The Slash Career for Multiple Incomes

Our professional lives are changing. While it was common for our grandparents to have only one job their entire working lives, the expectation that a person stay with a single occupation is increasingly rare. Instead of having one full-time job, more and more of us have slashes connecting our various titles. Writer/teacher. Singer/fitness Instructor. Coach/consultant.

Shelley Hiestand, a self-professed slashist who recently completed her Ph.D. in Sexology, is a perfect example. When she’s not giving seminars on how to maintain healthy intimate relations, she and her husband Denie are busy promoting their skin cream line or holding healthy living workshops. Hiestand, who describes herself as a business woman/sexologist/holistic lifestyle advocate/author/seminar presenter, says she loves the diversity and coordinates all her projects around her primary goal: “I hope to bring more joy and well-being into the lives of the people I meet. I think I would go crazy in my original career as a lawyer.”

Having a slash career makes sense for a variety of reasons. Today’s workforce is history’s most educated, with a variety of skills and thousands of dollars in student loans to prove it. In return, Not only do we expect to make a decent income with enough money to be comfortable, we expect our work to fulfill us, and often one job just doesn’t tick all the boxes.

Our motives vary, from avoiding the life of parents who slaved miserably at corporate jobs to longing for personal fulfillment. Or we may have such an urgent need to save the planet that we can’t decide on just one way to contribute. Of course, in an economically unstable time, it’s useful to have several sources of income.

For Penelope Trunk, an entrepreneur/career advisor/blogger, financial stability and staying out of debt is a big motivation for pursuing a slash career. “As the breadwinner, having a back-up career makes me less anxious. And I always write because it keeps me sane.” Her advice for people looking to get into multiple careers is to specialize in one, then add another later. “The slash career works best when you add something smaller to a specialty that is earning you money.”

Nancy Collamer, a career consultant/speaker and author of Second-Act Careers: 50+ Ways to Profit from Your Passions During Semi-Retirement, recommends focusing on similar interests when building a slash career. “[By] finding multiple income streams within the same niche, you won’t have to continually market yourself to different customers.” She uses the metaphor of a tree: the trunk is her main profession of career consultant, and writing, speaking and coaching are branches. She can concentrate on her passion while enjoying the variety and benefits of a slash career.

Branching out was easy for Cinda Phelps. A European-trained skin care therapist who created her own organic line, Cinda’s Botanical Blends, Phelps describes herself as a cosmetologist/artisan/educator/business woman. Not only does she craft her own products, she teaches others her alchemical secrets.

But steering all of our passions into a single niche isn’t essential. Hiestand’s interests—skin cream, sex therapy, nutrition—may seem wildly divergent, yet because they are all elements of a holistic lifestyle, she can invite clients already interested in one to explore other areas of healthy living.

Trunk prefers to have a financially stable base (career coaching) so she can pursue writing without having to worry about income. Her blog simultaneously advertises her base and publishes her creative writing, allowing her to promote her various skills without stretching herself too thin.

While some people thrive in a slash career, it’s not for everyone. Continually learning new skills, establishing yourself in a new field and finding a balance between work and down time can be a challenge. Hiestand says managing her own hours is both the benefit and pitfall of her work. “It’s easy to work crazy hours and burn the candle at both ends,” she admits. However, working long hours hasn’t deterred her. “I think I was destined to have multiple simultaneous careers,” she says. “I was always a busy bee, doing many different jobs, sports and artistic pursuits at the same time. So I was never going to be satisfied with just one career.”

Though having varied work can require a lot of effort, especially in the start-up stages, it also has the potential to be extremely rewarding. Whether it fulfills your passion or just makes you less anxious about finances, a slash career may be your ticket to a happier you.