MULTIPOTENTIAL: WHAT IT IS AND WHY YOU ARE LIKELY TO BE MULTIPOTENTIAL

Maybe if you ended up here it's because someone told you that you might be multipotential or you read about it and probably found this page on Google.

In this article, I want to tell you what it's all about, and it will surely change the way you look at life (mine has). 

So here we go... let's see why this is so interesting.

You probably identify with some of the following:

• You don't know what you want to do for the rest of your life.
• You get bored if you are always doing the same thing (same working day for years as if you were a robot repeating the same task).
• You love to try new things and learn about very different things from each other.
• When you learn about something you like, you learn fast and you immerse yourself in it for weeks, until you get bored and end up quitting. So you end up being better informed than the average population, but you don't consider yourself an expert in that subject.
• You have an imposter syndrome every few weeks or months (every time you learn something new or every time you try to monetize on topics you don't consider yourself an expert on).
• You have been told several times the saying "He who grasps too much grasps too little".
• In school, you had no idea what you wanted to be when you grew up.
• If you finish college, you will feel empty and bored inside.
• You probably have the entrepreneur's bug, and you always have some crazy business idea (and that has little to do with the idea of 2 months ago).
• You have the "shiny object syndrome", new things shine brighter and are more interesting than things you have already tried. This causes you to have several abandoned projects due to a lack of interest.

I define it as having two focus problems, long term and short term: 

• Long term, you can't maintain focus for more than a few years or months. You end up burning out pretty quickly in monotonous jobs.
• In the short term, you focus too much. You can spend weeks studying, talking and seeing in your sleep that new "thing" you want to do. The problem is that you may be neglecting other important things you should be doing.

So, you give your all on the new tasks, but you get bored with the things you already know how to do.

And let it be clear that I am not saying that you get bored quickly, I mean that once you feel that you have already gotten to know or do what you set out to do .... you no longer see the point in continuing to learn about that subject.

"Normal" people are supposed to be educated to have one job for the rest of their lives. They learn in college and the first few years of work, then they call themselves experts and don't learn anything else until the day they retire.

A couple of clear examples of "normal" people could be surgeons, mechanics, plumbers, teachers, waiters, sales clerks, civil servants, ... any job where there are no changes in the industry in the next 5 or 10 years. They study a lot about that job and work the rest of their life in that.

So the problem we multipotential people have is that we are not considered "normal". We don't know what we want to do, we change our minds pretty quickly.

Let me tell you something that can change your life, IT IS NOT A PROBLEM.

Multipotentials are different from normal people. They are no worse or better.

In short, if you had a hard time deciding what to study or shortly after starting a career you realized that there was another one that interested you much more. The same could have happened to you in your jobs, after a while you get bored and you feel that they are not for you.

What about your interests and passions? They are very disparate and unconnected, you are interested in everything, you can be reading about space travel or astrophysics and the next minute, about SEO and online marketing or cooking recipes and then start painting, sewing or singing.

And what happens when they ask you: What are you? What do you do? You think... Where do I start, right?

If it sounds like I'm describing your life, you have many chances to be multipotential, so go with me all the way. You'll feel great about yourself by the end of this article.

How to identify a multipotential person

Identifying or labelling ourselves as multipotential is up to us, but it is certainly a gift when someone tells us for the first time we read about it, that we might be one. It is simply a label that you can accept, but that doing so has a liberating and integrating effect, so in all cases it is beneficial.

First of all, there is nothing wrong, there is nothing wrong with you or your brain. 

Everything works correctly, we are just different. Our head does not work in the same way as that of most people. From the point of view of the behaviour and the way we learn, the most striking differences are noticeable. But this entails many difficulties, first to fit in and then to be understood. In addition, society and culture, which today are not designed to make us fit in.

If you have identified with what I said at the beginning, it is because you can be interested and delve into many areas of knowledge with immense interest. Although it does not take long to get bored of them or to get to the bottom of the matter. You have that ability to gobble up tons of information with passion and you love to initiate and learn new things.

What often happens around us? 

