The Scanner Personality

Insights from I could do anything if I only knew what it was – Barbara Sher

Chapter Six: I Want Too Many Things; I’m All Over The Map

I’ve been carrying in the back of my mind an idea put forward by Stephen Covey in First Things First, if you’re aiming to reach the top of the ladder make sure you put your ladder up against the right wall.

With this idea however, comes a sense of fear: which wall is the right wall? What happens if I pick the wrong one?

I am sure I am not the only one who has multiple interests, all interconnected, yet each offering the possibilities for a separate career in their own right. Dabbling in a range of activities results in the label ‘Jack of all Trades’, or ‘Grasshopper’.

“Our culture respects specialists” Barbara points out. I have to agree with Barbara that being a Jack of all Trades feels like a failing in today’s society. Certainly if you look at the ‘normal’ paradigm, people who specialise earn more money, receive fancy titles, and are considered to be the most honest members of our society – the ones who can witness statutory declarations for example.

I recently learned about the ‘hero’s journey’ concept, popularised by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. A specialist has accepted a calling, taken the steps required to achieve the final goal, reached a new level of understanding about the specific field, and at a certain point in his or her career returns to the ‘common people’ to share the breakthrough in the field. Certainly fitting into the archetypal hero model explains why specialists receive so much respect.

For some people however, delving so deeply into one subject is unsatisfying. It feels like the universe has so much to offer, why can’t we learn from all those specialist heroes and gain the insight of the broader picture? Some of us just love to learn about a wide variety of subjects and be sufficiently competent at everything, but never do anything to perfection. Barbara Sher calls this tendency ‘scanning’. And she says that if you have this tendency you have a gift.

Well that’s news to me!

I somehow thought that to succeed in life you needed to be like Sherlock Holmes, to be focused and specific and to do one thing and to do it brilliantly. But not so. Barbara writes “If you’re a scanner, you have extraordinarily special and valuable skills. You love what is new, and you don’t suffer from fear and indecisiveness. You’re highly adaptable to new cultures; you’re so flexible you can turn on a dime. You’re a lightning-fast learner, curious about anything you don’t already understand; you like and respect all kinds of thinking. Although you may be unwilling to dedicate yourself to one path, you don’t lack discipline or have a low IQ. On the contrary, you’re dedicated to learning all that you can, and you’re intelligent enough to delight in all you learn.”

Reading that really excited me, because I have internal conflict about my love of many things versus settling down into a solid, responsible career. Reader, do you have the same conflicts? Do you find yourself settling into a 9-5 job, climbing the ladder against some specific wall, when really you’d rather be roaming around in the gardens below? Of course if you are actually deeply passionate about just one or a couple of things and you are pursuing them as your life goals then you’ve got the thumbs up from me

So as soon as I started reading this chapter of Barbara Sher’s book I was captivated and had to continue.

Of course, the stumbling block is in developing your career this way. “In many cases the only problem for scanners is finding the kind of work that will allow them to use their talent for scanning.” Barbara states simply. But then she does follow up with a short list of careers that a scanner might find satisfying.

Barbara also provides some ideas for how to manage your time when you’re a scanner. But here I felt that the chapter suddenly became a little vague. I guess managing your time when you’re a scanner is a pretty difficult thing to do, especially if you like to do a lot of things and you like to do them all on a whim. In any case, her ideas seem quite unique.

One of the ideas is to pretend you have ten people inside your body each with a different career and what would they each like to do. And then, think about which of those people can you be today, which one tomorrow, which one next week, which one next year? You don’t need to be any one of those people forever. You can even write a 20 or 30 year plan just to prove to yourself that you can fit them all in, and then with that knowledge you can peacefully settle into just one of those personalities today, or even just for one hour, and not feel so stuck. The point is not to panic about how little time there is left in your life, but instead take your time to enjoy the myriad of activities and experiences that constitute your colourful life.

I found this topic to be thought-provoking (and the chapter too short) so I have gone on to order Refuse to Choose! A Revolutionary Program for Doing Everything That You Love by Barbara Sher and The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One by Margaret Lobenstein.

Key points from this chapter:

1. A scanner is someone who has a wide variety of interests and wants to learn about and experience all of them
2. Specialists zone in on one area of interest and become very proficient in it
3. Scanners can be very happy people and know how to keep themselves entertained, but can have trouble when developing their careers, as dedicating their life to just one thing feels unbearable
4. There are careers that scanners naturally gravitate to, and there are ways to break down your time into chunks that can be used for many different activities, it just takes some creativity
5. If you’re a scanner, don’t change yourself!

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