Good Life Project - What Should I Do With My Life? Start Here | Kickstart 2023

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

What should I do with my life? How can we actually make different choices that just might let us figure out what to devote our working lives to in a way that is more likely to make us come alive than empty us out in a way that will maybe for the first time ever satisfy our need? Not just for security and stability, which is an important need, but for meaning and purpose and energy and excitement and joy and beyond. And how do we make those choices and take action in a way that also doesn't lead to unwittingly repeating the same patterns that got us here, or even regretting what we've chosen and done? How do we craft our work lives to better reflect who we are and what makes us come alive? That's what we're diving into in today's special Kickstart Your Life episode.Discover The Work That Makes You Come Alive - Take the Sparketype™ AssessmentYou can find the 1-page worksheet HERE.Find All Of The Episodes In This Series:How to Succeed at Anything Worth Doing | 2023 KickstartA Simple Model for a Really Good Life | 2023 KickstartCheck out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED: We’re looking for special guest “wisdom-seekers” to share the moment you’re in, then pose questions to Jonathan and the Sparked Braintrust to be answered, “on air.” To submit your “moment & question” for consideration to be on the show go to sparketype.com/submit. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So what should I do with my life? That is a central question in so many of our lives, especially now. The last few years have largely blown up our assumptions about work, about life, about our central devotion, and about safety and security. And often what we have realized is a bit of an illusion about how our work might provide that. We are all in this moment re-examining the choices that got us here in the context of that thing that we do called work.

And we're asking, is what we're doing making us feel the way we hoped we'd feel? And sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is well. Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. But often for far too many people, the answer is just outright no. It's not making us feeling that way. Instead of meaning and purpose, joy, excitement, we feel some blend of flatlined, disinterested, uninspired, depleted, burned out, overwhelmed, and just plain done. And the question is, if what got us here is not going to get us where we want to go and how we want to feel. How can we actually make different choices that just might let us figure out what to devote our working lives to in a way that is more likely to make us come alive than

empty us out? In a way that will maybe for the first time ever satisfy our need, not just for security and stability, which is an important need, but for meaning and purpose and energy and excitement and joy and beyond. And how do we make those choices and take action in a way that also doesn't lead to unwittingly repeating the same patterns that got us here or even regretting what we've chosen and done? How do we craft our work lives to better reflect who we are and what makes us come alive? That's what we're diving into in today's special episode on what makes us come alive in work and life. Or put another way,

exploring the answer to the question, what should I do with my life? And remember, this is a part of our month-long Kickstart Your Life 2023 series. In part one, I shared a powerful framework for really extraordinary accomplishment. In part two, last week, I shared a simple model for a really good life, the good life buckets, with some critical updates and insights from the last year. And today we are focusing on the sweet spot between work that both sustains us and also makes us come alive. And as with all of this month's special episodes, you'll find a link to a special PDF that details today's topic in the show notes completely for free. And be sure to follow Good Life Project now in whatever app

you're listening in so you can benefit from the full month long series and also never miss an episode going forward. So excited to share today's kickstart your life conversation. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. 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. 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 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. Okay, so let's dive in. When we ask that question, what should I do with my life? We are almost always focused on this thing we call work because that is in fact the very thing we spend most of our adult lives doing. It is critically important to understand how to spend that time well in a way that makes us come alive. Question is, what really matters when it comes to work? What are the things that really do contribute to the

way that we want to feel and the world that we want to create? And what are the things that seem to, or maybe there's a lot of sort of a pop lore around them, but they really don't move the needle all that much. And maybe even closer to the bone, what do we, what do I as a human being need and want from my work? So this tends to operate on a couple of different levels. Consider your preferences and needs at all the different levels that would allow us to sort of like feel okay as a human being. I like to look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a really fascinating model. If you've never seen it before, there are these different levels. It's often represented in the form of a triangle or pyramid type of shape. And at the very bottom are two levels that represent basically survival

and sustenance and safety, right? In the context of what we do with our lives, in the context of work, that often shows up as money and benefits and opportunity for growth. Those things that on the one hand allow us to feel comfortable that we are earning enough money and saving enough money for our future that we can comfortably put a roof over our head and food on the table and have a little bit left over to do the things that make life okay, that we feel like we have shelter, we have food, and we have enough kind of saved up so that we feel safe, we feel secure. Whether that in fact is true or not is something that a lot of us have been questioning for a long time with the uprooting, the upside downing of the world of work, a lot of promises that had been made,

or that maybe even we just told ourselves we'd been making to ourselves, trade-offs that we've been making, we started to realize, well, they're not actually delivering on the promise of safety and security and sustenance. But that is an important need. It goes into the things that we think about when we say yes or no to a work opportunity, right? And also opportunities for growth. Can I continue to quote, move up whatever ladder is being presented to me so that I can have more of that security and more of that safety and amass more of whatever resources I feel will give me that feeling of safety and security and okayness in the world. Again, whether that is real or not

is a different conversation. But these are fundamental human needs. It's the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy. When we head towards the middle, we talk about belonging, and this is where it gets much more relational. And again, this is part of what so many of us look for from our work.

