How you can develop interdisciplinary thinking and diversity to approach to work and life The past couple of years has made me realize how much we need to reinvent our approach towards a dynamic and diversified way of working, and even life itself.
We often are coerced to choose between what we love and what would make us successful. Most times our hobbies don’t bring the financial stability we aspire for, or our well-paying profession does not give the satisfaction we seek.
What if you could divide your attention and time between multiple careers that serve different purposes? Today, I multitask between five careers and enjoy them equally.
- As a brand coach at Your Brand Coach, I get to help individuals awaken their personal and career motivations and bring them to life. I am also working to create a coaching program for Lifescale, a book by Brian Solis about how to overcome digital distraction.
- As a professor at Sacred Heart University, I enjoy interacting with young and enthusiastic students about business in an academic environment. I have designed several unique courses, including building your personal brand and marketing in crises and am incredibly proud when I see the light go off and transformation start.
- Being a consultant and strategist at The Collective NYC and Royal Ventures allows me to build on my years of experience to develop business strategies for clients and work with partners, friends, and clients I respect.
- As Head of Marketing at UX Bureau, I am helping to define a model for business development and content creation. I partner on projects to simplify complicated business systems and processes.
- Partnering with RebelMouse to help people understand and how to scale content across the internet. This is aligned with my philosophy of marketing and content creation.
How it all comes together
If I do it right, each role builds on another, and sometimes engagements dip in and out of each position. For example, a lot of my coaching methodology is informed by the book, Lifescale, which is part of my curriculum at Sacred Heart. I refined my ideas over several years before bringing them to the market. How I look at personal branding deeply informs the strategies I develop with clients, and it is a cherry on top if we can implement a user experience designed by UX Bureau using RebelMouse and I can teach that to my graduate students at Sacred Heart!
How do I have enough time in a day?
f you’re wondering whether I can give my best in each field and have time left for myself, the answer is: YES. I even find time for leisure. I often have more time for personal endeavors than when I was in the corporate world because I can work when I want, whether it is early morning, late nights, or on the weekends. For the most part, it doesn’t feel like work to me. Out of necessity, I have gotten better at budgeting time and determining how much attention I give to each role.
My career provides me with the diversification of income and thought.
In an article in Harvard Business Review about why one should have at least two careers, the author, Kabir Sehgal, talks about the benefits of exposing oneself to different work environments. He says, “By being in different circles, you can selectively introduce people who would typically never meet and unlock value for everyone.” Not only do I work in a variety of environments, I also am exposed to multiple circles that spark innovation in my projects. Each role aligns with my core values: candor, curiosity, collaboration, and continuous learning (yes, I added a new one!) that help me grow with each passing day.
You can do this too!
We all want to dream big and achieve big, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as one is making the right decisions. We all start somewhere, and it is the hustle that adds to the beauty of success. By developing interdisciplinary thinking, we add diversity to our approach towards both work and life.
And trust me when I say this, this path is not only economically fulfilling. It also allows you to pursue what you love in the process!
