Diversify your Artistic Portfolio

by Jenna Pastuszek

One of my favorite podcasts to listen to over the past few months is The Dave Chang Show.

…Remember the days of eating at restaurants?

It got me thinking: Chefs, like us, are artists.

Artists with multiple artistic avenues.

Take Chang, for example.

What’s he do?

He is a restauranteur. Founder of the Momofuku restaurant group which, pre-pandemic, had sixteen restaurants around the world. Restaurants in different cities with different price points and different food concepts to create a wide variety for patrons.

He is a producer. He produced, created, and starred in two Netflix shows and created a podcast.

He is a writer. He wrote a cookbook and released a magazine series.

And then COVID. Like theatre, the intended mediums (dine in restaurants) of Chefs also closed.

What’s Chang up to now?

As a restauranteur, he closed some restaurants to stay financially afloat. His other restaurants have pivoted to online shipping and to go orders. His LA spot, Majordomo is only offering to go options. I’m talking family style dinners- full pork shoulders, short ribs, cocktails, etc. (It’s awesome, I’ve had it). There is now a Momofuku shop, Peachy Keen, where you can buy restaurant products with which to cook at home. Even while the original intention behind his restaurants, gathering together to break actual bread, remains off limits, he’s creating opportunities for communal eating to exist within the constraints.

As a producer, he’s maintained his weekly podcast, and expanded his content, adding additional weekly episodes, and hosting series within the series.

As an author, he’s released his memoir, Eat a Peach. 

And he’s now a philanthropist. Chang was the first celebrity to win $1,000,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and donated all of the proceeds to Southern Smoke Foundation.

Despite his industry shut down, the dude has been busy.

It got me thinking about diversifying, and the theory doubled down in my brain when I heard Seth Godin on today’s episode of The Long and the Short of It. Jen Waldman asked him what actors can be doing now while theatre is closed, and he suggested writing. Writing material for yourself so that you can’t say nothing has been written for you.

Huh, becoming a writer. Diversifying your artistic portfolio. Like Chang.

This triggered a conversation I had with Jenny Piersol of WTF (Women Talk Finance) about financial diversification. She said, “Diversification is critical because you’re ensuring you have eggs in lots of different baskets. Not diversifying would be like, if, as an actor, you decided to only ever attend EPAs. That would be really risky (akin to investing in only one company’s stock) and could leave you with either no success or by some stroke of crazy luck, all the success. Diversifying your audition portfolio to include a few developing reach out relationships, some agent appointments, a handful of ECCs and EPAs, and a bunch of self-tapes is a better way to ensure success (akin to a mutual fund).”

If we’ve learned anything from the continued extension of the timeline until the projected theatrical renaissance, it might be that it’s a smart business move to protect your empire through expanding into many arenas. That way, if and when one part fails (or, ya know, closes due to a global pandemic), you have something else artistically fulfilling (and lucrative) to fall back on. Put another way, it’s not fiscally responsible to limit ourselves to only acting on stage.

So how can we diversify our portfolios? By exploring other performing mediums outside of live theatre- tv/film, voiceover, concert and cabaret work; by writing- screenplays and plays, books, podcast scripts, poetry, novels, children’s books, articles; by teaching and coaching; by developing new works, choreographing, producing shorts, etc. AND, by showing up as the creative magical storytellers we are and infiltrating industries who need us- marketing, public relations, customer service, non-profits, philanthropy, education, hell, even finance.

As Jenny said, “You’re way less prone to financial ruin (and frankly, fear) when you have multiple streams of income.”

How can you build some safety nets for your artistic empire?

Where can you expand into new storytelling territories?

Can you reframe something you’re currently doing to feel less guilt about abandoning your artistic career and more pride in building a smart financial portfolio?

PS- The next time you’re hungry, support a restaurant. :-)