I Stopped Apologizing for Doing “Too Many Things”
And you should too.
Someone asked me last week what I do for a living.
I opened my mouth and did that thing again. The thing where you mentally sort through all the answers, trying to pick the one that sounds the most “legitimate.” The one that won’t make their eyes glaze over. The one that fits neatly on a business card.
I run an AI implementation agency. I write a weekly newsletter. I manage Airbnb properties. I’m building a community for women in tech. I consult. I teach workshops. I organize events. I’m a mom of three boys. I’m ALWAYS working on something new.
I watched this person’s face try to keep up, doing that polite nodding thing where you can tell they stopped processing around item three. I could practically see the loading wheel spinning behind their eyes. Classic.
I used to stumble through that answer. I used to feel the need to connect the dots for people, to make it all make sense in one clean narrative. Like if I couldn’t explain my career in a single sentence, it somehow meant I hadn’t figured it out yet, or I can’t commit.
I’m done with that!
The path that “doesn’t make sense” until it does
My career hasn’t followed a straight line. It has followed me.
I started in fashion buying. I loved the industry, loved the creativity, loved the pace. But something in me kept pulling toward the edge of what was coming next. I was curious about tech before I could articulate why, drawn to the energy of people building things from scratch.
That curiosity led me into the startup world. I went from curating collections on a rack to helping founders build companies from the ground up. Different universe, same instinct: find what’s missing, figure out what people need, and build toward it.
Then I became the founder. I launched my own startup and learned the hardest lesson entrepreneurship has to offer: it’s not about the idea. It’s about surviving long enough for the idea to work. Or being honest enough with yourself to pivot when it doesn’t. Nobody tells you that the most important founder skill is the ability to smile on a Zoom call while your entire plan is on fire.
Eventually I landed where I am now, running HeyAlla as a solo agency, helping business owners actually implement AI instead of just talking about it. Along the way, I picked up Airbnb properties because I saw an opportunity and I had the bandwidth to manage it. I started a newsletter because I couldn’t stop researching AI and I figured other founders needed someone translating it for them. I built a community because the women around me were hungry for connection in spaces that weren’t built for us.
None of this was planned. All of it was intentional.
And for a long time, I thought the fact that my career didn’t fit into one neat category meant something was wrong with me. Like maybe everyone else got a memo about picking a lane and I missed it because I was too busy starting something new.
The shame of being “too much”
Here’s what nobody tells you about doing multiple things: people will try to make you feel like you’re scattered. Unfocused. Like you can’t commit.
There’s this unspoken rule, especially for women, that you’re supposed to pick a lane. Be the fashion person OR the tech person. Be the founder OR the consultant. Be ambitious OR be present for your kids. God forbid you try to be all of it at once. Apparently the universe only allocated one career per person and I accidentally grabbed a handful.
I internalized that for years. Every time someone at a networking event tilted their head and said “so you do... all of that?” I felt a little sting of shame. Like I needed to justify myself. Like the variety was a weakness instead of what it actually is: my entire competitive advantage.
I’ve definitely had moments at 2am staring at the ceiling thinking “am I building an empire or just really, really bad at saying no?” Sometimes followed by “wait, do I even want an empire? Can I just have a really interesting life with good health insurance?”
Anna Mackenzie, a founder I follow on Substack, writes about this beautifully. She went from applying to be a literal spy to launching fashion retail stores to building a podcast empire to tearing it all down and starting over as a writer, consultant, and mentor. She calls it a “portfolio career” and she’s unapologetic about it.
Reading her work was one of those moments where you realize you’re not broken. You’re just early.
The old model is crumbling. This week proved it.
While I was working on this essay, Salesforce quietly laid off another 1,000 people. This is on top of the 4,000 support roles their CEO bragged about replacing with AI agents last year. The twist? They’re now admitting that “LLMs can’t run your business by themselves.”
Let that sink in. The company betting its entire future on AI agents had to lay off people from the AI agent team. You can’t make this stuff up.
Meanwhile, January 2026 saw over 108,000 job cuts announced across the US. That’s a 118% increase from last year. Amazon cut 16,000. Workday cut 400. Pinterest is cutting engineers. The traditional model of “get a good job at a big company and you’ll be safe” has never been more obviously broken.
But here’s the part that doesn’t make the headlines: 67% more people launched businesses after being laid off in 2024 than the year before. Nearly half of all US workers are now “polyworking,” holding two or more jobs, projects, or gigs. 71% of high performers say they plan to build a portfolio career.
