The other day, I read a post discussing the rise of the “portfolio professional” — people who no longer fit into the old binary of being either a full-time employee or a contractor. Instead, they build careers like constellations: a little fractional leadership here, some advisory work there, a few sprints, a board seat, a startup, a side project, a publication, a community, a podcast, an innovation lab.

For most people, this is new.
For me, it’s just Tuesday.

I’ve been operating as a portfolio professional long before the term existed. And ironically, the very thing some people find confusing about my résumé is the thing that makes me valuable: I don’t fit inside the traditional lanes because I don’t operate inside traditional limits. The world of business is evolving far too fast for leaders who only know how to play one instrument. What companies need now are conductors — people who can hear the entire orchestra, redesign the score, and teach the musicians how to play it better.

That has been my entire career.

But to understand how I got here — and why this way of working is not chaotic but deeply strategic — I have to take you back to 2008.


“If you need an answer, ask a busy person.”

In 2008, one of our executive assistants stopped by my office with a question. It was nothing unusual — I’ve always been the person people come to when something needs solving. I walked her through the logic, offered context, connected her to a few people, and helped her see the path forward.

As she turned to leave, she paused in the doorway and said something that embedded itself in my mind forever:

“My mom always says: if you need an answer, ask a busy person.”

I laughed at the time, not because it was funny, but because it was true.

Even back then, I was juggling roles, ideas, teams, products, clients, and big-picture concepts, yet I always had clarity when it mattered. I wasn’t overwhelmed. I wasn’t scattered. I wasn’t “too busy” in the way most people think of the word.

My mind was — and is — remarkably simple.

I see concepts.
I see ideas.
I see patterns.
I see the levers inside a machine.
I see where the friction is and what needs to change for the engine to run.

And unlike many people climbing traditional career ladders, I don’t get tangled in politics, drama, insecurity, or titles. I’m not distracted by who likes who, who thinks what, or what someone “feels” might be happening. I don’t subscribe to the mystical “intuitive futurist” self-identification trend. I don’t pretend to see the future. I simply read the present accurately, and patterns reveal themselves.

My job — whatever the title — has always been the same: solve the real problem.

That comment in 2008 wasn’t just a compliment. It was a mirror. It made me realize that the volume of what I handle isn’t a burden. It’s evidence of how I’m built.


A Life That Doesn’t Fit Inside One Job Description

Since 2020, I’ve lived what the corporate world is just now labeling a “portfolio career.” People see me running multiple companies, building platforms, writing books, launching digital magazines, mentoring founders, advising startups, restructuring businesses, sitting on boards, traveling to give talks, recording podcasts, and simultaneously serving as Fractional CMO for multiple brands — and they tilt their heads like a dog hearing a strange sound.

“Wait… what exactly do you DO?”

If your worldview is shaped by linear job paths, eight-hour workdays, scheduled performance reviews, and the idea that identity equals job title, then yes — I probably look confusing.

But my life isn’t chaotic.
It’s designed.

While most people are exhausted keeping up with a single job, my workload doesn’t feel heavy because I don’t operate inside someone else’s structure. I build my own. I’m not tied to processes; I create them. I don’t “manage work;” I architect systems that eliminate work.

People who’ve only worked traditional roles often can’t understand this because they were trained to think inside a clock. They see work as hours. I see work as levers. They see tasks. I see systems. They ask how to stay busy from nine to five. I ask how to solve the problem so the busy part disappears entirely.

Even today, I regularly tell people, “DM me any day and I’ll show you my calendar.” And they’re shocked — because I’m not drowning in meetings. I’m not grinding my life away. I’m not juggling chaos.

I’m simply operating from a completely different model.

In that world, time isn’t the asset — solutions are.


Most Professionals Follow Recipes. I Build the Kitchen.

Here’s the career truth most people don’t like to admit: very few traditional jobs teach you how to solve problems creatively. Most people spend years learning how to follow a company's established process. They learn systems someone else built. They execute someone else’s strategy. They fit into someone else’s hierarchy.

And because they stay in one lane, they never learn to see across lanes.

But when you start companies, scale products, build platforms, write books, launch magazines, design customer journeys, create content ecosystems, architect automated marketing models, and help hundreds of founders troubleshoot their operations — you’re forced to see the whole board.

You stop thinking like an employee.
You think like a systems engineer.
Like a designer.
Like an operator.
Like a strategist.
Like someone who can not only follow a recipe, but build the kitchen the recipe gets cooked in.

In other words:

I’m not busy. I’m effective.
I’m not spread thin. I’m specialized in systems thinking.
I’m not a jack-of-all-trades. I’m a master of identifying leverage.


The Résumé System Has No Way to Categorize This — But Forward-Thinking Companies Do

Traditional résumés were invented for a world that no longer exists — a world where someone had one job, one identity, one ladder, one trajectory, one specialty.

But today, innovation happens at intersections.

The people who can solve your biggest problems rarely come from perfectly linear backgrounds. They come from experience layered across industries, models, failures, reinventions, and strategic pivots.

The résumé system can’t capture that complexity.
But employers who understand competitive advantage can.

Companies don’t need someone who can simply perform a task.
They need someone who can diagnose the business, rebuild the system, restructure the workflow, streamline the operations, and then set up an ecosystem that multiplies itself.

That’s what I bring to the table.

Not because I read it in a book.
But because I’ve lived it hundreds of times.


My Value to Employers, Businesses, and Contract Work

The irony is that hiring managers often worry that someone like me is “too entrepreneurial,” or “has too many things going on,” or “won’t be focused on the job.” But that’s the traditional mindset talking — the one that assumes the only measure of commitment is time spent chained to a desk.

Here’s the reality:

If you give a linear thinker a problem, they’ll work inside the box they’re handed.

If you give me a problem, I’ll redesign the box — or remove it entirely.

Most people solve problems with man-hours.
I solve problems with architecture.

Most people execute tasks.
I redesign systems so tasks become obsolete.

Most people manage marketing.
I build platforms that automate marketing.

Most people operate the machine.
I build the machine.

If you’re a founder, CEO, leader, or organization seeking someone who can change the trajectory of your company — not with minor adjustments but with strategy-level transformation — then the very thing that confuses the résumé algorithms is what makes me the right choice.


The Truth? This Isn’t a Career Path. It’s a Superpower.

This way of working isn’t accidental. It isn’t chaotic. It isn’t a side effect of being unfocused.

It’s a superpower.

The ability to see systems.
The ability to design solutions.
The ability to understand how ideas scale.
The ability to turn customers into marketers.
The ability to build brands from zero without spending a dollar on advertising.
The ability to operate across industries without getting lost.
The ability to automate complexity into simplicity.

Most people don’t learn that from a single job.

You learn it from decades of being deeply accountable to the outcomes — not the hours.

The world is shifting. The talent landscape is changing. And companies that cling to outdated career structures are going to lose access to the people who can actually solve their problems.

If you’re looking for someone who can take your company where traditional hires cannot, who can redesign your systems, who can build models that scale, and who can do in months what many teams cannot do in years…

Then you’re not looking for an employee.
You’re looking for a strategic operator.

And that’s exactly what I am.