Are you someone who has many interests? Do you like to read and write, fix and invent, design projects and start businesses, and many other things, all at once? Do you feel limited by the word ‘or,’ uncomfortable when you need to narrow down choices, and absolutely revolted by the command to ‘pick one?’ Is ‘and’ your favorite word?

This is the paragraph that begins chapter five of Susan L Reid’s book Discovering Your Inner Samurai. The chapter is called Doing What You Love: Multiple-Streams-of-Passion (MSoP). Okay, raise your hand if Susan’s profile describes you. My hand is raised high in the air…and I’m tempted to throw the other one in the air for good measure.

The thing about Susan is that she really makes this characteristic sound great (and for the most part it is). But how many times are we made to feel not-normal, unfocused, and generally less-than because of it? And then we try hard to hide this inherent inclination by going the normal, focused route only to be met with unhappiness and frustration. Starting to sound familiar? Fantastic! This post, my fellow MSoP’ers, is dedicated to you. Actually, I’m hoping it’s going to be co-written by you. We all have experiences with the questions laid out here, experiences that can be shared as we help others like us use this characteristic as the awesome, empowering quality it is. So, come along…join the dialogue below and let’s show how we Renaissance Souls can kick mucho butt.

Jumping off questions:

What are the tell-tale signs of someone who is a multiple-streams-of-passion character?
Susan’s description above is pretty indicative of someone with MSoP. I’ll throw in another that I struggle with…not feeling like you have a home. That’s home in the figurative sense, particularly when it comes to professional identity. Ever wonder where you fit in exactly because your interests don’t fit neatly into one of the confining boxes most professions create? The last thing I want is a label or be confined to just one thing…and yet there are times when I pine for that kind of simplicity.

How can we best explain this characteristic to others, particular to those who don’t find it “normal?”
I’m not sure why it’s so difficult to explain the concept to others. Is it really that much of a foreign concept? Or do we MSoP’ers present some threat to those who believe that stability and consistency are absolutes?

How can we emphasize that our MSoP is an asset rather than a distraction?
This is sort of a related question to the last one. In this case, though, we have to ask ourselves how we can use our inherent gifts of curiosity and exploration for a stronger guiding purpose. How can we weave all of these different interests together to form a new niche that’s distinctly our own?

How do you know when running toward the next great thing is actually running from something else?
I’m leaving the question that I posed to Susan offline as my parting shot. It’s one that I struggle with in my own internal dialogue. When I get bored with something and want to move on to the next great thing, am I leaving that activity too soon? Or is this just the voice of all those non-MSoP folks in my life telling me that I’m doing something wrong?

As I wrote in The Dip, you’re either the best in the world (where ‘world’ can be a tiny slice of the environment) or you’re invisible. This means being Draconian in your choices. No, you can’t also do a little of this or a little of that. Best in your world means burning your other bridges and obsessing.

Wrong or right? If he’s right, what does this say for all of us MSoP’ers?

Once upon a time, I left a well-paying job to start a business. It was a personal services business where I would provide coaching, consulting, writing, and speaking focused on careers. It had such wonderful potential and energy at the beginning. I loved the idea of working for me and working toward my own dream rather than someone else’s dream that was imposed upon me. It was liberating. Until I realized that I kind of sucked at it. Not the coaching, consulting, writing, and speaking parts…I was pretty good at. It was the entrepreneurial start-up business part. You know, the stuff any entrepreneur has to do like sell themselves and their business. My inability to do this surprised me because my work up to that point was marketing and membership development. How hard could it be to sell myself when I had sold my organizations for the past few years? That’s right…a hell of a lot harder. That’s when I learned that entrepreneurship isn’t for the meek or the timid (or the overly arrogant).

Before going any further, let me make a full confession: I fell flat on my ass and while it was painful and humiliating and the time I would not take back the experience for any amount of money. I learned way too much that will help me when I go back to working for myself again in the future. And until then, I’m making a point of reading and networking with folks who have made the transition from organizational employee to entrepreneur.

Enter Susan L. Reid and her new book called Discovering Your Inner Samurai. The subtitle is The Entrepreneurial Woman’s Journey to Business Success, but if you’re a guy don’t let that scare you away. Even though she writes from a female perspective and often openly to a female reader, there’s plenty of great advice and insight for anyone.

As to what this whole Inner Samurai stuff is, here’s how Susan describes it on page 5:

I began calling [my inner voice] my Inner Samurai when I realized how strong, vast, and powerful my inner voice is. Inner because the voice is deep within my being (to distinguish it from the voice inside my head) and Samurai because of how strong and powerful it is.

That definition gives a pretty good indication of what’s to come. Bear in mind that this isn’t your typical “how to get started in business” tome. Susan is much more interested in helping her readers figure out who they truly are, how they can connect their identity to their passion, and how they can focus that passion in their entrepreneurial actions. She interlaces these lessons with her own personal experiences as an entrepreneur (or as she calls it, an Accidental Pren-her™) and the experiences of her clients.

Susan encourages any newly emerging entrepreneur to consider the process of starting up a business as an adventurous journey. Along the journey, it’s natural to ask questions like these:

• Is my business idea good enough?
• How do I get the money to start up my business?
• Will I be able to run a successful business and not be chained to it 24/7?
• Do I have all the learning, education, and experience needed to be successful?
• What if I fail?

From my own experience, I readily admit that I struggled with each of these questions. They’re the types that can gnaw at you – particularly that last one on failure. And for each of these questions, Susan offers real examples of how to deal with them and the underlying fears they represent.

By the end of the book, be prepared to walk away with some essential tools that will help you build a business based on who you are. This is where the energy is and it’s what will get you through the lean times that are inevitable in any start-up venture. Trust yourself. Confront your fears. Enjoy the journey.

So if you’re thinking about starting a business, add Discovering Your Inner Samurai to your library. You can learn more about Susan and her coaching practice at http://www.alkamae.com/. And if you’re interested in what others are writing about the book, check out her virtual book tour page.

A final teaser: On Friday, I’ll be writing an additional post connected to Discovering Your Inner Samurai. One of the chapters in Susan’s book is on a subject that I’m intensely interested in – the concept of Multiple Streams of Passion. If you’re someone like me who has multiple interests and passions but don’t know how to harness the potential of all these options, make sure you come on back and join in the dialogue.

I’m casting out a challenge to organizations who use stock footage of employees on their websites, in their PowerPoint presentations, and in their marketing brochures. Here’s the challenge: STOP IT! Do you honestly think you’re fooling anyone by using these glossy, made-up people who are pretending to give a shit about what your business does? It’s phony and incredibly inauthentic and it’s not working.

Please, take each and every one of these pictures and burn them (both literally or figuratively if they infest your corporate server). Go and take a good look at the folks who actually do work for you, who do actually give a shit about your business every day. Put them front and center on your website, in your presentation templates, and in your marketing collateral.

If you want to put a human face on your organization, start with the human faces that actually power your organization.