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“How are you going to make this sustainable for the long term?” - a LinkedIn bro in the comments of a post where I shared about my portfolio career
What this man didn’t know is that I’m entering my second decade of having a portfolio career. Ten plus years of doing and being more than one thing professionally.
That’s not to say my portfolio career has looked the same. I’ve worked full-time and had brand strategy clients on the side, been fully self-employed with a mixture of contract work and small business income, had a part-time job alongside self-employment, and probably some other career configurations that are lost in a neural network somewhere.
If I’m being honest, I did type and delete a few responses to the LinkedIn bro who was concerned about the sustainability of my career before deciding that, regardless of the intentions of his comment (read: he probably wanted to sell me his consulting services), he was touching on an anxiety I hear often. Historically, we as a society have assumed that traditional, 9-5 work is the safer option. 1
People are wondering how they can build a career that sustains them with work they enjoy, that they can do without burning out while making enough money to buy groceries AND invest in the activities that bring them joy.
When I think about how I’ve made my portfolio career work for the past decade, the answer is counterintuitive. My portfolio career thrives because I’ve allowed it to evolve. I’ve stopped trying to replicate the “steadiness” of traditional work. Instead, I constantly orient towards and recalibrate around three Ms: meaning, mechanics, and magnetism.
Meaning
The research is clear on how a sense of meaning helps us do our work and Work in the world (e.g. Allan et al., 2019; Soren & Ryff, 2023). Understanding what meaning I want to give to my career and why it’s meaningful for me to have a portfolio career is part of what’s made my portfolio career sustainable.
I ask myself (and encourage you to ask yourself):
- How do I define a meaningful life?
- What role do I want my career to play in my life?
- How is my portfolio career configuration supporting or taking away from my vision?
And then I adjust as my answers shift.
That sounds so simple when I type it up. Just reflect on these questions! In reality, I’ve spent years refining my personal values, using tools like the career anchors, and sifting out my zones of genius. Partly through reflection but also through plenty of trial and error.
I know I find meaning in my work when I get to be the practitioner, when I see the impact of my work, when my brain feels stretched by how much I’m learning, and when I have a lot of choice in I find meaning in my work when I get to be the practitioner, when I see the impact of my work, when my brain feels stretched by how much I’m learning, and when I have a lot of choice in how my work gets done.
And when the meaning is misaligned or undefined, I feel disconnected from my work. It also leads to me saying yes to too many things because I don't have an underlying logic for how I am building or editing my portfolio career.
If you are in a place where you feel like you're doing a lot of things and you're not sure to what ends, focus on meaning to bolster the sustainability of your portfolio career.
Mechanics
Mechanics are the systems, processes, and tools that make your portfolio career work. Before you run to your local paper goods store for yet another pen and notebook haul, you need to first assess your capacity.
I spent years at Inner Workout talking about how our needs evolve over time. The practice of paying attention to my capacity has extended the life of my portfolio career.
Sometimes we start with the tools, processes, and systems and say, “If I just have a better calendaring system, then everything will fall into place.”
But if there’s too much on the calendar, all you’ve done is build a more organized way to tell yourself that there’s too much on the calendar. That change in your system isn’t going to shift the fundamental mechanics of your work. If you’re in a place where your portfolio career is feeling unwieldy, be honest about your capacity
Multical has a tool called Am I Overbooked? that looks at the type of work you're doing, how much time you have to spend and how much context switching is happening in your day-to-day. The tool helps you evaluate the sustainability of your portfolio career from a structural level. And then you can come in at a tools and systems level after you have had a bit of real talk with yourself.
Much of my own portfolio career operating system has grown from answering questions like:
- How do I know where I have to be?
- How do I know what I have to do?
- How do I come up with and store ideas?
- How do I deliver work?
- How do I collaborate with clients and partners?
- How do I get paid and ensure my business is making adequate money?
- What do I do regularly that could be streamlined or automated?
Don’t answer these questions aspirationally. The systems, tools, and processes that stick are the ones that are only as complex as they need to be and the ones that work for your brain.
Personally, I’m a live-and-die-by-my-calendar kinda gal. (Hence, Multical). Writing to-do lists by hand really works for me, but I also need to see the to-do list when I inevitably leave my notebook at home. (Hence, my eternal gratitude for monthly, weekly, and daily to-dos on my Remarkable that I can view in the mobile and desktop apps whenever my tablet isn’t with me). And I have email templates for the emails I have to send regularly. No more remembering how this client's accounting system needs their invoicing emails formatted.
Your portfolio career gets more sustainable when you’re honest about how much you can hold and you have the structural support in place to make the work possible.
Magnetism
I have a whole piece on the principles of magnetism, and I know that engaging in magnetic practices has helped me sustain my portfolio career. There are always relationships I’m cultivating or work I’m putting into the world. I make myself visible so that opportunities can find their way to me, even when things are chugging along as expected.
Because when you get to a place where you’ve got anchor clients and an understanding of how the pieces of your portfolio work together, magnetism can fall by the wayside. It feels unnecessary in the short term.
In my own experience, I’ve gotten roles because I’m able to point to projects I’ve done or because someone has seen something I’ve shared and thought “I want to hire Taylor for this” or because I put an ask out to my community to say “Hey, I’m interested in doing this type of project in the future. Keep me in mind if you hear anything related.”
Those magnetic actions compound to create a magnetic field around you so you continue to get paid. And, under capitalism, cash money is a critical factor for sustainability.
Bringing it home with a blessing
Having a sustainable portfolio career ≠ having a portfolio career that stays the same. In fact, conflating sustainability with sameness is probably holding your portfolio career back. Meaning, mechanics, and magnetism are the three pieces that have made my portfolio career possible. They show me where and how my portfolio career might need to evolve in order to meet the moment. These aren’t always sweeping changes. Sometimes it’s as simple as switching when you allow people to book meetings with you or committing to a couple of catch-up chats a month.
I’ll leave you with a blessing that I’m speaking over every person who reads or listens to this piece:
May your portfolio career sustain you for as long as you choose it.
May you be willing to evolve your career as the need to evolve is revealed to you.
May your portfolio career contribute to your meaningful life.
May the mechanics of your portfolio career support you in the Work you’re called to do.
May your magnetism attract opportunities you couldn’t have dreamed up on your own, and may it repel anything that is not aligned with your highest good.
Leave a comment or send a note as your portfolio career unfolds. I’m rooting for you.
1 Although with every round of mass layoffs, a traditionally employed worker loses their rose-colored glasses and begins to wonder if any type of employment is inherently safe.
