As city dwellers, too often we lose track of the seasons.  For many of us we step out of one climate-controlled environment into another, home to car/bus/underground to office to gym or home to shopping centre, restaurant or cinema.  There are no seasonal foods any more with everything available anywhere anytime.  We are insulated from the rich experience of spring, summer, autumn, winter.

It is incredibly valuable as a senior professional to get experience as a board member.  There are three reasons that this really can make a difference to your career.

When the Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride, in August 2023, suggested that older workers consider work in the ‘gig economy’, such as being a Deliveroo rider, it was immediately controversial.

Within the AQai adaptability framework there is a substantial domain called Character.  You may be familiar with conventional psychometric tests: these rest upon the assumption that your psychological preferences are intrinsic and fixed for all time. 

I was struck by the pejorative attitude with which so many commentators in the entrepreneurial world refer to a lifestyle business. Somehow the suggestion is you’re not a real entrepreneur if you’re running a lifestyle business. Somehow you haven’t got what it takes. You haven’t got the ambition. You will not be successful if you have a lifestyle business.

There are many situations in our lives where we start to realise that full-time employment is just not working for us.  It may be that we are coming into a season where we want to look after our families, we want to have children, we want to spend time with our children. 

It was in 2022 that the BBC published an article about whether delaying ageing can be achieved by refusing to act your age.  It was fascinating to understand the results of a survey in 2017 asking what people believed was middle-age and old-age.  On average people in their twenties and thirties said that middle-age began […]

The AQai framework has a key dimension of Ability.  These are five different subdimensions where you can build your skills and equip yourself better to be adaptable.  When I talk to people about changing their adaptability, by building their skills, it’s amazing how some very simple interventions can start to shift the dial.  Resilience If […]

What is the ‘Capability Attitude’ and why is it about ‘Build not Fix’?  For senior professionals, whether as employees, interims or consultants, they are indoctrinated with the mantra: ‘don’t just bring me problems; bring me solutions’. 

With the recent excitement around ChatGPT and Google’s response with Bard, Artificial intelligence is on the agenda as never before.  With the Goldman Sachs report highlighting the threats to employment for certain classes of workers, it has become something that is central to people’s perception of how our working lives are going to change.

When I am working with you to help you think about your future, there are two crucial dimensions that I encourage you to examine.  One is ‘need to work’ and the other is ‘need for new’.   Let’s start with the ‘need to work’ dimension.

The AQai model has three strands or domains.

Things you can learn to get better at; things that reflect your response to the challenges of adaptability; things that relate to the environment within which you operate

The way that you engage your first client is going to set the template for success in the future. 

As you get more senior in your career, increasingly what people are going to value is less of what you do.   Now what matters is what you have learned, what you known, the different range of experiences you have got and the skills you’ve developed.  Skills, knowledge and experience are the future for you as you become more senior.   

There are number of ways in which you can maximize your learning and development.   

In an earlier article I talked about how the media has so much impact on the way we see ourselves.  It is interesting how a current campaign of the Centre for Ageing Better is calling out many of the things that the media do by default.   

Within the AQAI framework one dimension is Character.  Character is a way that you can understand how people are motivated best in the context of change.  In this article we are going to look at what the Character of Thinking Style means and how it can affect your organisation.  

When I work with Portfolio Executives, at the beginning of our relationship the most crucial thing is to get really clear about the niche that you can use to present yourself to the world.

When you join a new employer, they haven’t hired you just for what you can do today, they have also hired you with a view of the potential you have to contribute to the business in the future.  To create the very best in environment in order to thrive, you need to start to plan your promotion from Day One.

Wales is the first country in the UK to appoint an older people’s commissioner for Wales.  We’ve had Children Commissioners for a long time and the Welsh commissioner has been in post for a number of years now.  She has stated four key objectives as her commissioner priorities. 

Within the AQai framework there is a dimension called Ability.  Ability assesses the skills that you can develop to be more effective in your adaptability and one of those key skills is Unlearn.  Unlearn may feel a very strange term.  Let’s explain what Unlearn really means

You need to establish your credibility and visibility and start initial conversations with a small number of potential clients.  You need to be able to take control of the buying process and find the clients you want to work with. 

When I have been working with young people who perhaps are not as familiar as they could be with what it means to be an employee, I say to them, you’ve got two jobs here.  One is to get the task done that I ask you to get done, that I need to get done.  And the second thing is to be a great employee.

As I write this, in March 2023, we have just had the most recent iteration of the Oscars and there has been some backslapping, I would say, about the fact that an older woman has won an Oscar.  It is very interesting to see the way that awareness of promoting older women has grown within the acting community.  Coincidentally, I listened this morning to Desert Island Discs, the Michael Caine celebration, where he was talking about his life and his continuing role as an actor into his late eighties, early nineties.

The AQai framework assesses how you experience key aspects of your Work Environment from an adaptability point of view.  For an organisation to be adaptable, individuals within that organisation need to experience a high Work Environment score.

