What a millionaire says when you ask about what they do for a living

You might have a job – but you are not your job. It doesn’t define you. In his book Tim Ferriss says that he likes to answer the question “what do you do?” with “I am a drugs dealer”. Knowing some of his history, there’s actually a partial but legal truth to that. But the point is this: he does too many different things to summarize them in one word. Yet often that’s how we respond. When someone asks what we do, we respond with what we think we are – preferably in one word: I’m a banker, mom, barista, consultant, cleaner, sales person, the list goes on – but the conversation quickly dies. Now what do we talk about next?

How do you answer the question? I struggle with it. Like Tim, I enjoy wearing multiple hats and doing many different things in my life. Did you know most millionaires have, on average, 7-8 different streams of income simultaneously? Most of them do a variety of things, more or less surrounding a common theme they’re passionate about. They’re not passionate about the one…