In his TED Talk Emilie Wapnick uses for the first time the term multipotential. With this term he describes those who have never stopped asking “what do I want to do when I grow up?” With the word multipotential transforms something perceived as a problem in a strong point. But what is a REAL multipotential? How not to confuse it with a Fancazzista?
What is a multipotential
With the multi-potential term Emilie Wapnick describes a curious person with many interests. A person who has a tendency to get bored quickly once achieved his goal, to learn, discover, know. But a strong intelligence seems to be the prerequisite. Intelligence allows him to quickly learn all about a certain subject and stand up when he has nothing to feed his mind.
It moves with mastery in several areas, often completely different from each other. It does this by creating new dimensions, often unexplored, in the intersections that are created in the middle. A multipotential does not know how to attach itself to a single vocation or to a life that does not have the right meaning and variety for him.
Each with its personality and with different facets, it manifests its tendency to change often idea, direction and desires. There are those who are stabilizing on a couple of passions/projects and those who go in exploration of dozens of interests at a time.
With the multi-potential term Emilie Wapnick has described individuals whose thirst for knowledge and the desire to experience new forms of themselves has virtually no limits. Individuals who make this their lifestyle, which they self-define and re-define continually thanks to their interests, building one or more successful careers around their passions.
His talk has intercepted all those multipotentials in the world that for this reason are flanked by a continuous sensation of anxiety, inadequacy, guilt. This type of personality in fact adapts badly to a society in which the profession defines the individual as a person. The multipotentials unfortunately feel almost always out of place in the world because the specializations (and the consequent clear and definite identity) are seen far better than the cross-cutting knowledge.
What is not: the great misunderstanding
Unfortunately Emilie Wapnick has inadvertently kicked off a parallel movement of Fancazzisti who, having totally misunderstood the meaning of his words, likes to self-define multipotential. These people mistakenly find in the term an incit to the inconsistency rather than the description of a consistency sometimes too excessive and multifaceted.
Fan Multipotential
A multipotential in fact is not simply that person who has a thousand hobbies, interests, passions because it is the only way he knows to spend the day. It is a person who does not know what to do as a big because it has too many interesting options to choose from to focus on one, not a person who is unable to choose because he does not want to make even one. A multipotential is a person who changes trajectory once it reaches its goal, not a person who changes trajectory because it gives in to the first difficulty. And he’s certainly not a person who among his passions and interests can list passive activities in which he excels as knowing all the Netflix series or playing video games.
In the light of this, we leave you to the words of Emilie… The real multipotentials will finally feel at home.
On the other hand, we hope that the Fancazzisti understand that they had not understood anything. And that they begin to build something in their lives or to use more appropriate terms to define themselves.