Why a Portfolio Career is the Future of Work (and How to Start Yours)

A portfolio career isn’t just about juggling multiple gigs—it’s about owning your career narrative, strategically stacking your skills, and positioning yourself for long-term success. And trust me, whether you realize it or not, you probably already have one.

Join me as I break down:

✔ What a portfolio career really is (and why it’s more than just side hustles).
✔ How to leverage your strengths to create a career mix that works for you.
✔ Why clarity and personal branding are essential for portfolio success.
✔ How to stay ahead in an evolving job market by continuously upskilling and reinventing

Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating a Portfolio Career Strategy
• 14:35 Building a Diverse Portfolio Career

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Career Refresh. This is where we dive deep into leadership, career growth and real world strategies to help you step into those larger roles, be more visible on your own terms. I'm your host, jill Griffin. I'm a strategist leader board member and executive coach, and I spent the last 15 years helping thousands of people achieve their goals, improve workplace performance. And today I am taking you through something that I am hearing being talked about in the nooks and crannies, which means it's going to start to blossom and get bigger, and that is not the traditional career path, but what we are calling the portfolio career. Ready, let's dig in.

Speaker 1: 0:57

Portfolio Career isn't just about juggling multiple gigs. It's about intentionally designing your work life in a way that aligns with your strengths, your passions and your financial goals. It's about owning that career narrative, strategically stacking your skills and positioning yourself for long-term success. And in today's super fast-moving professional landscape, this approach is essential. People think about a financial portfolio, perhaps an arts portfolio. A portfolio career is where professionals build diverse income streams while leveraging their skills across multiple roles, industries, ventures, and it's not about following a linear career path, where a linear career path or a single pursuit career path has always been about moving up within a company or an industry and going from the subject matter expert into leadership in some way, depending on the organizational structure, and you're constantly focusing on what is the next step directly ahead. So it's about an advancement up. Portfolio career is about a never-ending source of discovery and fulfillment, and this might mean we take a sidestep, we take a backstep, we take a step up. It's not about it's much more chutes and ladders or a non-linear path. So I did some digging to figure out like well, where did this whole concept? Because the portfolio is a word that I've been using, but now I'm hearing other people using it too, and also think about the gig economy, right? So Charles Handy wrote a book called the Empty Raincoat, in which he coined the phrase gig economy, and that's really where this is based on. But hold on a second, for today I'm going deeper on the slice of your portfolio career where you're still the employee. Now most of this is going to apply for a fractional worker or a freelancer. Portfolio careers are amazing and work well in those spaces too. I want you to know that if you are an employee, I'm going to guess that you already have the start of a portfolio career, but I want you to think about how you are nourishing it.

Speaker 1: 3:14

My career path, let's see. I started at Atlantic Records, so I was in the recording industry. I then have always been a strategist, a media executive. I've been a chief operating officer of a publicly trading company and a startup. I've been a chief strategy officer of a startup. I've also been a functional nutrition educator, a brand marketer. I've worked in health tech, digital tech, ed tech. I've been a product formulator, a gospel music singer, a podcast host, a board member and a soon-to-be author. Okay, so I've had my portfolio career. Most of my career and that's what I'm saying you probably have too For me, and what I'm finding other people are talking about too this came from two main areas.

Speaker 1: 4:01

One was growth, both mentally, and opportunity, and two let's face it it was financial. It was money, it was risk management through diversification. Here's where the background for me came in. The first time I was laid off, I thought, oh, I'm never going to be in this position again. I will never allow myself to be in this position again. Now, to be clear, I'm not talking about the layoff, because that happened multiple times. I've joked many times. My career was a signing bonus and a severance package, and that is working in tech and in marketing. That is very common. When I say that I'm never going to be in this position again, I meant that I am never going to be in a position which is high risk and high reward, where I don't have something on the side for a revenue stream. I'm not going to be laid off and not have a revenue stream.

