Discovering Your Passion & Purpose with Jonathan Fields

Welcome back, Kwik Brain. Your question for today is a question we get all the time. It's probably one of the most asked questions, really. How do you find your passion? How do you find your purpose? I mean, well, how do you find a thing that most people feel like it lights them up? And I'm really excited today because I have a dear friend here today who is a best-selling author. He's the host of a wildly popular podcast. And he's also the creator of the Sparketype model, the assessment, which is really the source code for performance, for personal expression, for flow. And it's none other than Jonathan Fields.

Thanks for being here. My pleasure. Awesome to hang out.

Dude, I had so much fun with you yesterday jamming. One of the highlights for me is you are a maker, like true and true, and I want to talk about This question, a lot of people on social media and in our community, they're a little bit discouraged because they don't know, they feel like they have to find their passion or they don't know their why. And you hear these things all the time. And so let's, let's define, first of all, what is, what is passion? How do you define passion and purpose?

Yeah, and I think there's so much confusion around that, so I'm glad we're starting here. And I also think they're used interchangeably. really often, which creates a lot of the confusion. And to me, they're very— they're two very different things, right? So let's start with passion because that's a trigger word for a lot of people.

Yeah.

And so I have my take on it, and also I'll share a bit of the research that's gone on around it. So when a lot of people think about passion, you know, they think about, well, what is the thing that just leaves them breathless that they can't not do when they wake up in the morning every day, they run out to do? When you look at the research, and the research is still pretty new, so it's largely coming out of a pretty narrow area, but there's interesting research that describes passion as this sort of intrinsic compulsion to do something. And it also splits it into 2 types of passion. One is what would be called harmonious and one is what would be called obsessive. So harmonious is this compulsion to do something that is good for you, that fills you up, that is nourishing in some way. Whereas obsessive would be this compulsion to continue to do something that is much more likely to be obsessive and destructive. So examples of this might be, you know, if you wake up in the morning and you have something which is like exercise, you just love to exercise, you love to work out.

Right.

So there's a harmonious way to express that and there's an obsessive way to express that. So you can express that in a way where you're in the gym, you know, like an hour a day or you're out running or you're rock climbing and you do it in a way that allows you to feel good, that gives you energy, that treats your body with dignity and respect, that makes you stronger and healthier and you just love the actual experience of doing it. You can also then tip over the line. And start to do that 6 hours a day, 7 days a week, and become so obsessed with doing this thing, it becomes a destructive force in your life.

Hmm.

It becomes so obsessive that it actually takes you down the rabbit hole of tearing your body apart instead of building it up. You're doing it because it becomes something where you kind of feel like you've almost lost the ability to stop doing it. It's this compulsion almost on the level of addiction. And it may even be isolating you from all the other activities and people in your life who you genuinely do love to be around. So it's not necessarily a different activity, but they can— it can express itself in a way that's constructive and also potentially destructive. So that's one lens on what passion may be. It's a thing that where there's sort of a deeper internal compulsion to do it, and it can be expressed in a way that's, you know, both helpful and also harmful. I have a slightly different take on passion, and because when you think about that thing, for a lot of people it doesn't necessarily immediately resonate. So my, my, my take on passion is related to the idea of purpose. So if you had asked me years ago, do most people have some sort of sustained through line of purpose that kind of follows them for the vast majority of their life that's well-defined, probably would have rolled my eyes and thought no. I've come to believe that actually most of us do have that deeper imprint, that thing that, that gives us a drive to do something that at the end of the day fills us with a sense of meaning.

That's purpose.

Yeah, so that's purpose for me. And my view on passion is that passion is a granular external expression of purpose. So when a lot of people use these words interchangeably, I think we get tripped up because we say, well, don't tell me what my passion is. Or they'll ask, what is your passion? As if it's one thing. And actually, if you sort of work from the way that I would relate them and say, OK, so there is this core. There is something which is a deeper imprint. which is driving a lot of the work and the way that you contribute to the world. But that can be expressed in thousands of different ways over the course of your life. To me, those ways are— so you can have thousands of different passions. But very often they all relate to being expressions of this something that's deeper, that is sustained over a long period of time.

Mm-hmm.

So you could be, you know, like painting. You could be building spreadsheets. You could be launching companies. You could do all these different things. And you could be deeply passionate about each one of them. To me, very often, I'm curious about what is the universal deeper driver, which is where, you know, like for me, the deeper purpose comes from and the deeper driver of meaning that crosses all of those sort of granular expressions that I would call passions.

And I would really want to highlight something you said, that we could have multiple passions, because I feel like some people believe that there's something wrong with them because they haven't found that one thing. That one thing in terms of that they're passionate about, but it's okay to have many intense interests.

