Good Life Project - How to Bring Purpose & Possibility Into Your Work | The 2022 Plan

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

Millions of us are re-examining the role of work in our lives, getting more honest about what it needs to give us, beyond a paycheck. And we're realizing the way we're working isn't working. So, how do you know what opportunities will truly fill you with purpose, possibility, joy and connection, and what will leave you disengaged, empty and disconnected? How do you know whether to stay where you are and reinvent the way you do your job, or look for or start something entirely new? The decisions we make now may well change the course of our lives for the better - if we make the right call - but also for the worse, if we choose wrong. That thing everyone's calling The Great Resignation also has the potential to turn into The Regret. So, how do you set yourself up to understand what jobs, teams, projects, companies, roles or opportunities to run toward, and what to run from? That's what we're diving into in today's special 2022 jumpstart episode, with a focus on understanding and tapping your source-code level driver for work that makes you come alive - your Sparketype®. And, remember, every Monday for the entire month of January, we're bringing you these special deep-dive episodes featuring a single topic that is critical to your ability to live your best live, and set up 2022 for growth and possibility.You can find the 1-page worksheet HERE.Find All Of The Episodes In This Series:How to Do the Ultimate Year-End ReviewHow to Accomplish Big Things | The 2022 PlanHow to Feel More Alive | The 2022 PlanCheck out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKEDVisit Our Sponsor Page For a Complete List of Vanity URLs & Discount Codes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So I got a question for you. What do you really want from your work? Well, millions of people are asking that question right now, especially after the year that we have just had. I mean, beyond a paycheck, beyond benefits, beyond some semblance or illusion of security, what do you actually want from the very thing that will consume the majority of your waking hours for the better part of the rest of your life? And if you're pondering that question, if you're like the 20 million or so people who have quit their jobs in just the last five months in the US alone, if you're riding out your current gig, but maybe seriously questioning

the bargain that you made when it comes to work and whether you want to continue it, whether you're just kind of really thinking about the question, what is this thing that I'm doing, this thing I call work, and what is it giving back to me? Well, this episode is for you. In fact, it may well open your eyes to what's really happening on a much deeper level and give you a whole new set of ideas and insights and tools to make better decisions. To finally look at this thing we call work and own the fact that for many, it has been anywhere from mildly to wildly broken for decades. And we have this incredible opportunity, this incredible window right now to make different choices, to reimagine it going forward. And yes,

also to sustain ourselves financially, maybe for the first time ever, understand how to turn work into a source, not just of money and security, but also a powerful source of meaning and joy, purpose, energy, excitement, full-on glorious expression, and possibility. So if that sounds like something you'd like to make happen, or at least learn a whole lot more about how to make it happen, even if it's not the right time for you. And also understand that one of the single biggest career mistakes that millions may be making right now at this moment or about to make if you're considering quitting or starting something new and understanding what that possible misstep is and learning how to avoid it. what I'm about to share in today's episode may well change

not just how you navigate this moment, but also the millions of moments that unfold for the rest of your life. And by the way, if your work is actually more of a primary role or devotion, even if it's not something you get paid to do, this is also for you. So stay tuned. And remember, this is episode two out of our five part January Jumpstart series. It'll really help you set up the year to reclaim a sense of peace and possibility and potential. Every episode will also be accompanied by a free downloadable one-page PDF digest with insights, action steps, and resources. And you can find a link in the show notes to both the PDF for this episode and the ones that have come before it and will come after it. And be sure to follow or subscribe to this podcast. Even take a moment, just write this

second so you don't miss a single episode in this January Jumpstart series. Okay, so let's dive in. Today's deep dive is all about reclaiming your work, your career, your job, your role, your devotion, and transforming it into a source of genuine, unadulterated purpose, joy, and possibility. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. If you're at a point in life when you're ready to lead with purpose, we can get you there. The University of Victoria's MBA in Sustainable Innovation is not like other MBA programs. It's for true changemakers who want to think differently and solve the world's most pressing challenges. From healthcare and the environment to energy, government, and technology,

it's your path to meaningful leadership in all sectors. For details, visit uvic.ca slash future MBA. That's uvic.ca slash future MBA. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. Future MBA. That's uvic.ca slash futuremba. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday, we've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So we're in a moment re-examining the bargains that we've made when it comes to work. And so many of us are realizing that yes, money matters, but so do things like meaning and purpose, things like time and space, well-being, both physical and mental, the opportunity to express yourself more fully

and feel like you're doing something that matters. It genuinely matters on a level that lets you feel like your full potential, your reason for being is being tapped, like you're doing the thing that you're here to do. Now I call this state being sparked or coming alive. I'm going to share a lot more about that. And increasingly, as we all go through this season of taking stock, we're realizing that the work that we're doing, or maybe even the way that we're doing it, it's not only not sparking us, it's flat out flatlining us.

