Good Life Project - How to Reclaim Work & Come Back to Life

Episode Date: August 12, 2021

Work, as we know it, is broken. Has been for a long time. But this moment we're in has brought it home like never before. And, now, it's time for a reclamation! We spend the majority of our adult life working. If what you do empties you out, burns you out, or leaves you disconnected from what truly matters to you, that's a brutally hard way to live. BUT, if what you do fills you with meaning, energy and excitement, drops you into flow, and gives you a sense of purpose and joy, that's an amazing thing.Question is - how do you KNOW what kind of work will give you all the life-elevating feelings you seek? A big part of the puzzle is discovering and deepening into your Sparketype® - your unique imprint for work that makes you come alive. You can discover yours now by taking the Sparketype Assessment.Then, grab your copy of the groundbreaking new book by Jonathan Fields - SPARKED: Discover Your Unique Imprint for Work that Makes You Come Alive - to know yourself like never before, feel seen, embraced, and finally understand how to reclaim the way you work and transform it into a source of joy, meaning, purpose and possibility.Pre-order now get some incredible bonuses.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So ever wonder, what am I actually doing with my life? Turns out, you're not alone. This last year and a half has been pretty hard on many levels and for many reasons. And it's also been a huge wake-up call, especially in the context of work. Tens of millions of people are considering leaving jobs, even well-paying ones, to find new work, often without even having the next opportunity lined up. Tens of millions more are wondering seriously about how to do this thing called work differently. Why? Because they've realized that the thing they've

been doing, it doesn't make them feel the way they want to feel. It empties rather than fills. It tends to flatline rather than excite. We're hearing the word burnout a ton right now. It burns out rather than energizes and inspires and things like meaning or purpose or joy, they pretty much left the building if they were ever even there in the context of work. Smart people, capable people with so much to give are realizing en masse, there's got to be a better way to spend the vast majority of my waking hours for the rest of my life. And the question is, where do you go from here? That is exactly what we're diving into in today's special episode of Good Life Project. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. We'll be to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk.

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 eight 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. Okay, so let's dive back into that question. If maybe you're considering making a bigger change, thinking of joining what's become known now as the great resignation, how do you choose a genuinely better future and avoid making an even bigger mistake that turns it into the great regret, leaving you kind of equally unhappy because you never truly understood what to walk towards. You were just so focused on what you were walking away from. And if you just want to feel more alive, maybe you're not joining that great resignation, but you want to do something that makes you feel more alive, more fulfilled, excited, connected to meaning without having to walk away from everything. Even if you're not looking to

make a big change, how can you reimagine your work and do it differently so that you feel so much better and it gives you so much more? Not occasionally, not on that random, you know, like endorphin hit of when things just happen to align, you have no idea what happened, but on a persistent basis, every day, not all the time, because that's a little bit too perfect. But how do you feel that feeling of meaningfulness and aliveness and purpose and express potential on a pretty regular basis without having to blow everything up? So a big part of the answer has been right in front of us the whole time. You cannot come alive in work or life until you know what makes

you come alive. Let me repeat that. You cannot come alive in work or life until you know what makes you come alive. And discovering that powerful unlock key is where we're headed in today's conversation. So, you know, this thing keeps scrolling in my head. I keep wondering when it happened. And that it that I'm talking about is, you know, we all start into life with the best intentions, excited by the possibility of finding something to do with our lives that fills us up, something that excites and inspires us, kind of gives us a sense of genuine meaning and purpose and joy. And yet over time, for so many, that sense of hope and anticipation fades into discontent and surrender, especially when it comes to work. The thing that occupies most

of our waking hours, often from our late teens through the rest of our lives. And yet it's so often the thing we give up on the fastest. The idea that work could be a powerful source of fulfillment, meaning, and expression, once you're a few years in, for so many, it just becomes this thing where it seems like it's an impossible dream. It was this delusion that we stepped into, so we just kind of let it go. We walk away from it. And no doubt some of us made a conscious choice. We decided early on that work itself cannot or need not be its own source of true fulfillment beyond providing the money to live the way you want to live, which of course is important. I am not somebody who dismisses how important that is for so many of us. I'm a

