SPARKED

Jonathan & Charlie discuss:1. Stop conflating stability and freedom2. How career gaps can be perceived3. How to find freedom when some industries are slow moving4. How many times can you start over?In today’s episode we’re in conversation with:SPARKED BRAINTRUST ADVISOR: Charlie Gilkey | WebsiteCharlie is a strategic advisor and executive coach, founder of the Productive Flourishing consultancy, and author of the multi-award-winning book, Start Finishing.LISTENER:  Alyse - Sparketype: (Primary) Scientist, (Secondary) Sage, (Anti) MakerQUESTION: Today’s listener Alyse shares a story and question that will resonate with so many. Returning to corporate work after maternity leave, she no longer feels energized by her previous role. And, by the way, this experience is so universal for so many who are finding themselves returning to work in different ways, after being changed by these last few years. Having discovered her Scientist Sparketype, she now understands her yearning to push into the next unknown, explore new burning questions and solve different problems. And she’s starting to realize why she dreads feeling bored at work and is, in her words, perpetually impatient for what might come next. Alyse wants to move on from repetitive work and find something more self-directed and mission oriented, like criminal justice reform. But is worried about her resume, which is becoming a list of short stints at very different places. She’s feeling the “should” of settling down for several years and building tenure in a secure and well paid job, while also feeling that if you’re going to spend days away from your young family, ideally you’d want to spend that time doing something valuable and interesting. Which sets up the query, how do you balance your need for novelty and full-expression with a value around security? And how many times can you start over, or is that just the nature of modern careers these days.YOUR HOST: Jonathan FieldsJonathan is a dad, husband, award-winning author, multi-time founder, executive producer and host of the Good Life Project podcast, and co-host of SPARKED, too! He’s also the creator of an unusual tool that’s helped more than 650,000 people discover what kind of work makes them come alive - the Sparketype® Assessment, and author of the bestselling book, SPARKED.So what is your Sparketype? 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 - begins to make sense. Until you know yours, you’re kind of fumbling in the dark. More on Sparketypes at: Discover You Sparketype | The Book | The Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jonathan & Cynthia discuss:When considering options believing there are ‘no false steps’Does your age affect your willingness to run ‘career experiments’?What actually is a portfolio career?Studying a process versus a specific domain or industryGetting really clear about what you want your days to look likeEver hear the phrase portfolio career? It’s become shorthand for blending different things to create a career and a living that draws upon and expresses different interests and passions. In today’s episode, listener Michael, shares the story of his ‘portfolio career’ as he describes it and the pros and cons with that working style.Michael has gained experience in teaching, tutoring, managing a not-for-profit program and even coaching and is now completing a masters in design. As graduation approaches, he is contemplating what to do next. When reflecting on his portfolio career he shares a love of the flexibility, freedom and creativity it enables, and a dislike of the responsibility, organization and lack of security that it brings.In today’s episode we’re in conversation with:SPARKED BRAINTRUST ADVISOR: Cynthia Morris | WebsiteCynthia is the founder of the Original Impulse creative studio and atelier and coaching program for writers, she’s also an author, workshop facilitator, trusted advisor and coach.LISTENER: Michael - Sparketype: Advisor/Maven | NurturerQUESTION: Listener Michael poses the question, do you follow your latest area of interest and continue to collect portfolio career roles or should you find a traditional employer and potentially more job security and collaboration?YOUR HOST: Jonathan FieldsJonathan is a dad, husband, award-winning author, multi-time founder, executive producer and host of the Good Life Project podcast, and co-host of SPARKED, too! He’s also the creator of an unusual tool that’s helped more than 650,000 people discover what kind of work makes them come alive - the Sparketype® Assessment, and author of the bestselling book, SPARKED.So what is your Sparketype? 