So sure, part of it is the unusual circumstance that we're in. We got to honor that. But the truth is, the problem runs much deeper and much longer. It has been festering for decades, if not entire generations. And this moment that we're in, this moment has basically ripped the bandaid off, leading millions to take what I call the nuclear career option. They're quitting often without even having the next thing lined up. And you hear it talked about in the saying yes to this phenomenon. The thing is, the reexamining process, that got us to this place. And everything has been so topsy-turvy, so turned upside down that we're really asking ourselves the question, is this the bargain that I want to keep making for the rest of my working life? And the answer that's coming back for a lot of people is no. But the tendency or the urge to blow everything up, to take that nuclear career option, to just walk away, while appropriate for some, and maybe appropriate for even more people down the road, it may well lead for many people to what started as the excitement and the possibility of their great resignation, eventually two, three years down the road, turning into the great regret, ending up in a new job, new paint on the walls, new boss,

new team, new product, new industry, new company. And you get that buzz, that dopamine hit of excitement of change, of the newness of something. But then a year passes and then two years pass and then three years pass. And you find yourself feeling the same way because we never understood what was really making us feel unfulfilled in our current work and what really mattered and what to look for, to find or create when we look at new opportunities. This is such a powerful moment to truly understand the role of work in our lives, to get more honest about what it needs to give us beyond the paycheck and make better decisions that will let us reimagine our current work to give us so much

more. If we decide to make a bigger leap, understand what's really at stake and what really matters in making a decision that'll spark us rather than leave us a few years down the road, having blown everything up yet feeling the same, and then piling frustration and futility, even shame onto the fire of discontent we inadvertently lit by making a decision at the height of our pain without a clear understanding of how to choose the next move in a way that would let us truly come alive and stay alive past that immediate hit of excitement of something new when that that wears off, and then realize that we have said yes to something that is truly nourishing on a profoundly different level.

And that brings us to a whole bunch of different questions. When it comes to choosing a new job, a new career or work path, role or devotion, even starting your own thing or figuring out how to make the work you're already doing feel so much better. And truly, maybe for the first time ever, actually letting it give you what you need beyond money and security. What really matters? And what can we do? What choices can we make? What actions can we take? What can we find out, discover, uncover, reveal, reimagine, or create to understand how to say yes to work that truly, truly makes us come alive? Well, I'm going to ask you to take a little step back in time here with me. Journey back with me. Remember when you were a kid and you had the time and the freedom to do

things, whether playing with friends, escaping into worlds, maybe making art or music, sports, running around outside, vanishing into the woods or any other activity or experiences where time seemed to vanish. You were fiercely focused, working diligently, but it felt kind of effortless like play. And you felt utterly alive and never wanted it to end. When was the last time you felt that way? And here's another question. What if your work, the thing you spent most of your waking hours doing in adulthood, could give you that very same feeling?

For a lot of people, when I pose that question, they're kind of like, yeah, that's not possible. Total fantasy, especially at a time where so many people have completely abandoned the possibility that work could become something that is truly nourishing, truly meaningful, truly life-giving, and just surrender to the fact that it's something you kind of suffer through, that you were never promised it would be anything beyond that. And maybe in fact, you were never promised that, but that doesn't mean you can't reimagine it to give you so much more. What if there was a way to reimagine the way we contribute to the world and maybe earn

our living so that it dropped us into that near transcendent state of hyper-present, full contact joy? What if your work could make you truly come alive? Or at least a whole lot more alive than you have been feeling maybe for years, maybe for decades? That very question has been, I would put it on the level of a near obsession for most of my adult life. And over the last few years, I have gone deep into the good life lab and discovered some things that frankly, completely surprised me about the

way that most of us pursue work and build our livelihoods. Some of them are a little bit horrifying. Some of them are profoundly awakening and inspiring. But first, let's talk about that phrase that I keep using, coming alive, or what I often shorthand as feeling sparked. What exactly is happening when the thing you do gives you that feeling of coming alive or being sparked? Because we hear those phrases kind of thrown around a lot. They're kind of nebulous. So I want to get really clear and very specific about what I mean when I use the phrase coming alive or say being sparked, especially in the context of the work that we do. So when we talk about work that makes

us come alive, we're talking about the sweet spot, the center of the Venn diagram between five distinct feelings or states that we have that together create the feeling of doing the thing you're here to do, being fully alive. So what are those five states? Well, the first one is meaningfulness. It's that feeling that what you're doing genuinely matters. It gives you a sense of meaning. When was the last time you felt that in the context of the work that you do? Now, for some of us, it may have been fairly recently and you were incredibly fortunate if that's you. For the majority of people, it is not been fairly recently and you were incredibly fortunate if that's you. For the majority of people, it is not a huge part of their lived experience of work. And that is somewhat

tragic because for so many more people than would imagine possible, it can be if and when you understand what to look for. So meaningfulness is that first state. The second state that we're talking about, the second component or element of coming alive or being sparked is access to flow. It's that state that is often described as being utterly absorbed, time-fued. You blink and you think it's been 10 minutes and it's been 10 hours. You lose sense of time and you just become utterly a part of the activity. You almost can't distinguish between you and the thing that you're doing. You're so much just in there with it. You access a reservoir of potential and creativity and efficiency and productivity and problem solving

and insight that leaves you feeling amazing. So flow is the second component. We've got three more. The third one is excitement and energy. And in the sort of corporate world, this is often shorthanded with the jargon engagement. I like to just use the words that we use in everyday speech. I'm excited. I'm energized. Even if the thing that I'm doing is objectively hard, even if it's work that takes a lot of effort and still it gives you back energy, even if you're working lots of hours, it leaves you excited to wake up and do more of it the next day and energizes you through the process of exertion. The fourth element is what I call full expression.

