Looking Beyond Work to Make You Come Alive

Jonathan Fields (00:00:11) - So what if the single-minded pursuit of a career that made you feel everything important to you wasn't actually the key to feeling fulfilled? What if, in fact, we sometimes put too many good life eggs into the work basket, ignoring the amazing possibilities available to us to find what we need and feel how we want to feel. Not just from work, but from a whole host of other experiences, interactions and relationships. In this week sparked Hot Take episode. We take on the assumption that work is the only path to purpose, meaning, passion and happiness, and that everything we dream of has to come from it. Sharing stories and experiences from clients and from our own lives. Where we'd staked identities and futures on ambitious career goals only to feel unfulfilled even once achieved. And joining me today to tease things out is Spark Brain Trust, regular founder of Parachute Executive Coaching acclaim and 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.

Jonathan Fields (00:01:15) - Karen Wright. Karen reveals simple questions and prompts that you can use to reconnect with passions beyond work that could transform your outlook. And we also explore a broader definition of work that includes any sustained effort that brings meaning from relationships to hobbies, while dispelling common myths that limit our visions of success and reveal how rediscovering joy in all aspects of life can infuse even our work with renewed purpose and vitality. So excited to share this conversation. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is sparked.

Jonathan Fields (00:02:33) - Karen Wright. It is always good to be hanging out with you. Esteemed member of the Spark Brain Trust, dear friend, collaborator, co-conspirator in many different ways and friend. So we have been diving into a lot of different topics. This is one of our spark hot take episodes where we really look at one particular thing that we see happening either in work, in business, in life, you oftentimes with common things coming up with clients in the world of work and how do we make it better, but also in life, Because at the end of the day, work is a part of life. And the topic we're teeing up today is something that I think a lot of people are bumping up against increasingly. And it's built around a certain ideal around how we need to approach getting the feelings you want to get, whether it's purpose or success or fulfillment. And one particular ideology around this is the way that you do it. And what happens when the walls come tumbling down around that. So you want to take us there a little bit?

Karen Wright (00:03:30) - Yeah.

Karen Wright (00:03:30) - I mean, this has come up for me with clients quite a number of times in the form of a call that I'll get from someone who has been all in on work and really dedicated to their career. And then it goes sideways and they find themselves adrift. The call has come in the form of I have no North Star. I've lost my compass. You know, there just seems to be this directionless ness when work isn't the automatic and obvious and most significant focal point. And that is all rooted in that. If you identify your success and your worth solely or almost exclusively through work and it goes sideways, then what do you have? And it's it's an uncomfortable place for a lot of people because we collectively have been pretty conditioned to self-identify through work and accomplishment in that regard and that bucket. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields (00:04:23) - And you know, it's interesting. I've had this come up in a number of conversations actually in our sister podcast, Good Life Project in different contexts over the years. Some that popped to mind for me are super elite-level performers who have effectively given up every other part of their life.

Jonathan Fields (00:04:43) - But the very hyper-focused pursuit of performing at the highest possible level. And this could be in music, this could be in theater, this could be. But they are sort of like the they're often on stage and on screens, and they perceive it as being such an extreme pursuit so, so few people get the quote, the golden ring that the mythology is. You effectively have to jettison everything else and go 100% all in. I've also had this conversation with super high-level athletes, Olympians in particular, where, you know, from the time as early as they can remember, they were training when they were single digits, they were already tracking for the Olympics and they were waking up at 4:00 in the morning and they were training three hours before school and their parents were driving them three hours to a rink somewhere or things like that. And then it's interesting you use the word things go sideways in this context. I've had these conversations where what makes the things go sideways is the Olympian actually medals and they wake up the next morning and then they're like, okay, I literally have spent my entire life focused on this one thing and I've now checked that box.

Jonathan Fields (00:05:51) - And it's interesting to think that going sideways could actually mean getting everything that you've ever worked for.

