just received a notification upon entering my linkedin account. is “independent recording artist” your current position? singular. um, i have a few current positions, i suppose. i’m a businessman. we stack chips. when a tower gets too high, we move to a new stack and build that one up AS WELL. we don’t stop stacking chips, or allow our one stack to become so tall and unstable that it topples. i’m not into gambling, so let’s move to a different concept. diversification. not where your attention is scattered. the kind where you have options that are separate but aligned.
for me, i’m supercreative and all about taking top-quality products to market. doesn’t matter if the medium for the enhanced creativity is words, music, fashion, website design, or business strategy. i’ve mastered all of these. i learned about being too focused from 9/11 and the demise of my former business. i wasn’t diversified. most of my clients became quickly hurt when planes were flown into buildings (still can’t believe that happened and what it did to my life at the time). this meant i became quickly hurt. the rest is history. i took on a disaster relief loan from the small business administration, but it was too little and too late. my income these days is more fragmented by linkedin standards — yet also more diversified and stable by my standards.
some think focus is the end all be all. linkedin appears to be in that camp. focus can also be a detriment. it’s the “too many eggs in one basket” thing. it doesn’t always allow you to capitalize and succeed given new challenges and seasons. sometimes, it doesn’t even allow you to even see that there are challenges and seasons. you do one thing and don’t see the impact of other things. your view is incomplete. you take that one thing and have to make do with its ups and downs. when you’re rigid, you lack the flexibility and latitude to move freely in your actions.
let’s bottom line this. why is linkedin promoting the singular path? seems like an outdated concept to me — less than the full pursuit of happiness. not saying that choosing one path can’t work. i’m saying that it’s also viable (and increasingly so) to have multiple paths that run mostly parallel and either converge regularly or are set to converge eventually. linkedin is mostly a job site. jobs are singular roles and don’t often require diversification. i get that. but some also use linkedin as a way to show people where they’ve been and where they now stand in their career. for that crowd, singularity isn’t always a fit. people choose the paths they choose to take advantage of opportunities. they are providing for themselves. linkedin should pivot to include these models with their career resource. many are falling outside their norm when it comes to interests, means, commitments, etc.
