Top 5 Books for Multi-Passionate Creatives

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Do you have stacks of books waiting to be read piled around your home? Do your stacks range wildly in subject because there are so many different things you are interested in and want to learn about? Books are a great way to expand your horizons but it’s not uncommon for multi-passionate creatives to get overwhelmed by their many interests, ideas, and passions. 

If you are an overwhelmed creative, consider moving these five books to the top of your TBR pile. Written by authors who understand multi-passionate personalities, these books will give you better insight into your personality type, as well as advice and inspiration from authors who are a little further along in their journey.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, meaning that if you choose to click through and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no cost to you.

THE RENAISSANCE SOUL by Margaret Lobenstine

Subtitled “Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One” this book defines a Renaissance Soul as someone who is constantly seeking new challenges and has expressed interest in a wide variety of areas. In other words: a multi-passionate creative! Packed full of tips, you’ll get fresh advice for those who don’t do well with standard time-management advice and career ideas to help you discover your own unique path. Plus, there are exercises to help you learn to narrow your focus and give higher quality attention to your current top interests. This book lives up to its promise to help you design a life you love!

REFUSE TO CHOOSE by Barbara Sher

Barbara Sher coined the term “Scanners”–a personality type of people who want to do it all and have trouble focusing on just one thing at a time. In this book, she walks through the nine different types of scanners, devoting a chapter to each type. The book also includes career ideas for each scanner type and practical tips and tools to help you explore your interests. If you need validation that it’s okay to have multiple interests and feel like you could use an instruction manual to live your life the way you want, this thought-provoking book should be your next read!

HOW TO BE EVERYTHING by Emilie Wapnick

Subtitled “A guide for those who (still) don’t know what they want to be when they grow up,” this is the book for those who have never been able to answer the question of what, exactly, they want to do with their life. Based on the author’s TED talk, the book is full of advice and activities to help you build a framework that allows you to design your life and career around all your skills and interests. Tackling everything from dealing with insecurity to establishing a career, this book is sure to give you a boost of confidence as you pursue your unique path.

EVERYTHING IS FIGUREOUTABLE by Marie Forleo

If you are in need of a pep talk to tell you that you can figure out how to live the life you want, start reading this book immediately! Both engaging and entertaining, this book will help you shift your mindset to one of confidence. If you feel stuck, the author shares strategies to help you “retrain your brain” and get moving again. Writing prompts throughout the book will help you as you figure things out so you can start achieving your goals.

A LIFE AT WORK by Thomas Moore

This book serves as a guide to discovering your purpose and understanding how all of the work you do throughout your life shapes your journey. If you are feeling a disconnect between your job and your calling, this book will help you discover how to close that gap. If you are considering making big changes in your life, read this book first to gain perspective and find tools for uncovering what really matters to you.

Fellow multi-passionates, I’d love to know: have you read any of these? Are there any other books that should be on this list?

Book Review: Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher

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See if you can you relate to any of these:

  • you don’t want to specialize in any of the things you love
  • you’re endlessly inquisitive
  • you have an intense curiosity about numerous unrelated subjects
  • you’re always curious to know ‘what’s out there’
  • you spend much time scanning the horizon & thinking about your next move
  • you continually move from one idea to the next

If so, you’re probably what Barbara Sher calls a “Scanner”.

SCANNER: (noun) someone for whom every single thing they see or think sparkles with potential and pulls their attention; they want to do it all!

Also known as: Renaissance person; Jack-of-all-trades; multi-passionate; multipotentialite; polymath; hummingbird person; multipod; squirrel-brain.

Barbara’s passion for helping Scanners (multi-passionates) is evident throughout this book. Here are a few of the quotes I loved most:

…not all Scanners are the same! You still need to find the tips, tools, techniques & life-design models that are right for you.

Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher, page xxvii

…she feels a familiar sense of apprehension that if she doesn’t do something about it right away, she’ll forget it like all the other good ideas she keeps having.

Refuse to Choose, pg.4

If Scanners didn’t think they should limit themselves to one field, 90% of their problems would cease to exist!