grownup with responsibilities in the world that matters. And others never actually made a conscious choice to settle. It just kind of happened. Like that's just how work is. And the thing is, no matter how you landed in this moment, we're all starting to realize everything has a price. Even the choices we make by never choosing. And in the case of work, that price is a kind of yearning discontent. Like we know we're made for something different, something bigger, something more. Like we have so much more to give, so much more life to be lived, so much more joy and excitement and purpose, but we've got no idea how to access it, let alone what it even is. So we just keep on keeping on, you know, hoping to feel different one day, but never doing anything to make it happen. And this recent season, this recent moment, this upside down, topsy-turvy,

massively disruptive, the world is not the same moment for so many has brought this all center stage. We've been reminded that life can be tender and sometimes fleeting. And the feeling that our work is giving us, whether it's gutting or fine, it's not the feeling we want to define the rest of our lives. We're starting to own the fact that it's no longer enough to just get by, to work and live in the gray. We don't just want to feel alive in the margins when work is over. We want to feel that way from the time we open our eyes in the morning

to the time we close them at night, or at least get as close as we possibly can in the context of our unique life circumstances. This moment that we're in, it's a hard place to be for so many, for so many reasons, but also a powerful place to be. On the precipice, invited to reconsider how we will choose to participate in the co-creation of the rest of our lives. It has shattered our model of the world of life and of work and how it's quote supposed to be. It's woken us up to the choices and assumptions and limitations we have accepted without testing and the possibilities that we have assumed for far

too long just weren't ours to claim. It's also brought us to reckon with the larger and very real contexts and paradigms, inequities, and opportunities that exist. We're seeing more clearly than ever before, and we're facing often hard truths. And I don't know if you're saying this, but what so many are realizing, I'm hearing this in conversation after conversation after conversation, from people who've been struggling for years to get by to people who are seemingly at the top of industry, it almost doesn't matter. What so many are realizing is that we're done. We don't want the next 20 years to keep feeling the same. Whether that's the feeling of getting by or in what's becoming achingly common, the feeling of being burned out, overwhelmed, exhausted, and pushed to the point of breaking. And folks are starting to realize there's just

got to be a better way to work, to give, and to live. Not in a sugar-coated, delusional, or Pollyanna kind of way. I mean, there are real, sometimes hard realities to deal with, to unwind, to reimagine. But alongside them, there's also this renewed sense of possibility, of purpose we do with it, with this moment? Because faster than you can imagine, it will end. And if we don't harness its energy, then we will have lost not just an opportunity to reclaim a piece of our humanity, but of humanity writ large. Do we walk away and start over? Well, that's what a lot of people have started to do and will continue to do en masse

in the coming year. Depending on the research you look at, it seems like almost a new report or a new survey comes out pretty much every day at this point. But something like 25 to 75% of the population will be looking to change jobs. In fact, many already are. They're in the middle of that process. And they're leaving their current jobs without even having something else to go to at all levels. I just had a friend tell me that six people that this person knows at the highest level have left and they don't know what's next. And I have other friends telling me that folks who've been working really tough jobs are walking away too. And the problem is, for most, this option, it's actually not so easy or realistic in the adult, grown-up world where you've got a life and responsibilities. Plus, truth is, for most people, a new job won't actually change much, if anything. The way you feel, it'll stay the same.

The way you dream of work making you feel, it'll remain a dream. Because the answer for most people, it's not a new job or boss or team or company or industry or career. In fact, those other factors we so often blame for the way we're feeling, they're not the enemy or even the source of our dissatisfaction. Well, most of the time at least. They actually want to solve the problem as much as we do. It's a pretty safe bet. A big percentage of folks who walk away from their work now will find themselves a year or two or three or five down the road sitting in a new office, different paint on the walls, a new culture, boss, team, product, service, company, industry, and equally empty.

And this time even more dejected because they've blown up everything they had worked so hard to create and endured the pain of the disruption of leaving. But now they found themselves a few years older, yet equally unfulfilled, and now even less equipped to understand how or why to feel differently and really questioning whether they ever can. So the real answer here is it's not so much about external circumstances. They play a part. But the real answer, it's an inside job. So I've spent the last two decades of my life immersed in the study of human potential and fulfillment, especially in the context of work. So many of the conversations that we have had over the years here on Good Life Project, they've talked about all aspects of life, but

they very often end up landing and centering around this notion of what a person is doing. The work, whether it's the thing they get paid for or whether it's their role or their devotion or some blend of all of those things. And in no small part, my own experience has informed a lot of my quest to really understand the human condition and to try and do things differently. In a past life, working in human hours, suffering extreme burnout, having no sense of purpose beyond making it through any given day, and eventually watching my immune system collapse, leading to a massive abdominal abscess that required emergency surgery. And this was when I was working in a very past life, actually, two and a half decades ago as a mega firm lawyer in New York City. And I came out of that experience really shaken,

