Creativity

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Inspiration for Multipotentialites, From Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh is one of my favorite artists. Aside from admiring his amazing artwork, I enjoy learning more about him through his surviving letters. There are over 900 letters that provide insight into his mind and universe, especially those to his brother Theo. I first got insight into Van Gogh’s life when my high school art teacher gifted me the book Lust for Life by Irving Stone. This book brought me to tears, with its descriptive narration of Van Gogh’s passionate and dramatic life.

Van Gogh continues to inspire me – from his yearning to do more in life and have an impact, to his love of nature and allowing it to inspire his art and his commitment to his work.  As multipotentialites (polymaths, scanners, renaissance souls) often struggle to find their place and purpose in a society that promotes “normalcy,” I find Van Gogh’s experience and point of view relevant and inspirational.

Here are some of my favorite Van Gogh quotes to inspire multipotentialites:

On life and your purpose

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

Think of all the great accomplishments we enjoy today. Can you imagine life without these? What if no one had the courage to invent the light bulb, the internet, airplanes or cell phones? Do you want to be courageous and attempt something in your lifetime?

How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?

Have you found your purpose? Are you still seeking it? If you haven’t found it yet, don’t give up.

The way to know life is to love many things.

Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.

There is so much to experience and enjoy in life. As a multipotentialite, you experience and learn a lot by exploring your multiple interests. As you explore, you learn what resonates with you and about yourself. This is a true path of discovering your passion and igniting your motivation to pursue it relentlessly. When your heart is in your work, the outcome reflects your passion.

On challenging the status quo

I wish they would only take me as I am.

You know when you’re meant to do something other than what everyone else is doing. And being true to this and who you are is hard. You want people to get it and understand you, but the reality is, many of them won’t. You have to find peace with this and own who you are.  Don’t limit who you are and what you do to appease others.

Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.

It is easier to do what everyone else is doing – the path is already paved, there are many examples of what you should do, and you don’t have the onus of figuring things out on your own.  But when you want to be and do more, you realize growth doesn’t come from your comfort zone. Venture off the beaten track and explore.

One must work and dare if one really wants to live.

If you really want to live on your own terms and reach your full potential, you have to put in the work.

On your power

If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things.

Multipotentialites have interests in many things and purse them for a period or a lifetime. All things are connected, and due to their expansive knowledge and experience, multipotentialites are equipped to see patterns and connections.  This ability is valuable and powerful, especially for leveraging one field to improve others through innovation.

There is no blue without yellow and without orange.

We wouldn’t have what we know know if someone didn’t imagine possibilities and have the courage to act on them.  To get blue, you take two colors you know and bring them together to create something new and useful.

On taking action

I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it.

By staying in motion and doing, you learn and grow.  Multipotentialites pick up new interests all the time and roll up their sleeves to learn about them. They’re not afraid to try new things and make learning an action sport.

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

Sometimes you feel like you’re never going to reach your goal. But remember that in order to accomplish that big milestone, you have to take many small steps along the way. Take them and celebrate each one to stay motivated.

On perseverance

I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.

I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed.

Once you know what you’re working toward, your “why” will motivate you. Stay the course and trust the process. Keep putting your work into the world.  The universe will echo the vibrations you emit.

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How do you stay inspired as a multipotentialite? Do Vincent van Gogh’s quotes above resonate with you? Share your thoughts below! I’d love to hear your perspective!

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Your Ideal vs. Your Reality: Balancing the Two

As humans, we seek a higher purpose, meaning and guidance. What is the meaning of life? Who or what can show us the way? We like to know what the end game looks like and our role and purpose in the big picture.

Although there is no book with official steps on living life, society has established ideals which emphasize how things should be. As these translate into norms and are reinforced around us, they influence our vision for our path. Ultimately, we align our lives to meet society’s expectations. Looking around, and in my own life, examples of this are easy to find.

