108 episodes
SPARKED LinkedIn
-
- Education
-
-
4.7 • 91 Ratings
-
We’re all in a moment. And, we’re asking the big questions. Especially about work. Should I join The Great Resignation? Should I stay and just keep on, keeping on. Or, reimagine, reinvent, maybe even start my own thing? Can I really expect more than just a paycheck and stability from work? How do I navigate the overwhelm, burnout, and work-life-bleed that’s turned work-from-home into never-stop-working? What about purpose, joy, excitement, time to breathe, and live? What about that nagging tension between money and meaning, the desire to feel secure and the quest to do something that makes you come alive - that sparks you?
These are the questions we’ll be diving into on the SPARKED podcast. Every week, we invite a listener to share what’s going on in their work & life, then pose a specific question. Then, our host, award-winning author, advisor, and founder, Jonathan Fields, and a rotating lineup of wise mentors from the SPARKED Braintrust will share insights, ideas, strategies, resources and tips to help us all better align what we do with who we are, so we can find and do more of what makes us come alive.
-
How to Take Control of Your Career
When was the last time you asked yourself if your career is truly headed where you want to go? Do you feel like you’re just coasting along or following someone else’s script?
It’s tempting but playing it safe is no way to build a career that allows you to grow into your best self.
In today’s conversation, Grace helps you grab the wheel and chart a course aligned with your true aspirations.
We’ll explore how to move past the myth of “work-life balance” and integrate your personal and professional lives in an intentional way. Grace shares how to define your unique “cardinal direction,” take control of your career GPS, and build “professional equity” as you move ahead.
She also reveals how to course-correct when you veer off track so you can leave a legacy you’re proud of.
SPARKED HOT TAKE WITH: Grace Puma | Book
Grace Puma is the former executive vice president and COO of PepsiCo, and before that held senior positions with United Airlines, Kraft Foods, Motorola, and Gillette. A board member of both Organon & Co and Target, she has been ranked on the “Most Powerful Latina” list by Fortune magazine and recognized as the “Executive of the Year” by Latina Style magazine. Puma holds a BA in business administration and economics from Illinois Benedictine University. She lives in Tampa, Florida.
HOSTED BY: Jonathan Fields
Jonathan 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 submissions
More on Sparketypes at: Discover Your Sparketype | The Book | The Website
Find a Certified Sparketype Advisor: CSA Directory
Coaches & Leaders: Tap a Game-Changing Credential - The Certified Sparketype® Advisor Training. This powerful training and certification is designed to help you:
Deliver more outstanding service while helping your clients and/or team members live a more-fulfilling life, and craft a more purpose-led, meaningful, and alive career path.
Better understand how to powerfully motivate and inspire employees or teams to perform at the highest levels, so that they generate exceptional results and do more of what makes them come alive.
AND… get there much faster with next-gen tools that do what no others can.
Learn more HERE. Next Training starts March 2024
Presented by LinkedIn. -
How To Unlock Creativity In All Parts of Work and Life
Have you ever felt like creativity is a gift only meant for others? Like you just weren’t born part of that illustrious and somewhat mysterious “creative class?”
Total bunk. Creativity lives inside all of us—and uncovering it could unlock meaning and joy in every aspect of your life?
In this conversation, Cynthia and I explore the myths holding us back from full creative living. She reveals three brutally hard truths of innovation, and why the creative life isn't about chasing comfort. We discuss how to awaken your senses, see with new eyes, and understand your unique blend of creativity.
In today’s episode we’re digging into:
How do you know when you are being creative? What are the signs or feelings that indicate you have tapped into your own creativity?
Where does the "muse" or creative inspiration come from - is it something within us or does it come from outside of us?
How can we challenge what we think we know and let ourselves be surprised in order to expand creativity in our work and relationships?
How can we cultivate and tune our senses to see familiar things in new ways and spark creativity?
SPARKED HOT TAKE WITH: Cynthia Morris | Website
Cynthia 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.
HOSTED BY: Jonathan Fields
Jonathan 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 submissions
More on Sparketypes at: Discover Your Sparketype | The Book | The Website
Find a Certified Sparketype Advisor: CSA Directory
Coaches & Leaders: Tap a Game-Changing Credential - The Certified Sparketype® Advisor Training. This powerful training and certification is designed to help you:
Deliver more outstanding service while helping your clients and/or team members live a more-fulfilling life, and craft a more purpose-led, meaningful, and alive career path.
Better understand how to powerfully motivate and inspire employees or teams to perform at the highest levels, so that they generate exceptional results and do more of what makes them come alive.
AND… get there much faster with next-gen tools that do what no others can.
Learn more HERE. Next Training starts March 2024
Presented by LinkedIn. -
How to Stop Playing Small (or too safe)
Have you ever felt that nagging sense that you're capable of achieving so much more, yet held yourself back because taking a leap felt too risky? I know I have.
