How to Feel Lit Up, Without Blowing Everything Up

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

Jonathan Fields: [00:00:09] So it truly ignites that inner spark for you. Does the work you're doing. Fuel your fire, or is it time to rewrite stale stories of success? And how do you even know when logic alone can no longer be your guide on your path? When is it time to make a change based on joy rather than advancement? In this week's SPARKED Hot Take, that's what we're diving into reimagining our approach to seeking work that energizes us. And joining me today to offer insights and practical tools is SPARKED Braintrust, regular founder of Parachute Executive Coaching, acclaimed executive coach, advisor to senior leaders for more than two decades, and the author of two great books, The Accidental Alpha Woman and The Complete Executive Karen Wright. Together, we ask, how do you expand your vision beyond job titles to purposeful pursuits that energize you? When is it time to make change based on joy rather than advancement? What are some of the tools that we can use to reawaken creativity suppressed by a larger culture? Karen offers insights on protecting space for what matters, even within traditional careers, because radical or disruptive change may actually not be required to reclaim meaning, subtler shifts can often get you closer to the feeling you seek. So excited to share this thought-provoking conversation with you! I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED.

Jonathan Fields: [00:01:42] Hey, before we dive into today's show, you know, we've learned that a lot of our listeners are sort of at this moment where they're really exploring the notion of work in their lives and their next moves in their careers. And if you are in that place, we talk about SPARKED and the Sparketypes a lot on this show, this body of work that we've developed to help you really identify what makes you come alive and how to apply that to the world of work. We've heard from a lot of folks that they would also love some help along that journey. If you're curious, you can also find on our website a directory of Certified Sparketype Advisors who know this body of work and can really help coach and guide you through it. So we'll drop a link to the show notes in that right now. And if it feels interesting to you and you just like somebody to help guide you through this next part of your career or work journey, take a look and see if somebody resonates. It might be the perfect fit to help you along this next leg of your journey. Again, that link is in the show notes now.

Jonathan Fields: [00:02:46] Karen Wright it is always good to be in conversation with you. Today is one of our SPARKED Hot Take episodes, where we pick one particular topic that is coming up over and over in various different conversations, and we dive into it. And today is an interesting topic. I know it's something that has come up with you and your work with clients recently, and it's teasing out this sort of like distinction between building a life and building a resume. And I think it's a really interesting conversation, because I think that the first impulse often is to say, well, this is what kids coming out of college do. This is what you do when you're in your early 20s. But this conversation has really expanded, given the number of times that I think people think about retraining or changing careers, changing jobs, changing industries, this is something there that doesn't necessarily go away. So set this up for me, sort of like the conversation around building a life versus building a resume and how you see it showing up with the work you're doing.

Karen Wright: [00:03:43] Yeah, it's interesting because most of the people I'm talking with are pretty senior-level people. And so, you know, I don't it's not a conversation I have often, but when I do, it's really curious to me. So this topic, you know, should I build a resume or should I make career decisions based on some other criteria? This has come up over the years. Many, many, many, many times. So it's not a new conversation. It's not a particularly sort of topical conversation. But I do think that what an individual might get out of the steps in building a resume, I think nowadays probably feels different than what they might get out of forging a career based on some other criteria, whether it's interests or strengths or, you know, things that spark them and light them up, that sort of thing. So I do feel like there's a different sort of emotional dynamic about it going on these days, notwithstanding the fact that for a huge number of people, there's a big should around. I should have this on my resume. I should progress in this logical, linear way in order to be able to do something. But something is almost always a question mark, and that's why it confuses me when we talk about building a resume. Because my question is like towards what?

Jonathan Fields: [00:04:54] Right. So take me inside a bit of a coaching session then, because I want to understand what the conversation really sounds like. When somebody comes to you, you know, they're deeper into their career, maybe because they don't probably come to you and say. Should I build a resume? Or should I build a life like that's that's your lens on this like it is? What does it sound like when somebody comes to you at this moment of inflection and you're thinking, oh, this is the point that we're at, and we need to sort of like, like choose the path we're on. Tell me how that conversation unfolds. Like, what are they coming to you generally feeling or asking or what's the pain or the desire or the hope? And then tell me about sort of like the early way that that conversation unfolds.