We want to know that we are in some way, shape, or form in a culture surrounded by people and in a way that honors our own social orientation around introversion, ambiversion, extroversion, how we move into and out of that culture and those groups of people. We want to feel like we resonate with them, like we belong. There's actually research that shows if you have literally a single good friend in work, it profoundly transforms the nature of the experience. Even if what you're doing on a day-to-day basis isn't all that resonant, it makes it a lot better. So we look to work very often to also satisfy for belonging these days. Now, there was a time where it did so, it satisfied this need

on a much more pervasive and much realer level. These days, even before the last couple of years, the notion of work satisfying that need for belonging has kind of been blown up, especially with people moving around and changing jobs and changing companies and changing industries far more often than we ever did historically. So we've been looking to other ways to build that community and that sense of belonging. But still, it's important to just note that belonging is part of our human need. And oftentimes, we have looked to that thing where we spend most of our time as at least partially the thing that solves for belonging.

And that moves us to the top rungs of Maslow's hierarchy. And this is where we get into expression and aspiration and transcendence. A lot of people would say, this is the part of the need hierarchy that really makes us differentiated and human and also compassionate and human and also lifts us up and allows us to see beyond our own scarcity, resource-driven safety and security needs and actually look at the whole, the collective and be a part of something bigger

and also look to our own higher selves and aspire into something bigger and also show up and know that there's something in us that yearns to be expressed that is different and powerful and beautiful and valuable. And interestingly, for the most part, with rare exception, this is the part of our human need hierarchy that often gets just shunted off to the side for most people. They kind of figure work is about the bottom of the need hierarchy. It's about survival, safety, and sustenance. That is it. If it ever provides something more, cool. But that's not what it's about.

And I don't mean to minimize those needs at all. They are important. They matter. Especially if you are in a personal circumstance that makes you feel very insecure. Critically, critically important. We need to solve for those. But most of us, once we've solved for those, we don't spend a lot of time thinking about the top part, the middle part and the top part of our needs and whether this thing called work can actually be a powerful conduit for our awakening, aspiration, self-actualization, transcendence,

and full expression of who we are and want to be in the world, whether it can give back to us feelings of meaning and purpose and joy and excitement and energy. Kind of leave that to the side. Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't, but we don't make our decisions based on the possibility of that being centered in a particular opportunity. And then once we're in an opportunity, we kind of just go with the flow. What a lot of us are feeling these days is that that's not enough. If we focus largely on the bottom of the hierarchy of needs, we feel safe and secure, but perpetually depleted and stifled and unexpressed. If we focus only on the middle, we feel accepted, but never entirely

moored or fully expressed. And if we focus only on the top, we feel a sense of expression and joy, but often built upon a foundation of sand that feels like it's perpetually just kind of melting away underneath our feet, of fear of never being able to sustain that feeling, or of fear of ourselves and those who look to us for things to be okay, not ever being able to feel like they actually will be okay. So all of our needs matter. And if we can actually look to this thing we call work, the thing that so many of us spend anywhere from 8 to 10 to 12, sometimes 14 or 16 hours a day, sometimes 5, 6, 7 days a week doing to actually meaningfully solve for so many of these different needs, it can transform the way that we actually experience

our work. Now, I want to dive into sort of the key components, the feelings that really matter to us. But I keep using this word work also. And I think maybe it's important to take a heartbeat and tell you what I mean when I say work. When most of us think about work, we think about our job, the thing that we get paid to do. And that's whether you're a founder, an entrepreneur, you have a private practice, you're a consultant, a coach, or whether you work for an organization, a company. But when I use the word work, I'm talking more expansively. I'm talking about anything that invites you or demands that you spend a substantial amount of your time and energy investing effort in something over an extended period of time. That also can include not just the job, the thing that you actually get paid to do,

that could include primary roles and devotions. If you're a parent, if you're a caretaker, if you're somebody who volunteers, these are all things. So when I talk about work, I'm talking about the full spectrum of ways that you invest meaningful effort over an extended window of time. And the beautiful thing is, often it's a blend of all of these things, the paid thing, the devotional thing, the volunteer thing, that really gives you the feeling that you want to have. And expanding the way that we define work is also really cool because it allows us to look to solve for all these different needs that we have, not just from that one thing that pays our bills,

but from a possible broader set of ways that we might invest our energy, right? So this is what I'm talking about when I'm talking about work. Now, a lot of my conversation today is not going to focus from this point forward on the bottom of the needs hierarchy, sustenance, safety, security, and even possibilities, right? Those are the core factors that we look at in the world of work. And they give us a feeling of safety and security. Again, whether that is real or not is a deep question and it's probably independent to each person. But I think the last few years have taught us to re-examine and question the truth of

whether what we've promised ourselves or been promised is real when it comes to those needs. What I want to focus on in our conversation today is the forgotten about part. Sometimes because we just feel like, oh, we were never promised, you know, the expression, the aspirational, the transcendent, the human part of work. That's just not what it was about. Part of it is because we never really explored it. We don't know how to explore those feelings.

