What Is Your Spark(e)?
Last month, I started listening to Clubhouse Art of Licensing chats hosted by Nicole Tamarin. In one of the discussions, artist Emiko Rainbow mentioned Sparketype.
I instantly did a search on Google for this and spoiler alert, it has nothing to do with Marie Kondo and sparking joy! I did find out it was a personality test by Jonathan Fields. For an individual, the website mentions “When you discover and tap your Sparketype, you understand yourself, what fills you up and empties you out on an entirely different level. You are better equipped to find jobs, companies, projects, and craft a career that energizes and inspires you. If your current work isn’t working for you, you are far more capable of understanding why, then reimagining and redesigning it to give you so much more of what you need.” In short, what is your reason for being.
Okay so before you roll your eyes and think another personality test, blah! I have done my fair share of personality tests where the results are blah blah blah and never did help me understand myself better. Either it’s the test or it’s an age thing (yes, I’m insinuating I’m wiser now!), but I found the test results made sense to me and did help solidify what I understand about myself.
About the Sparketype Assessment
A little bit about the Sparketype assessment before I go into details of what I found out about myself.
After taking the 10 minute assessment test answering all the questions, Sparketype assessment will provide you a profile with 3 elements that best describe you within the 10 Sparketype personalities.
- Your Primary Sparketype — is your life work’s DNA. “It’s the source-code for work that makes you feel like you are doing the thing you were put on the planet to do, fueled by purpose, infused with meaning, fully-expressed and absorbed in that other-worldly, transcendent state of flow.”
- Your Shadow Sparketype — “reveals the essential nature of work you may well enjoy and have become highly-skilled at. BUT, on a deeper level, you almost always do it in service of doing the work of your Primary Sparketype better. Think of it as your Primary Sparketype amplifier.”
- Your Anti Sparketype — “This is the type of effort or work that comes least easily to you, is the heaviest lift, feels like it takes the most effort even if, objectively, it’s not that hard, and requires the greatest amount of recovery for you.”
Based on the system, there are 10 Sparketype personalities:
- The Maker — the person who lives to turn ideas into reality.
- The Scientist — the person who lives to solve problems.
- The Maven — the person who loves learning for its own sake.
- The Essentialist — the person who feels alive when they create order from chaos.
- The Performer — the person who enlivens any interaction.
- The Warrior — the person who is driven to organize and lead people.
- The Sage — the person who is driven to teach and share wisdom.
- The Advocate — the person who champions others.
- The Adviser — the person who gives guidance.
- The Nurturer — the person who lives to nurture others.
Was this spot on for me?
I think subconsciously we all know who we are but I felt that the Sparketype assessment really helped bring it to the surface.
For my profile, I had Maven as my primary, Maker as my shadow and Nurturer as my anti. I would say this was pretty spot on for me.
One of the artists in the Clubhouse chat received the same results for primary and shadow as me but her anti was Warrior. She went on to say how in her career she couldn’t understand why after working at one place for a few years, she had an urge to move on and couldn’t understand why. This resonated with me. I felt this in my previous career as well. I got into contracting quite early on where I moved from one workplace to another for different projects. At times, I questioned why I couldn’t hold a full-time job or stay in a company for decades like my colleagues or friends. Now knowing that my primary as a Maven, it makes sense due to my nature of continuously learning. Once I’ve learnt what I can at a particular job or project, I move on to learn something new.
For the Maker part as my shadow, I was secretly pleased that I got this because I am an artist but does it really mean you are an artist? A big NO!!! In the Clubhouse chat, there were a few artists who actually didn’t get Maker as part of their profile. For some, it took them a while to digest the details of the profile, but it slowly made sense to them why the other personality types were stronger for them. When you read the Maker description again, it says “the person who lives to turn ideas into reality”. This to me sounds like ‘a doer’, a person who follows through. Yes, that’s me. I’m a type A personality that likes action lists, checking off and getting things done.
I wasn’t surprised that my anti Sparketype was Nurturer. Your anti Sparketype does not mean you are not good at being that personality. It simply means that personality takes the most effort and energy. In truth, I think I am a good nurturer, but it just takes a lot of energy from me. By understanding my anti, I ensure I have put in boundaries and recovery time if I am nurturing.
How can I apply this as an artist?
As a Maven, I love learning new things and there is so much to learn in the art sphere! For me, I think as a Maven it helps to have goals for what I would like to learn as opposed to what I want to achieve. My recent goals have been to learn Adobe Illustrator and complicated seamless patterns, however in the future, I’d love to learn character drawing and illustrate children’s books.
Being a Maker as a shadow really helps and compliments my primary Sparketype by turning my learning goals into actual skills. As a Maker, I set my mind to it and do it rather than procrastinate about it or continuously hop from one art project to another thus building up skills in the area that I’m learning or interested in.
Conclusion
So here’s the link to take the test! Regardless if you are an artist or not, it might help you understand yourself a bit more and what motivates you in life.
Comment and let me know what you think about your Sparketype. Did your profile resonate with you?
References & Links
