For this episode of the Quest for New Inspiration, I chatted with D'Ana Joi Spencer, or Joi. D'Ana Joi, who goes by her middle name "Joi," is a multi-passionate, educator, community builder, and content creator. She believes having many passions is a gift, not a burden and she's on a mission to rewrite the narrative around "choosing one thing" being the only path to success. Through her e-book, signature course, and upcoming podcast, Joi teaches creatives how to make friends with focus, overcome overwhelm, and step into their Multi-Passionate Mastery.
Guest Links:
Website: Https://joi-knows-how.com
Instagram: https://instsagram.com/joi.knows.how (@joi.knows.how)
Referenced IG LIVE: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CTkrCCRnDVB/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
E-Book: https://joi-knows-how.com/e-book
Free Focus Quiz: https://joi-knows-how.com/quiz
Merch Shop: https://joi-knows-how.com/shop
Transcript: (Autogenerated)
KT Maschler: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the quest for new inspiration. My name is KT Maschler.
And this week's featured guest is Deanna joy, Spencer. She actually goes by. Joy knows how on Instagram. She is a multi-passionate. And for me, this episode related on a whole nother level,
. I totally related when she was describing all of her multi passions and having the difficulty in deciding where to focus on. The second that she came onto the show, It just clicked in my mind it was amazing and i hope she inspires you as much as she's inspired me
Joi Spencer: So my name is Deanna joI, and I go by my middle name, which is joi because the inner. [00:01:00] Can't really handle apostrophes and people tend to mispronounce it.
So you're welcome to call me joy. And I am a multi-passionate creativity, educator, mentor, and community builder, among many, many other things, but that's like the short and sweet version of all the things that I do. I am on a mission to rewrite the narrative that choosing one thing is the only path to success and really move multi-passionate out of.
The sidelines and into the spotlight. I personally feel that as an ultra multi-passionate person, myself, there was so many times, but I wish that I could listen to traditional business advice and not feel like I was constantly being thrown under the bus. Or being made to seem like I'm just scattered and all over the place and have commitment issues because I'm a ultra multi-passionate person.
So I'm really here to bridge that gap and I'm here to speak directly to the multi-passionate community and let everyone know that [00:02:00] we're here. We have very unique perspectives and gifts to offer the world. And I also recognize that as a multi-passionate. It's not just about having someone in your corner, who's pumping you up and empowering you all the time, but who's also going to give you some practical tools that you can embrace and put into play to truly make progress to your, towards your goal.
Towards your visions towards your big dream life in a way that's not going to sacrifice who you are as a creative. So I'm in the process of just blasting my message as far and wide as possible so that I can provide those tools. So things like learning how to focus in a way that feels empowering instead of cycling, learning that it's okay to embrace a little bit of structure here and there in your business or in your projects, things like that.
So I'm really excited about, you know, everything that. In front of me right now, because this is just like such an amazing time to have so many ways to reach people. And [00:03:00] I know that multi-passionate, they need this, they need someone in their corner. And I say they, but I really mean we, because I'm in. Do you
KT Maschler: want to describe, or I guess kind of elaborate on like what exactly a multi-passionate is, and maybe for someone who is a multi-passionate, but maybe doesn't quite identify as that quite yet,
Joi Spencer: or know what it is.
Yes. Sure. I love this question. So you will know if you're a multi-passionate, if you're a person who not only has many interests, because we all have varied interests, right? Like most of us anyway, have a few different things that we're interested in. But when that interest is met with raw talent, like, you're not just interested in a lot of things, but you're legitimately.
At a lot, like you can pick up a new skill pretty quickly. You're not afraid to try something new and that kind of excites you. You sort of want to dip your toes, but you find that you have these innate talents that aligned with your [00:04:00] interests. So now you have. This basket of all this stuff that you're really, really good at.
