Times have changed. Decades ago, you could pick a career path, study, and train for that career, sign on with an IBM or a General Motors, work at the company for 60 years, climb your way up the corporate ladder with regular promotions and pay raises, then finally retire with your gold watch and comfortable company pension. Secure, predictable, and safe, right?

But that’s not how it works any more. And if you’re banking on those good old days returning, you’re out of luck.

More and more people, especially unconventional thinkers and artists, are creating multiple streams of income. This is good for a couple of reasons: it allows you to fully express yourself and it provides you with more stability. Think about it.

A chair with just one leg isn’t very stable, is it? Those employees who worked at Enron for 40 years then found themselves suddenly laid off with no pensions would certainly agree, as would the investors who socked everything they had into dot com stocks then lost it all in 2000. It just makes sense that if you’re counting on that one egg to hatch or you’ve put multiple eggs into just one basket, you’ve left yourself vulnerable.

But what about a chair with four legs, or even five? How about a chair with rollers? You have much more stability, even if one of your legs gets shaky. In the same way, multiple streams of income give you much greater stability when the economy bounces up and down.

By diversifying your income in the same way a smart investor diversifies her portfolio, you aren’t vulnerable when the inevitable boom or bust happens again. If one industry goes out of business because of new technology, you’ll have others to draw from. If the hottest trend cools off and dies, it won’t much matter to you. If for instance you are a publisher of hard-cover books and Kindle steals your market, you have other irons in the fire to support you. Or if you produce eBooks and suddenly everyone decides to go back to turning real pages that they can dog ear, your other sources of income can support you.

By diversifying your income base into multiple streams, even if the economy suddenly goes south for whatever reason and stays that way for number of months, you’ve still got other sources of revenue that you can increase because you’re already in other businesses.

As an unconventional thinker, you may create several businesses with a theme based on your strengths and passions. Or you may create four or five businesses and see the theme emerge. Along the way, you will probably discover additional strengths and passions, and you can build additional businesses based upon those new strengths and passions.

What is the organization or project that will embody your passions and gifts? As an unconventional thinker, what contribution can you create for the world?