It's that feeling that nothing is being stifled or held back or denied, that your uniqueness, your sense of taste, your skills, your potential, your ability to perform at an extraordinary level, to dip into that well of potential that you know that you have had, but never quite figured out how to access, that just kind of unlocks. And the floodgates of potential and possibility and expression, they become available to you. And it's all being brought to bear. You are fully expressed in what you do. And the fifth component of that state, coming alive or being sparked, is purpose. And this tends to function on two different levels. It's the dual feeling of both having an immediate sense of purpose, like you're working towards something that is clear to you, that is defined, and that genuinely matters to you, not just to others. And then zooming the lens out more broadly,

it's a larger sense of purpose in life, like you're doing the thing that you are here to do. Those five components, meaningfulness, flow, excitement, and energy, full expression and purpose. When you are doing something that gives you access to all five of those states, the middle of that Venn diagram, the feeling that those all evoke, they conspire to bring you alive. That is the sensation I'm talking about. That is the feeling of being sparked, of coming alive. And we can get it in the context of the work that we do if we understand that that is available to us and how to make it a part of our experience. Being sparked, it's the feeling you get when your work elicits intrinsically

these five substates. Being able to spend a huge part of your life devoted to something that makes you feel this way, that lets you move through each day feeling utterly lit up with purpose and energy and possibility. It's kind of what most of us dream of, but rarely ever feel with rare exception. And this massive lack is, it's a huge part of why so many people over the last year or so have started joining the great resignation. And if they're not so many more, probably millions, if not tens of millions more are pretty seriously thinking about it right now. And the question is why, why is it that work for so many is so devoid of purpose and meaning and energy and excitement and joy and express potential and access to flow and possibility?

Why is this not a part of it? Because when we were exerting ourselves in a really intense way when we were younger for most of us, we found ways to make it a part of it. But when we change to that thing and we call it work, somehow all of the magic vanishes from it. And a big part of the reason it has to do with something that honestly, a decade ago, I never have believed was real. So this brings us to the first big revelation here that I really want you to take away.

That explains why so many are disenchanted with their work and also starts to lay the foundation that tells us how to reimagine our work to make it come alive. It's about something that I call your sparkotype. So it turns out that we all have a unique, often hidden imprint or impulse for work that makes us come alive, that gives us those five feelings. Think of it as a kind of a source code level impulse to exert effort, often to work really hard for a long time for no other reason than the feeling it gives you. That impulse, that imprint is your sparkotype. And when your work is aligned with your sparkotype, when the thing you do is an organic or intrinsic expression of this deeper DNA, this source code level imprint for work, whether it's the thing

you get paid to do, your primary role, or simply the activity you choose to devote yourself to, you come alive. You gain access to those five powerful states. In fact, the more you express this inner impulse in your work, our research shows us, the more likely you are to feel energized and excited, lost in flow, filled with meaning, accessing your potential, and filled with purpose. And by the way, we have now validated this with a massive data set of more than 600,000 people and over 30 million data points. And I'll share more about that shortly, along with a whole bunch of other insights. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between

me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So these sparkotypes, how many of them are there well you might start thinking well there's like what 7.8 billion people in the world and we're all kind of our unique selves so there must be 7.8 billion of these unique impulses right turns out that when you start to really ask the question, what is underneath 7.8 billion surface level expressions? What we find out is that there are a very small, mappable, definable set of impulses, of sparkotypes, of sort of DNA level impulses that distill down to only 10. And while we're each some blend, we found that every person tends to have one or two that really are dominant impulses for work that makes you come alive. And I call these your primary and shadow sparkotypes. You can think of your primary

sparkotype as your strongest impulse for work that makes you come alive. And then your shadow, it's not the dark side or the opposite. It lives in the shadow of your primary. So you can think of it as the next strongest or the runner up. But what we've seen over time is that there's often a much more nuanced relationship between these two. Many people actually do the work of their shadow sparkotype. They're good at it. They enjoy it. They're skilled at it, but they do it in no small part because it allows them to do the work of the primary at a much higher level. So my primary sparkotype is what I call the maker. So my impulse for effort, the impulse for the maker, it is a fiercely creative and generative impulse.

It is all about making ideas manifest. And I had been wired that way since I was a kid. My folks used to drive me down to the town dump on a Saturday morning in the town that I grew up in. Yes, I grew up in one of those towns where there was legitimately an old place where everyone brought their stuff on Sunday mornings. And we'd crack open the back of the old Chevy Blazer loaded up with bike parts. And then I'd bring them home and duct tape them together to create my own Franken bikes and ride them around the neighborhood until they imploded and usually came back for band-aids.

And this same impulse over the years, it has fueled me to invest stunning amounts of time and effort and energy and resources in everything from painting to home renovation, to building companies, brands, immersive experiences, media, books, and beyond. The through line through all of it, that DNA level driver of effort has been the opportunity to create something from nothing. And I am incredibly fortunate to have figured out ways to build a living around that impulse enough to sustain myself in the world. But the truth is my greatest reward, the reason I work so hard at it, harder than any job I have ever had working for anyone else as an entrepreneur who is driven by the process of creation.

I work that way simply for the feeling that it gives me. It lets me feel alive. So that's revelation number one, that we all have this hidden imprint, our sparkotype, and we all have the primary and the shadow, our strongest and runner-up impulses. And when we do work that aligns with those, lets those be centered, we come more fully alive. But there's something else that's important to talk about here. Revelation, let's call this revelation number two. Another giant insult. And it took a few extra years beyond the initial research on the primary and shadow sparkotype and millions of data points in discovering.

