One person, multiple careers
Welcome to Incubateme’s newsletter, curated by Alice Zhang.
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Dear all,
In this issue we introduce you to the concept of “One person, multiple careers”. It was first written by Marci Alboher in her 2007 book “One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model For Work/Life Success”. Although the book was published long time ago, we believe the topic is evermore relevant today and the mass implementation of it is just the beginning.
As a manifestation, we present the featured story of LivingOS, a coaching business launched by Charlene Wang, while she maintains a full-time job as a product manager at Google. Charlene embraces the richness of life fully and showed us how you can be successful at pursuing one person, multiple careers.
In next week we will reveal our new web site equipped with the feature to showcase your multiple careers in your personal profile, to discover other profiles, and to connect directly with each other! Stay tuned!
Lastly, if you are interested in being featured in our weekly newsletter, please sign up below.
🌟 The mint of million-dollar, one-person business by Elaine Pofeldt- April 8th RSVP here!
One Person / Multiple Careers
Marci Alboher in her book “One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model For Work/Life Success” outlined a different career strategy than the traditional one: thinking about your career in the way a venture capitalist thinks about his/her investment portfolio: if you plant a lot of seeds, some will die and others will blossom into thriving plants. The same is true for the various slashes you cultivate in your life.
Getting to slash
Everyone starts somewhere when building a career, and often those beginnings have something to do with their career path. Those foundational careers—or starter professions—are much like a starter home that helps you get to the next, more desirable one.
The idea of keeping one foot in a starter profession to stay in touch with issues while launching a related venture is a common slash technique.
When launching a slash that’s related to your original field, make sure to keep one foot in your old world. It will keep you connected to the issues and enhance your credibility as people learn about your new line of work. Any new identity you take on will likely be affected by where you came from, which means you will bring skills and perspectives that set your apart from others.
Sometimes taking yourself off the fast track in your primary career opens the door to building a second one. Contacts and knowledge from one career can give you a leg up as you build another.
Consider creating an “adult internship”, a way to expose yourself to something new or test out a hobby as a career path. The place that something occupies in your life - the paycheck, the gratifier, the give-back, the passion - is all up to you. In a slash career, you can control what goes where.
Think of your working life as a balanced portfolio. Choose some activities for a guaranteed return on your investment. Choose others that are high-risk/high-return. On a lark, you can even throw in something just because it catches your interest at the moment.
Leading a slash life often requires shedding a slash to make room for something new; be prepared for a life of constant tinkering.
Writing, teaching, speaking, and consulting are four slashes that go with any other kind of work. Think of them as the black pants of a slash wardrobe. Many slash careers have one or more of these activities as part of the mix.
When you identify synergies among your various slashes, notice the benefits that ensure and think about other ways to capitalize on those synergies.
Anticipate the inevitable conflicts among your various slashes and develop systems to keep yourself covered.
Source: One Person / Multiple Careers: The Original Guide to the Slash Career by Marci Alboher
Featured business: LivingOS
Company URL:http://livingos.org
Location: Mountain View, CA
Founder(s): Charlene Wang
Founded year: 2020
Business is about: coaching on personal growth
🛋️ Tell us about yourself, your company, and how you got started.
I grew up going to high-profile business dinners with my dad. Starting from eight, I learned to read the room and cultivate deep connections with the VIPs sitting across the table. One of the VIPs became my first exec coach in life.
I was coached to run my first startup. I felt a bit destroyed after each session, but I kept showing up, rebuilding my skills week over week. Two years later, my coach invited me to become an apprentice. "You are going to be very good at this," she took me under her wings and introduced me to other masters in this craft.
Two more years later, she retired and transitioned her clients to me. After coaching hundreds of entrepreneurs, I married my love for systems and people to create LivingOS. That's how I got started in coaching.
I am the founder of LivingOS, a nonprofit dedicated to helping people embrace their authenticity in life. I pioneered the value coaching practice to help entrepreneurs, creators, and leaders find, in twenty minutes, their key life values. By day I work as a product manager at Google.
🛋️ How did you acquire your first batch of customers?
The very first batch of fellows came from my newsletters, social circles, and word of mouths from my private clients. Everyone who went through the program loved it. They introduced the group coaching program to their partner, mentors, and best friends. That's how we grew.
🛋️ Did your business pivot in the pandemic? Or, how did your business start during this time?
LivingOS started during the pandemic. I started by publishing an article every day and grew to share my fears, dreams, and ambitions. People came for the content and stayed for my character. 99 days later, I made a conscious choice to prioritize founder-market fit over product-market fit. Instead of writing about career hacks, I decided to focus on helping readers create their own game of life. 200 days later, the blog attracted thousands of readers, and LivingOS became my manifestation of life.
🛋️ What is your plan for the future? What trends do you foresee for your industry?
This year, I plan to scale my group coaching cohort to 100 fellows (we're halfway there) and share my upcoming book Model Breakers with one million readers!
Right now, I’m most excited about the following questions:
How fully can I embrace this life?
How can I offer my gifts to others?
How can I call forth the best in the people around me and unleash their full potential?
🛋️ Any other lessons/advice you’d like to share with other fellow micro-entrepreneurs?
Train yourself to listen to your intuition. No matter what the world says, you know yourself best.
🛋️ Any special offers for the community?
🎁 Gift: You can sign up HERE to experience my signature value coaching program in just twenty minutes.
Other Upcoming Events
Ways for creators to grow on April 15th @ noon PDT, on Clubhouse
Join us to have a conversation with Rodolphe Ködderitzsch, X-Youtube, X-Google, On deck fellow, and currently Chief Revenue Officer at Pico to talk about ways creators grow, from an enabler’s perspective. RSVP here!
Exclusive Partnership Offerings!
🗞️ We are partnering with the much acclaimed Copy.ai to help make your copywriting easier! Receive Incubateme exclusive 65% off coupon code, if you sign up for our Micro-entrepreneur Community!
