Life Patterns for Polymaths and Prolific People | DataPsy Inc
Dabbling by Design
Life patterns for prolific, polymathic people vary from those for deep specialists. Learn about the four basic patterns that can help you achieve your multiple dreams.
Prevailing business and life culture says that you must have one and only one focus in order to succeed in life and business. This thought gets ingrained in us from the time we start school. Our education system then pushes us into specialized majors. We learn and are tested on subject-areas. Later on, we are expected to become certified in those deep specialty areas and hired to work only in specialized areas. Within that cultural context, memes and quotes such as these are interpreted to mean a single focus.
“One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular ” — Tony Robbins
OUCH!!! For a Polymath, this sort of insprirational meme provokes interesting responses. Some people start thinking they are “wrong” or “don’t fit in” . They think - “That does not apply to me!.” Or they get angry - “How insulting to think I can only do one thing!” Why can’t I both dabble AND achieve? - the good news is that you CAN both dabble and achieve.
Start by re-framing the meaning of the word focus slightly however, put focus in the context of your “purpose” and how you choose to use focus in a pattern throughout your life can yield success in a way that you and you alone define! Focus is a tool that can limite you, or you can leverage it to empower you. Let’s dabble by design and choose how to focus it using some over-arching patterns.
Dabbling by Design
Are you a Polymath? Dabbling or learning about different things is a required activity for you. Your core mastery lies in being a specialist at "integration of disciplines". So to do this it’s required to master multiple disciplines and see the pattern similarities.
To the layperson - this can look like lack of focus, however it's not a lack of focus. It's a focus on integration of specialties - which makes polymaths particularly good at facilitating production of cross-disciplinary teams.
Life Patterns for Polymaths
Let’s look at some life patterns for the dabblers and make some sense out of them. There are many possibilities on how to combine career with interests, and the possibilities can flow and evolve over your lifetime. Four patterns for life design.
Singular Career with Multiple “Outside” interests
Sequential Reinvention
Two (Or Three) Sequentially
The Umbrella - Purpose aligned focus
Singular Career with Multiple “Outside” Interests
This pattern means that the person with multiple interests has one primary strength that can serve as a money generator that funds the development of multiple outside interests - which could be hobbies or side-gigs. Eventually as the outside interests develop and mature, their income producing ability can increase and the need for the singular career can decrease.
Polymaths can pursue multiple careers simultaneously
Manage Two (or Three) Interests Sequentially
This pattern means that the life-liver is choosing to pursue more than one path at the same time. A person might simultaneously be a Food & Beverage Manager, as well as a Single Mother, as well as a teacher and an event planner
Sequential Reinvention
This pattern is very familiar to those of us in technology who have been here more than ten years. This pattern means that the life liver periodically completely changes what they are doing. Someone might start out life as a poetry maker, then turn into a printmaker, then become a technologist. Multiple masteries spread out in a row.
The Umbrella Pattern
Umbrella Focus is a Life Pattern for Polymathic People
The Umbrella Paern — An umbrella pattern can take several forms within its organizing principle. For example, this author’s de?ning of “umbrella” is a mission statement of “connecting people, processes, and technology in order to create new products.” This “umbrella” is broad enough to encompass both a day-job as an Information Technology Manager at the same time as a role in life as a serial entrepreneur. All of these activities ? within the one “umbrella” so this reduces potential for being overwhelmed — all that they do is part of the overall whole.
Pulling the Patterns Together Over Time
Life patterns for Prolific People
Finally - there’s no rule that says that you have to follow a single pattern over time. This illustration shows a life progression where someone started out their career in one direction, kept doing that while they took a parallel path to reinvent themself, gained an over-arching purpose, and pulled all the paths together into an umbrella pattern.
