Portfolio of Skills

 I thrive in the autonomous environment that my job provides me with.

Working as a continuous improvement specialist, my days are blissfully unpredictable.  I may find myself spending a series of days developing an app (using PowerApps, a low-coding platform) for one of our departments.  

Other days, I am walking the floor, interviewing frontline personnel about their workflow.  Based on these interviews, I would develop process maps visually depicting these workflows.  

Less frequently, I end-up collaborating with upper management to develop data visualization tools that help them with their decisions.  

On some very rare occasions, I find myself modeling products using 3D CAD software.  I would also create drawings based on these models.

I am grateful that my career has afforded me to pick up multiple skillsets.  Listening to the audiobook The Art of Work, by Jeff Goins helped me understand the value of investing on multiple skills in these times.

According to Mr. Goins, by 2020 about 40-50% of workers would be free lancers (book was published in 2015).  By 2030s, the number would be much higher.  

Mr. Goins, himself, writes and gives speeches, amongst other things.  ADHD, according to him, is not the right word that describes life built around multiple career paths.  He is living a portfolio life.

I loved the expression; I adopted it and found phrase that I can use to describe the skillsets that I managed to develop over the past decade: Portfolio of Skills.

I know that Jeff Goins has achieved a lot and my relatively narrowly scoped accomplishments in my work domain do not compare.

But think of a Tour de France Champion and another ordinary mortal investing his time and effort on personal health through cycling.  A common term, "cycling", describes what they both do, and helps our ordinary mortal identify himself with our champion.

The word "Portfolio" is growing on me for a similar reason.  It serves as an expressive term that is in vogue with a century; a century that is demanding us to hedge our bets through developing a portfolio of skillsets.