Sometimes, individuals know that they have interests in disparate areas but aren’t sure what to do about it. Is it an asset or a liability?  I prefer to think of it as an asset. Here’s how to make boundary crossing work for you:

• Create a "slash" life that includes more than one area. Look to one area for steady income (e.g., software developer) and add on a freelance or volunteer role in a second area (e.g., professional musician.) The different outlets create a customized career. The book, One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success, gives some great examples of individuals who have done this.

• Look for roles where translating between two worlds is critical to being successful. Example: Technical writers are the bridge between software developers and end users.  They must be able to write in layman’s terms, sitting in the shoes of the end user, yet understand enough of the technical intricacies to communicate clearly with the developers.

• Explore the intersection of your specific interests. This is where innovation occurs, where what you decide to do for your work is something that is not well-defined or even known, but fills a gap. It means creating your own role in the marketplace. This often requires a level of expertise in one area that gives you enough credibility to “push the envelope.”  Examples: A banker and poet who heads a poetry journal that received a gift of $100 million dollars, an engineer and organization development consultant who creates a role of retention leader inside an R+D organization.

Don’t be discouraged if this takes some time. A great example of a boundary crosser working himself into the perfect job is William "Mac" McCallister, who was recently profiled by the Wall Street Journal.  The title of the article is "To Understand Sheiks in Iraq, Marines Ask "Mac"" with a sub-title of "Self-Taught, He Serves as Corp’s Tribal Expert."  As an active-duty soldier in 2003, McCallister became interested in studying local Iraq tribes and their myths, histories, and legal systems.

He advocated using the tribes to stabilize Iraq, but was ignored by his bosses. He retired from the military, only to return to Iran the next year as a private contractor, all the while continuing to study the tribes and quizzing sheiks about their way of life.

Three years later, McCallister got his chance to display his expertise in tribal affairs to Marine Brig. Gen. John Allen, deputy commander of U. S. forces in western Iraq. McCallister is now on a six-month, $144,000 contract as the go-to person on tribal systems for the Marines in Fallujah. 

McCallister is the son of a native German and an American soldier, raised in Germany, with a move to the U.S. in his teens. McCallister credits growing up in two cultures as giving him the ability to step outside of his surroundings and understand people in a deeper way.

For Boundary Crossers, the bad news is there is no standard path to follow. The good news is, you guessed it, there is no standard path to follow.