Life Patterns for Polymaths and Prolific People | DataPsy Inc

Dabbling by Design

Life patterns for prolific, polymathic people vary from those for deep specialists. Learn about the four basic patterns that can help you achieve your multiple dreams.

Prevailing business and life culture says that you must have one and only one focus in order to succeed in life and business. This thought gets ingrained in us from the time we start school. Our education system then pushes us into specialized majors. We learn and are tested on subject-areas. Later on, we are expected to become certified in those deep specialty areas and hired to work only in specialized areas. Within that cultural context, memes and quotes such as these are interpreted to mean a single focus.

“One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular ” — Tony Robbins

OUCH!!! For a Polymath, this sort of insprirational meme provokes interesting responses. Some people start thinking they are “wrong” or “don’t fit in” . They think - “That does not apply to me!.” Or they get angry - “How insulting to think I can only do one thing!” Why can’t I both dabble AND achieve? - the good news is that you CAN both dabble and achieve.

Start by re-framing the meaning of the word focus slightly however, put focus in the context of your “purpose” and how you choose to use focus in a pattern throughout your life can yield success in a way that you and you alone define! Focus is a tool that can limite you, or you can leverage it to empower you. Let’s dabble by design and choose how to focus it using some over-arching patterns.

Dabbling by Design

Are you a Polymath? Dabbling or learning about different things is a required activity for you. Your core mastery lies in being a specialist at "integration of disciplines". So to do this it’s required to master multiple disciplines and see the pattern similarities.

To the layperson - this can look like lack of focus, however it's not a lack of focus. It's a focus on integration of specialties - which makes polymaths particularly good at facilitating production of cross-disciplinary teams.

Life Patterns for Polymaths

Let’s look at some life patterns for the dabblers and make some sense out of them. There are many possibilities on how to combine career with interests, and the possibilities can flow and evolve over your lifetime. Four patterns for life design.

1. Singular Career with Multiple “Outside” interests

2. Sequential Reinvention

3. Two (Or Three) Sequentially

4. The Umbrella - Purpose aligned focus

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Singular Career with Multiple “Outside” Interests

This pattern means that the person with multiple interests has one primary strength that can serve as a money generator that funds the development of multiple outside interests - which could be hobbies or side-gigs. Eventually as the outside interests develop and mature, their income producing ability can increase and the need for the singular career can decrease.

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Polymaths can pursue multiple careers simultaneously

Manage Two (or Three) Interests Sequentially

This pattern means that the life-liver is choosing to pursue more than one path at the same time. A person might simultaneously be a Food & Beverage Manager, as well as a Single Mother, as well as a teacher and an event planner

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Sequential Reinvention

This pattern is very familiar to those of us in technology who have been here more than ten years. This pattern means that the life liver periodically completely changes what they are doing. Someone might start out life as a poetry maker, then turn into a printmaker, then become a technologist. Multiple masteries spread out in a row.

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The Umbrella Pattern

Umbrella Focus is a Life Pattern for Polymathic People

The Umbrella Paern — An umbrella pattern can take several forms within its organizing principle. For example, this author’s de?ning of “umbrella” is a mission statement of “connecting people, processes, and technology in order to create new products.” This “umbrella” is broad enough to encompass both a day-job as an Information Technology Manager at the same time as a role in life as a serial entrepreneur. All of these activities ? within the one “umbrella” so this reduces potential for being overwhelmed — all that they do is part of the overall whole.

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Pulling the Patterns Together Over Time

Life patterns for Prolific People

Finally - there’s no rule that says that you have to follow a single pattern over time. This illustration shows a life progression where someone started out their career in one direction, kept doing that while they took a parallel path to reinvent themself, gained an over-arching purpose, and pulled all the paths together into an umbrella pattern.

Why Words Hurt You - Mind's Blind Spot

Let’s challenge an assumption today. Surely you have heard this nursery rhyme before.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me

And - If words didn’t hurt, then why do child abuse victims say things like “the harsh sarcastic words that my mom said in my childhood still echo in my head - and I am 84”? It’s because we have associated the concept of “hurt” with physical pain. Things like a black eye, or a broken arm Let’s shift thinking about the meaning of “hurt” . This will make it easier to see how words can hurt. Words can cause changes in a part of your physical structure - but you’re never going to “feel” it as if you stepped on a sticker. We have a blind spot in our self-protection mechanisms.

Words Like “You Made Me” Do Hurt You Physically

Your Mind’s Blind Spot

Physical pain results when your nervous system detects an intrusion or compression of a body part and the nervous system sends an electrical signal to your brain. The nervous system itself is made up of two parts: the brain and the spinal cord (central nervous system) and the peripheral nervous system (sensory and motor nerves) These two systems tell us what is happening in our limbs and skin and other body parts.

We also have are special receptors in many of our body parts that serve as sensors. The nervous system then transmits those signals up the spinal cord “wire” to the brain that interprets it, and packs that response away with other memories and response. Read how we feel pain.

So when words hurt us, our brain does not get a signal to tell our body to protect itself. It does not tell us to pull away - like how we instantly pull back from a hot burner when our hand comes too close. . So we stay. And we stay. Think how long it takes a victim of verbal abuse to leave their abuser. Some never do.

So where is pain’s blind spot? The nervous system itself does not detect pain inside the brain because there are no receptors in either the white or the gray matter. So if white matter gets ‘hurt’ you won’t be able to feel that. And when it gets hurt, it will operate like an electrical wire that gets melted in a fire - you will get sparks everywhere.

White Matter is a Structure

We take for granted that we can plug our electrical devices into the outlet on the wall and they will work.   Behind that wall is a long series of interconnected wires that bring the electricity to the plug.  What do you think would happen if a rat chewed through one of your electrical cords inside the wall?   Would that wire work anymore to feed the plug?  Probably not.   It is more likely that you would either have a malfunctioning plug, or you would have a bad fire in your house.

White matter is a lot like the wires inside our walls.  Only white matter is provides wires inside our head. Wires made up of cells that can change based on the conditions around it.  Like a rat chewing through an electrical cord, physical reactions to neurochemicals in our brains can literally “chew through” our white matter or make it less “dense” - these things can then and make some transmission paths more prominent than others.   And like in a house, the result can be a fire. In the case of a person - those sparks can yield someone who becomes dependent on a substance, or someone who always reacts with fear or anger.

So what causes neurochemicals to generate in your mind?  Words. Images.  Touches.  Anything we detect with any of our senses.  So the repetitive words uttered by a spouse against their partner can cause neurochemicals to generate and these further cause damage to white matter circuits. If there is a smell in the air, that will also get associated along with your experience into your mind and unfortunately it can stored as a “trigger” that will produce an immediate habitual response when you encounter that trigger again.

Let Your Own Light Shine - Work On Responding More Productively to Your Triggers

What To Do About It?

When you experience verbal abuse, your mind’s response patterns can become trapped inside a ritual of responding to the echoes of your former abuse or your former situation. This ritual has been most likely been empowered by white matter damage. One trigger - a sight, sound, smell or place can cause the bad experience to pour back out.

That ritual response is what you need to change to feel better - and there will be nothing “easy” about changing it. While it does not appear that your white matter can “change back” - your mind is built to be adaptable, and it can create another way to work around its situation.

In our next article, we’ll write about what brain structures and processes store those rituals - and how to work on responding differently to those triggers.

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For Curious Minds

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• White Matter and Child-witnessed Domestic Violence

• Why White Matter Matters