You Are and Were, Never Too Much.

I read something this weekend that touched me like a warm hand on the back...

It was a piece by Dan Koe with the world’s least subtle title: “If you have multiple interests, do not waste the next 2–3 years.” And somewhere around the third paragraph I realized I wasn’t reading advice. I was reading validation.

Because here’s the story so many of us were handed: Go to school. Pick a thing. Niche down. Stay in your lane. SIT STILL. Become the world’s foremost expert in one narrow strip of pavement and whatever you do, don’t be scattered. Unfocused.

OH and by the way, mask your ADHD, it’s too much.

Oooopsies.

For me, I was/am scattered in the most fun way. I sang. I played piano. I fell in love with social media. I got back to writing and now I even represent talent!

I became a person creatives came to when they wanted to grow on socials and learn how to do it without losing their soul. And for years, STILL, a quiet voice (and even a few biz coaches) asked, “When are you going to just pick one?”

Welp! Turns out the answer was and is ummmmm never, and that’s my advantage to doing and BEING.

Koe makes a point I can’t stop thinking about: specialization wasn’t some eternal law of success. It was an Industrial Age invention. In a pin factory, one person doing every step made 20 pins a day. Split into specialists, the same workers made 48,000. So we built schools, careers, and entire identities around being one efficient part of someone else’s machine.

But you are not a pin factory, my friend.

We don’t live in that world anymore, and the proof is historical. Before the printing press, knowledge was locked away, books copied by hand, literacy rare, learning outside your trade nearly impossible. (Not to mention women being encouraged NOT to read or learn anything outside of “our place.”

When Gutenberg arrived, the cost of knowledge collapsed, and within fifty years Europe was flooded with millions of books. One human could master many things in a single lifetime.

Like, Da Vinci. A painter, sculptor, engineer, anatomist. “Realize that everything connects to everything else,” he said.

The Renaissance didn’t reward people for picking one thing. It rewarded the ones brave enough not to.

And here’s my favorite part, the part I’d like to put on a billboard and scream from the hills: we are living through that again.

The internet and AI just collapsed the cost of knowledge a second time. The skeptic in me wanted to call that hype so I went looking, and the research holds up. David Epstein’s Range makes the case that in unpredictable, fast-moving fields, broad samplers often outrun early specialists. Frans Johansson’s The Medici Effect shows that the biggest breakthroughs happen at the intersection of disciplines, not the bottom of one.

Your edge was never going to be expertise. Your edge is intersection. It’s the specific, unrepeatable way your interests overlap. A way of seeing that no one else on earth can copy, and that no AI can generate unless someone like you tells it what to think.

A singer/pianist who became a social media strategist, a talent agent helping actors get work, add in my writing, (it saves my soul and so happy I’m brave enough to share with you now).

Lately, I've been helping artists make sense of AI, (it helps me learn more, too!) translating the technology into practical tools that support creativity rather than replace it.

That intersection isn’t a mess. It’s an ocean of ideas and river of flowing energies. I’m building a vessel where all of it lives together and I have a ball doing it.

If this speaks to you too, hear me: you were never too much. You were just early.

I also promised you the truth, not just the pep talk. Sooooo here’s some #builditinpublic info…

Being multi-talented is not a catchall for business-savvy. Let me say this plainly, because someone needs to: if I’d made wiser financial decisions over the last five years, I’d be a lot further along than I am right now. The gifts and verve aren’t the problem. Time to figure this one out, too. #excelhereIcome

That’s the lesson I want to share with you more than any other this year. Your multi-hyphenate-ness is a genuine asset but an asset you don’t protect is just a pretty thing you eventually lose. Treat the multi-hyphenate life like the business it actually is.

😬 WHEW…Talking to myself here too, folx.

Pay yourself like an employer who respects you. Future-you is real, and she’s counting on present-you to stop winging it.

And the hope? The hope is not theoretical. I’m working my way through it, one better decision, one honest spreadsheet, one un-glamorous Tuesday with a calculator, at a time.

I’m telling you this while I’m still figuring things out, because I think that’s worth more than telling you once I’m safely on the other side. You don’t have to have it all fixed to start fixing it.

Here’s what I want you to carry into your week:

You were and are NEVER, too much creative friend. Embrace all that you are, all that you do and all that you bring to the table. You’re incredible.

Have a fabulous week,

Karen Michaels 🦋 is a talent agent, social media strategist, singer-pianist, and podcast host helping creatives spend less time on socials and more time doing THE THING. Find her at socialbutterflygroup.substack.com and @TechieButterflySinger on YouTube.

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