Right? So that's the first qualifier. The second qualifier is there's something in you that wants to figure out how can you share all of these gifts with the world? And this is where the multi-passionate kind of Subsys spiral because it's like, oh my gosh, should I start one business that has all this in it?
Or do I need to start multiple businesses? Where do I begin? Or. The opposite of that, which is I can't do all these things. People are going to think I'm all over the place. I have to choose one. And then that becomes really difficult because we're not meant to choose one thing. That's actually not the path for multi-passionate.
So if that whole choosing one thing, aspect feels like torture. You're probably a multi-passionate. If you have a lot of interests that are that's matched with like raw talent, you're probably a multi-passionate. And if. Intersections between your interests [00:05:00] and your talents create in you this desire to go out there and share it and express it and give it away and create communities around it or whatever.
You're probably multi-passionate. So those are kind of like my qualifiers and sometimes people can be multi-passionate and still have maybe like one area of specialty, but they want to figure out how they can weave in more of their creativity into that. And I still think that that really is someone. In their core, a multi-passionate creative.
KT Maschler: Oh my gosh. I think I check off all those boxes. Oh yeah. That's amazing. Do you have like a kind of certain moment in your life that kind of led you to, I don't know, dedicating your life to this as kind of a career?
Joi Spencer: Yeah, I think it's a series of moments, but. There was a time when I was in my early twenties.
And to be fair, kind of in your early twenties is when you're already like, okay, so what am I, what am I doing? And what's my plan. And you're sort of, you know, you're running, you're working through your options, [00:06:00] but at that time, in my experience, I was inundated with this heavy weight of, I have to choose one thing and it.
It was torturous. It was painful because if I wanted to go all in on my music and become a singer, then I was leaving the part of me that really likes to educate. Like on the table. So it felt like if I chose one path, I was leaving so much of myself behind that. I ended up having almost like analysis paralysis and I couldn't choose anything.
And so I would just start projects, stop in the middle, not complete things. And it was just this cycle of feeling like. Am I ever going to find any kind of success because I can't seem to get it together. Like that was basically, I was like, I can not get it together. And so, and this sounds so cliche, but this is literally how it happened.
I woke up one day and I had the. Okay. Choosing one thing, is it, it ain't working like [00:07:00] it's not happening. So what if I just did the opposite? And what if I chose myself? What if I chose to embrace all of these talents that I have? And instead of trying to choose one thing, what if I chose one platform or one way to express it from there?
I got the idea to start a blog. I named the blog. Do I knows how, because I wanted it to be super free creatively. So join us. How is just a very open-ended brand name again? I didn't call it Deanna dewey.com because the internet can not handle apostrophes and we have an apostrophe and my first name. So I called it join knows how.
And I was like, okay, I'm just going to start putting the things I know how to do. On this blog and I'm going to let that be my choice right for now. And it was the first time I was able to express without feeling like I needed to be [00:08:00] under all these confines of like being in a specific niche or only talking about one topic.
So I was blogging about. Plant care, like self care, home decor, DIY greeting cards. It was just, it was all over the place, but that's who I am. Right. Like I have these little, these, these different pockets that I like to dip into. And so that was really the moment for me, the moment where I said, you know what?
After. Choosing one thing is not going to happen. I'm going to just choose myself. And then from there, from that choice point, then I took action and started my blog and everything snowballed into where I am today from that one decision, best decision ever. Wow. Oh
KT Maschler: my God. That was amazing. I love that. Huh.
Wow. Okay. Do you have any other like, kind of tools or resources you use? You mentioned your blog, but as someone with all these talents or passions, how do you like stay [00:09:00] organized or like collected when things get overwhelmed?
Joi Spencer: Yes. So the way that I stay. Organized and also keeping overwhelmed kind of at bay because when we start to talk about, oh, like yeah, just do it all.
You know, there's overwhelmed. It's like right there at the door, like, oh, should I come in now? So, this is actually exactly how I developed my three-part focus framework, which I teach about in my ebook, which is called finally focused. So. The first thing that I had to do was really just start observing myself and observing my energy and observing my patterns.