We don't know what those feelings even are that matter. We don't know what we can ask of work or give to work and expect back in the context of that beautiful higher level aspirational element of our human needs. I want to go there today. That's where I 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. 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 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. So when I think about work that makes me come alive, that really sort of like roots itself in

the top three rungs of belonging and aspirational transcendence and expression of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I think about feelings. What are the particular feelings that I have that let me go to that place? And I use the phrase work that sparks you or work that makes you come alive often to represent the blend of those feelings that we all so yearn for, but sadly so often experience in the context of work. So when I use those two words, and I use them often interchangeably, work that sparks you, work that makes you come alive, what am I actually talking about? Well, I've deconstructed that into five contributing experiences or emotions that we want from our work if it's possible. And that profoundly changed

not just the way we experience work, but our lives. And that bold question that we started with, what should I do with my life? Part of the answer again, is we wanna solve for the needs on the most basic primal survival level, but we also want to solve for the feeling of coming alive or being sparked.

And in my mind, in my experience, the five contributing elements are purpose, meaning, access to flow states, energy and excitement, and what I would call express potential or full performance. So let's walk through those five things so you can really understand what I'm talking about. Well, purpose, purpose, you know, it used to be, purpose is this thing that's been kicked around for a long time. And there are a whole bunch of different things that are offered around it, what it is and what it isn't, right? But having a sense of purpose in life is effectively when you wake up and you have

something that is defined that you are working towards. Its aspirational purpose is a verb, right? This is a movement orientation. Having a sense of purpose in life is profoundly transformational. It gives you a feeling that things actually, it gives you a reason to wake up in the morning. You know, the French term raison d'etre, or the Japanese term ikigai effectively translate to reason to get up and do something with your day. And by the way,

there is a popular trope that has been floating around the internet around that word ikigai for years that also says that it needs to be the thing that people will pay you for. Complete bunk. It has nothing to do with that. The core idea behind ikigai is simply the thing that gets you out of bed in the morning. It is about core purpose. It has nothing to do with money or compensation. But fundamentally, we all thrive on profoundly different levels when we feel a sense of purpose. There is powerful research around purpose. In fact, it shows that when you have a strong sense of purpose, your all-cause

risk of death actually drops. Your risk of cardiovascular disease substantially lowers. Your physical strength stays improved with age. Literally your risk of brain health and brain decline and your risk of Alzheimer's drops dramatically when you have a sense of purpose. Your experience of pain actually is diminished when you have a sense of purpose. So there's really powerful research. So we want a sense of purpose, not just because it makes us feel good and alive and gives us this feeling like we are doing something. We are moving towards something that we care about. It literally changes your psychology and physiology and potentially even the longevity of your life having that. Now, is work the only place that we can find purpose?

Of course not. We can find purpose in love. We can find purpose in all sorts of different ways. But work can be a very strong source of purpose if you center that as something that you are looking for from your work. So I would invite you to do that. And purpose is one of the five elements of that state that I call coming alive, right? Purpose relates very closely to the second state, which is meaning. In the literature and the research, it's often phrased as meaning in life. And similar to purpose, often they're sort of, they're spoken about interchangeably, but I make a distinction

between these two. In my mind, purpose is the verb. It is the working towards something. Meaning is the feeling of mattering. And that can be mattering as a human being. That can be that the thing that you're devoting energy and effort to matters. So purpose is the verb. Meaning is the felt experience, right? And we also have similar research around meaning we have research that shows that it improves physical health it improves mental health increases life satisfaction or subjective well-being it can even affect and improve resilience in challenging moments in life and we have all been through those and affect motivation productivity and creativity and creativity. And look, I can talk about the research here, but you know this intuitively. When you are working on something and it gives

you this sense of meaning, it feels like you matter and what you're working on truly matters. You know that you feel better psychologically and physically, and you're more energized. You know that you're more satisfied, not just with the work that you're doing, but more broadly with your life. You know that you bounce back when challenge comes your way or adversity shows up because you know that what you're working on makes a difference and you're more motivated and productive because you want the thing you're working on to happen, right? The third element beyond purpose and meaning is what I shorthand as energy and excitement. In the corporate world, they often call it engagement. Engagement gets translated in different ways. But I like to speak kind of as a human being, especially when I'm talking to you in our awesome morning energized. And I want to wake up in the morning excited to do the thing that I call work that is very likely going to consume most of my day.

