033: Sparked with Jonathan Fields

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Excellent.

Hello friends. I am delighted to be coming to you from a cottage in Great Barrington with birds chirping and my dearest friend, Jonathan Fields here sitting across the table from me. Hi JF Good morning. Welcome to your cabin.

Thank you so much.

And my podcast.

So I am a taskmaster because you all know I'm a morning person. But I made Jonathan, we are here recording. It is 8am he's barely had a few sips of coffee.

I'm working on it. My voice is slowly waking up.

Yeah, we were saying it's going to be a really. Not only are we recording first thing in the morning, I have not conducted a podcast interview in a month. Both Jonathan Jonathan and his wonderful wife Stephanie, they've been in various Airbnbs as part of their living strategy for the last year and now so have Michael and I. And so it's great to just be here with you and be here with a friend. And thankfully JF travels with very fancy podcasting mics, so yeah, we're all set on that front.

I'm set for pretty much anything that comes my way, audio wise. Nothing else in life, but at least audio.

Oh my gosh. So Jonathan and I have known each other over a decade. I've looked to him as a friendor a mentor from afar. Now a friend. Jonathan. I'll just give the briefest of intros, but I have followed every single one of your books. Not the super secret one that apparently launched, you know, 20 years ago, but career renegade, uncertainty, how to live a good life. And now we're here celebrating your new book, Sparked.

Yeah, it's kind of crazy.

What's the subtitle?

Discover your unique imprint for work that makes you come alive.

Bam. And are there 10 sparkotypes?

There are. There are 10 of these different things. Archetypes we call. It's funny because we're trying to really figure out how to describe this work, which is always, you know, my brain works in words and language, not so much the way yours works in numbers, which blows me away.

And in really trying to figure out like what is Going on with the work that we've been doing, What I realized is we've got a set of impulses for the way that people exert effort. The way that people work, whether it's a thing you get paid for or not, it's just we all have this set of impulses where we wake up in the morning. For some reason, we're wired to want to invest effort, to exert ourselves in a particular way for no other reason than the way it makes us feel. And built around that. What I've realized over years now is that there tends to be a certain predictable. Predictable.

I like predictable.

Predictable.

We should define that. It must mean something. Interesting.

Must. That's the prodigal pretty coffee set right there. Predictable set of preferences, tendencies, and behaviors that form into archetypes. And I call those sparketypes because I can make up words and it's fun. The archetypes for work that sparks you.

I love it. I love what? It just gave me so much peace how you described it as the way we exert effort and then paradoxically, in a way that feels effortless. Because if I woke up in the morning, like, I will do this. I'll be in a yoga class in my room and then organize books during the class. Like, I can't. It's an impulse. So you're right. It's just this way that we, like, I cannot help but express. I want to. I want to start with you. You are a maker. And we're at this very interesting juncture at the time of this recording. This is advanced podcasting. Because I don't even have a copy of Jonathan's book. I'm psychically reading it in the future. But I've been following this work and so you're a maker with a scientist shadow, just kind of like the maker's helper. And you've just been deeply immersed in this project, and we're right at the cusp where you're shifting into. What do you call it? Full metal jacket marketing mode.

Full metal marketing.

Full metal marketing.

I have no idea how that phrase lands with anyone, but, yeah, I don't know. Fully embracing the process of bringing something to the world. Yes.

And you're a pro marketer that I've learned from for many years. I don't love that word, but I'm curious, what's your relationship as a maker from shifting from deep hermit plus pandemic mode of hibernation. And then, I don't know. I wonder where marketing falls in terms of the ranking of your various archetypes that it taps into. But what's that shift like for you going from business owner and maker and then now? Totally. It's like a 90 degree turn into this marketing machine mode.

Yeah. I mean the, the bigger part of that shift for me is internal process to external engagement.

Yes.