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 - begins to make sense. Until you know yours, you’re kind of fumbling in the dark. More on Sparketypes at: Discover You Sparketype | The Book | The Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jonathan & Cyndie discuss:Creating a tool for folks to feel seen and understoodIf we can know ourselves and find work that makes us come alive, imagine what that could do on a societal and global level for problem solving, innovation, productivity and wellbeing levelsWhat it means to be ‘pathologically steeped in possibility’Making things that move peopleAnd JF reveals the one thing he still hoardsWhat does it actually take to find and do work that makes you come alive? Or, as we say, that sparks you? And, what does that even mean? Today we’re taking you deeper into the mysterious world of the Sparketypes, sharing where they came from, how the global phenom that’s become the Sparketype Assessment took shape and led, eventually to the book, SPARKED, and this very podcast. And we’ll talk about how discovering your Sparketype profile can help you reimagine and reinvent your work and career to feel so much more alive. And, to help tease these ideas out, I’ve invited a dear friend and collaborator, big hearted human renowned keynote speaker, community builder, personal power alchemist, bestselling author, and all around truth-teller, Cyndie Spiegel, to lead the conversation. YOUR HOST: Cyndie Spiegal - WebsiteYOUR GUEST: Jonathan FieldsJonathan is a dad, husband, award-winning author, multi-time founder, executive producer and host of the Good Life Project podcast, and co-host of SPARKED, too! He’s also the creator of an unusual tool that’s helped more than 650,000 people discover what kind of work makes them come alive - the Sparketype® Assessment, and author of the bestselling book, SPARKED.More on Sparketypes at: Discover You Sparketype | The Book | The Workshop | The Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jonathan & Karen discuss:Unpacking assumptions about yourselfAlternative ways of sharing & teachingIdentifying your advantagesBusting the ‘6 Figure’ coaching mythBuilding the business you actually want to buildIn today’s episode we’re in conversation with:SPARKED BRAINTRUST ADVISOR: Karen Wright | WebsiteKaren is the 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.LISTENER: Kaycee - Sparketype: Sage/Maker - PerformerQUESTION: Listener Kaycee asks what do you do when the thing that seems to come hardest for you, is also the thing you feel you need to do in order to succeed at your job?She feels like she needs to center her ‘inner performer’ to reach larger audiences outside of her community, in order to further build credibility and trustworthiness beyond her personal network. But, that’s also her Anti Sparketype - or heaviest lift - when it comes to work. And, by the way, Kaycee’s not alone, as the Performer is, by far, the most common Anti Sparketypes in our research of more than 700,000 people now.YOUR HOST: Jonathan FieldsJonathan is a dad, husband, award-winning author, multi-time founder, executive producer and host of the Good Life Project podcast, and co-host of SPARKED, too! He’s also the creator of an unusual tool that’s helped more than 650,000 people discover what kind of work makes them come alive - the Sparketype® Assessment, and author of the bestselling book, SPARKED.So what is your Sparketype? 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 - begins to make sense. Until you know yours, you’re kind of fumbling in the dark. More on Sparketypes at: Discover You Sparketype | The Book | The Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jonathan & Jenny talk about:How you don't have to have your pivot planned outUsing experiments to collect dataFollowing the full body yesWhat is a project based purpose?How do we look at uncertainty differently?Are you a builder, maintainer or an optimizer? We’re super-excited to be introducing some fresh new formats to the mix here on the SPARKED podcast. Our new Hot Takes segments, which we just launched a few weeks back, tackle hot topics in conversation with expert guides from the SPARKED Braintrust. And, today, we’re sharing the second Sparked Hot Take, this time with Jenny Blake. We talk about something that Jenny and I often muse on off-mic; uncertainty, reinventing work & life and putting yourself in the path of pivot, as Jenny says. We’re taking a fresh approach to ‘pivots’, especially in this time of across the board uncertainty. We discuss ways of courageously embracing change and using experiments to collect data about what you might be called to do next. How do you follow the full body yes? And what is ‘project based purpose’? We question why some of us prefer building things over maintaining them and how to embrace your preferences.And, deepening into this conversation on pivoting and uncertainty is Sparked Braintrust advisor, Jenny Blake. Jenny is a podcaster, career and business strategist, and an award-winning author of three books: Life After