Follow Your Intuition: The Career Reinvention You’re Too Afraid To Make

Follow the Sparkle - Sylvia Transcript

[Sylvia]

I need to trust it. Without a doubt, it has never led me to something that didn’t bring me joy, validate things that I had been questioning, or lead me to a tool that helps me help others in the way I want.

[Roger]

When thinking about how to reinventing our career or even a big decision, why do we ignore or resist our intuition?

While our brain naturally goes into hyperdrive identifying threats and risks, our gut usually has a different answer for us.

While our brain is shouting  caution, our intuition is showing us that sparkle of possibilities.

So why don’t we follow our intuition more often?

I'm Roger Kastner, and this is What Do You Know To Be True?

Today’s conversation is with Sylvia Taylor, who talks us through how to increase your trust in your own intuition, not at the risk of losing yourself, but to find more of your possible self.

I’m glad you’re here, let’s dive in.

[Sylvia]

Most people go, why is hope in adaptability? Like, it's a fluffy thing. This hope is not a strategy.

I'm sure you've heard that. Yet it's true. It's not.

But strategies without hope are also nothing. Hope is our belief that something is possible and we can continue to make it possible.

[Roger]

Hey, Sylvia. Thank you for joining me today. I'm excited for the conversation we're about to have.

[Sylvia]

I am too. Very, very honored that you asked me to be here and super excited for our conversation.

[Roger]

I'm excited to learn more about your superpower of follow the sparkle. We know each other from working together in the organizational development team at Slalom Consulting a few years ago, 10 plus years ago. What I've loved is since then, in following your journey on LinkedIn and enthusiastically agreeing with all your posts, I'm aware that you're still in organizational development.

You're a facilitator. You're a coach. And you're an innovator in this space.

So before we get too far, what else is important for us to know about you?

[Sylvia]

So I was going to start with the standard. You know, when someone asks you, what do you do? Organizational development, change management, leadership development.

And yet that sounds really boring. And like, that really doesn't tell you anything about me.

[Roger]

Not to me. It sounds really interesting, but I get you.

[Sylvia]

But the truth is, I feel like I'm an adaptologist. But title I've made up by myself because I am really in this phase of studying, researching, and sharing. What does it mean to be adaptable in change?

Because we need adaptability in people, teams, and organizations now more than ever. And absolutely in the future. It's going to be a key to all the work that we do and being able to do it well.

Oh, a new title for myself. Game creator. Which I think we've also talked a little bit about before.

That was a title and or job description that I wouldn't have necessarily shared with people before this last six months. I am a creator. Not necessarily content, but yeah, I'm a game creator.

[Roger]

An experienced creator. That too. Adaptability is something that humans are wired for.

And yet it feels really hard to do right now between the negativity in the world that we see on the social media, in the news, in conversations with friends and coworkers. There does seem to be this, just things are heavy and hard right now that puts us in the threat state that makes adaptability and resilience and possibility and curiosity hard for those things to thrive. So becoming an adaptologist right now seems like super, super helpful for people.

How does adaptology show up for you and what you do?

[Sylvia]

For me, looking at all of the dimensions of adaptability, looking at all the dimensions of change. And as someone who has this background, right? In change management, that's a very corporate, that's all about process and structure.

But of course, at the heart of it, we know it's about people. Without that part, the other parts are necessary, but it's not going to move much if people don't move first. I think of like the archeologist, anything with an ist at the end is the person that goes and the digs in on all of the layers.

So it isn't just one thing. It's all of the pieces that will eventually come together. And the weaving of the story that comes to light as all of the pieces start to fall into place.

But it's more than just one piece. It's uncovering it layer by layer and then working on the things that come up to create truly a picture or ecosystem of being adaptable, being able to adapt and thrive in change instead of just survive change.

[Roger]

You're following the connection now between adaptology and being an adaptologist and your superpower of follow the sparkle. Tell me more about what does follow the sparkle mean and how it helps, it feels like it's a motivator or a compulsion to help you with being an adaptologist.

[Sylvia]

So I think it's much more a compulsion. It really feels like there is no other way for me to be. It is wired into who I am.