We all have big dreams inside us - of launching that business, asking for the promotion, or finally working up the courage to leave the unfulfilling job. But so often, we shy away from fully pursuing those dreams because we worry about stability, acceptance from others, or our own self-doubt.
We’re in conversation with:
SPARKED HOT TAKE WITH: Deborah Owens | Website
After a long career in leadership in some of the biggest companies in the world, Deborah founded her own consulting firm, Corporate Alley Cat, where she advises and coaches People of Color in all aspects of career visioning and development. She has this incredible ability to see what’s happening under the surface in any given situation, and ask questions that get to the heart of the matter and reveal possibilities that feel both empowering and expansive.
YOUR HOST: Jonathan Fields
Jonathan 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 submissions
More on Sparketypes at: Discover Your Sparketype | The Book | The Website
Find a Certified Sparketype Advisor: CSA Directory
Coaches & Leaders: Tap a Game-Changing Credential - The Certified Sparketype® Advisor Training. This powerful training and certification is designed to help you:
Deliver more outstanding service while helping your clients and/or team members live a more-fulfilling life, and craft a more purpose-led, meaningful, and alive career path.
Better understand how to powerfully motivate and inspire employees or teams to perform at the highest levels, so that they generate exceptional results and do more of what makes them come alive.
AND… get there much faster with next-gen tools that do what no others can.
Learn more HERE. Next Training starts March 2024
Presented by LinkedIn. -
When Vision Meets Reality: Adjusting Your Plans to What Matters Now
Have you ever started the new year feeling unstoppable, only to hit February and realize your plans need a major refresh? I've been there too. The ambitious goals we set in January can seem so achievable in the moment. But life has a way of asserting itself. Unexpected challenges arise. Priorities shift. New opportunities emerge.
The question is: what do you do when you find yourself at this crossroads? Do you rigidly cling to outdated plans and force failure? Or do you have the courage to tear up the blueprint and start again aligned with your new reality?
My guest today, Charlie Gilkey, is intimately familiar with this entrepreneurial rite of passage. In our conversation, Charlie shares his wisdom on what to do when you realize it’s time to reconsider your goals. With insight gained from years of experience, he reveals how to take stock of where you actually are right now, not where you hoped to be, and create an updated plan aligned with that reality.
With Charlie’s guidance, you’ll learn how to rework your plans while honoring the past and creating space for the emergence of new possibilities.
SPARKED BRAINTRUST ADVISOR: Charlie Gilkey | Website
Charlie Gilkey has advised hundreds of teams, from Fortune 100 companies to tiny nonprofits, through Productive Flourishing, the coaching and training company he founded. Charlie is the author of the critically acclaimed Start Finishing: How to Go From Idea to Done. His latest book is Team Habits: How Small Actions Lead to Extraordinary Results.
YOUR HOST: Jonathan Fields
Jonathan 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 Your Sparketype | The Book | The Website
Find a Certified Sparketype Advisor: CSA Directory
Coaches & Leaders: Tap a Game-Changing Credential - The Certified Sparketype® Advisor Training. This powerful training and certification is designed to help you:
Deliver more outstanding service while helping your clients and/or team members live a more-fulfilling life, and craft a more purpose-led, meaningful, and alive career path.
Better understand how to powerfully motivate and inspire employees or teams to perform at the highest levels, so that they generate exceptional results and do more of what makes them come alive.
AND… get there much faster with next-gen tools that do what no others can.
Learn more HERE. Next Training starts March 2024
Presented by LinkedIn. -
The Truth About Building Wealth
Money. Some view it as a dirty word. Others live their entire lives in pursuit of it. There is so much mythology and misinformation about what it really takes to build life-changing levels of wealth. Even if we find a way to be well-informed, and are fortunate to be in a position to be thinking about building wealth, so many are still left to deal with the often triggering family and cultural patterns, assumptions and values we’ve adopted, and been pummeled by, around money. What if you could reshape your entire relationship with money?
I’m willing to bet that at some point you’ve felt confused, overwhelmed, or just plain frustrated when it comes to personal finance. It’s not easy to navigate, especially when so many supposed “experts” seem to be speaking a different language. But what if you had a guide, a mentor who could decode it all for you in simple, practical steps? Someone to help you adopt a realistic, yet affluence-friendly mindset and stop just getting by paycheck-to-paycheck?
In our conversation, we dive into the assumptions, misinformation and missteps that so often become the dominant tropes in personal finance. Then, Vivian shares specific insights, strategies and tips designed to help equip you with tools and knowledge to understand finances and build your own generation-changing wealth strategy, no matter where you are in life. We explore ways to maximize earnings, how to negotiate your true worth at work, overcome investing fears, adopting simple, effective habits to grow wealth, and then tap this resource not just for your own security and wellbeing, but also to make the world a better place.
