How to Choose Freedom over Familial Responsibility

Jonathan Fields: [00:00:13] In today's episode, our listener Paula shares a powerful story about a season of devotion to her family and her family business, and her emerging passion to shift focus to something new, and how that brings up all sorts of questions about everything from familial responsibility to purpose, passion, and the freedom to choose your next move. Paula wrote in to share her story with us. So we've asked Shelley from our team to read it into the conversation for us. An on deck with me this week for the SPARKED Brain Trust to help tease out what really matters and share insights and ideas, is bestselling author of Life After College, the groundbreaking book pivot, and her newly published book, Free Time Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business, and also an incredible career and business strategist, Jenny Blake. So quick note you'll hear us mention something we call Sparketypes in conversation. So what is that? Well, it 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, and even parts of your personal life and relationships, they begin to make sense. And until you know yours, you're kind of fumbling in the dark a bit. 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. Now on to Paula's story in question. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED.

Paula Cordeiro: [00:01:43] Hello, my name is Paula Cordeiro. I'm from Brazil, and here is my question for Jonathan. I'm a big fan of the podcast and his work of course, and would love to hear his thoughts about it, which is why I quickly put this email together. Thanks for such a great opportunity. My best to Jonathan and the SPARKED team. I'm 43, mother of an 18 year old young man, and I have a degree in Business Administration. I've been working at my family business for over 12 years now. Our company is a manufacturer of disposable surgical products and has existed for over 20 years in the south of Brazil, supplying to all major hospitals in our region and to over 20 states. In 2018, we had the biggest crisis the company has ever faced. And since my area is administration and management, and I'm the oldest of the second generation in the company, my uncle and my father created the company around 2000. I took a lot of the responsibility for the situation and along with the team, we had a massive recovery preventing the company from almost closing down. The pandemic actually provided a great opportunity and in spite of its sad, life changing effects in our lives on a global level, it also forced us to find new possibilities. Through a lot of hard work and team effort, we managed to more than double our revenue, keep all of our employees at work, and get through this difficult time very successfully.

Paula Cordeiro: [00:03:06] During this process, which took over two and a half years, I found myself. I let go of a toxic relationship that lasted almost ten years. I discovered my self esteem, found my true authenticity, and became empowered by realizing I had so much to give and actually contribute to the growth of this company. During this time, my life changed in all unexpected ways possible, and I'm beyond grateful for everything that happened, including the good and the bad, which was a lot. I started meditating, found a new community and friends, new hobbies. A whole new world of spirituality opened up for me. And most important of all, I developed a deep connection with my intuition and God. As in the source of everything there is not as in the religion, God. No judgments here. Just to clarify, through this process, I also found my protagonism in leadership role at the company, something I achieved with work, inspiration, respect for others and a deep alignment with my values. However, in order to make a long story short, now I feel like I have more to give than my current work. It really seems that all this change that we went through solved and corrected so many problems in our operation, company culture, perspectives, policies, etc.

Paula Cordeiro: [00:04:19] that I feel almost like I have too much free time now. Also, we're in the middle of a transition of generations in the company. My father is 72. He stays at the company less and less and he's the head of the sales team. I'm quite certain he expects me to get into this area to keep doing his work, but I just can't connect with it. I have gently spoken about this with him. I feel like my purpose is not just in assuming his role and moving from there. I think we're living in a time when purpose became the most important factor for self-realization and a fulfilled professional life. I dare say I make no distinction between personal and professional lives anymore. It's all one thing, and I'm just moving between the both of them as each moment requires. I would also love to find an alternative for working from 9 a.m. to six. Pm and expand my time to pursue other interests and opportunities. I believe I'll always be part of the company, but I also think that there's more. I just don't know what it is. I feel a bit stagnant and I wish there was something else to accomplish to be challenged by, if that makes any sense. There's also the possibility of embracing the challenge to take the company to the next level, but I'm pretty sure that that would require a new learning curve, a new set of skills and knowledge that I'm not sure I possess, although it's something I could also pursue.

Paula Cordeiro: [00:05:36] It's just not a clear path for me yet. And of course, that depends on others getting on board as well. My Sparketype profile. My primary is the essentialist, my shadow is the maven, and my auntie is the performer. My results were really impressive because I could actually see myself in them. I thrive in chaos. The essentialist I love to go down rabbit holes to learn more about whatever is necessary or is currently attracting my interests, the maven and I just can't see myself in sales meetings with 20 people or more to find new strategies or ideas to sell more surgical products. The anti performer, although I believe I'm capable of doing it and I can do it really well speaking in front of our employees or entertaining clients at events and etc. I just don't think it's my thing. It is absolutely hard to put all of these reflections into one question, but I would love to get some insights on how my Sparketype profile can point me to the most aligned choices when it's time to make them in my current situation.

Jonathan Fields: [00:06:39] Our such an interesting set of circumstances and questions. And so Paula finds herself at a really interesting moment in her life and her work in her world, having been through some major, major changes that sound like they rippled out into her personal life as well. What jumps out at you from this? Like, where do you want to start? Here? Because there are a lot of different sort of like tentacles. But what's really calling you? What's sort of like saying, ooh, like this is this is big and juicy and central to the, the whole thing. Yeah.

Jenny Blake: [00:07:10] Well, the first thing that jumps out is, just, as you said, acknowledging how much massive change and transformation Paula has already gone through. It's not easy to navigate a toxic relationship of almost a decade, and it's almost buried in the question here of just rediscovering herself and finding her true authenticity and the growth at her company, and handling all the turnover and the stress of that as a leader is tremendous. So I just want to say she's come through a massive, earthquake, life shaking transformation. And although she might feel a little bit confused about what's next and what to do at this current fork in the road, I just want to acknowledge Paula for how much she has already traversed, and also reconnecting with her sense of trust and faith and spirituality and a sense of a larger force guiding her that that's going to be with her on this next phase of the journey, too, and be such a resource.

Jonathan Fields: [00:08:09] Yeah, I so agree with that. I think so often we just I mean, we wait, we go through these monumental changes and sometimes we stumble, sometimes like it doesn't go the way we want it. In this particular case, she's accomplished an incredible amount. And and it's led to not just professional change, but a lot of personal letting go and reimagining. And we're kind of like, okay, now what? Like next, next, next, next. Like we keep checking the boxes and never saying, oh, but like, what if I just savor this for a hot minute? What if I look back and acknowledge, okay, so maybe I didn't do that alone, but I did that and I was a part of it and it was really hard. And yeah, I feel like that's similar to you. There's a there's a savoring that we tend to just blow past that I think would be really, really, um, grace, including to explore at this moment in time and really sort of like acknowledge what's happened. So there's the questions, and I think we'll get around to really trying to identify what the question is here. But the other thing that jumped out at me that I want to acknowledge, because this is a new circumstance that's been presented us in a number of different ways, one of which is it's in the context of a family owned, a multi-generational family business that alone can be so fraught and so layered and so complex with, you know, like personal and professional power dynamics. And I'm curious whether you just sort of like, have any thoughts on on that dynamic.

Jenny Blake: [00:09:33] I know, yeah, I just picture how much space Paula has been holding for the family business, how much pressure she probably feels on her shoulders of once in a hundred years global pandemic, dealing with all the personal tumult. And it sounds like coming to the realization of just not being able to stay in that toxic situation any longer. And yeah, you throw on to that a family owned business where it's not just her decision. I bet she feels a little bit of obligation and loyalty to her father and her uncle and everyone else who's involved to employees and team members. And so I think it can be really hard to hear your own voice when you have all these other really loud voices and interests and that they're inherited. I mean, she's come up through the family business, so her fork in the road is so understandable because there's a lot of consideration at play. And what I find and what I talk about in pivot is just sometimes we need to separate decisions from difficult conversations that in order to even hear our own intuition and our gut instinct about a situation, we have to give ourselves permission. That what if I never had to tell anybody what's in my heart? I never had to communicate it. What would I what would be in there? What would I be thinking? And I think it sounds to me that's a little bit of what Paula is trying to do is who am I and what do I want and how do I want to move forward? Even though I'm in this kind of a legacy structure with a sense of responsibility to keep it thriving?

Jonathan Fields: [00:11:03] Yeah. And it's almost like those the different concerns can sometimes feel like they're battling each other, especially because if you have a sense of familial like this is a family business, you know, it's it it sounds like it went through a window where it almost wasn't a family business after a really long time. And it was in no small part her stepping in, really tapping that. Her primary Sparketype is essentialist. It's all about creating order from chaos, clarity, utility, which of course, you know a lot about because that is your primary Sparketype as well. And so she's called on to to do that in a business at a time. Where it is in big crisis. And that gives, on the one hand, like this, you know, incredible opportunity to do all of the stuff that fills her up. Like she's in the mode, like crisis management or turnarounds are actually really interesting prompts, really interesting opportunities for somebody who's wired as an essentialist, because it literally brings everything that you have to bear to, to lead that kind of thing. But then when you're really good at it and then you turn it around and as she says, you know, not the company is in actually fantastic shape. And, you know, it's emerging a whole different place.

Jonathan Fields: [00:12:10] You know, the fam, the sense of I'm part of a family thing, the sense of like, you know, like I'm not going to walk away from my devotion and my commitment to all of this stuff. But the the fundamental nature of the work that made it really hard and also probably in no small part, really fulfilling because it aligned so well with her Sparketype of the last few years is not there on the same level anymore. So it's it. It sets up what I, what I look at as values versus Sparketype impulse scenario, which we see like not infrequently, which is you have a certain value that says this is really, really, really important to me. Maybe family to her is really, really important. Like keeping a word, acknowledging like, you know, devotion to family is really important. Um, but the impulse for the sparketype in the nature of what she was doing, it's very hard at this moment to sort of like, see how she would continue to be able to express this, this deepest part of herself. And it's a really interesting tension that I've seen come up in a lot of different ways that she's sort of like describing.

Jenny Blake: [00:13:13] I also wonder if there were whispers for her, starting even pre-pandemic, at the stage of the company had reached. And then, like you said, that a crisis kicks in and so does she. I smiled at the part of her question where she says, I'm an essentialist. I thrive in chaos. I love that she knows that about herself, and I'm a fellow essentialist maven, so I get exactly what she's feeling, which is as stressful as this time was. It just sounds like that made her feel alive. She stepped in. She did what needed to be done. But now, as she looks out at the horizon, I can speak for myself as an essentialist maven building. I'm sure you can relate to Jeff. That building is so much more where we thrive, creating something out of nothing than it is maintaining or even the growth stage of a sophisticated company like they have. That growth stage isn't for everybody because it's not the creating something from nothing anymore. You're kind of selling what is. And she even acknowledged she could maybe learn to do that, but it sounded more like a shiny should than something that was truly aligned with her. Sparketype, like you said, still acknowledging the value. It sounds to me like the superseding value is that she wants to ensure her dad can step aside when he needs to, and that the company is set up for success. The what's in question is whether that needs to be her right at the center of it, or if she can solve that unknown and still set herself free a little bit, which is what I kind of hear in the question where her heart is calling her toward.

Jonathan Fields: [00:14:44] Yeah, 100%. And in an interesting way, I feel like her question and specifically how you put it. It speaks a lot, a lot in an interesting way to your current body of work around free time. Also, you know, because this is about how can I look at the full range of everything that I'm doing and like, how do I automate as much as humanly possible? What are the systems, the process, the automations, where I can basically create a hyper efficiency in all of these different things and in no small part, not just in the name of, of efficiency, but and not just necessarily in the name of having more personal free time, but in her context, in the name of potentially having the ultimate expression of free time, of entirely stepping away from what she's doing.