The Ideal.  Ideals are what we aspire to achieve in life and they drive us.  “If only I had _____, I would be (happier, more successful etc.).” There is always something out of reach that we seek and conclude will provide some type of satisfaction.  How do we come to this conclusion? We adopt what we hear and see around us, including what society deems “acceptable” or “right.”  For example, society’s path to a “good life” is a good education, a good job, a family and house with a white picket fence.  We hear this from family, teachers, guidance counselors, college professors, employers etc. If this idea is so pervasive, how can it not be true?  Once we subscribe to it ourselves, we adapt our own path based on decisions and actions that are confined to outside judgment, meeting other people’s expectations, seeking approval and keeping up appearances.

The Plan. In order to meet our ideals, we outline a plan to make it happen. We believe that if we take these steps, exactly as planned, we’ll get what we want. Again, society says this is the path everyone should take so why wouldn’t it work for you? This process gives our lives the meaning we incessantly crave. Each day, we wake up knowing our why. By taking each outlined step, we believe we’re working to achieve our ideals and our ultimate purpose. We’re convinced that we’ll get what we want and there’s rarely a thought that things won’t go as planned.

The Reality.  Meanwhile, life is happening and it has its own idea of how things will unfold.  This can manifest in a variety of ways: plans going awry, discovering considerations that weren’t included in the plan, unexpected issues showing up, factors that can’t be controlled for taking their own course, etc. These impediments throw off our plan and can postpone or permanently keep us from reaching our ideals.

 

 

Where does this leave us?  It creates a gap between the reality and the ideal. Society rarely prepares us for such disruptions. We’re left with a plan that is no longer effective since it doesn’t account for any of the curve balls. We no longer have the meaning our plan gave us, and we’re lost without clarity on how to navigate toward our ideals.

Since we didn’t account for things not going as planned, panic sets in. There is no way this can’t work! I can’t let it fail! Let me roll up my sleeves and fix it real-time. I’m going to focus on how I can get it back on track.  I can’t imagine it not working out as envisioned and planned. Any alternate solution is “bad.”

What manifests is intense focus to repair, fix, prevent, and control to get things “right” and reduce the probability of failure (think Six Sigma on steroids). Our reaction is in response to not reaching our personal plan, but more often than not, we act out of fear of failing in front of the world. Failure means we won’t achieve the ideals society says we should have; and we fear outside judgment, not meeting other people’s expectations, not obtaining approval and not being able to keep up appearances.

I’ve been down this path many times and after reflecting on a recent instance, I have some new insight on making it more manageable and less exasperating.

There is no tragedy, only the unavoidable. Everything has its reason for being: you only need to distinguish what is temporary from what is lasting. What is temporary?… The unavoidable… and what is lasting?… The lessons of the unavoidable.  — Paulo Coelho

Here’s how you can handle the gap between your ideals and your reality better:
  • Revisit your premise. Your premise for this entire undertaking is that you think this is what you should be doing, is right and will not lead to failure. And this is all attributed to the meaning assigned by society or you. Whose meaning is the truth or final? Arguably, neither is right, how things should be or will guarantee certain outcomes.  But you define the meaning and believe it to be true; the only reason it has power is because you give it power.  If this approach and belief system doesn’t serve you, you should stop subscribing to it.
  • Don’t label things good or bad. Whether something is good or bad is subjective and depends on who you ask. Would it be bad if half of all the money in the world disappeared?  Those with extravagant lifestyles would probably care, but those who already live modestly probably wouldn’t care as much. Let things be, without being good or bad.
  • Don’t add stress or pressure.  Even if the situation seems malleable, that doesn’t mean you need to add stress and pressure.  A rubber band is flexible, but if you continuously pull it or pull it too far, it will snap. Sometimes it is better to do nothing. Leave it alone. Don’t question or try to associate meaning. Give things space to breathe.
  • Accept the reality and what happened. What happened happened and it is in the past. Don’t obsess about it, be stuck in it or be held hostage by it.
  • Appreciate situations for what they are. Focus on the lessons the past gave you and be grateful for what you have today. You’re better positioned now due to your lessons and experience.
  • Embrace the power of now. Take advantage of the present and take action to create positive opportunities. Create your own life the way you want it to be today. Your life today is important and I’d argue more important than any ideal life you aspire to have.

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Do you come across gaps between your ideals and your reality? How do you balance the two? Have you tried any of the suggestions above? How have they worked for you? I’d love to hear your perspective!