Speaker 1: 4:52

So the second part was what I call my itchy brain. I loved my work I really, really did but I also got bored every two to three years and when possible. I was fortunate to be able to rotate within the company when I work for larger companies and when I work for small companies. There was nowhere to go. So I found that I constantly wanted to use my brain and maybe I liked my job and I didn't want to quit. But I had to keep my brain stimulated and I had to stay relevant. So I was going to have to find different types of work. So, yes, working in media. I also was a health coach. I was seeing clients on weekends and outside of work hours.

Speaker 1: 5:30

I was really interested in clean health and beauty products and you've heard me before that was a result of a head injury, where there wasn't a lot of products in the market that really fit my needs, because scent and aroma would really give me major migraines. So I just said, all right, well, I'm going to study chemistry, I'm going to study botanical chemistry and learn about plants, and then I started studying formation. So I created a company where I launched I'll call them wellness-based products, and it was everything from deodorants to creams, to inhalers to diffusers, anything that would create the experience that I wanted around my body. That would serve me right. So I was then, from there, asked to do some corporate workshops. So I created what I call Calm Around the Clock and how to use various wellness-based formulas to keep you in a position where you are staying calm or you at least have tools, and that was a mixture of functional medicine and also looking at nutrition, and while today I no longer do that, I make products solely for myself or my family and my friends.

Speaker 1: 6:34

This first taste of being an entrepreneur was it paying the bills? Heck no, but it was definitely giving me some additional money. That was paying for an occasional, a month's rent or maybe an occasional vacation. But I had another stream and I had contacts elsewhere and I was also using my brain in a completely different way from my day job. I did not know then that it would be another 10 or so more years before I would be using those entrepreneurial skills again, but that was my first taste.

Speaker 1: 7:03

Also for disclosure, my company knew I was under a contract which, with a non-disclosure, I would not have been able to use my skills in a competing company. So I want to be clear. That is not what I'm talking here. My supervisory chain was well aware of what I was doing. I would talk about it openly. People knew that I would often bring in food that was like super nutritious and they'd be like ooh, what's that? And I was always doing that. I also went to culinary school during the same time. So I was doing this and no one cared that I was making therapeutic diffusions or salves or decoctions. They didn't care. I'll throw in a lip balm and maybe an inhaler for a migraine, right? Nobody cared.

Speaker 1: 7:49

I'm sharing this because if you have interest in other areas, it may help you upskill in your day job. Just get clear within your employment contract If you're not under contract. Just the rules within your company and figure out if you are allowed to do this and if not, then how are you doing it in a place that is so adjacent meaning? So not adjacent, right? So if you are working in marketing, perhaps you are tutoring nights and weekends right, it has nothing to do with the other. Or if you speak more than one language, maybe you're using those skills and you're teaching and you're getting additional payment for that. But not everything has to be paid, because there's lots of different ways in which we're benefiting ourselves and others that may not actually result in money in your bank account. All right.

Speaker 1: 8:33

So there is a framework I call it the blueprint that I take clients through which will help you navigate a successful portfolio career, and it's rooted in four areas clarity, strengths, strategic growth and personal brand. I want to unpack it for you. So one within clarity this is really defining that professional identity. If you're going to craft a multidimensional career, you need clarity. You need to know what you're bringing to the table, what is your core expertise, what value do you deliver across different roles? This clarity isn't just about what you do. It's how you position yourself, and this is where the strong personal brand helps you create that consistent and compelling identity across everything you do, whether you are consulting across everything you do, whether you are consulting, freelancing, speaking, building a side business, tutoring, cooking, running a meal service your audience and potential clients should immediately recognize your strength and expertise. So if you're doing any one of those things, you can see how if you were cooking nights and weekends not only is that something that is helping you with customer service, it's probably also helping with your creativity. It's also maybe helping with ordering, your profit and loss statement and supply chain management.