That today's education and since we are born, at home we are pushed to choose and choose well. That is, we decide on one thing and we take it to the end, we complete it. Otherwise, we would be recognizing that we are wrong and our society does not educate us to manage failure correctly.

What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to study? What position do you want to have?

A multipotential person will study several things, in many cases with little or no connection. He will try a lot of different job positions and will face quite discouraging comments about his interest, commitment, responsibility, maturity...

It's a heavy burden when you think the problem is with you, and it's a bigger problem when you start to think that maybe they're right and you force yourself to look for that "stability" that others want for you, to try to put the "focus" on it. That's when you start to suffocate, get bored and feel bad.

You feel bad for not fitting into the society of "normal people", those who do know what to do with their lives.

Positive aspects of being a multipotential, multi-passionate or multidisciplinary person.

In contrast, you will also hear positive comments about your capabilities, maybe how smart you are or how fast you learn and how good you are at whatever you put your mind to. And then they will tell you "you can do whatever you want" you will do well in whatever you decide.

This is the worst sentence you can say to a multipotential. It's like telling them "I can't help you" since you can't decide one thing and that's just what you are telling them again to do. This is very frustrating as often with so much change we find it hard to find a life or career that is profitable.

Well, you are not alone and you are not the only person like this, and as I said there is nothing wrong with your head. It just works in a different way, which as we will see also has its advantages.

Maybe if you've come this far with interest, you're already starting to identify with your new label. Try saying it: "I am multipotential". Try again: "Hello, my name is... and I am multipotential".

Terms to name multipotentials.

Although I warn you that not all of them are synonyms of multipotential, you will get an idea of what they refer to, to people who meet some of the characteristics. 

Some people have dedicated hours and large amounts of energy to try to define with accuracy and precision some of the terms. I invite you to search for more information in Saint Google.

For me, as you may have deduced, it is not so important to differentiate between them, but it is important to know that they exist and that they talk about “multipotentialites” or similar people.

• Multipotentialite: Emilie Wapnick talks about it extensively in her book "How to be everything".
• Universal Men or Renaissance People (Homo Universalis): the so-called Renaissance Men were versed in multiple disciplines.
• People with multiple intelligences: Multipotentials may not have the most developed intellectual intelligence than the rest but they do have developed many of the intelligence and their combination makes them able to dedicate themselves successfully to almost anything. 
• Scholars
• Polymaths: Person with great knowledge in diverse scientific or humanistic subjects.
• Scanners: this is what Barbara Sher calls them in her book "Refuse to Choose". A scanner is someone who experiments and tests or initiates learning in multiple subjects, but not necessarily to go very deep, let alone specialize.
• Multi passionate/Multiapasionados: its common usage simply defines people with a passion or interest in many things.
• Know-it-all or know-it-all: these are derogatory terms. They can be defined as the person who thinks he/she knows and masters several specialities.
• Restless: often used to refer to active children, but when we are left as adults with intellectual curiosity and the habit of incessantly changing tasks.
• Eternal learner
• Generalists: Although, as we know, a multipotential can be considered sufficiently specialized in a specific area.

Types of multipotential profiles

There is no strictly defined universal classification, nor a definitive evaluation test.

We could, as in any classification, make multiple profiles depending on what criteria we attend to. But we are going to explain the types that are defined and those that appear in some of the tests.

That said, for example, Barbara Sher in her 2006 book, already differentiates up to 11 different types of scanners, thanks to her studies during the 1990s and early 21st century. Later in 2017, Emilie Wapnick says that there are countless different types of multipotentials and focuses on the spectrum between Simultaneous and Sequential, passing through the Mixed ones attending to the speed with which they change activities, to summarize a lot.

If we remain with a broad classification of the two most universally accepted types, among which the rest of the types can be placed, the two main types of multipotentials would be:

Simultaneous Multipotentials: 

These can exploit their interests, passions and hobbies at the same time, they may vary throughout their lives, but they do not need to spend time with one of them and abandon it before moving on to the next. They do them at the same time. But not to be confused with multitasking or multitasking, something to avoid to improve productivity.