We all have a unique imprint on the opposite side of the spectrum for work that empties us out. And I call this your anti-sparketype. So when you do the work of your anti-sparketype, whether it's a required part of a job or endeavor or role, or whether you actively opt to do it, it takes inordinately more energy than often it objectively, quote, should. It leaves you emptier than you expect and often requires both the greatest external motivation and the most recovery when you say yes to it. And it's not necessarily that you don't like it. It's that it literally feels like it's warring with something inside of you. It just doesn't come as easily as the work of your primary in shadow.

Even if from the outside looking in, it's not so hard. You can invest in becoming competent, even highly skilled at this work. And that feeling of competence can often offset the intrinsic depletion with the feeling of growth and accomplishment. And that really helps us navigate when we feel like we have to do some of the work of our anti-sparketype, either because it's a part of our quote J-O-B or it's aligned with values that are important to us. And that's part of the reason we say yes to it. It will help you get the work done faster and more efficiently and with less effort, but still that work, the work of your anti-sparketype will likely never become a truly organically

fulfilling and enlivening experience for you on anywhere near the level of the work of your primary. It will just become kind of more manageable, less empty. And the thing is, all of us very often have to do this work. Some of the time, whether it's a part of our job requirement or tethered, as I mentioned earlier, to a desire to honor sacred value that wraps around doing that work. My anti-sparketype is what I call the essentialist, which is all about creating order and clarity and utility from chaos. It's about systems and process and efficiency and productivity. And as a serial bootstrapped entrepreneur, I have had to learn how to get good at this, especially in the early days when I just don't have the resources to delegate.

Knowing your anti-sparketype doesn't release you from having to do the work of it, but it allows you a certain sense of both acceptance and forgiveness about the way it makes you feel. And it helps you know when to see if you can team or delegate or allow time for self-care and recovery when it is going to be a part of what you do. So your anti-sparketype and your sparketype, they work together in a really powerful way. The more you can do the work of your primary and shadow sparketype, the more you come alive. And the more you can step away from the work of your anti-sparketype,

the less of a drag in your system there is. And they tie together into something that a lot of people have been feeling in a very powerful way over the last 18 months. And it's a word that has been kicked around almost nonstop. And that word is burnout. So it's kind of funny. It's not really funny actually, but we act like this the last two years or so, the pandemic is the source of burnout, of this epidemic of burnout that we have been seeing. And sure, it has made things worse in a lot of ways for a lot of people. It's extended business hours. It's blurred lines between home and work.

And later on, a backdrop of family logistics, physical and emotional upset and risk and fear. And those circumstances have all exacerbated the problem. We have an almost obliteration of boundaries in our lives these days where everything feels like it's flooding into everything else. But all of these things, all of these circumstances, they're the lighter fluid for the fire of burnout, but they're not the log. They're not the source fuel. The deeper issue, it's a relentless heaviness and overwhelm and disengagement and discontent that has been fueling the burnout fire for decades now. The pandemic has just fanned those flames to a point where we can no longer ignore the sensation

of our lives' candles burning down as we burn out. There's something so much bigger going on in the context of burnout that nobody's really addressing. And that is a deeper existential epicenter of this phenomenon that is steeped in a profound misalignment between the essential nature of work that fills people up, the work that innately empties them out, and the work that they are doing. I'll never in my life burn out on eating New York City pizza or dark chocolate, nor will I burn out in hiking in gorgeous mountains, loving people I cannot get enough of, or making physical objects with my hands that nourish me for no other reason than the ability to satisfy my unquenchable impulse to create, to exert effort, often tireless, fierce,

many, many, many, many, many hours in alignment with my sparkotype. But tell me that I need to be perpetually externally rather than processfocused. Take the act of immersive, generative, ever-novel creation out of my daily experience of effort, and I will wither on the vine. Then drop me into a situation where I'm spending a substantial amount of my time, not only not doing the work of my primary and shadow sparkotype, but doing a lot of the work of my anti-sparkotype, the work that is the heaviest lift and requires the greatest recovery. And you've got a perfect storm for burnout at an epic global scale. You don't need to be doing work that outright wars

with your essential nature, 15 hours a day, six days a week, living and working in the same place, or constantly tethered to your device to feel burnout, it'll happen in half that time, a quarter even. Because the real problem, it lies in a fundamental mismatch between the thing you're being tasked with doing and that innate impulse for effort that makes you come alive, that energizes, inspires, and nourishes us with meaning and purpose and flow. Burnout isn't just about our immediate circumstance. It's about a profound misalignment between the work we're doing and the work we're meant to do. And to fix this problem, we need to not just change the circumstances as so many people are trying to do.