So to me it's. And I'm also just. My social wiring is much more on the side of introversion. So I tend to be really happy when I'm in my creative cave. And because of the nature of what I create, I mean, I create everything from businesses to experiences to moments to books and all the yada yada. But what I've been intensely focused on more recently is a book, you know, which, which is a pretty solitude driven process. Yes. I have a team and I have my editors and all these other people who've contributed and that's amazing. But fundamentally, you know, like my job was to sit down and create both value and beauty, which I've realized also for me is really, really important, especially the latter part. And that has been a more recent sort of like realization. And doing that in the context of a book is not always the easiest thing, but it's part of the maker wiring that makes me happy to be in that place. Not perpetually happy. There are struggles like anything else, but the broader process. So as the manuscript is done and I'm literally giving the final approvals and drafting the final mock ups on the design side of things and really, really moving into the process of introducing the body of work in the book to the world.

Part of it is shifting from intense solitude driven making to being in the world, to interacting with human beings, to sharing the ideas and the actual social object of the book.

So that is less my innate happy place. But at the same time, I'm really proud of what this is. I'm really excited to bring.

The ideas.

And the object of the book to the world at a moment where I just feel like it's really needed. And I hope that inside the pages people will find something that will really help them, that will really make some changes in understanding that will make a really big difference. And the bigger thing that I tend to do now to get okay with moving into a much more public process is I try and bring the maker's frame to the process.

I was just going to ask you.

That, you know, so like, I switch modes into. Instead of like, how do I become a marketer? It's like, no, how do I continue the process of creation, but in a different context now. So like, how Do I? How do I breathe life into an experience of birthing.

That, you know, and then sharing what I've created in a way where I still can get my maker Jones satisfied? It's different.

And I can control the variables a lot more in the creation process of the thing, but I have to surrender a lot more when I'm interacting with the world around me because I just don't know, I don't know who's going to like it, what people are going to say, how it's going to land. And so I just have to be much more in tap dancing Mode pretty much 24 7. But that's also something that being a maker trains you in because makers live in the question, you know, when fundamentally your impulse is to make ideas manifest. That means the idea didn't exist or it existed differently before you decided to do something with it. And you say yes to the invitation to make knowing full well that you have no idea if it's makeable or what it will look like if it's possible.

So like going through that from the time as early as I can remember as a child, it kind of trains you.

To know that that's what is going to be part of your process of bringing yourself to the world.

It is such a journey in faith because you get this idea, then you have to believe in yourself to work on that idea. And I do feel like for the maker it is so much faith of just, okay, I'm pursuing this. I feel called to do this and seeing how it's. I like what you said too of surrender. Do you have any examples of how you wear your maker hat in a marketing mode? Like are there things, coping mechanisms.

Yeah.

No say for other introverted entrepreneurs.

So. So one of my philosophies about marketing over the years has become that I want anyone to. Anyone who interacts with quote, marketing experience. I really don't like that word.

I know, can we just come up with a new word, please?

Anyone who interacts with an experience that I in some way create to help introduce somebody to an idea or an offering or solution, I want to also have the experience of independent value and grace and beauty, whether they ever buy a thing from me or not. And that's part of how I sort of like wear my maker hat in the process of marketing. So I'm rather than creating funnels and this and that, which, I mean it's the framework of everything. I'm constantly asking myself what more can I create that will bring delight and value to people along the process? And Allow that the energy and the emotion and the insight and the intuition, the unfolding of that experience, be something that is so resonant and inspiring that they'll then want to know more and go deeper. So we're creating a lot of stuff.

There's something that I've been working on that took three days.

Very vanishing into the high mountains of Colorado on the continental divide at 12,000ft before we packed up our car and drove 2,000 miles across country that we'll be sharing as part of that process. Also that I've seen pieces of at this point.

So we don't get to know. You're just going to drop.

I'm totally teasing you.

There it is. There's a strategy in action.

Yeah. But it's basically like I sort of look at the process of marketing and say, like, how can I make this a co. Generative. Co creative process that uplifts and delights along the way, whether people buy the thing at the end of that process or not.

I love hearing the values come through Grace, beauty value, and this idea of just intrinsic value, that an experience is complete in and of itself. It's not some teaser for some epic creative of three days in Colorado. I guess we will have to stay tuned. You'll just have to know what that is.

