Connecting The Dots with The Renaissance People

It's All or Nothing with Morgan Anderson, Multi-Passionate

Wed, 13 May 2026 05:00:00 -0400

It’s time for another blast from my past! In the very first episode of Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People, I talked about a pivotal program from my childhood called Youth in Government (YIG). This episode’s guest was one of my best friends from that program. Morgan Anderson’s career has taken him across the country and through multiple industries (which I will NOT list ahead of time because I feel there is such great joy in being surprised and peeling back the layers of a story.)

In this episode we talked about YIG and why it was so impactful for us, the Renaissance “All or Nothing” mentality and how Morgan has employed it repeatedly in his multifaceted career, and the unifying feature of caring about people and supporting them that Renaissance People share. We also discussed selling confidence (compared to the many other things Morgan has sold).

I will share one little tidbit that I couldn't include in the show because we discussed it after I stopped recording. I’m a huge fan of the reality TV show competition Top Chef and Morgan was once in the running to be on the show. Shows like that have archetypical characters they cast for (sorry to ruin it if you thought everything was completely real). When it comes to the season where Morgan was in the running to appear, they had already filled the role of “prodigal chef/kitchen villain” for that season so the opportunity passed by. By the next time he could have been cast, he’d already moved on from cooking. Intrigued yet?

Promised Show Notes Materials (take a drink):

Sign up for updates on my podcast and what’s happening in the Renaissance People Community.
Work with me to Find Your Golden Thread
Episode 1: Hello! I’m Sara Kobilka, Renaissance Woman
Morgan and I were involved with the Minnesota Youth in Government (YIG) program in high school but the YMCA of the USA has Youth and Government programs across the United States.
Where are they now article about me on the Alumni and Friends page for the Center for Youth Voice (the current home of Youth in Government within the Minnesota YMCA programs)
Alton Brown’s video of burping sock puppets Good Eats – Dr. Strangeloaf Yeasts
Obituary for UW-Madison Plants and Man professor Tim Allen (yes, I'm recommending you read an obituary) and another article about him
Author Mary Roach’s website
Book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Iowa’s RAGBRAI bike ride

Follow Morgan on Social Media:

LinkedIn | YouTube (aka the Critter Gitter)

A few things Morgan and I discuss:

3:11 Why Youth in Government was so impactful in our lives

12:37 The Renaissance “All or Nothing” mentality

15:26 The first of many zigzags for Morgan

16:54 Morgan’s early success

17:19 Alton Brown love fest

22:19 How Morgan lost his passion

24:5 Morgan’s travels around the country

33:13 Turns out you really can go home…at least in Morgan’s case

34:45 Science’s allure draws Morgan in

39:41 Selling confidence

48:06 Improv Game

53:54 Find Your Golden Thread

57:03 Rapidish Fire Questions

Quotes from the episode:

(Morgan) Have fun, get things done. Man! I haven't said that in about 30 years!

(Sara) It's that live hard, play hard mentality. I think a lot of Renaissance People and multi-passionate are good at that. They are both good at having fun and playing and being curious and creative. But then when there's stuff that needs to get done, they're also really good at like putting their heads down and getting things done.

(Morgan) Oh, that describes me to a T. You nailed me there. Because if I get into something, it's all or nothing.

(Morgan) I tell everyone this. I had my passion for food beat out of me and it was my own fault.

(Sara) Do you think it could come back ever? Or is it, do you think it's gone?

(Morgan) It has. Not so much like it used to be there. But I have an absolutely amazing time cooking and teaching my wife how to cook.

(Morgan) That’s where the Renaissance Person in me was first realized. Because you'd be working on a project for weeks and on a Monday morning, the CEO looks at me and says, "Oh, we're not doing that anymore, and you have to do a 180 and start over." And it's just like, oh my gosh! You know? So I went from leading a very structured, professional life in culinary and in management, and all of a sudden I'm in this nebulous area where you've gotta orchestrate amongst chaos.

(Morgan) You get really good at selling something when you're selling something people don't need like ice cream.

(Sara) I think these are the case studies of confidence as a Renaissance Person. And it sounds like for you, it took a long time to really say, “Hey, this multifaceted, well-rounded kid from high school who's traveled around the country and had all these careers and done all this stuff, there's value in me for that diversity of things that I know. Not just because I taught this one class, or I got this one degree, or I worked in this one position.” It's the multitudes that makes you magical.

(Morgan) My brother-in-law said something this last summer. There's people that are smart and there's people that have experience. And wisdom is the combination. Mm. You do not have to be smart to be wise, but you do have to have the experiences. And I think in confidence in what we were talking about, where my confidence comes from is the knowledge is the background.

(Morgan) I don't half ass anything. If I'm gonna be training my dog, it is intense! Books will show up from Amazon. And treats will be researched. And I will morph my own training program from, you know, reading 36 different books.

(Sara) That's like the antithesis of what I think is one of the superpowers of Renaissance People is, we can be creative. We have all these experiences like you're talking about, that we can draw from. And so we're the ones who can come up with those outside-the-box ideas and we can implement them and be like, let's get this shit done.

(Morgan) Humans are horrible multitaskers, and I am primed to prove that wrong. Cause there's always multiple things.

Follow me, Renaissance Woman Sara Kobilka, on LinkedIn, where I put most of my social media energy, and Facebook.

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 Skellenger

Podcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particulate Media

A Different Kind of Wonderful with Paula Croxson, Renaissance Woman

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode, I am joined by a fellow Renaissance Woman who has joined me in embracing that identity (you’ll learn why near the start of the show). The title of the episode is, “A Different Kind of Wonderful with Paula Croxson” but my alternative was “How Paula Came to Love Swimming in Chop”. That too will make sense later in the show.

Paula has been near the top of my “dream guests” since I came up with this podcast idea so to say I’m excited is a bit of an understatement. She’s a science communicator, neuroscientist, musician and athlete among other things. The conversation was free flowing, filled with science, storytelling and metaphors galore!

Promised Show Notes Materials (take a drink):

Sign up for updates on my podcast and what’s happening in the Renaissance People Community.
Work with me to Find Your Golden Thread
Jethro Tull (jazz flutist) YouTube video of performance from 1976
My LinkedIn Left Brain, Right Brain artificial choice rant
Article from Business Insider where Michelle Obama explains why she too is disgusted by the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks biographical information
Oliver Sacks’ TEDTalk, What Hallucinations Reveal about Our Minds
NeuWrite
A Brief History of the Resting State: the Washington University Perspective by Abraham Z Snyder and Marcus E Raichle
Review of the split brain work that Brenda Milner was part of (credit also to Mike Gazzaniga for this research)
Story Collider
Paula’s 2013 Story Collider talk: When Your Grandmother Forgets Who You Are
Ep. 9 A Mind for Memory with Brian Skellenger, Survivalist
If you want to become a better storyteller, I highly recommend the podcast The Story Letter with Micaela Blei.
Stellate Communications
Ep. 8 Bringing Worlds Together Full Circle with Jess Rowell, Renaissance Woman discusses “find your audience’s why” to help answer “what do you do?”
Sign up for Brain Dump on May 1, 2026 (or if you missed it, sign up for my Renaissance People newsletter to find future opportunities)
Paula’s greatest accomplishment post Instagram | Facebook
Cholla walking inspiration LinkedIn post
Stellate Communications