This isn’t a trend. This is the future of work!
The people clinging to one employer, one title, one income stream are actually the ones taking the biggest risk right now. They just don’t know it yet.
AI didn’t create this shift. But it made it possible.
Here’s where my story connects to the bigger picture.
Five years ago, running multiple businesses as a solo operator would have required either a team or a breakdown. Probably both. Possibly simultaneously. The logistics alone, the emails, the content, the client proposals, the research, the scheduling, the bookkeeping, would have eaten me alive. And I say that as someone whose to do list already has its own to do list, which I’m pretty sure has started a side hustle of its own.
Today, AI handles the heavy lifting on at least half of that. Not perfectly. Not without my judgment. But enough to make the math work.
I use AI to research 50+ sources for my newsletter every week. I use it to draft client proposals that I then make my own. I use it to analyze business processes before I recommend automation systems. I use it to create workshop materials. I use it to manage communications across multiple revenue streams without dropping balls. I use to manage my family finances and schedules. I did my taxes for 4 revenue streams in under an hour yesterday. That alone is worth the recognition.
AI didn’t replace me. It multiplied me.
And that’s the real story of AI in 2026 that nobody’s telling. It’s not about robots taking your job. It’s about giving one person the capacity to do what used to require five. That’s not a threat to the portfolio career model, it’s the engine that powers it.
The “generalist trap” is actually the generalist advantage
There’s a debate right now about whether you should specialize or generalize. Agencies want specialists. Corporate loves specialists. The whole system is built around “pick one thing and go deep.”
But the system is breaking.
Anna Mackenzie makes the case that generalists are built for portfolio careers because they have what she calls “range,” the ability to move across sales, delivery, operations, and creative work without needing a specific org chart to tell them where they belong.
I feel that in my bones. My fashion background taught me visual storytelling, trend analysis, and understanding what people want before they can articulate it. My startup experience taught me how to build under pressure with limited resources. My agency work taught me how to listen to a business owner’s real problem, not just the one they describe. My real estate property management businesses taught me operational systems and cash flow management.
None of those skills live in the same “lane.” All of them feed each other constantly. It turns out the career path that looked like a mess on LinkedIn was actually just cross training.
The world is moving toward people who can connect dots across domains, not people who can dig one hole really deep. Especially now that AI can handle the depth work faster than any human specialist.
What I’d say to the woman sitting in a job that’s shrinking around her
If you’re reading this and you’re in a traditional role feeling the walls close in, the layoffs in your industry, the AI tools that do half your job, the Sunday night dread that keeps getting heavier, I want you to hear this:
You are not “too all over the place.” You are not “unfocused.” You are not failing because your career doesn’t look like a straight line.
You are exactly the kind of person this moment was made for.
Start with what you already know. What skills do you have that solve real problems for real people? What are you constantly doing for free because you can’t help yourself? What would you build if no one was watching and no one could judge you for it?
Then use the tools. AI isn’t going to build your portfolio career for you. But it will make the impossible math of running multiple things suddenly possible. It will give you back the hours you need to experiment without burning out. It will let you be a team of ONE until you’re ready to be a team of more.
The old career ladder had one direction: up. And someone else decided how fast you climbed. Anna Mackenzie asks the question perfectly: the career ladder is dead(ish), so what comes next?
A portfolio career has no ladder. It’s a web you build yourself. And every thread makes the whole thing stronger.
The new answer
So when someone will ask me now “what do you do?” I will say…
“I do a lot of things. And they all connect.”
Because the future of work isn’t about finding your one thing. It’s about having the courage to be all of your things at once.
And honestly? I think I’ve been training for this my whole career. I just didn’t have the language for it until now.
-Alla
Questions for my subscribers…. What's the second (or third, or fourth) thing you do that you always leave off your bio?
Alla is the founder of HeyAlla, an AI implementation agency helping small business owners integrate AI into their operations without the hype. She writes a weekly newsletter at heyalla.substack.com and is based in Jacksonville, FL.
Beautiful article, with so many different perspectives. Working with you closely for almost 5 years, I have to highlight one of your strength before even AI, you have energy and capacity to finish in one hour that may take me 3-4 hours! It is your super power (no comparisons :)), I got my magic as well). I think now with AI you are on fire. You know how to focus and plan! You are an inspiration to many and you are constantly growing, and not stagnant! It is just a beginning!