Does any of this sound familiar?

• You have too many interests and you constantly spread yourself too thin
• In conversations, you can find common ground with almost anybody, but you never feel like you truly belong to any particular social group.
• You frequently become obsessively interested in something new and are totally absorbed in it for a while, but once you feel that you mastered this particular area, you lose interest in it.
• You prefer working on projects where the work doesn’t follow a straight and predictable path.
• You’re interested in both science and the arts.
• You frequently hop between projects and hobbies, because you get bored if you do only one thing.
• You frequently read several books simultaneously.
• You’re endlessly curious, creative, and constantly learning.
• You sometimes suffer from imposter syndrome, especially at the start of a new job or a new project.
• You have the nagging feeling that you still haven’t found the career you’re meant to have and you can’t stand the thought of doing any one job for the rest of your life.

If you said ‘yes’ to most of the questions above, chances are you’re not meant to follow a standard career path or to lead a predictable life like most other people do.

You are an adventurer of life!

Some call us ‘renaissance men and women’, others call us ‘polymaths’, ‘generalists’, ‘synthesizers’ or ‘multipassionates’.

While all of these terms have slightly different meanings, and not every adventurer of life identifies with all of them to the same degree, there are things that all of us have in common – and it’s those things that make all the difference:

• You’re creative
• You’re endlessly curious
• You’re a voracious learner
• You don’t feel happy as a specialist
• You dislike following predictable paths

You and your life are a constant work in progress, and you are determined to live life on your terms, not somebody else’s.

Which is awesome! Because…

Guess what? You and others like you are the future!

Let me explain:

Chances are, you’ve been told hundreds of times that you need to specialize in order to ‘make it’ in this world. Specialists rake in the dough because their highly specialized skills are in high demand, whereas generalists are a dime a dozen.

And you know what?

That used to be true!

People who gave you the advice to specialize grew up in the industrial age, or where taught by people who grew up in the industrial age. And in the industrial age, this was good advice! Because it was the age of the specialist.

As Waqas Ahmed points out in his book “The Polymath”, job specialization is a product of the industrial age, and an outgrowth of the idea of division of labor.

Specialists used to reign supreme – specialized manual laborers and specialized knowledge workers used to rake in the big dough.

There’s just one problem…

“There is a serious snag in the specialist way of life. […] If the environment undergoes a major change, the specialist is left stranded.”

Desmond Morris in “The Naked Ape”

The industrial age is well and truly over

The specialists for manual labor were hit first: they were replaced by machines and automation.

And now the knowledge workers are next – replaced by artificial intelligence (AI). Because AI works through algorithms. An algorithm is nothing more than a list of action steps or decision rules that solve a specific problem. And guess what? Most knowledge worker do the exact same thing! Only before the age of AI, we couldn’t automate these things, and therefore needed people to do them.

But now, any job that involves checking off tasks in a predictable manner (read: that follow an algorithm) are endangered species now.

And to piggyback off Desmond Morris’s quote above: Do you think we live in a stable environment, or rather in one that’s constantly changing?

Exactly.

Specialists can only thrive in stable environments – but we live in a time in which things are constantly changing.

In fact…

We’re at the dawn of a New Renaissance

Most people can’t see this yet, but we’re at the dawn of a new age, brought about by digitalization and AI.

The ‘doing’ is no longer the bottleneck for wealth creation. Digitalization, the internet and AI have democratized the doing. Now a single person can run a multi-million dollar business from their laptop.

But only as long as they can do the thinking, the leading, and the creativity!

Those are the skills that will be the highest paid in the future.

Leaders all over the world have recognized this fact. Here are some of the skills that leaders in a survey by the World Economic Forum named as the most important ones for success in the coming economic environment:

• Creativity, originality, and innovation
• Leadership and social influence
• Complex problem-solving

Guess who’s best positioned for these?

You!

Generalists.
Polymaths.
Renaissance men and women.

Adventurers of life who are unafraid of uncharted waters, and who combine there many skills, interests, and areas of knowledge to solve problems at the intersections of disciplines – problems that specialists just cannot solve because they’re lacking the broad, zoomed-out perspective that generalists have.

This is inevitable. Because, as the philosopher Seyyed Hossein Naar puts it:

“No society can live and survive without the vision of the whole.”

It’s people like you who are knowledgeable in many different areas that can contribute this vision of the whole.

So you should count yourself lucky. You’re ahead of the curve.

But of course, there are problems, too.

We’re still early in this process.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed. It’s still the specialists that get all the praise, not the generalists.

And what’s even worse:

There is almost no help for people like us – polymaths, renaissance people, generalists, adventurers of life – on how to thrive in this new world – even though we’re so well-positioned to thrive in it!