And I want to know that even if it's long hours, even if it's really hard, it's going to give me energy. And I'm still going to wake up the next day excited to do it again and do it more and do it again and do it more and do it differently. So energy and excitement are key parts of that state of being sparked or coming alive. And again, we know that when we are energized and excited, productivity improves, creativity improves, job satisfaction goes up, engagement and long-term commitment improves, and it affects our physical and mental health, right? We find ourselves wanting to work rather than loathing it.

And by the way, if you are energized and excited by your work and you happen to be in a leadership context in any way, shape or form, there's a phenomenon known as emotional contagion, which tells us that that energy and excitement will literally infect the members of your team. Just the same way that if you show up depleted and de-energized, that will become the overwhelming energy of your team as well. So in a leadership context, it's critically important too. And that brings us to our fourth contributor to that state of being sparked or coming live. And this is flow.

Now, the state of being in flow, certainly the seminal research around this from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who passed just a few years back, identified this state as being one where you effectively, you completely lose track of time. You become absorbed in the activity. You often can no longer distinguish between the thing you're doing and just your essence. You become hyper-effective, hyper-productive, hyper-creative, hyper-efficient. And there's a sense that is almost beyond emotion of embodied bliss that we just want more and more of in our lives. And there's actually a lot of research done around accessing this state. And it also similarly shows increased productivity, performance, creativity, problem solving, especially insight-based problem

solving, and just greater enjoyment and satisfaction in the experience itself, which ripples out to affect mental and physical health. And from a practical standpoint, you lose time. It's that type of thing where you show up and it's nine o'clock in the morning, you have a cup of coffee, you start doing the thing, you blink and you realize, wow, it got dark out. It's nine o'clock at night. Not because you had to do the thing or were tethered to your chair, because you were so lost in this state of flow. It was so in this immersive place

that you just lost time. It's an incredible experience to be in. And that brings us to the fifth element or contributor of that feeling of being sparked or coming alive. And that is what I call express potential or full performance. They kind of weave together. It's that feeling that there is nothing in you

that is being held back on the level of capabilities and skills, but also identity, who you are. There's no sense of being stifled. There's no sense of being stifled. There's no sense of being capable, but you just can't access or figure out how to unlock that capability. It is all being unlocked. It is all being brought to bear. It is all contributing to the thing that you've been doing. And when we do that again, when we can stand in that place and work from that place, we're happier, we're more fulfilled. We have everything as just sort of like pouring out of us. We feel like also that we're no longer

laboring under the weight of propping up dual personas, dual identities of trying to figure out or feeling potentially and perpetually frustrated by the fact that we can't quite be who we want to be and bring all that we have that's available to us to the thing that we're doing. When we can unlock that, it is incredibly powerful. So each of these five states alone, they give you access to experiences and feelings that profoundly enhance our lives. And when you experience them together, as I mentioned, I call that being sparked or coming alive. It's what happens when you invest your energy in a way that makes you feel alive with meaning and fueled by purpose and lost in flow and you're energized and excited,

even when it's really hard and able to fully express yourself and your potential. And as I've done research around this and sort of really realized that in my mind, in my work, these are the five key components to the thing that we want to most feel when we are going for not just survival and sustenance, and not just being accepted, but actually aspiring to experience life more fully and flourishing. These are the primary contributors to that feeling. Now, I began a research project many years ago, and I sort of said, you know, I wonder what gives people that feeling in the domain of work? What are the fundamental, the primal impulses for effort that might give you that feeling?

And is it actually possible to map or identify a set of universal impulses that exist across all human beings and be able to actually help people figure out what is their impulse or set of impulses that give them this feeling. Because if you could, that would shortcut so much struggle, so much confusion. It would allow us to so much more clearly understand what to look for and not look for when we're trying to find and do work that gives us that feeling of being sparked. So I began to do this research project, deconstructing thousands of different job descriptions and titles, and with remarkable speed, I was able to identify a set of impulses distilled down to 10 unique impulses. To this day, I don't like the fact that it's 10. It feels way

too slick. Continuing researching and exploring, maybe at some point we realize there is an 11th or 12th. So open to that, sort of keeping the scientist's mind going here. And I started to realize also that wrapped around each one of these impulses is a fairly well-defined set of behaviors, preferences, and tendencies that form archetypes. Began calling them sparkotypes just because it was fun. Shorthand for the archetype for work that sparks you. And sharing them. And people started just expressing how powerful they were.