I have now worked with more than 50 people to help in the transition to a Portfolio Executive workstyle.  Over the last five years, we’ve developed and refined a process, which I’m confident can work for anybody who’s committed to making the journey

When you get a new position, either because you’re joining your employer for the first time, or you’ve got a significant change of role, the first 90 days will set the scene for how you’re perceived within the organization.  Your first 90 days will often afford you opportunities to do things that will become more difficult as time passes.

The most recent census in England and Wales was conducted in 2021, relatively recently. Census Day was during lockdown and the pandemic. Many people were on furlough or working from home. But there are still some very interesting things that emerged, which I think make a big difference when we start to think about the opportunities for us to make the most of our working lives as we get older.

Within the AQai adaptability framework, a key dimension is Character.  Character is your preference for a particular way of responding to the challenge of change.  One of the things that AQai feels it’s important to measure is your Motivation Style.  As with all the character traits, there’s no right answer or wrong answer.  Motivation Style is measured across a spectrum where at one end you have those who prefer to ‘Play to Win’, and at the other end, a preference to ‘Play to Protect’

As you start to review what you want out of your working going forward, consider what is most important to you.

You hear plenty of conversations about lifestyle. You may even hear conversations about work/life balance.  But how seriously have you thought about the workstyle you really want?

Building an intergenerational workplace can bring many benefits, including increased diversity of thought, access to different skill sets and experience and a richer understanding of the needs and perspectives of different age groups

Within the AQai framework, one of the dimensions of adaptability is Ability.  This represents the sub-dimension of adaptability skills that you can learn, develop and strengthen through explicit intervention. One of these things is resilience.

In Part 1 we looked at your working schedule and activities. In this second part, we are looking at aspects of your new environment.

When you come into a new job and as you start to build your presence at your employer, the temptation is to focus your network on the people that are immediately around you

When you are used to working in a corporate environment then you derive huge comfort from the fact that others are holding you accountable for what you do. There are a whole set of external interventions that keep you on track.  People working for you demand your attention.

In autumn 2022, the Centre for Aging Better launched its challenge to sign up employers to the Age-Friendly Employer pledge.  It is fascinating to see what that pledge consists of.  The Centre for Ageing Better believe that as well as being a good thing and the right thing, there is a compelling business case for employers.  The job market is changing.

The Adaptability Quotient (AQai) framework is seeking to help you to understand what influences your capacity to adapt and one of the key things is the environment in which you’re operating.

One of the things that I have constantly been surprised about is how, even if I go through all the logical reasons why you need to plan for your 2nd Half Career, people like you are very slow to act.  It may be clear why you’re not going to be able to sustain your corporate career for the rest of your working life and why a Portfolio Executive workstyle makes absolute logical sense for you.

It’s very easy for us to just continue doing what we’re always doing.  To assume that the next step is the same as the step before. 

I try to keep an eye out for recent cases where ageism has impacted the future of an organisation.  The truth is that more and more employment-related issues that come to dispute are featuring ageism as one of the reasons that employers are having to pay out at industrial tribunals

The AQai assessment framework is the first time that I’ve seen people measure hope or hopefulness as a character trait, particularly in the context of how well you respond to the challenges of change.

One of the groups that struggle most to make the transition to a Portfolio Executive workstyle are those who have had an extended period working as an interim.

The work of people like Martin Seligman, one of the founders of positive psychology, recognizes the power of a positive approach to the way that you see the world.  In the Adaptability Quotient, one of the abilities that you can develop and grow is the ability to have a mindset that is adaptable, a positive mindset.

It’s very interesting to look at how different societies are responding to the changing age of their populations.  Some societies, with a rapidly growing young population, are responding to the challenge of providing futures for younger people by introducing lower retirement ages.

It is interesting when I get approached by somebody who has got a lot of experience as an Independent Consultant and they’re wanting to transition to a Portfolio Executive workstyle.

Most of the people I work with have not had experience of being in a sales facing role, but as a Portfolio Executive they need to enable other people to buy.

As far as the environmental profile is concerned in the AQai assessment, environment is all about the situation that you find yourself in and your ability to influence, adapt or renegotiate that environment.  The emotional health score is characterised as how often do you feel sadness or stress. 

We are strongly influenced by images in the way that we think about groups of people.  What comes to mind for you when I say pop star? 

I am constantly surprised how people’s 2nd Half Career milestone creeps up on them without them being aware.  Then, as the forces come into play that limit their future career progression, they are surprised that they’ve run out of options and they’re looking at a future of work that is entirely unsatisfactory.

My father was an academic.  He did a PhD and then became a lecturer and ultimately spent most of his life in a Laboratory of Molecular Biology amongst a clutch of Nobel Laureates.  As I was growing up in Cambridge, the academic life was everywhere.

Within the adaptability framework there are five character traits that are important to understand in order to be as adaptable as possible, both as an individual, at a team level and at the organisation level.