I can't entirely share it yet because if it's a total disaster, it may not ever be published.

Okay. So we'll just look out for some kind of disaster and then.

No.

Well, you're okay. You'll have to give us a clue so I can fill everyone in when it's time. One thing you told me maybe years ago now is I said, JF, I get so overwhelmed, I'm always behind on things.

And.

And you said for yourself something that helps you stay focused. You said, my work is my offering.

And I think that also tied in. It was around the time you interviewed Ann Patchett on your show, your wonderful podcast, the Good Life Project. I think she had something similar. You had referenced that conversation. Can you tell me a little bit more about that and how it helps you stay in maker mode?

Yeah, that if. If, if I said that to you and I have zero recollection.

But you hold that belief, right?

I do, yeah. And I was entirely channeling Ann. I had just. It sounds like I had just come out of a conversation that I recorded with Anne and she was sharing with me that if you want to reach her, you basically can't. She doesn't have a cell phone. She doesn't. She has the phone that's wired into her like wall next to her bed. And that's it. You know, there's no email, there's no social media, there's no, She's a ghost everywhere. And, and her reason is she said basically, you know, anything that you need to know about me, you'll know through my work.

And that really resonated with me. Not only because she's made a very conscious choice to eliminate, you know, the universe of channels through which people can.

Ask, demand moments of time, awareness and attention.

But she's done that in the name of being able to create on an extraordinary level. What's fascinating about her process too, and I wonder if these things are related and this is something she shared in the conversation as well, is that so if you've never read an Ann Petchet, both, they're phenomenal books. You know, she's an incredible writer and they're complex, they're colorful. There's nuance and story and fluidity, emotion in her writing and it's breathtaking. She writes her books almost entirely in her head and then sits down and effectively dictates them from her brain. She doesn't map them out in advance. She doesn't. So she, she will spend months, just sort of like having it in her head, developing in her head before she finally sits down to write. And then she lets it go where it needs to go. And I was like, in order to hold that much creative capacity in your brain and sustain it and that much complexity over time, you kind of need to create a sacred.

Container, you know, that people can't get into unless and until you're ready to allow them in. And very often that means when the thing in your head has found a way out.

Yes, and I can. For me, working on the free time book was the most sacred container I've had yet for a project. And there's a huge difference. It's a luxury. I can't say I'm earning much money right now. I kind of am taking a risk, much bigger risk this time on the creative process than before. And I've even noticed how living with Michael in an Airbnb, we're in the middle of the woods, we're a 20 minute drive from a one street town.

And I've had full immersion and I, for some reason it's. We're recording this in the summer so there's been less inquiries in general, less work inquiries, less, less email, less messages. And.

To stay in that cocoon and just every day, like weave fibers of it, it's Powerful. And it does compound. And I just love her. I love the sentiment that everything you need to know about me I've poured into my work. It's there. It's for you. It's that thing of like, here, I made this for you, and I'm not gonna do all the shenanigans around it. So.

Yeah, it's interesting too, right? Because a lot of, a lot of people know Anne as a novelist and she is, she's stunning. She's also written a handful of nonfiction books and semi memoir. Ish.

But.

My recollection is that probably a lot more on the fiction side of things. And so you wonder. Well, when somebody says something like everything you need to know, you know, through my work and you write primarily fiction, how can that be true? And that circles back to another conversation I actually had with Liz Gilbert, who basically said, everything you need to know about me, you can know about my fiction or through reading my fiction. She's like, so much of who you are as a human being, as a writer, as a creator, the choices that you make come through how you decide to craft stories, even made up stories. And you can learn stunning amounts of the creator, the maker, because behind it, regardless of whether somebody like literally sitting there writing or telling you about this is me, this is my life, or simply being able to immerse yourself in a story that they've created out of thin air, if you really, really paying attention, you will learn so many layers about the.

