Overall I like the stable/scalable distinction, especially how “stable” fits somewhere in the middle. It’s good to point out how Pareto’s law works for the scalable careers (less than 20% will get 80% of the profits, reputation, attention, etc. – it might even be more like 10/90%).

My side-hobby, flying, is a money pit. It will likely always be a money losing thing for me, but it is extremely fun!

The answer – at least in my line of work – is to change jobs every few years early in your career, each time getting yourself a 10% to 15% increase. Over a 30 or 40 year career this results in your income tripling or higher.

At the later point in your career, staying with the same employer is desirable for a couple of reasons – you need to build up your service time to increase your pension – also, unfortuneatly, it is a lot harder for an older person (50+) to change jobs.

I work for a small business (grown from 20 to 50 employees in my time there) in a position that directly relates to my major outside passion. In the past year, as a result of taking on some new responsibilities that gave us access to a couple of new business opportunities, I saw my income increase by about 50%. Not an order of magnitude, but still nothing to sneeze at.

My whole career I’ve worked for startups and small businesses, which offer a great deal of scope for people with an entrepreneurial bent. It’s less stable than most corporate environments, but definitely mitigates many of the risks of self-employment, plus a lot of the challenges associated with running your own business in terms of managing areas far outside your expertise.

My advice to my kids will be to hedge your bets. Hold a bill paying job and then develop your passion into a wealth builder.

“Steady” jobs are dangerous and far from stable– I discuss the idea of Multipreneuring and Defensive Entrepreneurship with family, friends, and readers all the time.

In a ‘scalable career’ you are in control of everything. If you are one who finds yourself capable of handling such a pressure you will find that there is no contest when it comes to security.

When I left my job to start a business several years ago I was told by many of my stable career co-workers what I fool I was for leaving such a stable company with health benefits and quarterly bonuses. Most of them have lost their jobs while my income has increased by 500%. If this was an aberration that would be one thing, but to me this seems the norm. Those who are smart and willing to take risk find that their level of stability is far superior to an hourly employee.

I am an attorney, and was thinking exactly what you wrote, and was going to comment similarly. But then it hit me, you are partially wrong lol.

Those of us, who are in careers/jobs that are required to produce billable hours, or sit in an office 60 hours a week.

I think it is the person rather than the position which defines where you fall on Trent’s “scale”

Sometimes we need to overcome social boundaries and embrace our passions not matter what our peers may think.

If you have a passion, follow it.