One time when I was 5 someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said, “I want to be an astronaut.” One hour later, I decided that I wanted to be a businesswoman. Then later I said I was going to be a teacher. Fast forward to age 14, someone asked me what I wanted to be. I said I wasn’t sure but I knew I wanted to learn shoe-making, hair making, and tailoring. Then at age 19, I wanted to be a farmer, teach at a university, and then have a non-profit organization all at the same time. I cannot tell you how many times I heard, “You need to focus”, “Just pick one and focus” and “Don’t be a Jack of all trades!” Perhaps, you know people like that in your life.
None of those interests was wishful thinking. I did have a small farm while I was studying and researching how to start a non-profit. I bought the shoe-making course and had a doll to practice hair-making with. Nonetheless, I needed to google things like “how can I live multiple lives?” and “what kind of jobs are good for people with multiple interests” and even “would I ever like my job?” Then I came across Barabar Sher’s book, Refuse to Choose. From thence came my revelation. There are people with multiple and seemingly dissimilar interests that can often change. Barbara Sher calls it a scanner personality. A more familiar term might be the “renaissance man.” (Think: Da Vinci who was a painter, scientist, sculptor, engineer, architect…Galileo who was an astronomer, physicist, engineer, natural philosopher, mathematician… more recently, Warren Buffet who owns 60 companies from restaurant chains to investment agencies.)
The imagery I love that Sher uses is the honey bee. When bees go looking for flowers to suck from, they may spend 2 seconds or 20 seconds on a flower before moving on to the next. We do not say that the bee lacks focus. The bee is simply done with the flower and moves on when that flower no longer serves its needs. The bee may even return to a previous flower if its needs have changed. For scanners, it is similar, what others may call a lack of focus, scanners, they (need to) move on when an interest no longer serves them.
The rewards that a scanner may look for are several. No, money is not one of them. Scanners may desire the rewarding feeling that comes from sharing knowledge or skills with others, learning how things work, being competent enough to “save the day” when others don’t know what to do, creating beauty all around, and so on. Several interests are necessary to provide these rewards such that telling a scanner to choose is equivalent to telling a fish not to live in water.
Rather than making a scanner choose and make a career out of one thing, Sher offers tools and life design models that helps scanners make a career and life around all their interests that serves the scanner’s needs. My favourite tool is the Big Calender. It sounds simple, right? But take together the fact that with so many interests scanners can easily feel immobilized that there is not enough time for everything. A calendar especially when publicly displayed provides assurance that there is enough time to do everything.
I could write so much more on this topic. But I think this is enough for now. I have refused to choose and here is my blog about all the several things I’d ever blog about.
Would you like to know what else I’m interested in? Check out my impossible list, here.
Everything Shola 