For leaders who play 80 hours instead of working 40, a diversified career portfolio often emerges.
Popcorning between activities will keep vanguards ahead of innovation curves and when such variety is strategically adjusted over time, diversification also provides a powerful combination of stabilizing flexibility.
Extra Shot
It’s easy to discount our potential, but nobody can compete with being you.
As we diversify career portfolios, perpetual learning, patience, transparency, rationality, and sincere feedback from an engaged network are critical to maintaining balance. Serenity awaits those who find an equilibrium without complacency. When leaders apply this practice over time, progress is achieved on multiple fronts and awareness helps us reduce the risk of diluting ourselves to mediocrity. Dilution from diversity must not be ignored. Stretching too thin mutates the value of diversification into fragmentation.
This devolved state can be seen in people who always seem to be doing something different but never last long enough to establish trust, financial freedom, or true impact. The unwanted flywheel effect of diluting oneself to mediocrity incites uncertainty from others, which makes future moves harder to assemble. The remedy for overextension is self-respect, intellectual humility, reduced diversity, and an increased focus on (re)building long-term trust. When change is constant, visualized assessment helps track how time is used. One easy exercise to remain fastidious with your personal bandwidth is found in the Side Hustles chapter of YDNTB, and it’s worth revisiting here.
First, think about how you invest, spend, pass, and waste time. If it’s not obvious, consider what you did today, this week, month, and year. Look ahead too, but not far. Now, narrow this personal assessment into activities you consider to be work-related. Assign an imprecise percentage of time dedicated to each activity. Plot this data into a spreadsheet and visualize
it into a pie chart. Lastly, add logos or other visuals to represent each portion of the pie chart, and save the graphic as a shareable image. This conversation piece now visualizes how you expend your personal bandwidth.
The allotment of different activities will always be evolving, so revisit this exercise as needed. An annual effort provides a safe cadence that will ensure ongoing awareness.
Brewed From Within
#65 📖 Leadership
BONUS EXAMPLES
1 Comment
Ben McDougal · September 16, 2026 at 1:50 PM
ORIGINAL – 10/30/23
For people who play 80 hours instead of working 40, a diversified career portfolio often emerges.
A variety of activities and the contemporary energy of popcorning between them, helps vanguards stay ahead of the innovation curve. Diversification of work can also provide stability when the volume of different activities are strategically adjusted over time.
As we diversify career portfolios, balance, transparency, being realistic, patience, perpetual learning, and avoiding The Headline Trap is critical. These real skills fuel focused progress on multiple fronts and help reduce the risk of diluting yourself to mediocrity. If you’re stretched too thin, the value of diversification can devolve into fragmentation.
When change is constant, visualized assessment helps track how time is spent. Below is the evolution of my own career portfolio. People who see this often want to implement this method introduced in the Side Hustles chapter of YDNTB, so let’s jam on how to visualize your diversified career portfolio.
First, organize the things you spend time building. Assign a percentage of time spent on each activity, then plot the data into a pie chart. I use Apple Keynote to manage the pie chart and Adobe Photoshop for added flare, but any spreadsheet or slide deck software can visualize data in a similar way. Once created, save the pie chart as an image. You now have a conversation piece that showcases how you spend time. Update it as your career portfolio evolves or use this method as an annual exercise to stay balanced with your own personal bandwidth.
Comments are closed.