Follow Paula on Social Media:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram | Bluesky

A few things Paula and I discuss:

Survey says…she’s a Renaissance Woman
The science vs musician choice
The history and misconceptions of “left brain vs right brain”
Renaissance Man, neuroscientists, and inspirational figure, Oliver Sacks
The athletic mindset + Renaissance People = Flow State
Research on the flow state (it’s not all woo woo)
What MRIs tell us (and don’t tell us)
Why the science is in the nuance and complicating the narrative
Paula’s major career pivot
Explaining yourself using communications 101, Know thy Audience
Values as a golden thread
How Paula stopped fighting the waves and began enjoying them
Improv Game
Rapidish Fire Questions
Life as an omnivert
Training our pets to do unusual things

Quotes from the episode:

(Paula) I think of boundary spanner maybe as a really useful professional term. But I feel like a Renaissance Person all the time, regardless of whether I'm behaving like a professional or not.

(Paula) I feel like science and music was one of those choices that I had to make pretty early on, that I've spoken to so many people who ended up in science or as musicians who felt like they had to make that choice early on in order to define themself, to carve out what they were doing. When I say had to, I don't think anyone made me. I had a lot of really supportive people around me when I was figuring out what I wanted to be when I grew up. But I felt like it only made sense to be one or the other. And I actually stopped playing music for a really long time, while I was in graduate school. And so I sometimes forget that I'm a musician because I spent so much time creating this version of myself that was the scientist.

(Sara) People sometimes have a job where they'll be a reporter and they'll be a meteorologist. So I decided, I'm gonna bring math and science back into my life. And quite a few people in the journalism program looked at me like I was absolutely nuts because I took chemistry. I took physics. I was taking calculus. And they're all like, "Why? What are you? What's wrong with you? What are you doing?" And I was like, no! I need this! This is part of me too. I can't lose that. I need to use my full brain and not "half of my brain" as the people like to talk about it.

(Paula) That's how the left brain got a reputation for being the "logical", I'm using air quotes here, the "logical side of the brain". Because it rationalized. Because it got in there and it was chatty and explained away the movements of the right hemisphere, having no idea that the whole reason was because the right hemisphere of the brain had just seen a spoon and was responding to the question. So that's how that whole myth arose is because the left hemisphere of the brain talks a lot. However, that doesn't really make it more logical.

(Paula) I had already been interested in the brain and how it worked. But that was one of the things that really drew me in, was reading that book. Little did I know at the time that Oliver Sacks was, himself, a real Renaissance Person!

(Sara) Yeah!

(Paula) He entered that part of his career, the medical part of his career, late in life and the writing and storytelling part even later in life. He was also a bodybuilder. He also swam in the open water. He had all of these facets to himself that were not just what he did for a living. I think I probably was drawn to that as much as the stories and the fascination of the brain, even though I wasn't really aware of it at the time.

(Paula) I started off by joining a group called NeuWrite that was a science writing group that brought together scientists, writers, people in theater, meet people from the media, you know, to collaborate.

My goal was just to write better science papers so that I could get published in my, like, niche journals, but like fancier niche journals that would get me, like tenure and promotion and funding.

But I was around these people and I liked these people and I was drawn to them. And I found myself learning a lot from them in a way that I didn't learn from my colleagues who were in the same niches as me doing the same things, thinking very deeply about MRI and whether this analysis technique worked. And they were wonderful too. But this was a different kind of wonderful.

(Paula) Then I got it. I got that it didn't need to be special or different. What made it relatable to people was that it wasn't special or different, that it was similar to their story, that they weren't by themself. That they could relate to it. That I put into words something that they were struggling with.

And it was so devastating for me in the best possible way. Like all of that affectation that I had had that I just needed to be this like very, very talented special niche researcher doing my thing in my, in my little vacuum just fell away. And I realized that I was a human being, doing a human endeavor that could help other human beings.

(Paula) Figure out who you're talking to. And in a one-on-one situation, you have the ability to do that. And then connect with them about something. So that might mean that I end up telling somebody that I'm a musician or that I'm a scientist, when that isn't like my main day job thing that I do. But that's one of the joys of being somebody who does many things, right? Is that you have many points of contact in many, many ways to connect with folks.

(Paula) I knew who I was for so long through the lens of being a scientist and a researcher, and I had my entire career mapped out. You know, I knew who I was gonna be and where I was gonna be when I was in my nineties if I made it that far and hadn't worked myself into the ground, which was a real possibility. I knew that I was gonna be some kind of emeritus professor roaming the halls of some university, you know. Writing a book, amassing my life's work. I knew exactly how I was gonna be, and I blew all of that up when I changed careers at the old age of 38, and stepped into a field that I had no formal education in.

(Sara) When the pandemic hit, for example, if you'd been in the lab and had all these people scheduled to come in for their MRIs and then the lab had been shut down, like that would've completely ruined those plans or thrown them out or, required things to change. Versus now you're kind of floating on the river and following the current, as opposed to, "I'm just gonna force this, I'm going north no matter what, I'm going north.” You now are kind of like letting the flow of the river, to go back to flow, kind of guide you. And then you're adjusting. And if you get in an eddy, you're gonna do a little spinning around for a bit and then you'll keep going.

(Sara) We always grew up thinking that a career and a steady job and knowing what singular "I'm gonna be when I grow up" is going to give me more certainty. But actually being in this freedom to follow the things, the opportunities that arise, the serendipity that comes forth, is almost more reliable. Because you have yourself. You'll always have yourself. You'll always have your values that can't be taken away from you just because you lose a job or you can't access an MRI machine.

Follow me, Renaissance Woman Sara Kobilka, on LinkedIn, where I put most of my social media energy, and Facebook.

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 Skellenger

Podcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particulate Media

Side Quest Unlocked with Elin Filbey, Multi-Passionate

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Once again, I’ve got a podcast guest whose Venn diagram of interests looks strikingly similar to my own. Multi-passionate Elin Filbey and I not only share a work history (museums, higher education and career coaching) but other factors as well, including being moms of small children, coming from the upper Midwest, teaching fitness classes, and our love of performing. In the wide-ranging conversation this podcast is known for, we cover this and so much more. Elin’s experience is proof that taking side quests makes a Renaissance Person’s life more fulfilling!