but also awakened with this fire in my belly to better understand how to do work differently. And since then, I've launched and built a series of wellness companies on my terms though, not the way that the market told me I'm supposed to. I have devoured a mountain of academic studies. The geek side of me is alive and well, and even helped conduct this pretty groundbreaking university study on yoga and physiology back in the day. Taught tens of thousands of people from around the world, actually trained hundreds of teachers and developed a lot of programming with amazing teams of people. I never take universal or full credit for any of this. It's always a group effort. Everything from yoga to meditation to art, conscious business, leadership, innovation, I've had the incredible

gift of access to hundreds of world-renowned researchers and leading voices from nearly every domain that touches on human flourishing. And our longtime listeners will have heard many of those conversations. And I have run, as the sort of citizen scientist that I am, countless personal experiments, large and small, in an unending quest to validate and deepen into what's real. Not what's fluff, not what I hear, but what is real. What works, not in a laboratory, but in the real world. And to understand what moves the needle and then jettison what doesn't. And over time, I began to realize in the quest to find and do work that fills us up. So we tend to focus really narrowly on the job or role or field or pursuit. We've pretty much come up with every way imaginable to tweak these elements.

And despite this, we're no more fulfilled than we were a generation ago, even two generations ago. In fact, the data shows we're way less satisfied, more burned out, emptier than ever, disconnected, disengaged, and less happy and motivated than ever before. And this, by the way, this, by the way, was before the last year and a half to two years. This is not a recent phenomenon. This has been brewing for generations. This yearning, malaise, discontent, burnout, all of that, it's coming to a head now, but this is not new. And we all know that in our bones. And I began to wonder, what are we missing? I knew there had to be something else. And along the way, especially in the context of work, I came to believe something I never imagined I'd believe. I began to see patterns emerge that

crossed all the different fields and experiences, information and experiments that I had been immersing myself in for years. And this deeper, more primal realization began to emerge. We all have a certain DNA level imprint for work that makes us come alive. Work that fills us with meaning, drops us into that transcendent state of flow. Work that excites and inspires us and fills us with purpose and possibility and fully expressed gives us that feeling like we're doing the thing we were put here to do. And these imprints, they almost always lie hidden underneath all the surface levels, jobs and titles and industries that for so many have had the effect of inadvertently obscuring and distracting us from seeing the deeper impulse. but it was always there, like some kind of secret

source code that determines what energizes and animates you and what stifles and empties you. We never looked for them because we didn't know they existed. And in turn, we've stayed blind to what's really been happening. So I launched a bit of a quest. I started mapping out these imprints and it started with a huge number and distilled down fairly rapidly. And somewhere along the way, I gave them a name, Sparketypes, which is really just a fun way of saying the impulse for work that sparks you. And I thought I would share a short excerpt from my new book, Sparked, that really gets to the heart of what these powerful imprints are.

So here's what I wrote. For most people, discovering your sparkotype is like meeting your true self. There is an immediate intuitive knowing and undeniable truth that explains so many past choices and outcomes. It empowers you to not only understand who you are and why you do what you do, but also how you contribute to the world on a very different, more intentional, and fulfilling level. It sparks your life and ignites those around you. Discovering your sparkotype is often described as a homecoming, a recognition that yes, this is me, and it's worthy of my time, energy, and attention. While words like life purpose or singular passion often lead people down a path of confusion and futility rather than

clarity and action, finding your sparkotype gives you the exact opposite. It equips you with insight that immediately rings true, a sense of direction, and the freedom to finally lead from a place of truth and potential. It allows you to let go of a lifetime of scattered and perpetually unfulfilling wheel spinning. It frees you from all the less nourishing distractions and allows you to devote your energy to finding the incredible vast kaleidoscope of pursuits, careers, projects, and adventures that let you express your unique imprint on a level that makes you come more fully alive. And you don't have to buy into anyone, Argent story or catchphrase or set of beliefs to experience the self-evident, sustained nature and guiding influence of your sparkotype.