Sequential Multipotential: 

This type abandons or leaves a topic parked before moving on to the next, although they may resume it in the future, it may be cyclical or not. It is also possible, depending on the length of the period, that this mode of behaviour is not identified as being multipotential, since it is a normal behaviour throughout a lifetime.

Famous people who are multipotential

Let's take a look at the most famous multipotentials. Knowing that you are one of this select group will make you feel great.

• Leonardo da Vinci, Renaissance man par excellence (1452-1519) a multipotential by the book, was a painter, architect, anatomist, palaeontologist, inventor, botanist, writer, sculptor, philosopher, engineer, musician, poet and urban planner.
• Galileo Galilei was multipotential (1564-1642) in his 78 years of life he was an astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher and mathematician and revolutionized the science of the 17th century.
• Benjamin Franklin was a multipotential (1706-1790) author, painter, politician and theorist, scientist, inventor and diplomat. He participated in the declaration of independence and the constitution of the United States of America and also invented the bifocal lens and the lightning rod among other things.

And to name a few multipotentials of our era:

David Bowie was multipotential. Musician, actor, poet, screenwriter, painter, art collector and fashion designer. He reinvented himself several times throughout his musical career with a multitude of characters and musical styles.

And who is still with us and continue to change the world and contribute to humanity and the planet in all the arts: Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Tim Ferris, Will Smith and many more.

If you notice they have all been able to contribute great things to this world, despite their dispersion of interests and their thousand and one beginnings. And you don't have to be gifted or a millionaire at birth. They simply were or are multipotential, just like you. They overcame the challenges of being multipotential and dealt with the 4 most common areas of conflict, let's see in parts what they are.

The 3 big challenges of a multipotential person

The professional career

For a multipotential person, finding job stability becomes difficult. Whether employed or self-employed as an entrepreneur.

Multipotentials in the world of work employed professions:

Most jobs are meant for specialists. But some jobs require being polyvalent, multifunctional or having a broad vision of the problem to be solved. Some jobs allow you to work in different positions, either in the same company or in other companies. So this is one of the most important challenges to overcome as we all need to support ourselves and find our source of income.

My recommendation is to look for a job where you always have to be learning and thus avoid getting bored fast. For example, I studied mechanics and electronics and ended up working as a web programmer. What we multipotential people like is to learn and know how things work.

• Once you know mechanics, 90% of the knowledge doesn't change for 20 years or more.
• Once you know electronics, 90% of the knowledge doesn't change in 10 years or more.
• In web programming, every 2 years there are important changes if in 5 years you don't learn something new .... you are obsolete.

I just made up these statistics, but this is my feeling after spending a few years in those worlds. They are places where I got bored after spending a few years.

Multipotentials with self-employed careers:

Many multipotentials are self-employed, freelancers, freelancers, entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs with multiple projects because they can't devote themselves to just one. And in these cases, it may happen that they do not become profitable or not profitable enough, if they are all carried out at the same time or do not reach the point of profitability in each of them or simply time passes and they do not achieve the happiness or tranquillity they desired. The challenge is to make those multiple projects give us sustenance. And that is where the next challenge we must overcome comes into play: the multipotentials.

Productivity

Warning: Multipotentiality is often confused with attention-deficit or ADD or ADHD and vice versa. These are psychopathologies that require appropriate treatment and that suffer from specific symptoms included in their clinical picture. Although there are patients who may be multipotential, it is important not to use lightly or confuse these disorders with multipotentiality.

The challenge of a multipotential is to achieve a level of productivity that does not divert our attention while working on each of our multiple interests. We multipotentials do not normally have a lack of focus when we get down to work on something, but you have to achieve production levels and time on each of the multiple subjects. This is the challenge.

In my case, I can easily spend a week solely focused on learning something specific. The problem I have is in allocating the time to fit other important things into that week's schedule. I get so focused that I can leave other important things half done, and that is unproductive in the long run.

Self-confidence

And this is a major challenge that underpins everything. And that the mere fact of identifying ourselves as multipotential already plays a big positive role. We must understand ourselves and also understand that others do not understand us. Even so, we must maintain confidence in our projects and be prepared to handle the criticism and misunderstanding of the majority of society.

