Do You Know Someone Who is a Multipotentialite? Could it Be You?

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

-Walt Whitman

I had the hunch to search Google for a word that described how I’d long felt about my nature (at 64 years old, as of this writing), but for which I didn’t have a name. The closest description I knew of was “Renaissance person,” in other words, someone who loves to learn about and do many things and feels it is unfulfilling, if not downright impossible, to focus on just one thing. So many messages I’d been given in this culture seemed to reinforce the notion that being a specialist was the best way to be, and that to succeed in this world, people had to pick a single career and “niche down.”  For someone who finds doing the same thing over and over boring, if not soul-crushing, this is not a particularly inspiring message.

So, I asked Google for synonyms for “Renaissance person” and discovered the word “multipotentialite,” which is essentially someone with many interests and diverse creative pursuits. For me, it feels like a perfect fit. There is another related word, polymath, which is a “close but no cigar” word for me. In part because, if there is one thing I’m bad at and don’t enjoy, it’s math, and also because it means someone who is more like a human encyclopedia. My breadth of knowledge is expansive but not quite encyclopedic, and my passion is not so much about storing knowledge or becoming an “expert” as about being in a perpetual state of exploration, creating new things, and seeing the connections between them.

Once the word came into my vocabulary, it was as if I tapped into the force of synchronicity. I don’t mean to get too woo woo here- I’m very skeptical about most New Age thinking,  and not a person with many fixed beliefs about the nature of reality or anything else. I’m more of an “explore the mystery” kind of guy. Anyway, my life coach, Susana, forwarded me a link to a workshop she’d heard of about multipotentialites, without us ever discussing my discovery of the world. Upon taking the workshop, I discovered there is a mini-multipotentialite movement. It was founded by Emilie Wapnich, who wrote the book How to Be Everything, which could be seen as the multipotentialite’s bible.  Additionally, they created an online community, the Puttyverse, to connect multipotentialites worldwide.

I’d love to be more engaged in this community than I am, but I am busy working three jobs to keep my head above water and juggling multiple creative projects. Although having more free time would be delightful, I’m not complaining about the jobs. They are all deeply meaningful to me. One is as a university lecturer at San Francisco State, working to de-pathologize the field of “speech pathology” in hopes of transforming it into the field of liberation communication therapy (that’s another essay).

Some of my students call me “Professor Sparkle Pants.” I’m working in the same program I graduated from in the 1990s, and I've discovered that some of the “speech songs” I wrote as a student are now what I’m singing to my students decades later to help them learn the material. Back when I wrote them, they just seemed like a wacky thing a weird student did to help him learn. It’s curious to discover that in the long run, they are more useful to future generations than having to suffer through comprehensive exams. However, no university would ever let you substitute a creative project for taking those exams. 

Another one of my jobs is as a holistic life coach for queer and quirky people. While both are umbrella terms that cover broad ranges of people and intersect with each other, multipotentialites fall under the category of quirky. While reading Emily’s book, I discovered a multipotentialite named Tad Hargrave who runs a business called Marketing for Hippies. I credit his format for how I’m about to riff on how life coaching could benefit multipotentialites. Firstly, let’s look at what multipotentialites tend to struggle with: namely, such things as time and energy overload, career and financial insecurity, decision paralysis, identity confusion/self-esteem issues, and isolation/lack of community( as most people won’t even know there is such a thing as a multipotentialite), and imposter syndrome. 

It’s helpful to bring in the Social Model of Disability here to highlight how many of the root causes of these struggles don’t lie within the individual themselves, but rather are socially constructed and systemic. There is pressure in society to “find your true calling” and make decisions that narrow your focus rather than broaden it, to survive in today’s economy, which centers on specialization—both jobs and education reward niche expertise. Most career counseling is not designed for us, as it centers around narrowing down options to make a single career choice. Capitalism, in general, rewards productivity over exploration, and cultural norms pressure people to define themselves in simple rather than complex ways. If your innate neurology leads you to be a multipotentialite, this world was not built with your mental well-being in mind, let alone your potential to thrive. 

Understanding that this world was not built for you helps in realizing that “you are not to blame.” Still, we can’t stop there, as this understanding alone doesn’t lead to any solutions, and we want to survive and thrive today. Some things that help multipotentials are learning to recognize and draw on their strengths, including being passionate and rapid lifelong learners, creative innovators, big-picture thinkers, out-of-the-box thinkers, synthesizers of information, and adaptable problem solvers who can bring a lot of empathy, innovation, and enthusiasm to teams. Holistic life coaching can help people reframe their identity, embrace who they are, and highlight their strengths while acknowledging their limitations. 

