by Marilize Jacobs
You are not scatter-brained. You are not burnt out. You are multi-dimensional!
I have been told to pick one thing approximately 4,000 times. By teachers. By "Claude" and “ChatGPT”. By that confident person at dinner who definitely peaked somewhere between 2002 and 2008 and now dispenses career advice as if focus is a personality. Even by mentors.
I have a BCom in Marketing from the University of Pretoria. I launched my own PR consultancy in 2005. I set it down intentionally when I was expecting my twins, studied interior decorating part-time, and opened Pigs Can Fly Interiors in 2008. Then I resurrected VocalCord.
Today I run both. Simultaneously. And let me be plain: it is not a compromise. It is the entire point.
The Curiosity Contract
We are taught that curiosity is dangerous. That asking "what if" leads to distraction. That focus means narrowing until only one thing remains.
But here is what no one tells you: curiosity did not kill the cat. It gave it nine lives.
The cat did not die from wondering. The cat survived because it kept exploring, kept adapting, kept its senses open to every alley, every window ledge, every unexpected opportunity. Curiosity was not the cat's undoing. It was the cat's multiplication.
You are not scatter-brained. You are not burnt out. You are multi-dimensional.
Yes, you have felt the burnout. But burnout is not proof you are broken. It is proof you have been trying to fit a multi-dimensional life into a one-dimensional template.
What the Data Actually Says
Let us stop relying on opinion and look at the numbers.
The 2026 RecruitMyMom Working Women in South Africa Report surveyed 3,509 skilled women. Here is what it found:
91% of skilled SA women prefer hybrid or remote work
86% experience burnout to some degree
3.3 percentage points – the gap between how business owners work now vs. what they prefer. Everyone else is negotiating with a system designed by someone else.
Business owners report the lowest regular burnout rate at 29.2% , compared to executives at 40%.
That last number deserves to sit alone for a moment. The people with the most autonomy burn out the least. Not because they work less. Because they work with purpose.
The 2026 Global Workplace Happiness Report (covering 80,000 employees, 115 countries, and 1.9 million data points) confirms this:
The number one happiness driver globally is inspiration and belonging – not workload.
Operational factors like workload are far less impactful than meaning.
Companies chronically underinvest in recognition and personal growth – two levers that strongly drive retention and advocacy.
Here is the question: Why wait for a company to build those levers for you?
You build them yourself. You create your own evidence of growth every single day.
The Case for Range Is Hiding in Plain Sight
Nobel laureates are 22 times more likely to have a serious arts hobby than the average scientist.
Coco Chanel was orphan, seamstress, cabaret singer, perfumer, then the woman who redesigned an entire century.
Maya Angelou: poet, dancer, actress, activist, professor, filmmaker, six languages.
Toni Morrison wrote her first novel at 39 – alone, full-time, raising two children – then won the Nobel Prize.
None of them picked one thing. That changed everything.
The problem was never the range. The problem was a world built around specialisation that had no language for it.
What Kind of Entrepreneur Am I? The Alchemist with a Shapeshifter Undercurrent
When Italian brand influencer Chiara Elle, describes the five types of creative women entrepreneurs (the Alchemist, the Deep Diver, the Quiet Fire, the Shapeshifter, and the Empath) I see myself clearly as the Alchemist.
Someone who sees the invisible thread connecting everything.
PR is about perception, narrative, and trust. Interior design is about perception, narrative, and how a space makes people feel. These two disciplines are not opposites. They are the same sentence in two languages.
The Alchemist, the framework says, does not need a niche. She needs a universe big enough for all of her. When she stops apologising for being too many things, she becomes a whole planet people want to move to.
There is a Shapeshifter thread in me too. The Shapeshifter adapts constantly, reinventing form without losing core identity.
Last year I was writing a tactical PR plan for a healthcare brand. This year I am redesigning a legal firm's boardroom and advising a brand on its value proposition.
I do not resist the evolution. I deploy it.
What the Numbers Reveal About Women
The RecruitMyMom report notes that:
45% of skilled South African women are sole household income earners
80.4% support dependants
Financial pressure is the single biggest driver of work-related stress at 29.3%
A second income stream is not an indulgence. For many women, it is a financial shock absorber.
When one business has a slow quarter, the other carries the weight. When one client relationship ends, the other continues. Diversification is not just a creativity strategy. It is a risk management strategy.
The report also finds that 60.7% of women cite lack of visible opportunity as their primary career barrier.
When you build your own business – especially two – you stop waiting for someone to offer you the next step. You build the staircase.
The Cross-Pollination Advantage
Here is what no one tells you about running two businesses: they make you smarter.
My reputation management work sharpens how I present a designed space to a client. How I manage expectations in a crisis translates directly to how I manage an interior project from brief to installation.
The Happiness Report's finding on neuroscientific needs – safety, relationships, clarity, purpose – applies as much to a client walkthrough in an empty room as to a boardroom crisis communication strategy.
Left-brain strategy. Right-brain creativity. In one person.
That is not a liability. It is positioning no single-lane competitor can replicate.
So … Should You Pick One Thing?
Only if the one thing genuinely holds every version of you.
For most of us, it does not.
The world rewarded specialisation when the economy rewarded repetition. That era is ending. The Global Workplace Happiness Report flags AI as an emerging cognitive partner – still minor in 2026, but the direction is clear.
Routine specialist work is exactly what AI will absorb first. What it cannot absorb is the synthesis that comes from someone who has spent 25 years thinking across disciplines, building relationships, reading rooms, and translating complexity into confidence for clients.
That is the Alchemist's advantage. That is the range-builder's advantage.
You were never scattered. You were building something the market is only now catching up to understand.
Range is not noise. It is radar.
Curiosity did not kill the cat. It gave it nine lives. Go live all of yours.
Marilize Jacobs
Sources: RecruitMyMom Working Women in South Africa Report 2026; Global Workplace Happiness Report 2026; @itschiaraelle
Marilize Jacobs is a reputation strategist and interior design entrepreneur based in Pretoria. She is the founder of VocalCord PR & Reputation Management (est. 2005) and Pigs Can Fly Interiors (est. 2008), and a committed advocate for women who build careers on their own terms.
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