I LOVE the concept of having multiple revenue streams.  When I got laid off in January, 2010, I had 100% of my income disappear overnight.

I never, ever wanted to be in a position where one person (or worse, a committee) could take away 100% of my income.

Enter: Multiple Streams of Income.

One day I sat down and listed out all of my revenue streams – I was surprised to find I had 10 of them.

I wasn’t working all of them, but I was planning on working on them.  Others were producing a pretty good income. I decided to share what most of them were… I hope you get inspiration from my sharing this to figure out what your own multiple streams could be:

• Revenue Stream 1: JibberJobber User Upgrades
• Revenue Stream 2: JibberJobber Partnership Program
• Revenue Stream 3: Books I write
• Revenue Stream 4: (not announced yet)
• Revenue Stream 5: Professional Speaking
• Revenue Stream 6: Consulting
• Revenue Stream 7: (not announced yet)
• Revenue Stream 8: (not announced yet)
• Revenue Stream 9: Information Products
• Revenue Stream 10: Miscellaneous

It’s not necessarily a path to sure wealth and jets and engines… I’m not talking about get rich quick or schemes or anything – it’s all about securing your own income and having more control because of a certain degree of diversity.

What about you?  Can you have multiple streams of income?

Today I’m doing my first Habitat for Humanity project in New Orleans!

I just read this on Penelope Trunk’s blog and thought is was intriguing/brilliant.  Penelope is announcing a webinar where she’ll be at Seth Godin’s house (pretty cool!).  Here’s what Seth says about careers and GenY:

My take is that [generation Y] is the last one that will be as totally brainwashed by the system, by the schools and by companies and by society to believe that the industrial age (and compliance) is their ticket to the carnival. The smart ones will see that and play a different game, and the sooner they realize how bad the scam is, the faster they’ll recover.

WOW. Some interesting points:

• We are all brainwashed, including GenY (even though they are the tail end)
• Schools and companies and society are brainwashing us
• Compliance to the “industrial age” is not good – we’re blinded by whatever their promise is
• Look for the different game… perhaps a different way to manage your career (income security?) and start moving forward in that direction

Link to Penelope’s webinar is here.

I was chatting with Julie Walraven about career stuff and I made up a word, on-the-fly, that is pretty cool.

I was talking about how professionals need to manage their own careers… they need to manage their careers like an entrepreneur manages his business.  Flexibility, vision, discipline, etc.

Career-oriented + entrepreneur = careerpreneur

What do you think?

If you are a careerpreneur you believe that you are the CEO of Me, Inc.

If you are a careerpreneur you know that your ability to provide income, or income security, comes from the strategy and tactics you employ in your career management.

If you are a careerpreneur you know that change is inevitable and you constantly position yourself to survive/win.

If you are a careerpreneur you network because you have learned to love it and do it right, not because you are in a pinch and need to lean on others.

If you are a careerpreneur you are FREE, not burdened down wondering when you might lose your job.

If you are a careerpreneur you… _______________________________________

Okay that is too fun.  Now that’s two words/phrases I’ve made up in this career space (the other is “income security,” which replaces “job security“)!

That word has been on my mind a lot this year.

I think I’m disrupting an industry, right now.

I won’t have many fans from within that industry, but everyone tells me the time is ripe to disrupt it…. someone is going to do it, why not me?

I want to be in charge of the disruption.  Or at least, one of the early disrupters.

This year, tens of thousands of people have had their careers disrupted.

Instead of being in charge of the disruption, they have been disrupted.  Many feel like the carpet was pulled out from under them.  Some got up fine, others lay on the ground wounded.

Would you rather be a disrupter, and have some control over the direction (or at least feel like you have some control), or a disruptee, and lay down wounded, wondering what the heck’s going on?

The year is over.  The decade is over.

Next year, next decade, is YOURS.

Disrupt.  Or be disrupted.

I retired the Personal Branding Award series a few months ago and said I was going to start a new series…. well, this is it.  I want to interview people who are doing something DIFFERENT.

There is an irony I live with every day.  Some people think I am hear to help you land your next gig… to find your dream job.

You see, I personally don’t think a dream job exists… not in the way it did a few decades ago.  Even if you find the dream job you might not have it after 6 months or 6 years.

You are always in transition, always a job seeker, and thus, always CEO of Me, Inc.

Part of that, as I’ve mentioned before, is to figure out personal income security.

That’s what this series is about – thinking outside the box of “I’m getting my dream job soon!” to “I think there are other ways to crack this (income security) nut!”

Welcome the first person in the series – Gary Vaynerchuk (aka, GaryVee).

Gary is beyond a rockstar, although he’ll deny it.  His energy makes me think all I’m suited for is a government job… but he claims it  is not the craziness or energy that makes you WIN.  No, not win, that makes you CRUSH IT! Crush it is the name of his new book, which should start shipping today.

I interviewed Gary for about 45 minutes, you can listen on the BlogTalkRadio channel.  Lots of gems to apply to your own career here.

And check out his book Crush It - it’s less than $15 at Amazon.  I’ve got mine in the mail and I’m anxious to get into it!

Sometime during the last year of my employment at my last job I swiped a book from my mom while she was visiting my family.  How To Become A Rainmaker had me 1,000% captivated.  Every chapter is 2 – 5 pages, the book is small (although not a “pamphlet”), and the stuff in there was just amazing.

I’m not a salesperson, and I wasn’t at the time, but reading Jeffrey Fox’s book on becoming a rainmaker, and the strategy and tactics involved, won me over.

As CEO of Me, Inc. I think it’s critical that we understand our role of sales and marketing.  I don’t know of any better training, whether it’s beginner training or advanced training, to help us understand what goes into becoming an effective salesperson.