College, the groundbreaking Pivot for navigating what’s next, and her recently published Free Time for optimizing what’s now. Enjoy this Sparked Hot Take on change and experimentation in a time when most of us have been navigating both.Learn more about Jenny Blake: WebsiteMore on Sparketypes at: Discover You Sparketype | The Book | The Workshop | The Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jonathan & Azuraye chat about:The call to come home to the family businessRecovering from a natural disaster that almost took everythingUsing the Sparketypes as a hiring toolLeading with folks’ Sparketypes as a way to remove organizational frictionAnd why we need trust & safety in workplacesWe’re super-excited to be introducing some fresh new formats to the mix here on the SPARKED podcast and today, we’re sharing the second installment in a fun new episode format we’re calling SPARKED Stories, where we spotlight the experience of one person and explore how they’ve built a living and life that honors, celebrates, and centers the parts of themselves that truly make them and their work come alive. That sparks what they do, and who they are.And today, I want to introduce you to Azuraye Wycoff. She grew up in Boulder, Colorado, on a family farm - now Yellow Barn Farm - that’d been used for everything from horses to food, but then headed East to go to college and thought she was never coming back. She founded a moving company in Boston, but something inside her called her back to Boulder in the fall of 2020. And shortly after she arrived, she was greeted with a profoundly transformational experience in the form of a wildfire that almost destroyed the family farm. At the last minute, shifting winds spared it, leaving her with a mission. To reimagine the land as a regenerative, sustainable, biodynamic ecosystem, not just a farm, but a community where they're bringing together different farmers and local stakeholders to create something truly extraordinary together. And, the Sparketypes, as we’ll discover, played a very cool role in all of this. Learn more about Azuraye & the Yellow Barn Farm:Website: www.yellowbarn.farmInsta: @yellowbarn.farmAnd more on Sparketypes at: Discover You Sparketype | The Book | The Workshop | The Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“We need people to lean on when things don't go as planned because we're gonna spiral down to the bottom. But then we're going to recover, when we have the processing and sharing in the disappointment, the sadness, the frustration. Naming that when it does happen and it doesn't work out and allowing that part of you to be seen from a safe person is really helpful for you to then get back and try something else again.”Every week on the SPARKED podcast, we invite a listener to share what’s going on in their work & life, then pose a specific question to Jonathan Fields and a rotating lineup of wise and kind mentors - the SPARKED Braintrust. In today’s episode we’re in conversation with:SPARKED BRAINTRUST ADVISOR: Jadah Sellner | WebsiteJadah is a multi-time founder and CEO of Jadah Sellner Media, the co-creator of the Simple Green Smoothies social and business phenom, sought-after advisor to entrepreneurs, and bestselling author.LISTENER: Brandi - Sparketype: Primary: Nurturer, Shadow: Advocate, Anti: PerformerQUESTION: Listener Brandi, sets up a really relatable scenario where as a visionary in her industry she feels frustrated by the slow moving pace of systemic progress.She wants to find a home for her Sparketype drives to Nurturer and Advocate, but feels unfulfilled and bogged down in the day-to-day tasks of her job and volunteer roles. She poses the question, how do you find a way to spotlight a yearning for helping others in a way that feels more impactful and step away from the minutiae of day to day tasks in a culture and system that doesn’t easily support a different approach?YOUR HOST: Jonathan FieldsJonathan is a dad, husband, award-winning author, multi-time founder, executive producer and host of the Good Life Project podcast, and co-host of SPARKED, too! He’s also the creator of an unusual tool that’s helped more than 650,000 people discover what kind of work makes them come alive - the Sparketype® Assessment, and author of the bestselling book, SPARKED.So what is your Sparketype? 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 - begins to make sense. Until you know yours, you’re kind of fumbling in the dark. More on Sparketypes at: Discover You Sparketype | The Book | The Workshop | The Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Introducing SPARKED Stories, a new podcast format spotlighting individuals' journeys to build lives that honor their true passions, starting with Charlie Gilkey, a former military leader turned productivity expert who runs Productive Flourishing and authored "Start Finishing."  