A Guide for Those Who (Still) Don't Know What They Want to Be When They Grow Up
Ratings7
Average rating4.6
What do you want to be when you grow up? It's a familiar question we're all asked as kids. While seemingly harmless, the question has unintended consequences. It can make you feel like you need to choose one job, one passion, one thing to be about. Guess what? You don't. Having a lot of different interests, projects and curiosities doesn't make you a "jack-of-all-trades, master of none." Your endless curiosity doesn't mean you are broken or flaky. What you are is a multipotentialite: someone with many interests and creative pursuits. And that is actually your biggest strength. How to Be Everything helps you channel your diverse passions and skills to work for you. Based on her popular TED talk, "Why some of us don't have one true calling", Emilie Wapnick flips the script on conventional career advice. Instead of suggesting that you specialize, choose a niche or accumulate 10,000 hours of practice in a single area, Wapnick provides a practical framework for building a sustainable life around ALL of your passions. You'll discover: • Why your multipotentiality is your biggest strength, especially in today's uncertain job market. • How to make a living and structure your work if you have many skills and interests. • How to focus on multiple projects and make progress on all of them. • How to handle common insecurities such as the fear of not being the best, the guilt associated with losing interest in something you used to love and the challenge of explaining "what you do" to others. Not fitting neatly into a box can be a beautiful thing. How to Be Everything teaches you how to design a life, at any age and stage of your career, that allows you to be fully you, and find the kind of work you'll love.
Reviews with the most likes.
Throughly enjoyed this book. A key focus of the book is the exploration of what being a “polypotentialite” means and how to successfully navigate this approach to career/life.
If you've ever felt like you're unable to decide on “what you want to be when you grow up”, no matter your age, this book is for you! I don't read a lot of self-help books, but I enjoyed and was inspired by this one.
Recently, I've been having a lot of ideas about which direction my career could go. I enjoy the company I work for currently and I enjoy what I do (web marketing), but I have other interests and passions too that I would love to indulge. Of course I love books, I want to be an author, and I also would like to work on a project (a website maybe?) for other moms, like me, who've experienced the loss of a pregnancy or baby.
So, I've been....well, kind of all over the place. There are too many things I want to do, and too little time to do them all. I picked this book off the TLC Book Tours list because it sounded like just what I needed to help sort out all my interests/passions and my career.
How to Be Everything is a guide for “multipotentialites”, or people who have potential across a number of careers and interests and aren't easily satisfied by one specialty career. Author Emilie Wapnick not only provides ideas and solutions for how to harness your multipotentialite-ism, but also profiles several individuals who make their varied (and often very different) interests and passions work for them.
Wapnick proposes four general types of solutions for multipotentialites. I was really inspired by her “group hug” approach, which means that all of my interests and passions can sort of fit together in a career and side projects that all make sense together, in a group.
I loved how each portion of this book had an easy “key points” wrap-up at the end, and there were activities for you to do throughout to figure out how to make your multipotentiality work for you.
Overall, I loved this book and it was really useful for me to read! I definitely plan to put some of Wapnick's ideas into action to create a satisfying and fulfilling career and life. 4.5 stars!
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