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Yeah. So another JF gem was I was losing my mind. This is in the before times. I was still losing my mind. It actually kind of got me ready. But you asked me at a we were having dinner at your house. You're like, how's everything? And I just looked at you with probably wide eyed, just omg. And you recommended me. I read your blog post, the Unfortunate Middle, and it talks about this navigation as business owners, from simple grace all the way to. What is it? Streamlined complexity.

I think I, you know, I've changed the language over the years, but I think the last time I landed on complex grace.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

So complex. Wow. Complex grace. And then there's this unfortunate middle where you're neither here nor there. You're kind of straddling two different energies.

Now, I'm curious a where do you find yourself currently? Like, what is your sweet spot along that spectrum? Probably not in the unfortunate middle, but where do you like to hang out? And how do you think Sparketypes can help business owners figure out? Like, is there any correlation between your Sparketype and how big or small, simple or complex of a business you want to run? Oh, let's start there.

Yeah. So maybe let's lay out the concept a little bit. I look at the building of any business.

As having three stages. So first one is simple grace. And that's generally doing the thing you feel compelled to do. Maybe that's you literally just on a simple, elemental level, waking up in the morning and creating your life, your world, your day, so that you can do that impulse, do the work of your spark type as much as humanly possible. And if you're fortunate, get paid to do it. Very often that looks like a private practice for a lot of people, or a solo artist or an engineer who's a consultant or freelancer or things like that. You're coding, you're somebody who's hired to do this, and you cherry pick the projects you want to do. You get paid well, you have all the time you want, and life is actually pretty good. You know, you may not feel like you're making a massive global impact or building a huge bank account in the background that you can retire into. But then again, who cares? Because if you get to keep doing this thing and you're, you know, earning enough to be completely comfortable in the world and you're banking a bit of money, well, the notion of retirement, like, why is that even appealing to you?

I just always got paranoid if I hung out over in that space of things that if anything happened to me, if I got sick, there was no backup or needed a creative pause. That's what freaked me out about the simple, super simple.

That's what freaks a lot of us out about that mode. And I often wonder how much of that is our own self talk versus the talk of our parents and society and culture that says that's irresponsible if you stay there. Meanwhile, if I look at the most accomplished professionals, if I look at, like, if you look at the average doctor, the average physician, right, they're not looking at how to scale a company or an industry. They're like, you know what? This is the thing that I do. The average lawyer, the average across and, or even, you know, if you look at the trades, you know, the average electrician, the average plumber, the average carpenter, you know, develop a set of skills, you generally do pretty well. You get to wake up in the morning and do a lot of the stuff that really fills you up and nourishes you and you allocate money off to the. And then you buy insurance to cover the eventualities. You buy your, like three different types of disability and you buy your life insurance. So you can look at it as saying, like, I have enough to fund all of those things and that's that net if like God forbid, I need to rely on it. So there. I think if you really get creative, you can find ways to make yourself pretty comfortable in the possibility of extreme circumstances. But we generally don't because society, society, we're kind of like told that that's not adequate. So we feel this compulsion to quote, go bigger, right? And that go bigger means generally we're stepping out of a place of simple grace where things actually feel pretty good. We get to spend most of our waking hours doing this magical thing and into a place where we're embracing scale and generally scale in terms of revenue and impact.

And we step into this middle place where we're doing a lot more of the things that empty us and where the level of complexity we're now managing, systems, process, inventory, products, structure, people, laws, logistics, supply chain, all these different things. And some people are okay with that. Most people are not. You know, for the average person, when you introduce complexity, you introduce stress. Not just stress to the system, but stress to the human body, stress to the human mind, stress to the way that we move through every day. And for most people, we experience stress as suffering. And if you keep building the complexity, you keep increasing the volume and the density of stress, and you keep Increasing the volume and density of suffering in your life in the name of scale, impact, and quote. One day, one day, getting big enough, having enough people, having enough systems and processes that you can buy your way back into the daily experience of simple grace. But now with other people handling all the complexity around you. So now you've made it through like the unfortunate middle. You, you've put your head down, you've done the suffering, you've handed off and figured out how to delegate and brought all these other people in. And now you have 50 people working with you who handle all the stuff so that you get the chance to step back into that place where you just do the stuff that lit you up in the beginning, knowing that you have this bigger ecosystem around you that has impact at scale, that has revenue at scale, that has responsible outcome where you're stacking away a lot more money in the bank in the event of.