So follow the sparkle for me really is the combination of following my intuition and understanding that my experience in what delights me, in what my curiosity drives me towards comes from this place that I'm always taking everything in. I think I've always been almost more observant than almost anybody that I know. And not just with my eyes, but I am sensing, I am watching, I'm seeing so much more than I realize.

So when I see a trend or what I don't know is a trend, but I think we really should be doing that because part of me has been taking in all of this information and synthesizing it. I have this gut feeling that says we need to start treating employees as part of the change system. Yes, my experience tells me that because as you get more people involved in the change experience, the easier it is to work through resistance, the easier it is to give people agency, to get them into the problem solving, yada, yada, yada.

And yet I didn't have the data. I didn't have maybe enough experience to say, just trust me. All I had was just trust me.

And now, I mean, when I was younger, right? Now that I'm older, I have X years of experience. So trust me lands a little differently.

But in follow the sparkle, it was so much more about my intuition and this constant curiosity of watching and wondering and going, oh, I see another instance. That's connected to this. I see something over there that's connected to this.

Well, that's all connected to this. And I think that is what happened, for example, with adaptability is I was in agile for quite some time and agile in the bigger sense, not just the agile, the tech world. And agile transformations came into my life because I was doing change management in a different way, more iterative, more collective intelligence, not just the project management, follow the plan, send out the change comps kind of thing.

Where I am now with adaptability quotient or adaptability intelligence, AQ. When I discovered, or maybe they discovered me, a mutual discoverability, I recognized what they had was the exact thing that I was looking for, which was a way to measure in 15 different sub dimensions that are all correlated, the ability to be thriving and change our ability to adapt. And so that for me is follow the sparkle and how it's showing up now.

And where this title of adaptologist has sort of come into play for me.

[Roger]

How and when did you discover, follow your sparkle is your superpower?

[Sylvia]

Like 15 years ago, it started to show up. I collect quotes. I have since high school when I needed to see something inspirational to remind myself I'm going down this path because it feels right.

The Austrian playwright who said, if we ask the questions long enough, we will live into the answer. Actually, I think it's right up there. I had so many questions during this part of my life.

Who am I? The big existential questions. What am I going to do?

Is it the right path for me? Am I going to the right place? Am I making the right choices?

I got tired of asking those same questions without a solid answer that I realized what I needed to do was just let that go and live into the questions so that they could become answers. When follow the sparkle came up, I realized it was about the time where I decided to leave Microsoft. I had a pretty successful career in the games group doing marketing, but I was getting my master's in human and organizational development because I knew that I wanted to switch over to the people side of the business because that was where all the juice was for me.

I realized it was a really difficult internal transition because I had already had a strong career in marketing and people were like, why do you want to switch into OD? Why do you want to switch into human resources? You don't have any experience.

All the corporate answers of we don't want to hire you unless you're proven. It took me leaving and becoming a vendor and an internal HR mentor who believed in me to give me my first contract, but that was following the sparkle because he, that my mentor, Mark Zappacosta, I'm going to name him, a very well-respected younger HR manager, senior HR person, who was breaking a lot of the rules and who saw the sparkle in me and trusted that the way I was showing up and the tools that I was bringing and the questions that I was asking in the conversations we were having, that's what he needed in his group. That's what his team needed exposure to. When the opportunity came, he offered me the vendor contract and that word sparkle just kind of lodged itself in my brain.

I never thought of myself as something sparkly. Soon started to show up when other people asked me, well, how do you make decisions? How did you get to using liberating structures?

For example, a tool that wasn't really well-known, at least not in the agile world. And my response was often, I've just followed the sparkle. Oh, there's something there.

That produced the thing I was after and not just once, but again and again. And so that curiosity of it continues to do what I want it to do, which is bring people hope, bring people joy, bring people into the conversation, bring people agency and help them feel like they have a purpose for being there. Like all of those things for me, are what Mark, I mean, I think very unintentionally gave me or maybe saw in me that that was the sparkle.

[Roger]

I love the work you're doing around adaptability and identity. You created the adaptive identity game, which I love is I'm seeing this intersection between the work you do around helping people become more adaptive in their lives so they could tap into their genius, so they could tap into possibilities. I love the work that you're doing around identity and having people really understand who they are so they can bring more of that into the workplace.

