The multi-income career: what it is and how it can work for you — Roar! (2024)

Ever heard of the term ‘multiple income streams’ and know exactly what it was and how it worked?! Me neither; until I dove head first into the world of self-employment and realised nearly EVERYONE I spoke to had multiple income streams (but it wasn’t something they necessarily shared openly). Entrenched in the employed world, I was led to believe you got paid for doing just one thing whether that was a teacher, graphic designer or financial analyst.

Multiple income streams can be defined as deriving an income from multiple different streams, using one skill set or many. You may already be familiar with the term ‘multi-hyphenate’, popularised by the queen of multiple streams, Emma Gannon (author, publisher, podcaster, speaker, blogger – the list goes on!). A multi hyphenate is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “a person with several professions and skills”.

The most important consideration in my coaching experience, whether you have multiple or single income streams is to ensure you have clarity on how the work you do is supporting the life you want to lead. This might seem a given, but it’s surprising how many people solely focus on the work rather then what the work *should* be unlocking. Understanding and spending some time reflecting on the bigger picture and your long term vision to come up with a set of criteria which you can run each stream through to ensure you are moving in the right direction. This doesn’t need to be a complicated or time consuming process and the ideal for clients I have worked with is around 4-5; examples of this criteria being

• Allowing flexibility to work when they want

• Monetary goals

• The work is exciting/fun

There is no cookie cutter approach to having multiple income streams and no right or wrong way to do it (so don’t listen to anyone who will tell you otherwise!). The streams do not purely need to be self-employed and I’ve seen some fantastic examples of women who juggle multiple self-employed streams alongside an employed streams (perhaps a fixed term of a day a week or a certain amount of hours dedicated).

As humans we are never single faceted, however the world of work where you do ‘one thing’ utilising ‘one skill set’, plays into the assumption that we are. Each stream can utilise similar skill sets or completely diverse skill sets. Similar skill sets tend to relate to one vocation, so for me I have multiple streams that relate to coaching: 1:1 coaching, group coaching programs, partnering with other coaching organisations, running coaching masterclasses for membership groups and clubs. I also work with a client who is a musician – she plays in wedding bands, solo saxophone, DJ’s and also teaches music to children – so focusing on the score skill of music and adding in other skills such as teach and coaching to the mix! Diverse skill sets being where you are using completely different skill sets such as an accountant I know who also does freelance graphic design on the side! You may also have a mixture of similar and diverse skill sets!