But I wanted more intel, more data at mass scale. And also the ability to create a tool that would potentially help people fairly rapidly discover what is their sparkotype or set of sparkotypes so that it could be available to anyone 24-7. So we spent in 2018, about five years ago now, the better part of a year developing an assessment, the sparkotype assessment, launched it that allowed people to go and actually identify and fairly quickly figure out what is their sparkotype. What I realized along the way also is that of these 10 different impulses, we tend to all have a blend of them. But one or two tend to

really predominate on the strength side or sort of like the strongest impulse for effort that gives us that feeling of coming alive. And then we tend to have one on the absolute opposite end of the spectrum. That is the work that really depletes us, that empties us out. So I started calling your sort of like first place and runner up, your strongest and second place impulse, your primary and shadow, and the impulse for work that depletes you the most. It's the heaviest lift, requires the greatest recovery, your anti-sparkotype. And this sparkotype assessment, which is available online, we'll include a link in the show notes, by the way, we'll share with you what the assessment determines is your primary shadow

and anti-sparkotype. And we call that your sparkotype profile, right? So as we built that, we released it to the world. As I shared this conversation with you today, somewhere around 800,000 people, closing in on 800,000 people have completed the assessment from all over the world, closing in on 40 million data points. We're working on follow-up surveys and research and studies. And we've shown really strong correlations between doing the work of your sparkotype, your primary shadow, and those five critically important aspirational states that I just described above. Interestingly, we've also shown the reverse. The less you do the work of your sparkotype the less likely you are to say that you experience purpose and meaning and energy and excitement and

express potential and flow so really really powerful insights have come from this over the last five years and we keep expanding on the research and the use cases as we now have, I believe, over 100 certified SparkType advisors out in the world who have been working with hundreds, if not thousands of clients with our own consulting work with some of the largest companies in the world, deploying these at scale now and working with teams and leaders and seeing how it affects conversational dynamic, motivation, engagement, all these different things, the data is really incredible. And what it's telling us is that we all have these impulses. They matter. So when we go and look at that thing that we call work and try and figure out what to say yes or no to. It's important to look at the base needs

for Maslow's hierarchy, safety, sustenance, security, and belonging, people, culture, how those feel. It is also critically important to look at the top elements. How do we solve for showing up for, as human beings, for full expression, for aspiration, for purpose and belonging, for full expression, for aspiration, for purpose and belonging and meaning. The classic midlife crisis, which now I think is more of like a core life crisis, if not every few years for most people, it's not a crisis of money. It's not a crisis of power. It's not a

crisis of status. It's not a crisis of belonging. It is a crisis of meaning and purpose. And the reason for that is because we have forgotten that they mattered. And in doing so, we focused all our energy on the base needs. And then we get to a point where we've sort of solved for that, or we've solved as much as we can, and we're still really empty. And the reason is because the top matters. Meaning and purpose and all these things matter. And this is why the sparkotypes really, really matter when you're trying to make decisions

about what to say yes or no to. So many of us right now are at a critical decision-making point. We have been over the last few years, and we're really close to making new decisions. What we've seen is that, and this is fascinating in the research, you know, if you followed the sequence of the last three years, you've seen mass disruption leading to this thing people call the great resignation, the largest scale quitting we've seen in the history of modern history in the workplace. Very often, the next thing that swept in is this thing that people started calling the great regret. People realizing that they actually made a decision that they wish they hadn't made. Then we're seeing this phrase boomerangers come, people realizing that they actually made a decision that they wish they hadn't made.

Then we're seeing this phrase boomerangers come, people are returning to the thing that they left. Then we're seeing this phrase quiet quitting, people who are just keeping their head down and looking to satisfy for those aspirational needs completely outside of their job, which is an interesting thing. But what we're seeing in general is that there's something missing in our decision-making processes. You know, what if we could actually, before we make a next move, when we're considering either changing our careers or re-imagining the very thing that we're currently doing, if that's even possible, and for many it is, by the way. What if we actually approach those decisions differently? What if we approach them from a better informed place? And to me, one of the things that I think is important to center is this idea of including those base impulses and behavioral needs, preference needs, orientational needs, and making those decisions. Put another way, it's time for us to start making the big decisions in work and life from a better informed place.

And that starts with also understanding not only your sparker type profile, but what probably all 10 of these different things are. Let me move through them really quickly. I literally wrote an entire book called Spark, which is sort of like the comprehensive center resource. If you're curious to go into a ton of detail on all 10 of these, go borrow the book from your local library. Great to support them. I'm a huge fan of that. And just spend some time really understanding the different impulses. I'm literally just going to list them out for you right now and then go take the assessment.

