How to Discover the Work That Energizes You

Jonathan Fields: [00:00:08] So we all want to feel more alive in work and also in life. But how? I mean, where do we even begin? I'm sure you've noticed there are certain activities that just kind of light you up at work. When you're doing them, you lose track of time. You drop into the state of flow. You feel deeply energized, like you're fueled by purpose and meaning and joy. But there are also other things that drain you, no matter how motivated you might be on the outside to do them, or how much they are part of your job responsibility. Turns out we all have a set of impulses that are unique to us, and they inform what kind of work fills us up and what empties us out. We call these your sparketypes, and we've been leading research on the Sparketypes since 2018, building on input from nearly 900,000 people around the world. Generate a database of more than 45 million data points, and we have learned a thing or two about what it takes to come alive at work, and figured it was time to start sharing a lot more of that with you here on the Spark podcast. And today we're starting out with a simple question what are the sparketypes and why should you discover yours? And joining me from our fabulous team here at Spark Endeavors is Shelley Adelle Bliss, and together we take a deep dive into our Sparketype framework for uncovering your unique blend of Sparketype elements.

Jonathan Fields: [00:01:27] And by the way, if you'd love to discover the elements of your Sparketype profile for free, you can take the Sparketype assessment at sparketype.com or just click the link in the show notes. In just 10 or 15 minutes, you'll get a customized spark profile that reveals your basic imprint for work that makes you come alive. All right, now let's dive in with a fun intro into the world of the Sparketypes. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED. So I am excited to dive in. Today we have, um, what we're calling a bit of a spark hot take, where we're going to take on a single topic and really dive into it. And we've had a lot of questions and requests to actually go a lot deeper into a lot of the work that we have been doing here at Spark Endeavors and the Sparketypes, what they're about, what they're not about, and really all different aspects of how do we make this thing called work one of the best parts of our lives? Because for so many people, it is the exact opposite. We thought a great starting point would be really to kind of set up what are these things called sparketypes and what goes into them. And to join me today from our fabulous team here at Spark Endeavors is Shelley Adelle bliss. Hey there.

Shelley Adelle Bliss: [00:02:59] Hey, thanks for having me.

Jonathan Fields: [00:03:02] So, Shelly, what's our topic for today? What are we going to dive into? Where are we starting? Here.

Shelley Adelle Bliss: [00:03:06] So you teach that every Sparketype is composed of four core attributes. Um, an animating impulse, an Achilles heel where someone with the sparketype finds their satisfaction on a spectrum that spans between process and service, and what typically trips someone up with the sparketypes into a state of overload. So I would love for you to tell us more about these.

Jonathan Fields: [00:03:31] Yeah, no, I'm happy to dive into those four. And why don't you, Ian? We'll take like a little bit of a bigger step back for anyone who's entirely new to this conversation, to the whole notion of what is this thing called a sparketype? It's based on a body of work that we began researching back in 2018, where we identified these ten different impulses for work that make you come alive, that give you a sense of energy and excitement, of meaning and purpose and easier access to flow states and unlocked potential. And we developed this assessment, the Sparketype assessment, since we launched it at the end of 2018, somewhere around the order of 900,000 people have now completed this assessment from all over the world, from literally individuals to private practice professionals to senior leaders in some of the biggest companies in the world. And we've worked with people on those different levels as well, developing the ideas and the body of work and tools. And what we've learned is that everybody has what we call a sparketype profile. They have a blend of these impulses that give them the feeling of either coming alive when they're doing more of these things, or feeling really stifled and drained when they're doing little of them. And each one of these Sparketypes, as you described. Well, they're these four different aspects of each type. And it's kind of important to understand what these are. So why don't I break those four different components down, Shelley. And then we can talk a little bit maybe about what this would look like in real life. That makes sense. That sounds.

Shelley Adelle Bliss: [00:05:05] Great.

