Episode 13: Being a Multipassionate Person
Hey there! Welcome to episode 13 of Creative, Happy Life podcast. I’m you’re host, Shannon Sorensen, and today we are talking about being multi-passionate.
Now, I know there are a lot of new “wordy words” out there that, you know, the branding industry, and the coaching industry, and all these industries that have emerged online over the past couple of years have kind of come up with. And one of the words that I really connected with, probably two years ago, was the word “multipassionate”.
I connected with it because it really hit home, how I feel about who I am and what I do.
So, for instance, these days if you are looking at a lot of creatives and entrepreneurs bios, their little write ups, their elevator pitches…It's kind of funny because, you know, when our parents were young, and our parents were working and in the midst of their careers, they were a banker, a firefighter, an office manager, you know, they had their title. And that was their title and that was their career that they had pretty much their whole life. And now, in this, you know, modern era of so much work being done remotely and online, and people kind of creating their own businesses and their own careers that are made up of, you know, whatever they want!
It gets a little bit more complicated now because people are coaching, and doing a side hustle maybe selling oils or consulting, or they’re teaching an online course, and they’re also an artist and they're also, you know, doing all these things! And it's so funny because in the past five years, which, you know, coincides with when I started working from home on my photography business, I started just feeling pulled in all these different creative directions. And, I felt like there was something wrong with me. I couldn't focus, and I had to pick one thing, and just be really good at it. But it really conflicted with my heart, because I have always been interested in a lot of things, I've always wanted to do a lot of things. And the idea of just doing one thing has never really interested me.
And I thought that there was maybe something wrong with me, but there wasn't actually, because there is a word for people like me, and that is “multipassionate”. Multipassionate is, when you have many interests, many passions, many things that you want to do. And I think we are very lucky to live in this digital age where it's relatively easy to do all these different things if we really want to do. If we really want to spend the time figuring out how to fit these things together within our lives. It's doable!
I was really struck and inspired by an author. Now this is a story involving my daughter's elementary school. Every spring, they have a visiting author come and speak to the kids, and read their books, and talk about being an author, and what inspires them. And when my daughter was in first grade, an author named Jess Keating was the visiting author, and she came and talked to the kids, and I was there for the day to photograph the event, and the meet and greets and everything.
But I actually walked away feeling more inspired by her words than, perhaps, any of the kids. Because what she told them really hit home for me.
A little bit about Jess Keating, this was her story that she told the kids that day. She grew up interested in a lot of things, she was interested in nature and animals and plants and drawing and writing, and science, she was interested in all these different things. And coming into adulthood, she decided, “I'm going to find a way to do all these different things that I love. I'm going to find a way to incorporate all these things that I love into what I do.”
So, she's an author. She's an illustrator. She writes books that are based in science and history and fact, and she illustrates her books, and she's a zoologist because she loves animals. She has all these things that make up who she is, and she doesn't pick or choose just one. She could have decided to be a zoologist. Or she could have decided to be a children’s book writer and illustrator. She has found a way to include all of these things that she's passionate about into her life and into her career and her work
And I thought that was a really important message that she told the kids. You don't have to just pick one thing. You don’t just choose to be one thing, you can pick different things you can find a way to make these different things work within your life.
As people, we are multifaceted. Our personalities, interests, actions and behaviors - there are so many things that make up who we are. So, why does it make sense to only do one thing with our lives and our work?
I was sitting there like 35 years old and I was like, “Oh my God, she's speaking to me.”
But truthfully, I felt she was I felt that that was something I needed to hear from another person who is generally around the same age as me, like, a little bit of validation, that it's okay to want to do different things.
For a long time. I worked a corporate career. I worked as a graphic designer. I kind of worked my way up from an admin position to graphic design and marketing and packaging. And, you know, I had a good career, but I knew I wanted to be doing something else that was creative but also on my own terms. And around 2010, when I was getting married, that’s when I started my photography business. And you know, that was 11 years ago, and I was really gung ho for shooting weddings, because at the time, I was getting married.
And I was really interested in weddings. And then, you know, over the next couple of years I started doing some family photography, and newborn photography, and I had started my own family and had Lily. And, I started branching out and finding that the more different things I was photographing, the more things I enjoyed doing all these different things. It kept it exciting!
I kind of felt this whole time, like I was doing something wrong, because all these photographers in the industry were like, “Oh, well I'm a wedding photographer. I'm a family photographer. I'm a newborn photographer. I'm a headshot photographer. I'm a product photographer.” They were a photographer for one thing, and I was like, but I'm interested in all these different things. I'm interested in the weddings, and I'm interested in the babies, and I'm interested in working with seniors or with businesses.
And, you know, I knew in my gut that it was okay to be doing all of this, but there was like, all this outside messaging where I felt like, if you just pick one thing and focus on it, and you'll do it really well and then you'll be successful. Like, if I don't pick one thing, I won't be successful. That's not true. It's just not true.
So, in 2015, when we moved up towards Hartford, and I left my corporate job, we decided I would work from home, doing my photography, and being home with Lily. I really focused in on my photography, and I was doing well. And then I got this itch to do other things!
We live in New England, and the winter is not very conducive to having a full schedule of photography work if you don’t have a studio. So, I would always have some newborns, occasionally a wedding or two, but the winter was always pretty slow and tough. And I knew I wanted to kind of fill that gap with something that I could do from home, that I didn't have to travel to do.
So, I have a creative mind and heart, I had been working on my Etsy shop, and making art prints and doing graphic design. I started making tshirts, and crocheting, I kind of started allowing myself to exploring all these different things. And the more I explored, the more I was curious, you know, the more things I tried, the more I wanted to do! One of those things I really enjoyed was painting. I know that I enjoyed holding a brush and applying paint to something. So, over the past couple year, I started painting art! It was really an evolution of my creativity.
And then, you know, so, I've had all these things that I've been really interested in, you know, whether it was painting, or making jewelry, or making tshirts, or crocheting. I've always had several different things that I really loved doing. And I felt like I was fighting myself for a long time, because everywhere I turned it was like, well, you can't have all these different things you do. You’ll never be good enough, you’ll be divided. You're never going to succeed, you're never going to make enough money. You're not gonna be able to support your family, you're going to have to go out and get a “real” job.
Yikes.
So I had all these different stories, running through my head, for the past several years.
it was hard to figure out what story was true.
And then, I was sitting in the back of my daughter's library, listening to an children's author, who's very smart and very funny and her books are amazing, telling this roomful of kids…You don't have to pick one thing.
You can be interested in many things.
And it's good to be interested in many things, because it keeps life interesting.
I said, huh. How about that. That's unexpected.
So, I guess my lesson for today is, if you are a person who has many interests, and many passions, and many things that you love to do, and enjoy, and you're trying to figure out how to make them work within your life and within your business…
Be gentle with yourself. Don't listen to anyone else's messages about what it takes to be successful, and to do a good job. You know, you don't have to focus on one thing…and take this with a grain of salt from a person who's still in the process of figuring things out.
I spent the last year painting canvases, painting jewelry, doing digital art, doing watercolor, you know, various creative things, trying to figure out, “Okay, what am I going to do? We’re in a pandemic? What should I do? How do I move forward?”
But maybe we don't have to decide…maybe we just have to keep creating, and keep exploring, and keep finding our style and our voice that feels true and authentic to ourselves.
