Are you so excited by life and all it has to offer, that the thought of not giving attention to one of your passions would feel like a ‘less than’ life?
Do you ever mourn the parts of you that have been squelched, oppressed, and pushed aside because somebody told you that you couldn’t possibly pursue so many things and still be successful?
Do you love the idea of ‘Do What You Love And The Money Will Follow’ but have no idea how to make that work for you?
Do you quickly get bored and love growing, shift, change, especially when you feel like you are following your heart?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then grab a cup of something, plus your journal and turn to a whole new page of your life.
As children, we’re asked what we want to be when we grow up. As adults, we’re asked what we do for a living. We’re often seen as one-dimensional beings, put on this earth to do just one thing.
But all that is about to change.
We are emerging from a time that valued ‘The Specialist’ as being the ideal career path. The conventions of this path were training for one career, focusing on specialising in one subject (even beginning in school) until we move up in the hierarchy of that subject.
Until recently, anyone who created a career trajectory contrary to that specialist model was deemed to be making a rash choice. Such people were subject to disapproval or judgements with names like – ‘marginal’, ’unrealistic’, ‘idealist’, ‘irresponsible’ or even ‘dilettante’ or ‘jack-of-all-trades and master of none’.
I know. I am one of those people.
‘Unstable’ was a term I also heard people voice about my mercurial lifepath and ever-changing lifestyle. For those of us who could not conform to the conventional career path, we know only too well what it feels like to be embarrassed about our many facets.
We questioned ourselves for not fitting into societal expectations, awkward about our boundless passion and creativity, uncomfortable with others’ disapproval or lack of understanding. It is easy even to feel ashamed of our true multi-dimensional selves.
Suppressing this natural way of being causes much suffering, squashes creativity, and can even prevent us from becoming an expert at anything at all – except for a constant lack of focus on one thing. We get very good at that.
You may even be labelled as having ADD or ADHD.
I labelled myself in that category since it seemed preferable to admit to being ‘afflicted with a challenge’ than to explain why I was ceasing yet another project (and marriage!) to pursue a whole other shiny life horizon.
One of my favourite Steve Jobs’ quotes is this:
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
For myself, when I look back now, connecting the dots backwards, I am so thrilled that I have lived so many adventures, careers and training; I am so proud and grateful that I can list amongst my paid métiers:
- Fashion retail management
- Fine dining and catering
- Artisan painter and decorator
- Professional dancer
- Fitness instructor
- Award-winning chef
- Author
- Equestrian Cabaret artist
- Image and style consultant
- Media publisher
- Thought leader
There are probably a few roles I have missed, and there are dozens more subjects that stoke my passion! I don’t want to end my life without exploring all of my potential, even the potential I haven’t discovered yet!
How about you?
Are you too, multi-skilled and multi-talented? Do you too, long to express every part of your personality and gifts?
If so, you may be one of the extremely fortunate, multi-talented, modern-day renaissance men or women. You – we – have been sold a bill of goods by a society that’s lost sight of some extraordinary qualities that, as it happens, have been shared by some pretty outstanding leaders and business titans. I’m sure you have those latent qualities within you!
Because directed in the right way, your renaissance personality could completely liberate you from a life you feel stuck in, to live a life in which you star. In 2021, as we usher in this new business and world paradigm, eclecticism rules!
I believe there is a reason why we are drawn to certain things. If you are a seeker — seek. In the search for your one thing, you will discover your purpose and craft a life that you love.
It’s natural!
Each chapter of your life and career is like a flower.
Honey bees dart from flower to flower in a very strategic pattern.
Like bees, collecting nectar from targeted flowers, allows us to create our own unique form of honey in the form of our growth, learning, fulfilment, skills and wisdom.
We have existed in a collective ‘should’ for a very long time. Where subtle and not-so-subtle messages tell us what we ‘should’ be doing, how we ‘should’ behave, and what we ‘should’ believe. Society has programmed us to adhere to a life trajectory proven to cause stress, disease, premature ageing, personal and planetary imbalance.
That is un-natural!
Whereas, as infinite creators, we need to get back to living in the space of possibility and innovation. It’s not just high time, but crucial for the balance of humanity and the planet.
It’s time to own your great nature as a polymath – with the ability to create your life in your own unique flavour, leaving nothing out of your genius and brilliance.