Jonathan Fields: [00:05:05] Great. So we start out by saying like really sort of like the centerpiece of your Sparketypes is this thing we call the animating impulse. This is like the thing that gets you out of bed in the morning. It's this thing where you wake up and you're like, ooh, you know what? I actually want to really invest myself, uh, in a lot of effort. And I want to work hard. I want to go and do these things. I want to pour myself into something for no other reason than the feeling that it's giving me. It is this impulse that exists within all of us that animates us, that wakes us up, that fills us with that feeling that we want to have more of, that feeling that we are alive, that we're SPARKED in our language. So we call that the animating impulse, and it's the center. So, for example, my Sparketype profile is made up of these three things. One is called the maker. That is what we call my primary Sparketype. So that's my strongest animating impulse. And that's all about making ideas manifest. It's this fiercely generative impulse where I just see things that can be made, that can be created, and all I want to do is create things that didn't exist before. That has driven me from my earliest memories of being a kid, by the way, most of these things tend to show up earlier and follow us for life.

Jonathan Fields: [00:06:18] So as a maker, as my primary, as a maker, my animating impulse is to create, to make ideas manifest. So that would be sort of like the central part of that element of my Sparketype. Now, you also mentioned there are these three other sort of components. One is what we would kind of loosely refer to as the Achilles heel. So the question we ask is when somebody has a particular Sparketype, are there common patterns about where they kind of get tripped up that we see recurring across large numbers of people? And in fact, there are each different Sparketype tends to have a set of shared behaviors and traits and tendencies and patterns, and one of them is for sure the Achilles heel. It's something that tends to. Trip up that particular type of sparketype. So why don't we dive back into me? For example. So my primary is the maker. I love immersing myself in the process of creation. What trips me up, what is my Achilles heel, and what is also common to most makers? Well, can you maybe gander a guess at what that might be?

Shelley Adelle Bliss: [00:07:32] Shelly not having the time and the space to make and create.

Jonathan Fields: [00:07:36] Yeah, so for sure, like when you see things and you're just like, ooh, there's this juicy opportunity to create something awesome, and I have a pretty good sense of what it would look like and have a sense of taste developed around how I want it to, to, like, finally be in the world. But I don't have the time or the space or the resources or support to actually be able to pour myself into it. So it's a little bit of this sort of like tease where it's like you see this opportunity, you see this sense of possibility that's being presented to you, and in your mind you see what it could become. You just and you're itching to do it, but you don't have the time, the space, the resources, the support to be able to actually make it happen. And for most makers, this is incredibly frustrating. Another thing that tends to trip up makers is when you don't have enough control over the process of creation, and this is kind of related. But you may be, let's say, working in a job where the job is based around innovation, which is awesome for makers. We're constantly coming up with new ideas and building new things. But part of the job says, okay, your responsibility is to come up with five new ideas for a new product, or to revise or refresh a product, and you come up with them and you think they're pretty good, and you present them to your team lead.

Jonathan Fields: [00:09:00] And that person says, you know, these these are all pretty solid. You know, why don't you pick one and then and then roll with it, you know, like, here's a four week window or six week window or a three month window. And you agree on this. Right? And then you realize that as you're starting to do it, that there are all these different processes or assets or people on different teams that you would need actually access to and control over these processes in order to make this thing happen. And they haven't been allocated to you or resource to you. So you've got the vision, you've got the responsibility. Now you've got the buy in, but you don't have the ability to actually make it happen. And that can be stunningly hard for somebody who's a maker. Now we're using maker just as an example here. But of the the ten different Sparketypes, every one has its own quote, Achilles heel or often a number of different things that can trip them up. Does that make sense?

Shelley Adelle Bliss: [00:10:03] Yeah. So like any time they feel constrained.