Karen Wright (00:05:56) - And that is oftentimes the biggest problem, right? Because then you're not in pursuit of anything. One of the best conversations I had about this idea was with a guy who had climbed Mount Everest, and he said the instant question as soon as somebody found out that he had climbed Everest was what do you do after that? And he said most of his fellow climbers were struggling with that question, but he had actually reframed his climbing of Everest as a basis on which to start telling stories. And he was becoming a motivational keynote stage speaker. And that was a whole other mountain for him to climb and very engaging and thrilling for him to think he might not be good at it and he was going to have to invest time and in learning how to do it properly. So he had a new challenge in front of him in spite of having climbed the biggest mountain in the world. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields (00:06:42) - So I think what we're centering here is there actually sort of a couple of different issues that happened in this context when you just you go all in, you set the expectation that the feeling that you want to get, whether it's purpose, joy, happiness, fulfillment, full expression, it's it's all going to come from this one thing.

Jonathan Fields (00:07:00) - And so that's part of it is basically looking to a single thing to give you everything that you've ever wanted to have or feel. And the other part of it is what happens when you get it or when that thing ends in some way. It's no longer possible to pursue it. And so much of not just your the pursuit of how you want to feel, but your sense of identity is wrapped up in that. What happens when you wake up the next morning and realize that you've given up all the other parts of your life that could deliver pieces of that and you're just kind of stuck.

Karen Wright (00:07:32) - Yeah, I mean, it's a portfolio strategy to life, right? I mean, very few people would say it's a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket in any other way. And yet too often we see people who are so single-mindedly in pursuit of accomplishment and success in one realm. And sure, sometimes it's performing arts or athletics, but more often than not, you and I see it in the frame of career and work.

Karen Wright (00:07:53) - And yet, like anything else, if all your eggs are in that one basket, then that can become a problem. And so I think that and for me, there's a subset here of when the one thing you're self-identifying through happens to be work, then that for me gets to our relationship with work and the pressure we put on it to deliver so much of our identity and self-satisfaction, which I don't think conventional understanding of work was ever really intended to do.

Jonathan Fields (00:08:20) - So, I mean, tell me more about this and I'm curious how you see it sometimes show up in your work, too.

Karen Wright (00:08:25) - Oh, well. And in fact, your conversation with Seth Godin actually referenced this when he said something along the lines of organizations were designed to serve humans, not the other way around. And we seem to have gotten it confused over time and might grow from the old dirty jobs show on Discovery Channel. I think it was another one who sort of said like, Why are we asking work to deliver purpose and self-fulfillment? Yes, we should enjoy it.

Karen Wright (00:08:47) - Yes, we should take pride in it. Yes, we should do it well. But to create that as the thing that identifies us and gives us our reason for getting up in the morning feels a bit unreasonable. And this is for me where burnout shows up. So in my work, the burnout starts to show up when the when the person has given too much over time and hasn't given themselves enough room around work to be fulfilled and to find enjoyment in relationships, in recreational activities, in basic health practices. So for me, I think particular to this moment in time where we're seeing so much burnout, I think part of what's gone on is that we've people are struggling with just exactly how to position work in their life because it has been a huge problem. There was a pendulum swing during the pandemic when people said, oh, hang on. And yet there's still there's economic pressures and there's all sorts of things going on that are telling people, well, hang on, I still need to figure this out.

Karen Wright (00:09:51) - I'm still not sure who I am in this and how to find spaces for the other things that can maybe round out my life a little bit more.

Jonathan Fields (00:09:59) - Yeah. So, I mean, let's talk about the notion that the fundamental assumption that, you know, for the typical person that the thing that is going to give them purpose, the thing that is going to give them the feeling of being fully expressed, the feeling that it's going to give them the feeling of success in life, It's, you know, that is work and everything else is adjacent to that. You know, I think we bought up against a couple of different mythologies here, right? Because on the one hand, you hear the mythology that says if you want to be really extraordinary at what you do, you've got to go all in. And going all in means sacrifice and sacrifice means basically giving up a whole bunch of other things that may mean inadvertently things that you actually don't want to sacrifice. But you're we're getting all these messages that say this is just the way it is.

Jonathan Fields (00:10:42) - And that often means your health, your physical and mental well-being, your relationships, the things that are just genuinely nourishing to you outside of it. And, you know, so there's the mythology that says that you've everything has to come from one thing. And in order to actually get the feeling that you want from that one thing, you have to be doing it at a level that is high enough and that requires a huge amount of sacrificing of everything. But the thing in this case, the work. So it's sort of like these spiraling things that compound and collapse into each other. Yeah. And it makes it makes a world really small. And at the same time, you know, maybe we do get everything that we wanted in that one domain. But often I think so many people look back and they're like, But I don't feel the way I thought it would make me feel. And along the way, I've literally walked away from every other thing in my life that I've always said is deeply valuable to me and in fact, very likely would have given me that feeling had I decided to nourish it.

