- Andreia Fernandes
SPEAKERS
Will Bachman, Andreia Fernandes
Will Bachman 00:02
Hello, and welcome to Unleashed. I’m your host, Will Bachman, and I’m delighted to be here today with Andreia Fernandes. Andreia, welcome to the show.
Andreia Fernandes 00:12
Hi, Will. Hello, nice to be here.
Will Bachman 00:14
So, Andreia, I understand that you are the founder of the Portfolio Career Institute, and that you work with coaching individuals who are interested in pursuing a portfolio career, and you also have a kind of cohort type training and session that you, that you do, that there’s one actually starting this fall where you’re going to have a cohort going through who want to pursue portfolio careers, and so that’s, you know, how I got into asking you to be on the show. I wanted to start with, let’s just start with the definition. How do you define what is a portfolio career?
Andreia Fernandes 00:57
That’s a wonderful question, Will, and I research whether there were already clear definitions when, when I started to, to dive into the topic, and you know it goes back to 1994 where Charles Handy raised the term portfolio career, actually, and he said it’s about people who work in different roles, and while I agree with that, I also saw that portfolio careers have evolved a bit over time, and what I really added is that it’s also about having different roles, either in different contexts or using different skills. So, what I do is I work based on a matrix, you know you have existing skills, existing context, and either you expand your portfolio career by adding a new context. Let me make an example. You’re a mathematician, you work at the school, and you add the context of working as a mathematician for an insurance, you know, you could do both in part-time, right? Or you’re a mathematician, and you’re also a yoga instructor, so you added a new skill into a different context. So, just to make one example, what’s often also said, so I see lots of other offerings that define portfolio career, as you know, being working remote, for example, and what I see is that people that come to my cohorts and into my program actually say, hey, I have been an entrepreneur for seven years now, and actually it’s lonely. I’d love to also be part of a team, and that’s why I want a portfolio career. What could be a good role that I could take in terms of being embedded in a company? So that’s not the point. It’s of course diversifying your income streams, and that’s something that becomes more and more important, of course. But I would also say that, you know, it’s really also aligning with one’s values, so it’s really purpose driven. I think that’s the most important part.
Will Bachman 02:59
Okay, so walk us through step by step the program that you lead individuals through who are interested in pursuing a portfolio career. I imagine that some of them would be at different stages than others. Some people might have already started doing a portfolio career. Some people just have a full-time job, and they aspire to do that, or maybe they just got laid off. But walk us through the sort of the pipeline, or the stages that you have in your cohort program.
Andreia Fernandes 03:36
Absolutely, so one of the important things of the cohort is really that being part of a community having that peer exchange and life learning really helps you know to brainstorm and see things from totally different views, so just to make an example, in the last cohort I had two bankers and they were both risk specialists, and you could think, oh, wow, so the solution is going to be very similar, but actually, you know, they had opposed ways of building their portfolio careers. One of them really wanted to dive into the topic, stay in banking, and she built her portfolio career around banking. The other one clearly said, “Hey, I need to escape the banking industry and want something new. So, what we really start is by getting that idea of, hey, you’re not alone in this, and and start doing it together. Then it’s really that expansion of getting to know yourself better, so especially when people come from from a corporate environment, it’s super important to make them understand. Hey, having a portfolio career means lots of things are different, so it’s really about exploring what are your strengths, what’s your purpose, your vision, but also, hey, what are your limitations, where do you need. Get help very early on, and really building that up already helps to also start thinking of possible scenarios. Right, some of them come to my program, and they’re very clear. They know exactly what they want, and usually they have been thinking about it for the past three years, whether they could do x, y, z, besides their corporate employment, for example, right? So we have those, but I also have the other ones that are quite lost. They’re like, okay, I did corporate for the past 20 years, I was laid off, and I know I don’t want to go back to corporate, but I don’t know exactly what’s next. I don’t know what I want and what’s important there, I also realized that it’s become a bit fancy and hip to, you know, want a portfolio career, so I really grill them in terms of, hey, are you just trying to escape the corporate environment, because then a portfolio career may be totally the wrong solution, and you may be much better off, you know, finding a job working for a small or medium-sized enterprise, right, where you still have certain parallels to the corporate world, or to having just one position. So, the whole topic of doing an evaluation, whether portfolio career is right for you or not, that’s a key point, and it comes also at an interesting point in my program, because I always say, hey, if you found out that you actually don’t want to do a portfolio career, that still means you’re going to build your future together with us, just without the portfolio component, right? And that’s the important part, so you really start designing your future, I mean, there’s elements, so-called life design, where you know with iterations you can really try to explore and find out what it really is, and I have this one example that I really like, and I got it from another webinar, which is not from me, but there was this woman who was convinced part of her career would be having a finca on Mallorca, you know, basically have her little Airbnb, and that would give her satisfaction and make her happy for the rest of her life. What did she do? She tested, so she, she booked herself, I think, into two or three different fincas for a summer, and week after week, she could observe how..
