Career Paths
Multipotentialite Work Models
“The best day of your life is the day on which you decide your life is your own”
~Dan Zadra
Multipotentialite Work Models
I’m excited to work on my blog, for one thing, it will help me stay inspired and organized. I am an organized multipotentialite. It’s been a while to embrace my organized self, during this embrace I’ve been wondering, ‘do those two go together?’. That question had me doing some research and I found that there are a couple ways I can go about organizing my career, as a Multipotentialite.
According to Emilie Wapnick on her Puttylike website, there are 4 commonly used work models used by Multipotentialites (I have yet to read her book but will be doing so later. I’m hoping to get back to reading regularly). All four have the three qualities, according to Wapnick, will make a Multipotentialite happy. These qualities are:
- Variety (not too much, not too little, amount varies per person)
- Meaning (a sense that you’re making a difference in the world)
- Money (the right amount for you, varies from person to person)
To paraphrase these FOUR WORK MODELS:
- THE GROUP HUG APPROACH: Take all your interests to create ONE role or find a company where you can indulge in most (if not all) of your interests. This is the work model that Wapnick calls “Renaissance Business”, which is “one business that allows you to integrate and use many different interests in your work”.
- THE SLASH APPROACH: Have two or more jobs that allow you to work with all your interests. For example, Michael Popok, from LegalAF, has created a YouTube legal channel and will have a podcast that goes along with YouTube. Along with those two jobs, he has created his own law firm.
- THE EINSTEIN APPROACH: Have a “day job” that you enjoy but “does not take up much time and/or creative energy”. This will allow you to engage with your other projects and passions outside of work while being able to pay your bills.
- THE PHOENIX APPROACH: I have been doing this, without realizing it. Wapnick calls it “The Phoenix Approach”. It involves “working at a job for some time – 4 years, 6 years, whatever feels right for you. Then when the boredom hits, shift to an entirely new field altogether.”
My Multipotentialite Work Model Experience
Seeing all of these has been like the light at the end of a tunnel. Unknowingly, I have been trying to do “The Einstein Approach” but ended up doing “The Phoenix Approach”, I ended up feeling like a failure when I ended up leaving each job. I was trying to follow society’s definition of work. In fact, HR would look down on my resume if I had too many jobs listed. On top of that, my “day jobs” have NOT been enjoyable. The projects didn’t excite me and the people ended up being horrible. As an introvert, I didn’t do well in ‘open environments’ so there was that as well. I would be so tired at the end of the day that when I got home I would just pass out.
With “The Phoenix Approach” model, after learning the new system (learning something new was exciting enough, I guess) and how it worked (code-wise) I would get bored and end up quitting, claiming I wanted to try one more time to get into the film industry. I couldn’t figure out what was going on with me that I got so bored, especially seeing how others were okay with it all. My time ‘trying to get into the film industry’, ended up being my way of taking much-needed rest. Unfortunately, that became hard to explain when I went to enter the working world again.
Now, I do enjoy web development and it “does not take up much time and/or creative energy”. The two issues with that, up to this point, is that it’s considered going backward (from a Software Engineer). Are potential employees than wondering if there is something wrong with me, for wanting to go back? The web developer’s salary is also less, so if employers are thinking money-wise, that could be one reason they haven’t been responding to my resume.
Starting my own consulting firm is something that I have been looking into, so I know it would take up a lot of time, especially since I am unfamiliar with the business side of IT. My knowledge of business law, taxes, marketing, etc. is minimal and I really have not been interested in all of that. Now that I see things differently, I could outsource some of them. At least now I don’t feel like I’m running around in circles.
I am going to keep my consulting services on my website (remote work) and if something comes my way, that will be my “day job”. In the meantime I am going to explore all of my Multipotentialite interests.