We need to address the deeper issue, the systemic and pervasive misalignment between the work we're doing and the work that flips the switch of our sparkotypes on. Understanding your unique sparkotype profile isn't the only thing that matters, but it's central to your ability to come alive, to reverse the effects of burnout and to stay smart regardless of your job, your role, your title industry, and no matter how circumstances change, both circumstances within that you can control and circumstances around you that maybe you don't have a ton of control over, but that you find yourself in. So by now you're probably thinking, okay, so interesting. If this

sparkotype thing is so important, how do I discover my sparkotype and also my anti-sparkotype? How do I know what my primary shadow are and what that thing all the way on the other side is that I want to sidestep as much as I can. So over a period of years, we have been doing some pretty intensive research on this question and developed two powerhouse tools for you to do just that. So I want to share both of them with you and then walk you through the different types and also walk you through a step-by-step approach to tapping your unique Sparketype profile to spark your work and life. Let's start out with those two key tools. So one, the sparkotype assessment. In 2018,

we kind of vanished into the lab and spent about an entire year developing an assessment that was designed to help people tease out their primary and shadow sparkotypes through answering a series of dynamic prompts that would get them to a place of real clarity within about 10 or 15 minutes. And then a few years later, as we started building on the research on this, we added in the element of the anti-sparkotype. We had developed a whole more, much more refined and optimized algorithm that allowed us to share this. Since releasing that assessment at the end of 2018, close to 650,000 people have now completed it with 5 to 10,000 more completing it every week, generating over 30 million data points. So we are sitting on a stunning amount of insight,

ideas, and validation. And the stories and awakenings that have been shared over that same window have really just been breathtaking. And not just from individuals who are really tapping these tools to make better informed decisions. We're hearing from companies and foundations, schools, professors, coaches, leaders, who've shared the Sparkpes with their organizations. And it's leading to amazing conversations and connections and awakening and change. And that tool, the Sparketype assessment is freely available for all online. You can find it at sparketype.com or just click the link in the show notes. We'll drop a link right into the show notes. You can even hit pause on this episode if you want

and click that link and take your assessment right now. And within a really short amount of time, you will discover your primary shadow and anti-sparka types. And most people say it is an incredibly powerful moment of discovery for them. They feel like they have been seen in a way that often for decades, they haven't felt seen. And they have language to describe this deeper impulse that has been with them from their earliest days. But there's another tool that we have added to

this with so many people having moved through the assessment over a period of years now and generated so many insights and so many incredible stories and applications and use cases. The question kept coming, can we go deeper? So last year, actually about two years ago, I started working on a book that would take you from the brief insights from the assessment, the free online sparkotype assessment, way deeper into your sparkotype. And that book came out at the end of last year. The book is called Sparked, and it is effectively a deep dive into all 10 sparkotypes. So for those who actually have taken the assessment and you're curious to go even deeper into your unique sparkotype profile and learn what each of the elements means, and maybe even understand the sparkotypes of those around you. Learn how to

tap your sparkotype, make better decisions and effectively launch your own sparked career or role or devotion or company. Whether you stay or leave or start something new, all of the insights are gathered from the assessment along with a mountain of stories and observations and deeper research and correlations with decades of experimentation, observation, teaching, thousands of stories and use cases into the book Spark. So once you've taken the Sparketype assessment and discovered your primary, shadow, and anti, it is a fantastic next step to deep dive, especially if you're thinking about taking your own big step and you want to help ensure that you're saying yes to more of what genuinely will fill you up and no to what will very likely empty

you out. And those two amazing tools, you'll find a link in the show notes to both, to the assessment and to the book, which is available pretty much everywhere. By the way, if the book is not something which is financially accessible to you, that's fine. Just go find it at your local library, borrow it from a friend, whatever it is, so that you can just spend some time diving into your chapters at a bare minimum. And you don't have to wait because what I'd love to do is also share a little bit more about not just the 10 types, but a process that we've been developing to help you understand how do I actually tap my sparkotypes to make better decisions, to change the way I feel, to come alive. As I step into this new year,

as I look ahead at how I want to say yes to the work that I'm doing and how I want to reimagine or reinvent or have a fresh start in the work or the career that I'm doing and be able to do something that doesn't just cover me financially, which of course matters, but actually lets me come alive. I'd love to share some ideas. I'll help you do that. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. let's start out by just really quickly thumbnail in the 10 different types here the 10 different sparky types so we start out with the maven and the impulse of the maven is all about knowledge

acquisition. It is all about the quest to learn more. You wake up in the morning and all you want to do is know more by the time you go to bed. And that can show up in a lot of ways. It is a very internally satisfied impulse. Behind that, we have the maker. And as I shared, the maker is my primary sparkotype. And the deep impulse of the maker is to make ideas manifest. It's all about the process of creation. It is a fiercely generative impulse.

The scientist comes next. And the inner drive of the scientist is to figure things out. It is all about burning questions, puzzles, and problems. And very often the thornier, the deeper, the more nuanced and complex, the more engaged, the more lit up the scientist becomes when they can say yes to that. Next, we have the essentialist. And the work of the essentialist, remember I said that the essentialist is actually my anti-sparketype. The impulse of the essentialist, remember I said that the essentialist is actually my anti-sparkotype. The impulse of the essentialist is to create order from chaos, to create clarity, to create systems and very often process that allows chaos, allows all sorts of desperate information or ideas or things to somehow magically come into a place of order and effectiveness and efficiency and

clarity and understanding. And what we've learned about the essentialist over time is that when they're functioning at the highest level, they actually experience that as elegance and art. The performer is all about taking moments, interactions, or experiences, and energizing, animating, and infusing them, making the container of the moment come alive. Behind the performer, we have the warrior. And the impulse for the warrior is to gather people together and to lead them along a journey from where they are to a deeply desired end state. Next, we have the sage. And the impulse for the sage is all about awakening insight. It's about the experience of illumination. A sage very often spends a lot of time learning, but they don't learn simply for the joy of learning. They