You just have to discover yours and then weave it into the way you live and give. The feeling it gives back to you, the way those around you begin to respond when you live and play and work from this place will be all the validation, all the proof you need. Now, of course, a few questions immediately arise. The most common, how many sparkotypes are there? So the quick answer is 10. I kind of wish it wasn't 10 because it feels a little too slick to be honest with you, but that is where the research has landed. Funny enough, we began with a slightly larger number, 7.8 billion, the number of people in the world. We're each unique, I figured. So there must also be 7.8 billion unique imprints. We cannot be distilled, right? So not so fast. The sparkotype

is a bit like your DNA. On the surface, it may express itself in billions of unique, gloriously you and only you ways. But when you start to peel each person's purpose, engagement, meaning, expression, and flow onion, billions of valid surface-level, time-limited, circumstance-driven expressions, they reduce down to a remarkably small set of source code-level elements or imprints. And this leaves us with 10 distinct DNA-level drivers, the sparkotypes. So I'd love to share a bit actually about each of the 10 sparkotypes. So you might start to get a sense for what your deeper impulse for work that makes you come alive might be. And then I'm actually going to show you how to move beyond

guessing and know exactly what your sparkotype profile is and all the different elements of it. So let's talk about these 10 different types. 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 eight 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. So first up is what I call the maven. The maven lives to learn. You are powered by fascination, by endless curiosity, and a perpetual desire to know more. You wake up in the morning and you

look around and you're thinking, what can I learn? And this sometimes shows up as a fascination in a very specific topic or area or even with a person or a person's life. And you go narrow and deep and that may keep you going for a long time. Other times it shows up as this broad, vast interest in learning everything about everything and everyone. And you're just constantly perpetually asking questions, even if you have no idea what you're going to do with what you've learned, because that's not what it's about for you. It's simply about the opportunity to know more. And this can show up in a lot of ways that are massively helpful, but it can also be seen from the outside world as people kind of saying, well, you're spending a lot of time and energy going deep into this thing. What are you going to do with that, with what you're learning, with what you're discovering, with what you're knowing more about? And the funny thing is for the maven, there's often a lot of things that you can do with it, but that's not why they're

doing what they're doing. The impulse is simply knowledge acquisition. So the maker is our second one. The maker lives to create. It's all about making ideas manifest. Now the maker happens to be what we call my primary sparkotype. And I'll share more about what that means in just a few minutes. I wake up in the morning and I see things to be created. I see opportunities to take ideas and turn them into something real. And I have been this way since I was a kid. In fact, most of these things touched down in the earliest moments of our lives. I used to have my parents drive the old Chevy Blazer down to the town dump in the town that I grew up in. And we'd throw a bunch of old bike parts into the back and then drive back home.

And I'd steal away in the garage with all the parts and a whole bunch of duct tape. And I'd duct tape them together into Franken-bikes and drive them around the neighborhood. I was constantly making things. And the interesting thing about the maker impulse is it doesn't necessarily show up earlier than the other imprints, but it tends to be recognized earlier. And the reason is because we have endless opportunities that get presented to us at the earliest of age. And the maker impulse is rewarded from the youngest age by parents, by teachers. So we are always told to make things. And when we do it, we're rewarded for it. It's not necessarily the same with all the impulses. So we tend to notice it a lot earlier in life and then build around it.

So that's me. The third sparkotype is what I call the scientist. The scientist is all about figuring things out. Burning questions, problems, puzzles, quandaries are your muse. You wake up in the morning and if you have a thorny issue that needs figuring out, then you're really happy. If it's a big complex thing, more power to you. If it keeps you going for days, hours, weeks, months, years, sometimes even, that is the amazing place for you to be. You get lost in the question. The more burning it is and the bigger the need for a solution, the happier, the more fulfilled you are diving completely into it. So much though, that you can kind of get lost in the process. What you do, often the solutions that you find, the answers

to the questions can have huge value to other people, to society, to industry, which you love is super cool. And often that's the basis upon which you're paid. But it's actually not why you do it. You do it because you have this impulse and the ability to let it loose, to just immerse yourself in it, is what nourishes you. It's what makes you come alive. Next up, we have what I call the essentialist. Now, the essentialist is driven to create order out of chaos. The essentialist is about as far from me as you could possibly go. This is the opposite impulse for me. And we'll talk about what that means in a few minutes too. You think in systems and love to create clarity. For the essentialist, it's all about taking disparate things, taking chaos, taking disruption, whether it's physical items, whether it is data, whether it is whatever it may

