the portfolio life

The Portfolio Life

You are more than your job. Optimize your happiness, bank account, personal growth, with this practical playbook to achieve sustainable work-life balance—perfect for readers of The Good Enough Job and What Color Is Your Parachute?

"An actionable guide to leading a balanced life." — Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential and Think Again

Pouring yourself into a single full-time job is the riskiest move you can make. Your parents’ advice to focus on one career path? It doesn’t work anymore, for reasons ranging from recessions to student loan debt, the gig economy, climate disasters, and a global pandemic (to name a few). We need a dramatically different relationship with work, one that allows us to define ourselves beyond our paid labor.

The answer? A Portfolio Life. An anti-hustle, pro-rest approach to work-life balance, a Portfolio Life is built on three tenets:

You are more than any one role or opportunity.

Diversification will help you navigate change and mitigate uncertainty.

When (not if) your needs change, you can and should rebalance.

In The Portfolio Life, Harvard professor, serial entrepreneur, and self-described "human Venn diagram" Christina Wallace adapts tried-and-true practices from the business sector to help you eschew the cult of ambition and experience the freedom of building the flexible, fulfilling, and sustainable life you want. Drawing on research, case studies, and her own experience, she walks you step-by-step through the process of designing a strategy for the long haul. Because you deserve rest, relationships, and a rewarding career—not someday, but today. After all, you only live once.