You bought your way back to the daily lived experience of simple grace, but with much bigger impact and revenue scaffolding around you. But here's the problem.

Most people never get to complex grace. Most people never get through the unfortunate middle, the live in it that becomes the nature of their daily existence perpetually. They never step out of it. And eventually the density of the stress and the relentlessness of the stress that comes from enduring complexity that you never wanted, but you just said, this is what I have to do to get through to the other side destroys you. And you end up being brought to your knees and then going back to a place of simple grace, thinking that you're a failure. So now you're there, but you're also there with shame and futility. And it's devastating, you know, on so many levels for so many people. And so I think a lot of people, actually, it doesn't serve them well to try and push through to, you know, from, from a place of simple grace through that unfortunate middle to complex grace. Because the vast majority of people.

Won'T get there. Sort of like the fundamental nature of business and careers, you know, and work, it's not just about entrepreneurship. It's sort of like in almost every domain, that doesn't mean you shouldn't aspire to it, but what it means is I think people are just like, they're better, they're better off, they're better equipped to understand whether to say yes or no to the product process when they understand that this is the process and that if you aspire to that last stage, there very likely will be a high level of sustained stress complexity and Suffering along the way. And you're saying yes to that. And you may be saying yes to it for years, but if you find that becomes your persistent state for years and years and years, and you're never moving through it, you're just living in it, then it's time to sort of like to hit the circuit breakers and say.

What do I need to do to actually get out of this state? Whether I'm moving forward into complex grace or, quote, backward into simple grace. And both of them are actually places that you can move to without shame. But.

Yeah, like, sharing that model is really just a way of trying to.

Be honest about the process of entrepreneurship and the reality of where most people land and also letting people know that the unfortunate, fortunate middle is where most people dwell but is the worst place to be. And it was never intended.

Yeah, like, if you don't name it, we think that this is the zit. If we stay stuck there, like you said, almost stuck in neutral. My friend Sarah, she's like, sometimes I feel like burning it all down. And then so in the book, I call it burn it all down mode. It's like, you know, when you're in, maybe I should just burn down my business and become a do ceramics. Like, that impulse probably is a signal of the unfortunate middle. And then I call it, like, Think of it like escape velocity. You need enough propulsion to get you out of the earth's orbit. Let's say you need enough systems and structures to just get you out, and then you can reach this sort of coasting altitude. Now, I think I'm in the wrong part of the stratosphere, but I want to know, jf, where do you hang out? Because I know you have a delightfully tiny team, just a few core people.

You and Stephanie are the main drivers of the business. Like, you know, I think you're someone who likes. I mean, this is the whole point of what I'm talking about with delightfully tiny teams that what is the scenario that we have.

Just enough complex grace with these small teams to have bigger impact.

But create that sustainability around it. So I just want to know where you find yourself today in this day and age, and are you happy with it?

Yeah.

Oddly, it's easier to answer the latter question than it is the former part of that. Like, am I happy with it? And the answer is no.

Tell us why. Thank you for being honest.

Because I'm in a messy place.

I am partially in that complex middle where I'm actually running two companies now were scaling up on. So I'm effectively in startup mode. We've had a media company and community company with Good Life project for years and as the body of work around the Sparkotypes has developed and the traction has been pretty stunning, we've realized it's its own thing and it needed its own container, its own entity and its own structure to scale, impact and revenue. So we, so we created that exists as its own organization now. But we're at a point where we're still early enough that we've got early traction.

I've written the book, we have amazing.

Volumes of people interacting with the tools and I see where we're headed and what we're looking to create in terms of solutions and offerings, programmatic stuff, but we're very much in the early stages of doing that. And doing that while simultaneously like building a team and running an organization and running another company is not my happy place. But I also know that because I know what's involved. I've been through the startup process enough times. Yeah, you've talked about my own companies enough times that I know the process and I know what I'm saying yes to, why I'm saying yes to and how long I'm willing to be in this place before I pull the rip cord.

