Have you thought of a portfolio career?
If you are over 60 and will have to work well past the normal retirement age of 65, you might well consider a portfolio career.
I am currently reading the most popular book on the topic – And What Do You Do?: 10 Steps to Creating a Portfolio Career by Barrie Hopson and Katie Ledger.
They describe four types of careers:
- Single-track career – This is what we were raised to do in the 20th century. Select a career path and stay with it until you retire.
- Serial career – This is I have largely done. I have moved from career to career throughout my lifetime. I am on my seventh career. This is highly unusual for baby boomers but will be very common for our kids!
- Lifestyle career – You know a mother who is raising kids and holds a part-time job. Maybe you know someone who is taking care of a family member but runs a small business on the side.
- Portfolio career – This is a career that is all about cash flow and less about a paycheck. You develop a variety of streams of income that might include: consulting, teaching workshops, running an online business, multi-level marketing (Some are actually quite good! I could hear you snickering! I am not involved in any though.),buying and selling products on eBay, buying and selling real estate, having multiple part-time jobs,….
Who is suited for a portfolio career?
And What Do You Do?: 10 Steps to Creating a Portfolio Career by Barrie Hopson and Katie Ledger has a questionnaire. I highly recommend you take the questionnaire.
The authors say people who are best suited for a portfolio career are:
“self-starters, excellent time managers who organize their lives well, believe they’re largely in control of their own destiny, don’t like to be bossed about, have a huge need for independence, are high energy, prepared to market themselves and actually enjoy connecting. They like change and variety are not frightened to take risks, cope well with stress and pressure, feel positive about themselves, quite like having deadlines, love to learn, are not purely driven by money and are not over-anxious if they have insufficient funds at some times. They are also, assertive, can multi-task, live with ambiguity and often blend their work and free time.”
As you can imagine perfectionists need not apply!
You may not be all of these but you might need to surround yourself with people who can fill the holes. For example, if you are not good at marketing yourself then partner or trade with someone who can.
Does this sound interesting?
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Your choice of career path categories is a clear recognition of where one can classify their self but not restrict the description of that choice. Bridging those categories to an encore repurposed career would be a broader picture and may answer questions that commonly arise during ones journey in to a second stage career. Thanks for the refreshing article.
Jack,
Thank You for such kind words!