Jonathan Fields (00:11:44) - Along the way.

Karen Wright (00:11:45) - I heard so many people say that they get to that one place. They I want to be a VP by the time I'm 30. I want to be a multimillionaire. By the time I'm for whatever it is. Everyone has these targets. There are a lot of people have the targets. And almost all the time I hear people saying, Oh, it doesn't feel the way I thought it would feel when I achieved that thing. And so as you were talking, I was thinking, I wonder how many people really think through why they're going after the goal. And this is a conversation I do have regularly where people say, Well, I have a target, I have a specific thing, I'm going for it. And they don't. They lose connection with why at some point there was maybe a Y, but over time it just becomes I'm going after this thing without really understanding what it is about that thing that you thought was going to be meaningful. And so if you don't know what was going to be meaningful about it, then of course, when you get there, there's it.

Karen Wright (00:12:32) - So it's lottery winners, right? Anybody who wins a big lottery, it's like, well, it doesn't make you happy if you're not happy. Other ways accomplishing a thing isn't going to do that for you.

Jonathan Fields (00:12:41) - Yeah, I almost wonder whether. Also there's a psychology that attaches to the pursuit of that thing, whether it's a VP or X dollars in the bank by a certain age that where once you're in it and let's say like you're plotting a course, that in your mind is going to be six years and you're three years in, you know, and then you start to say, I've spent the last three years giving up so much of everything that I cared about in the name of this one thing. It's inconceivable to me that I would then walk away because it would all be for naught. I would have just wasted three years. I would have suffered three years. I would have lost health in relationship for three years and it would be for nothing.

Karen Wright (00:13:18) - Yeah. And I do think that's a reasonable assessment to do because there may be value in the thing in some realm, but I do think it's a really courageous person that can look at that and say, okay, I've invested three years, maybe this isn't going to get me what I thought it was going to get me.

Karen Wright (00:13:33) - Better to waste three than six at the end of the day, if I can tell now that this isn't going to deliver what I thought it was, it was not going to mean to me what I thought it was going to mean. Sure, wasted three, but better wasted three than six.

Jonathan Fields (00:13:45) - Yeah. No, I think that that's so sensible when whether you're starting a new business, whether you're starting a new career like we always have, we step into it with a blend of assumptions and leaps of faith and a blend of fact. Like, I kind of know this to be true. And then there are other things where, like, I think this is true, and I hope it will prove out along the way. And then the more you're traveling along that path, if you're paying attention, we start to replace assumptions with fact. And often that fact starts to tell us that the story that we told about what this was going to deliver us along the way or when we finally, quote, get there is not true.

Jonathan Fields (00:14:24) - It's telling you over and over and over. No, actually, this isn't right yet. We don't want to listen to it because we started out and often beyond just the sunk costs and the sacrifices that we made to get there and feeling like it would be for nothing, it would be a waste. There's also, I think, the broader context of social judgment.

Karen Wright (00:14:44) - Oh my gosh. And family and expectations of people that care about you and really have your best interests at heart. And I've had those conversations with people relatively early in their career who are saying I'm doing something because my parents thought it would be a thing and I don't want to let them down. And that's really, really sad. So but I think that what we're saying is that the more you give yourself an opportunity to assess the data, if you step into something and progress along, if you examine things fairly regularly, if you give yourself time to reflect and get quiet and check in with how you feel, then I think that's probably going to give you the most useful insight you can collect rather than just checking off the boxes that say, I did these things.

Jonathan Fields (00:15:24) - Yeah. And getting really clear on why you're doing what you're doing. Like you described, not just what it is you're trying to accomplish, but why is it so important to you? And I also feel like I'm curious what you think about this. I've also often had conversations with myself and also with my wife, who's also my business partner, about what exactly am I willing to sacrifice to give up along the way in the name of this thing? And do I have a line in the sand and do I have mechanisms developed along the way to allow me to check in and see Has that line in the sand inadvertently moved? Am I okay with that? Is there a reasonable basis for it or has it just kind of slipped and I've gone on autopilot just focused on this one thing and really lost track of both why I'm doing it and also what I originally said I was willing to give up in the name of achieving it. And now I'm realizing I've blown way past that line and a lot of stuff is out of kilter and it's time to reset.

Jonathan Fields (00:16:28) - And I feel like it's important to have those mechanisms in place, whatever. And it could literally just be a monthly conversation with somebody who knows you, who is outside looking in and will not just hold you to account, but also walk beside you and understand and offer questions and prompts.

Karen Wright (00:16:45) - Yeah, just invite you to self-examine a little bit, right? Because I think we can get cut off whether it's in the sunk cost or in the habit of this pursuit. I think it is really easy to blow by some of those lines in the sand without paying attention. But the other thing that I think happens is that and I don't know whether it's something about the way our culture has conditioned us, we always have choices. We just don't always like them. And so when someone says, oh, I can't, I can't leave my job, well, you can. You just don't like the fact that there will be maybe some financial cost or some inconvenience or some discomfort or maybe some people will have a disapproving view or whatever it is.

Karen Wright (00:17:21) - So we we always have more choices than we think we have. But I think we've collectively got this idea that I maybe I should be able to have all of. All of the things that I want all of the time, or I should be able to make a hard choice here without having to make a sacrifice over there.

Jonathan Fields (00:17:37) - Yeah. And I think we see that a lot. You know, if we kind of zoom the lens out again, rooting this back into the early part of a conversation around, you know, a lot of this is built around the early assumption that we need to get all the feelings that we want, that we value, that are considered important in life to have meaning, purpose, fulfillment, joy. And yes, these are important. They really matter. But we need to focus on this thing called work to get them and testing that fundamental assumption. Now, I also want to make it clear that what we're not saying is that you shouldn't get a sense of purpose and meaning and joy and connection from your work if you can do it.

Jonathan Fields (00:18:12) - And there are many ways to actually be able to get a lot more than a lot of people do. Go for it. Bring it into it. Center. That's what the entire sparketype body of work is about. Absolutely. But looking at that and saying this is the only source of these feelings. So I've got to put everything, all of my marbles into this one domain and expect all of the feelings back out of it. That's where things start to really go using your earlier word sideways.

Karen Wright (00:18:38) - Yeah, I think. And wouldn't it be great if amongst us there could be people who find that fulfillment through work and those who find their fulfillment other ways and neither was perceived as better or worse that there was. If you're happy, then however you're getting there is great. And if you have a job that you enjoy, but you really get your purpose out of community work or, you know, hobbies and pursuits on the weekend or whatever it is, right? I just I would love it if there was less sort of public conditioning or external assessment of whether or not someone is working hard enough or accomplishing enough in the work realm, because if they're happy and achieving whatever's important to them, I think I would love it for that to be good enough.

Jonathan Fields (00:19:25) - Yeah, and it's also one of the reasons why in the in the realm of sort of like this archetype language, like we define work very differently. Work, work in our context is not just the thing you get paid for. It may well be the thing you get paid for. But the way that we define work is you investing a significant amount of energy in a sustained way over time. That could be parenting, that could be a passion. It could be a hobby that could be like a team that you're softball on the weekends. It could be so many different things. Yeah. And those all can contribute to the feeling you want to have. But at the same time, it's also not just even with that really broad definition of work. It's not just that, you know, it's and this is a lot of the research that comes out of positive psych and the grand study, it's so much of what happens between you and other human beings just on a relational basis can give you all those same feelings 100%.

Jonathan Fields (00:20:22) - Yeah. And I think those are the things that we often give up, or just assume that they'll still be there so that I can repair the damage and get the feeling there to you after I get the feeling that I'm working towards in this one area.

Karen Wright (00:20:39) - Or so, I think yes, there is probably there's a cohort of people who will say that, you know, hopefully it'll be there when I'm ready to devote some energy there. But I also think there are people who are surprised by a sudden feeling of longing or gap or something missing. And that is and we see it a lot with makers, people who have an inherent maker tendency in this archetype realm, who have given up or let sort of sit to one side anything that represented making for a long time, because that work thing didn't really honor that or invite that in. And that's where I personally have seen the most sort of sudden impulse to make a change or to do something different or to take on something new. Is this reconnection with that desire to make.