be, and you bring it together and you somehow create order, you create clarity, you create utility. For the essentialist, most people run from this work because they're not wired for it. For the essentialist, the more they have the opportunity to do this, the more they come alive. And it's not just about creating order and clarity and utility. There's something deeper here because the essentialist tends to view order and clarity as beauty and elegance. And in your mind, you are creating beauty and elegance beyond clarity and utility. You step back from what you've created and there is something kind of magical about it to you. So next up we have the performer. The performer

makes moments magic. You're drawn to animating and enlivening interactions and experiences. And this impulse very often shows up in the earliest days. And on the one hand, when you're really young, it tends to be rewarded. People love it when you're that person. But as you get older, very often people get concerned about it. Culturally, sometimes you're told, well, you shouldn't be standing out like that, or you shouldn't be centering things around you. Or parents and family will sometimes get concerned that the only legit expression of this impulse is performing arts, which is completely wrong by the way.

And they'll freak out and think, well, you'll never be able to support yourself because very few people make it in that world. And they will literally push you away from the impulse. They may even tell you that it's not real, not because they're trying to shut you down or stifle you, but because they're concerned about your ability to sustain yourself down the road. So very often we see the performer as being amongst the most stifled of all of the

impulses. And when people circle back to it and realize, oh, this doesn't actually have to be as a performing artist. This can show up in a boardroom, in a bar, this can show up in a conversation, this can show up in consulting, this can show up in nearly anything. It's the ability to take the relational moment, the interaction, and somehow bring it alive with energy and magic. That is incredibly powerful, and it can happen in nearly any domain. When you realize that, everything changes. Next up, we have the warrior. Now, the warrior gathers and leads people through challenges and quests and adventures. It's an impulse to bring people together. And very often, the warrior, which is among the rarest of impulses, by the way, that's the one that shows up really early too. So if you were the kid who was out on the playground with all the other five and

six-year-olds gathering them up to go on an adventure or to play a game and then leading them through this thing, well, that may be an interesting tell that that warrior impulse has been fueling the way that you move through the day, your years, your life, the way that you bring people together on the quest to do something with them. And very often you're one of those people. That impulse is incredibly powerful, but it can also sometimes be stifled early on if you try and take the lead before people sort of believe that you have the chops to be able to do it effectively. And this often shows up, not when you're a kid, because very often you're rewarded as a kid, but in the early days of work. And you may have experienced that.

You really want to be the one to bring people together. So a lot of times warriors find powerful leadership positions, but they may often decide that they want to create their own container to express this impulse. Now the sage is the next one. The sage unlocks insight. It's all about illumination. It's about seeing the light of understanding go on in others. You may spend a lot of time learning things or mastering things or developing a certain set of skills, but for you, you're really doing it because you have the impulse to turn around and as soon as you can, in every way that you can, share it with other people so that they know too, so that the insights that you've discovered have now become the insights that are awakened in them and

they can go out into the world and use them. You love to illuminate. That is the fundamental energy of the sage. Next up, we have the advisor. Now, the advisor guides people in an intimate, trusting way through a process of growth. The ability to create sustained, trusting, intimate relationships is really important in this impulse being expressed in the healthiest and most full way. To create a container of trust and safety is a powerful part of this impulse. To know that the people that you're working with, whether it's one person as a client or a consultant or patient or a group of people or an entire organization or a massive community, to help guide them not from point A to point B, but through a process of growth and evolution in a very hands-on, intimate, I'm with you,

but I'm not of you way is what you're here for. Interestingly, the advisor has this impulse come out very often from the youngest age two. And similarly, in the early part of their career, they may be sort of looked at with a raised eyebrow because the impulse is there. But people kind of look at them and say, well, you haven't earned the place to be able to do that yet, even though every cell in your body wants to. So sometimes there can be a little bit of struggle there. The advisor often

is the one that says for my entire life, everyone has been coming to me asking for my advice, asking me to tell them what to do. And the funny thing is, and I write about this in a lot more detail actually in Spark, is that that is actually amongst the lowest level of advising. True or higher level advising happens when you actually stop talking. A little bit of a counterintuitive thing there. And we're rolling into the final two of those 10 Sparkotypes now. The advocate. The advocate is all about championing everything from ideas to ideals.