And then you've brought in the whole sense of curiosity and fun, which is gamification. So could you tell us a little bit more about the spark of the adaptive identity game and how you're able to use that with teams and with individuals so that they can become more of their possible selves?

[Sylvia]

Sure. Thank you for asking me about that because I never thought this would be a big part of my work, gamifying things, because I, again, working in a games group, games were something in and of themselves and or yes, for learning. It was something that I incorporated into my workshops and noticed other people creating games that I would then use, but me creating one, it didn't really enter my, oh, this is something that I could do pretty easily until I started working with AQ and recognizing in these 15 different sub dimensions, the one that often spoke to me the most, even from a very emotional standpoint was hope.

That is the one that most people go, why is hope in adaptability? Like, it's a fluffy thing. This hope is not a strategy.

I'm sure you've heard that. Yet it's true, it's not. But strategies without hope are also nothing.

Hope is our belief in the end that something is possible and we can continue to make it possible. And this is where I saw so many people, especially in my agile tech world, where they were losing hope. Layoff announcement after layoff announcement, restructuring, reorganization, gen AI coming in, taking over jobs, people feeling like if I don't have my job, what's my identity?

Who am I? Who do I say that I am? For example, agile coach role no longer exists.

And yet I also know, having been someone who got laid off multiple times, you are not your job title. You are not your job. You aren't even the current CV or LinkedIn that you have.

And that was building a portfolio career. I was like, that's me. I have done that my whole life.

But it was me following the sparkle. What do I need to do now to make sure that I'm ready for the job of tomorrow? And I don't necessarily have a set template or a way for X, you know, for someone else to follow.

I was following my own intuition about the skills that I needed to reach my end goals, to make the challenges that I had shift, go away or whatever, you know, just to reach the end goal. I felt like when I was listening to many of my colleagues say, but who am I? The thing that came back to me was, you are multitudes.

You are that failed job. You are that volunteer work that you did. You are that parent who helps at their kid's school.

You are the creative person who plays music on the weekends. These are still skills, experiences and ways of being in life that if we were to take a look at all of those things that are a part of us, that are in our portfolio and play with them, we could absolutely find the things that we thought we didn't need and turn that thing into where we wanna grow because it's become more visible. And so I wanted to create a way for people to be in conversation with each other, to help a way to uncover those things in a playful way so that it didn't feel like I have to answer it correctly.

No, I have to answer it authentically because being authentic is really the only way that's gonna get us to our whatever is next.

[Roger]

I'm curious about that. That idea of being authentic, being the path, the unlocked, what we want. Where did you learn that?

And how does that show up for you today?

[Sylvia]

I would say because I'm a twin. It's a very- Wonder twin powers. Yes, wonder twin powers activate in the form of an ice bridge.

This is what I grew up with. And recognizing early on when one person saw two individuals and said, why aren't you the same person because you look the same? And that showed up in different ways, of course.

Like, why are you wearing glasses and you aren't? Why do you have long hair and you have short? And why are you better at math and et cetera, et cetera?

Because we are individuals and we just happen to look alike and sound alike. But this being who I am as authentically as possible was even more imperative because I was a twin. Because I had constant comparison.

Unlike so many of my non-twin friends who just were like, why do you try so hard to be not different? But of course I know you're different, but you look the same and you sound the same and it's weird. I was like, you know, I'm still me.

And I'm really desperately trying to show you who I am. Does that make sense? It's hard to describe the experience, right?

[Roger]

I think for anyone who has siblings, there's always a little bit of that comparison. But for most of us non-twin siblings, there's years of difference. There's more physical, visual differences.

I think there's a little bit of that comparison. Like, why can't you be more like your brother? Or in my case, don't be anything like your brother.

Tom doesn't watch these, so it doesn't matter. But I think comparison is pretty natural. What I've heard from twins is there's always one who's the evil twin, but there's differences, right?

So where I'm going with that question around authenticity is that it does feel like follow the sparkle means that thing that's sparkling out there is not only part of the curiosity, but it's also drawing you to be more authentically you. How would you react to that?

[Sylvia]

I would say that's spot on. The absolute joy and a huge benefit of being a twin is that Suzanne, maybe Suzanne and I, have always felt that we have this safety in being able to show up 100% ourselves or try another version out with each other and being able to really safely be called out on our bullshit. And you are not being authentic.