It's just available. Anyone can do it at sparkotype.com. Also, as I said, there's a link in the show notes so that you can go and do this. 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 I'll need a pilot. Flight risk. The 10 different sparkotypes are, one is the maven. The fundamental drive or impulse for the maven is knowledge acquisition. It's about learning, knowing, growing. You want to rest your head on a pillow at night, knowing more than you did when you opened your eyes in the morning. And often we say to ourselves, well, doesn't everyone just love learning? Doesn't everyone wake up in the morning inspired to do everything they can to learn as much as humanly possible? And in fact, mavens would say that that's not anything special for me. That's just the way that human beings are wired. And this reveals a fundamental flaw, a fallacy in the way that people look at their sparkly

types and the rest of the world. The thing that feels so compelling, it is such a primal, innate impulse for us that it feels like just a natural way of being. We can't imagine anybody else not feeling that. And this is true, in fact, for the mavens. A lot of people actually are not super inclined to invest a substantial amount of their working hours in learning for no other reason than learning sake.

Mavens are. It often shows up in a deep and narrow way with a narrow topic wanting to become encyclopedic or just a broad curiosity. I want to know everything about everyone. So maven is the first one. The second one is the maker. Maker is my primary sparkotype actually. And the impulse for the maker is to make ideas manifest. It is all about the process of creation. I wake up in the morning and I scan my world and I say, what can I make today? Been that way from my earliest memories, cobbling together things in the basement. As soon as I was old enough, having my parents drive me

to the local junkyard in the town I grew up in, throwing bike parts into the back and duct taping them together into Franken bikes. Moving through life, it's turned into books, companies, experiences, art, media, brands, gatherings, all sorts of things. The process of creation animates me like nothing else. That is the maker for you. Behind the maker, we have the scientist. And the impulse for the scientist is to figure things out. It's all about complex problems, puzzles, burning questions. You latch onto something that needs figuring out and you will go hard and you'll go deep into it. You'll invest a ton of energy and sometimes resources simply to get to the solution or the answer. And that solution or answer, by the way,

may have huge benefit for other people, which you love, and it may be why you're compensated for doing it if it's part of your job, but it's actually not why you do it. You do it simply because you love the burning question. Which brings us to the essentialist, the fourth one. The impulse for the essentialist is creating order out of chaos. It's about creating systems, process, clarity, utility. Often the essentialist experiences this when they're performing these functions at their highest level as elegance and beauty. Essentialists and the essentialist type of work is something that comes so naturally to them. They very often don't understand how this is an impulse that is valuable. It's just what they do

and who they are. And it's probably been that way for most of them for their earliest memory. They're the ones who are lining up their stuffed animals and cleaning their rooms from the earliest days. The work that essentialists do is wildly valued in the world of work and they are sought after and very often over sought after because once people realize they're both good at it and skilled at it and love doing it and nourished by it, everybody else wants to give in their essentialist work. So boundaries are really important for essentialists, by the way. Behind that, we have the performer. Now the performer is interesting because the fundamental impulse there is animating and energizing an interaction, moment, or experience. In the early days, often kids who show this impulse are channeled into the performing arts,

and that becomes viewed as sort of like the primary way that this gets channeled into the performing arts. And that becomes viewed as sort of like the primary way that this gets channeled. You have to be a quote performer. That is not in fact true. Many people start out that way. That tends to be a socially acceptable way that the impulse gets channeled for kids. As adults, it actually is often stifled because it leads people to be front and center in a way that culturally sometimes people aren't comfortable with. But this performer impulse can be front and center. It can also be behind the scenes. It can show up in a business development conversation or in a sales conversation. It can show up in speaking or presenting or facilitating. It can show up behind a bar. It can show up as a teacher. It can show up as a

parent, right? It literally can be expressed in almost any domain and context. So look beyond just the sort of like the very limiting thing of the title of performer and explore all the different ways that can be expressed. Next to that, we have the warrior. The warrior is all about gathering and leading from where we are now to a point that is deeply desired. And we use that nomenclature because there is a fierceness. There is a fierceness that always attaches to this impulse. The reason is when you bring people together and you want to move them from one place to a deeply desired end state or end place, there will be all sorts of adversity that crops up along the way, both internal social dynamics, managing people, human beings, diverse inputs, and also things that are external that will keep challenging you.

And so there's a certain benevolent ferocity that tends to accompany this impulse. The impulse to gather, organize, and lead, by the way, is different from the skill set of gathering, organizing, and leading as it is for all of these. It's important to make that distinction. Anyone can gain the skill set to be really effective at gathering, organizing, and leading. The warrior, we're talking about the innate impulse to do it simply for the feeling that it gives you. Behind that, we have the sage.

Now, the impulse for the sage is to awaken insight. It's about illumination. It's this feeling that I know something and I want you to know it too. But I don't want to just tell you. I want to also really understand that you get it, you understand it, you grok it. It's, you know, there is insight that happens, not just information. This often is channeled into the world of teaching in some way, shape or form. But again, like all of these impulses, they can show up and often do in nearly any way, shape, or form, role, job, title, industry, or company. Behind the sage, we have the advisor.

