Create a portfolio life, not just a career
A reminder to my workaholic self.
Last week I spent a few days in sub-zero temperatures in New Zealand’s rolling hills for a friend’s wedding. The morning after the night before, we caught up with the bride and groom for a proper debrief. Over piping hot coffees we heard about their wedding prep, the home renovation, life on the farm, her half iron (wo)man training, his photography practice and regular nightly trail runs up in the kiwi wilderness. In stark contrast to my updates (exclusively work-related) their jobs were only mentioned in passing; a mere footnote in an otherwise long list of pursuits that texture their life.
On the flight home it struck me that every single one of my hobbies (except for my financially-ruining love of Lego) relate to work. For better or worse, my boyfriend and I are intensely career-focused and gladly fuel each other’s work addiction. Dinner chats are dominated by the latest AI model or the topic of my next Substack and our favourite weekend activity is ‘noodling’: he spends hours tinkering with Codex (so far he’s built a workout app called Progress, a meal planning app called Yum Club and a draft picking app for his footy supercoach team) and I spend Saturdays on new product ideas, obsessing over my writing craft and dreaming up new ways to have impact.
My main source of fulfilment and joy comes from doing one thing (working) and it’s not lost on me how ironic that is given I wax lyrical about the importance of diversification (lol oops). My money comes from many places but my sense of meaning does not.
In The Portfolio Life, author Christina Wallace expands the portfolio career concept into portfolio living; the idea that you should build a rich and varied life that extends beyond paid work to family, relationships, hobbies, health and rest.
I adore this in theory, and it’s what I aspired to back in the day when I first embarked on my #independencejourney, but looking at how I spend my time, energy and effort (99% work) it’s clear that I’m not living my best portfolio life even if I gaslight myself into believing I am. Over the past 3 years, I’ve chosen, again and again, the intoxicating hit of product-market fit and pursuing my life’s work over everything else. Given the choice between a hobby that goes nowhere and an hour spent on something that might, I've picked the latter every single time.
If, like me, all your time is spent noodling, scheming and building to the exclusion of everything else, you’re probably portfolio career-ing but not portfolio living. This is a problem. I am the problem! Because there’s far more to life than work, there’s far more to explore on this gigantic, microscopic blue marble we call home. There are wilderness trails to run, half iron (wo)mans to conquer and home DIY projects to mess up. There are rolling hills to climb and sub-zero lakes to dip in and hobbies to pursue that lead nowhere. There are weekends where work doesn’t even enter the mind.
Now that’s what I call living.
Hey friends, I came down with something akin to frostbite in New Zealand and have been feeling somewhat under the weather, so there’s not chit-chat this week. I’ll be back to gnawing your ear off next week! Anna
🫶🏼 When you’re ready, here are three ways I can help:
How to future-proof your career in the world of AI: a free 14 day email series teaching you how to diversify your income and risk, and build a portfolio of skills, opportunities and income streams. Sign up here.
The Portfolio Career Operating System: a Notion-based productivity tool to help you efficiently market and manage multiple income streams without running yourself into the ground. Used by 200+ solopreneurs worldwide. Get yours here.
The Portfolio Career Build Method: a 6 week accelerator for smart, ambitious humans who want to build multiple income streams and gain full ownership over their time and life. Cohort 3 is now closed but you can register your interest for Cohort 4 here.
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Love this one for you AM! There is so much joy to be found outside of work and you are such a joyous person :) Excited to hear more!
I can definitely relate to this! I definitely should spend more time on exploring hobbies and interests out of work. I think though as people who have already turned hobbies/interests into income streams it can be hard to turn off that mindset and just enjoy something for what it is (I’m working on it though haha)