I’m increasingly noticing that ageism is coming up the corporate agenda: very, very slowly, very gently, but it is beginning to emerge.  However, for senior professionals working in large organisations who are becoming aware that ageism is an issue, there’s a real dilemma.

It’s amazing that the more senior you get, the less time you have to do useful work.  It feels like the whole of your life becomes meetings and that so many of those meetings feel meaningless.

Your Portfolio Executive Workstyle needs to be sustainable, rewarding and enjoyable.  It’s not enough, in my view, for it to just keep you busier and busier.  You don’t want to be moving from being enslaved by a Corporate Workstyle, to becoming enslaved with your own Portfolio Executive Workstyle.

When I started working with senior professionals in corporates who wanted to transition to a Portfolio Executive Workstyle, many of the people I started working with were chartered professionals chartered in accountancy, HR, or marketing.

Mental flexibility in the Adaptability Quotient framework promoted by AQai.io is a learnable skill.  It’s something that you can develop and grow in over time.  The simplest way of thinking about mental flexibility is that it’s your ability to hold apparently contradictory or paradoxical ideas in tension.

There are very good reasons that most discussion about ageism has focussed on discrimination against older people.  However, ageism for younger people is deeply engrained in government policy and social norms.

More and more employers are recognising the benefits of flexible working.  In fact, some employers are actively moving towards a four-day work week.  Whatever the implications of a four-day work week or flexible working, it can be extremely valuable to negotiate to reduce the number of days a week you work for your current employer.

Adaptability and the measures that the AQai adaptability assessment provides look at three dimensions: Ability, Character, and Environment.  Within the Environment dimension, Company Support is a critical measure of the extent to which your employees feel the organisation values their contributions and cares about their well-being.

Many of the people reading this will be in their forties and fifties.  They will have senior, responsible roles in organisations.  They’ll have huge capacity to influence the environment in which they operate today. 

It is certainly better to transition to a Portfolio Executive workstyle sooner rather than later.  When I first started working with people wanting to transition to a Portfolio Executive workstyle, the people that I was working with tended to be 5 to 10 years younger than me. 

If you’re currently employed as a senior professional in a larger business, the very strong likelihood is that most of your network will be within that business.  It may be that you’ve also got some contacts with people in the industry.

Your adaptability is often very context sensitive, understanding your own character preferences is incredibly important, so that you can make choices about how you respond to the changes that you come to

The number of ageism cases coming to Employment Tribunals has been steadily rising.  Recently I had a look at the report of a case because I wanted to understand what kinds of things are going on when ageism becomes part of court litigation. 

For many of us, we have had a working life where we have one job where we’re accountable to one set of people and we are doing one thing.  When you become a Portfolio Executive, this no longer applies.  You will have multiple clients who expect the best of you. 

‘Grit’ is a colloquial term we use to express persistence and the capacity to push through.  In the context of the Adaptability Quotient, it has a much more specific meaning.  Being adaptable is strongly correlated with your capability in Grit.

You would imagine that success is something that we all desire.  You would imagine that when we have it, we are delighted and we celebrate it.  But there is a strange phenomenon, that many, many people have lurking in their subconscious, which can ultimately undermine their ability to be successful.  

Too often, “old” and “vulnerable” are brought together in describing how we should respond to a certain group of people. But the assumption that because I’m old, I am vulnerable is a classic ageism trope.

As a Portfolio Executive you will have a level of confidence in your professional skill, wisdom and insight that you bring into the role as a trusted advisor to your clients.  You may often believe that your client is less expert than you in the field that you’ve chosen. 

In our current society, we are always encouraged to set goals, set milestones, set KPI’s, in other words, define over and over again what success looks like.  But we are less comfortable with recognising that every time we don’t hit those goals or milestones or KPI’s we are failing.

When I first looked at this, I was very sceptical.  What does adaptability really mean?  There are lots of responses to this rapidly changing world.  One of the most common things that people are demanding of their teams and organisations is resilience.

The cry of the youngster is, ‘when I grow up, I want to…’, sometimes I want to become…, sometimes I want to do… . When I leave home, I will be able to … .Maybe it’s get that job, be with that person, go to that particular part of the world, have the travel, have the house.

One of the biggest concerns that I hear from people, when we start talking about a Portfolio Executive workstyle, is that they feel they’ve got to learn how to sell.  Many senior professionals have never been in the situation where they’ve seen themselves as a salesperson.

We are very poor judges of risk as human beings.  In our society we invest huge amounts of money in reducing some risks, then are very careless about other risks.

