TED Talk Tuesday: Embracing Your Multipotentiality

You can be more than one thing. Really.

As children, we are often asked what we want to be when we grow up. The question is cute and elicits charming answers from children. As we get older, however, the question can be stressful for those who don’t feel compelled to settle on one career path or who have varied interests, career coach Emilie Wapnick says in a 2015 TED Talk.

Wapnick says she suffered for years with waning interests in the careers she chose. She would dive in wholeheartedly to a job and then after awhile would feel disengaged and no longer challenged. She was worried that there was something wrong with not being able to choose one career.

Our culture tells us there is something wrong or abnormal with wanting to do many things, she notes.

“The notion of the narrowly focused life is highly romanticized in our culture. It’s this idea of destiny or the one true calling,” she says.

Wapnick has a term for people who don’t feel compelled to follow once career: Multipotentialite.

There are tremendous strengths to being this way, she says, including points of intersection that create something special for people with varied interests and fields of knowledge.

Multipotentialites also are eager to try new things, are able to learn rapidly and they have incredible adaptability. These people can morph into whatever they need to be in any discipline.

Being able to pivot is important in our modern economy, Wapnick notes.

“We have a lot of complex, multi-dimensional problems in the world right now and we need creative, out-of-the-box thinkers to tackle them,” she says.

Wapnick makes a passionate argument for not torturing oneself over not being able to focus on one career.

“Embrace your inner wiring, whatever that may be.”

Watch the video here: TED