SPARKED STORY GUEST: Charlie Gilkey | WebsiteCharlie is a strategic advisor and executive coach, founder of the Productive Flourishing consultancy, and author of the multi-award-winning book, Start Finishing.YOUR HOST: Jonathan FieldsJonathan is a dad, husband, award-winning author, multi-time founder, executive producer and host of the Good Life Project podcast, and co-host of SPARKED, too! He’s also the creator of an unusual tool that’s helped more than 650,000 people discover what kind of work makes them come alive - the Sparketype® Assessment, and author of the bestselling book, SPARKED.So what is your Sparketype? 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 - begins to make sense. Until you know yours, you’re kind of fumbling in the dark. How to submit your question for the SPARKED Braintrust: Wisdom-seeker submissionsMore on Sparketypes at: Discover You Sparketype | The Book | The Workshop | The Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“What we're seeing is that organizations are trending towards putting what I'll call programmatic things in place. Whereas employees are craving relational support.”I am so excited to introduce a new episode format that we’ll be mixing in, alongside our listener question episodes, that we call SPARKED Hot Takes. These SPARKED hot take episodes focus in on a big issue in the world of work, something deeply relevant to all of us. We’ll dive into the angles and nuances with an expert member of the SPARKED Braintrust, teasing out the real questions, the nuanced assumptions, the parts no one else talks about, and what we can do to make work and life better. More alive.In today’s first-ever Sparked Hot Take, we’re taking an unusual look at what it’s like to lead in this complicated, often upside-down moment, and how leaders, themselves, are struggling with their own humanity, at the same time they’re being asked to take care of those they lead, and deliver bottom-line results in a world where both feel near impossible. And, deepening into this conversation on leadership and humanity is Sparked Braintrust advisor, Karen Wright. Karen is the 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.Enjoy this Sparked Hot Take on leading and humanity at a time when both are hard to access.SPARKED BRAINTRUST ADVISOR: Karen Wright | WebsiteYOUR HOST: Jonathan FieldsJonathan is a dad, husband, award-winning author, multi-time founder, executive producer and host of the Good Life Project podcast, and co-host of SPARKED, too! He’s also the creator of an unusual tool that’s helped more than 650,000 people discover what kind of work makes them come alive - the Sparketype® Assessment, and author of the bestselling book, SPARKED.How to submit your question for the SPARKED Braintrust: Wisdom-seeker submissionsMore on Sparketypes at: Discover You Sparketype | The Book | The Workshop | The Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Listener Marie asks, "When looking for niche job roles that match your criteria, how do you have patience in the process?"Every week on the SPARKED podcast, we invite a listener to share what’s going on in their work & life, then pose a specific question to Jonathan Fields and a rotating lineup of wise and kind mentors - the SPARKED Braintrust. In today’s episode we’re in conversation with:SPARKED BRAINTRUST ADVISOR: Jenny Blake | WebsiteJenny is a podcaster, career and business strategist, and an award-winning author of three books: Life After College, the groundbreaking Pivot for navigating what’s next, and her recently published Free Time for optimizing what’s now. LISTENER: Marie, Sparketype: Essentialist/Maven, Anti: NurturerQUESTION: Listener, Marie, shares a story of her job scouting that is aiming to strike the ideal balance between role & organization fit, skillset match and desirable location.She expresses her frustration with the apparent lack of appealing options and asks is there a way to reframe her situation? Marie puts forward the query, how do you find niche industry roles that match your search criteria and is there a way to look outside the box if you’re feeling discouraged with the search process?YOUR HOST: Jonathan FieldsJonathan is a dad, husband, award-winning author, multi-time founder, executive producer and host of the Good Life Project podcast, and co-host of SPARKED, too! He’s also the creator of an unusual tool that’s helped more than 650,000 people discover what kind of work makes them come alive - the Sparketype® Assessment, and author of the bestselling book, SPARKED.So what is your Sparketype? 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 - begins to make sense. Until you know yours, you’re kind of fumbling in the dark. More on Sparketypes at: Discover You Sparketype | The Book | The Workshop | The Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.