You shine the light and often lead the charge. You see injustice, you see inequity, you see an idea that's not being given the attention that it needs, you see a community, whatever it is, there's something in you where when you see something, you feel the impulse to champion in a really powerful way. It's not so much that you're giving voice, definitely debatable whether that's something that anyone can do for another being, at least another human being. Maybe you can for animals or for the environment, but it is more about joining with and becoming part of a process of shining the light, of championing. And very often that involves change and disruption, which can be challenging for the advocate, but also stifling this impulse is equally challenging. And this brings us finally to the nurturer. So the nurturer,

the impulse is all about elevation. You give care, you elevate others, and often pick people up when no one else can or will. You lift people up. That is what you open your eyes in the morning to do. Often, nurturers feel a profound sense of empathy. And this too can be both a blessing and a curse. Because that feeling allows you a closeness to other people. It allows you to understand what they need at any given moment in time and somehow give

it to them. But feeling all of that can also mean that you take on a certain amount of transferred suffering and that can be profoundly hard to deal with. So self-care for many nurturers becomes a critical thing, but also at the same time, something that may engender feelings of guilt, because if you're wired to lift other people up and to do that, you need to take care of yourself. You can sometimes think, but I should be spending this energy on others. And it's something that you have to deal with over time. Again, something else that I go a little bit deeper into.

Now, here's the cool thing. I've been talking about these 10 different Sparketypes. Your personal Sparketype profile. So we all have a profile, sort of a unique blend of these. Actually has three really important elements. 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 eight 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. We're all a blend of a number of different sparkotypes, but every person has a distinct sparkotype profile that's made up of three key components.

So these represent your strongest impulses at both ends of the spectrum, the work that fills made up of three key components. So these represent your strongest impulses at both ends of the spectrum, the work that fills you up as well as empties you out. Your primary sparkotype, and you heard me mention that earlier, think of your primary sparkotype as the thing that generates the strongest impulse to exert effort for no other reason

than the way that it makes you feel. It makes you feel alive. It's the underlying driver or the source fuel for work that gives you the readiest access to flow that energizes and excites you, that gives you a sense of meaning and purpose and allows you to feel like you're expressing your fullest self and potential. And expressed in a healthy and constructive way, it's a big part of any number of jobs or experiences, hobbies, passions, devotions that make you come alive, even when the work is hard. So your shadow sparkotype. Your shadow sparkotype is also a big part of you, sometimes even a close second behind your primary. It is not, however,

your strongest impulse. It's easy to think of your shadow sparkotype as your runner-up sparkotype, and it may in fact be a very close second. But while there's a lot of truth to that, a more nuanced and probably important to understand relationship almost always exists between your primary and your shadow. So your shadow sparkotype most often reveals the work that you may well enjoy and have developed a high level of skill around. But when you're really being honest, it's also the work that you do largely in service

of doing the work of your primary sparkotype better. Think of it as your primary sparkotype better. Think of it as your primary sparkotype amplifier. So for me, my primary is maker and my shadow is a scientist. And we shorthand that by saying I'm a maker scientist or maker slash scientist. And what that means is that I enter the process of making something. I'm creating something. I'm working on it. It's all being generative, something from nothing, idea to something. And along the way, I'm going to hit problems that need to be solved, right? It's not necessarily something that will build something more or new, but along the way, I'm going to hit walls. I'm going to hit problems, burning questions.

So I switch into my scientist impulse to solve the thing. And as soon as I have the thing solved or the new tool or the quandary figured out, I drop back into the generative process of creation. It allows me to be a maker at a higher level. So my shadow scientist is in service of my ability to make at a higher level. And the final or third part of your sparkotype profile is what I call your anti-sparkotype. Your anti-sparkotype is the type of work that is the heaviest lift for you. Takes the most out of you, requires the greatest amount of recovery, even if objectively it's not that hard. There's just something about it that leaves you empty as opposed to making you come alive.

So I started asking people about these imprints as I was working with them, exploring how and when they showed up and what happened when people led with them. I spent years gathering information, testing, refining the understanding. Still, I wanted better validation and insight on a much larger scale. So in 2018, I kind of vanished into my living laboratory and spent a year developing and refining and beta testing and assessment that could both deepen my understanding of the Sparketypes and their application while helping people discover theirs. And we released the Sparketype assessment into the world. It's completely free, by the way. You can find it at sparkotype.com or just click a link in the show notes. We'll throw a link down there also so you can find it and take it if you want. And I have to admit, I wasn't prepared for what would happen next. The whole team wasn't. 500,000 people and organizations have completed this assessment, generating over 25 million data points and stunning levels of insight and nuance and understanding and yes, validation. We've learned