Speaker 1: 9:51

All of those skills will be beneficial, I'm guessing, in your day job too. That's what I'm saying. They're complementary. We're not talking competitive, we're talking complementary in non-adjacent areas. And when you're thinking about like, including value, I want you to go broad. This, like I said, it could also be mentoring, supporting others, knowing that you are a strategist or you are a financial expert, that you excel at solving complex problems. Those are the ways that I want you to be thinking. I want you to be thinking this allows you to adapt those skills across different roles without losing your core identity.

Speaker 1: 10:36

Assessments like CliftonStrengths I love CliftonStrengths, I am a certified CliftonStrengths leader and certified coach, and also in the coming months this is kind of exciting. I haven't really mentioned this before, but in the coming months I'm releasing my personal branding assessment, which is persona or avatar based, and I weave this into the personal brand work because I believe people need to see themselves in order to identify with themselves. Some of us have this gift. Others need to see a little suggestion. We need to see representation. We need to see oh, that's what it could look like. I might need to see that it's possible that someone could have a persona of a humanitarian which they're working on always improving their lives of others and their own community, really doubling down on fairness and compassion, and work in a company and not necessarily work in a nonprofit. Or another example might be someone who has the identity or the persona of a constant explorer. They're charting new paths, they're going for new discoveries, but they're not doing it because they're hiking. They're still working in a corporate environment, but they're charting new paths. They're going for new discoveries, but they're not doing it because they're hiking. They're still working in a corporate environment, but they're charting new paths and thinking about new ways in which they can move the brand or product forward. I believe it's helpful and I've seen it with all my clients' work to see that representation elsewhere, this type of personal branding assessment. Again, it's coming very soon. Stay, watch this space and you will definitely see it. So spending time knowing your identity is going to help you know where you want to go.

Speaker 1: 12:10

The second area is strengths. I talked a little bit about it, about the Gallup Strength Assessment. One of the biggest mistakes people make in building a portfolio career is that they try to do everything. I want you to play to your strengths, identify those skills and the knowledge that sets you apart from others, and look for ways to integrate them into multiple income streams. Don't just do it always for the money. I want you to make the money, but there are times that you might take on an experience because the trade-off of it is like really cool, there's a really good exchange. There were times when I first started out that I would speak for free Because the trade-off of who I was speaking for or who might be in the audience I'd walk out of there with a couple of extra clients. Again, you have to look at the trade-off. It's a personal decision as to whether or not you're doing it for income or not. I always want you to be paid.

Speaker 1: 13:01

Another way to think about. It is like if you're an excellent communicator, the skill that can be leveraged, there might be public speaking, content creating, consulting, or if you have a deep expertise in a particular industry, you can apply that through coaching or writing. Or also think about fractional roles. There's a lot of companies out there that pay you for an hour of your time Again, you have to check your employment agreement but they'll pay you for an hour of time if you have an expert. But also be careful, because I did this once and I was used. I was asked for my media expertise. They said they would pay me, but they just had a few questions. Well, basically, they asked me all the questions and they didn't need to pay me. So again, junior, young and dumb, that's what I did. It's okay Again. Oh, I'm never going to have to be in this position again, because now I'm clear, you want to be thinking about creating that synergy between the various components of your career and places that they can reinforce you and elevate both yourself and those around you.

Speaker 1: 14:04

Next is strategic growth Staying ahead of industry shifts. Listen if I hear one more person talk about AI. I use it all day long and I've been using it for years in my work. I mean to be a solopreneur. Yes, I have people working for me, but the volume of work that I need to get done on a regular basis if I wasn't using AI tools, it would take me a lot longer and I would have dissatisfied clients. So, making sure that you are staying on top of there are courses out there you can take for free. There are courses, don't forget. Your local library offers things.