learn because they want something to share that is worthy of sharing. The advisor comes next behind the sage. And the deeper impulse for the advisor is to guide people through a process of growth. And that is a deeply relational and outward facing, very often sustained over time, impulse. And after the advisor, we have the advocate. The impulse for the advocate is all about championing. It's about shining a light on ideas, ideals, communities, individuals. This is somebody who's generally fiercely motivated to never look away when they feel like there's any level of injustice or inequity. And finally, the 10th sparkotype, the nurturer, is all about elevation. It's about lifting others up. It's about giving care and taking care, often when nobody else will. These are the 10 different

sparkotypes. And what I've just shared is a necessarily super shorthanded overview of these 10 different types. You'll actually learn a solid chunk more when you complete the sparketype assessment yourself, and you will learn a metric ton more about your unique blend of primary shadow and anti-sparketype when you dive into your full expansive chapters in the book, including things like where you come alive, where you stumble, all sorts of studies and use cases, and how people who share your profile tend to figure out how to earn a living doing it. So hearing these basic descriptions, you may well have a feel for what you are or maybe aren't, but go ahead and take this assessment. As I mentioned, it's free. And if you want to dive into in the book, but don't stop there. Don't stop just at

the place of saying, oh, I've discovered this thing which feels real and valuable and resonant and powerful. Take that insight and use it. Start to tap it to reclaim work. So the way most work leaves us somewhere between flatlined and disillusioned to gut it is not a good thing. If you're lucky, maybe you found pieces of joy, ways to let your sparkotype out, but never really understood what's underneath the feeling of being able to more consistently make choices that let you do more of what makes

you come alive. More of the work of your sparkotype, less of the work of your anti-sparkotype. Knowing your profile and deepening into it, it gives you the power to do just that. And while some might feel they need to entirely change jobs or companies or industries to make it happen, I'm actually a huge fan, a huge advocate for a gentler, less disruptive, at least first step in. Sometimes you do end up down the road, having to blow things up to really get the fresh start that you're looking for. But that level of change causes a lot of pain for a lot of people. Disruption is not easy. And from what I've seen, way too many people do it prematurely without ever realizing they can approach what they're already doing in a way that may well give them

close to or everything that they need without enduring the stress and pain of a bigger, more disruptive change. So I'm always a huge advocate of taking the steps first that would let you experience change where you are, optimizing and really getting much closer to the feeling of being alive before considering that nuclear career option. And we've developed a lot of ideas and steps and processes and tools around this over the years, including what would be a multi-step process, which is at the heart of what I call our fresh start protocol. So I'd love to walk you through what those seven steps are. Here's a simple overview to think about. And by the way, we revise this on a pretty regular basis as the volume of data and stories and applications and use cases come in, both from

individuals who are using these ideas and tools to make powerful decisions and from organizations and leadership who are using them at scale. So let's just kind of thumbnail. I want to walk you through a basic overview of the seven different, I would say steps, but not even necessarily steps because they're more like stages, the seven different stages of coming alive. Stage one, I call discover. And that is simply discovering what is this deeper impulse inside of you that allows you that feeling of being sparked when you say yes to it. When you exert effort deeply and fiercely, it gives you that feeling of coming alive. So that is basically discovering your sparkotype. I already shared how you can do that. Just go take the assessment.

It's free for everybody. Stage two is what I call the deepen stage. And that's when you actually go a lot deeper into your unique sparkotype profile, into the different elements of it and truly understand what does this look like in the context of my life? What are the unique quirky things about it? How do I see myself in the expression of this blend of primary shadow and anti? Where does it nourish me? Where do I stumble or where does it trigger me to a certain

extent? And how can I set myself up so that I can actually avoid the different things that tend to really pull me off track? And then also, what does it look like when I start to do the work of my Sparker type in my personal life, in my professional life, in my leisure life? So really deepening into this process. And of course, if you want to deepen into it using the tool of the book Spark, that is a great way to do it. Again, buy it, borrow it, take it out from your library, whatever is accessible to you. The third stage is what I call the reframe. This is an internal thing. So it turns out that before we even make any external changes, any changes in circumstance, very often there's this thing that we can do, which will profoundly

change the way that we experience something. We tend to tell a story about the work that we do. And the story that we tell without regard to the actual circumstance or tasks or processes has a profound effect on how we experience it. So if we tell a story that it is devoid of meaning or purpose or the possibility of energy and excitement and flow, and that we can never fully express ourselves, then we will experience that as stifling. But if we can find a way to wrap a different story around what we're doing, it can be astonishingly powerful. And the classic study that Adam Grant, professor at Wharton Business School did that demonstrates this is really beautiful. He looked at the people who were making

phone calls in a call center for a scholarship, raising money for scholarships. Being in a call center, I don't know if you're listening to this, if you've ever been in a call center making calls for money, not often experienced as the most nourishing job. But what Adam did was he brought in a whole bunch of students who had been given scholarships, often first-time college attendees in their families who had never been able to come, but for the fact that they were awarded scholarships, I had them share their stories to the people in the call center. That short five-minute experience allowed the people who were doing the identical job to tell a radically different story about the very same

work that they were doing. One that was not just sort of like I'm bothering people, but one that said, no, I'm actually somebody who is critical in the opportunity for somebody who would never be able to attend college and change the fundamental nature, not just of their life, but potentially their entire family's lives. I'm important in that story. I'm doing meaningful work.