After all, we are different, but we are not alone. When you surround yourself with more recognized and committed multipotentials, you will see that everything becomes much easier and you gain that confidence that will allow you to focus on your productivity and thus have a successful career.

At this point, I want to emphasize the imposter syndrome, which has affected me personally more than once. It comes and goes at times. Since I am not an expert in many things ... I get the feeling that I am just better informed than the average, and that this is worthless. And although I know I'm wrong, and no matter how much I repeat it to myself, it's hard to bury that feeling every time it appears. Fortunately, though, I'm finding it less and less difficult. I guess you learn with practice.

The 4 most common areas of conflict of multipotentials.

Let it be clear that each person is different and that in some cases you may have one or more of these conflicts. In my case, I did not have all of them.

From what I have found on the internet, the 4 problems/conflicts that multipotential people have are the following.

Acceptance Conflict

It has to do with the individual's acceptance and the way he/she is or functions as we have seen. This is the reason why it is seen as a problem, the understanding by others, the discomfort generated by external comments and judgments. It works from self-knowledge and acceptance.

Management Conflict

This conflict is the source of all the problems of difficulty in making choices, paralysis, dispersion and many blockages. The concept of decisions and why they are difficult can be worked on. 

Motivation Conflict

This conflict also generates blockages for fear of losing motivation before achieving results. It is also very common.

Concentration Conflict

This conflict is perhaps the least pronounced, but it is suffered when the change of task is too frequent and affects productivity. Or when the interest ceases and appears very quickly. But as we have already mentioned, multipotentials have a high capacity for concentration, which can sometimes be compromised.

Benefits of knowing that you are multipotential

You should note that the benefits are not limited to being multipotential. But to know that you are. That is, the greatest benefit lies in recognizing yourself and accepting this label. 

This is the real benefit, to feel identified, integrated into a group, to feel that you are not alone and above all that you are not to blame for what happens to you, that you are not irresponsible, that all those external comments that bother you or demoralize you, are the result of ignorance and misunderstanding, yours first and of course that of all the others around you.

But now that you are clear about it, if you become aware of it, your self-confidence will increase and the comments that surround you will not affect you in the same way anymore. So now you just have to work from the inside out, to see wonderful results.

Disadvantages of being multipotential and not knowing it

Well, I'm sure that by now, most of the uncomfortable things that have happened to you throughout your life fit as drawbacks. But here is a review of the many drawbacks, although some of them will soon become strengths.

• Difficulty in choosing just one thing.
• Eternal learners of everything.
• Educational systems are not designed for our capabilities.
• A society that punishes dispersion and rewards specialization.
• Few jobs were designed and identified for multipotentials.
• Difficulty in the labour world to be identified and properly valued by recruiters and Human Resources specialists.
• Society's lack of awareness of our existence, little recognition.
• Confusion with giftedness, high abilities, ADD or ADHD.

The main skills of multipotentials.

Here comes the best part, the virtues, I like to see them as the superpowers we can have. Multipotentials, despite having to struggle in a world not currently designed for them, have certain exceptional abilities and skills gathered in a single being that once recognized can be harnessed very effectively.

These multipotential superpowers are very valuable for people with entrepreneurial profiles. This is the main reason why many multipotentials create their own companies or their Side Projects. They are people who are not afraid to learn new things, get out of their comfort zone and apply things they already know in sectors they have just entered.

Without going into too much detail, let's list 7 of these superpowers.

1.- Global thinking and vision

By mastering several very different areas, they can apply that knowledge transversally and achieve fabulous ideas and applications that enrich the various areas they master.

2.- Switching between modes of thinking

Just as it happens to a bilingual, they can jump from one language to another, a multipotential can jump and understand specialists from very different areas of knowledge. For example between a programmer or a computer scientist and an artist or a designer. That is why they are valuable profiles connecting departments and managing large projects.

3.- Multiple focuses simultaneously.

As if they were a one-man band, they can be involved in very different projects at the same time without lacking focus on each of them when they start working on each of them. As if they were a chess player, switching between different games, but with different projects.

