Have you got a renaissance soul?

As a career coach and work philosopher, a very regular conversation I have with people starts along these lines: “I can’t decide whether to start my own business or get another corporate job; I can’t decide whether to devote myself to my writing as I am also very interested in becoming a coach; there are so many things I love – how do I choose which one to follow?”

The underlying assumption is this: which one do I choose? Many of us have been bought up with a belief that work should be one career or job so that we can get good at it, and if we leave one career, we should another one and devote ourselves to it. To do more than one thing would make us a jack-of-all-trades, which is not a good thing as we fear we don’t be taken seriously. We can tell ourselves – or may have been told – that having a number of activities is not a valid work or career path.

What we aren’t often taught is that is that we often have multiple interests, multiple passions and multiple talents. We can be good at more than one thing.

Leonardo da Vinci was a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, painter, sculptor, architect, musician and writer – and he didn’t have the internet or anything electronic to help him. In his time, it was not unusual – he was a renaissance soul.

Today, we often call renaissance souls portfolio workers. Are you a renaissance soul trying to squeeze yourself into a job or a business that is too small for you?

Here are some ways of identifying whether you have a renaissance soul

1. There lots of things you like doing, but very few that you’d want to do every day
2. You get bored easily
3. You feel sure you have a number of talents that you haven’t fully developed yet
4. You are curious and enjoy learning new things – you enjoy growing yourself
5. Once you know how to do something well, your interest can begin to flag
6. You regularly have new ideas for helping people and making money
7. You dislike the feeling that any aspect of you is not being developed and utilised

Your portfolio of activities could be a mixture of employment and self employment, paid and voluntary activities. You can create a number of streams of income and a number of ways of being rewarded for your talents. The whole idea is that you create a portfolio that is unique to you.

Here are some steps to designing and creating your portfolio

1. Sit down and design an ideal lifestyle for yourself – what would be the elements in it?
2. Decide on an element of that lifestyle you’d like to develop next
3. Take some small steps in that new direction
4. Spend time with other renaissance souls so that you feel at home

Being a renaissance soul and creating a portfolio of activities can be immensely rewarding and fulfilling once you learn how to break out of the one job mentality and learn to create a lifestyle around your passions and interests.

Nick Williams is the author of The Work We Were Born to Do and an expert in helping people find the work they’d to do. See his site at www.nick-williams.com

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