Work with a lot of purpose. And that reframe, the ability to tell a different story was really, really powerful in the way that they experienced the work. So before we even think about making any tweaks or changes to our external circumstances, we think about the story that we are telling ourselves about the work that we're doing. And we think, is there a different story or frame that we can bring to this identical work that will make it, that will infuse it with so much more of what I need? Stage four, reimagine. So the reimagining stage is about staying where you are,

continuing to do what you do, but doing it differently. Doing it in a way that it gives you more of what you want. A great starting point is to take, say, a week and keep a spark task journal. Note what work you do over the course of a week. You can do it longer if you want, or a little bit shorter, five days. Let's you express your primary and shadow sparkotype, and also what falls under the category of your anti-sparkotype. And get as granular as you can without it being too obsessive or overly burdensome. Then commit to doing more of the things after you look at it after that week that align with your primary and shadow and less of the ones that pull you into the weight of your anti. Now, this is not an instant

process. It is a process of re-imagining that may well take weeks, if not months. But once you actually start to note the things, you gain the ability to start doing a lot of re-imagining. So after we talk about re-imagining, that starts the process of optimizing what we're doing. So we've discovered what is that driver that makes us come alive. We've deepened into it so we really understand it. We've done the psychological work of reframing the story we're telling. We've started to reimagine by really paying attention and noting exactly what are the things that activate our anti and also our primary and shadow and starting to do a little bit more of the ones that activate our primary and shadow and less of

the ones that fall into your anti. And then we get to the reinvention phase, right? So things are very likely already on the upscale. We're starting to actually feel better, but maybe we still want more. So we reinvent, we think about what tasks might be available to us, but maybe not directly under our job description. Maybe not things that we can simply do more because we're already doing them. Maybe they fall outside of the domain of what we normally do, but we could do them simply because they're available to us. It has let us feel so much more alive. Maybe without changing jobs or titles or roles or teams or simply helping out in areas where we know that things that make us come alive are needed,

even if they don't fall squarely within our job description. This often becomes something that you can find in helping out somebody who's on a different team or a different role or a different job, but you're around them and you see that there's an opportunity to do more of what makes you come alive. And that assistance would be desired and needed. And this often becomes the first step in re-imagining something that might even grow into something entirely new that did not exist before you started doing this process of reinvention. So there's a wonderful story that I share in the book, Spart, about a dear friend of mine, Sally. And Sally was performing at the highest level. She had graduated extraordinary

school. She was in the media industry and consulting and just a brilliant, brilliant performer. She ended up with cancer and had to pull away from her job and go through treatment. And she reached a point where she was actually at a window where her cobra was running out, which so many people can relate to. And she realized she had to say yes to a new job and go back to work in no small part because she needed benefits to continue on. So she found herself in another large media company in-house and a team. And it wasn't necessarily the work that sparked her that made it come alive, but it was solid and it was stable. And it was taking care of her

financial needs and her health insurance needs. And she realized on the team that there was a lot of strife. So because she just innately was driven to do it, she started playing the role of mentor and advisor. And it turns out her primary spark type is in fact the advisor. And she started just doing that, not because it was in her job description, but because she saw that it was needed on the team, that a number of the people that were on the team with her, she could help by playing that role. So she started doing it and they really started responding and having a better experience. And then in a moment, something happened with the leader of the team that she kind of caught wind of. She just observed

something and she asked very simply, how are you? What's going on? And the leader then started to really share a lot of what was going on, which was underlying a lot of behavior that led to some of the strife within the team. And she played the role of then up-coaching, of basically mentoring and advising somebody who was actually senior to her on her team. And it made a profound change and words start to ripple around and people start to ask her to do more and more of it. And over time, what started as one particular job, because she just started saying yes to doing more of the work of a sparker type in ways that had nothing to do with her job description, because she saw the need for it. She saw there were opportunities to do it. She wasn't getting

compensated additionally just for doing this. She did it because it gave her more of the feeling that she wanted to feel, the feeling of coming alive. People responded to it in a really powerful way. And that eventually ended up allowing her to create an entirely new position that didn't exist in the company where she could do this on a full-time basis. And then even eventually when the pandemic led that role to then no longer be available, she was in such a good position and had been so experienced at what she was doing that she split off and started her own consulting company doing the type of work that she was doing. And that big media company, her previous employer became her first consulting client. So it's such a powerful example of how we can reinvent when we

really understand how to do it. And that brings us to the final two steps in this or two stages, what I would call the fresh start process. And stage six is rediscovering. And that's where we get to a point where we've done all the things before. And very often it makes it a whole lot better, but we're still not entirely there. But also we may not be entirely ready to completely step away from a job or a company or a role. And this is where we rediscover all of the opportunities to become sparked, to come alive outside of our, quote, J-O-B. Think outside of work.