Promised Show Notes Materials (take a drink):

Sign up for updates on my podcast and what’s happening in the Renaissance People Community.
Sign up to work with me and Find Your Golden Thread
Patrick Meaney’s LinkedIn post about shaping your career like a bramble
Sara’s career coaching newsletter, Take it With You, focused on Packing Your Skillset Suitcase
Sara’s newsletter with the word cloud of skills needed for remote jobs Appreciating Your Value
Sara’s newsletter about translating your skills to potential employers Time to Translate
Queued for Thought episode introducing Conversations on Loneliness, Healing and Connecting
Social Contract Theory was the idea I was referencing, but looking at it, I wasn’t quite remembering the full definition. Oh well!
Ep. 8 Bringing Worlds Together Full Circle with Jess Rowell, Renaissance Woman
Tamara Poles’s guest episode where she discusses side quests on podcast Research Adjacent
When NASA Gave Spiders Drugs to See how it Affected their Webs, 1995
Ep. 10 The Forever Revolution with Jenni Gritters, Multi-Passionate
My preferred metaphor: Reimagining STEM Workforce Development as a Braided River
A beautiful rant about “soft skills”: Stop Calling Them Soft: Why Today’s Essential Skills Are Anything But
Ep. 9 A Mind for Memory with Brian Skellenger, Survivalist
United Karaoke
Elin’s podcast Curate Your Career Podcast, co-hosted with Alli Schell, Spotify | Apple Podcast | YouTube | Instagram
Elin’s Facebook Group Deaccessioned: A Network for Former and Aspiring Ex-Museum Pros
Elin’s website Deaccessioned Career Coaching

Follow Elin on Social Media:

LinkedIn | Instagram |

A few things Elin and I discuss:

Museums as a stimulating place for multi-passionates
Drawbacks of museum life
Elin’s path to career coaching
How to explain your career jumps
Toxic relationship industries (i.e. museums, journalism, education, non-profits, pretty much my entire career…)
Translating your skills or job title
Finding a career that fits your current values
Being a helper and a villager
Keys to answering, “what do you do?”
How we live for the applause (and give Lind Belcher from Bob’s Burgers vibes)

Quotes from the episode:

(Elin) And I used to think that it was a defect or a, a liability because I was so interested in so many things. But now as I'm getting older and I'm learning more about myself, I see it as an asset, right? Because I am able to pull from all these different places and all these different ideas to inform the core of my work and what I do.

(Elin) I found out later that I got placed with the finance and real estate students who were notoriously difficult because my former director told the person hiring me at the business school that I was a “velvet steam roller”. I was really good at gently pushing back on people, and working with difficult people in a way that still got things done but wasn't super inflammatory, which was a skill I learned through my career. Because when I started, I was like, burn it down!

(Elin) It's an industry (museum work) that takes and takes and takes and takes and doesn't always give a lot back. I often describe it as a toxic relationship

(Sara) Oh, yes!

(Elin) Where it's bad and bad and bad and bad, and then you get to hold a manuscript from the 1500s and you're like, this is the best thing ever! And then you're like, rebounded and you're in love again. And then you just get shit on somewhere else.

(Sara) I like sharing resources. As a Renaissance Person, are you one of those people where, you know, you join a Zoom meeting and you're adding links to things in the chat, emailing people afterwards?

(Elin) It's my love language.

(Elin) I heard something the other day that was, you know, everybody wants a village, but not everybody's willing to be a villager.

(Sara) I love that!

(Elin) Right? And I was like, oh! I caught myself too because I was like, where's my village? And then I needed to reflect, to be like, well, where am I being a villager? And I can't expect that to come back around to me if I haven't given it out.

(Elin) Love a good side quest. It really just brings a lot of joy to my life. And it's also probably part of my neuro spiciness of like, I was born to dilly dally.

(Elin) And a lot of times when people are wanting to leave the field or they're wanting to change, they just start running really, really fast in a direction. And sometimes you're on a treadmill and you're not going anywhere. But you feel like you're, you're really working hard. And you're running, running, running, but you're not getting anywhere.

(Elin) I'm like Tinkerbell, I need applause to live. So I love just being on stage and getting up in front of people.

Follow me, Renaissance Woman Sara Kobilka, on LinkedIn, where I put most of my social media energy, and Facebook.

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 Skellenger

Podcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particulate Media

Queued for Thought - Survivalist Insight, Part 1

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 13:50:00 -0400

Welcome to Queued for Thought, my curated podcast playlist designed to satiate your brain with insightful ideas!

I'm Renaissance Woman Sara Kobilka, host of the podcast Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People.

Queued for Thought is a project I created where we can practice the skill of connecting the dots between conversations happening in different realms.

My latest playlist addition connects the dots between conversations around being a “survivalist” and cultivating “survivalist skills”. It features podcast episodes from Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People, The Anxious Achiever, A Slight Change of Plans and The Nature Of with Willow Defebaugh.

Check it out on the Listen Notes website. From there, subscribe to listen to all episodes on your favorite podcast streaming platform.

Instructions for how to find a podcast streaming platform.

Queued for Thought comes out sporadically when I’m feeling inspired. If you’d like to know each time a new episode drops, sign up for my Renaissance People Community listserv.

The Forever Revolution with Jenni Gritters, Multi-Passionate

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People is coming full circle for this tenth episode!

The woman I first encountered via her podcast, is now a guest on my own show! Regular listeners will know the name of my career coach, and fellow multi-passionate, Jenni Gritters.

In this episode, we discuss the importance of community, the evolution of our career paths, and the significance of embracing your complexity without apology (along with tips for explaining that complexity to others). We go off on delightful tangents around systems thinking, the role of coaching in our careers, and the power of intuition and imagination in decision-making. We connect the dots to neuroscience and etymology —two topics we both adore —and discuss how they can help us understand where we’re going.

And I found out a few juice nuggets that even Jenni’s most loyal followers might not even know about, so stick around to the end!

Promised Show Notes Materials (take a drink):

Sign up for updates on my podcast and what's happening in the Renaissance People Community
Jenni’s Book The Sustainable Solopreneur
Waters Center for Systems Thinking – Habits of a Systems Thinker Cards
LinkedIn post about teen specializing in the summer to prepare for college applications
The Serendipity Mindset by Christian Busch
World Builders podcast episode with Lindsay MacMillan
An incredible study on imagination
And another fun piece on memory & imagination
That’s What They Say, Michigan Public Radio podcast
Grammar Girl podcast
Telepathy Tapes (Season 2 especially for the early science of more "woo" practices)
The Latest Science of Growth Mindset with Carol Dweck ("The Psychology Podcast" on YouTube)
The Clearing Jenni's"free monthly community gathering and community coaching session designed help you create meaning, release what isn’t yours to carry, and ignite new (collaborative) insights — timed with the seasons”
The World Builders podcast | website

Follow Jenni on Social Media:

LinkedIn | Instagram | Substack

A few things Jenni and I discuss:

3:59 How Jenni helped inspire this podcast

5:18 Jenni’s many iterations

8:46 How Jenni created spaces of belonging as a multi-passionate

11:01 The appeal of journalism for multi-passionates

13:16 Pattern recognition and systems thinking

18:40 How naming eras can help explain your expanding identities

22:00 How freedom makes you magnetic

27:33 Thinking of our career as a non-linear journey

31:02 Thinking outside the box and using imagination to find inspiration

33:02 Trusting intuition and getting out of your own way

42:27 Improv Game

45:43 Shout out to our supportive husbands

47:14 Rapidish Fire Questions

50:39 Our shared love of etymology and neuroscience

54:0 The athletic and growth mindset in Renaissance People

Quotes from the episode:

(Jenni) We had children at the same time. We were like drowning in the pandemic at the same time. We were leaving our careers at the same time. So it's just, it's very much an honor to be here. And I feel like I've been with you for all the transitions that birthed this podcast too, like you said. So pretty damn magical.