How long are you willing?

It's about an 18 month window for me, you know, and we're about six months into that. So you know, the fall of 2022, if I still feel the way I feel right now, you know, there'll be a bunch of reevaluation today. Do.

At least at that point you're, you're more set up for someone else to step in or to sell the business or do whatever you end up doing with it.

It's kind of like I, I, I've been through the process enough times to know that, you know, the, your Sparketype is my anti Sparketype.

Oh, fascinating.

So I know enough to know now that as soon as we have the structure and the resources like the, the work that you, that comes so innately to you and that fills you up is the stuff that empties me out. And I will as soon as we can bring other people in to do that work. But we're not there yet.

But see, I think we're more like than you think because so my, I'm a, I'm an essentialist with a maven shadow. So maven's all about like research, reading, learning. The essentialist is creating order from chaos. Once I've created order from chaos, I'm bored. So Maintenance, maintaining system structures. I'm over it. I just want to take a jumble or pull an idea out of the ether and create something with it or create structure where it didn't exist like the books, but to maintain the business and scale the business. I think I got pivot to a perfect place where if I poured resources onto.

Really could scale. And yet I was just ready to move on. I still have it. It's still there. But I. I looked at that part of the business and I said, what this really needs now is growth strategy and someone to get out there and sell it and then serve those customers. And oh my God. I was like, I don't want to. That's not me.

Because the fundamental systems process, in order to build was kind of like it was done. And you're right, there's an interesting overlap with the maker, which is when the intense process of creation moves into more of an iterative optimization level, most want to tap out.

Not all because there's different parts of creation, but most that impulse becomes harder and harder to satisfy. It's not that you're bored. I think that's one of the big things from the outside of looking in sometimes. It's that the fundamental impulse for effort is no longer being given the opportunity to take center stage. And you feel like it's not that you're bored. You feel like you're less able to be you in the world. And that doesn't feel good.

100% true. That's true. It's a good way. It's like as if. So to keep with the flame metaphor, it's like as if there's water on the flame, it's not gonna light for those activities. It's just the conditions aren't there. I think it's such an interesting tension for business owners because whatever your sparketype, I think there are some people that they don't care what, what the business is. I had friends selling cat furniture and doing really well with it. They don't care what the business is. They enjoy whatever their sparketype is that they enjoy building and scaling a business, and they enjoy the math of marketing money and what you pour where and how you grow it. And they intrinsically enjoy that process. And then I think for other business owners, you know, there's a lot of running a business that I love, that I actually love more. I've done more tinkering behind the scenes in my business, I than I have done writing. But the books come out every five or six years and they drive the next phase of, you know, each phase of my career. But. But I love tinkering in business. However, I would think that for so many of us, like what you were describing with the Sparked, I forget the official business name, the llc. But with Sparked is the book. But with that whole enterprise, you have to simultaneously have the strategy and vision and be building the structures of that business while podcasting and deeply connecting with your guests. And you're going to go on your own book tour and podcast tour. And it's so interesting to try to simultaneously honor.

How we express effort and to do them at the same time is not easy.

Yeah. And I think, you know, I think it also makes sense to speak to.

You know, something that's a little quieter but important, which is, you know, there's. I'm in a privileged place, you know, and so I'm not complaining about the fact that I'm running two companies. I think it's an incredible blessing. And there are so many things in my life that allow me to do this that may not allow others to do with as much availability, accessibility, and ease. And yet at the same time, I think sometimes we.

Deny.

The sense of struggle that we sometimes have. You know, I think we're such a.

Comparative organism that we're constantly looking at other people and judging our worthiness, judging our successes, judging our failures, judging our struggles based on.

The same factors that we see from people around us.