You are not being truthful. And to be able to have someone look you in the eye with so much love and to call you out on that and you know it's true, I feel like Suzanne and I have, I mean it's exaggeration, but quantum leap leaped ahead of many people potentially who are our age in our own growth and development by the sheer fact that we're twins and we are relentlessly but lovingly calling each other out when we see inauthentic behavior.

[Roger]

I mean, a couple things in that response makes me think about the coaching relationship and I've had many coaching conversations where the client, their next step is, oh, I need to go have this conversation with my significant other or I need to go have this conversation with my boss. You know, there's something wrong in the relationship, something needs to be addressed in the relationship and I'm talking about it with a coach because that's safe and it's a little bit of almost like an experiment for, oh, I should really be having this conversation with this other person.

[Sylvia]

And you know, that's also where I think coming up with the adaptive identity game comes in for me or came in for me as I was looking for a way for people to safely have these conversations about a topic that felt very touchy. I wanted a playful way for people to engage in uncovering something about the way that they work and I felt like a way to explore the multitudes that we are, the stardust, as you said, that we are, if I could make it playful and a conversation where you can play a game that looks at your strengths, some core traits that you have and maybe, you know, a metaphor using a metaphor, a playful way to come up with your own meaning about who you are and how you show up.

So, I mean, I do call it a game but it's really a facilitation tool. It's a conversational facilitation tool to help people re-imagine who they are at work. I also had to be very careful about identity because there's a whole other, right, topic around, which is a very big topic around identity and how we see ourselves and I'm taking one small part of that, of work, you know, our work identity but it's also a really big part of often who we think we are and how we identify and if that job goes away, then who am I now?

[Roger]

Could you briefly tell us about how one would play the game?

[Sylvia]

Really simple. Three different categories, skills and strengths, traits and qualities and metaphors and archetypes. When we're in conversation with people, sometimes we do better, like Lego serious play with something very tactile, something to hold onto, something to feel that anchors us and so I want these to be tarot-sized cards.

Like big cards. Here's the strength or the traits and qualities. It's an orange color.

Also very, very vibrant, right? Skills and strengths and metaphors and archetypes and there are these three decks and you choose one from each of the decks, one card from each of the decks and you take a minute and I have a curious experiment design DJ. So that's my trait, my skill and my metaphor.

Hi, I'm Sylvia. I'm an experiment design DJ that helps people delve into their curiosity to find their best answers and the other person then starts to ask questions. What kind of experience design or experiment design do you do?

And when you say DJ, like how does that look to you? Where does that show up? And the more questions you get asked and the deeper you have to go to make meaning or to make sense of it, what I realized is that the more people are looking towards their own experience, their own lived qualities, strengths, skills, how it's true, how does that come up for me?

What does experiment design look like for me? And even though the identity itself helps spark curiosity, the insight comes, of course, from the conversation, comes from people asking you questions about what does that mean for you? How does that show up for you?

Why does that feel like it fits for you? Where's the strength in that for you? Those conversations are what bring the insight, the hope, the possibility, and really opening up people's idea of where the opportunities might lie.

And that's the hope part.

[Roger]

As someone who loves simple frameworks, not for the frameworks themselves, but a way of providing some constraints, which I think as humans, we need certain constraints to focus our energy and our curiosity and our creativity. And just like I recently had a tarot reading, it was the first time I've ever had one, and I haven't been a big believer in it, but I saw the beauty in it of like, oh, okay, these words, these identities, these traits, these metaphors limit us. And so sometimes when it's hard for us to put words to it, you're giving those guideposts or guardrails of, okay, in this moment, you're a DJ.

Explain what you do in terms of being a DJ. You are curious. Describe how what you do, where curiosity helps you do the thing you do.

And so it's, I almost used the word icebreaker. I apologize. It's not an icebreaker, but it's a way of focusing, of giving us a start.

It's a prompt. And I love that. I love, it feels genius.

And it feels like by providing those constraints, you are enabled them to follow the sparkle because they need to see a spark of where to take that constraint, where to go in that space.