(Jenni) I'm also the founder of a company that I am currently building called World Builders, which is basically an ecosystem, a hub for people like us to come in and learn how to step into our wealth and our visibility and all these things that come back to the fact that we were told probably for most of our lives, that our brains were not normal. And so it's a whole space of people like us, who are very explosively creative, who change their minds a lot. Who can't be summed up in one phrase. Right? I always joke, I change my bio on my social media profile like every three months.

(Jenni) But I'm not trying to make people like me anymore. Like I just think it's a zero-sum game. I don't think I'm ever gonna make sense to people, Sara!

(Sara) Yeah. We're too much. That's what I have in my LinkedIn About section, you know, I'm too much for some people and that's OK.

(Jenni) Totally!

(Sara) You've talked about a level of magnetism that I think comes about when you become more confident in yourself and stop apologizing for the complexity. Because other people want that confidence. When I've had career coaching clients, when I did my Renaissance Readers and we read the book Range, that's the number one thing people tell me that I am able to provide them, is increased confidence in their value as Renaissance People.

(Jenni) Mmm hmm. I know.

(Sara) Because the world has been telling them, you're too much. You're overwhelming me. For me, it was “you're the teacher's pet” because you want to be friends and you wanna please the teacher, which, OK, there's problems with the teacher's pet side of things. But, there's also the fact that I LIKED my teachers and they were interesting people and they're older than me and they know more than me. So I wanna learn from them!

(Jenni) And you love learning, right? I mean, I think that it's exactly right. People who are free are very magnetic.

(Sara) Your career is a journey with multiple stops. And you don't have to go one place and stay there forever. You go to all these places and you learn something there. And then you take it with you to the next place and then you make it even more fun and more exciting. And so that idea of “niche” implies one spot and you're just going to get even more and more specialized. And that's NOT where it's at! And that's not who's going to think outside the box because they're completely trapped inside the box! They're not the ones who are going to be innovative.

(Jenni) I love the phrase magic is focused intention. It's like that idea that yes, we get those downloads, right? Yes. We have these like flow states. I think our brains are just really primed to be that way. Us neurodivergent, multi-passionates, we're very creatively iterative, but you still have to do the action things, right?

Follow me, Renaissance Woman Sara Kobilka, on LinkedIn, where I put most of my social media energy and Facebook.

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, the caffeinated beverage of my choice.

This podcast is hosted and edited by Sara Kobilka.

Theme music is by Brian Skellenger

Podcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particular Media

A Mind for Memory with Brian Skellenger, Survivalist

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0400

This episode is a family affair! I’m joined by my younger brother Brian Skellenger, the voice and creative spirit behind this podcast’s theme song. I also view him as a Renaissance Person, a label we debate over the course of the episode (in true sibling fashion). In this show, I share how my thoughts around the term “Renaissance Person” and the idea of a “Renaissance Mindset” have been morphing.

We also talk about the pros and cons of having a Renaissance Woman as an older sister, how our parents’ careers influenced our mindset, the power of improv, and being drawn to fellow Renaissance People (and NYC as a hotspot for finding them). Plus, I think you’ll be intrigued by Brian’s thought process as he designed this show’s theme song, at least I was!

Promised Show Notes Materials (take a drink):

Sign up for updates on my podcast and what's happening in the Renaissance People Community.
Episode 7 Stephanie Castillo
Range: Why Generalists Thrive in a Specialized World by David Epstein
Review of the play “Vestibular Sense” from Minnesota Public Radio
Take it With You newsletter for job seekers
Packing Your Skillset Suitcase newsletter issue
AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies downloadable list of “the 100 greatest American movies of all time” (released in 1998 and updated with a 10-year anniversary list in 2007, which isn’t actually 10 years so I don’t understand their math)
What are Overtones? YouTube Short video by Eric Martin
OVERTONES! What are overtones? What do they sound like? Longer YouTube video explaining the science of overtones more deeply by KHensenMusic and all sorts of awesome examples from singing groups
Water Whys Spring 2026 Visual SciComm Seminar Series
Making Math Inclusive for Everyone with Microsoft 365 blog post by Peter Wu
LinkedIn post by Sara Shunkwiler about the new #Microsoft365Math hashtag with link to recording of talk about math accessibility (and the post she’s resharing talks about being a survivor, even more serendipity)
LinkedIn post by Ailee Dixon announcing her new role as a Blind Disability & STEM Equity Advocate
Magnet Theater in Manhattan, NYC. Performance schedule for Brian’s improv team, Lil’ Spoon.

Follow Brian on Social Media:

Instagram | YouTube

A few things Brian and I discuss:

2:09 Brian’s rejection of my potential terms for his identity, why he feels like a “survivalist”, and he defines the term.

6:22 How my definition of “Renaissance Person” and the “Renaissance Mindset” is morphing

9:02 Big sister Sara embarrasses her little brother

11:44 Living in the shadow of a Renaissance Person older sibling and finding theater

14:52 The impact of our parents’ careers on our mindset

20:55 The power of improv (and why Renaissance People are particularly good at it)

25:20 Rejecting hyper specialization

31:35 Brian’s performance in the show ‘Vestibular Sense” and how his Renaissance Mindset helped him land the lead role’

34:50 The toolkit of skills we bring with us throughout our career

36:05 How connecting the dots means being empathetic in the arts

38:27 Being drawn to fellow Renaissance People

42:06 Brian’s though process in creating the Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People theme song

48:28 Improv Game with the snarkiest response yet to “You know you’re a Renaissance Person if…”

50:27 Rapidish Fire Questions

52:10 Why our childhood jobs at a movie rental store were great Renaissance Person jobs

56:07 The challenge of math accessibility for blind or visually impaired learners (and Sara’s upcoming free virtual seminar speakers on the topic)

58:07 Why you should go to Magnet Theater if you’re in Manhattan on a Thursday evening to see musical improv (and possibly Brian’s improv team)

Quotes from the episode:

(Brian) Well, of course I couldn't pick anything that you picked for me!

(Sara) Oh, course not! Big sister can't tell you what to do.

(Brian) I have to be an original.

(Brian) At least maybe other people like you would say that I am a Renaissance Person or something. But I picked a word and then I like looked it up and it has a completely different meaning. So I'm changing the meaning of this word...

(Sara) Do it!

(Brian) Like, beware Webster's Dictionary. You're getting a new entry!

(Sara) He's in a fighting mood!

(Brian) Exactly!

(Brian) I do agree that, while I don't necessarily consider myself a Renaissance Person, I do think that I have a well-rounded skillset and mindset. And I think part of that was like, I mean, I'm sure some of that is just genetic or whatever. But I think having you as an older sibling to model sort of like, you can be good at everything if you want to be. If you have the aptitude for it. That set the bar pretty high, which was both daunting, but also freeing in a way

(Sara) Yeah.

