How to Be Everything by Emilie Wapnick

Author:Emilie Wapnick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

7

THE PHOENIX APPROACH

The phoenix is among the most famous of mythical creatures. According to legend, the large red-and-gold bird lives for upward of five hundred years. At the end of this life, it builds a pyre of twigs and—here’s where the various mythical interpretations diverge—either bursts into flames or lies down, dies, and decomposes slowly. The phoenix is then reborn from its ashes (or its primordial muck . . .).

The phoenix is an apt metaphor for some of us. While some multipotentialites thrive when they have multiple active interests in their lives, others become fascinated by a single subject for months or even years.1 The Phoenix Approach is working in a single industry for several months or years and then shifting gears and starting a new career in a new industry. Unsurprisingly, this career model works best for multipotentialites who fall closer to the sequential end of the simultaneous–sequential spectrum2 and enjoy exploring their passions one at a time.

I met Trever Clark through a mutual friend shortly after launching my website, Puttylike. At the time, Trever was a passionate blogger and digital marketer. Even though he was living in Michigan and I was living in Denmark at the time, we became fast friends online, exchanging advice and support as we grew our respective blogs. He was actually the first person to use the word multipotentialite!3 As often happens with friends who live far apart, Trever and I lost touch over the next few years but kept general tabs on each other over social media. At one point, I noticed that the subject of his updates had changed. Instead of sharing technology articles, Trever was now enthusiastically posting about food—namely the artisan mushroom farm he had started with a friend. They were growing gourmet mushrooms and selling them to local upscale restaurants.

Shortly after I learned of Trever’s new career, my wife and I were on a road trip. We decided to make a stop to catch up and see his headquarters at The Urban Mushroom. The space was impressive. There were entire rooms of enormous, colorful mushrooms, many of varieties I’d never heard of. But I was most struck by how passionate Trever was about mycology. (He recounted his recent adventures while carefully spraying a wall of lion’s manes.) The same enthusiasm he had once poured into online marketing was totally present, only this time it was applied to petri dish experiments, not keyword research.

Fast-forward three years: I wasn’t surprised to learn that Trever had sold his share of the mushroom business and had become the director of operations for a local food exchange. A year after that, he moved on to become a technical support analyst. Trever is a multipotentialite who moves through his interests sequentially (one at a time). He becomes fascinated with something and dives in with total abandon—for a few years. Once he no longer feels challenged, he leaves it behind and moves on to a new field. Each time he reaches his personal end point, his old identity erupts into a glorious blaze and he is reborn from the ashes to step into a new role.

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