ASLU 032: How To Manage a Multi-Passionate Creative Career
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In Episode 32 of the podcast, Gabby and I talk about the challenges (and advantages) of being a multi-passionate creative. As you’ll hear in the episode, this is more of a mindset conversation as two multi-passionates talk about how they’re still trying to figure out how to make it all work together! This is Gabby’s last episode as my October guest host and it was such a pleasure to have her join me. And, if you haven’t already heard, Gabby just announced that she is writing a book! Where We Ate: A History of Dining Out In Canada comes out in spring of 2023 with Appetite by Penguin Random House.
Multi-passionate creative is a term that’s being heard more frequently in recent years but you may be more familiar with the terms “Jill (or Jack) of all trades” or “Renaissance woman (or man)”. Essentially if it’s a person who pursues multiple creative interests. Rather than being only a painter, they may be equally a painter, a writer, a marine biologist and a cookie decorator.
For those of us who are multi-passionate creatives (like me and Gabby) it’s not unusual for us to have heard the labels “flaky”, “lacking focus” and “easily distractible”. You may be familiar with the term “Jack of all trades” but don’t forget the full phrase is “Jack of all trades, master of none”! However we prefer to go with labels like “curious”, “interesting” and “driven to learn” - more of the Leonardo da Vinci school of thought than the Jack of all trades view.
Two of the big challenges of being a multi-passionate creative - especially in your career - are figuring out where you fit in the work force and how to manage what can often turn into multiple career paths. And as you’ll hear when you listen, this is something we’re both still trying to figure out! But one thing we both loved was this quote from Stina Faye:
“Being good at many things doesn't make you a mess, it makes you a masterpiece. A damn good one, too.”
We couldn’t agree more!
Listen To the Episode
Here’s a direct link to Episode 32 - or you can listen via the players below:
Traditional careers are often a struggle for those of us who are interested in pursuing lots of different things. 9-5 is often a struggle for us as well. Multi-passionate creatives rarely fit into the “normal” employee box but a lot of us shoehorn ourselves into that box because we’re adults with adult responsibilities.
As a solid Gen-X (we are actually considered the entrepreneur generation by many!), when I started my career, it was still frowned upon to move around from job to job. You didn’t want that job hopping on your resume - it was a sign you wouldn’t be a good employee. And yet a lot of us were raised as latch-key kids (ie we went home to an empty house after school with no parental supervision until dinner time) and with that came a lot of self-reliance skills. Heading into jobs and careers where somebody was always around telling us what to do, didn’t really fit with how we had grown up!
Multi-Passionate Does Not Equal Lazy, Flaky, or Lacking Focus
Lazy, flaky, lacking focus… those are all labels multi-passionate creatives have heard at some point in their lives. Questions like “when will you get a real job?” or “can you make any money doing that?” or “isn’t it time you settled down?” are other questions that come up a lot.
But in truth, most multi-passionate creatives are anything but lazy, flaky or lacking focus. They’re curious, they’re industrious, and they can absolutely be laser focused.
The Rise of the entrepreneur and the blogger
Have you ever wondered why there are so many entrepreneurs and bloggers out there?
Because entrepreneurship and career choices like blogging really are for the multi-passionate creative. Entrepreneurship was a natural fit for a lot of Gen-Xers. For a generation that grew up learning how to entertain themselves before the internet became a true force in our lives and how to be self-reliant, it’s no surprise that many of us were drawn to building things and helping them grow.
Millenials get a bad rap sometimes but this is a generation that has had to navigate the gig economy and has recognized that sometimes the best way to take your career into your hands is to literally create your own job - and sometimes that means doing more than one thing to make ends meet!
It’s no surprise that blogging and vlogging have grown into full-fledged careers. They combine entrepreneurship with the opportunity to be the writer, photographer, videographer, art director, marketing director, graphic designer, bookkeeper, business development manager… the list really does go on! It’s a perfect way for a creative with a lot of different interests to pull them all together to essentially become a publisher - and their own boss who gets to set the hours and call the shots!
How Do You Define Yourself?
When you’re interested in pursuing a lot of different paths, it can be a real struggle to define yourself, career-wise. And not only to the world but even to yourself. Are you a photographer? Or are you a jewellery designer? Do you plan weddings or do you decorate cakes? Are you a painter who dabbles in fabric arts? Or a fabric artist who dabbles in painting?
How do you write that one sentence Linked In headline?