Refuse to Choose, pg.5

One of my favorite takeaways from this book was the idea of the “Scanner Daybook“. This is a plain-paper notebook or journal where you write down everything related to being a Scanner — capture your best ideas, and tangents that pull you off those ideas . . . it is meant to be “delightfully out-of-order, impulsive, and unrestrained”.

The best part about this Daybook, though, is that you are not required to DO anything with these thoughts & ideas! You simply notice & write them… no follow-through required!

The very act of considering your explorations worth keeping track of begins changing everything you ever thought about yourself… you’ll find a growing respect for how your mind works.

Refuse to Choose, pg. 13

Barbara writes: “There is zero obligation to act on anything in your Daybook. You simply capture ideas & “play them out on the pages, to see where they go!“

“Your Daybook lets you go into planning an idea without having to actually produce it… if you never take another step, you’ve had a good time, and risked nothing.” (p.14)

There are a handful of great and practical tools, just like this one, throughout the book.

Barbara also dedicates a chapter to each of the nine (9) types of Scanners she has identified, and gives options for possible career paths for each type (some of which you may never have considered on your own!).

Overall, this is a fantastic book, and I can’t recommend it highly enough! It should be on every Scanner’s bookshelf.

Is Your Personality Permanent?

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It has long been believed that our personality does not change. But what if that isn’t true?

I love personality quizzes. I find it absolutely fascinating to see the uniqueness to each person’s individual makeup, and to hear about how their experiences have helped to shape who they are.

I recently read a book called, “Personality Isn’t Permanent” by Benjamin Hardy. In it, the author claimed that researchers are coming to see that personality is not, in fact, permanent, and that we can shape who we become through intentional choices and behaviors.

Now, I’ve always said that no one personality quiz is ever going to be able to 100% accurately describe who you are.

What I know to be true, however, is that, by taking a handful of these quizzes and then looking for the patterns among your results, you are able to get a pretty clear picture of who you are — or, at least, who you are right now.

► Don’t believe me? Check out the “My Unique Blueprint” mini-course, and test this for yourself!

I have discovered, throughout my years of inquiry and self-study, that our personality can shift and change. And my belief is that the trigger for this is our own personal growth (our environment probably plays a part, as well). Allow me to explain.

When I was younger, my personality tests would say I was a mix of INFP (Myers-Briggs) and Enneagram 9 (Had the Sparketest been around then, it might have said my primary type was Maker and my secondary was Maven).

Between 2011 and now, however, I have done a lot of personal growth work. And my quiz results now say that I am an INFJ (Myers-Briggs), and an Enneagram 5-wing-4. My Sparketypes are Maven & Advisor.

Truth be told, this change makes sense to me.

Growing up, my siblings and I lived with my mom, who is an Enneagram 9 (the peacekeeper). I also lived a very “sheltered” upbringing, and didn’t get a lot of exposure to elements of the world at large. I existed in a sort of “bubble” that consisted of family, friends, and acquaintances who all basically believed the same things, attended the same church & schools, and spoke and thought alike. As such, I feel that I displayed the personality that fit my surroundings and that I saw exemplified by my mom.

From my twenties and onward, however, I broke out of that “echo chamber”. I began to question what I’d been taught and what I believed, and I started developing my own unique perspective on the world. I also was exposed to new environments (eg. workplaces, the online sphere, entrepreneurship, etc.). And, throughout that process, I believe my personality began to shift, as well.

But here’s the interesting thing: I am starting to wonder if perhaps it isn’t so much that our personality changes. What if, more so, we aren’t getting an accurate picture of our true personality in the first place? What if, as we learn and grow over time, and as we gain more exposure to parts of the world around us, we simply become more of who we were meant to be, at our core?

The reason for my questions is that I believe God created us to be who He intended us to be. And yet, one of the goals of this life on earth is to grow… to become. So, if both of these things are true, wouldn’t it stand to reason that we only become more of who we actually are?

It would certainly make sense of why we can see a shift in a lot of our behaviors, but why certain aspects of how we behave never seem to change.

This is my theory, anyway.

What are YOUR thoughts on this? I’d love to discuss the topic with you in the comments!

