The charms and challenges of a portfolio career
After I launched Jo Green Coaching, I was surprised to find that reviewing my clients’ careers prompted me to rethink my own. There are chunks of my former careers that I missed. While I love working with career changers, a part of me missed the energy and spark of teamwork.
I also realised that I needed to make a difference for my career change clients and the wider world. Since I started my business, I’d volunteered and occasionally taken a paid contract for charities, but suddenly it was time to do more.
Jo Green Coaching was in good shape. I’m a handy project manager, so my processes are efficient enough to keep things ticking along. I knew I could commit a full day a week to doing something else without risking the health of my business. And I needed to get out of the house more.
I thought about the advice I’d give a career change client, and I took it. I figured out exactly what I was looking for. Then I posted on social media, asking my contacts if they knew of any part-time roles. The response was amazing. Several weeks later, I’d won a contract to do research and evaluation for a children’s charity.
I embarked on my first ‘slash career’ as a career change coach/researcher/project manager.
So what even is a portfolio career?
It’s a tapestry
One of the most quoted definitions of a portfolio career (attributed to Dictionary.com) describes it as ‘a tapestry of a variety of eclectic employment experiences; employment in a series of short-contract or part-time positions.’
I like the ‘tapestry’ bit. Because combining the threads of your portfolio career involves some skilful weaving. Apart from that, I’m partial to the simpler definition of ‘doing more than one thing at once.’ Like the coach who is also a musician, the teacher working part-time at a charity, the IT manager who is a makeup artist at the weekends.
However, like any career change, opting to ‘go portfolio’ isn’t simple. After months of weaving and juggling and adapting, here’s what I learned.
It’s a stretch
And the stretch is responsible for the charms and the challenges.
First up, the charms.
Refining my skills
Career coaching facilitates personal change. It calls for two of my favourite skills – observation and enquiry. My research role gave my perennially curious self the chance to use these skills to support organisational and social change. I also sharpened my ‘dormant’ skills in project and stakeholder management and report writing.
Having fun and feeding my creativity
Running a workshop for children’s entertainers wearing spacesuits. Joining stiff-limbed grownups dared by an eight-year-old to do the splits. The new role gave me loads of crazy, inspired, fun-filled experiences that fed my soul and fuel creative thinking.
Reengaging with the wider world
Working research days in a children’s hospital reminded me how resourceful and resilient we are in dire times. Certainly, I admire my career change clients’ courage and commitment. However, working at home means fewer chances to engage with humans doing the full spectrum of extraordinary things, including someone playing full-body air guitar on a train platform (seen and enjoyed at Central Station, Sydney)!
Seeing Jo Green Coaching through fresh eyes
When I was a kid in a choir, the conductor gave us a break from rehearsing a tricky piece. We came back with new enthusiasm and aced it. Time out had the same refreshing effect on my business mindset.
Setting better boundaries
I‘ve long understood the theory of setting boundaries around work hours with clients, but I haven’t always practiced it. Dividing my days to accommodate two jobs meant I had to be clearer with clients. Aside from an occasional guilty twinge, this worked well.
Now for the challenges:
Blurring lines and bulk hat changes
While I succeeded in scheduling my clients, I struggled to sort and stem the flow of emails and phone calls. Nor did I fully master the art of quarantining ‘brain space’ for each role. When my phone pinged a 10-minute reminder for a client session 10 minutes’ walk away, I found myself immersed in contract work on a coaching day. Then on a research day, I took a call from a potential client while grabbing lunch in a hospital canteen.
When I’m wearing the coaching hat, there are specific parameters. I don’t share much about myself. I ask lots of questions and dig around what my clients tell me. At first, it felt jarring to take off my coaching hat in my new role or to have the lunchtime conversation be more about me.
Explaining what I do (and that I’m not broke)
Being a ‘triple c’ - career change coach is tricky enough when someone asks, ‘so what do you do?’. I’ve got used to blank looks or someone launching into how much they (or someone they know) hate their job. Adding another role and explaining how I split my time doubled that challenge.
Like most entrepreneurs, I’m sensitive to other people’s perceptions about the health of my business. Of course, I enjoyed the additional income, but I didn’t take on new work for the money. Despite knowing it wasn’t the case, I still got the occasional demon-driven worry that the world imagined my business was failing.
Being less flexible
Having a more complicated schedule meant missing out on some social events and short-term work opportunities. I’ve got used to being my own boss and setting my own hours. Adjusting to working fixed hours for someone else took time.
When I work at home, I do very little waiting around. I can walk away from my computer to do other ‘essential’ things, like packing the dishwasher (so much more productive than Facebook, right?). Since I’m still a big believer in ‘doing something while you wait,’ this article was written in the departure lounge at Sydney airport on my way to Melbourne for the research job.
I flourished as a portfolio career changer for six months.
Where did this weaving and juggling lead me? Back to full-time coaching, flush with fresh insight and energy for taking care of my clients and my business. For the future? Well, who knows when exciting possibilities are going to pop up?
Keen to explore a portfolio career? Let’s talk about charms and challenges.
By Jo Green, Career Change Coach
I know that when you find what you love, heart and soul, your life changes. I work every day with people who are reshaping their current careers, starting new enterprises or searching for a new direction. Basically I help people who don’t like their job to figure out what to do instead!
As a Careershifters and Firework Advanced Certified Coach and experienced career changer myself, I can help you figure out what fulfilling work looks like for you.
Drop me a note to organise a free 20 minute consultation to chat about your career change and how coaching could help.