Karen Wright (00:21:26) - And I think that's just one example of lots of ways people will wake up one day, midlife, whatever it is, and just say, Oh, you know what? There's some stuff missing and I need to I need to make some choices, some choices and changes.

Jonathan Fields (00:21:39) - Yeah. So when a client comes to you and they're sort of in this moment and it's, you know, they're, they're reckoning with the fact that. Huh, I'm at a certain place, certain things have or haven't happened, but I'm waking up to the fact that the I got to make some changes or it's just I'm not feeling the way I thought I would feel. What are some of the questions or prompts that you might explore with them to sort of help them along their own journey?

Karen Wright (00:22:10) - I like to try and get people reconnected with their feelings selves because we spend far too much time trying to think our way through these problems and these are just not thinking problems. And so I'll ask them to spend some time noticing where they feel little flares of excitement, little flares of interest.

Karen Wright (00:22:27) - You know, they're riding the subway and see an ad in a bookstore and walk by the. Magazine section. Here, a piece of music over here, conversation, whatever it is, just try and keep track of those moments where there's just a little bit of energy that pops up to try and see, okay, what things aren't aren't being stimulated enough in you. That's that's definitely a first step. And then another exercise I like them to do is to identify those moments when they've been in flow, when they've had those experiences of lots of energy, even though they've been really working hard. And I get great examples from people, you know, high-flying executives who will say, you know, one of the greatest moments of flow for me was hosting that great dinner party or playing guitar around the campfire with friends or whatever it is. And so just reconnecting with some of those moments, which, you know, for someone who's at sort of midlife or a later stage career, oftentimes those flow moments were a long time ago.

Karen Wright (00:23:25) - And so we really have to excavate a little bit to find them. But then once we do, then there's a great realization of, oh yeah, that used to be great, that used to really make me feel great and lift me up. So that will oftentimes give us a few breadcrumbs to follow.

Jonathan Fields (00:23:39) - Yeah, I love those. A variation that I often think about, and it's really a variation of your flow question is what makes me lose time? Yes. You know that thing where you just it's ten in the morning and you blink and it's ten at night and you've just been the happiest person that you've been in a really long time. It's like, Oh, what just happened there? I find that really valuable for me.

Karen Wright (00:24:00) - Well, if you have family members around you, oftentimes you can say, What's the thing you'd like them to go spend more time doing? Because when they come out of it, they're great. Right, Right. Exactly. Family can nail it in one. Almost always.

Karen Wright (00:24:12) - Exactly. Go do more of that, please.

Jonathan Fields (00:24:14) - Yeah. Go make art. Go for a run, Go for a hike, Whatever it is. Just don't come back until you're done.

Karen Wright (00:24:19) - Take all the time you need to do that thing.

Jonathan Fields (00:24:21) - Right? Right. I love that. Awesome. Well, I think these are some really good prompts and ideas. And coming full circle just for all of our listeners, really reexamine the notion of what kind of pressure you're putting on the different domains in life to give you all the feelings that you both yearn to feel and maybe have been told you should be feeling, and especially focus on that domain of work and really consider it like, have I been saying that this is the only place I'm capable of getting all of these feelings? And if so, ask yourself, like, what other assumptions have I been wrapping around that? What sacrifices have I been making based on that? And if I expanded the zone out a little bit, what about the other parts of life that really could be meaningful contributors to all of those different feelings? Any final thoughts on this topic as we wrap up?

Karen Wright (00:25:12) - Yeah, just that some of those other areas can actually create more energy and more fuel and in fact probably spark even greater performance and contribution and whatever in that primary domain.

Karen Wright (00:25:22) - So don't think they're necessarily mutually exclusive. There's often interactions that you be surprised by.

Jonathan Fields (00:25:27) - Yeah, that's a great point. I love that. Thank you so much. Karen Wright, always great jamming with you to our. My pleasure. Credible audience. Thanks for following along and I hope you found value in this. We'll see you all here next week. 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 if you'd love to share your own moment and question with us, we would love to hear from you. Just go ahead and click on the submissions link in the show notes to get the details on how to do that. 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 live, that brings more meaning and purpose and joy into your life, take the time to discover your own personal sparketype

Jonathan Fields (00:26:17) - 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. Until next time. I'm Jonathan Fields. And this is sparked.