Chances are, you’ve been dealing with problems such as these:

• You feel like you don’t fit in anywhere
• You can’t find a job that doesn’t bore you after a while
• You may suffer from imposter syndrome, because you’re not a specialist for the thing you’re trying to do
• You frequently fall for shiny object syndrome or FOMO (fear of missing out), spread yourself too thin, and get no tangible results because of that
• Maybe you feel like there might be something wrong with you, because everyone else seems to be happy in their jobs or career, and you’re just not, even though you already tried multiple jobs
• You often stretch yourself too thin, and maybe you don’t finish a lot of projects because of this

You know you have the potential for greatness, but because you’re a generalist in a specialist’s world, you fear not living up to this potential, and maybe even wasting your life.

Or never finding that job or career that fulfills you…

Or ending up poor when you’re old…

That’s where I can help…

Introducing: Life design for multipassionate adventurers of life

This is a 30-day, 1:1 coaching program for people like you – multipassionate adventurers of life who want to create a life on their own terms.

In this coming New Renaissance, multipassionate generalists have an edge – if they know how to use it! That’s what this program will help you with.

Together we’ll walk a pathless path that leads to a fulfilling career off the beaten path that will keep you engaged for a long time, and that pays the bills (and then some).

By the end of this coaching program, you will:

• Understand yourself and why you’re struggling so much
• Be able to use your range of interests, skills, and knowledge as leverage to thrive in a world of generalists
• Know how to deal with typical roadblocks such as imposter syndrome or shiny object syndrome
• Be able to find a balance between satisfying your curiosity and love of learning, and at the same time, avoid FOMO and shiny object syndrome
• Have a compass for designing a career and a LIFE on your terms
• … and much more

If this sounds like it’s for you, click the button below, send me an email and ask me about the Life Design for Multipassionate Adventurers of Life Coaching Program.

Here’s an overview of the program

Week 1: Relax! There’s nothing wrong with you.

You will learn:

• Why you’re feeling like a square peg in a round hole
• Why your multipassionate personality is a strenght, not a liability
• How you can leverage and integrate your skills, interests, and areas of knowledge do give you an edge over specialists

Week 2: Your hero’s journey

You will learn:

• How to navigate a pathless path
• How to think about designing your life and career
• How to zoom out from your current life and find out what’s possible for you
• How you’ll know that you’re on the right path FOR YOU

Week 3: The effective renaissance person

You will learn:

• How to find a balance between satisfying your curiosity and hunger for learning and producing tangible results that works for you
• How to deal with typical roadblocks such as shiny object syndrome, imposter syndrome and spreading yourself too thin
• How to set up a system for reliably and repeatedly finding profitable ideas at the intersections of your interests, skills, and knowledge
• How to integrate your interests, skills, and areas of knowledge to create value no one else can create

Week 4: The daring adventure of your life

You will learn:

• How to follow your unique path for the long term
• How to know when you need to course-correct
• How to build habits, routines and systems that make life easier for you, but don’t make you feel like you’re a robot
• How to figure out your mission

If you think this is for you, send me an email and ask me about the program.

What’s the investment?

The price of the program is $499 dollars for the full 30-day program.

This includes:

• Weekly one-on-one calls (usually about 2 hours per call)
• You can contact me at any time between sessions for the duration of the program
• Free access to my coaching materials

Is there a guarantee?

I cannot guarantee your results – those are your responsibility. This is coaching, not therapy. As a coach, I’m your ally, your guide, and your sparring partner. I can’t do the work for you.

But what I can guarantee: If at any point during the 30-day program you’re unhappy with it or you think that it’s not the right fit for you, you can let me know, and I’ll refund you – no questions asked.

If this sounds good to you and you think my program might be a good fit for you, click “Apply now”, send me an email and ask me about the program.

“Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”

Helen Keller

Who am I and why am I offering this coaching?

My name is Jan Schloesser.

I’m a coach, a psychologist, and a fiction writer. I have a Ph.D. that I never did anything with, because I fell in the trap of thinking I need to be a specialist, and then grew to hate my job as a research psychologist at the University of Konstanz, because it was way too narrow and analytical.

For a long time, I felt just like you probably feel – like I just don’t fit, and like there’s something wrong with me.

As a results, I was drifting from job to job for years, and felt like an alien who’s just visiting this planet.

But over the years, I figured out what was going on… and how I can build a life aligned with who I am and what’s important to me.

I get you, because I’ve been where you are.

If this sounds like we might be a good fit, click “Apply Now”, send me an email and ask about my life design program for multipassionate adventurers of life.