Picking a Podcast Category - Entrepreneurship, Post 2 of 3

As I mentioned in previous post, setting up your hosting platform requires choosing which categories your podcast fits under. My primary category is Education and specifically self-improvement. For my secondary category, I chose Business – Entrepreneurship and here’s why.

Podcast settings page for "Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People" showing the main, secondary and third category the show will appear under. Sara has chosen Education, subcategory Self-Improvement, Business subcategory Entrepreneurship and Society & Culture subcategory Philosophy.

Blazing a Trail

For many Renaissance People, the path to truly embrace their creativity and desire for variety in the work arose when they became entrepreneurs. Starting Renaissance Woman Consulting was how I finally found the freedom to:

Work the way I wanted
With the organizations and people I believed in
In a way that better aligned with my priorities and values

I’m still very much in the thick of building a life as a “sustainable solopreneur”, guided by career coach Jenni Gritters who just published her book on the topic which I HIGHLY recommend).

In this book, Jenni talks about the 5 Principles of Solopreneurship: intention, self awareness, flexibility, creativity and reciprocity. I’m not going to do a deep dive into this, but I want to highlight a few ideas.

Intention

The building of a Renaissance People Community grew out of my involvement in Jenni’s CREATE program. This community was just something I dreamed of before CREATE helped me think intentionally about how I would make it happen.

I created this podcast intentionally as a free way for people to get to know me and start to recognize that they have many similarities with my Renaissance People I will be talking with. I initially wrote “I will be interviewing”, but these episodes are much more of a conversation than an interview. (I also “met” Jenni via the podcast she previously co-hosted, The Writers’ Co-Op. I also recommend that, particularly the first five seasons, for others interested in starting a freelance business and rejecting the hustle culture).

Self Awareness and Flexibility

As I mentioned above, starting my own business allowed me to fully embrace being a Renaissance Woman and working in a way more aligned with my needs. In this podcasts, I’ll be talking to multiple guests about the freedoms and the challenges of this type of opportunity specifically for Renaissance People.

We’ll share strategies we’ve used to balance the freedom and overwhelm of being your own boss. Basically, how we moved beyond “I can do anything but I don’t know what to start!”

Creativity

After recording 3 interviews so far, I’m already in awe of and inspired by the creativity of my guests and I hope you will be too. I’m letting their comments and suggestions guide me as I adjust the questions I ask and the way I plan my episodes. This podcast is a flowing liquid changing constantly as it travels along. I hope this inspires other entrepreneurial Renaissance People to get creative with the business they want to build.

Reciprocity

I’m a first born daughter. I’m a Virgo. I’m a mom. I’m a business owner. I’m very good at taking care of others and stubbornly saying, “I got this. I can deal with whatever challenges arise.” But as the world keeps reminding me, we need to both breathe in and out.

I love finding the way to support the work of others, especially Renaissance People. As I mentioned in my first episode, I get a thrill out of sharing resources in the show notes which includes promoting other people’s businesses.

While some might consider having another career coach on my show for episode 3 as being a conflict of interest (after all, I offer career coaching to Renaissance People), I don’t see it that way.

First, said coach, Melissa Vining, had ME on her podcast.

Second, both of us benefit from being able to share our conversations with a wider audience. In fact, after we finished recording her episode, we even discussed a future collaboration so the reciprocal growth can continue.

In this podcast, I hope to model how uplifting others can lift you up as well, both as an entrepreneur and as a human being.

This gif, Lift Each Other Up, by libby vanderploeg is such a great visual representation of what I’m about (though I don’t limit myself to just other women).