Yeah, and sort of like working with the definition I would offer, your passions may evolve many times over the course of your life as your interests, your locations, like your skill set, your experiences evolve too, because you're not going to express the same thing in the same medium, in the same place, exactly the same way for your life. And in fact, if you define yourself by that one, very often time-limited, very specific expression, and circumstances change in your life that don't allow you to do that anymore, Yeah. then you essentially find yourself lost. Rather than saying, okay, so this was one way that I actually let this out, like this was a path to let this deeper thing out. And maybe that has come to an end. But because I know that deeper driver of purpose, the thing that gives me the deeper sense of meaning that's more universal, I can now look out at the world and see any number of different ways to channel that into a new passion.

Now, how important is it if people want to start to— they want to find their passion, how important is it for them to experiment or play or seek novelty? And you want— let's say parents are watching this and they want to help their child to find what their passion or discover their passion. What would your advice be then?

Yeah, I think it's really important to run experiments constantly. You call that play, you know, like do everything in all sorts of domains that you have no idea if you would have any interest in at all. And I think it's really interesting because especially in the US, there tends to be this really intense focus on just do one thing and get really, really, really, really good at it. What we do is we conflate accomplishment with purpose. They're not the same thing. You can be extraordinary at one thing, which is sort of like the modern definition of success. You know, become a master at this one thing, and when you have become massively accomplished at it, now you're successful. And maybe that thing becomes the thing you eventually earn a living at, now you're successful. I cannot tell you how many people I have known throughout my life who are incredibly accomplished at things that give them no true enduring sense of meaning or purpose or deeper sense of joy. People who've built companies and are incredibly accomplished at the process of doing that, but they're building things where they wake up in the morning, they actually don't want to go to work at the company they built anymore. 'Cause there's no sense of purpose or meaning in what they're doing. And we tend to just automatically assume that the pursuit of accomplishment, you know, that check this, check this, check this until I get the big check, like, that's gonna make me feel this amazing thing, like I've got a deep sense of purpose and meaning and passion. But that's not true.

Mm-hmm.

You may, you know, if what you do is you pursue the path of accomplishment starting from something where, you know, it's shown itself as being that, you know, an expression of that deeper driver that just intrinsically lights you up. That can be— to me, that is— that's what we all aspire for. That's the thing we wake up in the morning and we're like, wow, I just clear the path so I can do more of this thing.

Mm-hmm.

And then if you pursue accomplishment aligned with that, You know, that is a really important part of the way you contribute to the world, the way you fill yourself up, and how you live. That's a big piece of a life well lived.

And you call that deeper driver their sparkotype?

Yeah. So I've sort of got really curious because if you ask the average person, you know, what are you here to do, or what is your sense of purpose, what is your purpose or passion, because a lot of people conflate these things, but I really like to focus on purpose because 'Cause there's a clear, direct link to meaning.

Mm-hmm.

You'll usually get a very superficial answer. That is very often a passion, actually. It's a time-limited, specific expression of this deeper driver. But then if you keep asking, and what's driving that? And what's driving that? And what's driving that? And what's driving that? You get down to a much deeper imprint, which is, so, you know, to me, I look at, it as your inner DNA for purpose, expression, and flow. And what I mean by that, it is the source code level answer to the thing that allows you to do something that fills you with a sense of purpose, which leads to the feeling of meaning, to feel like you're fully expressed in the world.

Mm-hmm.

And in doing that, you can more readily access this state of flow where time seems to fugue and you become absorbed in the thing. You become hyperproductive, hyper-efficient, hypercognition, hypercreative. And that's something that we all want.

So understanding this model, because we were talking at the surface a little bit more with, with passion, can somebody— that person you're describing who's highly accomplished, and they're, you know, from the outside it looks like they're very successful, but they don't feel that, that spark, they don't feel that fulfillment. There's these things you hear that say, you know, find— do what you love. Can they also love what they do? Can they bring joy and love into the act of doing, do you believe, too?

Yeah, I think—

That same person who's a little disenchanted and still accomplished, but they don't feel that joy and light.

I do. It takes work, but absolutely. So for example, You can take pretty much any job in almost any industry and do it differently in a way that allows that essential nature to find a place, to find an outlet in the way that you're making your contribution. So if you take one particular career, it could be— use the example of a doctor, which we were sort of talking about. All these different ways can express themselves. The bigger thing is, okay, if you wanna find a way to love what you do, to feel these things, you've gotta know who you are.

Right.

Or else you're just sort of like, you're randomly trying different things without actually trying to figure out what are you trying to prune and drop away, and then what are you trying to bring more of into whatever it is that you do. But I am a huge believer in that Once we have a really deeper understanding of what is this deeper driver, that can be expressed in nearly anything that we do because now we have the ability to be intentional about saying yes to the stuff that will let us do more of it and no to the stuff that doesn't allow us to do it.

So, because I think a lot of the people who are watching this, I mean, you've seen the same studies as I have, how the majority of the people in their jobs are disengaged. And so what we're saying is they could either change their, their career path in terms of their vocation, or they could— it is possible, you're saying, potentially it'd take work for them to bring joy and find joy based on more of their nature.

