Creating a Portfolio Career
“As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10).
Within the last couple of decades, there have been major disruptions: the Great Recession, the frequency of severe weather storms, technological advancement, a global pandemic, and the “Great Resignation.” The model of earning a practical degree at college, working at one company your entire career, moving up the ladder, and earning a company pension is fading into history. Tying your identity to your work is no longer viable.
In comes Christina Wallace’s “The Portfolio Life: How to Future-Proof Your Career, Avoid Burnout, and Build a Life Bigger than Your Business Card.” This new book proposes a new relationship with work that encourages the reader to define their worth by who they are, not what they do—and says that rest is as necessary as breathing.
A portfolio life, according to Wallace, is built on four pillars: identity, optionality, diversification, and flexibility. She writes that we are more than our economic contribution and acknowledges the holistic, unique individual that each of us is. A portfolio life involves “making time for your priorities and putting everything that doesn’t make the cut on the back burner, knowing you can always reprioritize” and “building a life that is both fulfilling and sustainable.”
A Non-Linear Career Path
We are more than a one-dimensional being; we have diverse interests, talents, and skills that encompass a range of disciplines.
With a linear career path, this diversity appears unfocused and confused; it is a weakness to correct, and we must choose one discipline to work in for the entirety of our career. Wallace, however, believes that having diverse interests and skills in multiple disciplines is a strength, as we have different expertise, perspectives, and options available to us within our career journey.
Wallace walks readers through the steps of creating their own Venn diagram to “describe themselves and their unique set of interests.” These steps include gaining an outside perspective; reflecting on what you do, have done, and like; and finding commonalities and intersections.
Going through some of the steps myself, I found that my Venn Diagram includes event planning, writing, and counseling, with writing being at my intersection. Fun fact: one of my “nerd out” areas is the Texas HEB supermarket. It was helpful seeing everything written out in one place to find commonalities and intersections that I didn’t even realize exist!
Redefining Your Worth
Throughout the book, Wallace firmly declares that our identity is not tied to our jobs—that we are more than our work. She repeatedly reinforces that we can and need to define our self-worth beyond our job.
The Catholic Church has long proclaimed this truth: that our self-worth is not defined by what we do but by whom we belong to. The Catechism of the Catholic Church opens with our purpose, as the Father “freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1).
The pandemic shed light on the consequences of the “always on” and “hustle and grind” work culture. For too many of us, work, not God, was our identity long before the pandemic disrupted the world. We saw ourselves through the lens of our employer and not through the lens of our Father in Heaven.
A blessing of the pandemic is that more and more people are seeing that we are more than our jobs and that our self-worth cannot come simply from what we do. The way we have viewed work is no longer sustainable. We need to redefine our self-worth.
Rest Is Necessary
Another theme of the book is that true rest is more than achieving work-life balance or self-care practices. Wallace talks about time management not only in the regards to the tasks we have to do but also in the tasks that we want to do. We are not made to operate at 100% at all times and all seasons; Wallace writes that we need to operate around 85% to account for the reality of life.
We also need to plan for downtime, because “rest is a requirement not a reward.” She advocates for planned rest, such as sabbaticals, and briefly goes into the Biblical context of the Sabbath Day. The secular work culture is beginning to see the richness of an “extended break,” with research reinforcing the benefits and the creation of the advocacy group The Sabbatical Project.
We Catholics know and understand the importance of rest and Sabbath, but we often need a gentle but firm reminder. God created man on the sixth day, and on the seventh He “blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he had rested from all the work he had done in creation” (Genesis 2:3). God did not need a day of rest; He is God. But, He gave us a day to rest and praise Him before beginning work again.
Even in the work that glorifies God and builds up the Kingdom, we need to rest. This Lent, for example, the Blessed is She team took a rest. Its leaders accepted God’s invitation to take a break from publishing content to rest and offer their ministry back to the Lord.
We need rest, too. The Sabbath was made for us. In all that we do and want to do, we can only fully live in the freedom that Christ promises if we follow the commandment of His Father and rest.
Closing Thoughts
Christina Wallace’s “The Portfolio Life” opens the door to redefine how we view work to build a career that reflects our unique experiences, skills, and interests. Though written through a secular lens, the book reinforces Catholic messages regarding self-worth and the importance of rest. As a Catholic woman, regardless of your current work sector or life stage, “The Portfolio Life” can help guide you through understanding your diverse interests and skills and applying them to a non-linear career path, full of purpose and rest.
Alexandra (Alex) Harrel resides in Irving, Texas. She is a new student affairs professional within the world of higher education. In her spare time, she loves reading, listening to podcasts, and spending time outdoors. Her favorite prayer is Hail, Holy Queen. You can follow her on Instagram at @2012alexandra.