So for example, I would notice that if I was having trouble focusing on completing a task, that was right in front of me. It was usually because of. I wasn't sure in the moment, if it was actually something I should be prioritizing or not. So I'd be like writing an [00:10:00] email or writing a blog post, but in the back of my mind, I'd be thinking, wait a minute, should I.
Put my merch shop up first so that I can link to that in his blog post. And I would start like playing with the order of operations of things in my head. And that was making it really hard for me to just get through what was in front of me. Right. So I started to notice like, oh, interesting. When I'm having trouble focusing on what's in front of me.
It's because I don't have clarity. Upfront. So what can I do to create clarity before I start taking action? And that's how I developed this practice that I call intensive focus. And I like to think of focus as not just this kind of big, vague concept where you either can do it, or you can't, or like focusing in terms of concentration.
Right. I think that that's a. Mistake that we make when we talk to multi-passionate that focus and concentration are not the same thing. Concentrating is one thing. Focus is a very [00:11:00] nuanced, juicy place that we really get to play with them. So I started having what I call now. I didn't really call it this at the time, but now I call it intensive focus sessions where instead of doing work or doing things that are like task, I would look at all the projects that I had going on.
Make sure that it made sense for me, ma look at it and say, okay, realistically, can I actually do all of this right now? Or does something need to go into the maybe section or does something need to move to next month? Right. Is there something I can delegate? And I would start looking at everything that I had literally looking at it I'd write down everything or I would use post-its or I'd grab a whiteboard, like whatever I could to give myself some expansive time to just look at everything that's going on.
It's fun there. I would start asking myself questions that most multi-passionate it's don't give themselves the permission to ask, do I want to keep doing this or am I over it now? [00:12:00] Because sometimes we want to do stuff and it's because we have an itch that we want to scratch, or we have a skill that we want to learn and once we learn it, we're done.
And that gets to be okay when we hold onto those things. That is when it becomes a problem. Like when we hold onto things that just because we said, we would now we're like, oh no. I said I was going to do this. I have to carry it out. That's when it becomes a problem. And it's hard to take action because you, your heart's not in it anymore.
So these intensive focus sessions became like, My lifeline, it became what I would do to make sure my priorities were clear and that I wanted to do everything that was on my plate and that it was all still connected to my kind of bigger mission and that I was reconnecting to why I'm doing all these things.
So that's intensive focus and I teach you about that in my ebook because multi-passionate. This is something that every multi-passionate [00:13:00] needs. And I don't even use that word lightly because I don't like to tell people like what they need and what they don't need.
I feel like we all have self-awareness and I never want anyone to abandon that based on my advice. But this particular kind of focus, this big pictures, zoomed out kind of energy is so, so, so helpful. And it's the way that I've been able to keep myself organized, like you mentioned, and how I keep myself from getting overwhelmed, because if something.
Isn't aligned anymore. I'll put it down. Or if I can see on paper like that, this is too much. I'll start removing things to my plate. And that's, that's been, what's helped the most for sure.
KT Maschler: Oh my gosh. I can relate to that so much. I will definitely look into that ebook because I feel like that whole philosophy can help.
You can help me so much. I get stuck and that little, like. Well, limbo zone so easily. Wow. Okay, perfect.
[00:14:00] Do you have any kind of inspirational people that you say have this like multipurpose, like perspective in their lives?
Joi Spencer: Yeah, definitely. Um, Emily whopped, Nick, she has an amazing Ted talk all about being a multipotentialite. I think it's called. Y, some of us don't have one true calling. And when I first saw her Ted talk, I think it was right when I started my blog.
So back in 2017, it was just so inspiring [00:15:00] to hear someone on a stage with a microphone. Talking about the fact that it's okay to not choose one thing. It was, it just blew my heart open and blew my mind open. And I'm so grateful to be able to say that, you know, my ebook was actually featured in Emily walked Nick's multipass.