4.- Fast learning

Being eternal learners, we are super trained to learn quickly and by interconnecting different areas, learning happens much faster than for any person when starting from scratch.

5.- Inspire and have a high impact on others.

This global vision and passion for the topics he/she is involved in, makes us good disseminators, evangelists of ideas and with a superior ability to inspire others to carry out projects.

6.- Invention and creativity

The great curiosity and restlessness to innovate, make our mind never stop improving, thinking and inventing new ways of doing things or new tools to help improve a process or a task.

7.- Synthesize and Innovate

The ability to synthesize and bring valuable ideas from one field to another to apply them innovatively is perhaps the most valuable weapon of multipotentials. Finding the connection point between different fields and leveraging it has always yielded the greatest successes in business sectors.

I hope this is of some use to you

Surely if you are multipotential, you have identified yourself at some point.

Many of these things speak about you. Remember that you can now free yourself from that heavy burden if that is what you felt, there is nothing wrong with your trajectory, you are different, but there are more people like this and a lot of them. 

I also wanted to thank the other professionals in various fields, press and media and blog posts and YouTubers, where you can find a lot of information about it. This article has been created with that public information and then I have given it a personal touch. Because as you might have guessed, I'm not an expert on the subject, I just know a little more than average, since I'm multipotential.

I hope I have helped someone feel better about themselves, which is what happened to me when I discovered this term just this week.

And now that I know that I am multipotential, what do I do with this? 

Well for me it has taken away the mental burden that I have wasted years of my life doing things that have served no purpose.

I've "wasted 5 years" in college, I've "wasted" time on projects that I later abandoned, I've wasted years working in an office not knowing what my purpose was.

It may sound like bullshit, but it has been this last week that I have discovered that being multipotential means that I will always be trying new things, that I don't have to feel bad about it and that I don't have to hold myself back from being "normal" and having to retire after having worked all my life on one thing.

Everything that for me were mistakes that had made me waste a lot of time, I have now realized that they allow me to learn things faster than most and with a unique and different point of view.

Looking back, I guess I studied mechanics, electronics and industrial automation/robotics (it's called mechatronics) because at the time I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. It was just clear to me that I liked to know how things worked on the inside. And that's the same reason why I love web programming, to know how webs are made inside and how I can replicate them.

In my case, I can now call myself an expert in Drupal-based web programming, having been able to hold the focus on this topic for ten years. During those 10 years, I have also learned about other related topics (team management, project management, configuring servers, different frontend and backend languages, ...) and got into other fields without any apparent relation. I joined a mountaineering club and have ended up climbing several times to the Alps at over 4000m, climbing snow channels with crampons and an ice axe, tried to mine cryptocurrencies, I have hiked 60 km in a single day (never more), I have also taken advantage that I knew about electronics and mechanics to get into the world of 3D printing (when they barely sold assembly kits), and ended up designing and manufacturing my bipolar 3D printer. And of course, I've had personal projects that I ended up abandoning because I got bored after a few weeks or months of having started. I was even programming with a friend to create a product and start a company, although the idea died and we never published anything (I think it was about 3 or 4 years ago).

Also, before all that, I knew about carpentry, mycology, floristry and also basic car mechanics (if basic is to disassemble an 86 car, sand it, paint it and reassemble it).

And all this with less than 30 years, in a month I will be 29 !!!!!

A few months ago, with all this accumulated knowledge, and how bored I was working in a company ... I decided to leave the "fixed" job and become freelance. So I should have more time for my crazy ideas (or so I thought). I discovered the world of side-projects, and that there are people who make a living out of it. I have informed myself as much as I could about marketing strategies and Lean Startup. And now that I recognize myself as multipotential ... I feel liberated knowing that there are people like me, and that I don't have to be like "most people" and I can learn whatever I want, whenever I want and do it however I want.

Contents of interest

Most of the information I have taken from:

https://pau.ninja/multipotencial

https://soygon.com/multipotencial/

I recommend you to see this information and do some of the tests, for example, https://puttylike.com/quiz/

You can find several videos on youtube, the ones I have seen that best explain it are: