Follow the Sparkle: How To Be Even More Adaptable

Quick links to the conversation with Sylvia Taylor: YouTube, Apple, or Spotify

Survival has always depended on adaptability. We may feel we need it more than ever, and yet we’re wired for this. That’s when Sylvia Taylor surprised me when she connected adaptability with hope.

She told me that hope is actually one of the measurable sub-dimensions of the Adaptability Intelligence work she does, and before I could fully take that in, she said this:

“We’ve heard ‘hope is a bad strategy. But strategies without hope are also nothing.”

Just like history is understood backwards, Sylvia had to walk me forwards and then back so that I could see the obvious: there is no reason to adapt without hope.

This connects directly to what Bill Heffernan shared with us from George Bonanno’s resilience research on survivors from the World Trade Center on 9/11: 2/3rds of people survive trauma not because of some superhuman toughness, but because they maintain a belief that a better future is coming.

Hope isn’t rainbows and unicorns. Hope is the driver.

The latest conversation in the What Do You Know To Be True? podcast, “Follow Your Intuition - The Career Reinvention You’re Too Afraid To Make” with “Sylvia Taylor” is available on YouTube, Apple, or Spotify.

Sylvia is an org development and change management leader, a coach, and self-proclaimed “adaptologist.” She has spent her career studying what it actually takes for people, teams, and organizations to thrive in change rather than just survive it. And she came to the conversation with a superpower that reframes how most of us think about intuition.

She calls her superpower, Follow the Sparkle.

OK, that sounds like rainbows and unicorns, but it’s the compelling, guiding force in her becoming more of her possible self.

You’re going to want to hear her explain it herself.

Here are three things from our conversation that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

In corporate rooms full of data and KPIs, “I have a gut feeling” doesn’t land. So Sylvia renamed it.

“It has never led me to something that didn’t bring me joy, validate things I had been questioning, or [didn’t] lead me to a tool that helps me help others in the way I want.”

‘Follow the Sparkle’ is what happens when you’ve been quietly taking in more than you realize, observing, sensing, synthesizing, and something catches your attention in a way that feels important. Not loud. Not urgent. A sparkle.

The sparkle isn’t random. It’s your accumulated experience pointing you somewhere. That track record is the data. The sparkle is the signal.

2. You are not your job title. You are multitudes.

You may know one, you may be one: experienced professionals after a layoff often ask “ who am I if not my job?” Sylvia has heard this over and over. Her answer:

“You are not your job title. You are not your job. You aren’t even the CV or LinkedIn profile you have. You are so much more than that.”

This is what drove her to create the Adaptive Identity Game, a card-based facilitation tool that allows the participants to experiment and play with their identities in a safe and fun way. The same way that Anne Lamott encourages writers to create their “shitty first draft” of their writings, the Adaptive Identity Game can be your shitty first draft of your identity.

And we all need that first draft before we can get to the good stuff.

Sylvia ran a fundraising campaign for the Adaptive Identity Game and it didn’t hit the goal. While it failed to hit its goal, the response she received just poured more rocket fuel into her engine.

“There’s no possible way I’ll be putting this to the side. I have confirmation. It’s needed. It’s wanted. The time is now.”

That is Bonanno’s resilience research in real time. That is hope as a strategy. That is belief in a better tomorrow.

Think about something you’ve been told isn’t a “real” skill or a chapter in your career you’d rather leave off the resume.

👉 I’m Curious: Is your identity failure-proof? If you had a bad day, a failed project, or found your role eliminated, does your identity still hold true?

Drop it in the comments. I have a feeling this one is going to get interesting.

The latest conversation in the What Do You Know To Be True? podcast, “Follow Your Intuition - The Career Reinvention You’re Too Afraid To Make” with “Sylvia Taylor” is available on YouTube, Apple, or Spotify.

What Do You Know To Be True? is your invitation to be inspired to become more of your possible self by discovering your superpower, unlocking your potential, and creating your impact in the world.

Hi, I’m Roger Kastner. I work with individuals, leaders, and teams to design new ways of thinking, behaving, and working to unlock challenges, achieve goals, and live into their potential and possible selves.

The podcast is available on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and the What Do You Know To Be True? website.