The advisor is all about guiding others, a community, an individual, a team, a group, a community, a company, through a process of growth. It is a deeply relational impulse. It starts generally with creating a container of trust and safety, and then walking beside these individuals, groups, communities, teams, as they move through a process of growth. It is incredibly powerful impulse, and again, deeply relational and deeply service-oriented. And that moves us into the advocate. The advocate is all about championing ideas, ideals, communities, individuals, whatever it may be. It's this impulse that says, I see something. And maybe it's an individual who is not being given the attention that is due. Maybe it's an idea that

is not being championed or centered or talked about in a way that you feel is right and fair. It tends to be a very strongly justice-oriented impulse. And it shows up in a way that can be extremely demanding. And it often shows up very early in life. The interesting thing, and we see this in the data, is that very early in life, it's often viewed as a negative. You are the person who just can't stop arguing about this, or is demanding this, or demanding that, or when you, quote, haven't earned the right, you're just a kid. And then later in life, it becomes a really powerful impulse when it's put behind something that is deeply meaningful, especially at scale. You think of advocates,

well, of course, that's activists and lawyers. Again, never just sort of like settle for the core of or the obvious descriptions. This impulse shows up everywhere and can show up pretty much anywhere and everywhere. And that brings us to the final of the 10, the nurturer. Now, the nurturer's impulse is all about elevation. It's lifting others up. It's giving care and taking care, often when others either won't or can't. It is seeing somebody else's deeply empathic impulse. You often see and feel other people's discomfort, unease, suffering, and pain, and you must do something about it. You're deeply compelled to help people feel better, to let them breathe again. Because it is so deeply empathic, it is also the type of thing where it's very outflow oriented and you can become drained and depleted and empty very quickly if you don't exercise this

impulse in a healthily boundaried way and also devote meaningful energy to your own energetic renewal and resourcing along the way. So those are the 10 sparkotypes. They show up again in combinations as primary and shadow, sort of like your strongest and your next strongest. And also on the other end of the spectrum as your anti-sparketype, your heaviest lift. For example, my sparketype profile is maker scientist as my primary and shadow. My primary drive is to make ideas manifest. I'm driven by the process of creation. The scientist is my runner-up or secondary impulse, which often also helps you do the work of your primary at a higher level.

So my scientist, you know, I swap on the figuring out the problem-solving hat when I'm making something and I hit a wall or I need a problem solved or I need a solution. And then as soon as I figure that thing out, I get back to the generative state of creation, of making. My anti is the essentialist that is creating order from chaos. I love when I benefit from the work of essentialists and we have like really powerful and effective systems and processes and

efficiency. We have that in our podcast, actually. Our producer is an essentialist. We have a stunning editorial calendar and technology set up behind the scenes to manage what can often grow to somewhere around 40 different episodes in production at any given time. And it's all manageable because of the work of the essentialists. But for me, when I actually have to do that work, it makes me want to cry. It is deeply depleting and I require a lot of recovery. Now, as a lifelong entrepreneur, multi-time founder, whose bootstrapped pretty much everything that I've done, I have found myself many times over having to do that work simply because I'm not resourced on a level in the beginning days of a company to have everyone do it, it tends to be the thing that I move away from as soon as I am better resourced and bring others where that is their innate impulse in to do that work. It makes us all happier. Those are the 10 impulses and how they tend to pair together. Now let's circle back to where we go from here and what we do with all of this, right? Because I started out a conversation

today saying, we are in a moment where we're being invited to re-examine the choices that we've made. For generations, we've focused on the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy, safety, sustenance, security. It matters. Again, I am never going to discount that. And it matters differently to different people in different circumstances. On top of that, once we have solved for those things, if you are in a position where you have, then what we are learning is these things, all the elements that make you feel sparked purpose, energy, excitement, meaning, flow, express potential. They are the things that often make us feel like we're doing the thing we're here to do. They're the things where we ask the question,

what should I do with my life? We're not asking generally, what is going to cover my rent? We're asking what is going to make me feel alive? And the sparkotypes can be an incredible clue to answering those questions. So when we think about where do we go from here in the context of answering that question, which had to do with my life, again, centering around what is the work that I would love to either say yes or no to in the future or reimagine how I'm doing what I'm doing in a way that actually gives me these feelings, we can look at these deeper primal impulses and say, how can I do things that will allow me to do more of this work and less of the work that empties me out? How can I do more of the work of my primary and shadow? And how can I do less of the work of my anti?