Jonathan Fields: [00:10:06] Yeah. Pretty much now another interesting thing for makers in particular. But this again often shows up in different ways for different types, is that when you are working with other makers and you don't have a sort of a, a healthy and collaborative sense of self and respect for others, if each maker shows up with their own really well defined sense of taste and a very clear sense of the process, like how this whole thing should unfold and an unwillingness to actually be open and collaborate, they're sort of locked into their own vision of how this thing has to happen. That can cause friction, too. So I never say that, you know, any given type works better or worse with another type. But what we often say is that any type can work beautifully with any other type when they are healthily and collaboratively expressed. So we always want to sort of like keep a bead on that. So that's just looking at one type. And we're using the maker here. Just an example. We talked about the animating impulse, that thing that just wakes you up and fills you with energy. It makes you want to do, do do just because of the feeling that it gives you. We talked about the Achilles heel, but Kelly, you brought up two other elements of the sparketype that I think it makes sense to dive into. Yeah, you.

Shelley Adelle Bliss: [00:11:25] Mentioned process, so I'm assuming that's where the Sparketype finds their satisfaction on a spectrum that spans between process and service. Tell me more about that.

Jonathan Fields: [00:11:35] Yeah, exactly. So what we've learned over time in the research is that every Sparketype also falls along this spectrum. We call it the satisfaction spectrum. And some that one side of the spectrum you can think of think of the left side right. That would be process. So types of work or types of people where when you do this work it is very very heavily process focused. And you're deeply fulfilled by simply the opportunity to immerse yourself in the process of doing the work now. All the way. On the other side of the spectrum. You can think of this as the right side. If you're looking at thinking about a line in your head, then we're looking at Sparketypes that are most fulfilled when they immerse themselves in service. And then there are some that kind of fall along the middle, where it's a blend of process and service. And what we've learned is that when there's a mismatch between your sparketype and the type of work that you're doing, it can be deeply unsatisfying and even draining. So, for example, again, let's stay with the maker example. Right. So maker is all about making ideas manifest. It is a very process driven Sparketype. So when you are able to immerse yourself in a process to create this thing that's in your mind, you tend to be the happiest, the most fulfilled. This is where you really light up. You become SPARKED. Now, when you're working in a field where you're a maker and almost everything that you do is very sort of like outflow facing and in service of others. So the main thing here is not the ability to get lost in the process, but the ability to be present with and serve others.

Jonathan Fields: [00:13:20] That can be something that really takes away from the ability to feel deeply satisfied by the work that you're doing. And it sounds a little counterintuitive here because you think, doesn't everybody just get lit up by serving others? And it turns out that, yes, we all have a piece of that in ourselves. But people with different Sparketypes have different orientations around how much they are sort of tilted towards process or service in terms of how they are fulfilled. So an example of a maker that you know, what what a lot of makers do, or a lot of very process heavy Sparketypes do is they tend to create things because they love the process of creation, and they could just lose themselves in it, like a painter paints, like, you know, sometimes because they want to see the emotion in another person, that painter, if that is really their drive, they're trying to create a very particular emotion in another person or a group of people. That is the fundamental drive. They're actually probably not a maker. They're probably live much more on the side of one of the service oriented Sparketypes. But if somebody who is a maven or a maker is a painter, for them it's going to be all about the thing being created. Now, that doesn't mean that if they, let's say, create, you know, a dozen paintings and then they have a show at a gallery, um, and they go to the opening and there are all these people and there's, you know, people standing in front of their work talking about it, feeling deeply, emotionally moved by it, evoking all sorts of different things from it.

Jonathan Fields: [00:14:53] They feel like they're really being opened up and served and it's, it's it's changing them. That doesn't mean that the maker doesn't care about that doesn't mean that they're not moved by that themselves. It doesn't mean that they don't love the fact that the thing that they created made a real difference in someone else's life. They do. But what it tells you is that that was not the really the primary reason that they did it. It was more of a side benefit for them. So it's kind of an interesting, nuanced way to experience that particular sparketype. And again, as I said, because the ten different sparketypes literally fall, each one falls in its own place on that spectrum. Each one will have a very different blend. So, for example, the exact opposite side of this, the the strongest service fulfilled type of sparketype is what we call the nurture and the nurtures. Animating impulse is all about lifting others up. It's giving care, taking care often when others won't or can't. It's all about being deeply relational and in service of others. That particular person might actually say, you know what? I'm going to paint something or write poetry, or record a conversation or sing a song. And sure, it's fun and it's kind of cool to do that. But why I'm really doing that is because I want to create something that will genuinely be of service to someone else, and this is just a mechanism to let me do that. So does that make sense, Shelley?

