From Project Management Consultant to Career Transformation Specialist

LinkedIn: [00:00:00] Linkedin presents.

Jonathan Fields: [00:00:13] So today I'm so excited to share one of our new features on the SPARKED podcast, Career Transformation Stories. We invite guests to share inspiring stories of career change from reimagining the work that they're currently doing. So it feels so much more live to leaving behind unfulfilling jobs to find, create, or really even reimagine more inspired, energized, purposeful, meaningful, and joy filled paths. And we're exploring also how they're Sparketype has played a role in this journey. It's all about how to transform work into one of the best parts of your life. And up next, we dive into one person's transformative journey of realigning his work with what lights him up. Now, quick note you'll hear us mention something we call Sparketypes in conversation. What is that? Turns out we all have a unique imprint for work that makes us come alive. This is your Sparketype when you discover yours. Everything, your entire work life, even parts of your personal life and relationships, they tend to begin to make more sense. And until we know ours, we're kind of fumbling in the dark. And just like today's listener did, you can discover your Sparketype for free at sparketype.com. You'll find a link in the show notes. So our guest is Naveed Ladha, and he's now a thriving nonprofit consultant and career coach.

Jonathan Fields: [00:01:24] But it took some time and some big changes, along with having to let go of others expectations to pursue more traditional roles like engineering or medicine, he felt an unmistakable pull towards increasing access to education and economic opportunities for underserved communities. And you'll hear about his bold pivot from university career services to entrepreneurship. As a primary Sparketype advisor. With an essentialist shadow, Naveed was drawn to roles really allowing him to guide others through personal growth while creating systems that added clarity to his and his client's pursuits, and this ultimately sparked him to forge his own path after becoming a parent, prioritizing autonomy and purpose, and really intentionally building a career and lifestyle in full expression of who he is. And his journey reminds us to keep investing in deep self-discovery in order to author a path that unlocks our highest potential and joy. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED. Hey, and before we dive into today's episode, a quick share. So if you're a coach, a consultant, or a leader, and you would just love to stand out more in 2024 and beyond, with a powerful new credential and a set of results driven superpowers, we have got something for you. With nearly a million people now discovering their profiles, the Sparketypes have become a global phenomenon.

Jonathan Fields: [00:02:53] People want their work to light them up, and oftentimes they would love some help along the way, which is why we developed our certified Sparketype advisor training. As a certified advisor, you will discover cutting edge tools that spark profound work life client transformations. Stand out with a highly unique credential and skill set in a crowded market. Find ease and flexibility with templated engagement flows. You'll become a part of a global network of change makers, and you'll rack up 40 ICF continuing education credits. Our fall cohort is enrolling now with visionaries just like you, and we would love to invite you to uplevel your capabilities as a coach or consultant or leader by becoming a certified Sparketype advisor. To learn more about the fall training and see if it's right for you, just click the link in the show notes now or visit sparketype.com. Slash pros. I'm finding that kind of a fun opening question, and a curiosity of mine is, was there a story in your mind about work, about what it was, what it wasn't? Should students expectations when you were younger, when you were growing up? And if so, I'd be curious what it was.

Navid Ladha: [00:04:09] Yeah, that's such a good question. I would say in my mind, I always thought of work as this place that grownups go, um, and they're there for quite a bit of time, and then they come home, and then we finally get to have dinner together, and then that's it. And then you have your family time. And it just seemed like work was the most part, the biggest part of your day, at least growing up for me and what I saw from my parents. Um, my parents were also not, you know, they were. I'm a first generational professional, is what they call it, I think. Um, so the first to work in an office setting. Uh, both of my parents were, you know, they were just trying to find jobs to make ends meet. So their schedules were kind of all over the place. And then I saw my friend's parents and what they were doing for work, which looked very professional office type, like 9 to 5. Kind of schedules. Both parents were home at a certain time in the evening. So to me, I think growing up I always thought of work was like this terrible place that takes your parents away. And sometimes, you know, you don't get to have both of them at the same time at home because of it, but it's a necessary thing that they have to do. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:05:13] I mean, that's really interesting. When did you have a sense for what the expectations about, like, work for you might be, or was there a sense of expectation within the family about like this is or isn't appropriate or good or like, this is what you're being, you know, what the paths that that are okay to consider. Or was it much more fluid or open than that?

Navid Ladha: [00:05:37] No. There were definitely specific paths that were kind of advised to me from my parents. My parents are, you know, we're South Asian, so sometimes our families tend to direct us in pathways that will bring more prosperity, more income, more success. So they were kind of determined to say that you should be an engineer or you should be a doctor. Those are kind of the given paths that any time anyone talked about. Naveed, what do you want to do when you grow up? That's a common question that comes up from aunts and uncles at family settings. And usually my I remember my mom interjecting and saying, oh, he's going to be a doctor or he's going to be an engineer. Definitely, definitely an engineer. And so in my mind, I think I when I went to college, I had that like, okay, I should I'm going to try to find this pathway to becoming a doctor. I tried so many pathways and I'm sure we'll talk about it in a bit, but part of what led me to do what I do today is I changed my major so often, and I researched about every single major and how it aligns to every career. And I kind of built this directory in my mind of like, what could it mean if I majored in English? What would it mean if I majored in history? What would it mean if I majored in business? And where could I end up? But anyway, that's that's kind of how I thought of it. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:06:50] I mean, it's so interesting, right? Because and I think a lot of people do that. You're, you're in college, which in theory should be this place where you're just kind of like exploring and trying. And, you know, the big question in my, in my mind is, you know, always like like what feels good to me. You know, like, what's interesting to me. What lights me up. Yet so often we take that experience and we're basically like, how do we use this to track ourselves for this particular thing? That's often an external expectation of what's okay for us to be doing. And how does this set us up? Not that that's necessarily a bad question, but when that becomes sort of like the driving question, like the only thing you're really focusing on, I mean, it's it can feel stifling in so many ways, but we don't realize it until later. What's your take on that?

Navid Ladha: [00:07:34] I think you're absolutely right. I think you it depends kind of on, again, if you had a lot of advice from those before you, if you had brothers and sisters older than you, if you had parents who went to college and kind of them advising you on what that might look like. And I see this a lot now in people that I'm working with is especially when they're new grads or undergrad folks who are just graduating and figuring out where they want to do next. Oftentimes they are kind of like, I majored in English. Therefore I must work in marketing or comms. That's like the only pathway that I can see. Or I could be a teacher, right. And oftentimes it's kind of expanding beyond that to say, actually, you could do so many things. You've acquired so many skills in this in this time that you were in college in this particular major. Think about those skills and how that could be anything you want to do. You're not limited. And I think when I went to college I didn't have that for me. Um, I think I was kind of like, okay, I must major in HR. If I want to work in HR, I must major in finance if I want to work in finance. And I think now, you know, I've discovered that's not true.

Jonathan Fields: [00:08:39] Yeah. So what did you end up majoring in? And then what was sort of like the first move out for you?

Navid Ladha: [00:08:44] Yeah, I ended up majoring in HR, management and business And my first move was actually my first job out of college was to work at a career center, which was to advise others on their careers. So new grad myself and telling other people what to do with their lives. Really fascinating. But I'm so glad that happened. It threw me into this world where I now that's exactly what I do. I still work in career advising after a long winding pathway of doing other things, but I love it, and I and I love that I got to just do it from the start. But yeah. And so my first job took me to New York to go work at a university. I worked at a career center. And, um, it was it was fantastic. I'm so glad it happened.

Jonathan Fields: [00:09:26] Yeah.So. So tell me more about then that that sort of, like, long, windy middle part, because I know you spend a chunk of time sort of like in various consulting type of roles in a bunch of different companies.

Navid Ladha: [00:09:39] I do. So my pathway from there, from working at the Career Center, I got really interested in international education. So I moved abroad. I moved to Singapore and worked again in the university setting, started thinking a lot more about leadership development and the nonprofit sector and social impact and what that looks like, and then moved back to the States after a couple of years. And that's kind of where I fell more into the nonprofit sector, thinking more about workforce development, post traditional students, post traditional folks who are now entering college. And what does that look like for them? What does the workforce trajectory look like for them? Thinking a lot more about the nonprofit sector and the folks who work within it. Also just to say, what is our pathway? What are the skills that we need to develop? What does growth look like? And that's kind of when I fell into more consulting, um, you know, 2020 hit pandemic. Everything was everywhere all at once. And I realized what I wanted to do at that point was I wanted to increase my impact. I wanted to work with a lot of different organizations, and I knew I could I could give back my time in that way. And so I started my own consulting work, and I got to work in various education non-profit organizations. I got to work also on the HR side. I got to work with corporations who are thinking about diversity, equity, inclusion. What does talent look like? What are the partnerships with workforce development. And so the through line, as you can see, is that access to jobs and access to education, that's always kind of been there. Um, so I finally thought about the through line and I said, what is this? Why is this, why is this topic still connected to me and why am I still interested in it? And I took my Sparketype and I was like, oh, this is why. So it worked out.

Jonathan Fields: [00:11:18] Yeah. And I want to dive into that, but I want to tease out a little bit more on the consulting side also, because when people sort of like, say, consulting, it's a huge umbrella phrase, you know, and almost anything can kind of fall into that if you really want it to. But the life of a consultant is often glamorous on the outside and really not so glamorous when you're actually doing it, when this is your lived day to day experience. So I'm curious what your actual day to day experience of doing this work was.

Navid Ladha: [00:11:47] With consulting. It was often, um, trying to do a little bit of, I guess what I would start off doing is asking questions and finding out what the problem was. What is it that I can do to to help? Um, I would do a lot of research. I would do a lot of data analysis. I would put together plans, and then I would present that to the people to say, like, hey, based on what I've heard and based on what you're telling me, these are some possible solutions based on my experience. Other organizations I've talked to and this is your plan, I typically try to give my organizations a couple of scenarios to say, hey, these are possible solutions, and let's let's figure out what works best for you. Um, again, being that advisor and kind of being that person that kind of like champions, like what what the work needs to be, but also letting you have the the choice. A lot of the work that I did was also project management and program management. So oftentimes thinking about these are all the pieces. These are all the puzzle pieces that are all over the place. How will we make this work? How will this work be the most efficient? How will this work serve your clients? You know the end constituents that the nonprofit is working with. How will it work with the people who are working who are actually doing the work? And so, yeah, that's that's a little bit of how I acted as a consultant. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:12:58] And and were you working for another organization doing this or at that point, were you then sort of like going out on your own saying, I'm building my own consulting practice.

Navid Ladha: [00:13:05] I started off working for another organization as a consultant, just to kind of get a taste of what this work might be like. And then I ventured off into my own to say, oh, I could definitely do this. That that experience validated the fact that I could do this because I was I was unsure and I'm glad that I had the opportunity. And then I said, oh, I could do this. And I found clients that were previous employers and clients that were previous partners. And it just kind of, you know, went from there.

Jonathan Fields: [00:13:30] Yeah. I mean, so I'm always curious when somebody has they've already started to build a career and often with organizations, sometimes large organizations, and then they make this decision to actually say, like, what if I did this on my own? Because that's a big decision. And not that, you know, you can never go back if this thing doesn't work. And but was there something that happened or an inciting incident or sort of like a moment of realization where you're just like, it's time.

Navid Ladha: [00:13:59] Mhm. Um, I think.Part of it was my partner and I became parents, so we adopted our daughter and this was in November of 2019. So just six months before the pandemic and everything shifted anyway. But I started thinking a lot about to your question of what work is and what work could be, and what I thought of as what work was when I was a kid and how I didn't want that to be the reality for my my child. I didn't want her to think of work as this terrible place that takes, you know, Data and Papa away. And they don't have any time for me or what that might look like. I was thinking a lot about balancing things. I was I wanted to have more autonomy. I wanted to have more influence over my schedule. I wanted to be able to take time off as I needed it and not feel guilty about it. I wanted to take time away from my day. If I have a sick kid at home and that's just on me and I can handle it and I can make the decisions. So honestly, that was that was the impetus, that was the reason. And I'm so glad because if it weren't for her, I don't think I would have been brave enough to do it. And now that I took that step, I've been more brave in my in my career journey to say I can do more things, and I've added more things to my plate in that way, while still maintaining the flexibility and the things that I need to just be a parent and be myself and be a partner. And all the things, all the complex identities that make me who I am.

Jonathan Fields: [00:15:17] Yeah, I love.

Navid Ladha: [00:15:18] Besides work.

Jonathan Fields: [00:15:19] I love that. And also it's, you know, a lot of times it's that moment of becoming a parent or, you know, when it's on the horizon, you're like, oh, like in the next nine months, in the next six months, like, I'm, we're about to have this really big change. A lot of times that's actually the moment that people have been trying their hand at entrepreneurship or building a private practice. They actually they go back or not. Not back necessarily, but they, they they look for something that is more of a full time gig in a bigger organization because, you know, in their mind, well, that gives me the security and the regular paycheck and the benefits for to be to like which they want, you know, when they're thinking about starting a family. So it's it's so fascinating to me that you kind of made the opposite calculus.

Jonathan Fields: [00:16:04] Mm.

Navid Ladha: [00:16:04] Yeah. I mean, I think, I think there were parts of me that wanted to think about my own career and where I'm headed and, you know, growing, I guess, like growing in, in my field as an expert and growing in my career, getting the title, getting the pay. Uh, thinking a lot about that was, you know, I think there were two paths I could have taken. And for a while I kind of did both where I said I could do a full time job, which is what I was doing. And then I was like, maybe I could start rolling this off on the side to say I could be a consultant with my employer's permission, obviously, but then to say I'm going to start taking on some projects on the side just to see what this could look like. And eventually when I said, oh, I could, I could do this, I could do this thing full time, it will be more fulfilling. I will get to pick the projects I want to work on and have the flexibility. Then I just kind of went full steam ahead.

Jonathan Fields: [00:16:53] Yeah. That's amazing. And it's also really interesting, sort of like against the backdrop of what you saw with your parents. Like on the one hand, you know, I'm curious whether there's a tension there because on the one hand, you as a kid are looking at your parents and you're like, you know, works kind of like this evil place. And, you know, it's where where it's what takes parents away from me and like, I don't want. And now, as you're about to become a parent, you're like, I don't want that for my child, basically. But there's also the parents expectations of, like, this is the appropriate way for you, you know, like our kid to earn a living. Um, what did that play into it at all? Or at that point, were you just kind of like past that?

Navid Ladha: [00:17:30] I think I was past that for sure. Um, having worked in the sector, having worked on so much on the topic of the future of work and careers, and how it's like a part of your life and not, hopefully not the main part of your life, I think. I think that helped me direct my own path in that way. I also think that in my parents perspective, from my parents perspective, if you're not an engineer or if you're not a doctor, the best thing you can be is a business owner. And so I think that probably also helped was that, oh, I this is how I explain my work to them, is that I own my own business. I find my own clients, I work on projects, I'm my own boss. And I think they they find that works for them. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:18:10] No, I love that. So you go out on your own. You're kind of like doing similar work to what you were doing, but now on your own. And then you make this change in what you're doing. You referenced earlier. You say like at some point you actually like, you stumble upon our body of work on the Sparketypes and you find out that your Sparketype is, if I remember correctly, the advisor was your primary. And that's all about guiding others through the process of growth. The Essentialists, which is about systems, process, creating clarity, order from chaos. How does this affect the way that you look at the work that you're doing?

Navid Ladha: [00:18:46] Yeah. So today I have two kind of parts of my work. One is I continue to be a consultant in the nonprofit industry, similar to what I talked about earlier. And then I'm also a job search coach for folks who are going through the process, mostly in the nonprofit and education industry. And how I use this is I can see the advisor in the essentials, working in the consultant side as a as someone who comes in, guides executives in the nonprofit setting to say, you know, these are some decisions, these are some challenges that we're facing. How will we come to this decision? The Essentialist in me kind of project manages the whole thing, puts the puzzle pieces together, and then I deliver the thing and I can see it so working so well there. But I also see it working so well as a career coach, and I'm so grateful that I get to do both, because I think it kind of uses different parts of my brain. But with career coaching advisors is a given, right? I'm advising and guiding others for their growth. Asking the right questions. Thinking a lot about like, what is it? What is it that they're driven to? What will they do next and how will it fulfill them? And then the second part, the essentialist, is I keep things organized for people. So I take their thoughts. I take all the answers, I understand what they're about. And then I kind of say like, okay, based on what you've told me, here's the map. And that's where the essentialist comes in to say, how will I organize these thoughts for you? How will I project manage this for you so that your job search journey is as organized as possible? And that's kind of where that comes in, I think.

