For anyone who values financial security and ultimately desires financial freedom, creating at least one additional stream of income is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Diversifying one’s income stream is crucial to protect the individual and family against the unavoidable ups and downs of economic and industry cycles.

Because of the financial risks that come from relying on one source of income, such as a job or a business, one must consider creating at least one or more additional streams to generate cash.

It is for this reason that Springboard, Your Virtual University, a radio programme on Joy FM, used this week’s edition to educate listeners on how to create multiple streams of income through multiple talents and multiple careers.

The programme, which is hosted by Rev. Albert Ocran, had an investment banker who also doubles as a pastor, motivational speaker and author, Rev. Daniel Ogbarmey Tetteh, together with an accountant who also doubles as a banker and a baker, Mrs Irene Ackuaku, share their ideas on how one can create multiple sources of income through multiple careers.

Rev. Ogbarmey pointed out that previously, people were used to sticking to just one career but that was fast changing as people have now started resorting to multiple careers.

“Increasingly, we are coming to terms with the fact that relying on one source of income is not going to help. It has, therefore, become important for the individual to look at multiple income streams and this has come strongly to the fore and is forcing people to go into multiple careers,” he stated.

He said this was leading people to also discover more of their hidden talents as they were now realising that, “I can be a great doctor and can still practise journalism by coming up with a show to educate people about health issues and at the same time be an author as well by writing books on health.”

“People are discovering more and more that they can choose more than the one career path that we have been exposed to previously and this is very positive,” he said.

For her part, Mrs Ackuaku noted that traditionally, individuals had turned to stifle their potentials by choosing one career path.

She said sometimes, an individual makes up his or her mind that its either “I become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer so once he or she moves to become one of them, then all the others are shelved, forgetting he or she might still have other talents that could be developed into other things.”

Developing multiple careers

Touching on how to develop additional careers, Rev. Ogbarmey said the individual first has to identify the things he or she is good at.

“You have to take time to know yourself. Try and write out the things that interest you and see whether it may be very different from what you are currently doing. You also need to be sure if it is something that you can develop further and get value out of,” he pointed out.

“Another thing I will suggest is look at the way people tend to use you or the things that they normally seek your advice or assistance on because that could also signal to you where your strengths are and how you can capitalise on them,” he added.

According to him, the fact that people seek your advice and assistance on those things signals that you have something special in that area which you can develop and make a career.

“Until you know what you have, it will be difficult to know how to develop it and benefit from it,” he said.

Prioritising among multiple talents

Commenting on how to prioritise among which talent to develop first out of multiple talents, Rev. Ogbarmey advised listeners to always go for the easiest one first.

“For someone who may be starting out and realises he is multi-talented, he has to look at the one that he can easily and quickly develop,” he said.

“Some talents may take some time for you to develop, so it is always best to start with the easiest talent that you can develop and afterwards when you are on solid grounds and earning some income, you can look at developing the difficult ones,” he added.

Mrs Ackuaku, however, believes that in prioritising, one has to look at which of the talents which when developed will yield more.

“You must look at what is more economically viable. You have to do a cost benefit analysis and look at what you are putting in each of them and what you get out in return and this will help in deciding what to concentrate on,” she stated.

Source:graphic.com.gh