6.1 Take the Multi-talented Quiz

by Janet Grace Riehl with Stephanie Farrow

 

Ask yourself, am I creatively multi-talented? And if I think I am, how can I be sure? Try this quiz to find out.

1) Do you work in more than one artistic discipline such as performance, visual art, and writing?

2) Can you work in several roles within a creative discipline? Perhaps you write books, articles, and blog posts. You might teach, organize conferences, run a publishing company, consult, judge contests, and review books.

3) Do you create products, projects, or productions that include more than one creative discipline—either alone or with a group?

4) Do you sometimes wonder if your profusion of passions and abilities is a blessing or a curse?   

If you said “yes” to one or more of these questions, congratulations. You can join the ranks of the multi-talented.   

Multi-talented artists have always enriched culture as they explored a range of ideas and expression. Artist-scientist Leonardo da Vinci springs to mind, as does poet-painter-designer-socialist William Morris. Modern day examples include performance artist-musician Laurie Anderson. Yoko Ono successfully weaves together her music, poetry, filmmaking and graphic design skills.

Don’t confuse multi-tasking with being multi-talented. Multi-taskers do more than one thing at a time. All too often, it means doing too many things at once—none done fully, as recent research indicates. Can you really talk to your mother on the telephone while typing a report for work, pausing now and then to manicure your fingernails? Danger lurks as you inadvertently promise your mother a force field analysis written on a mirror with Scarlet Tango fingernail polish.  

Being multi-talented multiplies our opportunities, benefits, and choices. The other side of that coin is that it also increases our challenges, obstacles, and obligations. Sounds overwhelming, doesn’t it?  Perhaps exciting and frightening all at the same time.  

How can you successfully manage multiple talents? Is it possible to make having this quality work for you? 

In our next two posts in this cycle we’ll discuss how to harvest your talents with balanced sanity.

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Pose questions about practical creativity; give ideas for future cycle themes; and join in the dialog. See the Creative Catalyst archive at http://bit.ly/9z1BQv.  Learn more about our audio book “Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music”at http://bit.ly/aZVd1e.