which cake are you baking?

January 22, 2024

Recently, I came across a brilliant article written by April Rinne on "Why You Should Build a "Career Portfolio" (Not a "Career Path")". I could highly identify myself with so many lines she wrote, nodding my head as I read her words. I have experienced a similar journey as she described (including the thoughts and feelings when working as a luxury travel guide).

While reading April's article, a talk I had at the beginning of last year with my psychologist* surfaced in my memory. 

(*as a side note, a key component of my trajectory so far has been a robust support system, my psychologist being an essential part of it, helping me view things from different perspectives and edit my story along the way. As Einstein put it: "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them" - and sometimes an outside view of the matter is essential to give you fresh insight and new ways of seeing things).

At the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, I was experiencing a peak of life transformation - a rethinking and rerouting of (literally) everything. I remember telling my psychologist in the first few months of 2023 that I was unsure about which path to take professionally. I felt I had experience with many different things but nothing "properly". I felt like jumping from branch to branch without trailing a "proper" career path that was consistent and clear—as if I was failing and creating a bit of a career mess rather than a path.

What she told me then opened my eyes to see the matter with more lightness: "You are buying the ingredients of a cake you don't know yet you're baking. You know you are up to something, and you're collecting the single ingredients (and that is what you can see now), but which flavour and which form the cake will result in in the end is yet to be defined. For that, you still need a bit of time. Continue focusing on the ingredients; eventually, everything will form that final recipe."

Even though it was a bit frustrating not to know yet what I was baking, it made sense, and I accepted her theory. I still needed to be patient. 

A few months later, after this conversation, while guiding a morning walk on one of our Butterfield & Robinson trips, I was having a profound and personal conversation with one of the travellers, telling me about the business her father had created. As she told me about his trajectory and path, I remember telling her, "It sounds like he combined all of his skills and passions and created his unique business out of it". She answered without hesitation a few seconds before we joined the rest of the group, "Isn't that what always ends up happening anyway?". That made me think. The cake. The ingredients. Yes, it all was starting to make sense. We all have unique paths and journeys, and no one on earth will live exactly how we live(d). And only we can join pieces in ways no one has before. Isn't that the beauty of being who we are?

That was June 2023. In July, it started becoming clear the cake I was baking after all.

A newly created project I started developing (stemming from a seed created back in 2019 and brought back to life while having coffee in the Netherlands with a good friend) seemed to combine (on so many levels) all my experiences gathered so far. People I met, skills I learned, insights, connections, perspectives. As if suddenly all started aligning, everything started making sense - why I worked in that job, why I met that person, why I had to face those challenges, why I chose that track instead of another. Finally, I know which cake I'm baking. 

It was the kickstart of my newly created project - unboxing cycles - an artistic and educational project to raise awareness about the menstrual cycle.

I wrote and compiled the entire scope of the project while travelling in Bali and Australia between July and October 2023. I returned to Switzerland at the beginning of November, committed to making what was written on paper a reality, and I have been working ever since towards this master cake. The more I work on it, the more connections appear, and it all continues falling into place, bringing links and memories from the past, hugely aiding the development of this newly created business. 

All of this is to say that, at some point, it all does make sense. 

The most interesting people I know (and the ones I always get inspired by) are usually those who have created (and continue creating) career portfolios, not career paths. The ones that have a systems way of thinking, seeing the connections between the whole instead of limiting looking individually to the parts instead of the entirety. I don't see life as black and white, work versus life, professional versus personal; it is somehow all intertwined once you start following your calling, where the lines start merging, and concrete separation is hard to define.

For many years, I thought (and so have I also received feedback from the people around me - friends, family, coworkers) that I was failing by not following one constant path. As April mentioned in her trajectory, individuals around me also "questioned my seriousness and said my professional future could crash". Some now also still don't understand, and a certain level of explanation is usually needed, especially when the questions come right after I say I am a photographer. "oh, so you studied photography?" (with a tone of certainty) "no, I never did. I studied international management and marketing but started living as a nomad photographer 3,5 years ago". I confess that the puzzlement in the eyes of those asking amuses me.

It might not have been (and still isn't) a smooth journey. Tons of self-understanding, self-development, questioning, learning and unlearning are attributed to it, but that is what makes it all thrilling. 

If you have yet to determine which cake you are baking, do not worry. Eventually, it will make sense if you keep pursuing it and seeing life as a curious journey. As an additional learning from the freediving I have been taking with me, don't look up or down; focus on the line right in front of you instead and focus on your journey only - each one has its own, making us unique and beautiful in our own ways.

And to finish off this (long) reflection, I leave here some of my favourite takeaways from April's words to inspire you (and still recommend you to read her entire reflection on the topic if you haven't yet):

"A career portfolio is different in that it is not a physical entity or system. It's a new way to think about, talk about, and — most importantly – craft your professional future in order to navigate our ever-changing world of work with purpose, clarity, and flexibility."

"(…)a career portfolio is a never-ending source of discovery and fulfilment. It represents your vast and diverse professional journey, including the various twists and turns, whether made by choice or by circumstance. "

"It includes your unique combination of skills, experiences, and talents that can be mixed, matched, and blended in different ways."

"Your combination of skills is far more valuable than any of them on their own." (And if I can complement that, them on their own, others can learn. However, the unique combination you have, only you have - only you can bake your cake with the spices you bring to the table). 

With that, I hope you, too, can embrace your career portfolio, share who you are with the world, and give us a taste of your uniquely created mix of ingredients (which might result in a cake or anything else, really). With time, new flavours, new toppings, or entirely newly created recipes will continue appearing, and I am curious to taste them all.