Yeah, 100%. In fact, I'm a strong believer in not changing your career path until— unless and until you absolutely have to. And to me, that threshold does not get hit until you've done the work to actually optimize your current work for purpose. And then once you've actually done that work, for a lot of people actually shifts in doing what you do can give you everything that you need. You know, if you identify, okay, so this is my core nature, and then you look at the work that you're doing and say, okay, where is the current work that I'm doing aligned with the expression of my core nature? Where is it in conflict? And then you say, Do I have the power and the ability to resolve these conflicts? And if so, how would I do it? Very often that actually involves doing work that lies outside of the job description that you've been hired to do.

Interesting. So can we talk a little bit about the benefits, neurological, physiological effects of finding your purpose?

Yeah, it's really interesting, right? Because it would seem to be this really soft thing, purpose. There's actually a fair amount of research that's now going on around how having a sense of purpose affects us. In the research, they label it purpose in life, which is this sense of meaningfulness. Like, I wake up in the morning and I have this purpose where, like, I know why I'm here. And research has identified some really powerful neurological and physiological benefits of this. So neurologically, what we see is in older populations, 60 and over, that your risk of dementia and cognitive and cognitive decline drops dramatically.

Wow.

So simply by being, like, by having a sense of purpose in life, you know, like nothing else, there is a correlation between it. And of course, with all this research, it's very hard to show causation, right? But the correlation, the numbers are really strong. But it's not just older populations, it's also everybody. So people who are not sort of like moving into the part of their life where cognitive decline is normal, Or we can probably argue that it's not actually normal. For anyone who's sort of in the middle years of their lives, having a sense of purpose in life is neuroprotective. It actually helps slow or stop this sort of, like, expected cognitive decline that helps with age. So really important, actually, if you want to sort of, like, stay there.

Mm-hmm.

that you figure out, like, what is this thing for you? On a broader physiological level, we also now know that research shows that there's a strong correlation between having a sense of purpose in life and a reduced risk of stroke, reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, and reduced inflammation in the body. And now we also know that inflammation may well be, you know, and a lot of other research is showing a strong connection between Inflammation and your disease risk for almost every other form of disease. And we also know that the effect of purpose in life on state of mind is really powerful. So it also affects your risk for depression, especially— and this is interesting— it seems that it is less protective in the older years in life but more protective In your younger years of life where there tends to be a huge amount of now anxiety and stress. So when you kind of zoom the lens out, you say, okay, so if having a strong sense of purpose in life actually has a bit of an inverse relationship to anxiety and stress, and anxiety and stress have a direct relationship to inflammation and all-cause mortality and disease risk, it's all tied together. So this one thing has a strong relationship not just to your, quote, performance metrics, your cognitive capabilities, but your risk, the level of inflammation, pain, discomfort, and risk of disease in your body.

And that makes sense because I think people realize this, or it could be common sense that if someone is on purpose, they have less stress, they have more resilience, they have a higher level of mood. And generally what's good for your mood is gonna be good for your mind?

Yeah, I mean, I think you can endure so much more when you have a really clear understanding of why you're doing it. You derive a sense of meaning from it and you feel that even if it's hard, even if it's stressful along the way, you're doing it because it's the thing you can't not do.

And what advice would you give to somebody who's listening to this right now who is really discouraged? Disenchanted, they've tried, people have told them to find their purpose, they know they should find their purpose, but they feel less than or not enough because maybe their friends or people around them, or it seems like everybody on social media is living their purpose and path. What would your advice be for them?

Yeah, well, first, the research actually shows that the vast majority of people are not doing that or living that. So you're not alone. Right. Contrary to what you see on social media, like everybody's living their shiny, happy, everything is awesome, I'm doing what I'm here to do life. Like largely fiction for the vast majority of people. I mean, if you look at the data in organizations, it's crystal clear, you know, like the vast majority of people haven't figured it out. So you're not alone, right? So one, just breathe lilies. You're not the freak who's like the only one who hasn't figured it out. Most people haven't, in large part because Nobody's taught us how to do any of this, but I think a lot of it is to— it's a combination of continuing to run experiments where you try different things out in the world so you can get experiences doing things. And it's not a matter of doing something to succeed, it's a matter of doing something to be able to answer, yes, does this give me energy, or no, does this empty me? So that you can start to figure out what is the thing that I would just wake up in the morning and do more of. And even pay to do, let alone be paid to do, because I just, I just want to do it for reasons I may not be able to define. I think also journaling the things that give us, you know, like energy and take us and take energy from us is really important too.

And we're gonna put a link also in this, in our show notes, to your Sparketype assessment, because there are a number of questions when myself and my team went through it that are really these primary questions. If you just ask yourself Like, for example, if money was not an object, and, you know, the other things that they would do to light themselves up and take that consideration out of taking care of the basic necessities.

Yeah, I mean, and, and that's a tool that we spent a lot of time building as a way to sort of see if we could help people get to that place faster. Mm-hmm.

And we'll do a whole dedicated episode on that, going deep also as well.

Cool.

Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us.

My pleasure, always.