What’s a Renaissance Woman to Do?
What happens when the Internet forces you to pick a lane
One of the earliest lessons I learned from moving my work onto the Internet in 2008 was: if you don’t narrow your intent, aka pick a specific niche for yourself, the Internet will not be your friend.
Course after seminar after course after live event preached this message over and over and over. I know, because I sat in many of them, sometimes in a hotel ballroom breakout session and sometimes in the solitude of my home office watching a webinar.
The message was the same: winning online requires you to focus with a side order of keep buying these courses because that’s how “they” rake in the big bucks.
Sidenote: I have nothing against continuous learning, paying for education that can teach me something useful I can then put into practice. Sidenote to the sidenote: The predatory nature of many of the people behind programs that amount to nothing more than smoke and mirrors is where I draw the line. That’s not education. That’s really good marketing.
As the daughter of two Renaissance people, this “forced” narrowing went against everything I was. I argued (mostly with myself) that I couldn’t be whittled down to one “tip of the spear” -- my interests and experiences reflect an entire arsenal of weaponry, not one arrow.
That narrative drove me to (often unconsciously) reject opportunities that could have led me to a completely different place in my life. Water under the bridge, as they say.
I chose to follow other paths until I realized that positioning myself with one thing was where I needed to begin.
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As these things go, here we are in the second half of 2026. While the Internet still preaches focus as a means to success, I’m noticing more creators are branching beyond their “one thing.” “Casting your net wide” is another throwback meme circa 2014, but it didn’t catch on the way “tip of the spear” did.
There’s a legitimate reason for this.
Many online creators are seasoned by this point. They established themselves with their one thing and are now looking to scale.
For Renaissance people like me, who show up from the get-go wider net in hand, this can be frustrating and costly.
Turns out, you really do need to start with a clear niche, specific audience, and distinctive point of view to give people a reason to pay attention first.
Clarity beats volume. Start with one idea, repeat it in various ways over and over and over again, and once you’ve secured the foundation, adding other products, services, and interests becomes a natural outcropping of that base.
Online success generally comes from repeatable relevance, not from trying to appeal to everyone.
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The early Internet rewarded categorization enormously. What are you about? Who is this for? What keyword describes you? Search, websites, blogs, email marketing and eventually social platforms all reinforced that sorting instinct.
But after nearly two decades of creator culture, something else becomes possible: the person can become the category. But that only works once people understand the thread connecting what you do.
So what does a Renaissance woman do with that truth without amputating half of herself?
Not choose between all her interests, but rather find the thread running through them.
Then pull.