Salesperson = Communicator

Salesperson = Influencer

There is no reason to not be a more efficient communicator or influencer, I don’t care if you are unemployed, a super-geeky programmer (no offense intended :p), or a work-alone-on-the-moon astronaut.

You need this book.

It is about $14 on Amazon.  Or you might be able to get it at Costco (I’ve seen a bunch of Fox’s books at my Costco).  Or you can check your local library.

I don’t care how you get this book, but get it.  And read it with your “CEO of Me, Inc.” hat on.

A few days ago I wrote Time Magazine on Labor Day, Unemployment and Stress and Teena Rose asked a really interesting question in the comments:

I have a question for you Jason … and if anyone can answer, you can, seeing as how you have an IT background. Do you know how long it took for the IT industry to realign when that bubble burst? I’m sure there wasn’t 15 million IT professionals (was there?) unemployed back then, but …

Very interesting!  I remember the time well but I was in a secluded little town with a nice stable job… I could essentially watch from the sidelines and be glad I didn’t pursue my original dream of heading straight to Austin, Texas to work at Dell or something like that (I heard there were a ton of unemployed IT people in Austin during that time).

I asked my friend Heather Gardner, who is a recruiting professional in the Silicon Valley and Bay Area – she gets a terrific perspective of what’s going on in the job search world from that perspective.  Here’s what she had to say:

I’m not sure what the “right” answer is to Teena’s question, but here’s what I would say if we were having a chat. First, there has never been such economic downsizing since I became a recruiter…. Even the dot.com bust does not compare with what we are currently experiencing.

Unemployment is high, job losses are growing with more to come and what’s not being reported but has an effect on the economy is the companies cutting back on people’s hours (furloughs) not only in State & local government but the private sector.  This drastically affects a household on the financial edge to begin with….. regardless of what happened with the dot.com bust, this is much different.

Okay, now for the good news.  Just because it’s bad out there doesn’t mean it’s impossible to find a job. There ARE people getting jobs, finding multiple opportunities for employment and entrepreneurs who are thriving in this market, yep, thriving.

What I see working for job hunters who are successful is that they think outside of the box, understand that they are in a sales role now and they don’t give up.  If something’s not working they make changing, they qualify openings to make sure they can position themselves as the “right” candidate and they are stealth networkers.  The IT Manager who just got laid off, he/she needs to have several versions of his/her resume:

1. A resume to position himself/herself as the perfect candidate for another IT Manager position
2. Another resume to position himself as a software developer – something he/she has experience in and can do again.  This resume now downplays the management background so that he/she can easily be considered for another completely different role.
3. A resume that might be geared towards IT project management.  He/She many have done it in their IT Manager role, but not necessarily had the title.

Now this IT Manager can open up doors for a variety of different career roles.  The good news now is that this IT Manager that just got laid off has increased his/her chances of landing a role that they are perfectly qualified to do.

I think the best approach to this job market is NOT to compare to anything we’ve experienced before, but rather think outside the box. The more resourceful you are the better your odds are of landing that perfect role, even in this down economy.

I know people getting jobs right now…. I know companies that are hiring…. It’s possible!

Isn’t Heather Gardner a breath of fresh air?  You can follow her blog here or follow her on Twitter here.

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by Amy Franko, a business coach out of Ohio.  We had a very nice interview where we talked about a number of things – you can get a download of the interview (as well as a transcription) from this page (I’m #4).

Some of the stuff we talk about (her audience is not job seekers, it’s entrepreneurs):

• thoughts on being an entrepreneur,
• stuff about my book and how I’ve used it as a marketing tool,
• the name of a movie that had a major impact on me as an entrepreneur (I saw it on my way to a speaking gig in Turkey),
• and a number of thoughts on using LinkedIn.

If you have a few minutes and any entrepreneurial inclination, check it out

One of my LinkedIn contacts, Marianna Fichtenholtz, asked me a question on LinkedIn that I’ve thought about for the last week:

If you were a job seeker, how would you answer the following question:

What is your primary motivation to seek new employment?

My first thought was “to make money again.“  When I was a job seeker it was not by choice, and my funds were drying up.

But all week I’ve batted this around, and come up with a few other ideas:

• To make MORE money. Some companies or titles or jobs or career paths or industries might offer me more money if I switch.
• Because I’m done here. An executive might have accomplished what he/she came to do, or in my case, there wasn’t anything more to learn (which was the reason I transitioned out of one of my first jobs).  If you’ve reached “the end,” and you’ll know it before you get there, then perhaps it’s time to look.
• To find something more secure. JibberJobber users are pretty savvy – they realize nothing is totally “secure,” but some things can be more secure that what they have now.
• To find something more aligned with your values. Whether your values are aligned with tree huggers, liberals, conservatives, ultra-conservatives… if the company you work for isn’t congruent or tolerant or conducive to your values, you might find it taxing to go to work each day.
• To escape HELL. Been there.  Done that.  It’s better to move on than stay.
• To do something with a purpose. In one company I did cool stuff but the company wasn’t necessarily doing anything life-changing in the world.  I didn’t think I’d care, but when I started JibberJobber and really started affecting individuals lives, WOW, I’m hooked on having a job that has a purpose.

Let me throw this out to you – what is (or has been) YOUR primary motivation to seek new employment?

I was on a radio show last week where I thought we were going to talk about LinkedIn (for the umpteenth time)… but Liz asked some great questions and the conversation went in a totally different direction.  We spent more time on Career Management than I normally get to… this was a fun interview – spend 30 or so minutes and listen to it here

Liz is a pretty awesome person with a lot of networking advice… you can learn more about her here.