Karen Wright: [00:05:30] So usually it's that they've been approached for something. So, you know, most of the people I talk with are established, they're senior, they're contributing, they're, you know, all the things. And it may be they're sort of maxed out. They've plateaued. They've been they've been maybe thinking it's time for a change. But the conversation when I, when I go to that difference between building a resume and making a choice a different way, it's when I feel like a client is about to make a decision based entirely on what's going on in their brain. It's an entirely thought decision, not a felt decision. Because when logic says, well, it's an excellent opportunity and it would be a good strategic move, and it would be a nice compliment to this other thing that I did. And people would look at me this way, you know, all of these are very sort of external, extrinsic kinds of things. And what that tells me is that there's no passion, there's no spark, there's no emotion, there's no joy that is coming with like there's no real excitement because I always want to go to, well, what would make you want to get out of bed in the morning? What is that? What is it about that that would make you want to get out of bed in the morning?

Jonathan Fields: [00:06:37] Yeah, I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me. And, you know, um, just on the edge of Gen X, you know, so came up in a time where it was largely about like we were notoriously known as the disaffected generation and also the invisible generation. Um, but it was really about it was very much about patting your resume, you know, it was like, okay, so straight out of college, you know, if you end up in college, what is the job that looks best, you know, and then you stay in that and then often realize, you know, like the well, it doesn't feel best, but at a certain point, like you're still at least my mindset was like, I need to track in a particular way, I need to make choices in a particular way. And a lot of that, and I think a lot of for a lot of people, it really is just about, how is this going to look to a potential future employer ten years down the road? And how do I build like that chain of things that appear to to present me in a particular way to create a particular pedigree? You know, it was interesting coming out of law school because law is one of those careers, and I've been out of it long enough. So I don't know if this is still true, but I would kind of assume, because it's a it's a very slowly progressing field in terms of the ethos and the culture.

Karen Wright: [00:07:49] That's pretty traditional in lots of ways.

Jonathan Fields: [00:07:51] But, you know, it was one of those fields where literally the school that you went to followed you for many, many, many years, whether you made law review or not, followed you for many, many years. And in fact, many of the the top firms that quote white shoe law firms would be known for only making partners from people who graduated certain law schools Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and were the managing editor and editor in chief of law review. So even ten, 12, 15 years down the road in that particular career, the school that you went to and how you did in the first year of law school was something that followed you. And every choice that you made up until that point was that because a firm would want to be able to say from largely a marketing standpoint, every partner we have here has been to like this, this and this school and was like the captain of this or the editor in chief of that. And it's not just limited to law. This happens in many other fields. This is this is just my experience where I saw that. And I have to tell you early in that career, which is all I lasted, the thought of that to me was so confining and stifling. Um, and yet I knew that that was sort of like the path that I felt like I would need to conform to if I wanted that carrot, which was like a mega-firm, like at the end of this long journey. And like I said, there's the equivalent of that in so many different fields.

Karen Wright: [00:09:15] There is. And, I mean, you and I have responded to questions on this podcast from listeners who have had parental pressure and friend pressure. And, you know, there's there is sort of a traditional systemic view towards this is what a career path ought to look like, particularly when it's when people are coming from, you know, good universities and professional circles and that sort of thing. My dad owned a hardware store. I was not encumbered by any of the expectations of people who come from families with, with professional backgrounds. And so when I was graduating from business school, I had an offer from a bank and an offer to go into the marketing department of a candy company. And for me, that was a really obvious choice, because it was candy all the way. And my professors, my classmates, everyone thought I was absolutely out of my mind. You're not going to make the money, it's not going to look good. It's and I'm like, but I'm going to go make bubblegum flavors. And that sounds really fun to me. So I've, I've never been sort of wrapped in that same set of beliefs and expectations and sort of templates that a lot of people have, which is probably why I can ask the question, maybe a little more readily than other people might be able to.

Karen Wright: [00:10:27] And I think because I was fortunate enough or silly enough, I don't know, to make some of those choices early on in my career. What I find myself really wanting for the clients when I have these conversations is I want them to think of their next job as something where they can have some fun, where they can have some joy, where they can light up when they talk about what they do and be great at it without it costing them. And I know you're a living, breathing example of someone who was probably great at it and it cost you, you know, and I just, I just don't think work has to be like that. And too much of it feels like it is these days. And so whenever I'm talking with someone who's at some sort of inflection point, I really want to just invite them to think beyond what the resume looks like to what the life feels like once you've made one choice or another.