Andreia Fernandes 07:19
oh gosh, that was so boring, and it was totally not what she wanted, because you know, she had that idea of hosting people, and that was basically every day checking in people, here are the keys, here is the pool, that’s where you go to town, just giving the same information, right, and what she realized was really okay, her actual need, what she actually wanted was to host people, so she came back after that, and she just started hosting dinners at home, you know, and just imagine she had sold everything over here, moved to Mallorca, and built her finca, so it’s really important to kind of do those micro tests and have iterations, so just one example, so that’s really part of designing, and that means that you will probably try 10 things and nine on that
Will Bachman 08:06
topic. Now, I would just jump in there on that topic. There’s a book by Anne Lohr Lekumf called Tiny Experiments.
Andreia Fernandes 08:16
You may
Will Bachman 08:16
have heard of it, and Anne Lohr was on the show talking about that very topic, of you know, of her book, Tiny Experiments, so very much agree with that. You know, it’s you can sort of imagine what the life will be like, but either testing it yourself or at least talking to people who are currently doing it is a good way to get some insight. Something can sound kind of sexy and fun. Okay, so
Andreia Fernandes 08:44
fun fact will that book Tiny Experiments is on my to read pile since three months. So
Will Bachman 08:51
I do recommend it. Okay, so you’re suggesting to people that they do some self reflection, they identify their strengths, their limitations. They think about why are there any specific exercises or take-home assignments that you have in your cohort that you could share with us that listeners might try at home.
Andreia Fernandes 09:18
Absolutely, and actually, you’re reminding me of a beautiful feedback I got. One of those is the so-called Ikigai principle. You may have heard of it. It comes from Japan, right? And it’s really about, okay, what do I love doing? What does the world need? How could I make a living of it? And one of the cohort participants, she looked at me, and she was like, well, the ikigai principle and portfolio careers, they, they kind of shake hands, you know, they, they go hand in hand, because this is really what the portfolio career ultimately is about. You want to have impact, so you’re always driven to what do I love, how can I make a living from it, how, you know, how is the world. Using my skills, so that’s just one of them, and then there is the portfolio career canvas, which is the framework that I developed, and I developed it with a scientific background, which was important, right? Because, so I think in the US it’s the same, in Switzerland, Coach is not a protected title, and for me it was super important to have something that is also validated that really works, so I developed the portfolio career canvas.
Will Bachman 10:28
Can you, which also, what
Speaker 1 10:28
is the
Will Bachman 10:29
portfolio career canvas?
Andreia Fernandes 10:32
Absolutely, so lots of people may have heard of the business model canvas, right? And the portfolio career canvas is kind of similar, which is really your plan, where you can have the next step, and we start with the why, so it kind of represents what I just told you about the program. It’s really taking a deep dive into what you want, then we go into the portfolio career metrics, which is okay. Are you expanding horizontally, which means are you just, do you want to add into a next context and work in different contexts, or would you like to develop your portfolio career by expanding with different skills? So that’s one thing, and then you really draft your learning journey, you reflect about which skills you need to learn from whom you could learn them, how to build up, activate your network, and build up a peers network that can support you, right? And that’s super important when you have a portfolio career, and of course, not to forget how how will the revenue streams look like. I mean, you need to be able to make a living from your portfolio career, so that’s really all those aspects we go through step by step. And the key question then is, okay, what would make me regret having built a portfolio career? What would mean that I would rather go back and stop having a portfolio career. Okay, these are, yeah,
Will Bachman 12:07
yeah. So, okay, so this, so the canvas is the framework that you provide, okay?
Andreia Fernandes 12:15
Exactly.
Will Bachman 12:17
All right, so tell us, keep us going, so keep us going through. If someone was going through your program, what would the subsequent stages be that you haven’t got to yet?
Andreia Fernandes 12:32
Absolutely, so once you start designing your portfolio career, as we said, you will be trying things, and in order to, to, to have those tiny experiments, it’s really important to activate your network, right? Who can help you? Where are the low hanging fruits? Where you know it’s going to be easy for you to access certain things? Where do you need to start really building it up, and then making that one step back and thinking, how will I position myself, and that’s super important. If you do three or four different things, how will you be able to position yourself with with your clear value? What distinguishes you from others? And maybe it’s also about in which environment do you position yourself? How, and I mean, that’s something I have seen having a portfolio career myself, right? I have had a portfolio career for more than a decade now. I’m on the one hand, I’m an entrepreneur. I’ve also already failed with some entrepreneurial ventures, but for example, I’m also a lecturer at universities. I lecture entrepreneurship at the University of Zurich. I do lots of things about leadership and self leadership, as well as intercultural. So, basically, my, my USP is really connecting the dots between strategy and leadership, and those people who know me kind of know that it really means I can fill that space between strategy and leadership with tools on collaboration, so my B2B clients, they often call me to help them with global collaboration. Maybe they have global teams that aren’t working together as well as they should, right? Because they’re only meeting remotely, and that’s where I can help. Then I have that stream of executive coaching where I do, for example, quarterly sparrings with executives, and that’s really the self leadership part that also helps, and then, of course, the entrepreneurial part, which is done with lecturing or boot camps. I help universities also do entrepreneurship boot camps, so these are a bit the topics, just to mention a few, of course.