14 Amazing Christian Living Books

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One of my favorite things to do is to recommend books! I used to read –on average– 80 books per year ((grins)). So, I’ve got quite the collection to pull from.

Here are 14 amazing Christian Living books I’d recommend:

  1. Crash the Chatterbox – Steven Furtick
  2. Brazen: The Courage to Find the You That’s Been Hiding – Leanna Tankersley
  3. Girls With Swords – Lisa Bevere
  4. What Keeps You Up At Night? – Pete Wilson
  5. If: Trading Your If-Only Regrets For God’s What-If Possibilities – Mark Batterson
  6. Grace For the Good Girl – Emily P. Freeman
  7. Practicing the Presence of Jesus – Wally Armstrong
  8. Battle Ready – Kelly Balarie
  9. The God-First Life – Stovall Weems
  10. Sacred Pathways: Discover Your Soul’s Path to God – Gary Thomas
  11. Girl Meets God: A Memoir – Lauren Winner
  12. Jesus in the Margins – Rick McKinley
  13. The Beautiful Fight – Gary Thomas
  14. The Jesus of Suburbia – Mike Erre

(Note: This post contains Affiliate links. Please see my Disclaimer page for more information).

On Work Ethic and Fear

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Yesterday, I started reading, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. The very first lesson is that “rich people don’t work for money… they make money work for them.” And, within this lesson, another said, “we need to learn to control our emotions — to think before we act”.

Robert shares that most people (the 99%) are driven by the emotions of fear & greed… fear of not having enough money, and then greed about what things they will buy with the money they do get.

These two fears never completely go away. So, we need to learn to control them … to respond (after thinking), rather than react (without thinking).

After finishing chapter one, I set the book aside, needing time to let it all sink in. And, as I put some of my other books back on my shelf (ones I’d been reading the day before), my eye landed on “The Motivation Manifesto” by Brendon Burchard. So, I pulled it down and started skimming through it, as something in my gut prompted me to do so. And, sure enough, there was a whole chapter titled, “On Fear”. So, I sat down, and read through that chapter.

Where I started off, it talked about the “weaklings” — those who fear effort — calling them “worshippers of ease” and “escapists” (all of which struck a nerve). It talked about them having given up their power to absolve themselves of the responsibility of living a remarkable life. Ouch.

Brendon writes, “They don’t have the resolve to pursue their highest selves, or any meaningful purpose … [But] what good is a life without struggle? … What mastery can there be without real effort…?“

This made me think, again, about how I’ve never been driven towards “mastery” or “excellence” in anything. I’ve never cared to excel; good enough was good enough.

Yet, I’d also researched “work ethic”, this morning (along with what the Bible says about this topic), learning that it’s about dedicating oneself, and giving your all toward something… having certain principles that guide your work behavior. And, in combining that with these two new insights from these books, I’m starting to see that the value of all of this isn’t the outcome or the result. Its value actually lies in the fulfillment that comes from knowing you gave it your all, and –more importantly– that God is glorified by our dedication, integrity, diligence, and commitment to the task at hand.

For me, the outcome has almost never been worth the effort I’d have to expend; it wasn’t worth me forfeiting things I’d rather be doing with my time.

But that, there, is also faulty thinking: that “my time” is my own!

God says we are to be good stewards of this life, including — maybe especially — our time… because my whole purpose for existence is to know God, love God, and to make Him known… to do as He calls me to do… not to whittle away my days, being comfortable, scrolling social media, and gluttonously feeding my ego with motivational quotes.

So, the true fulfillment isn’t in what we get from the work we do (eg. the money, or all that it could buy). True fulfillment lies in giving our all to the work, itself, because that honors God — which is the whole point! In using the gifts and talents God gave us, in service to others (with a good attitude, and with excellence), we are bringing glory to God, and being –proving ourselves– set apart for the Kingdom.

And, honoring, and bringing glory to, God is FULLY worth my time… it’s the only thing that really is!

By knowing that our joy and fulfillment come through doing the work, it seems all the more imperative to me, too, that we choose work that best uses the talents and gifts God has given us… choosing work that brings us joy.

Do you know what work best aligns with YOUR talents & gifts? If not, feel free to check out my self-coaching guides for help with that.