Jonathan Fields: [00:11:11] Yeah. So here's my curiosity around that when you're having that conversation, because especially I think it's it's even more relevant for somebody who is deeper into their career. Because if you've already made a series of choices, right, based on a certain set of assumptions, and you have invested on in, quote, building the resume, you're ten, 15 years into your career and you've done all the quote right things right, you're not feeling the way that you thought it would make you feel, but you look at your resume like, wow, there's a certain investment, there's a certain sense of identity that's also wrapped around, oh, I worked for this place, and then I worked for this place, and then I was in leadership here. And there's a you can see the progression clearly. So when you have somebody where it really becomes an installed part of their identity and their their value set, how do you approach that conversation to sort of allow somebody to investigate that on a level which would start to potentially plant the seeds that say, huh, maybe I need to unwind some of this, and maybe actually it's going to be a bigger unwinding for me to really get to a place where I feel free to make a pure decision.

Karen Wright: [00:12:26] So you said two things you said identity and values. And I think in a case like this, they're different. They're separate. Because if someone is really feeling pulled or drawn towards something and we see this in the sparketype work all the time, you know, when someone's feeling dissonance or conflict, they're probably not honoring something that is really true to who they are, no matter what they've done in the last five, ten, 15, however many years. And so, I mean, it does take a huge amount of courage to say, hold on that path. I'm on that. The years I've invested, the money I've spent, the reputation of cultivated might not be where I want to go from here. And like any major change that we make, there will be people in your life that will support it and people who won't. And that's all part of what has to be unpacked, you know, what's this worth to you? How much are you? How strongly do you feel about this such that you're willing to withstand whatever pushback you might get? I've got a client right now who is a lawyer who is, you know, and you know, this person has achieved a lot. So I don't think they owe anybody anything. But they are looking at taking a very, very sharp turn away. And they're pretty sure they're who's going to be in their corner and who isn't. And it's been a really worthwhile reflection. Yeah. To have them kind of go through that and think, well okay. Is that okay? And what are you willing to do and what conversations do you want to be prepared for, and what consequences are you willing to be prepared for? Because not everybody's going to be on board if you make a good change.

Jonathan Fields: [00:13:56] Yeah, that's such an important point. It's something that I thought a lot about when I actually eventually made a decision to leave the law and to leave like this mega law firm. I was in the very early days of relationship with my wife, and I knew that even though we were in the early days, like there was a certain set of assumptions and expectations that we had about, sort of like the career I was building and what it would allow us and how we would live in New York City. And it became a very where even though it was very early in that career, that this decision would impact not just me. And I thought through this, and I've since been asked by many others, like, how did you navigate that moment, not just in terms of making the decision yourself, but in the people that are really near and dear to you in your life, who it's going to affect. And one of the things that I realized that I did, maybe inadvertently, and that I've sort of had conversations over the years with friends and clients and colleagues about, was I sort of negotiated a window of forbearance rather than asking for wholesale buy-in.

Karen Wright: [00:14:58] Oh, that's interesting.

Jonathan Fields: [00:14:59] So I basically said like the equivalent of, hey, listen, I'm not entirely sure what my next step is, but I know how this is making me feel. And for me, I was making me feel actually physically ill, which helped with the argument, sadly.

Karen Wright: [00:15:11] Um, yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:15:13] But I said, look, I am not going to, you know, say like, this is done. I'm not going to say I'm closing the door to this entire field forever. I'm going to stay a member of the bar. I'm going to stay, like, licensed for a window of time while I'm running some certain other experiments. So we kind of we have this fallback, right? And if we hit a certain like moment or a certain and it makes sense for me to go back to this thing, but, but differently or try a different field, a different, you know, firm, a different approach. Um, I'm open to that. But I need this window right now and I'll keep whatever certifications or licenses or memberships I need to have that door open to me. But I need a window now to be able to run some experiments, to see how it'll make me feel, and to see whether I feel like I can thrive. And I want to bring you along with that, you know, like, let's we're doing this together. Like, yeah. How is that for you? Rather than just saying, this is what I'm doing, I'm ending this and starting something new and throwing everything up to the wind.

Karen Wright: [00:16:13] Well, I also think that's a measure of the caliber of the relationship, too, because I'm sure, you know, people where that would not be the conversation because. 

Jonathan Fields: [00:16:21] Yeah, True, true.

Karen Wright: [00:16:22] What the person thought they got was a particular package in any aspect of that package changing was, you know, particularly in an early stage, probably not going to be, uh, not going to be the life they wanted to lead. And I've had those conversations, too, with clients who wanted to take a fairly sharp turn off a professional path, and their spouse was just not on board. And then that becomes very, very tough. And, you know, everyone makes the decision they feel they need to make for themselves, all things, in all things considered. Yeah. Um, but I also think that, you know, when you're talking with the people who who say they love you, I think you have to be really clear about what if there is a cost, what it is and what that might mean over time and what the possibilities are, what the options might be.