(Brian) I didn't feel super self-conscious about like being interested in a wide variety of things when some other kids were sort of hyper specializing.

(Brian) I figured out that I could sort of turn something that was an insecurity into something that made people laugh, which is, 'cause I was cast as this really nerdy character. And I was a dork, as a kid and I still am. I was so nervous that the other kids were gonna laugh at me in a "make fun of me" sort of way.

(Sara) Yeah.

(Brian) But then, when I was able to like, oh, I'm entertaining these people. They're laughing with me in a way.

(Sara) And you have control over the laughter. I'm making it happen.

(Brian) I think improv has a lot of good applications outside of just being entertaining because improv theaters do workshops and stuff for businesses and it's a great tool to just learn how to “Yes, and...” somebody else's idea that might be completely different than what you had in mind.

Follow me, Renaissance Woman Sara Kobilka, on LinkedIn, where I put most of my social media energy and Facebook.

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, the caffeinated beverage of my choice.

This podcast is hosted and edited by Sara Kobilka.

Theme music is by Brian Skellenger

Podcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particular Media

Queued for Thought - Conversations on Loneliness, Healing and Connecting, Part 1

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 12:35:00 -0400

Welcome to Queued for Thought, a curated podcast playlist!

I'm Renaissance Woman Sara Kobilka, host of the podcast Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People.

Queued for Thought is a project I've created where I get to practice that skill of connecting the dots between conversations happening in different realms.

In this episode, I explain how these playlists will work and my personal philosophy on populating my podcast queue.

This first playlist connects the dots between conversations around loneliness, healing and connecting. It features podcast episodes from A Bit of Optimism with Simon Sinek and Inquiring Minds.

Check it out on the Listen Notes website and from there, subscribe to it on your favorite podcast streaming platform.

Queued for Thought will come out sporadically when I’m feeling inspired. If you’d like to know each time a new episode drops, sign up for my Renaissance People Community listserv.

Bringing Worlds Together Full Circle with Jess Rowell, Renaissance Woman

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 06:00:00 -0400

This episode is what happens when I spend an hour chatting with a grad school friend about some of our favorite topics! I'm joined by Jess Rowell, a fellow Renaissance Woman, who teaches 6th and 8th grade science and STEM in Maryland. Jess discusses how her industry spanning career and world travels have impacted her teaching philosophy. We talk about the unique challenges the pandemic has created for her current 6th grade students and how she's connecting the dots for them during the school day. Jess shares her love of space (and not-so-secret desire to bring more space education to schools). Plus, we learn why boats are so important in her life.

Promised Show Notes Materials (take a drink):

Sign up for updates on my podcast and what's happening in the Renaissance People Community
Book the poster “All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten” is based on
Critique of phrase “Learning Loss” and another perspective on “learning loss”
Knowles theory of Andragogy (adult learning theory)
Obituary for UW-Madison Plants and Man professor Tim Allen (yes, I’m recommending you read an obituary) and another article about him which describes the “sandbox” I was honored to be part of briefly.
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
Sisbro Productions Main Page | Kids Stuff ("The Marvelous Musical Report of the Marine National Monuments" is a video Jess shows every year on the last day of school) | “The Riddle in a Bottle” Trailer
The Science of Thinking video
Dr. Derek Muller: The key to effective educational science videos | Veritasium Channel
Episode 3 Melissa Vining
Jenni Gritters: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram
Episode 2 Nancy Scales Coddington
Next Generation Science Standards introductory video by fellow MSSE graduate, Paul Andersen
NASA Spinoffs Game | Main Page | Technology Transfer

Follow Jess on Social Media:

LinkedIn | Instagram (Full Circle Wins) & Instagram (STEMJourneys)

A few things Jess and I discuss:

4:23 Our virtual grad school as preparation for COVID-19 pandemic adjustments

5:57 Jess’s Venn Diagram

8:09 Science vs STEM (and other acronyms)

12:27 Integrating academic subjects across student’s school day

18:21 Unique COVID impacts on current 6th graders due to kindergarten disruption

21:37 The problem with the phrase “learning loss”

24:44 Sharing the “why” behind what students are learning to get buy in

31:18 Science integration resources

38:17 Making people curious about you

41:59 Telling stories to bring meaning to your message and work

43:40 Improv Game

44:27 Sara’s "Brain Dump" idea

48:05 Rapidish Fire Questions

53:16 Combining game development ideas with teaching/learning

Quotes from the episode:

(Jess) If you're a science teacher, you can be talking with the math teacher. You can be talking with the art teacher. You can be talking with the social studies teacher. And going at bare minimum, to see what their lessons are doing at that time. Looking at the whole day of a sixth grader and how we can be giving those bridges. I've been saying bridges, just for lack of a metaphorical term, how we can be working together to at least make that student's experience more cohesive.

(Jess) What we're seeing now is just a completely, just unpracticed group of students. So I joke that we've just spent the last four months just getting these kids ready to do school. And that's something we do in September and Shocktober and not necessarily through January. So just now seeing our students develop those basic maturities to be available to learn.

(Jess) If they're asked to write a claim, well that's a claim in one class, but a hook in a different class or vice versa. Like maybe we should just call it all claim or call it all hook. Because if we can make those things a little bit more similar, then they at least have that connection

(Sara) How do you introduce your Renaissance Woman's self to somebody new who you're maybe hoping will fund your next big, way out there, wonderfully woven, connecting-the-dots idea. How do you introduce yourself to them so that they realize that you are this like complex, multi-passionate person, but not overwhelm them and talk their head off for 45 minutes when they just ask you, so tell me a little bit about yourself?

(Jess) Oh, you always ask the hardest questions, Sara.

(Sara) You know me, I like to jab it in there.

(Jess) I've tried all sorts of different elevator speeches. I resonated with things like I help bring science and media full circle. That's one that's kind of worked for me because then that allows them to ask whatever question that they want, that they happen to get in that moment, to ask me the next question. Because if I try to push it all down somebody's throat, they're not gonna get it. So if you've got a little teaser aspect to it, then that seems to help a little bit.

(Sara) Make them curious. Inspire curiosity.

(Jess) Yeah. Make it their idea. Make curiosity their idea, not your idea.

(Jess) Just about every major life-changing decision I've made has been on a boat. With somebody who has less than average access to a boat, I'm not near a boating community. It's not part of my life. I'm feeling like there's some tie in there. And I carried an elk out of the forest by myself once.

(Sara) Wow! OK. So with the boat one, I think there's a metaphor. And I'm expecting a really well thought out blog post or LinkedIn post about that because I feel like there's gotta be some sort of metaphor going on there.

(Jess) Challenge accepted.

Follow me, Renaissance Woman Sara Kobilka, on LinkedIn, where I put most of my social media energy and Facebook.

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, the caffeinated beverage of my choice.

This podcast is hosted and edited by Sara Kobilka.

