The Portfolio Career Lab

In this episode, I sit down with pro football player and financial advisor Dimitri Stanley. Dimitri, a former wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers, explains the mixed reaction to LeBron’s Polymarket deal within the athletic community and what these betting platforms are really designed to do to consumers. Connect with Dimitri: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dimitri-stanley-big14/ Support my work:...

Remember when we all genuinely believed B Corps and a DEI task forces were going to fix capitalism? I know I do.  My guest in this episode is the founder of 3Bears Kai Algar.  Kai and I revisit the millennial business cringe that was a hallmark of the 2010s, the anger that started percolating in the 2020s as we realized how little had actually changed, and the different model for business that's b...

In this episode, I sit down with former Meta Senior Software Engineer Chanel Johnson to talk about outgrowing and ultimately walking away from her career in Big Tech. We get into the grief of leaving behind something you spent years working toward, what it means to redefine professional success, and how Chanel has pivoted to education to tackle the AI literacy gap. We also discuss the polarized co...

This last and final part of this US midterm episode series is about a topic that impacts all of us as portfolio careerists: healthcare. My guest today is Brad White. Brad is a former teacher and school founder who now runs a fractional consulting company that serves the education sector called Updraft. Brad recently came home from a family trip to a letter from his insurer, Blue Cross, Blue Shield...

I personally HATE the phrase "keep politics out of work". Work is inherently political, and yet we're constantly being told to keep our political beliefs separate from our professional lives. Which raises a really interesting question that I've personally been wrestling with leading up to the midterm elections. What does it actually look like to use your portfolio career to stand up for the issues...

In this episode, I sit down with Heidi Hackemer, a brand strategist living in rural Pennsylvania. We discuss how opposition to a proposed data center in Wayne County is bringing neighbors together across political divides to regulate the data center's construction. Connect with Heidi: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidihackemer/ Heidi's Data Center video:  https://lnkd.in/p/gCB7UJUS Suppor...

In this episode, I sit down with Heidi Hackemer, a brand strategist living in rural Pennsylvania. We discuss how opposition to a proposed data center in Wayne County is bringing neighbors together across political divides as they work to develop a county ordinance regulating its construction. Connect with Heidi: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidihackemer/ Heidi's Data Center video:  https...

What if building a successful business online has less to do with cracking the algorithm and more to do with trusting your own taste? In this episode, I sit down with Heather Barnett, a commercially savvy and hilarious, B2B copywriter based in the UK.  We discuss Heather's unorthodox strategy for creating content for Linkedin and Tiktok and how that creates pathways to speaking and freelance copyw...

When I first started building a portfolio career, it was kind of a fringe thing to do. That’s no longer the case. There’s a whole economy now of online businesses and courses glorifying leaving your 9-to-5 job. In the premiere of the 4th season of https://www.instagram.com/rukiyaross/ Rukiya’s Viral The internet is a slot machine video Her website: https://rukiyaross.com/ Rukiya's Risk Snapshot Ca...

This episode is a pre-recorded webinar hosted by my friends from Hello Generalist. I share a bit about the thesis of the book as well as get into some of the big ideas from the book that now power my coaching business. If you’ve been thinking about writing a book or are considering starting a newsletter, this is a great starting point for turning those big ideas rattling around in your brain into...

This is a revisit of a very conversation I had with the lovely Anna Mackenzie this time last year wherein we explorde how portfolio careers have moved from niche to mainstream, accelerated by AI and changing attitudes toward work. It was a catalyst of a conversation that sent me on my trajectory to writing my book Polyworker which is why I've included it in this BTS series. Give a listen to Anna a...

In this week's episode of the pod I have brand strategist Mark Rukman on to talk about this concept of technofeudalism which I poke fun at in my book (albeit indirectly).  The laptop class is having a moment right now in terms of it's digital discourse. Economic anxiety has shifted from "my boss is the worst" to "late stage capitalism sucks". So I brought Mark Rukman on to help me figure out if we...

