Ep. 4 - Being a Multipotentialite, a Conversation with Robyn Penney

Hey, it's Thomas. Welcome to Episode 4 of the Creative Shoofly Podcast. In this episode, I'm doing something a little bit different. I have invited a good friend of mine, Robyn Penney, to have a conversation about being a multipotentialite.

This term was somewhat new to me and I learned a lot in this conversation with Robyn.

I really enjoyed having this conversation. And I hope you'll like it too.

Music Credit: 

Reflection Flow by Doxent Zsigmond (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/doxent/58328 Ft: Javolenus, Rocavaco, Siobhan Dakay

 

Books mentioned in this episode:

Refuse to Choose, by Barbara Sher

How to be Everything, by Emilie Wapnick

The above are affiliate links.

 

Links mentioned:

HSP World Podcast

 

Intro: Hello, and welcome to the Creative Shoofly Podcast. I'm Thomas Beutel. This podcast is about my creative process and one thing I've found is that I really get in my way a lot when it comes to making art and being creative. I want to do this podcast because I know it will force me to think more deeply about creativity. I'm hoping that doing this will push me and challenge me to create better art.  

Thomas: Hello Robyn.

Robyn: Hi.

Thomas: Hi! This is Robyn Penney, Robyn. You are my first guest on my podcast, so thank you for that.

Robyn: Oh, what an honor. I didn't know. That's fun.

Thomas: I'm so glad we're doing this. I wrote to you a while ago and I said, I am learning about, and I'm reading about this idea of being a multipotentialite and you responded by saying, “Great, let's have a conversation about that.”

So that's what we're doing right now. So thank you.

Robyn: Yeah. Thank you.

Thomas: I'm going to start by going over what a multipotentialite is. A multipotentialite is someone that has lots of interests and creative pursuits, and there are many different names for a multipotentialites:

Polymath, Renaissance man or Renaissance person.

Renaissance soul is actually the term that I like to use. It's gender-inclusive, I think.

Scanners another term for it.

Generalist, multi-hyphenate, multi-passionate or passion-pluralite. That's another one that I like a lot.

And some people that are identified as multipotentialites:

Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Beatrix Potter.

Hedy Lamarr, Julia Child, Geena Davis, Maya Angelou

Queen Margrethe of Denmark

Probably any of the MythBusters, but for me especially Adam Savage and Kari Byron.

I really like Tom Lehrer, the satirist, singer, songwriter, mathematician and professor.

And of course Leonardo DaVinci. He's sort of the prototype Renaissance person because he lived in the Renaissance.

And so that's just a small sample. Obviously there are many many people that I left out. What do you think of that list? Did I miss anybody that you want to mention?

Robyn: I think that, no, that's a nice comprehensive list. Well I mean comprehensive… it gives us a lot of good ideas across the ages and you've got men and women in there.

I was wondering maybe you'd like to do it in your own words how you would actually define the concept? So you heard a few names for it, but like how would you explain briefly what is meant by multipotentialite?

Thomas: I think for me is just someone who has lots of different interests and doesn't specialize in any one thing. Maybe to sort of broaden the concept I would say, someone who has more interests than typical. Is that a good way to put it?

Robyn: Yeah, because I think it's more than just like what we would call a well-rounded person. Like a well-rounded person who's maybe a person who has their job and then a couple of hobbies and interests that they occasionally do. Right?

But these are I think there's a level of passion and perhaps even commitment and skill that would come out in more than one of the person's area of interest.

Thomas: There's a Russian term I think it's called Ras which means passion. It's often used in terms of people who go on mushroom hunts or foraging for mushrooms. They're said to have a Ras for mushrooms and that term, I hope I'm saying it right.

(Editor's note: the Russian term for passion is страсть, pronounced strast')

But that term sort of speaks to me in terms of the passion that I feel for all the different things that I like. Like it's not just a passing interest. It's like, “Oh yeah I get into it!” Yeah. How about you?

Robyn: Yeah, I would say so. I think having multiple interests that almost feel like viable career opportunities or business