And, you know, so there's an interesting window right now where, yes, there's a lot of stuff that I don't necessarily want to be doing. I don't necessarily, I don't love running two companies right now, but there's so much amazingness that goes along with that also. And if these are the struggles that I'm dealing with right now, if I'm like, you know, doing the parts of the job and the work that I don't really want to be doing or that are more emptying.

I am incredibly blessed for those to be among the bigger things that I'm grappling with right now.

And within that, there are, I don't know about you, but I like big, hairy creative problems. So I do think there's some aspect of that. Even with a business, not something as idea based as a book, but with a business, you still have to create something from nothing. You still have to solve these. I think it's very rewarding to try to blaze a trail that didn't exist. And so I'm curious. You gave us your 18 month kind of, you're not, you're you're in a certain type of fortunate middle right now. I love that you said you're grateful for these problems. What is your dream? Like, where. Where do you land? And would you consider your dream somewhere in simple grace or is there an offshoot of it? That's once you've returned from complex grace, there's this other pocket available. What's your dream?

Yeah.

So my dream is less about the structure that's around me, and it's just knowing how I want to feel and what I want to be doing every day. Whether.

That comes with knowing that there's an organization with a lot of people that's built around me that's having a, like, massive impact at scale or whether or not sort of like, is less concerning to me. I know I want to wake up in the morning. I want to podcast with me. Podcast with you at 8 in the morning.

What else?

I want to, you know, I know the qualities of the day. I know I want to spend, you know, four to five hours in an intense making process. I know I want to spend some of my day.

You know, with friends and people that I just love and can't get enough. Enough of that I love to be around. I know I want to know that part of my effort is going towards making the world a better place for other people. I want to know that.

It's too funny. There's a cat right outside that we're.

Not really speaking up. I know.

Saying, wait, what about me? What about me?

What about Kitty? She's chiming in. She's seconding what you're saying. She's really loud right now.

She's a very sweet cat.

I know it's funny to, like, try to follow your thought process and yet the cat is like, please, somebody.

The cat's like, but what about this? But what about this?

Yeah, like, I want to. I wrote a sentence down a couple years back, which is, I want to spend the greatest amount of time absorbed in activities and experiences that fill me up, surrounding myself with people I cannot get enough of while knowing that I'm making a difference in the world.

That's kind of it. So for me, it's less about, like, do I want to be in simple grace versus complex grace and unfortunate middle. I know the qualities of the daily experience of my life that I want to embrace. And.

You know what? The details of that are is less concerning to me.

That is so beautifully said. I love that statement statement you wrote and the title of our Pivot podcast. I'll link it in the show notes I remember was live fiercely, study deeply. And I thought that was so inspiring as well. When you told me that years ago, I was like, I want that.

I want to study deeply and live fiercely. And there might have been a third component to it at that time. So, last question, JF if you could give fellow business owners permission, you could just write them a permission slip, what would it be for?

What would that be? My sense is to allow the thing that you seek to create be as much a manifestation of the essential nature of who you are as it is a mechanism to fill what you perceive to be a viable need in a marketplace. Because you can follow the ladder and build something that's quote, successful, and then end up realizing in hindsight that you have just recreated.

Constraints to your life, to your happiness, to your love, to your true success that you never intended to, even though outwardly you've got all the trappings of a successful, thriving company.

Allow your own well being, your own sense of.

Fulfillment to be. To have a seat at the table of what you're building.

I love that. Thank you so much, JF Everybody, make sure to check out Sparked, if you haven't already. It is a beautiful book and I think you'll find your Sparketype so illuminating. JF Is there anywhere else you want to send people? People online? Give us all your goodies.

That's good. Or maybe if you want to take the. The Sparketype assessment, which is free for everybody who doesn't love a good assessment@sparketype.com and even if you misspell it, we've got the misspellings and it redirects back to the right place.

There it is. There's that business mind. Did you say it's sparketype.com?

Just sparketype.

Oh, sparketype. Okay, see, now I'm adding confusion. Now you're gonna have to buy that domain.

I'm on it.

Okay, excellent. Thank you, J.F. thanks everyone for listening and thanks, Kitty, for chiming in.

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