Jake McNeill is a personal brand strategy consultant for multipotentialites, which is to say he helps introverted rebels grow their audiences and have an impact without all the BS. For 25+ years, he used strategic plays to gain a competitive advantage for Popstars, Rockstars, Superstars DJs, and now Founders and CEOs.
In this episode of The Storytelling Lab, Jake explains the problems that multipotentialites face, how to break the patterns they're stuck in, and eventually use their multipotentiality as a superpower.
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Guess what I learned about myself this year?
I am a "multipotentialite."
Maybe you are, too.
I had never heard that term before I met Jake McNeill, this week's guest on The Storytelling Lab.
There are a lot of different versions of that term, such as multihyphenate, "Renaissance man," polymath, etc., but they all kind of mean the same thing:
a person with many different interests—creative and otherwise.
That might sound like a "good problem," but the issue it creates for people is that when you have a lot of different interests, you can easily find yourself pinging and ponging back and forth between all of them and never really making forward progress in any of them.
You are taught that to be great at something, you must specialize. But multipotentialites are generalists. So they feel like they don't fit in and suffer from impostor syndrome, the divergent thinking paradox, and what I call "ship jumping syndrome."
Well earlier this year, I saw a TikTok that struck me right in the heart.
The man in the video said, "Hey, do you find yourself procrastinating or starting one project and abandoning it only to start another one? Never really making your way forward in any of them, or trying to make them too perfect so you procrastinate?"
And in my head, I was just like, " Yes, yes, yes! That's me!"
Jake McNeill is a personal brand strategy consultant for multipotentialites. For 25+ years he built personal brands for some of the biggest DJs in the world, a multi-platinum pop band, and multiple international hit songwriters and producers.
When the gurus tell you to "niche down," Jake helps you understand why (and how) you should niche up.
In his TikTok channel, he shares stories of high-performers and artists that had their breakthroughs once they learned how to tie their multiple creative passions together.
And like me, so many people resonate with his stories deeply, not knowing that they could break the cycles they keep repeating.
When I saw that first video of Jake's he had less than 7000 followers.
The next time I checked in on him, it had shot up to 30,000. Then 80,000.
Now he has over 120,000 followers and I suspect that number will continue to grow because the world is changing fast.
The systems put in place by the Industrial Revolution are being replaced by the Digital Revolution and if we, as people, don't learn how to be more creative and stop specializing in just one thing, we stand the chance of being replaced, too.
"The thing about being a multipotentialite is that we are under the impression that we've got to pick one thing and focus on it, because that's what society tells us. But the truth is that we have to follow our curiosity and then we can blend the variation, the idea synthesis, of taking these different concepts and blending them together to create our own niche.” - Jake McNeill
Coincidentally, I help people in a similar method "find their unique intersections" by looking and tapping into their personal stories.
But guess what?
Even though I have found ways to achieve some of my dreams in the past few years, I still struggle with the plight of a multipotentialite every day.
Often, it's much easier to help someone else through their struggles than to deal with your own. So knowing someone like Jake has helped me.
I absorbed so much great information from this short chat with him that I immediately applied it to my strategy.
I know that it is going to help you too.
If you're feeling stuck between all of the choices, interests, and different paths in front of you, this is the episode for you!
Some of the highlights of our conversation:
What exactly is a "Multipotentialite"?
Famous multipotentialites throughout history
Jake's managing of DJ Mauro Picotto and helping find his unique sound/style
The struggles all multipotentialites face
How our brains are part analytical and part creative and why you have to use both sides
How a calligraphy class helped Steve Jobs during his time at Apple
What exactly "conceptual blending" is and how the iPhone uses it perfectly
How the Industrial Revolution changed creativity and business forever
Why John Rockefeller changed the education system to have a "nation of workers"
The NASA creativity test and what it showed
Why you lose creativity as you age (and how to reverse it)
Will the digital revolution reverse the impacts of the industrial revolution?
The one thing that finally convinced Jake to start a TikTok
The secret that makes 30-day challenges/sprints so successful
Why humans are naturally terrible decision-makers
The "No, Now, How, How" model to solve the divergent thinking paradox
As always, I hope you enjoy the episode!
Peace and Love,
Rain
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