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. We are in a VUCA world : a world in which Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity dominate the environment in which we operate. This creates all sorts of challenges for individuals, teams and organisations.  We are creatures of habit.  Our whole sensory system is designed to […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Sexism and racism provide a continuing challenge to the attitudes and culture of organisations and society at large, and have now been adopted under a broader agenda of diversity and inclusion.    UK, European and international human rights law recognises a number of ‘protected characteristics’ including […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. There is huge publicity for successful entrepreneurs.  There are lots of people who have aspirations to be an entrepreneur.  Too often, however, people have equated starting a business, as being an entrepreneur.  An entrepreneur is a very particular kind of individual.  They are somebody who relentlessly […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. 9 – Attitude to Learning There is some very interesting research, which has looked at the attitude to learning in young people, which, I think, translates very strongly to anybody, in whatever walk of life they are.  Fixed v. Growth Mindset Essentially, they identified two types […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Earlier in my career I was an IT contractor, working as a software developer, introduced by agencies.  Projects typically ran from three to six and sometimes as long as nine months.  I understand the opportunity that being a contractor can be for people.  It can appear […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Back in March 2021, Jonathan MacDonald, Kaur Lass and myself had conversations about Mental Wellness Habits, this series of articles is based on those conversations.  You can read the previous articles in the series here and here.   Important: mental illness may require medical intervention.  Check […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. 8 – Attitudes to Others Your attitude to others, is probably one of the most powerful attitudes for success. We are all leaders of some sort or other.  We don’t need to have a senior position be a leader.  We lead others positively or negative, simply […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Many people as a first step to leaving permanent full time salaried employment think, ‘I can just carry on doing what I’ve been doing, but as an independent freelancer working for my existing employer, then go and find some other organisations that I can be an […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. I talk to many people who have enjoyed the interim workstyle.  They like the excitement of working in a new situation every three to nine months.  The challenge of sorting things out and learning new things suits them.  It can be a great kicker to your […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Back in March 2021, Jonathan MacDonald, Kaur Lass and myself had a conversation about Mental Wellness Habits, this series of articles is based on those conversations.  You can read the first article in the series here.   Important: mental illness may require medical intervention. Check out […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. 7 – Attitudes to Habit So much of lasting change that we can embed in our lives comes through establishing habits, our attitude to habits is crucial to our long-term success.  We can go out and do a big push to make something happen but the […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. I have spent all my working life around professionals who have sought to build a career through their professional skills. But very early on in my working life I realised that, for me, being in full-time professional employment, wasn’t going to Make my Future Work. As […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. I meet many, many people who are freelancers or interims or who have moved into the Portfolio Executive workstyle and see themselves as almost self-employed. The mindset of people who are in that time for money business is, every day that I’m not looking for more […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. When I was a partner at Arthur Andersen, we were enveloped by the Enron scandal and suddenly a business of 60,000 people came to an end. It was a personal tragedy for many. What struck me was the difference in attitude around the offices. For one […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. 6 – Attitude to Self Recognising your different selves Your attitude to self is a critical component of your success. I’ve recently become very interested in the thinking behind the model of Voice Dialogue. The people who founded the movement that has become Voice Dialogue realised, […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. As I work with people who’ve got through the initial part of getting their Portfolio Executive workstyle started, I often find there is a tension between taking cash out of the business versus investing in their future. I was talking to one of the Portfolio Executives […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. When people first start out as a Portfolio Executive. I believe that having their own website is unnecessary. But over time, people do want to have their own web presence and I’m often asked, “What should I have on my website?” Who you are I think […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. You don’t need to be alone in making your decisions. Maybe you had parents, friends or partners as key supporters in the past for key decisions. This can be all a bit ad-hoc. One of my ex-Andersen colleagues left the business and has built up two […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. 5 – Attitude to Challenge In my experience there are very different ways in which people carry an attitude to challenge. I see there are some people who want to go out and pick a fight with the world, and there are others who, when confronted […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Starting out on any kind of business on your own, is a lonely, and often scary, process. It’s hard to push through the disappointments but it’s equally hard to understand when you’re doing well. When I work with people one-to-one on developing that Portfolio Executive workstyle, […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. One of my friends was recruiting a recent graduate in IT. This interviewee started to tell him about his time at university organising the annual ski trip. He enthused about arranging it, negotiating deals with the bars, dealing with illness, accidents and unfortunate behaviours, and getting […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. 4- Attitude to Planning It may be a trite truism that failing to plan is planning to fail but planning is an essential attitude for success. Planning is part of an overall process which is often initiated by goal setting. I want to focus on a […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. The youngest age a child can work is 13, unless they obtain a performance licence.  Generally, there is no compulsory retirement age (with the exception of age limits set by law or jobs that require certain physical abilities). I remember my personal frustration as a teenager […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. A significant proportion of the people who come to me to develop a Portfolio Executive workstyle have been working as interims. And at first sight. they’re not very different. You’re coming into a business and helping them build a function or rebuild a function or cover […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. If you want to be known for everything, you’ll be known for nothing. Most of us have multiple talents and skills. However, others want to know us as the person who can solve specifically this, or address that. “She’s the fix-it person for turn arounds”. “He’s […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. 