Stunned. Just silence.

While GE isn’t faring so well these days– as the credit tsunami sweeps the world– its organizational structure addresses this type of structural diversification in corporate form. The thinking is that as nuclear power softens, wind power picks up and light bulbs turn on and off. What’s critical is that there are enough projects going on, with enough diversification, so that there are multiple contingencies with multiple flows of gratification— for GE, cash flow and for the individual, self-esteem maintenance and resilience.

Individuals’ successful self-management, especially in a downturn, require the same kind of thinking. The pottery- throwing television executive who enjoys (and seems to be successful in ) his FOREX trading, while delighting in the stories his recent college graduate children bring from the globalizing workplace, is capable of drawing upon more personally meaningful spheres of productivity than the banker, whose sole love until downsizing had been derivative trading. In the downturn, the television executive retains a broader range of activity options, regardless of their immediate utility in generating income.

Emotional Asset Diversification is a self-directed insurance policy for life’s psychologically gloomy economic periods. It allows self-definition to operate across many personally meaningful categories of work, despite temporary shortfalls in earnings.