Jenny Blake: [00:15:31] Yes, and freeing up her mind and her time to do her next best work. Because that is how I was so grateful you brought that into this. Because, yes, free time to just take a break. She has navigated so much again, personally and professionally, that I could just see Paula on a year long sabbatical. Thriving, just finding, even discovering even more. Just so much richness there. Uh, Stefan Sagmeister, an artist you and I both admire. He does this every seven years. He has a great Ted talk on the subject, and in fact, what he comes up with and creates as a result of these year long sabbaticals every seven years, provide the foundation for his entire design agency of what they're going to do next. So I also have no doubt that if she were to open up some of that free time, it's not like she's never going to touch the business ever again. It's that she is going to create so much more possibility, especially as the essentialist maven that she is of seeking, learning, organizing, categorizing, taking those learnings back to the company. And I say in the book, I call it Escape Velocity, that what a lot of founders and owners and leaders want is a sense that they've built the rocket boosters and escape velocity is that those systems and the team and the infrastructures in place, get so much velocity and momentum that the boosters can fall off, like the CEO can actually step aside, even if they remain the owner, even if they remain closely connected and caring about the company, they often the ultimate is that they don't have to be the one in the weeds involved in the day to day. And I'm kind of hearing something along those lines for Paula where escape velocity would be, there's a person and teams and systems in place that she knows are set up for success, that give her that freedom to step away.

Jonathan Fields: [00:17:26] Yeah. And I wonder if and I'm going to pose this to you, since you're also an essentialist and you have mastery over this body of work around developing free time systems and process as an essentialist is, do you feel like there's any fear or the potential for fear associated with stepping away from something where you know that you have been fiercely needed, fiercely appreciated, and there's still massive complexity? You've done the work that you've showed up to do. You're not entirely sure what the next thing is. So within that, like within going from this, this season of intense appreciation, intense work, intense expression, if there's no clear what's next for an essentialist in particular, does that lack of just an immediate sense of here's like, here's something that is like, I can I can immediately step into that has the level of complexity and chaos and stuff that will really light me up. Do you feel like there's any sense of potential fear of stepping into that space of, I don't see the thing that is going to give me the same hit that I've been feeling over the last couple of years immediately, and I don't want to step away from the thing that I'm doing, even if I feel like I'm kind of spinning my wheels and not entirely needed or not, or nearly the way I was, I don't want to step away from that until I see the next big essentialist challenge to step into already on the horizon.

Jenny Blake: [00:19:00] Oh my goodness yes. I mean oh gosh, I think this is what makes change so friggin challenging and complex, is that it feels like you're stepping into the void. And there's this beautiful passage that I included in my first book by Dan M Perry. He has since passed away, but it's called The Parable of the trapeze, and he talks about how in order to let go of that bar you're currently holding, you, you you reach for the second bar. But there's this period of time where you're suspended in mid-air and you have no clue if you're going to catch that next bar. And it's entirely on faith that you let go of the first one. And yet you have to let go of the first one. You used to live in New York-jfk so you know about that trapeze that's down in the West Village meatpacking area. I don't know if you've ever done it, but I did it one time and it's true. You cannot catch the next trapeze bar or catch the flier. Who's going to go reach for your hands? The other person hanging upside down unless you let go of the current one. And so I think for that reason, change is so complex. And if you're a leader, there is so much identity and purpose and even satisfaction in knowing what you're doing.

Jenny Blake: [00:20:07] It's interesting because the research shows Bo Burlingham wrote a book called Finish Big, where he said that founders who sold their company were the most depressed when they didn't have their next thing lined up. And yet, I've been thinking a lot about this, and I think on a spiritual level, there's something so powerful about the liminal space of not knowing what's next and letting that exist. And so I would hesitate to say, oh, as long as you just line up the next thing, you'll be okay. Because I think the bigger spiritual challenge and I'm hearing this in Paula is, is the soul growth is not rushing to fill the void. It's in that courage to be in the unknown, to be between trapeze bars, to trust that the next bar, that the next steps, the clarity will be shown, it will be revealed. But that, as the saying goes, you have to start walking down the hallway to see the open doors. You just can't see them from the current vantage point. And so it it's a long answer short. I think it's incredibly nerve wracking. And yet also that edge is exactly where we grow. And I think these are the whispers that say, yes, it's scary as hell, but start taking those first steps.

