What’s a multipotentialite?
Part of Thought Echoes — exploring the ripple effects of our thoughts [Subscribe ➚]
(Updated August 5, 2026)
What if your many interests aren't a distraction, but a way of seeing the world?
Staring at a candy counter back in grade school, I couldn’t decide which candy to pick with the babysitting money in my pocket.
I’d biked a mile to Philip’s Pharmacy at Ruby Isle in Brookfield, Wisconsin, and just stood there.
If someone had set up time-lapsed photography back in the 1970s over what seemed like a 30-minute period, I’d be standing still.
Dozens of kids would come by with friends, pick and pay for their candy, then sprint off laughing.
I — couldn’t decide.
If I picked one — then I couldn’t have another. I wanted many. So I stood there.
After forever, I’d pick Baby Ruth, again.
Took me years to realize - you do this every week. Pick one for now, and you can try another one next week.
Felt the same way trying to decide what to pick in college for a major too. I loved math. I was the eldest of six girls and didn’t want to work in my father’s construction company (despite him being president — his philosophy: it’s his job as a man and a father to make the money and my job as a girl and his daughter to spend it).
I ended up going to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, away from family’s conservative expectations back home.
But I was always interested in writing, art, and starting a company (this was in the era of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates).
SOOOO MANY interests, but in college, even a liberal arts college, there were decisions that had to be made.
I chose computer science: involved math, same industry as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and less sexist. Okay, I was naive…
Decades later, after listening to Emilie Wapnick’s TED talk on “Why some of us don't have one true calling,” she introduced me to the term: multipotentialite.
“Multipotentialite: someone with many interests and creative pursuits. It stems from the word multipotentiality — a psychological and educational term used to describe people who display aptitudes across multiple disciplines.”
My polymath brain smiled. I like to deep dive into many topics — and it was like Emilie gave me permission to be a version of me I’d felt guilty about or someone wrong because I could not, for the life of me, figure out what my ONE thing was.
After three decades in high tech, with a variety of positions and projects (my husband said I would get bored every two years), that fed my appetite for learning new things (and my pocketbook; the salary was good), I decided to retire. For a bunch of reasons.
And, for the last decade, I’ve gone back to writing.
I’m following my curiosities rather than rigidly sticking to a focused list of topics that I felt I should — in order to build authority or mastery — before I could share what I’d learnt with others.
In the process, I’ve discovered that asking questions and following where they lead uncovers more about the world around me, and is infinitely more enjoyable and more satisfying.
It’s hard not to look back and see where I once settled into a perspective, made assumptions, and was really chasing after searching for satisfaction through certainty of one clear choice of what to focus on…
I lived on the surface of life by trying to hone in and pick a single career. Or a single business idea to start.
“You change positions or projects when you’re board.”
It took me decades to acknowledge that the reason I changed positions/projects every two years — was in an effort to satisfy my yearning to learn new things.
Restless — is the best way to describe what I felt inside.
And as soon as I changed my circumstances, I felt better. Meeting new people, learning something new, having a challenge. New environments were invigorating. I learned that part of the secret, for me, was learning something new. Allowing a little serendipity into my life helped too.
Reflecting back, I wanted to do something, but didn’t know what, so I tried things with an attitude of I’ll figure it out. And in the process in all my different positions and projects, and elsewhere in my life I always leaned toward trying something new.
And now that I’m retired from corporate, I’ve had more freedom to channel that energy where it wanted to go: publishing a poetry chapbook, starting a newsletter and blog, hosting a podcast, becoming a certified vegan chef, creating YouTube shorts, and working on a memoir.
For me, my morning journaling has become a way to capture what my inner voices are nudging me to do… next.
What about you?
What areas of your life do you want to experiment in? Where do you wish you could spend more time? How can you re-channel the energy you have in the form of angst about not having a singular focus for your career or interests to master?