Jonathan Fields: [00:20:18] Yeah, I mean, that makes so much sense. And it's so interesting, right? Because the what we've learned in our data is that the, the essentialist is often the work that most people struggle with a lot and feel least competent with. Yeah, they look at it and they see the value of it. They're like, oh, I wish I was this way. I wish I could organize and structure things. I wish I had like systems and like I knew exactly how to put everything together. They see the value of it, but and they and they want the benefit of it having being been done. But they have very little interest in doing it themselves and almost experience it, you know, as, as, as drudgery work. So it's interesting when you know, you have that impulse and it's actually something that is fairly strong in you and supportive of the work that you get to sort of, you know, provide something that people also really struggle with.

Navid Ladha: [00:21:08] No, it definitely helps. And I think it helps with the accountability part of advising and coaching to say week after week, we'll come back to this conversation. And as the essentialist, I'll make sure that the chaos is organized. I'll make sure that your next steps are clearly outlined. I'll I'll send you the things that we've talked about. I'll make sure that your tasks are limited to 3 to 4 things, so it's not overwhelming. And then I'll check up on you to make sure that those three things that we've talked about and, you know, I guess together planned will get done in a timely manner so that you could continue your journey.

Jonathan Fields: [00:21:44] So when you think about what you're doing now, it sounds like you're kind of splitting your time. Like part of it is, is more of the consulting side. Part of it is more of the career development side. When you think forward, you know, and you think about, do you have a sense, do you do you look forward and think, well, like I have a vision for what I want this to become? Or does it look similar but just later on, or does it look different over time to you?

Navid Ladha: [00:22:06] I think it looks different over time. I today I would say I like the split of the 50 over 50 to be able to, again, kind of use both sides of I know my skills and my experience. I love working with people one on one, and I love being an advisor, and I want to definitely grow that more so if at some point, I guess at some point if I could do like a 60 over 40 split 60 being advising and coaching, that would be ideal. But yeah, I don't know if I want to necessarily do one over the other. I want to continue doing both if I can.

Jonathan Fields: [00:22:42] Yeah. I mean, which is amazing because then you sort of like get to satisfy different parts of you, you know, and different, very different clients and different type of work also. And if you have an interest in the different topics and the type of work and the types of clients, you know, it sort of it keeps that interest bucket full along the way.

Navid Ladha: [00:23:00] It does.And I would say one other thing about that is oftentimes when I'm working with people who are career switchers, we're talking a lot about what is it that you want to do next? Not necessarily what you want to do forever. Um, and I think I try to put that on myself to say, for me right now, I'm not I'm not saying that like, this is the one thing that I'm going to do for the rest of my life, and I'm allowed to have multiple interests, and I'm allowed to have multiple experiences and strengths. And why not practice all of them if I can?

Jonathan Fields: [00:23:32] Yeah, no, that makes so much sense. And I think that's become a much more common way to think about careers, also, because I don't think there's a whole lot of this is what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life that exists anymore in career land. It's sort of like a foregone error type of approach. I mean, maybe for some people, but for most people, I think that's just not the assumption anymore. And it's not the reality on the ground. When you look back over this chunk of time, is there anything that you look at and you think to yourself, huh? You know, knowing what I know now, I might have done this a little bit differently.

Jonathan Fields: [00:24:07] Mm.

Navid Ladha: [00:24:09] Gosh, that's such a good question. I would say, I mean, knowing what I know now, honestly, I don't think so. Um, and the reason I say that is because every experience, every job I've had has helped me become a stronger coach and a consultant if I hadn't worked in all those sectors. After even starting my job in career advising from the beginning, I wouldn't have gained the expertise or known more about the sector firsthand as I do now. And I think that experience allows me to give back to the to the, the clients that I'm working with. When I say I've approached the the job search journey from all angles, when I say that to my clients, I truly mean it because I've been a job seeker. But I've also worked in recruitment and hiring. I've also worked as a career advisor. I've also worked as someone who researches the future of work and workforce development, so that for me, that encompasses all of that. And I'm so grateful for that, because if I hadn't had all those things, then I don't think I would be as strong of a job search coach today to my clients.

Jonathan Fields: [00:25:11] Yeah, I love that. And it also really reinforces this notion that, you know, there really aren't a whole lot of, like, true mistakes out there. You know, if like if you take an action and you know, the outcome wasn't exactly what you wanted it to be, or what you hoped it would be or thought it would be. But then you actually, you know, like you ask yourself, well, what did I learn from this? And what has it given me that I'll carry forward? And if you just take that beat, it's it's all got value. You know, it all contributes to what we bring forward and how we continue to intentionally craft the next step and the next step and the next step. I feel like that reframe can often help us through sometimes those moments where we're like, oh, wow, this isn't what I wanted to happen. But if I can bring value out of that, if I can extract value and bring it forward, it just it feels helpful. I wonder if you actually see that in some of the advising that you're doing if like, people can have that reframe.