Jonathan Fields: [00:21:24] Yeah, it's sort of where, you know, this Sparketype meets the spiritualist, meets the just the human being trying to emerge and evolve, which is interesting because earlier Paula said, she said let go of a toxic relationship lasts almost ten years. I discovered my self-esteem. I found my true authenticity, became empowered by realizing I had so much to give and actually contribute to the growth of the company. So what was happening here wasn't just an opportunity for her to go deep into this impulse that like, she feels like wired to do. But it was what she's describing in no small way is a spiritual awakening, you know? And I realize in the world of work and the world of business, well, like, we don't use words like that. But in the world of, like being a living, breathing human being who wants to continue to grow and evolve and learn and express, you know, it actually, that is a part of the conversation. And I feel like it may be time to sort of to have more of those conversations in the context of work and the context of business, because she's very clearly saying that this wasn't just about me applying a skill and an impulse to a complex set of tasks that need to be handled. Something else happened here that led to the inciting of a personal evolution.

Jonathan Fields: [00:22:35] And I'm curious also what would happen if, now that the really intense, complex thing is sort of like is moving into the background a little bit, the personal evolution that can be pushed to the side, but that can always be centered because there is always complexity and growth and nuance to embrace there. And I almost wonder if the next step is creating the space to kind of go back to that part of what Paula shared and said, what if I just kind of like, planted a seed that let my own, like personal growth and evolution and deepening into self-knowledge and experimenting to see what what made me feel different ways? What if I just let that take center stage for a little bit and let the whatever almost emerge from that process more organically start to inform then what might be my next professional move in a way where it felt like it was informed, not just by this awakening to the fact that yes, I'm an essentialist and a maven, and like, I'm really, really, really, really good in these contexts. And also just as a living, breathing human being who's sentient and yearns for growth, I'm also really more more full and alive when these other circumstances and contexts are part of my daily experience. What's your take on that?

Jenny Blake: [00:23:51] Well, I love what you're saying, and as you were saying that, it kind of struck me that her taking a pause or break is not. Forever. And I love your suggestion that could she build some space? Even that could be three months. You don't have to have any clue who's going to take over, who's going to come into the lead, but that the space can happen in and of itself for itself. And she can invite, I call it a nonlinear breakthrough, but she can invite clarity. She can say, I have no clue what to do here. I have a sense I'm not meant to be the one in this role. I'm looking for a nonlinear breakthrough, or I'm inviting next steps to reveal themselves and that creating that space temporarily, even as a first step, that's a way to kind of break down something very scary. Instead of trying to make this decision all at once, carving out that. We keep calling it space, but space for it, I also come what comes to mind is, Jonathan something you wrote that has been so impactful in my own life and career? This article, I hope you can throw it in the show notes called The Unfortunate Middle, and I know you know which one. I was going through such a big transition in my own professional life. I printed this article out. I gave it to my husband to read to see why I had been so grumpy and stressed and crying lately. And this article, you put words to this oscillation between simple grace and sustainable complexity, and then you describe so viscerally what it's like to be in the unfortunate middle. And I just wonder if anything comes up for you around Paula's question and where she finds herself and that thought leadership that you wrote. I don't even know what year. It's just so timeless.

