The Portfolio Life
Future-Proof Your Career and Craft a Life Worthy of You
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
Having one full-time job is the riskiest career move you can make today; we need a new path to design sustainable, future-proof, fulfilling lives that don't tie our identities and livelihoods to one single job.
In The Portfolio Life, millennial, Harvard Business School professor and serial entrepreneur Christina Wallace delivers a model for thriving amidst the constant disruptions of the 21st century. Adapting tried-and-true practices from the business sector, Christina makes Portfolio Living accessible and actionable for all readers through practical tools like her Balanced Scorecard, 100 Wishes Assessment, time optimisation benchmarks, and more.
This book encourages you to embrace the Venn diagram of your life and interests, and make it work for you. Portfolio Living grants you permission to step back from the cult of ambition and define your life beyond just your paid work.
Being multidimensional is a career superpower, and Wallace empowers her readers to shape their lives to align with their core values, aptitudes, and interests to future-proof their careers and their home lives. It teaches readers core skills in strategising how to utilise the skills and opportunities available to them, in a way that keeps both their bank balance and minds healthy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wallace (New to Big, coauthor), a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, delivers a refreshing perspective on how to lead a fulfilling life that embraces professional ambitions and personal passions. She contends that readers should approach their lives as investors do a financial portfolio and follow the principle of diversification by cultivating a variety of interests on and off the clock that one might use to pivot in one's career. The author encourages readers to identify their strengths by asking colleagues and friends "Where do I stand out against my peers?" and looking for commonalities among one's hobbies and jobs. To develop a variety of skill sets, Wallace suggests moonlighting or taking on positions in "seemingly unrelated industries." This is the rare career guide that balances professional considerations against personal ones, encouraging readers to make time for activities even if they don't directly relate to one's vocation. However, Wallace's application of wonkish managerial concepts to personal matters—she discusses how to build the "business model for your life" and "measure your life" with a balanced scorecard, a corporate assessment method—feels at odds with her assertion that "you are more than your work." Nonetheless, readers will appreciate the helpful recommendations on staying flexible in the job market.