It’s time to look at all the experiences and skills you have amassed over the years, and innovate something the world has never seen before!
Welcome back Renaissance men and women. Our time has come again.
It’s time for modern-day Renaissance men and women to honour their passions, their thirst for knowledge, their true nature as a multi-potentialite.
It’s time for us to bring new solutions to old problems.
Like so many other great polymaths, we can combine our gifts, skills and experiences and create lifestyles and livelihoods that make our soul sing! Because in doing so, we can transform our world.
In the middle ages, at the inception of the first Renaissance period, the first great polymaths emerged and consequently, changed the course of history.
They were able to see things from different, more holistic perspectives.
By doing everything that interested them and bringing their whole range of skills and interests into their life’s work, they were able to innovate and create at a level that had rarely been seen before in the world.
Now there is a re-surge in the value of being a polymath – as a hybrid entrepreneur.
The multi-skilled, multi-passionate hybrid professional has the most chance of transcending the chaotic economy and find new meaning in life.
We are in good company!
Some famous modern-day renaissance men and women include:
- Oprah Winfrey—producer, talk show host, entrepreneur, actor
- Jane Fonda –actress, fitness instructor, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and activist
- Angelina Jolie – actress, director, goodwill ambassador, United Nations high commissioner for refugees, mother
- Robin Williams—comedian, actor, philanthropist
- Ben Stein—author of several books on life and finance, quiz-show host, White House speechwriter, columnist, trial lawyer, law school professor, scriptwriter, and novelist
- Ted Turner– environmentalist, entrepreneur, philanthropist, media mogul (received Renaissance Man of the Year award from the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and its U.S. chapter)
Extraordinary transformation leader, Barbara Sher, called we polymaths – scanners.
Scanners may be teachers, freelance writers, news reporters, talk-show hosts, librarians, film-makers, sales-people, and managers.
These roles have something in common: they are influential in creating your lifestyle as a holistic model – that means no part of you is excluded!
It doesn’t mean you have to earn money through all of your interests but that you ‘flavour’ what you do with them. By using all of your gifts, skills and genius from a flow state, innovation comes naturally. As does personal fulfilment, now deemed to be one of the most important values that we attribute to our life and work.
In this new year and paradigm, if we are smart and conscious, we will envision our future taking account of the truth that we do, be and have all we desire.
This is not just theory.
There is an essential key in the equation here.
We humans are energetic beings always interacting with the world around us through electromagnetic frequency. This energy frequency shapes and creates reality (as proven by the most modern and respected scientific resources).
When you love what you do, when all of your life makes your heart sing, you function at a very high frequency.
This causes you to continually provoke positive events and outcomes.
Your neurological system will be wired to attract things, people, places, opportunities that are in your best interests. When you use your natural gifts, when you are in your bliss zone, following your heart in pursuits of core values to you, you enter what athletes and high-performance leaders call ‘flow’.
For me, and my work researching how to achieve this state, I know that a high-frequency polymath can produce genius. I believe we are all capable of genius.
In this elevated frequency were birthed such gems of innovation as Sistine Chapel paintings, electric light, life-changing medicines, rockets, healing miracles and many, highly successful businesses!
According to my three years of research, it turns out that we are all coded for achieving greatness.
Not only are we coded biologically, psychologically and energetically, but the code is a pattern that is found everywhere in nature and the universe.
Your greatness, potential and most, abundant, fabulous heart-led life is not just a dream. It is a reality waiting for you to own your own ‘renaissance’ (re-birth).
We are born as polymaths – multi-potentialites – capable of pursuing and fulfilling a myriad of aspirations, visions and goals; capable of turning our hand to anything that lights our fire.
It is the dawning of a new era.
A new Renaissance, in which this multi-potentiality will epitomise the hybrid entrepreneurs who are uncompromising in their devotion to their highest vision of self and life. Is that you?
If so, don’t waste another day being anything other than omnipotent in your power to be, do and have anything your beautiful soul wants for you to experience.
Don’t waste another day feeling something is missing.
Don’t waste another day NOT being in a state of flow.
Make your genius, your CEO. And hang out with others who are doing the same. You’re not alone.
Polymaths, welcome to a new dawn.
Jenni Parker-Brown
Jenni's mission is to help women entrepreneurs leverage their genius, grace, and super-powers to transcend any market challenges and fulfill their greatest potential as healthy, wealthy change-makers.