The Portfolio Life: How to Future-Proof Your Career, Avoid Burnout, and Build a Life Bigger than Your Business Card

by Christina Wallace

fail in small ways on a regular basis.

“deliberate practice.” After each failure, looking through those notes to map out what didn’t work and forming a hypothesis about what might work next time. And when things did go well, being skeptical of how he influenced that success and then trying to repeat it.viii

I was able to shift my self-perception from my track record of “success” to focus instead on my ability to show up, be brave, push through when things got hard, and get back up when I fell down.

Asking friends and colleagues to tell you about yourself is a powerful way to see a three-dimensional portrait of you that you may not (yet) be able to see.

When have you seen me happiest?

What do you come to me for?

Where do I stand out agains...

Being forgettably well-rounded isn’t rewarded in the real world. Be memorably well-lopsided. If you are this good at something, run full speed ahead to build your career on its foundation.”

Early synaptic pruning is mostly influenced by our genes. Later on, it’s based on our experiences.

a person’s recurring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors generally do not shift without a notable life disruption.

we should identify where our talents lie and then seek out skills, knowledge, and experiences that build on those talents to do consistently excellent work.

Understanding who is willing to pay for what you want to offer the world, how much they are willing to pay, and whether that value is greater than the effort and cost of the work is vital analysis that will help you build a life that is fulfilling and sustainable.

MODEL 1: MOONLIGHTERS

Moonlighters have a primary, often full-time, responsibility and one or more secondary projects that they make work during down periods like nights and weekends.

MODEL 2: ZIGZAGGERS

MODEL 3: MULTIHYPHENATES

Multihyphenates will tell you they find their work incredibly fulfilling, standing in two (or more) worlds simultaneously. But

There are many ways to craft a Portfolio Life. But at a high level, the goal is to design a combination of work, community, hobbies, volunteering, and personal time (including rest!) that collectively meets your needs by utilizing the skills, networks, and interests in your Venn diagram.

what do you wish for your life?

What support do you need to be your best self?

Think about the times in your life that you were the happiest, most fulfilled, or most at peace. What was it about those circumstances that brought out the best in you? What did you have? What was missing?

when work and life are seen as two opposing poles, every hour spent on one is an hour taken from the other. Not only does this lead to a constant state of work-life conflict, but most people recognize that a neat 50/50 split between work and life isn’t actually what they want.

What they tend to mean when they refer to “balance” is more about agency—that is, we want work that doesn’t come at the expense of our lives.

“It’s not about balance… [It’s about] having the discipline to identify what’s important in your life and establishing boundaries around those important items and th...

I feel like if I can do that, no matter what those priorities are and how they shift over time, it ...

But how do you define those boundaries and determine when to defend them “fearlessly and limitlessly” and when to bend them to support the bigger picture? I think it comes down to two things: articulating what matters to you and tracking whether or not your efforts are getting you closer to or farther away from those priorities.

Peter Drucker is “what gets measured, gets managed” and Professor Christensen urged us to measure—and manage—our relationships, child-rearing, investment in our communities, personal finances, and mental health as actively as we were about to manage our careers.

His exhortation to not just let life happen to us but to proactively manage our happiness fundamentally changed how I approached my career, finances, and relationships.

balanced scorecard. The balanced scorecard is used to connect the dots between a company’s mission (purpose), strategic priorities (big themes they care about right now), and activities (how they are executing that strategy),

I designed my PBS to track progress in the four principal categories of my wishes: financial health, physical health, professional achievement, and personal relationships

To pull off a Portfolio Life, you’ll need to build your team like a CEO.

Build and share access to your “orthogonal” networks. Orthogonal is a mathematical term that basically means “nonredundant” or perpendicular to the set of things currently being considered.

Applied to social networks, it means having relationships with people who aren’t part of the same circles.

Orthogonal networks put you in a position to create value through connection.

They also form the foundation for your team, giving you a rich community to draw from as you build your personal board of directors.

The role of a board of directors for a company or nonprofit is to oversee the big picture for the organization: They set the mission, advise the chief executive, evaluate and set compensation for the CEO, and represent the interests of the shareholders or stakeholders. Directors are often recruited for the board because of a specific skill or experience they bring, quite literally, to the table, and they serve on smaller committees along with chiming in on big, strategic conversations once a quarter. A

A personal board of directors is much the same: It’s a collection of folks you go to for advice, introductions, a fresh perspective, or some hard truth.

These are just folks you make a point of connecting with on a regular basis because you appreciate their experience and trust their advice.

You may go to each one for a specific thing, like asking one for help negotiating a job offer and consulting another for a second opinion on an important email before you hit send.

So who should be on your personal board of directors? First, think about the industries, networks, geographies, and functional experience you may want to stay connected to, and assemble a diverse board of directors that can support the complex and robust Portfolio Life you are building. (Reams of research back me up on this: A diverse board matters—including across generational lines, gender identities, ethnicities, geographies, and experience.)

There are five roles that belong on most personal boards: coach, negotiator, connector, cheerleader, and truth teller.

The ideal coach isn’t necessarily a subject matter expert, but rather someone who is focused on helping you unlock your potential.

The key skill of great coaching is asking the right questions.

This could be a former colleague or classmate you’ve stayed close with. It could be a parent, if you have a great relationship with them. You could hire a professional career or life coach for a particularly challenging or opaque chapter of your life.

It could even be a t...

You know that friend who somehow knows everyone? The person who delights in setting up blind dates, always has the scoop on job openings, has friends in that random place you are traveling to next month, and seems to know at least one person in basically every industry?

They are called “super nodes” and they are what makes a network efficient.

They are the ones who actively cultivate orthogonal networks.

Everyone needs a hype person from time to time. There’s nothing embarrassing about admitting that you need positive reinforcement, particularly when imposter syndrome sets in.

Lastly, to balance out your cheerleader(s), you need a truth teller. This is the person you trust to call you out in a way that you can hear it, and to do so with your best interests at heart.