that when you align what you do, your work, with this innate impulse, the world begins to feel right. You come alive. And when you don't, you can change everything else, your job, title, team, organization, and location. And those tweaks may help, but you'll never really feel the way you want to feel. And in fact, if you find yourself doing the work mainly of your anti-sparketype, you'll likely end up feeling perpetually gutted. Like it just takes so much out of you and you never understand why, especially when objectively what you're doing, what you're being tasked with isn't really all that grueling. This often leads to feelings of inadequacy or even in the worst case, shame, sometimes both. And if you're working with others,

they may even start to get a bit judgy of you instead of realizing there's something else, something deeper, more primal, more innately encoded that's fueling your struggle. And in the eyes of others, potentially even your failure to show up and contribute at your best, there's something going on. Which is one of the

beautiful things about the sparkotypes is that when you understand this, and especially in the context of your anti-sparkotype, there's a sense of understanding, of shared understanding if you're working with others and teams, and also forgiveness and intelligence that gets built around this. And at this moment in time, in history, in your history, it's just not enough anymore to live and work from a place that is emptying and filling. Life's too short to surrender your joy and your sense of meaning and purpose and ability to fully express yourself, to surrender your mental health to some archaic notion of what work is supposed to be, how it's supposed to make you feel, and what it mental health to some archaic notion of what work is supposed to be, how it's supposed to make you feel, and what it's supposed to give you and to give society back.

Safe bet you already know this, right? If you're like so many others, you've actually probably tried to change nearly all the surface level stuff, your job, title, team, boss, company, industry, or focus area, and nothing has really helped. And this is my big concern about what's happening now with this thing that people are calling the great resignation. Because if we don't understand these deeper things, if we focus on the surface level changes, we're going to end up with the great regret, not just the great resignation and then some sort of fantastic change in the way that we work and live. Because those factors, the surface level factors, yes, they nudge the needle, they're catalysts and amplifiers. The wind that fans the flames once you've done the deeper work,

but your sparkotype, this impulse for effort, it's the kindling, the spark, and if you get it right, the fire. Without it, you can blow all you want, but nothing ever happens. So we're in a moment right now. It's time for a reclamation of work and of life. Things are changing. The world is coming back online and we all have this choice to make. Reimagine and reclaim work as a conduit to meaning and joy and expression. One that starts with you and then ripples out to those around you so we all rise together or walk away from all of that possibility. Fall back into some now hard to recognize version of a past work life that leaves you yet again settling, locked into a trance of perpetually wanting. We are in this moment. It's a window to a vastly

more meaningful, connected, purpose-fueled, and alive work life and future that's just been opened for us. But it's also closing behind us at an alarming rate. If we don't act now, it may never open again in our lifetimes. We don't want to waste this moment. It really is time to reclaim the way we work and live, to come back to life. So I know this has been an unusual, like putting my fingers in little air quotes here an unusual

episode of good life project and I'm sharing this powerful new body of work and these ideas on the eve of me breathing life into a new book called sparked something that I have been working on something that has literally emanated from the last two and a half decades of my life, my devotion, something I am so deeply connected to. And in case you haven't guessed, it's a fiercely deep dive into the sparkotypes for those who are interested in not just discovering your basic sparkotype, but also truly seeing and knowing yourself and having the language to help others see and relate to you and work with you on an entirely different level. It's a power tool for you to

reimagine the way you work and live, a more nuanced, deeper dive into what makes you come alive, what empties you out, how your sparky type shows up, where it trips you up, how others with your same type tap it to come more fully alive. And of course, what it looks like to build your livelihood around an innate impulse that makes you come alive. So the book has been a true devotion for me, especially since I'm a maker, as we all know now. I make things that move people. That is what I'm here to do. And Spark is something I'm so proud of and truly humbled by the early response to. So I'm feeling like it would be fun to wrap up this conversation with a few final words from that book, from Spark. So I'll share this with you.

The world of work for most people is anywhere from mildly to severely broken. Nobody intended it to be this way. Honestly, nobody really benefits from it. We're all doing the best we can. And truth is, we are all in this together. And there will be times where we feel more compelled and freer to focus on being sparked. And other times where we're more in survival mode. There will be times where we need to just do what is necessary to take care of the bare necessities. Times where we have less control than we yearn for. Times where our aspirational needs for purpose and meaning and excitement, joy, expression, flow, will take a backseat to sustenance and security. Times where it won't be easy to become sparked purely by the