[Sylvia]

Exactly. And I liked, I've been calling them language anchors because I was looking for a way to help people understand that this is just a way for you to find some stability or find a starting point to help you actually find the word that fits you. And it is a way to follow the sparkle because you have the anchor to hold onto that feels safe.

And that constraint, right, which that limitation that we rub up against creates that, like, sparks that creativity.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, I'm getting Annie Lamont coming up right now and the whole idea of the shitty first draft. And there's nothing shitty about your idea or the cards, but it gets you talking. It gets you, yeah, that language anchor.

You put something out there and like, okay, yeah, like 50%, 70% of this feels right. Let's keep editing. Let's get to that second draft, that third draft to understanding our identity.

Oh, so good. So good. So what or who inspired you to have the superpower of follow the sparkle?

[Sylvia]

So I was thinking about that and I think it's more the what. And right, so much of our childhood shapes who we are, even if we don't realize it. Sometimes it's not for the good in terms of a trauma can shape us as much as the wonderful things in our life.

And for me, I really believe that it was moving. I think my mom had said we moved 13 times from when my twin sister and I were born to when we settled in Anchorage, Alaska. And that was when I was five.

So between the ages of zero and five, I moved 13 times. There wasn't that built in group of friends, that preschool, that one teacher. I mean, that happened.

But after I was five, and then we stayed put. And of course, we, my mother's Austrian, we traveled to Austria, I got to see multiple cultures. And there was always this, oh, this isn't bad.

This is just different. This isn't how we usually do it. This is just another way of doing it.

And that's interesting, or I don't like that. But why don't I like that? And I think that those things felt safe, because it became what felt like normal.

And following the sparkle of my curiosity was always rewarded. Most of the time, luckily, I, you know, brains shut down those parts that maybe weren't rewarded in a positive sense. But the follow the sparkle that your intuition says, this is going to be helpful.

Because of all of the things that I was taking in from all of these different perspectives, continued to reward that as true.

[Speaker 2]

In this moment, what do you know to be true about your superpower of follow the sparkle?

[Sylvia]

That I need to trust it. Without a doubt, it has never led me to something that didn't bring me joy, validate things that I had been questioning, or lead me to a tool that's helped me help others in the way that I want to help. And I think that the sparkle, and I know this to be true, is really that deep, intuitive part of me that's been told, I think more from a cultural standpoint, that intuition is this soft and fuzzy thing that is often, oh, maybe we don't understand it.

And we need hard, hard data, facts, and numbers. And I don't believe that that's not true. But I absolutely believe the more in tune I am with my sparkle, and the more that I trust it, the quicker it will lead me to the answer, the tool, or whatever it is that I've been looking for.

I will get there. I just need to trust it.

[Speaker 2]

Intuition gets an interesting wrap in how sometimes people feel it is soft. Some people do think it's, you know, it's like the other voice in our head, but some of the voices in our head aren't right. So how do we listen to it and whatnot?

And it's not surprising that someone with a marketing background now refers to their intuition as sparkle, because that is so much more inviting than what we tell ourselves about intuition. And when you were talking about what you know to be true, is that you have to trust your superpower. Of course, I go to the place of, oh, when do you not trust your superpower?

When are those moments where you need to summon the courage to step into the space of following your sparkle?

[Sylvia]

So that's a great question. I think like anyone who's picking up a lot of information all of the time, that my discernment for what is sparkle versus what is hype, if I step back and really go, what's the sparkle? What is truly the sparkle?

It isn't that one shot that makes me feel great. It is the that quiet inner voice, that internal mind, gut, and heart alignment that all, you know, all lights are on. All signals are go.

That's the sparkle. That is sparkle. The other stuff is like, oh, that's cool.

But if I look at it too long, or if I eat too much of it, right, I start to feel sick, or I get bored. Or if I sit with it long enough, then I recognize it as not true for me. So for me, my true sparkle is all three of those things are go.

All three, all of those lights are green. And my discernment is that is truly the sparkle.

[Speaker 2]

Amazing. What's next for you and your superpower of follow the sparkle?

[Sylvia]

So the Adaptive Identity Game Kickstarter, we didn't fund the campaign on this first round. I've had a lot of really great support come from people who said, oh, I'm so, you know, sorry for you. And don't give up.