Another skill worth cultivating is integrating our passions into a cohesive narrative, which is reflected in how we schedule our daily lives. I’m a man of multiple passions, and I schedule each of them on my weekly to-do list. Beyond the jobs I’ve mentioned, I am an author, singer-songwriter, and musical curator, with a passion for music of all genres from all around the world. Juggling all of these balls is an imperfect and ongoing art. I’ll be honest that I prioritize those parts of my identity for which I’m financially compensated over other aspects of who I am, simply out of the need to survive in today’s world. 

As an author, I’ve published two books and am working on a third. As a singer-songwriter, I’ve recorded four CDs and written countless more songs that I sing a cappella and post on YouTube. None of my creative endeavors has even made me a cent, actually; they cost me a lot more money than I’m likely ever to get back out of them. At the same time, they are essential to who I am, and to abandon them would wreak havoc on my mental health. I can feel when I’ve gone too long without creating. A certain hollow, almost desperate sense of unfulfillment starts to take over, which is repeatedly healed by engaging in creativity, regardless of the quality of the finished product or whether there even is one. Because I know this about myself, I schedule time to create. Do these times sometimes get abandoned because things come up that I need to do to get by financially? Yes, so I reschedule them and always keep a close watch on my internal landscape to see what’s going on emotionally and what my emotions are telling me about what I need to do. I think of myself as having front-burner and back-burner projects. I may not be able to attend to my back-burner projects as often as I'd like, but I keep them simmering on the stove, stirring and adding seasoning as they slowly cook. Psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually, they are as important to me as my front-burner projects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKDMSlLTlPc

Another strength that is worth cultivating as a multipotentialite, possibly with the help of a coach, is designing a flexible career model.  One thing Emilie Wapnich discusses in How to Be Everything is the multipotentiality continuum, from sequential to simultaneous. Emily is more of a sequential multipotentilite, whereas I am more simultaneous. Sequential multipotentials tend to shift careers multiple times throughout their lives. This may seem like they can’t make up their minds or stick to anything, but in truth, not only have they gotten all they can out of each career, they can also see how skills from one career transfer over to other careers in ways that someone who specializes in a single career would not perceive.

As a simultaneous multipotentialite, I thrive on doing many different things at once and on perceiving the connections between them. Given my skills, I’m aware I could be earning much more if I specialized and chose a different job. I’m also aware that this would lead to my being unsatisfied as a human being and damage my emotional and mental well-being. I feel like I am wired to do meaningful work and could never be emotionally healthy doing work that has no inherent value to me, no matter how well compensated I might be. Since I’ve got enough money to survive on, I choose health over wealth.

The worst-case scenario for a multipotentialite who has not discovered and accepted who they are, nor gotten the support they need, could be a life of identity confusion and feeling “less than,” unsatisfactory and unstable careers and finances, isolation, burnout, and unrealized contributions to the community. On the flip side, with optimal insight and support, a multipotentate can lead a life of embracing their nature, integrating the multiple facets of their identity, making innovative contributions, finishing projects or reframing them as valuable learning experiences if the best decision is to let them go without bringing them into completion, gaining confidence, and a sense of belonging, resilience, and holistic fulfillment. Their careers may be sequential, portfolio (doing multiple different careers at the same time- for example being a speech therapist, a yoga teacher and an actor all at the same time), or umbrella (doing multiple different things at the same time that all fit within one career- for example being a speech therapist who works part time at a school serving the general population, has a private practice working with people who stutter and teaches a university course on stuttering therapy).

For those who are either curious about or already into the Enneagram, multipotentialites are commonly considered to be #7 (Generalists). If one adheres to the strict rules of how the Enneagram determines your type, you can only be one type throughout your life. However, as may not be atypical for a multipotentialite, my Enneagram type has not remained consistent over my lifetime. When I was younger, I tested as a #7, but in recent decades, I test as a #2 (the Giver). The strengths and challenges of both of these types resonate with me. Multipotentialites can offer an out-of-the-box approach to the Enneagram. That said, if you are one of us, welcome, and know you are valued and needed. If you’re not, thank you for being an ally and supporting our right to live as ourselves and celebrate our multifaceted quirkiness.