thing we get paid to do. And still, whether we're looking for work employed but in a sustenance job or well-paid but flatlined, so many of us can get so much closer to the feeling of coming alive, of being sparked than we thought possible. If you're fully employed, so explore how you might integrate your sparkotype into your current work. How might you reimagine or redefine the day-to-day elements and possibly even the bigger scope of your work? How might you honor your commitments and acknowledge whatever circumstance you find yourself in and maybe even explore a more blended path to becoming sparked? Reflect on the details of your sparkotype and think about the tasks,

tools, topics that give that feeling of aliveness. Seek or create opportunities to bring more of those into what you do, even in areas where these things don't fall squarely within the description of what you were hired to do. There are often ways to embrace them that are unseen until you start actively looking for them. And if you're not currently working or underemployed and you find yourself in a place of discovery for your next work adventure. You may not use that word adventure, but maybe stepping into that reframe can help at this moment in time. This may be an understandably disconcerting yet also sacred and powerful time to do this work, to learn more about what makes you come alive, to think about how you might create or find your next opportunity that brings as much sparked work into what you do as possible, or to create

the space to make it happen on the side. Look for the indicators, the signs from past experiences or current yearnings that align with your sparkotype when you're considering what to explore, what to say yes or no to. They matter, often more than we realize. If some are there but not all, consider how you might bring more of what you want and whether you have the power to do that into the experience. No matter where you go from here,

an invitation. Don't turn away from the road you've begun to walk down when you say yes to discovering this deeper imprint in you, to knowing your sparkotype. Yes to sharing it with friends and family and colleagues and collaborators and asking them to discover theirs. Yes to taking steps, even baby steps, to come more fully alive in whatever way is accessible to you. Yes, to fanning the flames and bringing more meaning and expression and flow and purpose and possibility into your work and life. Because right now you need that and so does the world. We need people who step back into a place of possibility and potential. We need people who are fully alive, maximally capable,

and fired up, tapping everything they have from a place of joy and enthusiasm to create the next generation of ideas and solutions and services, platforms, institutions, experiences that will lead us all into a future that is more empowered and activated and alive and from a better aligned and informed place. We need organizations and leaders fueled by the unleashed potential, purpose, drive, expression, and energy of a fully sparked workforce to serve as centers for innovation and growth

and the furtherance, not just of industry, but of culture, society, and the unbridled elevation of every individual who contributes to the quest. Not just because we want to feel better, but because the depth and complexity of the challenges we face demand the best we have to offer. When we show up sparked, we come alive and the world comes along with us. And if you're one of the people who are seriously considering or have even become part of this great resignation, the more you know what truly makes you come alive and what empties you out, the better able you will be to make decisions about your next great adventure that are likely to make you come alive and

contribute to your own life and to the lives of others in a way that makes you feel you're doing the thing you were put here to do, rather than settling yet again without understanding how to step into this next season of life fully expressed and alive, as sparked as possible. This moment, it's bigger than us. It's time to reclaim work as a source of meaning, energy, purpose, joy, and potential. And every individual plays a part. So take at least one first step. Go discover your sparkotype. Like I said, the Sparkotype assessment, it's available for anyone to take free of charge at sparkotype.com.

Just click the link in the show notes. You literally have nothing to lose and the future of your working life to gain. And then maybe invite one person or two, three would be great. Okay, just invite everyone you know to become sparked, to discover their deeper impulse

for work that makes them come alive. Share this tool, share this episode, share this conversation far and wide, or simply share the Sparketype assessment. Ask folks to discover their unique imprint for work that lifts them up. Then share yours with them so they can get to know you. They can get to see you, the real you, the deeper you on an entirely different level. And so you can see and know them on that level too, which for so many of us, we have never felt before. And along the way, we will grow a community, a movement of human beings around the world on a mission to come alive and radiate that energy, that sense of purpose and possibility to everyone around us, to do well and to do good, to change the way we work and live

and along the way the state of the world as we know it, and not ever have to look back at this rarest of moments in time when everything is being shaken and possibility is on a table in a way it may not be again for generations and think we missed the window. Use this time well. Let it fuel your own personal reclamation, not just of work, but of life, because together we can spark the world.

We need this. The world needs this. So that is the end of my unusual episode of Good Life Project. If you want to take that first step, the link is down in the show notes below. Learn something about yourself. Learn something about the world. Learn something about how you can step into the next generation, the next evolution, the next glorious expression of the way that you wake up, invest effort, and contribute to the world around you. Thanks so much. I'm Jonathan Fields.

See you next time. Thank you. 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. 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.

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