Shelley Adelle Bliss: [00:16:19] It does. And it makes me wonder what happens if someone doesn't like or want their sparketype.

Jonathan Fields: [00:16:25] Yeah. And this comes up sometimes when we sort of like dive into the results or occasionally I will get DMs or messages on different platforms. And somebody has taken the assessment and, you know, they see that what their profile is and they'll write in and they'll say, you know, I took the assessment and here's what it told me. And what they what they say is not necessarily I don't agree with it, but I don't like it or I don't want it, because some people may have an association with wanting to be a particular type of person or showing up in a particular way. So one of the questions that we often ask is, you know, is it that you don't feel that it's truly accurate, that it's true to you in which? Case, we can ask a whole series of additional questions to try and help somebody tease it out. You know, any assessment, whether it's the Sparketype assessment or any of the other major assessments, will never be 100% accurate for 100% of the people. So there are all sorts of other questions. You know, we can walk through chapters in the book SPARKED to really understand what feels like the best fit for me, or ask questions like, you know, does this feel like it's actually truly not me? Or would I just prefer that it not be me? What a lot of people will will often come to is a place that. No, actually, this actually probably is. It does feel like it's me. In fact, in the data we see that about 92% of people report that their results from the assessment are very to extremely accurate. So, you know, small number of people may feel that it's a bit off, but most people will feel that it's on. And then the question is if you'd rather it not be you, what's behind that? That's a great coaching conversation to have. Either you know, like with a coach or just to really dive into yourself or journal on. Does that help?

Shelley Adelle Bliss: [00:18:08] Yes. Thank you. And I want to bring us back to the idea of overload.

Jonathan Fields: [00:18:13] Yeah. So there's this one other piece of the a person's Sparketype. You know, we talked about the fact that, you know, you get this particular type and then you've got the animating impulse, you've got the Achilles heel you have where you fall on the satisfaction spectrum, which is, you know, either towards process or towards service. And then we have this thing that we identified a couple of years further into the research that we call the overload spectrum. Turns out that you can actually have too much of a good thing. So somebody would say, okay, so I'm a maker. You know, I discovered my sparketype it resonates. It just makes so much sense to me. And then I had the ability, the freedom, the agency, the power in my work to be able to really shift things around and just make that the center of what I'm doing. And then I poured myself into it. So I can frame this as an example. In my experience, I am a writer. I'm a number of books into my career as a writer, and like, what I know is that when I tend to really get into the heart of writing a book, that I become pretty obsessive about it at times. I can, you know, it can become an all consuming process, especially when you're writing for a publisher and you have a deadline and you're writing towards that deadline and you're just like, okay, I have to make this as good as I can make it.

Jonathan Fields: [00:19:35] There's a vision of what I want it to be in my head. Um, there's a timeline that I have to deliver this thing by. I've made promises. There's a lot based on this. And you just start going deeper and deeper and deeper into it. And it may not be from a sense of obligation also, it may just be that you love the process. You know, when I'm deep into a book, it's not that I'm beating myself up about like having to do this thing. It's that like, I'm just like, it's getting juicier and juicier and I'm getting like into the facts and the data and the stories, and then I take another pass and it's all about like the voice and the language and then another passage. It's all about the stories and how do I bring them out. And so you really get into the craft side of it, which I absolutely love as a writer. And I, you know, for me, I could literally when I'm in that space, I could, I could open my eyes, you know, I could start working at nine in the morning and hit, you know, 10:00 at night. And I'm like, wait a minute, what just happened here? Where did the day go? And and we've heard this from a lot of folks when they finally when they discover what their sparketype is and then they, they do the work or have the ability to align a lot of what they do with that particular impulse, that they can very easily get lost in this.