Theme music is by Brian Skellenger

Podcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particular Media

Pitching Your Own (Ph)uture With Stephanie Castillo, Jill-of-all-trades

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0400

This week’s guest is the third person on this show from the realm of science communication (if you include me). Stephanie Castillo is a Jill-of-all-trades multimedia producer who creates science videos for YouTube. But the path to get here wasn’t easy. We discuss how she overcame her academic adversity to successfully pitch her own interdisciplinary PhD. We talk about our lives as lifelong learners, full of curiosity and a desire to do everything (and the importance of supportive parents for this lifestyle). Common themes from past episodes, include crossing boundaries, identity work, neurodivergence as well as our roles as dot connectors, arose as well.

Promised Show Notes Materials (take a drink):

Sign up for updates on my podcast and what's happening in the Renaissance People Community. Find our latest activities on my website.
Generalist vs Specialist vs Versatilist article
ComSciCon program for graduate students
Three Star Coloring critique from the Occuplaytional Therapist
Collaborations Across Scientific Disciplines, commissioned lit review for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Great science communicators on Instagram to check out (many are other platforms too): Alex Dainis, Maynard Okereke, Naomi Kohbelic, Harini Bhat, Jessica Knurick, Scientific America
Reimagining STEM Workforce Development as a Braided River paper
SciComm Hotline podcast hosted by Stephanie Castillo and Reyhaneh Maktoufi
Stephanie’s website

Follow Stephanie on Social Media:

YouTube | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok

A few things Stephanie and I discuss:

1:36 Being a Jill-of-all-trades and the icky feelings around “generalist”

5:32 Science communicators and versatility

8:01 Stephanie’s bumpy ride from chemistry PhD to science communicator

15:46 The importance of being interdisciplinary

16:57 Lifelong learning, curiosity and creativity

21:37 Communicating across boundaries

27:26 Connecting the dots for scientists who want to use social media

32:23 Using the umbrella term of “multimedia producer”

34:21 A life of doing everything

36:36 Neurodivergence in Renaissance People

40:10 Parental support for experimenting and exploring

41:58 Improv Game

43:05 Identities and moving from “I am” to “I do”

46:54 Rapidish Fire Questions

Quotes from the episode:

(Stephanie) How do you feel about the term generalist?

(Sara) Interesting that you brought it up! Because I have a book club right now going on, called Renaissance Readers and we're reading Range by David Epstein. So the title of the book is Range: Why Generalists Thrive in a Specialized World. And the first question that I asked everybody in the group is, "What do you think of the word generalist? And across the board, everybody had icky vibes from it. And I too felt the same way.

(Stephanie) I was told by my first advisor when I brought up my struggles that like, maybe I should just master out. I should just do my master's, you know. Maybe I'm not cut out for the PhD. And I'm like, that's not what I came to grad school for.

(Stephanie) I've just always been like a lifelong learner. I just always like to learn and do different things. And so, growing up I tried every sport that I wanted to do. Like I always tried to teach myself how to craft different things. And so I felt like I was just always a curious and a tinkerer in the sense of I always wanted to be doing something, so I'll try everything. And so even now, I finished like a really large, exhausting gig. And I'm like, I'm gonna pick up embroidery. Like why not?

(Stephanie) I think that's what kind of also lended itself for me having to force myself to be a Jack or Jill-of-all-trade. Especially as like a freelance science communicator. I'm often just a one woman band. And so I have to film myself. I have to edit myself. I have to pick the music. I have to write the script, fact check this. There's so much skills that go into just producing one video that can just be like a minute long

(Sara) People underestimate...They have no idea how much...

(Stephanie) Exactly! So much decision making goes into it. And even for those content creators that are just like in their rooms posting. It still takes effort and time and planning to make something that's worth people stopping their scroll to engage with.

(Stephanie) It's just also knowing when to pivot. It's just like, oh, no one can help me with this thing? How do I help myself? And, oh, I liked photography and I love YouTube. It's probably the same thing. Let me just pick up a camera and learn how to video edit. You know? Like, it's just comes from a place of, I can figure it out. And I'm going to figure it out. And if I don't how to do that thing, I'm gonna teach myself how to do it because we have YouTube and I'll figure it out.

Follow me, Renaissance Woman Sara Kobilka, on LinkedIn, where I put most of my social media energy and Facebook.

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, the caffeinated beverage of my choice.

This podcast is hosted and edited by Sara Kobilka.

Theme music is by Brian Skellenger

Podcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particular Media

The Secret Lives of Multipassionates – with Marika Luneau, Multipassionate

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 05:00:00 -0400

I'm back to having guests after two solo episodes! In this week's episode, multipassionate Renaissance Woman, Marika Luneau joined in the fun.

Marika is a fellow solopreneur dedicated to supporting purpose-drive professionals. Like me, she hosts LinkedIn Sprints and is a community builder. Our conversation ranged across numerous topics including LinkedIn strategy (focused on authenticity and community building), the importance of finding our people, neurospicy tendencies amongst Renaissance People, finding the right balance when telling your story and so much more. Speaking of stories, Marika shared a number for her life that even many of her friends and frequent collaborators don't know! So sit back, grab a drink of your choice, and enjoy the show!

Promised Show Notes Materials (take a drink):

Sign up for updates on my podcast and what's happening in the Renaissance People Community and find our latest activities on my website.
Jenni Gritters: Website, LinkedIn, Instagram
Research on ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder) diagnosis differences between girls and boys
Research on the overlap between diagnosis of PMDD (premenstrual dysmorphic disorder) and ADHD
Sandy (Sandra) Bean: LinkedIn
Jamie Cox: Website
Andrea Reeves: Website
Alex Alcon: Website
Maggie Blackburn: Website
Jamie Hamre: LinkedIn
Michelle Obama says 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' is the worst question you can ask a kid Business Insider article
Patrick Meaney’s LinkedIn post about shaping your career like a bramble
Marika’s website
Videos of Marika performing basketball tricks as a child: spinning a basketball in a show at 1-year-old, doing tricks at 6, spinning 5 balls simultaneously, and dribbling 3 basketballs in a show at 7

Follow Marika on Social Media:

LinkedIn | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

A few things Marika and I discuss:

1:52 Finding your people

2:53 Jenni Gritters Lovefest

6:28 Repressed women’s voices in STEM and business

10:17 Perfectionism vs good enough

13:35 Repelling people who aren’t right for you

15:38 Fear of visibility while craving community

17:04 LinkedIn strategy

22:14 Secret Life of Marika pt 1 and 2 (end-of-life doula and wedding venue owner)

23:53 Focused messaging using umbrella terms

27:34 Uniting business and non-profit people

28:29 Venn diagram lovefest

30:38 Toxic bureaucratic slowdowns

33:46 Neurospicy tendencies in Renaissance People (and how ChatGPT helped Marika realize she had ADHD)

39:09 Resources for women and non-binary Renaissance People who are entrepreneurs

42:17 Small talk struggles as Renaissance Women

43:17 Embracing our many iterations

48:04 Improv Game

50:00 Rapidish Fire Questions, Secret Life of Marika pt 3 (basketball trick performer)