Complement what you do. Look at the activities, the hobbies, the roles, the devotions, the teams, the all sorts of ways that you might actually be able to do more of the work of your spark trait that have nothing to do with the way that you earn your living. You do it simply because the feeling it gives you makes you come alive. And what we've seen is that very often the net effect of a blended, highly optimized job for Sparketypes when you do the first five stages, and then you start to really do more of these things that make you come alive outside of work, the net effect of that blend

can be incredibly powerful and give you so much of what you want. And this can be super important because if you also happen to be somebody who has a sacred value around financial security, and you want to honor that value and not go through a more disruptive stepping away from and restarting and put yourself and maybe a family through that process, that when you can actually do the blended experience and get almost everything that you need and simultaneously honor your sacred value around security and financial integrity, that that puts you in a place where honoring the value alone gives you a complimentary source of meaning, having a optimized job, and then

being able to do the work of your sparker type on the side, whether it's a side hustle that gives you money or just because you love doing it, that gives you everything that you need. Even so, there may be some folks who get to that place and they're still looking for more. They still want a little bit more. And this is where we get to that potential, what I call the nuclear option for some, and what so many people have said yes to in the great resignation, which is, I'm literally going to walk away from everything that I have done before this to find something entirely new. It may be the same industry, but you're doing something very different. Maybe an entirely different company and culture,

maybe even geographically, you're moving. And rather than calling this the new lure option, which has a little bit of a negative sound to it, once somebody has actually moved through the earlier phases, this becomes actually something which may make a lot of sense for people. If you're still at that point where things are a lot better, but you just know that there's something more waiting for you, that you could make it even better. This is where we get to that seventh wayfinding stage, where you've done all of the work, but it's still not quite giving you what you want. And now you're in a position where you are more fully alive. You're more confident and competent.

And now is the time where you start to look for something different, something entirely new to align your efforts with. And now you can do it from a place of being so much better informed about who you are, what makes you come alive, what empties you out, what things you can do to really make whatever you're doing as good as humanly possible, knowing deeply your sparkotype so you know what to look for or create in any new opportunity. And this allows you to then look out at the world of new opportunities. If you want your fresh start to happen outside of the domain of the work that you're currently

doing, now you're equipped in a far more powerful way to understand what to look for or create, what to say yes to, what to say no to, so that you don't end up years later or months later having done something really new and different and having your big change end up becoming the big regret. So of course, there are plenty of other things that we consider in this process. We all have different life circumstances and there are other factors that added to your sparkotype are super important in doing what makes you come alive. And we walk you through a lot of

that entire process. In fact, we walk you through the entire seven-stage fresh start process and actually introduce a collection of complementary metrics along with a powerful additional tool or really set of tools in our fresh start experiences. And that means looking for a fresh start within the job or the organization that you're already within, but re-imagining it or going through the process and realizing that your unique personal fresh start, it happens by doing something entirely different. move is going to be so that I don't make a big misstep that leaves me down the road feeling the same way and that I really understand what to say yes to, what to create along the way to fully come alive. If you're interested in going much deeper into this process, we have some really powerful, beautiful programming available for you. And again, you can just find that in the link in the show notes below. In fact, we have a

super cool half-day virtual workshop coming up later in the month of January that you can check out. Just check out the link in the show notes. So I want to come full circle in our conversation. What I've shared here is kind of the tip of the sparkotype iceberg. We're having so much fun and gathering so many more insights as we work with the Sparketypes and our team to develop and expand on these tools and with some really eye-opening and powerful research and revelations that will be coming your way over the course of 2022 and additional programming and support around them, some of which we've been sharing with big organizations and some which are available and super appropriate for individuals who are just trying to understand, how do I make a really smart next step? How do I find my fresh start

in a way that will truly make me come alive? So my intention here has really been just to share what I can to get you started, to help you discover what your primary and shadow sparkotypes are, to learn a bit more about them and start taking the steps to reclaim your work and understand how to transform it from a source that often empties you into something that fuels you, something that makes you come alive without overwhelming you. Start with the simple explorations I offered above. And if for some reason you still haven't completed the assessment, go ahead and do it now. You can find the link at sparkotype.com or in the show notes just below. And no matter where you go from here, remember, we are never condemned to work at something that leaves us utterly empty. There may be elements of

your work that are not beautiful, that are not deeply aligned expressions of your essence, but more than ever, more than we all thought possible in what seems like the more basic service oriented or even mundane jobs. When we understand, when we truly understand what sparks us, what makes us come alive and also what empties us out, we can start looking for, finding, or creating ways to bring more of the work that makes us come alive into what we do and less of the work that truly drains us and put ourselves in a position where we understand what to say yes to, what to say no to, what to reimagine, what to reinvent, what to reframe, and when it just might be appropriate to make a bigger move so that we can get to a place where we think about the work

that we're doing. When we think about the fact that we are going to be doing something that comes under the domain of work, very likely for the vast majority, for the average person, at least 50% of their waking hours for almost the rest of their lives. When we think about the opportunity that we have to transform that experience into something that truly elicits joy and possibility and purpose and meaning and flow and allows us to feel fully expressed, to be sparked. That is a quest worth saying yes to. And my intention in sharing these ideas and these tools and the body of work around the sparkotypes is to help you step into this quest to maybe for the first time understand what it is that makes you come alive, and then start to make decisions and

take actions that align the work you do for the rest of your life with those deeper impulses. And before I sign off and deliver you back into our regular twice a week conversations, if you haven't yet listened to our deep dives from the last two weeks on success scaffolding and the good life buckets, be sure to download those episodes and listen as soon as you can. And again, this is part of a really powerful January Jumpstart series. So if you haven't followed or subscribed to the podcast yet, go ahead and just take a second to do that so you don't miss an episode. And of course, we've got a PDF for you to download. You'll find the link in the show notes. I hope you found this valuable

and I am super excited to continue to share this weekly series throughout the month of January with you. See you next time. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project. Thank you. Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. Tell me how to fly this thing. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him!

Y'all need a pilot?