Are you a multipotentialite?

A friend shared this video with me during an online chat today. It stuck with me enough that I wanted to pass it along to all of you.

If you have the time, watch it. It's worth it.

For as long as I can remember, the question was always the same: “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?” The expectation baked into it is that there’s one answer. One calling. One path you commit to for life.

But what if that was never the right question for some of us?

Emilie Wapnick has a name for people who never settled on a single answer:

These are folks with a wide range of interests and creative pursuits, rather than one lifelong specialty. And if you’ve ever felt anxious or “behind” because you couldn’t pick just one thing, her message is worth hearing: the pressure to specialize creates unnecessary stress for people who actually thrive on variety.

Here’s the part I find most validating.

Being multi-passionate isn’t a weakness to overcome.

It comes with real strengths:

When you’ve explored multiple fields, you start connecting dots others can’t see.

Innovation often happens right at the intersection of different disciplines.

Multipotentialites tend to pick up new skills quickly, partly because they’ve been beginners so many times before. Starting over isn’t scary, it’s familiar.

In an economy that keeps shifting under our feet, the ability to morph and adjust is becoming more valuable, not less.

She isn’t saying everyone should be a generalist. Specialists matter too, and the goal isn’t to convince anyone to abandon their wiring. It’s the opposite: embrace how you’re naturally built, whichever type you are.

Here’s what’s wild to me. This talk is about 10 years old, but I think the ideas in it land harder today than they did back then. In a world where AI is reshaping how we work and which skills hold value, the ability to synthesize ideas, learn fast, and adapt isn’t just nice to have anymore. It might be the whole game.

The complex problems facing us aren’t going to be solved by narrow expertise alone. They need people who can think across boundaries, who bring eclectic backgrounds and unexpected perspectives to the table.

So if you’ve got many passions and no single “thing,” maybe stop apologizing for it. It might be exactly what the world needs.

Watch the video and let me know what you think.

Are you a specialist, a multipotentialite, or somewhere in between?