What does building optionality mean, and how do I start while I'm employed?

Optionality means having more than one good answer if your current one ends: a role elsewhere, a promotion, your own practice, or a mix. Not a plan to leave. A position from which leaving, or staying, is a choice rather than a reaction.

Why I care about it

One employer paying all of your income is concentration risk, and you would flag it in any risk review except your own.

I spent thirteen years at Credit Suisse, and Credit Suisse no longer exists.

I volunteered for redundancy at UBS. What I had not done was build one thing on the outside first, so I left in 2025 with no clients. I did not build optionality until I needed it, so I started from zero.

Understanding how much of my life was under someone else's control has made me realise I never want to be in that position of reliance again.

What optionality is made of

Four things you can build while you are employed, none of which needs a business launched:

1. Evidence. A record of what you did and what changed because of it, kept monthly, so you can make your case to anyone: a manager, an interviewer, a client.
2. A network you actually talk to. People who know your work and would take your call, kept warm on purpose, not only when you need them.
3. A clear sense of what people come to you for. Every time somebody asks you something that was not your job to answer, write down what they asked. In a month you will have twenty lines that are not your job description.
4. A goal twelve months out, checked every quarter.

None of that needs a resignation, and all of it is useful whichever way your next move goes. Stay within what your contract allows.

For what to watch for inside your company, read signs you are about to be made redundant.

Your next step

I built the Optionality Vault to hold all four: your monthly evidence, who came to you and for what, your people, and your goal, with a quarterly report on how your case is developing and where it is weakest. About ten minutes a month, CHF 99 a year, with a full refund in the first 30 days.