In this week's episode of the pod I have MJ Halberstadt back on again to talk about a comparison I make in the book between portfolio careers and polyamory. We also dig into this idea of automatic thinking and a key concept from the later chapters of the book: the professional polycule! Buy Polyworker on Amazon or Bookshop.org: https://linktr.ee/BrieAbramowicz                        

In this episode of the pod I chat with Ceres Chua , founder of The Money Mindset Lab about the feast-or-famine cycles that are a hallmark of running a small business, and how to build a financial system and money mindset that bolsters you when your business cash flows inevitably get lumpy. If you're early in your polyworking journey, partway in and financially anxious AF, or on the fence about jum...

What's the difference between a polyworker and a portfolio careerist? And why does it matter? In this episode, I break down why I titled the book Polyworker and what it takes to build a career around your values while still operating inside capitalism. If you've ever felt like you were "doing the thing" but still had bad weeks because your business development pipeline was nonexistent or your cash...

This is episode one of a little mini season of the show. (A whole mini season! I know. Bear with me.) It's going to be chock full of behind-the-scenes stuff re: my debut book Polyworker! This particular episode gives you a closer look at the two companion films for the book — Corporate Fleabag and Planet Work . I sit down for a chat with SAG actress and the leading lady in both shorts Ally Condrat...

In this episode, I chat with Bhavna Devani about the generational reckoning happening in the culture of work and why so many of us feel like we’re navigating economic precarity and career chaos alone, when it’s actually a collective, systemic shift. We talk about the skills this moment now demands—continuous skill gathering, communications and marketing as core economic competencies, and the pract...

In this episode, I chat with Meg Scheding of Strategic Pivotery, a Slack-based community for women (not so quietly!) stepping away from confines of tech hustle culture and the idea that work defines our worth. We chat about the intense loneliness that tends to creep up when you step away from full-time work, how she built a community as a means of solving that problem, and who Meg believes needs t...

In this episode, I chat with Julie Fedele about the state of the corporate world and my upcoming book Polyworker. We explore the identity work that comes with starting over, and then wade into a harder question: if the social contract is broken, who is actually responsible for fixing it?

In this episode, I run back through my big portfolio-career predictions for 2025 and then I cast a little spell for 2026. You know, set the vibes, summon the universe, see what sticks. It’s reflective, kinda witchy… very on brand.

In this episode of the pod, I sit down with executive coach Ashley Rudolph to explore the quiet crisis playing out inside modern careers: mid-career high achievers waking up in lives they never consciously chose. We dig into Ashley’s concept of utopia syndrome—when our ambition slips into autopilot—and how “inertia disguised as achievement” keeps people chasing roles they don’t actually want. We b...

In this episode, I sit down with my former clients Sarah and Brendon Hamlin, the husband-and-wife team behind Hamlin Creative, to talk about what it really takes to evolve an established business in the digital age. After more than a decade of running their video production company, they decided to push beyond referrals and their reputation to experiment with growing their reputation on a new chan...

In this episode, I sit down with Geoffrey Colon to talk about how professionals can move through the stages of grief after job loss and channel that uncertainty into creativity and new beginnings. We dig into how the world of work is shifting toward smaller, more independent ecosystems—and the need for new support systems and policies to match. We also explore the erosion of loyalty in corporate c...

In this episode, poet and truth-teller Sarah Hanson joins me to talk about leaving a successful 15-year run in corporate to write her debut memoir-in-verse, Conjuring the Hurricane. Sarah opens up about surviving domestic violence, living through and processing profound grief, and choosing to write about these experiences with both honesty and gentleness.  

In this episode, Bree Groff joins me to talk about ways we can make work feel more human and joyful. As the author of the recently published book Today Was Fun and a seasoned change strategist, Bree brings a fresh perspective to the show regarding how both individuals and organizations can embrace ambiguity, build resilience, and actually enjoy the process of transformation.