Many professional investment brokers will tell you to diversify your investment portfolio. This is not always the smartest thing to do in the stock market, but that is simply because it is a fear tactic to keep you from losing too much money at one time and in one place. It is better to learn how to “buy” a business (I recommend any book by Mary Buffett) and invest in that manner. However, these days, you might want to learn how to diversify your income, as well. The American economy is in a full-blown depression and the global economy is in a quickly decaying liquid recession. Your job security is part of your home security, and you need to learn how to earn money well and through different means.
Keep your current job. This does not mean quit your current job and jump into five different multi-level-marketing plans. Keep your current job and find ways to earn money around that. When all else fails, you will still need to pay your bills and eat and drive places.
Try a lot of different things. One never knows how well one will fit into a particular niche until they try it themselves. This is important in order to fully understand what works for you and what does not. Your personality may favor selling flea market items on EBay, but you despise all of the time and work involved with setting up every single listing and going to the post office seven days a week, etc. Now you know that, if you want to stay in the EBay selling world, you may want to take up using automated auction systems. Find out all of the little money making ideas which fit your personality and temperament and begin forming an idea of a complete second job.
Fulfill different needs. If you are a cold-minded intellectual, you may avoid interacting with the public and your current job may be some sort of data processing, which you enjoy. However, perhaps your artistic or problem-solving capabilities are not being used to their full capacity. Consider taking painting and selling prints of your artwork online, or getting into enjoyable auto repair and learning more about that. As long as you are going to have multiple jobs, you might as well begin fulfilling some of your human needs and hobby interests while you are at it.
If you prefer safety, learn similar skills to the ones you already have. If you are a project manager in your company, consider learning skills and getting an education in positions which are similar to your current job, such as other types of management or clerical work or overseeing a jobsite. In this manner, you are raising your job security as well as opening yourself up for a second job in another company or increasing your work hours filling different requirements in your current business.
Innovate. Accept the fact that you may simply wish to “create” a job position by creating a new business or starting a business which has never even been done before. This is okay, but understand that it involves a lot of networking and asking questions about related fields and optimum locations of your new business and interviewing potential customers before you being. Do not be arrogant about this particular job idea. If you are actually going to innovate, make a hard attempt at getting it right the first time. You may not succeed the second time around if you are too discouraged from your first attempt.
In this volatile economy, the key to success and keeping at least one of your jobs is to have multiple streams of income. Learn what skills you possess and what interests you have which may actually create these opportunities.