Jonathan Fields: [00:25:35] Yeah, I probably wrote that a decade ago and has most stuff that I write like that. It's it's mainly to remind myself, um, of the, the lessons I've often reimagined or thought about reimagining the title of that as not the unfortunate middle, but like the fertile middle, it feels brutal when we're in the space in the in between. But that's also where we're planting the seeds, and sometimes the seeds move us back to simple grace, to simplicity. Sometimes we move us forward to, you know, like a level of complexity, but where we still have that feeling. But, um, yeah, I will I will do my best to find it and link to it in the show notes. But, um, that it seems like we're both saying, like, this is a really interesting moment to build structure for non-doing, which for an essentialist is not the easiest thing in the planet, and just sort of like being like doing things that allow you to like structurally create space on a regular basis for a certain sort of like emergence of what comes next, rather than a forced like process around it when, you know, like, and if you live and breathe for process, that can be a hard thing. But at the end of the day, if you look at the actual if you look at research on ideation, big ideas, next steps, solutions often come in one of two ways, like they're either analytical or they're insight based.

Jonathan Fields: [00:26:54] Analytical means that you can point to a process, and you can trace all the steps and the data and everything that led you to this one particular decision to do this thing, or one particular outcome inside based. It just happened. Like you literally, you cannot reverse engineer it. You cannot point to a process or a structure. Um, it's just like all of a sudden something emerges and you're like, this, this is right. This is the solution. This is next for me, whatever it may be, and you know it in your bones. But if somebody said defend it, you wouldn't necessarily be able to point to all the steps in the data and the process around it. And yet, insight based ideation is where the really big growth opportunities, the really big leaps both in business and careers and in life tend to happen. And we tend to not just decentralize them, but de-emphasize them, because we cannot give you like a rational, step by step basis, a methodology that led us to this thing. And I think this is it's an interesting moment for her to revisit, sort of like, okay, what if I created this space for potentially more insight based, um, ideation and solutions and next steps to emerge?

Jenny Blake: [00:28:00] Absolutely. And like it cracks me up when people say, oh, you can't make business decisions based on intuition, data. It's all in the data. I'm a data driven leader. What do you think intuition is but a thousand, if not a million data points? Just because we can't put language to it. Our intuition is formed from just tremendous swath of unconscious data, or just under the surface data or data pulled from the collective consciousness data. And just because we can't lay it all out in an Excel sheet does not mean that it is not data driven. Our intuition. So I don't know. I'm such an advocate for leaning on intuition in situations like these, trusting that it is from a collection of data and research and distillation which I know she's so good at. And I also want to say the strength of an essentialist is to boil down to the essence of something. So it's interesting because I think we've talked about this before. One of my favorite. Is sayings. It's hard to read the label from inside the jar. Sure, sometimes essentialists have the messiest closets of anyone.

Jenny Blake: [00:29:07] Ooh, but nothing feels better than when you can get in there and give it all a haircut. And I just hear that this is what she's doing with her career, that the essentialist in her actually does want to reduce the volume of activity and distillation of her focus into what is essential, what is essential to her soul, what is essential to her spirit, what is essential to her strengths, and how she can contribute most essentially to the company. But that actually what she is wanting to do is now create order from the chaos of her career. Like her career became so chaotic navigating, steering the ship through crisis. And now I think I just think her essential skill is going to come in really handy here. She just has to realize that she's the one kind of under the microscope of this strength. So it's always a little challenging to turn that strength on ourselves. But I do think that realizing, oh, what I do for everyone else now is what I'm going to do for myself can help a little bit.

Jonathan Fields: [00:30:09] Mhm. I love that. And I feel like that is a good place for us to wrap things up also. So Jenny thank you so much for sharing ideas and insights and thank you everybody else for listening in. We will see you next week.

Jenny Blake: [00:30:24] Thank you so much, Jeff. Thank you everybody for listening. And huge kudos, Paula. It takes so much courage to say this out loud, even to yourself, let alone in an email, and then have it go live on a podcast. So I commend you and I can't wait to see where you take things from here.

Jonathan Fields: [00:30:41] Hey, so I hope you enjoyed that conversation. Learned a little something about your own quest to come alive and work in life, and maybe feel a little bit less alone along this journey to find and do what sparks you. 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 in 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.