Save lives smarter: The portfolio strategy for your life and work in the social sectors

This post is about designing and managing your life and work as one integrated portfolio with the right parts for the best outcome. Financial investors use a portfolio strategy as a way to choose an array of investments, that help you reach your ultimate financial goal. In this post I broaden that concept and apply the idea to life and work in the Social Sectors.   The actual portfolio are the things that the investor buys and holds/sells over a long period of time to build wealth for a child’s education or  your own retirement.  In this post, we are talking not only about financial wealth, but also the assets of time, relationships body, and mind. Our starting circumstances are complete chance. But our portfolio allocation of these resources is within our control. 

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The portfolio strategy looks at our life and work as one messy unit with a lot of potential. The portfolio strategy asks the following questions: 

1. What is my ultimate goal
2. What is my current status in relation to that goal?
3. What tradeoffs do I need to realize in order to actualize  that goal in my work and life?

Answering the first two questions takes a long time and is covered in other blog posts on the site. Question 3 is the focus here. 

Portfolio Strategy Overview
Portfolio strategy is a method for assembling a set of assets that align with your personal goals. Part of the strategy is making the switch to see yourself as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of your own life and work. As Social Sector professionals, we can also see ourselves as the Executive Director (or Chief of Mission, Country Director etc.) of our own Social Sector organization. Either way, you are the boss. You have ultimate accountability for yourself and your kids (and maybe your partner if you set it up that way). No one will do this work for you anymore. In decades past, Social Sector professionals could gain access to cushy retirement packages, clear career ladders and move predictably and incrementally through that system. 

Those days are history for most of  reading this post. That can be scary for some. It was petrifying for me for several years. I started the process of working through that fear by taking CEO-style responsibility.  Using the portfolio strategy and other mental frameworks, I realized that this new and open work/life terrain offers unlimited opportunity for the connected, motivated Social Sector professional. 
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After assuming responsibility, the next step is understanding that your life and work are an inextricably linked package of finite things like your own health, time, money, relationships and attention. Trends like remote work (working outside of a traditional office with dispersed teams), and frequent job changes  blur the traditional boundaries that separate work and life. We can no longer rely on our old school Social Sector organization to provide this support. The portfolio strategy helps us navigate and thrive in this fluid environment. In this evolving environment, we build and rely on ourselves and the systems that we create. We construct this system for ourselves, our families, and our work, using the portfolio strategy. 

Portfolio Building blocks 
These building blocks are the basic components that we assemble to create our life/work portfolio: 

Time - Your most precious asset since it is finite, and non-renewable. How are you allocating your time to serve your goals? What percentage of your time is wasted on low quality or throw away time, due to exhaustion and low performance?

Money - Your personal and family wealth are an essential parts of your Social Sector mission. Building and maintaining wealth makes it possible to  excel your Social Sector work today and far into the future. Learning and developing good habits around this area means you are building a mini trust fund that supports whatever project is most needed. Without this portfolio block, you are working on someone else's vision forever. 

Relationships - Your romantic and family relationships first, then the network of friends and colleagues that makes your work possible. Your connections and natural network to others are an essential portfolio piece, because they are the basis of our human experience and also enable our Social Sector mission. 

Body - Your second most finite asset. The body can heal itself to a point, but health is the foundation for your work and contribution in the Social Sectors. This is the true engine that supports all your output. Studying health and your body can maximize your potential and ensure that you have the ability to perform over time. 

Mind - The main thing that we most often neglect related to mental strength in the Social Sectors, is recovery. Just as you would not decide to run a half marathon and then a full marathon the next day, we need time to recover from intensity in our work. Mental intensity means difficult interactions, finalizing a project, switching roles, anything that puts strain on your mind. Recovery is necessary to be able to perform more in the future. This means things like turning off your phone and getting the right amount of sleep. 

Write down a few sentences about each one of these blocks in your life and work. Are you nurturing these components? What parts are doing well , and which parts need work? After a clear and honest assessment of these parts, we can assemble the building blocks and create a portfolio. 

Assembling the building blocks
The next step is to bring together these blocks and create a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly plan that puts you on the trail to reaching your goals. This is a strategic process to make sure that you are working on the right things.

 Each portfolio block requires both stress and recovery to be at its best. Developing a core portfolio means making a plan to include stresses like work, concentration or physical training, followed by periods of rejuvenation where you allow your mind, body and schedule to rest and recover. 

Planning your ideal week and day means setting up a routine where you can use and replenish your key assets in predictable ways. For me this means setting up clear time each day for work, exercise, meditation, family time and a little bit of zoning out at the end of the day to help me bounce back. This week, it meant relaxing on the porch with a sleeping bag, looking out at the stars for a few minutes, before going to sleep. Check out this post for how to do the details of the planning process. 

Rebalancing over time
Life is inherently unpredictable and always changing. Regularly take a look at the system and update your setup if your context changes or if one is getting more out of scale with others. Maybe you have a series of difficult work projects due at your NGO. After handing over the final documents, you could make sure you take time to deload and plus up things that rejuvenate you. You can rebalance your focus on various parts of the building blocks after each month, quarter or yearly, based on what you need. 

It’s also possible to do small rebalances. For example, my recent work trip to Niger in Africa’s Sahel region meant long flights, workshops, meetings and work with United Nations and Government teams in Niamey. I spent a few minutes at the beginning of the trip planning out a temporary adjustment to my portfolio to make sure I got the work done, and had some space to enjoy the city and get some physical training in (morning runs).

Balance itself is not the goal. Life is always moving and evolving. The rebalance helps you take a clear look and reset based on this evolution. The smart Social Sector professional will periodically evaluate and adjust life/work balance, to sustain high performance and life satisfaction. 

Happy Trails!