Jonathan Fields: [00:17:06] Yeah, I agree, and I think it's important to also paint the possibility picture, but also don't sugarcoat what the cost is going to be like. Let's let's look at the hope side of the equation. And also let's be realistic because it's going to affect us like the cost side is going to affect us. Let's talk about it now and talk about like what are our agreements around that. Yeah. The other thing that as you were talking came up for me. That was part of my decision-making process, and maybe it will be helpful for others who are in this moment, was I said to myself, okay, so I was in a career. I was in one of the top law firms in New York. I was making great money, like all the fancy, yada yada. And there was a day where I said to myself, you know, I was also pretty miserable and literally hospitalized. I had emergency surgery because the level of relentless stress and granted, in hindsight, part of that was within my control. And I just didn't realize it back then, and I would have made different choices. But what I realized was that if I was able to be successful, even in a short window at the level that I was in, a domain in which I had little to no genuine interest, passion derived little to no sense of meaning or purpose.

Jonathan Fields: [00:18:18] Imagine if I turned that same energy and effort into a different domain, where I did have that sense of meaning and joy and purpose and energy and excitement and passion. And I invested not just the effort that I was investing, you know, like in the law, but an amplified effort fueled now by all these other qualities, you know, like, how would that affect my ability to succeed even if I was starting from nothing, somewhere entirely different? And my belief was there was something in me that said, I have to believe that I've proven that I can work incredibly hard. In fact, I had proven that I had worked beyond the capacity of what was healthy for me. But what it told me was I knew I actually had that capacity. And what if I applied that in a healthier way to something that genuinely sparked me, that lit me up. That was a huge a huge driver of confidence for me at that moment in time. I wonder if you have any similar conversations with clients?

Karen Wright: [00:19:20] Oh for sure. I mean, that's sort of a flywheel effect, right? Because if I know I can put effort in, if I'm putting effort in a direction where I don't have natural strength or where I've got resistance, I'm going to get so far, if I put that same effort in, in a place where I have ease and competence and natural affinity and all of that, then I believe there's just going to be more and more and more momentum, and we can almost always talk to people and find out where. Have there been times when you've been, as Mihai says, in flow, right? Where, when have you been involved in something where you just were lit up and everything felt easy, no matter whether you were working round the clock or what? So yeah, I think that now, I think attached to that, though, is oftentimes the thing that lights us up and puts us in flow is maybe not the conventional path. That, or at least not the one that had expectations around it. And so, you know, when you took your leap to a lawyer turned yoga studio guy, um, you know, I can imagine there are a couple of people in your world saying, huh, not really sure about that. That sounds kind of flaky. Don't you know? That's probably not going to work out, but we'll let him have his time at it, right? You know, the people that I talk with oftentimes are really thinking about very different paths. I talked to a guy one time who wanted to open a butcher shop after being the head of an advertising agency. And so, you know, none of that made sense to anyone except him. And yet he had that same sense of conviction that, well, I know how to do that over here. And that's involved a crazy level of effort and commitment from me. Imagine what I could do when I really love what I'm doing. Yeah. So I do think there's that, that that you're right. It's confidence. But I also think there is this exponential effect of putting equivalent effort aligned with something that really feels good.

Jonathan Fields: [00:21:04] Yeah. No, I think it definitely it makes a really meaningful difference. And to your point about expecting others to judge you for a choice that would take you maybe away from a mainstream, more pedigreed, more resume-building path, expect that to happen too.

Karen Wright: [00:21:21] for sure.

Jonathan Fields: [00:21:21] I'll build on the case study I've been using of me leaving the law, which now I can't believe. It's like 30 years ago when I left the firm, the tradition was you send around a departure memo. This was sort of like a like every single person who left, every associate who left, every lawyer who left standing around this fairly standard memo and often the memo says, hey, like, so thankful for my years at the firm and like, you know, going to become general counsel of this, this and this or joined this or this or and mine basically said like, so appreciative of my time here. I'm going to start my own endeavor, basically like leading people in well-being and health. And back then I was actually starting a company that was guiding people and hiking and mountain biking and outdoor exercise. That was the first thing. 

Karen Wright: [00:22:02] I missed that step along the way.

Jonathan Fields: [00:22:04] Before the yoga studio. Even so, that gets circulated to hundreds and hundreds of people around there. And so the interesting thing was the feedback. So the feedback from people in my level, and this was more just quiet whispers that I was hearing was, oh, what a shame he couldn't hack it, you know, or he's throwing away everything. Three years of law school working so hard, all the money in school, building a career at. Sec. And then at this firm like these elite procedures, things, throwing it all away. So it was one of those two things, the notes that I got from senior partners or managing partners, people who are very, very senior in the firm, they weren't a lot, but two of the one, there were some version of something that said, go for it. This sounds incredible and let me know how it works out.