Must haves bundled this year. and we are now I guess, considered a colleagues. And so I feel really grateful that the timeline has collapsed in that way where someone who's, my hero is now like more of my friend, but I will say like, I really look up to her because she had. Not only empowered a lot of multi-passionate creatives or multipotentialite as she calls it to accept themselves.
But she's created spaces to really foster that energy. And she's also created tools and resources to help multi-passionate, you know, create the lives that they want to live. So I look up to her so much and she's [00:16:00] definitely one of my heroes and I'm just grateful that. That she even knows my name is like huge.
Yeah.
KT Maschler: That moment right there is literally my dream. I that's amazing. I'm still happy for you. Like that is, that is seriously. Like my heart would sing if like my mentor, like even uttered my name, let alone listened to my podcast. I would
Joi Spencer: die. Yeah. It's a very surreal feeling. We have a, I'm an ID live. I can give you the link to it where we're promoting the bundle, but we were talking about like four must have life skills that all multi-facets need to have.
And I remember for the first like five minutes, I just could not get over the fact that I was on this, this live with her. And I was just like, okay, I have to get it together. You know, I had to get it together to get through this. Um, but it was really, really fun. So I'm really grateful for that. And then I also have.
You know, kind of like other heroes or people who I would say that I look up to who kind of like, like you mentioned, like, [00:17:00] I don't know if they'll ever know who I am, but I still see them as mentors. So Rachel Rogers is definitely one of them, mainly because she's really normalizing. Well in the black community, especially as a black woman, it's really helpful to have a role model of someone who has a multimillion dollar company and who is sharing tools and resources for how to get people there.
So she just released a book earlier this year called we should all be millionaires. So inspiring her podcast is amazing. So I definitely look up to her for sure. She'll probably never know it, but that's okay.
KT Maschler: I'm sure she will eventually manifest it. You guys love martinis
Joi Spencer: sometime together. That'd be amazing.
Okay. Um, you,
KT Maschler: uh, you have been amazing today. So any last piece of advice you have to share with us? I
Joi Spencer: would just say, if you are someone who is multi-passionate, if you feel like you've got a lot of interests and talents and desire to share with the world, know that you're not [00:18:00] alone and know that there are people out in the world who are rooting for you, myself included, um, and that there's nothing wrong with you.
You are meant to have a different path than everyone else. It might not be as linear. But it's okay. Like stick to who you are. And just like I did, when I first started wake up every day and choose yourself, you don't have to choose to be anyone other than who you are, who you came to be. It's going to be tempting sometimes to waiver on that because it might feel like the path to success is shorter.
If you do just niche down or choose one thing and sacrifice your creativity, but there is another way, and it's just a conscious choice that you got to keep making.
KT Maschler: Beautiful. I love that so much. All right. Where can anyone find you if they want to learn more connect or possibly, I don't know, add a new podcast to their list and the
Joi Spencer: next yes.
So my podcast is [00:19:00] going to really be released very soon and it's called multi-passionate mastery. So please look for that. Especially, if you want to learn more about focus, we're going to be talking about that a lot in the early episodes. You can also find me at joy, knows how.com it's joy with an eye in a dash between each word.
So just, just go to the show notes, it'll probably be easier. Um, and then from there, that's my home base. You can get to everything. From there, you can find my Instagram from my website. You can read the blog and all the things. So yeah, let's definitely connect.
KT Maschler: Yes, of course. All of those things will definitely be in the show notes below.
So if you guys want to go check that out, but thank you so much for your time today. That was amazing.
Joi Spencer: My pleasure. Thanks for having me. And that is it for this week's episode. Thank you guys so much for tuning in it truly does mean the world to me. If you guys want to show your support, make sure you're following us on Facebook, [00:20:00] Instagram, and Twitter.
And now you can show your support by wearing the quest for new inspiration logo or my favorite, . The bubbly, but blunt sweatshirt.
See show notes for more details.
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