Speaker 1: 14:35

That professional landscape is moving so fast that staying relevant means continuously learning and adopting and if, for some reason, you are unemployed right now, this is where I want you to dig in deep. I want you to spend some time looking for a job. I want you to spend some time upskilling, cross-skilling and re-skilling wherever you need to. It will help your portfolio career. I have an example of a client who has a senior job in corporate finance and he volunteers at a local animal shelter and after doing that for quite some time, he now helps them with the social media. He's not planning on getting a job in social media, but this now makes him more value to his company because he understands the department in marketing that is working on social media. He has broadened his portfolio and he understands not only the financial but some of the legal terms with dealing with social media, what's working and what's not, and he has made himself more valuable in a way that he actually really enjoys, because he's still getting to volunteer at the animal shelter. The portfolio career is.

Speaker 1: 15:37

Key to success is going to be on how you effectively market yourself, and this starts internally. The most skilled person doesn't necessarily get the opportunity or the promotion. Today's formula is yes, you need the skill. Yes, no doubt, but it's also the opportunity is going to go to the person who knows how to navigate the complexities of the modern workplace, who knows how to work cross-functionally and understands what other departments do. That's the person who's constantly networking and talking about the value that they are bringing to any organization or project. Building a strong brand starts with your storytelling.

Speaker 1: 16:13

I want you to have a strong LinkedIn presence, even if you don't plan on looking for a job. I want you to think about what industry events, what workshops can you go to or attend? Where can you speak? Where can you be part of roundtables? Are you writing and giving commentary for internal white papers that maybe get published on places like LinkedIn or your industry page? It's that strategic networking ensures that professionals can constantly attract opportunities. But you also it's a little bit like dating you want other people to be wanting you and if you're a hiring manager, you very often want someone who is well-connected and well-rounded and therefore the portfolio career really suits that. Again, if you're at a company, check your employment terms, talk to your boss, talk to HR, make sure that you are not doing anything that is in violation of the company policy. Again, I'm making an assumption here, but if you're working in finance and volunteering at an animal shelter, the odds are your company doesn't care that you're helping the animal shelter. Help them with their social media. That's what we're talking about.

Speaker 1: 17:18

Look, in an era where job security isn't just about tenure, it is about agility, and this is the constant way that we think about how do we future proof ourselves? Ai and automation are constantly reshaping industries, and thinking about your career ladder, I think, again, is a little bit stale, and I want you to think about a web of opportunities and the places where you may want to strategically pivot. If you are intentional with this, you will notice that there are gaps in your own experience and areas in which you want to either upskill or reskill, or if you have the skill but you're not actually using the muscle enough, where else can you do that? This is going to help you diversify your income and your career opportunities without losing focus. You will be able to create a compelling personal brand because, again, it diversifies you. Diversity is beautiful. It's what makes us stronger, and when you are a diverse person who does lots of things frankly, you're a more interesting person. It also helps you stay ahead of industry challenges by continuously evolving your own skills and therefore helping your colleagues or your direct reports with what they may need to upskill you, and basically, it's helping you build a career. That's a mix that's both financially sustainable and personally fulfilling.

Speaker 1: 18:32

Again, I'm not saying when I was doing other side hustle related work, that I was making big bucks. Again, it was occasionally a month's rent here or there, but it was things that really helped me personally fulfill, and it's those opportunities that actually connected me to not only my entrepreneurship. But when I did go out on my own later, guess who hired me? Those people were some of my first clients. Look, if you feel stuck or you're feeling like what is the next thing that you need to do in order to be more visible or to move into that larger role you want to future proof your work life, and a portfolio career is going to be really helpful.

Speaker 1: 19:09

But again, you need to be intentional. This is designing thinking through clarity. Where are the areas you want to be, the strengths, the strategic growth? These are your guiding principles. All right, so you know me. I always want to know what's your next move. I want to hear about it. Email me at hello, at jillgriffincoachingcom, or hit me up on any social media, and I would love to hear your thoughts. Until next time, friends, embrace possibility, be intentional, inspired and kind.