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Hi all, Enjoying the process, which has unlocked my creative mind. I can’t work out if this is a good or bad thing?! Here’s my dilemma, which may or may not be relevant to others. In short I would love to brand and sell myself to bring in that £500+ a day to put food on the table. My issue is, the more I do of the course, the more I’m fighting the ’big idea’. I can’t stop the notion of becoming the next big game changer. The next ’rightmove’ or dare I say it the next ’Amazon’ (no I’m not really that egotistical). I can see huge potential in disrupting the status quo, where my forecasts are in the millions rather than the thousands. Does this put me outside the visions of a portfolio career? Am I deluded, or is your vision that a portfolio career could indeed launch a seed or even pre-seed internet start-up? I can get the vision of someone with an established career and experience seeking to exploit day rate, NED roles, freelancing consulting, or coaching giving them a multi-strand income- portfolio career. But what if you still can’t kick that ambition in your gut, to focus on one big business opportunity? Do you blindly pursue that one vision? Is this not a portfolio career? Something to chew on!
7 Comments-
Hi Steve,
You are not alone or weird. In my experience something like 1 in 3 portfolio professionals are planning to build something bigger, i.e. a company/ product/ team. They use the portfolio career to try out a few things and pay the bills simultaneously.
It doesn’t have to be either/ or. It can be ’both’.
Ben
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Hi Steven,
I am in a very similar position to you and as Ben said, I am looking at starting a Portfolio Career as a start and foundational point that could potentially grow into something bigger. I have similar high level ambitions and some big ideas but you have to start somewhere. As someone that has worked in multiple start-ups now, one of the key lessons I have learned is that you can make the best plan in the world but until you put it into practice it doesn’t matter… There will always be changes and variables that won’t have been accounted for, no matter how solid the plan!
Starting something, getting your hands dirty, exploring the market/demand/customer needs, etc. first hand at an early stage allows for such incredibly valuable insight, insight that through the agility of a portolio career allows you to evolve and take your business in a direction you may not have thought of at from the beginning.
So my advice (advice I’m trying to take myself is well!), is to set up a portfolio career in a field that you do want to know a lot more about, understand the in’s and outs, and discover how what you may be working on now could fit into a bigger picture later.
Alex
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Alex great reply… an author called Cal Newport talks about what you mention here known as ’the adjacent possible’. You work in a field intensely and get close to the ’edge’ of it – the edge where the innovation happens where you spot the opportunities of the future.
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I really love this concept of the adjacent possible laura – really resonates with me! Thanks for sending over… will check it out further!
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Hi Steve, a bit late to the party… but if you have a vision and ambition, absolutely pursue it!! Just use the philosophy of a portfolio career to support yourself and strategically build the relationships, skills, and knowledge that will give it even more chance of success. I can’t wait to hear more about your plans!!
Great question and insight steven reader! I will weigh in with my personal experience and story. I, like you am super ambitious and I want to not only change the world but I want to be very successful whilst doing it. I have a very varied portfolio career (MBTI coach, brand strategist, graphic designer), with all these skills I wanted to launch a start-up (which is where The Portfolio Collective comes in). Although being the CMO & Co-Founder of TPC takes up a vast quantity of my time, I ensure my other ventures and projects are kept up – mainly as it allows me to cross transfer any skillset and experiences that in turn better my involvement with TPC. So back to your point, can a Portfolio Career lead you to launch a start -up? Absolutely! But I do think and believe that the skillset you gain from juggling a successful Portfolio Career can help and support you in the eventuality of setting up your business. I hope this helps??