Will Bachman 14:45
All right, What are you seeing as the most common sort of strands in portfolio careers, or like the specific things people are doing? You mentioned that you yourself are a university. Lecture. I imagine that doing some kind of adjunct faculty would be a common, you know, element in the portfolio career. What are you know, perhaps independent consulting might be an element. What are some of the different types of careers that are often being bundled together in a portfolio career,
Andreia Fernandes 15:24
so the beauty of it is really well that you can do it with so many things, and maybe to add on that, often I hear, I think in my profession it’s not possible to diversify, nobody will take me serious as an expert anymore if I do more than one thing, and I started to analyze that there is actually a study from the US where they analyzed so-called multiple job holders. I mean, today we talk about fractional talent, right, but that used to be multiple job holders, and they analyzed, I think it was 48 different personas, and I really liked that study, because it shows the musician that is also, you know, a math teacher. It shows people that, you know, maybe do something about literature, so it’s someone who writes, but also, but also helps other people write books, whatever it is, right. So I’m actually introducing one of these persona on all my social medias from the Portfolio Career Institute every Sunday, exactly to show the world it really doesn’t depend on the profession you have to do that. One of the things I see, actually, is that people who, you know, white-collar workers start wanting to produce something with their hands, so actually I have one person that came and he was like, “Well, I would like to have something in addition to my academic career, and it’s going to be brewing beer or something that works with wood, you know, so really that makes, and it also shows, okay, maybe AI will kill part of the, you know, academic jobs. Maybe AI is going to make it a bit harder to work in the academic world, although I don’t believe that, but there is this fear out there, and those people are really starting to strategically diversify, because I call those people the strategic diversifiers, right? They have two passions, and they really want to follow two completely different streams, but, and although these streams are different, the cool thing is they allow, well, each activity allows you to relax from the other activity, so if you’re thinking all day long in your academic task, and you can just, you know, go and brew beer and do something else, it really helps, so it gives you new energy for the tasks you
Will Bachman 17:58
- Okay, among those portfolio careers, like, what are you seeing as the most common?
Andreia Fernandes 18:09
I’m a bit biased, of course, with that learning part, right? I see lots of people that have a certain expertise and want to kind of start sharing that expertise in a lecturing or course giving view, I see that a lot, but I’m very, very well aware that I’m a bit biased because I’m a lecturer myself. So, probably I also get lots of people in my lecturing bubble, right? I really think there there is no limit to to portfolio careers in terms of environments, but that’s what I see, you know, the knowledge economy, where it’s really about, okay, I can do it differently than other people, and that adds value in terms of learning styles,
Will Bachman 18:52
right? Can you share one example of sanitized as necessary of someone who’s gone through one of your cohorts, and what sort of impact it’s had, or what they ended up doing.
Andreia Fernandes 19:07
Oh, absolutely. So, there was this one woman I’ll stick to, that one banker, actually, and she really looked into what she could do outside of the risk management world, and there were various perspectives, and one of them was actually sharing knowledge. So, she just started this as a lecturer. Actually, she’s sharing her knowledge in executive education, which was also interesting, because it’s not about, yeah, I have knowledge, I share it. It’s also about reflecting, okay, with whom do I want to share it? In which area do I want to work on this, and once she did that, she also realized she wanted to manage projects, so now she’s managing one project, which is international development, so you know, quite far. From what she was doing before, and that really makes it interesting, right? I have another one who went through the cohort, and what was interesting there was she’s been an employer for seven and a half years now. She has a family management agency, so she, you know, she, she would find you a nanny, and so on, and we looked through so many other things, in terms of, you know, starting an Airbnb, looking through three or four different business models, and what was interesting, it basically strengthened her current activity, and what she’s doing is basically she’s expanding within that portfolio, so you know, within the family management part, and it’s not so much a direct portfolio career, but much more a new product portfolio that she’s adding within her company. So that was another really interesting example.
Will Bachman 20:59
Fantastic, Andreia. For listeners who are interested in learning more about your coaching and about the Portfolio Career Institute, where should they go online? And we can include these links in the show notes.
Andreia Fernandes 21:13
Absolutely, thank you so much. So, on the one hand, it’s www portfolio career institutes.com the name is the page, and then you can find me on LinkedIn. There is also an Instagram page, and probably what’s best is really that I’ll give you the for the show notes, the direct link, so on our website they also see upcoming events, because I like, you know, to meet people in webinars, so they see a bit how I work. What is my approach? They can ask questions before joining the program. And the next cohort is planned to start mid September this year, and there will always be one in spring and in fall. So,
Will Bachman 21:58
all right. Well, we will include those links in the show notes. Thank you for joining today.
Andreia Fernandes 22:03
Thank you very much for the invite. Bye. Well.