And, and all of that feels like, yeah, that's nice. But really, there's no possible way that I'll be putting this to the side. Because I have now confirmation.

It's needed. It's wanted. And the time is now because of everything that's been happening.

And that is happening in the world. It's something that's desperately needed. And I keep getting the same message.

Share it, do it, get it out there. So that is what I'm going to do. I'm going to start a playtest circle.

I'm going to accept applications for people who actually I will gift them a box of facilitation deck. And they will become part of my playtest community so that we can develop the next iteration and also get it out there. Because I can't be everywhere.

And I know that, you know, my community of influencers will be the people who believe and see the value as much as I do and take this to people. And really supporting organizations who are struggling to make their AI transformations successful. Because my motto is AQ before AI.

We can have the tools, but if we don't have the mindset, we won't be able to use the tools well. And or we will resist the tools. So I want to support people in understanding where they are in their adaptability.

And give them a benchmark so that they can continue to work on becoming more adaptable in a very measurable way. We're not great at this adaptability thing unless we're doing it intentionally. But without a way to measure it, how can we be intentional?

It's not been made visible. So I'm hoping to do more adaptability intelligence work with organizations that are ready to transform how they're helping people in the AI transformations. And bringing this hope of here's a playful way to start in understanding who you could be today or tomorrow by reimagining yourself at work.

[Speaker 2]

Oh, I'm so excited for you. I love the fact that although the first Kickstarter campaign was not successful in terms of generating the total that you were looking for, instead of shrinking, instead of trying to do half or, you know, a smaller version of it, no, you're not only following the sparkle on this, you're doubling down. You're going bigger.

You're thinking about new ways of getting out there to bring more people into this. When you use the word hope, I'm thinking Charles Schneider definition of hope, this idea of a belief in your goal, belief in your path, and belief in your ability to make it happen, also known as kind of like agency plus belief. And that word belief has come up a couple times here, but that you believe in this vision, like you intuitively know that this is needed in the world.

So you're doubling down on it, you're going bigger, you're not going to shrink, you're not going to hide. But you're demonstrating that definition of hope, that definition of belief in this response of, yeah, it didn't work yet. But I believe in it.

I know I can make it happen. So no, I'm not shrinking. I'm not going to offer the same thing.

I'm going bigger, and I'm involving more people. Bravo.

[Sylvia]

Thank you.

[Speaker 2]

If an audience member wanted to follow you or ask a question, where do you want to point them to?

[Sylvia]

I would love to point them to adaptive identity game.com. And I know it's a mouthful. And I did toy around with the URL, lamenamefungame.com.

But I also thought, no, it's better for branding that I use adaptiveidentitygame.com. And that is where I will have the landing page, a way for people to join the community to find out about the Kickstarter when it actually goes live, and also potentially to apply to be part of the playtest circle.

[Speaker 2]

So I will be signing up for sure. Sylvia, thank you so much for this conversation. It was so wonderful learning about your superpower, follow the sparkle.

I see the sparkle in you, and the sparkle sees the sparkle in me. I butchered that. But you know what I mean?

Like, I love this idea of where hope, and possibility, and curiosity, and that sense of agency all come together with that innate voice of our system telling us this is the right thing for us, and then showing up with authenticity. What I love about all the things we talk about, I recognize you were showing up in that way as well. So you are absolutely in the zone of this intersection of all those words coming together.

So thank you for being your authentic self. Sylvia, thank you so much.

[Sylvia]

Thank you. It was such a pleasure to be here and talking about things that I love with someone who's so open, and asking such great questions, and helping me continue to follow the sparkle, who's also following the sparkle of our conversation.

[Roger]
Thank you all for being in this conversation with us, and thank you, Sylvia, for bringing the sparkle and helping us better understand our own intuition.

What Do You Know To Be True? is a Three Blue Pens production. I’m your host, Roger Kastner. We are recording on the ancestral lands of the Duwamish and Suquamish people.

If you enjoyed this conversation, you’ll love this one on how to further develop your own intuition with Nil Demircubuk. And also check out this conversation with Wynne Leon on how to stop overthinking and start experimenting .

Be well, my friends, and as always, love you, mean it!