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Success is at the Intersection of Your Skills

Change is happening at an unprecedented rate, leading to increased competition. I usually hear about the impact of this on companies, but it is worth paying attention to how it impacts people like you and I as well.

Why should this matter to you? The pace of technological change affects what we do and how we do it. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, 3D printing and other transformations lead to more automated and efficient processes which impacts the role that people play. New technologies result in less manual human input and enable remote work and teleconferencing with mobile and cloud technology. If workers don’t need to be local, the talent pool expands beyond geographical borders and global competition for talent increases.

This impacts all workers, including those in traditional careers, creatives and entrepreneurs.

So what can you do? If you live in an area susceptible to flood, it makes sense to get flood insurance.  If you’re investing in the market, it makes sense to diversify your portfolio. Similarly, I think you should be smart about how you plan and improve your chances of success.

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, one of the most popular and widely distributed comic strips, shared an approach that worked for him in an interview with Forbes:

The result is the Adams success formula: “Every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success.” Adams says you can raise your market value by being “merely good—not extraordinary—at more than one skill.” Adams told me his career is an example of the success formula in action. “I’m a poor artist. Through brute force I brought myself up to mediocre. I’ve never taken a writing class, but I can write okay. If I have a party at my house, I’m not the funniest person in the room, but I’m a little bit funny, I can write a little bit, I can draw a little bit, and you put those three together and you’ve got Dilbert, a fairly powerful force.”  Adams says the addition of a little business knowledge (he has an MBA from Berkeley’s Haas School of Business) and the sum of his “average” talents makes him more valuable than any one skill alone.

This advice isn’t conventional. In fact, we live in a world that reveres choosing one thing to focus on and we’re expected to become an expert at it. But here, Adams promotes a different approach which works for those in traditional careers, for creatives and entrepreneurs.  This is especially helpful for multipotentialites (polymaths, scanners, renaissance souls) who have a variety of interests and want to combine them all to provide value.

I’ve used this approach myself.  I layered on skills, education and experience to help people and companies at the intersection of strategy, creativity, innovation and technology.  I’ve worked on projects for companies with a variety of goals from implementing new technology, improving customer experience, or developing talent and each requires a different combination of my skills.  So this approach has been valuable to me because:

  1. I have a variety of skills
  2. I can pivot as needed and leverage different combinations of my skills

To thrive, and not merely survive, you have to differentiate yourself and leverage your intersection with your unique combination of skills.

How can you get started with using this approach yourself? Here are the steps:

Do an inventory of your interests and skills. Look broadly at the things you’ve done. Inventory your professional experience, personal pursuits and hobbies and other experience you’ve gained from volunteering etc.  Also think about what friends, family, colleagues and clients come to you and pay you for. Make sure to also assess your interests; it is important to find alignment with what you do and what you like doing.

Invest in yourself and seek to improve. Once you identify your list of interest and skills, think of how you can improve them.  You don’t have to be an expert in each but improvement will help your positioning.  For example, if communication is on your list, seek public speaking opportunities to practice.  If you’re interested in a field, study it on your own, take online classes or enroll in a university program to solidify your knowledge.   Practice and experience are essential so find opportunities to put what you’ve learned in action.

Identify your unique intersection.  Now that you have your skills and invested in improving them, think about how you can bring them together and connect them.  Ultimately, your unique intersection doesn’t need to have all the skills you started with, just the relevant ones. For example, Jake Tapper found a way to combine journalism, cartoons and writing. You can combine interests and skills in real estate, wine and engineering to design wine tasting venues or sports, travel and hospitality to improve the lodging experience for traveling athletes.

Provide value. Use your intersection of skills and experience to do what you’re uniquely positioned to do better than anyone else.  Identify opportunities that require your combination of skills and allow you to use them to help others.  Pivot as you go by leveraging the right mix of your skills and experience for each opportunity. For example, a project to build a technology solution will require more technical skills while a project focused on brainstorming new products will require more creative skills.

To thrive, and not merely survive, you have to differentiate yourself and leverage your intersection with your unique combination of skills.