One thing we have noticed more of on Linked In in the last year is the number of people who use a handful of words to define what they do. For instance:
Podcaster | Artist | Digital Content Creator (that’s mine)
Writer | Traveler | Cheese Eater (that’s Gabby’s business card)
Communications Strategist, | Artist | Brand Builder (that’s regular guest host Heather Travis)
In today’s world, people are used to checking out that Instagram profile or Linked In bio to immediately uncover who you are. Defining yourself with just a few nouns can really help you narrow in and focus on who you are without limiting what it is that you do. Pick three or four (you can change them as your career evolves) and use those to help you answer that age old questions “and what do you do?”.
Embrace Your Skillset
In a world of rapidly evolving technology, a wide skillset is an asset. We are on the verge of a massive shift in how people are employed. Automation and artificial intelligence are in their infancy and have the potential to make a lot of occupations obsolete. That’s not doom and gloom speaking. It’s just how the world works and always has worked.
Some jobs will disappear but new jobs will take their place and the skills that are transferable (and harder to automate) are the soft skills like communication, critical thinking, adaptability and flexibility, creativity (creativity can be a skill!), and problem solving. Most multi-passionate creatives have those skills in spades but often don’t even realize it.
How Do You Prioritize Your Interests?
Keep track of all the things you want to do. It can be difficult to focus when your brain is whirring at a 100km an hour and you have a million ideas. Find a way to get those ideas out of your brain and put them somewhere safe so that you can focus on what you need to do now without worrying you might forget that brainwave you had. Use your phone, use a planner, a notebook, a shoebox… just get them out of your head!
Go With Your Gut
Don’t discount what your gut or your heart is telling you when you’re trying to prioritize where to focus your efforts. Very often it’s right. I don’t know if this is pure instinct or if it’s our body’s way of gathering all the data and signals happening around us and amalgamating it into a signal system that it sends out to us. Either way, there’s a reason you have that nagging, underlying feeling telling you what you should do next.
listen to your gut
…it’s usually trying to tell you something important
Money
Let’s not underestimate money when it comes to prioritizing. There are almost always periods in everyone’s career where money governs your decision. Ideally money and your gut align but that’s not always the case (and that’s ok - you gotta do what you gotta do!). But at the same time, there is nothing wrong with putting money first. Especially if it’s helping you prioritize from a list of things that all interest or intrigue you.
What Are Your Life Goals?
Success is a very personal thing. What success means to you could be different from the person next to you, and that’s ok too. Think about what your definition of success is and use that to help you prioritize what you pursue next. Wanting a better work life/balance may mean that you choose an interest that lets you work at home more, rather than traveling constantly to see clients. Or maybe you do want to travel more so you choose to follow your passion for travel photography.
Look For Common Themes In Your Interests
Gabby noticed that most of the things she’s interested in have a very visual or tactile component: art history, food, photography, styling food. I’m very similar: illustration, graphic design, photography. For both of us, our interests all lean into the visual arts.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve also been able to recognize that at the heart of all the things I do are two main themes: community and teaching. I love being around thriving communities and connecting people who can help each other. And I love helping people recognize their potential and help them fulfill it. To narrow it down to one theme it would be “growth”. I like growing communities, I like growing businesses, I like growing my body of work, I like helping others grow. This has taken 40+ years to figure out but now that I can see this it has really helped me figure out where to go next while still embracing all my creativity.
Can you uncover bigger themes from all your interests and use that to help you bring all your passions together?
Finishing What You Start
Having hundreds of unfinished projects lying around or not finishing what you start are both stigma attached to multi-passionate creatives. But they don’t have to be. While it’s ok to walk away from something that’s making your life truly miserable, finishing what you start brings with it an enormous sense of satisfaction. And you can finish projects and still do lots of different things. Just finish one project before you start the next, completely different project.
The result: you feel accomplished and satisfied and perhaps a little proud of yourself. And, you build a body of work and a portfolio and those are very valuable.
Branding Yourself
Branding yourself can be a big challenge when you have multiple career avenues. On the one hand, using your own name and creating a personal brand can be a great solution. But, if you’re starting a business you might want to sell one day down the road (you know, when you decide you’re ready to try another one of your interests!), it’s very difficult to sell a business that relies on your name as part of its identity.
Creating a hub around your name is one way to brand yourself. You’re at the center but you have spokes that go out. Some spokes can be separate businesses that don’t rely on your name as part of the branding, and others can spokes that are always part of you. Those words you came up with earlier to define yourself can all be spokes on the hub. A portfolio site in your own name is a great way to create an online hub for yourself.
Resources mentioned In the episode
Where you can find Gabby on-line:
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