And by stepping into a decision-making process and an action-taking process from a much better informed place of knowing what these deepest impulses are for us, we can make choices that are more likely to give us the feeling that we generally want to have, right? So when we look at over the last two years, great resignation, regret, boomerangs, quiet quitting, my curiosity has been, what if people before they did any of these things, did the inner work, did the self-knowledge work, the self-discovery work, right? To actually know themselves better. And the spark types are one piece of this. Of course, there are other things too. You know, look at your relationships, look

at your sense of belonging, look at your friendships, look at the state of physical and mental health. But the invitation to me when we're trying to answer these big questions is rather than just making a decision and hoping that it gets us somewhere different that is in fact better, let's slow down a little and say, okay, do I truly know myself on a level that would allow me to make the most informed, most constructive, best decision that is most likely to let me feel the way I so want to feel, right? So no matter what you choose, start from a place of self-knowledge rather than rapid, sometimes under-informed, and sometimes even wrong-directed decision-making.

Discovering your spark type, it is a powerful piece of the puzzle, but also keep learning. Go take the assessment, but don't stop there. Consider the full spectrum. Consider your preferences and needs at every level. Again, start with the bottom of that hierarchy, survival and sustenance, money, benefits, future tracking. Look at the middle, belonging, culture, friends, people, social orientation, and then really spend more time than you probably ever have before looking at that top part, the aspirational, the expressed part of the human experience, which so often is what we are missing. The spark aligned part of it, the mode aligned part of it, the mission aligned part of it. So here's my invitation. Whatever you do, as we step into this new year, and so many of us are saying, what do I want to make happen in this year? How do I want to feel differently in the

context of work? And again, I'm talking expansively when I use the word work, do not let this moment pass. In my mind, we are in a window where re-examination, re-imagination, and reinvention is being held open. There is space and resources and social support for exploration and change that has not been there in generations that is so rare. And this window that says, okay, we're all in this place together. We're all in the upside down world. We're all trying things and experimenting and some will work and some won't. And that's okay. That window of normalizing exploration and trying things and sometimes falling on your face and then trying something else, it is not going to stay open much longer.

That's my take. So my invitation is to take this time to do the work, to get honest about your current reality, what it is and isn't doing for you, whether it's filling or emptying your soul, your contribution bucket. And if you don't like the answers that you are getting, say yes to a process of self-discovery and self-possibility. Because life is too short. Life is tender. Life is sometimes fleeting,

as we've all seen recently. And too uncertain to while away the days, the hours, the weeks, the months, the years, the decades, hoping to maybe someday get to a place where you can do the thing that makes you come alive or even just a little more of it. Yes, honor the very real life circumstances that you're in. The reality, the limitations, the constraints. We all have our truths. We all have our truths. We all have our history. We all have differing levels of access and resource and ability.

We are who we are, and we've come from where we've come to this moment. Honor that, respect it, but also honor the possibilities that often are equally, if not more constrained, not by external circumstance, but simply by the inertia of the past and a fear of the unknown. You don't have to do anything big or scary or risky or disruptive. Take your time, one step at a time. It begins with simply saying yes

to a process of self-discovery, a process of learning, a process of examining what is real for you and who you are and what matters to you. And if you feel compelled, then building on that by running these tiny little experiments to validate or invalidate what types of things will give you the feelings you want to feel. Taking tiny daily steps that over time just might build momentum and begin to form a trajectory in the world of work and then eventually life that brings into existence a belief in possibility followed by a profoundly shifted reality that doesn't just spark your work with meaning, joy, energy, excitement, flow, purpose, and possibility, but that also infuses every nook and cranny of your life, your relationships, your health, your well-being with those same feelings.

It starts by simply saying yes to knowing ourselves better. The first part of answering the question, what should I do with my life, is actually asking a different question, which is who am I? What do I care about? What makes me come alive? Once you figure those things out, then you can start to say, well, let me try this. Let me try that. And knowing who you are, what makes you come alive, and also what empties you out, puts you in a much better informed position to much more clearly understand what

to try, what to say yes to, what to say no to, how you might be able to reimagine what you're currently doing in a way that lets you keep that safety and security, but get so much more of the expressive side of things, make you come alive. Or whether you're at a moment in time where it makes sense to look at something entirely new and different. And then if you follow that path, what needs to be there in order for it to make you come alive? Knowing yourself on a profoundly different level lets you shortcut, lets you accelerate the path to the feeling that you want to have from the work that you do in the world and get you so much closer to the answer, what should I do with my life? This. So that is my invitation. Do it first for you. Be gentle, be forgiving, give yourself time and space and grace,

but do it. And then do it for those who maybe look to you to model how to be in the world. And then for those who might benefit from the genius, the magic, the brilliance, the impact, the joy, the beauty, more than ever. So I hope you found this an interesting and potentially even provocative starting point for your exploration of that question, what should I do with my life? It starts with the question of who am I? What makes me come alive? What empties me out? That is the foundation of the bigger question. And I am so excited to see how you step into it and sharing your journey as we all head together

into this new year. As always, it's my pleasure being with you. here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person, just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those, you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better. So we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen, then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered. Because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. 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 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.