, rather than one big piece.
Why a portfolio life?
Goins puts it simply: 'Most people have more than one interest'. In You Unlimited, the authors add to this by arguing that a portfolio life allows for multiple interests to be followed, which might not be possible in a more traditional career. I definitely felt this: if I were to have continued on in academic science, I would have had to (and did, at the time), move my focus away from other things (like non-scientific writing) that were also interesting to me.
Benefits of a portfolio life
It's lucrative
This number is going to depend on a number of factors (such as age, place, sex etc), but the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics suggests that the average person will hold 12 different jobs in their lifetime. The age of remaining with the one employer (or one job type, even) for your entire career has long ended.
This means, to operate in this current climate, one needs to have a variety of skills and the ability to be malleable and learn, and not just assume that it’s going to be possible to stay with the one employer, or even within the one industry for long lengths of time.
Robert Greene, in his book Mastery, argues: 'The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.' This future is here. Goins continues along this line by suggesting that a portfolio life is a way 'to create a new category for yourself.’ If you have managed to combine various skills that make you completely unique, then you can use this to your advantage, and be the best in that category (the one you created), as well as being completely untransferable.
You don't have all your eggs in one basket
'A portfolio life ensures that when things change, you’ll be ready because you won’t have put all your eggs in just one basket.’ I think this is an obvious one - the world is constantly changing. If you have a variety of skills and abilities in different fields, then you will be weathered against any negative impacts felt by any one aspect.
It is more interesting
Goins says: ’Perhaps the most important reason to embrace the portfolio life is that it’s a more interesting way to live and work; at least, it is for me. I finally feel free to enjoy all the various interests I have — business, writing, art, music, creativity, marketing, blogging, and more — without guilt or fear.'
Potential downsides to a portfolio life?
I can't identify that many. The one thing that some people may struggle with is that it could feel a little too expansive. Being able to choose so many different things may make it difficult to narrow down and focus. Because focus is still necessary, even in a portfolio life. I think most people strive to be true masters of things, not just vaguely skilled at a number of things.
I think a way around this lack of focus and feeling like you may be heading in too many different directions, is to consider Angela Duckworth's (author of Grit) concept of an 'ultimate concern' or 'purpose' - one high-level goal that everything else relates to. It may seem as if things are very distinct and separate, but are actually all just one aspect of an ultimate concern. For instance, I'm starting to define my ultimate concern as communicating stories and lessons in order to improve the lives of others. Everything I want to do - from science to creative writing, is one way of enacting this ultimate concern.
A portfolio life does not mean indecision. In fact, it means making more decisions to choose the things you love, instead of automatically saying ‘no’ to all except one main focus.
It never has to be either/or
What I really love about this concept of a portfolio life is that it allows me to choose everything - it never has to be either/or. I can be a scientist, a writer, a teacher, and a mentor + more….
I also never have to say goodbye to the previous things I've done and hide them away in the dark in shame. Instead, I can be proud of everything I've done, and see them as the investments that they are (rather than wasted time that should have been spent on something else). I can embrace the fact that I, like most people, am multi-faceted. This multi-facetedness is a real strength and makes life unendingly interesting and enjoyable.
So, I'm going to embrace my portfolio life.
What do you think? Do you live a portfolio life/career? Do you want to?
Want to receive my monthly ‘Inspiration Round-up’?
Where I share all my favourite sources of inspiration, knowledge, and motivation
(+ monthly reflection ideas + extra exclusive goodies)
Sign up now (you’ve got nothing to lose!)
Life Inspiration File is quite expansive. Try the search bar if you’re looking for something in particular.