Renaissance Kids – Connecting The Dots with The Renaissance People

I keep saying it, but it keeps being true! This is another special episode of Connecting the Dots with the Renaissance People. Today’s “Renaissance People” are my nearly 7- and 10-year-old daughters who joined me to talk about what being a Renaissance Kid/Person means to them. And stick around until the end for our little family joke about the podcast’s theme song which was created and sung by their Uncle Brian.Inspired by what my children said, and by what I see them do, during the middle of the episode I dig into why I think kids are naturally Renaissance People. Along this journey, I take multiple tangents around boredom (TLDR it plays a critical role in strengthening creativity) and curiosity (my friend, museum evaluator Jessica Sickler’s most recent newsletter sent me down this rabbit hole).Promised Show Notes Materials (take a drink):Sign up for my newsletter to get updates on my podcast and what’s happening in the Renaissance People Community.Work with me for Expansive Coaching or to Find Your Golden Thread and explain your wide-ranging backgroundWhat’s this Renaissance Mindset I keep talking about? This “quasi-manifesto” episode explainsEp. 9: A Mind for Memory with Brian Skellenger, SurvivalistEp. 8: Bringing Worlds Together Full Circle with Jess Rowell, Renaissance WomanThe Science Behind Boredom: Why Kids Need Down Time by Diya Jaiswal for Building Better BrainsThe Science of Mind Wandering: Empirically navigating the stream of consciousness by Jonathan Smallwood and Jonathan W. SchoolerChild’s play: Facilitating the originality of creative output by a priming manipulation by Darya L. Zabelina and Michael D. RobinsonJessica Sickler (LinkedIn), Jessica's curiosity-focused newsletter I quoted, and the J. Sickler Consulting website where you can sign up for her free “Evaluation Therapy Newsletter”Follow the Renaissance Woman on Social Media:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | BlueskyQuotes from the episode:(Sara) So if you're a Renaissance Kid, what are the many different things that you like to do that make you a Renaissance Kid?(Kid #2) Um, I swim. I like to garden. I like to tell stories and write pictures. And I like science and doing chores.(Sara) You like doing chores? Are you sure about that one?(Kid #2) Just sometimes.(Sara) Just sometimes.(Kid #1) She does like to organize her room. She has fun doing that, right?(Kid #2) Mm-hmm.(Sara) I really strongly believe that kids need an opportunity to be bored without adults swooping in to fix the problems for them. I am a mom. I have worked with children in after-school programs, summer camp settings, all sorts of settings. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard, " I'm bored." Some of my favorite responses are, "Hi, Bored. I'm Sara. Nice to meet you." Which of course gets some wonderful eye rolls and, "Ugh," but I don't care. Another thing that I sometimes say if I'm feeling quite sassy is, "Well, that's not my problem." Or, "Oh, that's too bad."(Sara) I don't think it's enough with these kids to have them be super well-rounded Renaissance Kids because they're involved in all of these activities and learning about all these different things. They also need to have that time, that space to make those connections, to let the mind wander, to be really creative.(Sara) When the world doesn't let us take up space and instead tries to crush us, it's really hard to say, "I am a Renaissance Person," because you can't do that mix of things that makes you really feel like a Renaissance Person. I went through that. I'm happy to say I have climbed out of that dark hole, and I feel like I am living expansively. Maybe not every single day is expanding, but that's not possible. If you are trying to expand, there has to be moments of contraction. You have to acknowledge your capacity, what's happening around you.But overall, I really do feel like I am at that point now where I can very loudly, confidently, from the top of a mountain, shout out, "I am a Renaissance Woman."Follow me, Renaissance Woman Sara Kobilka, on LinkedIn, where I put most of my social media energy, Facebook and Instagram.If you’re extra curious, check out Renaissance Woman Consulting to learn more about some of the many types of work I do.And should you care to support the production of this podcast, I’d love it if you’d buy me an oat milk cappuccino, my caffeinated beverage of choice.This podcast is hosted and edited by Sara Kobilka.Theme music is by Brian SkellengerPodcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particulate MediaMentioned in this episode:Free NewsletterSign up for my free Newsletter for Renaissance People to stay updated on this show, learn about my expansion experiments, and find opportunities to work with me and engage others in the Renaissance People Community.

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Picking a Podcast Category – Post 2 of 3