And we’re in conversation with:
SPARKED BRAINTRUST ADVISOR: Vivian Tu | Website | Book
Vivian Tu, is a former Wall Street trader turned personal finance phenom, educator, and now author of the new book, Rich AF: The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life. After burning out in the toxic environment of high finance, Vivian found a new purpose: making financial literacy accessible – after she realized there was a huge unmet need for judgment-free financial advice. Especially for people who’ve traditionally been excluded from a level of financial intel that can be lifechanging. She started creating viral TikTok videos packed with no-BS money advice. Now, with millions of loyal followers, she’s become a leading voice empowering everyday people to get smart about money and achieve financial freedom.
YOUR HOST: Jonathan Fields
Jonathan 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 submissions
More on Sparketypes at: Discover Your Sparketype | The Book | The Website
Find a Certified Sparketype Advisor: CSA Directory
Coaches & Leaders: Tap a Game-Changing Credential - The Certified Sparketype® Advisor Training. This powerful training and certification is designed to help you:
Deliver more outstanding service while helping your clients and/or team members live a more-fulfilling life, and craft a more purpose-led, meaningful, and alive career path.
Better understand how to powerfully motivate and inspire employees or teams to perform at the highest levels, so that they generate exceptional results and do more of what makes them come alive.
AND… get there much faster with next-gen tools that do what no others can.
Learn more HERE. Next Training starts March 2024
Presented by LinkedIn. -
How to Say No Without Feeling Bad About It
*Coaches & Leaders: Tap a Game-Changing Credential - The Certified Sparketype® Advisor Training. Next Training starts March 2024.
Why do we feel so bad when we say no to people? Even to complete strangers who request our time, advice or even money out of the blue?
What’s going on there? What is the deeper psychology of our inability to comfortably and shamelessly just say no? Even to people and things that sound genuinely interesting, but are not landing at a moment when we have the capacity to say yes?
This dilemma shows up at work all the time, and also in every other part of life and personal relationships. We worry about disappointing others, missing out on something better, or even jeopardizing work relationships. But what if reclaiming the lost art of "no" opened up space for what matters most?
If you struggle to decline without guilt, tune in for permission to reframe "no" as an act of self-care.
In today’s episode we’re digging into:
What are some of the reasons people feel compelled to perpetually say yes and have difficulty saying no?
What motivations compel chronic people-pleasers to overcommit?
How can systems eliminate the need for repeated no's?
What decision filters discern a clear yes from an energy-draining maybe?
SPARKED HOT TAKE WITH: Jenny Blake | Website
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.
YOUR HOST: Jonathan Fields
Jonathan 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 Your Sparketype | The Book | The Website
Find a Certified Sparketype Advisor: CSA Directory
Coaches & Leaders: Tap a Game-Changing Credential - The Certified Sparketype® Advisor Training. This powerful training and certification is designed to help you:
Deliver more outstanding service while helping your clients and/or team members live a more-fulfilling life, and craft a more purpose-led, meaningful, and alive career path.
Better understand how to powerfully motivate and inspire employees or teams to perform at the highest levels, so that they generate exceptional results and do more of what makes them come alive.
AND… get there much faster with next-gen tools that do what no others can.
Learn more HERE. Next Training starts March 2024
Presented by LinkedIn.
Customer Reviews
Insightful, Powerful, Moving & Useful
I have been a fan and follower of Jonathan Fields for quite some time. He always brings tremendous value. His “sparketypes” are an interesting way to filter for innate strengths & personal wiring, that enables you to lean into your gifts.
I think that the real magic here, though, is the Brain Trust of rotating folks, who bring unique and interesting perspectives to some of the dilemmas being presented by listeners. Debbie Owens is one of my favorites, always insightful at reading between and beyond each person’s issue, and asking questions that I hadn’t even considered. I learn something new about myself every time I listen — I LOVE this show!!!
Jason Mendelson interview is profoundly inspirational!!
A friend sent me the link to this episode. I found the interview profoundly moving. My first identity in life was also as a drummer. I then dropped it for a new identity as a lawyer. Jason has inspired me to go back and retrieve my old identity that I said goodbye to 35 years ago. The lesson I took from this episode is - I don’t have to just be one thing. This may seem abundantly obvious to most out there but for a 61 year old like myself it has never been an option I ever considered even possible. I’m a product of being taught the pour yourself into just one thing era. Mr. Fields - Thank you for this episode. You have a new listener.
Such important conversations!
The Sparketype test is great, the Sparked book is a guiding light and this podcast is super helpful as well!
I am a personality test nerd and thought I fully equipped with all I need to navigate through life, but I was wrong! I am a super fan of all things Jonathan creates and thank him for his great work!