3 – Attitude to Gratitude Success can often be a lonely journey to achieve and there are many bumps along the way but there is a really powerful psychological tool that I have found makes a huge difference to how we see our world. And as […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Back in March 2021, Jonathan MacDonald, Kaur Lass and myself had a conversation about Mental Wellness Habits, and this series of articles is based those conversations. Important: mental illness may require medical intervention.  Check out nhs.uk/mental-health/ for important information. It’s hard to miss the increasing call […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. As I write this (Oct 21), the headlines trumpet that job vacancies are at an all-time high. Workers are expected to have more choice and opportunity than ever before.  But for many of us, as we consider our future, we are confronted by two, seemingly unresolvable […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. I am talking to more and more people who are attracted to the idea of the Portfolio Executive workstyle and are keen to develop a different approach to their Second Half Career. But often they feel quite confused about being an Independent Consultant versus being a […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. We may not often see the choices we make as requiring courage.  In fact, too often, we find rational excuses to justify avoiding difficult decisions rather than recognise that we are motivated by fear, uncertainty, and doubt: deep seated emotional responses to the challenge of particular […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. 2 – Attitude to Change Underpinning any desire for success is a desire that things should be different. If you have already achieved success, then you may not want anything to change but most of the people I meet who are successful are not prepared to […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. 1 – Attitude to Opportunity   We all want more success don’t we! When I look back through my life almost all my success has come from my attitude to opportunity. It was Napoleon who said, “Don’t give me great generals, give me lucky generals” and […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Many years ago, I trained as a coach and as an executive coach you are taught to ask powerful questions and to engage in conversations which leave people at choice. I firmly believe that the most effective conversations with potential clients are conversations where you enable […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. You are recognising that the 2nd half of your career will not be a continuation of your current path of advancement and opportunity. So, what do you do? Step 1: Confront the reality revealed by your Future Work Prospect Score Take our new Future Work Prospect […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here We can so often get drawn into taking the next step up the ladder because it is expected of us without checking whether it really takes us further to fulfilling our purpose and passion. Are you trapped in what you have to do? Trevor (not his […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here In a world in which working from home has meant that too many of us are ‘always on’, the idea of a 4-day week can seem like an extravagant fantasy.  But there is increasing evidence that limiting work hours increases productivity of individual workers and increases […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Working in a big professional services firm, I was waking up the train driver at 5:15am to get into the office by 7am and lucky to be home by 8pm.  I was often at an airport on Sunday afternoon so I could be in a foreign […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Audio podcasting has now become a mainstream medium.  You only need to see how the BBC has jumped on the band wagon to realise that it now stands alongside TV, radio and audiobooks as an essential ‘broadcast’ medium.  The number of podcasts is huge, and the […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Social Media organisations have been promoting video as their preferred engagement medium for quite a long time now.  Making videos is more accessible for the average person than ever before.  But I think you want to consider very carefully how you want to use video to […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’  This inter-generational opening gambit to elicit a conversation from a reluctant niece, nephew or grandchild can be a high-risk tactic.  For my jungle obsessed younger brother, the response for many years was ‘a gorilla’. But should […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Many of the Portfolio Executives I work with have had no experience of going out and doing anything more in terms of self-promotion than applying for jobs with a CV through an agent. The idea of doing some kind of outbound marketing and some kind of […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Has the pandemic given you an opportunity to re-think your personal priorities and re-assess your relationship with your boss? Perhaps you have been on furlough or suffered redundancy and you are ready to make a fresh start. For many of us, working for oneself appears to […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Most of us are not natural authors, natural writers and yes, we can probably write a highly structured report or yes, we can put together some PowerPoint slides for an in-house presentation, but the thought of writing 800 – 1200 words on some kind of topic […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here There are some pretty scary statistics out there about what can happen as you move beyond 45 in to your 50’s and later.  Just to give you some statistics which are pre-Covid.   An estimated 2.4 million workers were sandwich carers, caring for both children and […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here One of the great advantages of a Portfolio Executive working is that once you’ve got a mature portfolio of 4-6 clients who are staying with you for 4-6 years, then the number of new clients you need to find per year goes down to about 1. […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here We explore what ‘enough’ means both in the 8 Essentials 30-day challenge (see http://8essentials.biz/) and in some of other blogs about the different life stage at which you want to adopt a Portfolio Executive workstyle. But that fear ‘Can I earn enough?’ is something that I […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here I had seen the Portfolio Executive as a 2nd Half Career option and assumed that 2nd half starts at 45 i.e. half way between 20 – 70 years old. The 2nd Half Career Option Typically, the people who approach me about becoming a Portfolio Executive are […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Becoming a portfolio executive is not for everybody and as I’ve been talking to people for the last 5 years, I feel that there are 10 good reasons not to become a Portfolio Executive.   For the first five look here. 6 – I’m too busy “I’m […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Becoming a portfolio executive is not for everybody and as I’ve been talking to people for the last 5 years, I feel that there are 10 good reasons not to become a Portfolio Executive.   Here are the first five. 1) It’s too soon If you are […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here There are some impressive young people out there who have found Covid has stopped their career ambitions dead.  