What Kimberly Murray Wants Multi-Passionate Women to Know

If you've ever felt like you had to hide one part of yourself to be taken seriously in another — keep the creative work quiet at the office, downplay the PhD in artistic circles — Dr. Kimberly Murray has been there.

Kimberly is a psychologist, certified life and leadership coach, photographer, strategic advisor, and mother of two. She's spent years figuring out how to hold all of that without fragmenting — and now she helps other high-achieving, multi-passionate women do the same. On a recent episode of In Her Words, she was generous and clear about what she's learned along the way.

Here are four things that stuck with me.

1. Stop siloing. Find the through line.

For a long time, Kimberly kept her identities in separate boxes — scientist in one room, photographer in another, coach somewhere else entirely. The problem wasn't that she had too many interests. It was that she kept treating them as unrelated. And that fragmentation made her feel like she had to hide pieces of herself depending on who was in the room.

What shifted things was finding the thread that ran through all of it. For her, there's an analytical quality that shows up in how she frames a photograph, how she advises on strategy, and how she helps coaching clients spot patterns and chart a path forward. The roles aren't as separate as they look from the outside.

If you have multiple interests and they feel chaotic or contradictory, it might be worth asking: what do they have in common? What do you bring to each of them that's distinctly you? The through line is usually there. It just takes some excavating.

2. "Not right now" is not the same as "never."

One of the most quietly useful things Kimberly said was this: not right now doesn't mean not ever. If something is genuinely meant for you, it will still be there when you have more capacity for it.

She talked about this in the context of seasons — the idea that your different roles and passions don't demand equal attention at all times. Sometimes one moves to the front. Sometimes another has to wait. The mistake is treating that temporary retreat as a permanent loss.

This landed for me because so much of the anxiety multi-passionate women feel comes from treating every season like the final verdict. If the coaching business isn't where you want it to be right now, that doesn't mean it's over. It might just mean this is a season for something else.

"Trust, not right now doesn't mean not ever. If it's a passion that you have, if it's something that's meant for you, it will still happen."

3. Check for alignment before you say yes.

Kimberly talked about moving away from exhaustion as a baseline and toward what she calls alignment — making decisions based on whether something is actually in harmony with her values and energy, rather than just saying yes because the opportunity is there or the person asking is someone she wants to impress.

Her values — freedom, creativity, sustainability, wholeness, excellence — function as a filter. Before she commits to something, she asks: can I do this with excellence given everything else on my plate? Does this have any creative dimension, or will I be told exactly how to do it? If the answer points to no, she passes — or offers to connect the person with someone who'd be a better fit.

She also gave practical permission to slow down the response: asking for 24 to 48 hours before committing isn't unreasonable. And if someone won't allow you that space, that's useful information too.

4. Explore things for joy — not just for leverage.

Kimberly described taking courses in interior design, jewelry making, and fashion merchandising after her postdoc — not because she had a clear plan to monetize any of them, but because she was curious and she loved it. Most of those paths didn't turn into careers. That wasn't the point.

She pushed back on the pressure to always turn creative interests into an income stream or a career pivot. When we approach every new interest as something we need to capitalize on, we squeeze the joy out of it before it has a chance to breathe. The question doesn't have to be "how can I use this?" It can just be "do I enjoy this?"

She also named what happens to artists who do try to monetize: the joy starts seeping away when you feel like you have to contort your creative vision to fit what's trending or what sells. The work starts to feel like someone else's. There's real risk in chasing the audience before you've even figured out what you actually want to make.

Connect with Kimberly

• You can find Kimberly on LinkedIn

🎧 Want to go deeper?

Listen to the full episode of In Her Words to hear Kimberly’s journey.