Good morning, Leaders! It’s Friday!

The World loves simple, easy explanations and has traditionally put labels on everything to satisfy its desire for instant comprehension.

I’m reminded of a presentation by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, I heard during a Red River research corridor conference roughly a decade ago. He was discussing the origins of an invention to provide clean water to third world countries. Intelligent inventors and conventional wisdom (The World) said of this concept, “that’s impossible”. After assembling many smart people and giving them time to create a solution, Dean presented it to …the world… who retorted, “that’s obvious”. Mr. Kamen contends that in between those two worldly labels is “genius”.

In the past month, I’ve heard multiple examples of how the world tells us we must choose a single vocation (at a fairly early age) and stick to it … but life doesn’t happen that way. We are multi-faceted, multi-talented complex beings who, by our nature and preference for survival, adapt and adjust to the circumstances we are faced with.

I heard Daniel Pink describe his research findings that the most successful salespeople exhibit a chameleon-like behavior and instead of the assumed extrovert being best, it is the “ambivert” demonstrating introverted and extroverted tendencies depending on the situation, who sells most successfully.

I watched TedX Bend on a flight back from New York last week where Emilie Wapnick described herself and many epitomized examples as a “multipotentialite”.

This past Tuesday, I heard Jared Leto-accomplished musician, award winning actor, and sophisticated tech investor on CNBC. He is highly regarded for multiple reasons. Richly successful, he mused that a CEO on the show at the same time was easily accredited by one label where it took five minutes to describe his background.

Each of these examples demonstrate that we don’t even have words in our vocabulary to aptly describe the phenomena today. A generalist implies that someone might be ok at many things. A specialist is typically good at one thing. How do you label someone who is very accomplished at many, many things?

My contention is that we have all been blessed with multiple gifts and if we pay attention, muster and exhibit confidence and then tak action, you too can defy conventional wisdom in this label prone society and enjoy a multipotentialite-type existence.

Challenge: Are you comfortable with just one vocation? If yes, should you be?
(Don’t let the world squash your genius because it desires to slap on a label and unknowingly stuff your talent in a small box.). Be all that you were designed to be.

Have a blessed weekend!