Quotes from the episode:

Honestly, I think in community with other Renaissance, multi-passionate people, one of the biggest things I've learned about having this personality type and this type of brain is we cannot take advice from people who don't have this type of brain. We cannot take advice from people who are like in the traditional mold, one path, niche down, value prop…all of those really strict guardrails that come with traditional business practices...not good advice for us. (Marika)

(Marika interacting with Chat GPT) I was like, just randomly, do you think I have ADHD or even autism? Like could I be on the spectrum? Just so randomly said it. And it was like, “You might wanna sit down for this…” No joke. That was the line. (Marika)

You've got a saucy ChatGPT there! (Sara)

Yes. She reflects me. She reflects my voice. So she is very sassy and girly for sure. (Marika)

I never wanna be like, 'No Marika, focus. Don't make an archetypes quiz right now. You have bigger fish to fry.' It's like, no, make the types quiz if it feeds your soul. Because your soul is what generates all of this work to begin with. As soon as we lose our buzz and our spark and our motivation, the whole thing kind of fizzles out. (Marika)

It's so funny. Because I'm talking about all these things that I'm like, don't tell anyone you're doing this. But that's what I'm doing! I'll give an example. Like full transparency... (Marika)

This is the space for it, though. (Sara)

Exactly! (Marika)

We're all Renaissance nerds here! (Sara)

Sometimes I've misread the room and I think we're about to go so deep. I'm like, “Yeah, let's talk about…death! Let's talk about the experience of it. What was the most beautiful death you ever witnessed?” And everyone's like, “Uh... uh... What do you do for a living?” (Marika)

“I just came here for the wine and free hors d'oeuvres...” (Sara)

Yeah, I don't know. But again, I think with this type of brain we don't necessarily have an off switch. (Marika)

Follow me on LinkedIn, where I put most of my social media energy and Facebook.

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, the caffeinated beverage of my choice.

This podcast is hosted and edited by Sara Kobilka.

Theme music is by Brian Skellenger

Podcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particular Media

The Challenge

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 05:00:00 -0400

This is another unplanned mini episode thanks to illness. In it, I talk about illness, injury, and caregiving and the impact it has on Renaissance People.

Promised Show Notes Materials (take a drink):

Check out Jenni Gritter's CREATE program.
Join as a guest on my show! If you're a Renaissance Person, complete this quick form and I’ll get back to you as I’m scheduling recording dates.
Sign up to get updates about this podcast and the Renaissance People Community I'm building.

Follow me on LinkedIn, where I put most of my social media energy and Facebook.

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, the caffeinated beverage of my choice.

This podcast is hosted and edited by Sara Kobilka.

Theme music is by Brian Skellenger

Podcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particular Media

End-of-Year Reflections from the Renaissance Woman

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 06:00:00 -0400

Promised Show Notes Materials (take a drink):

Join as a guest on my show! If you're a Renaissance Person, complete this quick form and I’ll get back to you as I’m scheduling recording dates.
Sign up to get updates about this podcast and the Renaissance People Community I'm building.
Thank you to my amazing guests, Ep. 2 Nancy Scales Coddington and Ep. 3 Melissa Vining.
SciGirls from Twin Cities Public Television
Interesting interview with Kimberlé Crenshaw, the professor who coined the term "intersectionality".
Learn more about two-spirit from an award-winning podcast episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Unreserved with Rosanna Deerchild.
Have thoughts about question regarding other terms for Renaissance People? Email me at sara@renwomanconsulting.com.

Follow me on LinkedIn, where I put most of my social media energy and Facebook.

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, the caffeinated beverage of my choice.

This podcast is hosted and edited by Sara Kobilka.

Theme music is by Brian Skellenger

Podcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particular Media

Embracing an Outside-the-Box Mind with Melissa Vining, Boundary Spanner

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode, I am joined by Boundary Spanner Melissa Vining. In a multi-faceted conversation, Melissa and I talk about many topics of shared interest aka our significantly overlapping Venn diagrams. The conversation weaves its way through music, teaching, storytelling using a golden thread to support your message, career coaching, neurodivergence and motherhood, and our mutual past as people who grew up in Minnesota and moved away.

We explore some of the unique contradictory qualities of AuDHDers who have both an autism and ADHD diagnosis and the challenges of neurodivergent job seekers. Melissa delighted me by offering a challenge to one of my rapidish fire question about using metaphors.

Promised Show Notes Materials (take a drink):

CliftonStrengths Assessment
Sara’s episode on Melissa’s podcast, Job Search for High-Performing Misfits
Sara's Find Your Golden Thread offer
The Neurodivergent Woman Podcast
CSCCE Series on Gardening as a Metaphor for Community Management
Range: Why Generalists Thrive in a Specialized World by David Epstein (misspoken during the podcast)
Neurodiversity in the Workplace: website and podcast/YouTube
The Anxious Achiever podcast with Morra Aarons-Mele
Dialect Quiz (warning, this inaccurately guessed where I’m from, but it does mention the bubbler)
Find Your Local American Job Center

Follow Melissa on Social Media:

LinkedIn | YouTube

A few things Melissa and I discuss:

2:45 Being outside-the-box
4:02 Music and teaching (and “flutist” vs “flautist”)
7: 18 CliftonStrengths
10:27 Finding your golden thread
11:40 Renaissance People thrive in innovative spaces
13:28 Goal focused vs process focused environments and the issue with school systems
15:31 Overlap between Renaissance People and “neurospicy” folks
16:20 Changes in ADHD and autism diagnoses
20:53 Neurodivergence and the job search
22:16 Misfits finding their place
26:11 Explaining your complexity with stories and a golden thread
32:20 Using caution around AI and telling your story during your job search
34:57 Improv Game
37:06 Rapidish Fire Questions

Quotes from the Episode:

"Where a lot of people tend to approach things as, ‘oh, this is how we've always done it’. Or maybe even if they don't explicitly say that, they're thinking of, ‘how can we build off of what we have?’ What I tend to do is just want to level the thing and just start from the ground up, and I find that when I approach problems or projects in that way, I tend to get a lot better results." (Melissa)
"I think as a boundary spanner or Renaissance Person, you end up taking pieces of each thing and kind of incorporating it into everything that you do, which has definitely been the case for me." (Melissa)
"So if we were to draw a Venn diagram of your interests and my interests, the amount of overlap would be amazing. Like your background, your experience, when I went on your podcast (which we will also link to in the show notes, take a drink) I was like, this is like... this is my sister from another mister!" (Sara)
"The other thing that's so interesting that I think happens so often is that when you're AuDHD, you have autism and ADHD, those things kind of cover each other up or compensate for each other in different ways. Which also ties into your idea about being kind of a contradiction because they're kind of contradictory neurotypes essentially." (Melissa)
"People always are like, how is it that I can remember a song I learned when I was six, but I can't remember my password? And it's like, well, you know, learning things through music does something different in your brain." (Sara)
"When I first started talking about my career path and the fact that I had more than 20 jobs before I was 30 years old. I was so freaked out to go tell everyone about it on my webinars, but then I got such a positive reaction because people could relate to it. And they were like, OK, she understands me." (Melissa)

Calling all Renaissance People!