Jonathan Fields: [00:20:47] They can actually do it so much that it tips into a healthy pursuit of something that really brings you to life, into an unhealthy pursuit of something that actually starts to have more cost than benefit associated with it. And we call this state like being an overload. And what we've seen is there's a really similar spectrum. So as we said, for all the different types, there's a satisfaction spectrum, like some people are really strongly satisfied by being lost in process. And other people are really strongly satisfied by being lost in service. And what we see is some people tip into overload when they're doing too much of this thing almost obsessively, and they start to exclude all the other parts and relationships and activities in their life that give them that feeling of being alive, and that if you ask them, what do you value? What's important to you? They'll say, well, my partner, my kids, my health, all these different things, and yet they completely abandon them in the pursuit of this one thing that they enjoy doing.

Jonathan Fields: [00:21:51] But when it becomes something that is so obsessive that it starts to take away from all the other parts of life, then that becomes a dysfunction, not a function. And what we see is that similar to the satisfaction spectrum, there's a spectrum of how people tend to tip into overload and where they default when they do so. On one side, people tend to dip into, um, obsession. And we see this more on the process driven Sparketypes and all the way on the other side. People tend to tip into depletion when they go into overload, and we see this on the more service driven Sparketypes. And if you think about it, it really makes sense, right? Because if somebody is driven by process, they're fulfilled and nourished by their lit up by just losing themselves in process. Then it makes sense that at some point you can start going so deep with that process and jettisoning everybody else that you become obsessed with it. Um, and you and you kind of lose the ability to voluntarily let it go or pull yourself out of it. On the other side, if you're really driven by service, by pouring into others in all the different ways that you can, what often tends to happen is somebody says, this is I wake up in the morning and all I want to do is help others, to elevate others, to give to others, to serve others.

Jonathan Fields: [00:23:15] Surf, surf, surf, surf, surf. And what you see happening is it creates a massive amount of energetic outflow, often to the point where somebody has no time or resources left to pour into themselves on the level that would refill their own well, that would give them the reservoir to be able to actually keep doing what they're doing. And that leads to just complete depletion to a point where if you don't actually have, you know, circuit breakers and practices, which we'll talk about in an upcoming episode, by the way, it will leave you pretty gutted, pretty depleted. And if you don't sort of voluntarily decide to do something to fix the situation, oftentimes your state of mind or your state of body or both will do it for you. It will basically give you a wake up call. And that has for sure happened to me as well. So those are the, you know, the sort of like the two different sides. So again, the process driven Sparketypes when they tip into overload, too much of that good thing. They tend to tip into obsession and the service driven Sparketypes when they tip into overload, they tend to head into depletion. So does that does that make sense?

Shelley Adelle Bliss: [00:24:27] It does. And it brings to mind that someone creating their own personal toolkit of like restorative and grounding approaches would be hugely important, 100%.

Jonathan Fields: [00:24:37] And we'll definitely we'll we'll drop into that in an upcoming episode, because there are a whole set of what we call circuit breakers and practices that are incredibly helpful. No matter what your wiring is, no matter what your Sparketype is that just they make life better, they also make work better, and they help catch you when you're starting to head off the rails and help you correct course, rather than when you've gone so far that you're actually like doing damage to your day to day existence. So any final questions or thoughts on that before we wrap?

Shelley Adelle Bliss: [00:25:07] I guess just if someone is brand new to the sparketype body of work, what would you suggest is their next best step?

Jonathan Fields: [00:25:14] Yeah. So if this is your sort of like your your opening move and you maybe you've even been listening to the podcast for a while, um, and didn't really know that there's this huge body of work behind what we do. The opening invitation would really be just head on over to Sparketype.com, and we'll drop a link in the show notes for you, and you'll find the assessment. It'll take you maybe ten, 15 minutes to complete it. Um, and you will discover your Sparketype profile. And that is a great starting point for where you are.

Shelley Adelle Bliss: [00:25:42] Great. Thanks so much, Jonathan.

Jonathan Fields: [00:25:44] Awesome. Thanks everyone for tuning in. We'll see you here again next time. Take care. 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 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.