Discover Your Spark with Jonathan Fields

When you’re humming along at work, nothing significant to complain about…but you just feel like something is missing…that missing thing may just be your spark—the thing that just makes you come truly alive.

 

Consciously or not, we all strive to feel that spark. And today you’re in luck. I spoke with Jonathan Fields, award-winning author, executive producer, and host of one of the top-ranked podcasts in the world, Good Life Project. He’s also the Founder and CEO of Spark Endeavors and author of the new book Sparked: Discover Your Unique Imprint for Work that Makes You Come Alive. 

 

He shared with me some of his favorite stories and bits of actionable wisdom to help us all unlock our potential, motivation, impact, and joy.

 

Listen to the full conversation on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform, or just click the audio player above.

What does it mean to truly feel “sparked”?

Based on years of research within organizations yielding more than 25 million data points, Fields knows of what he speaks when it comes to feeling sparked.

 

A spark refers to “what I often call coming alive. And for me, that’s the confluence of 5 different states”:

 

1. Meaningfulness—do you feel like your work matters?

2. Flow—are you able to just get lost in it, losing all sense of time?

3. Engagement—are you excited and energized by what’s capturing your attention?

4. Expressed potential—do you feel great at what you do, like you’re putting your gifts to work?

5. Purpose—are you doing what you’re meant to do?

How can we discover our own spark?

Through his research, Fields identified 10 unique archetypes (and combining the word spark with archetype, he’s landed on Sparketypes) that represent our primary impulses. You may be a maven, maker, scientist, essentialist, performer, sage, warrior, advisor, advocate, or nurturer. 

 

The assessment will feed you a primary sparketype, a shadow (secondary) sparketype, and an anti-sparketype, the thing that “most readily empties you and requires the greatest recovery.”

 

I took the free assessment which showed my primary type is Advisor, my secondary is Sage, and my anti is Performer...

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