Cracking the Code of Human Personality

Speaker A 00:05 Welcome to the Wisdom Parlor, a thoughtful discussion of important ideas among people who are committed to succeeding in life. This is a gathering of leaders from a variety of industries and our role here is to help you reach the top 1% of your field of choice. Hi, I'm Jim Cathcart. So come with me and let's discover how much more successful you could be. Welcome to the Wisdom Parlor, a thoughtful discussion of important ideas among people who are committed to succeeding in life. This is a gathering of leaders from a variety of industries and our role here is to help you reach the top 1% of your field of choice. I'm Jim Cathcart. So come with me and let's discover how much more successful you could be. Speaker B 01:16 Well, welcome back once again to the Wisdom Parlor. I'm Rich Bontrager, better known as Trigger, and I get emcee and co host with the wonderful Jim Cathcart. The Wisdom Council, by the way, officially kicks off the first Wednesday of every month. It's a wonderful place to show up and you get to be a part of a dynamic conversation. And every month it's a little bit different. Today we're going to get in with the question, can personality really be measured? Can you measure personality? And if so, what's an impact? Sort of power does I have? But before we get into that, as a reminder, as we start to open up the Wisdom Parlor and people begin to beam on in, this forum is for a great discussion. It's not a debate. It's not a forum for political or religious issues. It's a place where wisdom will emerge among people who are committed to making the world a better place. Please no self promotion during this. No campaigning for a company or a special issue. Right now this is just a thoughtful discussion. And by the way, the sponsor of the show is the Cathcart Institute Experts Academy. It's a 12 month mentorship that results in people receiving the CPE Certified Professional Expert designation. Typical call with Jim yourself and determine if you are a good fit for this. We're going to drop in the web address but it's schedule.com cathcart but we'll put that in the chat for everyone to get that. Also, you get a free copy of Jim's book what to do when you are the speaker. And we'll drop that in from the free.cathcart.com but now, without any further ado because when I have a great hour together, let me introduce Jim Cathcart. He is our host and authored over 25 books, delivered over 4400 high paid lectures all around the world and he's reached the top 1% of the 1% of the world's professional speakers. Jim Cathcart is a leader, influencer, mentor and a friend to many. Welcome Jim Cathcart. Jim Cathcart 03:15 What an impressive guy I must be. Thank you, Rich. That was awesome and it's great to be back with everybody. Hello, Michael and Pamela and Tony and Jody and anyone else who's tuning in right now. When you think about personality, that could take on all kinds of meanings and it tends to, you know, around the world you get different definitions of what it is. And we'll explore that in a minute. Let me just put something on the table up front. My intellectual bandwidth is conceptual. My of the multiple intelligences for me the, the ones that are most active are my visual, visual intelligence, my conceptual intelligence, my self awareness and my empathy. My velocity is high. My personality type on a disc model would be high D, high I, low S, low C. In the model Tony and I have used for so many years, that's directing socializer basically or a driver on some other models. And let's see, background imprint was positive and we could go on measuring personality all day long. I could give you all these, these fancy words. But the point of it all is I am who I am and that's unique in the world. But it's really, really similar to, to a lot of other people in a lot of different ways. And many of those ways I think and I've found are quite measurable. And today we have an expert on the measurement of. Well, we got multiple experts present on the measurement of personality because Pamela Stambaugh passed Vistage Chair and an amazing advisor to business executives, myself included for more than 10 years as my personal confidant and advisor is a specialist with the head in my mind. Just a minute ago, Hartford, the Harrison assessment. Okay, thank you. And then Tony Alessandra owns assessments 247 assessments 247 creates both public assessments that anybody can buy and private label assessments for companies like Cathcart Institute. They do the, the back end work, pardon the leaf blower just outside my window. But they do the back end work for the sales IQ assessment that I was the lead designer on. And they also do Tony Robbins, Grant Cardone, Brian Tracy, Dale Carnegie courses, Action Coach International and a number of others. So Tony, I'd like you to chime in on the early question, which is the overall question. Can personality really be measured? And if so, what is personality? Speaker D 06:34 Well, I can tell you disc, which is what we Primarily measure. Jim Cathcart 06:39 That's your main product? Speaker D 06:40 Yeah, our main product measures behavior and not personality. I know a lot of people say it's, you know, a personality test, which is incorrect. We. We try to never use that term. It is behavior. And some of the other ones that you had listed, you know, like the mm, what is it? The mmpi? Jim Cathcart 07:04 Yeah, the Minnesota Basic Personality Index. Speaker D 07:08 Yeah. Which is. I don't know. Some of the stuff that it measures are, you know, not necessarily. I don't know if it measures personality. It measures, you know, various things. Like what? Some of the things that measures. Jim Cathcart 07:22 Well, let me just comment a little bit on the background. Mmpi, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Index has been for a long time widely known and used. And in recent years, others have come up and joined it in the top levels of what was