People are tired of trading their precious time and energy for simply dollars, working with companies they have little or no significant stake in. More than ever, the need for meaning, connection, flexibility, and variety is driving career decisions.

This is why the Great Resignation continues. It’s why so many are seeking novel opportunities to bring their full self to bear—working on missions they believe in, with people that inspire and challenge them, where each contribution is recognized, appreciated, and rewarded.

We want to feel we’re creating something more together, as a community, than would ever be possible in an old-style company headed by a few small individuals that see the majority of the upside from everyone's collective efforts.  

This is why I’ve been posting recently about economic megatrends like the explosion of entrepreneurship, the democratization of venture funding, and the rise of community-led business.

These are all elements of what I call the Ownership Economy, a movement creating a vast array of amazing opportunities. Thus, the future worker isn’t thinking about tying themself to one company. They’re thinking about a portfolio career—playing with many people in many places.

With the massive changes in entrepreneurship and the barriers to entry in rapid decline, the most successful people this decade will be at the center of these overlapping trends.

Personally, this is why I became a co-founder of Nobody Studios, where we’re growing a collaborative community of innovators to build an array of impactful companies. 

Now, as I write and post about these topics, much of the feedback I’ve been getting is, "I'm all in!" "This is what I've been waiting for!" "You're putting words to feelings I've had for years!"

Yet then comes the pause…

"But I don't know how to get started." "I can't leave my job right now." "I don't think I could do it..."

I’m here to tell you that you can....

That’s what I’m addressing in this post: how to actually get started leveraging your purpose and what you believe in toward a passionate portfolio career that brings you fulfillment and income— while allowing you to make a significant impact.

The Only Thing That Can Stop You is YOU

With the barriers to entry coming down for entrepreneurship—costs, technology, funding, and more—the main obstacle that’s left is actually an internal one.

I’m talking about fear.

For many people used to working in a secure job, stepping into this world can seem too hard, too risky, too expensive, or just too unknown.

Facing fear has been a major theme for me over the years, and I made it a special focus last year. I had the great pleasure of interviewing work-relationship expert and author Alla Weinberg on an episode of Chapter Two (my video series interviewing authors).

I followed that with this blog sharing new strategies to face my fears which have led to major breakthroughs in my work and life. One of the key things I’ve learned is that fear never goes away. To succeed in bringing your dreams to life, you have to learn how to respond to fear and keep extending your threshold for managing it and regulating your nervous system responses. It’s part of the process of personal growth and a key skill of great leaders.

To overcome fears around entering this world of entrepreneurialism, the first step is to recognize you’re going to feel vulnerable. You're putting yourself out there. It's scary. Yet it's also part of the journey and a skill you have to develop to do anything novel.

A common limiting belief is, ”I’m not an entrepreneur. Starting a business is something other people do.” A slight shift to, “Maye this is something I can do too,” can begin to break the inertia.

Then, the main antidote to fear is what I’ve guided you to do for years: start small. This makes it safer to adopt an attitude of curiosity—and comfort with being uncomfortable. Treat what you’re doing as part of the process—an opportunity to learn what works or doesn’t rather than something you must succeed at (in a specific manner and time frame).

Getting Started

So let’s look at how to take a bold yet small, safe step into each of the three areas of Ownership Economy.

Entrepreneurial Explosion First Steps

Start working on ideas in whatever time you can spare. Get your hands on some of the powerful, yet easy-to-use, tools for designing and building products. For example, check out some of the great low-code/no-code platforms like ThoughtForma, Figma, or Airtable—you’ll be surprised how much you can build with little or no technology expertise.

You can also work on plugging multiple pieces of technology together. For example, you could set up a website using Squarespace and add a Shopify e-commerce plugin. Or use a tool like Zapier to connect hundreds of different apps, platforms, and customer engagement tools together.

If you’re not sure where to start, then first spend some time learning. There are many free or low-cost training programs (e.g. EDX.org) for any topic you could want to learn about—from business operations to technical skills to marketing. You can find courses from world-class institutions such as MIT, Harvard, and more.

Focus first on fun and fulfillment. Once you start getting the hang of building and creating, then you can think about turning your work into a business.

Community-Led Business First Steps

The easiest way to get involved in the community-led movement is simply to join some communities, learn what they offer and how they work, and start to contribute.

There are a ton of great communities out there—see my last post for examples, and also check out CommunityLed.com.

Another way to find communities around your interests is through social media. Just run a search for your topic areas and filter for groups. Reddit and Twitter are especially rich sources for community conversations. You can also sign up for newsletters or join groups straight from websites of organizations you’re curious about.

Personally, I wanted to learn more about Angel investing, so I joined AngelSquad, a community of Hustle Fund, a VC firm I think is interesting and aligns with my values. 

If you don’t find the right community for the topic you care about, you can also start your own! Read up on how to create community, and again, start small. It could begin as simply as inviting a few friends to a Slack or Discord channel.

Democratized Venture Funding First Steps

These days, anyone who wants to get started as a venture investor can easily do so. There are two main approaches: equity crowdfunding and Web3.

Equity crowdfunding allows anyone to invest in early stage companies through accredited sites like Republic, Indiegogo, or StartEngine. For as little as $100 in some cases, you can get in on the ground floor of companies that could become the next global juggernauts (or not!). The process of investing is not as hard as many think, although it’s important to learn about the differences and risks as compared to investing in public companies.

Then there’s the rapidly growing Web3 approach. Digitally connected groups, often called DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations), allow people to buy in using blockchain-based assets. What’s fascinating is they create their policies, codes of conduct, and operating procedures in smart contracts. Then they federate out all the work to everybody who's part of the DAO, and members can receive equity in the company based on their contributions.

This is an exciting and rapidly growing movement. It can take a bit of time and effort to understand, but there are many groups seeking to help people learn—Odyssey DAO (started by one of the people I met via AngelSquad) is a great example.

With either approach to investing, I suggest making small bets, getting actively involved in the areas you’re investing in, and learning as you go. (See my recent post on investing lessons for more tips.)

If you’re excited about any or all of these opportunities, I would encourage you to:

• check out this presentation

• book a talk for your organization

• follow what I’m doing at Nobody Studios.

I love to inspire people with ideas yet provide actionable steps to takeaway from my talks. I speak from my own experiences, case studies and mistakes to help others make progress in the face of uncertainty and grow.

I give talks all over the world, sharing my expertise, insights and stories of my own and others’ learning and unlearning.