At a similar stage in my life, it was the kindness of both strangers and family contacts that enabled me to get started and I have never forgotten […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Students were hoping to be home at Christmas. Many would have been disappointed by positive Covid tests. Then they were hoping to return for the Spring term and some will have been hindered by the most recent lockdown. Summer vacation, 2021, seems a way to go […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here   Apply? You can easily become hopeless making application after application for advertised positions.  Often, you need to customise your CV, write a tailored covering letter and fill in a detailed application form. Typically, you get no feedback but an automated acknowledgement. Many of the big […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here March is usually the time when the wedding fairs start anew with all the hopes of new life – spring lambs, bluebells in the woods and cooing pigeons across the city. But the wiser amongst us will nod sagely and tell us that marriage is so […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here There are a whole host of other professionals, some which are fairly sector specific and some which are much more general.  Perhaps you have got 15-20 years’ experience in a particular field and you are wondering whether you can become a Portfolio Executive. This is Part […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here There are quite well-established patterns of work for part-time Finance Directors and HR Directors and increasingly for people in Marketing and in Sales. I am also seeing more and more people being part-time CIOs and part-time CTOs. But what about some of those other professional roles […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here As you start to engage with potential clients beyond your immediate network, you need to find a way of pitching your value to people who don’t already know you.  You may be recommended, introduced or just connected on LinkedIn.  How do you start that first conversation […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Why a recession is great for start-ups What do AirBnB, Uber and Groupon have in common? They were all founded during the 2008 banking crisis. In fact, it was Andrew Wolstenholme who coined the phrase “Never Waste a Good Crisis” in his visionary report on the […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here When I start working with people who want to build a Portfolio Executive workstyle, one of the key tools for them to develop their presence, build their reputation and find new clients is LinkedIn.  But, before we can do any of those things, we need to […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Some of the people that I am working with to build their Portfolio Executive workstyles, are at a life stage where they want the flexibility to spend more time with members of the family.  There can be a variety of reasons for this and the motivations […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here I knew the axe was going to fall; I knew when it was going to fall and now my job was over.  I thought I was mentally prepared.  I had some dreams for the future.  There was a bit of a financial buffer but now I […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here The relentless tyranny of the urgent and the ever-growing pace of challenging change can slowly erode the joy from the passion that brought you to your chosen career.  In the same way that a marriage can be refreshed when the couple commit to a regular date […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here When I am working with people who are building up their Portfolio Executive workstyle, very often they start working for smaller businesses than works best for them.  They are also offering lower rates than they eventually can demand from the market.  I encourage them to just […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here When people come to me and they are exploring whether a portfolio workstyle is right for them, I tend to feel that people fit squarely into one of two camps. Experience v. Accredited Qualifications There are the people who come to me and their qualification for […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here The first challenge for a Portfolio Executive is to work out what the ‘Director of’ or ‘Head of’ function you are going to adopt. The second challenge is to work out what is the right size of business for you.  Like Goldilocks you don’t want something […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Many of the people who come to me who want to become a Portfolio Executive, were in a full-time salaried position, but have stepped out to become an Independent Consultant. They may have been able to work with a previous employer to do some consulting work. They […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Women & Equalities Committee Report It is very interesting to see the ‘Older People and employment: Women and Equalities Committee report’ developed by the House of Parliament Select Committee published almost a year ago, and the response to it. There were some very particular findings that […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here You are an experienced professional. You know your stuff and are successful in your own field. Why can’t you just step out on your own and become a Portfolio Executive? Why can’t I do it myself? And if I’m not going to DIY my Portfolio Executive […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here I am very struck by the way that I am continually approached by individuals who are setting themselves up as virtual assistants or remote PAs or whatever they want to call themselves. I realise that they are taking that portfolio executive approach to heart in the […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here I’ve been very impressed by the thinking of Daniel Priestley and his book “Key Person of Influence”.  He tells a compelling story about how you build profile in your market place so that you become a key person of influence in order to attract people to […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here So you have got your day job but you are recognising that this is not forever, and you would like to do something that you can enjoy, that is going to earn a bit of income, and that maybe something that will help you to create […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here At its simplest a Portfolio Executive is spending their time being a part-time head of or part-time director for a portfolio of businesses. In essence what they are doing is acting as part-time employees for each of those businesses. So, portfolio sustainable independence career future focus […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here It is very easy for us to stay focussed on the next promotion, the next job, the next assignment and to see our career as moving up an escalator one step at a time. But when we are asked to plan our finances, we recognise that […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Finding your role as a Portfolio Executive is a different kind of journey than finding your next job and often if we have been in corporate life for a long time, our network can be very limited in scope. Our network tends to be within the […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here For many of us we get to a stage in our lives where we have built up a series of obligations and commitments which rely on a certain level of income.  We are used to a standard of vehicle that we change at a regular frequency. […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here As I work with people who are developing their Second Half Careers, a pattern is beginning to emerge.  