Karen Wright: [00:22:48] That's so great.

Jonathan Fields: [00:22:49] That was incredibly eye-opening to me, because it wasn't the people who had achieved, who had gotten the carrot that everyone else was working to get, who were judging me. It was the people at my level who were judging me. The ones who already were there were kind of like signaling, no, this sounds like a really interesting adventure.

Karen Wright: [00:23:07] Oh, That's revelatory.

Jonathan Fields: [00:23:08] So I got this. Like, I got a mixed-bag basket of judgment from my peers and then go for it from the people who are much further into the career than me.

Karen Wright: [00:23:18] Oh, that's fantastic.

Jonathan Fields: [00:23:19] And I thought that was just a fascinating dynamic.

Karen Wright: [00:23:22] I know it really is. I also think that none of these moves have to be absolute from one extreme to the other.

Jonathan Fields: [00:23:28] Yeah, true.

Karen Wright: [00:23:28] So I can think of one client who was an investment banker, stockbroker or something, and she was convinced she needed to leave the big bank tower and the beige cubicle and the all of the stuff attached to what she was doing, and she wanted to go into fashion. Well, there's a bit of an income difference between what she was doing and what she was thinking about doing. Long story short, she ended up finding a brokerage that was in a loft office with exposed brick and great art on the walls and fabulous textiles around, and it just it fulfilled her on to some degree, on a level that mattered and made her feel differently about doing the same work. She was just doing it in a different place, and it just, you know, there were some qualities about it that connected a little bit more strongly with something that was important to her. So none of these decisions have to be all the way from black to white.

Jonathan Fields: [00:24:12] Yeah. And I love that you just shared that as well. It really speaks to so a lot of our bigger philosophy around, you know, the SPARKED endeavors and our body, the sparketype body of work is that like the really big disruptive move is the last move that you want to think about taking before then. We have these phases we call reimagine and realign where it's like, can I actually make subtler changes without wholesale disruptive change? That would actually get me close enough to the feeling that I want, without having to endure a lot of the really wild and profound disruption that goes along with something much bigger. And just like you're describing so much more often than people realize, you can. But we don't really think in those terms. So we don't and we don't have a process to explore that side of it. We just think, If I'm not feeling right, I guess it's time to leave. Yeah. Rather than no. Actually, there are a whole bunch of things that you can think about and steps that you can take before that might get you so much closer to the feeling that you want that it would allow you to stay. Because maybe that thing is also giving you the income that makes your family, that makes you feel good about valuing, like honoring a value of financial security.

Karen Wright: [00:25:21] Yeah, it Enables a lot.

Jonathan Fields: [00:25:23] Of. And that blend you like that blend is what makes you feel okay. So I'm glad you floated that too.

Karen Wright: [00:25:29] Yeah. Final comment really one of the one of the conversations I frequently have when people are trying to assess a next career move is I ask them to identify three qualities that have to be true in whatever it is they're doing. And then we go looking to see whether there's any chance those three qualities could be true, where they are maybe within their same company, but in a different role, you know. So I was talking to somebody recently who has realized that they don't want to be an individual contributor. They want to run a team. They've been put in a very strategic project. It's, you know, it's got all kinds of good qualities about it doesn't have a team. They like to fix things or grow things quickly. And they're in sort of a maintenance situation. So they're going to go back to the organization they've been part of for a long time and say, put me anywhere, but make me make sure I lead a team and make sure that I'm fixing something that's broken. And then the organizations can oftentimes participate in that a little bit differently than if you just said, I'm out, I'm not happy, I'm out. right?

Jonathan Fields: [00:26:21] Yeah. And I think if, you know, if you're well-liked and if you're doing really good work, organizations by and large want to keep you agreed. You know, and I think a lot of times they will be more open to the conversation than a lot of us realize. Um, rather than just assuming, like, well, this just isn't possible. Love it. And any final thoughts on this topic as we wrap up?

Karen Wright: [00:26:43] Uh, all decisions need to be made equal parts with head and gut. Don't ignore the feeling that comes up when you venture down a path toward a decision that feels perfectly logical.

Jonathan Fields: [00:26:56] Hmm. That sounds like a fantastic thing to think about as we wrap up. Karen, thanks as always to our fantastic listening audience. So appreciate you all tuning in and we look forward to seeing you 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 in work in life together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED. This episode of SPARKED was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and Me, Jonathan Fields. Production and editing by Sarah Harney.