A Career and Life Guide for the Multipassionate

Love new and constant challenges? Have a successful career that is making you bored or restless? Are you excited by many things at once and have difficulty choosing a path? If so, you might be a Renaissance Soul.

The Renaissance Soul is the perfect career- and life-crafting guidebook for innovative, creative, multipassionate individuals who were not made for the one-track traditional career. Help is at hand! No matter your life stage, here’s a book full of inspiration and practical information on how to create a life and career that fulfills your Renaissance soul.

I love this book for two reasons:

1) It inspires readers to refrain from self-judgment and self-doubt

2) After she elevates spirits and empowers the reader to “work with their true nature rather than fight against it,” author Margaret Lobenstine ’65 provides a detailed yet organic road map for moving toward a life filled with passion and fulfillment.

Leading the reader through a brave journey of self-discovery, Lobenstine empowers readers to proudly claim their true
nature, gifts, and talents. Although our world is rapidly changing, requiring a more adaptive, creative, and flexible workforce, our culture has not yet caught up. Cultural and familial messages may fill those in transition with doubt about following their passions.

Instead of labeling multipassionate individuals as unfocused jacks of all trades, masters of none, Lobenstine offers positive, energetic support, highlighting creative types and Renaissance souls throughout time including Benjamin Franklin, Florence Nightingale, and Maya Angelou. Lobenstine asserts that surely “[t]he world is a better place because Maya Angelou eagerly pursued her many interests” and encourages readers to do the same.

This book is not just a hit of inspiration to spur us into action—Lobenstine provides ample coaching and guidance. She is incredibly generous—providing practical exercises, worksheets, and advice to help readers reach their goals. She helps pinpoint what we want to experience in life, leaving the “vortex of other people’s values” behind. 

Her tools include:

• A quiz to assess if you are a Renaissance soul.

• A values assessment that will serve as your compass as you navigate change.

• A ranking exercise that provides further insight into priorities.

• Tips on how to transition from a boring day job to one that will move you toward your goals.

• Flowcharts to pinpoint the tools and resources needed in a new career.

• Time-management worksheets.

The author also provides examples of life journeys, illustrating multiple paths to a soul-satisfying successful life.

Lobenstine recently shared these thoughts with this book reviewer: “Our brains are very much programmed with old definitions of success and failure. For years we assumed if a career choice didn’t last our entire working life, we’d clearly made the wrong choice. The opposite is true for Renaissance souls. If we make a career choice and force ourselves to stick with it long after we’ve lost interest, that is the mistake! I’ve left behind more fields than many even consider. Yet, no piece of my journey was a waste.”

At 71, Lobenstine’s soul still thrives on new learning and adventure. She takes courses on animal behavior and neuroscience, co-facilitates a writing class for incarcerated women, helps five international women practice their English, edits an online course, and participates in three book groups.

Through her own example, Lobenstine gives us a blueprint to “power our biggest dreams.” 

—Gloria Chan ’02 is an executive and transition coach for social visionaries and leaders.