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Are you someone with multiple interests and intellectual pursuits? Have you figured out how to combine them to your advantage? Have you tried an approach similar to what is described above? How has it worked for you? I’d love to hear your perspective!

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What Do You Call People with Multiple Interests?

I’ve had an eclectic mix of interests for as long as I can remember.  Two key ones – business and art – always surprise people because they see them as opposites. I find it amusing; I know my interests are paradoxical and span my left and right brain. I’m also interested in technology, innovation, interior design, photography to name a few.  Similarly, I move through life in an eclectic way. I’m risk averse but I enjoy motorcycle rides, I like comfort and luxuries but I really enjoy travel where I “rough it” while figuring out the new place on my own, and as much as I plan for tomorrow, I love activities that are spontaneous and adventurous.

I find that this mix of interests adds a lot more experiential opportunities in life. I can dive into a topic I find interesting and research it, follow my curiosities, change my thinking based on new information, and there’s always a new perspective to gain when I take on a new project.  It makes me flexible, versatile, open to change and more well-rounded.

Naturally, my fascination with this ability to have and pursue multiple interests led me to research it. There are many others out there who also describe themselves as being this way.  But in order to find them, I realize you need to know the different terminologies used to describe such individuals.

Here’s a summary of the key terms I’ve come across so far:

Renaissance man / woman.  This one has a special place in my heart because my high school art teacher called me a “Renaissance woman.” I excelled in art along with all my other subjects.  This term emerged during the The Renaissance which was a cultural movement that profoundly affected intellectual life. One key tenet of the Renaissance was that humans are limitless in their capacity for development, which led to the notion that people should embrace all knowledge and develop their capacities as fully as possible. The term “Renaissance man” was applied to the gifted people of that age who sought to develop their abilities in all areas of accomplishment: intellectual, artistic, social, and physical.  Leonardo da Vinci has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance man for his artistic and other contributions.

One key tenet of the Renaissance was that humans are limitless in their capacity for development, which led to the notion that people should embrace all knowledge and develop their capacities as fully as possible.

Here are a few other definitions:

  • Dictionary.com:
    • A cultured man of the Renaissance who was knowledgeable,educated, or proficient in a wide range of fields  
    • A present-day man who has acquired profound knowledge or proficiency in more than one field
  • Merriam-Webster:
    • A person who has wide interests and is expert in several areas
    •  A man who is interested in and knows a lot about many things

These definitions are gender-specific but I will continue to use Renaissance man / woman as needed since I believe this description applies to both! 🙂

Scanner. This term was introduced by Barbara Sher, author of I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What it Was and Refuse to Choose. According to Barbara in Refuse to Choose, “scanners love to read and write, to fix and invent things, to design projects and businesses, to cook and sing, and to create the perfect dinner party. (You’ll notice I didn’t use the word “or,” because Scanners don’t love to do one thing or the other, they love them all.)”

Multipotentialite. Multipotentiality is an educational and psychological term referring to the ability and preference of a person, particularly one of strong intellectual or artistic curiosity, to excel in two or more different fields. It also refers to an individual whose interests span multiple fields or areas, rather than being strong in just one.  The term emerged in relevant research on giftedness. For example, in 1972, R.H. Frederickson et al. defined a multipotentialed person as someone who, “when provided with appropriate environments, can select and develop a number of competencies to a high level.” Most recently, Emilie Wapnick used the term “multipotentialite,” as a shared identity for her Puttylike community and in her book How to Be Everything.

Polymath. This word is of Greek origin where polymathēs means “having learned much” and describes a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas and is known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve problems.  Philosopher Johann von Wower published the first work with the word in the title (De Polymathia tractatio: integri operis de studiis veterum) and defined polymathy as “knowledge of various matters, drawn from all kinds of studies . . . ranging freely through all the fields of the disciplines, as far as the human mind, with unwearied industry, is able to pursue them.”

Polymathēs means “having learned much” and describes a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas and is known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve problems.

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Are you someone with multiple interests and intellectual pursuits? How do you describe yourself and your interest in multiple areas? Do you use terms other than the ones above? Share them below! I’d love to hear your perspective!

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