Sorry to bring your parents into this, but it really had to be done.

You see, from time to time I get to pause and have a moment of reflection. And when I do, I often think about my parents and their own path to financial stability.

How did they do it? No, seriously how?

How did they balance career and family?

Because the way our parents built financial security, you know, one employer, one salary, three decades, a pension at the end is not the way security gets built anymore.

I know, I'm really sorry to be the bad guy.

But it's important that we're armed with this knowledge. I often hear about people whose parents could afford a three bed house and a family holiday every year on one salary growing up, and today their kids can’t afford or do half of that stuff. So what's changed?

Well, here's the truth: if you really want to be successful today, and in the future, you have to build an audience.

This is not debatable.

Every single person reading this newsletter needs to start thinking about how they can build an audience.

The people with genuine leverage right now aren't necessarily the ones with the most senior job title. It’s the people that have a following, a list, a community. Even if it’s teeny tiny.

Because that is the one asset nobody else can restructure, downsize, or take credit for in your place.

Those of us building a portfolio career, one that gives us freedom, allows for pick ups, and needs no approval from a boss — this is how we start. By building an audience.

Today I'm taking you all the way back to school, so get your paper and pen ready.

Someone who builds a direct relationship with an audience, on Instagram, YouTube, a newsletter, LinkedIn instead of going through the old gatekeepers: an employer, a publisher, a manager deciding whether your ideas see daylight. You publish, people show up because they trust your voice, and that trust becomes an asset you own outright.

The creator economy is now estimated at $200–250 billion globally in 2026, growing at roughly 20%+ a year. This is one of the fastest growing sectors in the entire economy. TIME didn't just cover this shift from the sidelines this year; it put out a dedicated Creators list alongside its century old Most Influential People list. This year's list wasn't just beauty and lifestyle names either, it included a Wharton professor teaching AI, a mathematician, a British etiquette expert, and a food creator known for a viral recipe.

Creators who build real, sustainable income rarely rely on one source. The most financially stable typically run seven or more revenue streams. This includes brand partnerships, platform payouts, affiliate income, and critically, their own products: courses, memberships, coaching, digital templates. That last category is the one that correlates most strongly with real income. Research shows that creators who own a product of their own, rather than only taking brand deals, earn close to six figures on average. This is not a coincidence. It's the exact structure a portfolio career is built on: several smaller income sources instead of one salary, each one able to flex around your actual life rather than the other way round.

Look I get it, putting yourself out there is a little cringey.

But the cost of having zero visible presence outside your job title is no longer an option.

Look at what's happening on the hiring side alone.

The average job search in early 2026 was taking around 108 days from first application to offer, the slowest it's been since these figures started being tracked. Recruiters facing that many candidates are relying more on what they can find about you, not less.

85% of hiring managers say a visible personal brand helps a candidate stand out, and 52% of job seekers say they landed their most recent role directly because of their online presence.

On the flipside 57% of hiring managers say they've ruled someone out specifically because of a weak or absent digital footprint. Meanwhile, professionals with genuinely visible expertise in their field have been shown to command as much as 13 times the pay of equally skilled people with none.

Yes 13 times!

Right now, it’s very likely that your expertise exists in one place. But what would happen if that company were to restructure, get acquired, or simply decide your role isn't a priority next year.

If you haven’t been building an audience, the only proof of what you're capable of lives in references and a CV — assets you can't access until you're already unemployed and competing in a market that, per the data above, is currently slower and more crowded than it's been in years. An audience, even a small one, is proof of your value that exists independently of any one employer's decision about you and it's available to you on the day you need it, not three months after you start building it from scratch.

Ok that was a mouthful.

I’m not asking you to run over to Instagram and post a crying video about your cheating sexaholic husband.

That's not exactly what I'm talking about here.

Why not pick an article you've read that relates to a passion of yours, or to your industry? Repost it on LinkedIn with some of your own thoughts. You can start really small. Do you have a work event soon? Take a picture with a colleague and caption it with an interesting thing you learned. Do this once a week for eight weeks and document your results.

I want to bring it all back, to where it first began. Are your parents financially better off than you? Right now, maybe. But they built that security in a world that isn't coming back: one employer, one salary, three decades, a pension at the end. That world has gone.

We have an even better opportunity. We can use our expertise to expand our revenue streams and build even more wealth than they ever could — all by building an audience. Start now: publish once a week, in your own voice, and watch that audience grow.

Ok folks, that's it for this week, excited to catch up next Thursday!

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial or legal advice and we are not certified financial advisers or lawyers! This newsletter is strictly educational. Please  consult with an independent financial advisor or lawyer for advice on your specific circumstances.