It seems that there are eight essentials that will enable people to really set out a future which is going to work for them into the second half […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Word of mouth marketing is recognised as the most powerful marketing tool we have in our armoury and as we build our portfolio of clients then word of mouth will be crucial to bring in new clients.  This is simulated on social media, but true word […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here In 2019, BBC Radio 4 celebrated the fact that the long-standing actress playing Peggy Archer was still working in her 100th year. The famous matriarch in The Archers continues to feature in the story line while being played an actress several years older. Can you imagine […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Having worked to help people build their portfolio executive proposition and to go out and win their first client.  I increasingly hear them telling me that they are too busy to find anymore clients.  At one level this is a great success story.  They have more […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here I am continually active on LinkedIn and I am incredibly open to signing up to various email newsletters.  As soon as I had ‘Director’ in my job title, I was approached by several different organisations that promised me that they could make me a successful Non-Executive […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Lessons from Big Five Consulting I have worked for a global professional services practice where I was a partner and where I was consulting for large and medium sized businesses. After being in that firm for five years I became very disenchanted with what big consulting […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here You are a professional who has worked perhaps ten, fifteen, twenty years in your chosen profession and you have achieved a level of success. You have a senior role, a reasonable salary and you are looking forward and thinking about what you want to do with […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here Can I only be a Portfolio Executive? Or can I have a richer portfolio than that? As I continue to work with people building up their Portfolio Executive Workstyle, I am finding an increasing trend that people want to mix it up a bit. They want […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here So much has been written about millennials and their preferences and attitudes towards work and as I review these thoughts about millennials, there are three things that strike me: Three things about millennials The first is that they recognise that they have to manage their own […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. As I work with people developing their portfolio executive workstyle, one of the biggest challenges we come across over and over again is pricing. There are two very different ways of thinking about pricing. Cost Plus Pricing The first way is ‘Cost plus’. People sit down […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Probably the context in which you have the strongest relationships and the strongest potential to develop your 2nd Half Career is actually with your current employer.  At first sight, you may question how favourably your employer will look at your proposal to become independent.  You may […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. I am working with former Finance, HR, Marketing and Sales Directors as well as CIOs / CTOs and a variety of other experienced professionals to build a Portfolio Executive workstyle.  I have come to believe that there is not a ‘one size fits all’ answer to […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. As soon as you start to be intentional about shaping your 2nd Half Career, you will be faced with important choices.  These are the top 10 ‘gotchas’ that I have seen amongst professionals as they begin to move forward. 1 – Expensive Postgraduate Qualifications The first […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. You may be aware that for many people the kind of annuity rates they can get when they cash in their pension have become very disappointing. I did a quick review of the kind of annuity that you could get for a million pound pension pot, […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. You have decided that you want to have a radical change of direction.  You want to move on from your current employer.  You want to step out into a new workstyle.  You want to build a new career for the second half of your working life.   […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. A critical part of your role as a Portfolio Executive is to build a relationship where you become the trusted advisor of the CEO.  Sometimes your role won’t bring you direct access to the CEO, but you should still become a trusted advisor to whoever is […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. As you start to engage with clients as a Portfolio Executive one of the key tools you need is a diagnostic to enable you to demonstrate the value you bring as early as possible in a relationship. This article explores the three powerful way a diagnostic […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Can you have your cake and eat it? Can you be a Portfolio Executive but be able to minimise the transition to this new workstyle? Can you get someone else to do all the things that you do not feel you are very good at doing? […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. As I work with people building a Portfolio Executive workstyle, one of the biggest challenges I come across is “how do you maintain a role part-time?”.  In this article I explore what is different from full-time and what stays the same.  This requires both a mindset […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Building trust for a long-term relationship as a portfolio executive As you start to identify clients, one of the things you need to do is establish a compelling reason for them to buy now.  You want to build a long-term relationship, but most people won’t commit […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. When I was in my early twenties people would introduce me as a computer ‘whizz kid’ and that was really exciting! It was in the early days of the whole micro-computer revolution and being considered a ‘whizz kid’ was the equivalent of the fashionable ‘geek’ of […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. It’s a very noisy market place, particularly if you are just setting out to establish yourself as an independent Portfolio Executive working with several clients. Just do a quick search on Google or LinkedIn, the market for people seeking to sell their expertise is very crowded. You’ll […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Are you considering becoming a Portfolio Executive as the next stage of your career but aren’t sure if your professional background has given you the right skills? In this article I share some examples of types of roles that can transition very successfully to work with […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. You have made the decision that you don’t want to stay in your current position in corporate life, despite the salary and the benefits. You also recognise that the transition to the more fulfilling Portfolio Executive workstyle isn’t going to be straightforward. So, to give your […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. You are a highly experienced, seasoned professional, and you have stepped out on your own to become an interim manager. You’ve started working at very senior levels, where you get drafted in to sort out a significant challenge in an organisation. It sounds like just the […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Anybody who is working as an interim, contractor or even an independent consultant, should have heard of IR35.  