If you’re a Renaissance Person who’d like to join the conversation as a guest on my show, complete this quick form and I’ll get back to you as I’m scheduling recording dates.

Follow me, your host, Sara Kobilka on LinkedIn, where I put most of my social media energy and Facebook.

Stay updated about the Renaissance People Community I am building. This podcast is just one part of a multifaceted project because that’s how Renaissance People roll!

And should you care to support the production of this podcast, I'd love it if you'd buy me an oat milk cappuccino, the caffeinated beverage of my choice.

This podcast is hosted and edited by Sara Kobilka.

Theme music is by Brian Skellenger

Podcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particular Media

Operating at the Intersection of STEM, Creativity and Fun with Nancy Scales Coddington, Multi-Passionate

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 05:00:00 -0400

In this first guest episode, I chat with my longtime friend and collaborator, Nancy Scales Coddington. Nancy is a multi-passionate, operating at the intersection of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), creativity and fun.

In a wide-ranging conversation, we cover topics including what it means to be a Renaissance Person, responsible science storytelling, refusing to niche down, the fun of blowing things up with liquid nitrogen, where creativity is found in STEM, and combining dance and movement with STEM.

Promised Show Notes Materials (take a drink):

Nancy's Galaxy Goddess Dress Instagram posts: Reinvent Magazine, Making the dress and fashion show, ONE-SPACE event and Costa Rica Yuri's Night
Nancy’s Anti-niche/on a tangent Instagram post
SciComm Solutions website
SciGirls and National Girls Collaborative Project
WSKG's Science Pub YouTube Channel
Nancy’s Trees with mist Instagram post
Sara's LinkedIn rant on the left brain, right brain poster
Integrating Science and Dance from the Kennedy Center for the Arts
WSKG's YouTube Videos about movement
BONUS - Not discussed, but check out the Dance Your PhD contest winners (warning, MAJOR rabbit hole of videos) and local organizations like the NYC-based STEM From Dance.
WSKG's YouTube video Women in Entomology: Meet the Superheroes of Insect Science
Princess Awesome – Maker of Sara’s pi dress and other clothes that smash stereotypes
Sara and Nancy having fun (and Sara’s pi dress)

Follow Nancy on Social Media:

Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | X | YouTube

A few things Nancy and I discuss:

4:09 Science Storytelling
4:28 Defining "Renaissance Person"
8:02 Where Nancy thrives as a Renaissance Person
9:40 Being anti-niche
12:43 How Nancy connects the dots for STEM curious educators and youth to build STEM identity
15:16 Working in science museums and the fun of blowing things up and making food with liquid nitrogen
16:20 Building science communication skills
20:05 Using emotion in storytelling including responsibly using negative emotions
24:15 Increased distrust of science during the pandemic
25:03 Creativity in "left brain" and "right brain" activities
29:46 Creativity in science and math vs engineering and technology
37:14 Dancing and movement with STEM
40:44 Explaining your complexity without overwhelming the listener
44:53 Improv Game: "You might be a Renaissance Person if..."
47:23 Rapidish Fire Questions

Quotes from the Episode:

"When I hear somebody say, stay in your lane, I'm like, oh...that sounds like a challenge. (Nancy) Challenge accepted! (Sara)
"Visually, how do you translate the story of the universe into an outfit? You know, not a collection? One outfit... (Nancy) This is not Project Runway folks. This is, you know, one episode. (Sara) Make it work! (Nancy)"
"I love weather because I call it the gateway drug to STEM. And I can talk to a 3-year-old and I can talk to a 93-year-old with dementia. And it's that word relevant. It matters in their life." (Sara)
"But people, I know this is a spoiler people, normal people don't read white papers. (Nancy) Except for Renaissance nerds who read it for fun like me. (Sara)"
"My elevator speech is that I help to bridge science with storytelling. I help the STEM curious to find their STEM identity and space in out-of-school or afterschool spaces." (Nancy)
"Where there's gonna be STEM and creativity and fun is where you're gonna find me." (Nancy)

Calling all Renaissance People!

If you’re a Renaissance Person who’d like to join the conversation as a guest on my show, complete this quick form and I’ll get back to you as I’m scheduling recording dates.

Follow me, your host, Sara Kobilka on LinkedIn, where I put most of her social media energy and Facebook.

Stay updated about the Renaissance People Community I am building. This podcast is just one part of a multifaceted project because that’s how Renaissance People roll!

And should you care to support the production of this podcast, I'd love it if you'd buy me an oat milk cappuccino, the caffeinated beverage of my choice.

This podcast is hosted and edited by Sara Kobilka.

Theme music is by Brian Skellenger

Podcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particular Media

Hi! I'm Sara Kobilka, Renaissance Woman

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 05:30:00 -0400

Promised Show Notes Materials (take a drink):

YouTube Video All the world's a stage | As You Like It | Act 2 Scene 7 | Shakespeare's Globe (length 3min 12 sec) Actress Sophia Stone’s powerful performance of a monologue (also known as “The 7 Stages of Life”) from Shakespeare’s play “As You Like It” using British Sign Language and spoken word.
My LinkedIn post about feeling like I had to pick my left brain or my right brain and a FABULOUS photo of me in all of my late 1980s glory complete with crimped hair.
I was involved with the Minnesota Youth in Government program in high school but the YMCA has Youth and Government programs across the United States.
Article from Business Insider where Michelle Obama explains why she too is disgusted by the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Proxy Podcast with Yowei Shaw, which she describes as “The world's first podcast for emotional investigative journalism™”. She incorporated her scream of despair at being laid off from her job as host of NPR’s Invisibilia podcast into her theme song which I adore.

If you’re a Renaissance Person who’d like to join the conversation as a guest on my show, complete this quick form and I’ll get back to you as I’m scheduling recording dates.

Follow me on LinkedIn, where I put most of my social media energy and Facebook.

Stay updated about the Renaissance People Community I am building. This podcast is just one part of a multifaceted project because that’s how Renaissance People roll!

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, the caffeinated beverage of my choice.

This podcast is hosted and edited by Sara Kobilka.

Theme music is by Brian Skellenger

Podcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particular Media

The Trailer, aka What's this show all about?

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 03:00:00 -0400

Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People is a podcast by and for Renaissance People.

Follow your host, Sara Kobilka, on LinkedIn as she operates across boundaries.

Stay updated about the Renaissance People Community Sara is building. This podcast is just one part of a multifaceted project because that’s how Renaissance People roll!

Renaissance People who would like to be guests on the show can complete a quick form and Sara will get back to you.

If you're extra curious, check out Renaissance Woman Consulting to learn more about some of the many types of work Sara does.

And should you care to support the production of this podcast, she'd love it if you'd buy her an oat milk cappuccino, the caffeinated beverage of her choice.

This podcast is hosted and edited by Sara Kobilka.

Theme music is by Brian Skellenger

Podcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particular Media