Navid Ladha: [00:26:05] I do I see it often. Um, I would say people are very apprehensive about switching careers to something that's completely different, even if it is something of interest, because if they've been doing something for a number of years and they're known for that work, it's scary to completely switch topics and say, I'm going to start doing this other thing. Will I be seen as an expert as I am today? What will it mean if I want to switch to something else again, or switch back to what I was doing? And that comes up often, and I think my in my advice typically is in the age that we're living in where people can take on various interests and become experts on anything they want to be. Whether you look at TikTok or Instagram or LinkedIn, people can become experts in a topic in an instant. They can say, I know about this. I did my research and therefore now I'm going to give advice about it on on this social media platform, which is fine and fair if you have the expertise. But I think that also proves that you aren't limited. You can be you can become an expert in something else and you can switch back. If it doesn't work out, that's okay. You tried it and you can now go exactly back to what you were doing. If that was truly your your interest area and, and yeah. And so I think, I think I just try to make people feel comfortable to say like it's okay.

Jonathan Fields: [00:27:21] Yeah.

Navid Ladha: [00:27:22] No one's going to hold you accountable to the thing that you changed. Changed your career to. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:27:27] But but there is this identity thing that gets wrapped up in that. Especially if you've, like, built a quote name, you know, in a certain amount of social credibility and currency around expertise in a very particular way. And also there's a certain amount of status that goes along with that. And you're like, am I going to have to give up that status and kind of like rebuild my status from the ground up? I. And, you know, like a million past lives ago when I left my job as a lawyer and like a giant law firm in New York City, and my next job was making 12 bucks an hour as a personal trainer. The biggest thing for me was giving up the status. It was like, wow. Like, you know what? If one of my old clients or colleagues from law school asks me what I'm doing, like, if I bump into them somewhere and it took me, it took me a minute to get over that. But once I did, I was like, but I love what I'm doing, and I'm actually figuring out how to succeed pretty quickly. So I think the further into your career we get that, the bigger the hurdle, that tends to be for people to sort of navigate. I'm curious what your take is on that.

Navid Ladha: [00:28:25] I think you're right. But at the same time, if you are, if something is pulling you away from what you've been doing for a while, as you kind of mentioned your story, there must be something there. There's there's a reason why you're interested in switching it up. And I think it's scary. And I think you're totally right that you may have to start at a different level than perhaps you were. And income might also be different. But if you are truly interested in it, and if it is something that's taking more of your time, if you are investing more of your time to become an expert, um, hopefully you can go back and hopefully you can grow quicker. Mhm.

Jonathan Fields: [00:29:01] Awesome. So final words of wisdom, anything come to mind that you'd like to share with our community?

Navid Ladha: [00:29:09] Yeah I think oftentimes what I see is people don't take enough time to learn more about themselves or take the time to reflect on who they are and why they are interested in certain things. What is pulling them and why? I think we're so, um, just kind of drawn to the next thing based on what we're hearing and advice we're given from all the platforms that we have access to, that I think it's I think my final words of advice would just be to say, um, take the time. Take the time to know who you are, take the time to do that self-exploration. And I think it will be helpful to you no matter what your journey is.

Jonathan Fields: [00:29:48] Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. And if you'd like to share your career transformation story on the SPARKED podcast to inspire others to maybe feel less stuck or unsure about their own career paths, we encourage you to apply to be a guest and check out the form in the show notes, because we believe that everyone deserves to find fulfillment and purpose in their work. And remember, if you're at a moment of exploration, looking to find and do or even create work that makes you come more fully alive, that brings more meaning and purpose and joy into your life. Take the time to discover your own personal Sparketype for free at sparketype.com. It'll open your eyes to a deeper understanding of yourself and open the door to possibility like never before. And hey, if you're finding value in these conversations, please just take an extra second right now to follow and rate SPARKED in your favorite podcast app. This is so helpful in helping others find the show and growing our community so that we can all come alive and work in life together. This episode of SPARKED was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and Me, Jonathan Fields. Production and editing by Sarah Harney. Special thanks to Shelley Adelle for her research on this episode. Until next time. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED.