I didn't know I was building a portfolio career as a teenager

I didn't know I was building a portfolio career as a teenager. I just knew I needed money!

I was still at school, and on Thursday nights and Saturdays I worked at the bookshop at the local suburban Westfield Shopping Centre. I loved helping customers find the perfect book they wanted for themselves or for a gift, making displays and unpacking new stock - it was like Christmas when we got a new delivery!

Fathers Day (coming up tomorrow in Australia) was always one of our busiest weekends! But because I got a 20% staff discount on purchases, it meant that most of my pay was spent on books...

I soon realised that my bookshop money alone wasn't enough for the things I wanted.

So I started making handmade paper journals in my bedroom, making the paper myself with a recycling kit and decorating it with a marbling kit. The pages had this beautiful rough texture, nothing like the notebooks you could buy at the newsagent. I would also buy boxes of plain white candles from the supermarket, carving designs in them and painting them.

I'd fill a backpack and catch the bus to the city to the weird, hippy, alternative bookshop and sell them on consignment. At the time there was nothing else for sale like them!

During the week and on Sundays I also used to put on my Sizzler uniform and work "coldside". This meant taking orders and payment at the till and delivering trays full of drinks to tables. Embarrassingly I once dropped a giant tray full of 10 drinks in the middle of the restaurant! I quit soon after when I realised that waitressing wasn't the best use of my talents.

Three different worlds, three different versions of myself, all contributing to the same goal. I was earning money, but I was also learning things no single job that was able to teach me everything.

How to talk to strangers about their interests.

How to create something from nothing.

How to handle pressure and keep smiling when all eyes are on you because you made a mistake!

Looking back, those jobs during my high school years were my first real lesson in having a portfolio career.

Having different sources of income, using different skills, and having the confidence to adapt to different environments.

Funny how what felt like necessity at the time turned out to be the foundation for everything that came after.

Here's a throwback pic below of me in 1994!