IR35 is an HMRC regulation that seeks to ensure that taxes relating to employment can’t be avoided by the use of an intermediate company.  Many of you will […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. When you are building a portfolio executive workstyle, your client will want to be clear about the value and quality you bring. Demonstrating that clarity will be beneficial for you too and will help you keep the relationship going for as long you want. In this […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. I’m a firm believer in the power of dreams when it comes to achieving what we want from our relationships and our working lives. And, while some might feel that we lose our enthusiasm and excitement as we move into the second half of our careers, […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Are you setting up as a Portfolio Executive or planning to? The chances are you’ll have a long list of things you want to get in place, the reality is you won’t need half of them, at least not yet. This article is written from the […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. In the era of the #metoo movement, there are many voices suggesting that organisations should actively manage the power relationships between employers, managers and staff to avoid situations of potential abuse.  Organisations are seeking to prohibit inappropriate behaviours and relationships as well as define boundaries of […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Harry has taken the courageous step to reshape his working life and there are lessons for us all: 1.    Be very clear about the future you want Harry and Meghan have aspirations to live in a new location with a new lifestyle – without a strong […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. One of the toughest things to deal with when you are setting out as a Portfolio Executive is disappointment. You may have felt less sensitive to it when you were in your previous corporate life because you could always tell yourself that the ‘no’ wasn’t really […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. As a senior executive, you’ll have developed very good networking skills within your corporate environment. You were good at connecting with other senior leaders across your corporate structure, you’ll also have built networks with suppliers and customers. Those networks will have served you very well in […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. If you are in the 2nd half of your career and exploring possible new directions, you may have considered training to be a coach. Or, perhaps you’ve already trained and are looking to build a business around those new skill sets. Coaching skills are highly valuable […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. There is a real hankering for many to start their own business – and there’s no shortage of empowering television, especially for younger people it seems. The Apprentice is now on season 15 and Lord Sugar’s search shows no sign of slowing down. But while programming […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. So, you’ve reached the point in your career where becoming an interim looks attractive. You’ve taken stock of your knowledge and experience and it feels like a route that’s worth exploring – and it may well be. But, as with any form of career change, there […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. When you are working in a permanent salaried position, contracting can seem like quite an attractive option. You see contractors join your organisation, they seem to have less responsibility, they do their hours and go home (without taking work with them!). What’s more, you suspect that […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. The reality for many of us is that we spend far too long at work. The baffling part is that we’ve let it become the norm. Why is that? What does it actually mean for this precious life that we only live once? A recent article […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. The recent announcement by Deutsche Bank of 12,000 job cuts reminds us all that there is no such thing as permanent employment any more. And yet for so many of us, our parents’ aspiration for us (and perhaps ours for our children) is a permanent full-time […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Many of the people I talk to about their 2nd Half Careers are keen to make the second half count.  They want to look back and see not only success but also significance for their lives, particularly their working lives.  They are open to becoming a […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Corporates have created an ‘up or out’ culture, one that will ultimately lose the experienced professionals they’ve worked so hard to attract and retain. It’s a mid-life career crisis that’s impacting some very talented people, many with years of valuable experience. That’s bad news for an […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. You might recall the film ‘The Perfect Storm’ with George Clooney.  It should have been blue skies and plain sailing for the highly experienced skipper and his crew – except for a combination of events and conditions that no one saw coming. If only they’d taken […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. If you’ve reached 45-50 then you’ve probably been working for 25-30 years. In theory, you should be at the top of your game, enjoying your career and the quality of working life it brings. However, research consistently says otherwise. If you are anything like the senior […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. So, you are thinking about becoming a Portfolio Executive? If you’ve read our previous blogs, you’ll know about the benefits of this workstyle and career path and how you can build a portfolio of rewarding part-time executive positions. But to make this new world a reality, […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. It’s a scenario facing many of us at some point in our lives. We want to make a decision but something holds us back. Will caution or fear stop us making that move  – or will we jump and discover it was well worth the risk? […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. What can you do when you’re twenty plus years into your career, age between 45 & 55 and you realise it’s only half time? If you are an experienced professional in salaried employment at this point, you are probably beginning to notice that what’s working for you […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Being a Bruce Lee fan doesn’t make you an expert at kung fu any more than reading a book about leadership makes you a leader. That’s why I joined the FuturePerfect CEO Growth Academy. It’s like a dojo for business leaders who are serious about  mastering the […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. If you’re tired of company politics, getting stuck in a rut and hitting the hamster wheel when you least want to, then perhaps it’s time to consider your alternatives. You can start your own business or you can find a better way to do the work you […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. Do you ever dream of a different life? Perhaps the 9am-5pm corporate world has run its course in your life? Or was it really 8am to 10pm, and you want more flexibility and variety in your work? For me, the lure of the monthly salary and the […]

You can sign up to our LinkedIn newsletter here. You may not have reached the main board of the company you work for, but you are identified as a seasoned, experienced professional.Maybe you are a finance or an HR director. Perhaps a senior role as a change, creative or product director.  Can you see the opportunities […]