considered clinical or sophisticated use. But the Minnesota Multiphasic was based on the study of prisoners, people in prison and studying their tendency toward criminal behavior. So not a good model when studying successful living, for example, you know, that was one of the things that distinguished Abraham Maslow years ago, who wrote Motivation and Personality. He came up with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And his whole distinguishing characteristic was he was studying positive behavior, studying the bright side of things and instead of the dark side of things. But back to you, Tony. So personality. Personality, I guess maybe a way of looking at it would be personality is patterns of behavior observed. Speaker D 08:40 Well, here I just went on to Google. Google's definition, personality refers to the enduring characteristics and behavior that comprise a person's unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self concept, abilities, emotional patterns. Jim Cathcart 09:03 So Speaker D 09:05 I guess yes, in a sense you can measure personality, but I'm not sure if there's a. Based on this definition. I'm not sure that there's a single assessment that would do it. I think it really is a combination of assessments that would. Would measure that. Jim Cathcart 09:23 I think you're absolutely right. When, When I started working on what became the ACORN principle, I was co owner of a firm over in Carefree, Arizona, called the Carefree Institute, and we had developed an instrument that Paula gave the name the Inner View. And the interview was a combination of assessments. We had gone to Dr. David Cruz at the University, Arizona State University, I think it is psychological testing service, and said, look, we want to be able to take known and proven concepts that are not widely published in the marketplace and bring it to the marketplace. So what are some of the ways of knowing who somebody is that you've found valid measures for validated measures and they said, well, we can measure multiple intelligences. We can measure intellectual processing capacity, which I call bandwidth. Pardon me, we, we can measure personal energy and drive patterns, which we've renamed Velocity, Personal Velocity. We can measure value patterns. Value systems like Alport, Vernon and Will, Al Wilson, I think Alport, Vernon and somebody, Gordon Alport, developed a values model. And so we measured that and then there were all these other measures. And so we came up with the inner view and created a quite comprehensive seminar we called the Art of Choosing well, three Day program to teach the use of it. And it was a paper based instrument. And then we split back apart. And after splitting from Carefree Institute, I wrote the ACORN principle and summarized all that into a book and an audio album that went with it. Pardon my voice. And the whole point of that was to take multiple tools and measure different parts instead of taking one tool and saying, oh, Tony's a dove and Jim's an eagle and Jody's a horse and, and Rich is a koala bear. You know, I mean, whatever. Just way too general. Because if you look at, you know, when Tony and I did Relationship Strategies back in the 80s, early 80s, late 70s, we traced the concept of behavioral types from astrology and Hippocrates and Carl Jung into all its various iterations of the modern day. And man, we came up with a bunch of them. But the world embraces more than any others, D, I, S, C. And that is very wisely where Tony has put the majority of his corporate weight. Tell me about that, Tony. Tell me about choosing that concept and making that your main stay. Speaker D 12:39 Yeah, well, actually, I didn't choose the concept, it chose me. You know, when I first started with this assessment business, the online version in 96, it was all the Platinum rule. It was what we had done with Relationship Strategies. It was director, thinker, relator and socializer. And that's really what I was pushing then in my first customer. My first customer was Ken Blanchard. And Ken Blanchard wanted us to program the disc assessment with Dr. Michael O', Connor, who I had written a book with back in the late 80s called people smart. Yeah, that book, by the way, was to blend the People Smart book. In the late 80s, Performax came to us, or came to me and asked if I would write this book with Dr. Michael O', Connor, who was their VP of R& D. And it was blending the Platinum Realm model. Yep, that's it. He's got them all there at his fingertips. It's like one of those CD players, you know, you put in a Song and boom, it comes up. But what we did is we blended the. Jim Cathcart 13:58 I'll stop. Speaker D 13:59 You have more books, more of my books on your bookshelf than I have on mine. Jim Cathcart 14:04 Well, you got a full shelf on my bookshelf. All Tony stuff. Speaker D 14:08 So we blended the platinum room which was more visual. It was. It used use the. The quadrants whereas the original disc did not. So we blended those together in people. Smart. That was back in the late 80s. But I still really wanted to go with the platinum rule. Once we did program Blanchard's disc, Jim Cathcart 14:31 I. Speaker D 14:33 I was came across somebody who helped me put my disk together because I saw what. What Blanchard was doing and I saw the market constantly going after disk then the platinum rule. So here we are today and we look at, you know, our revenue and our revenue. Even though we have a lot of different assessments, our revenue is at least 80% disk oriented. So something to do with disk. Whether it's disk by itself, whether it's a combination report like disk and emotional intelligence or whether it's disc and emotional intelligence or motivators and the Hartman value profile. Jim Cathcart 15:16 Yeah. Speaker D 15:17 So anything disc that's at least 80 plus percent of. Of what we do. Jim Cathcart 15:23 Yeah. Speaker D 15:23 So I just go where the phone takes to look. That. That's your. Yeah, that was the original. Jim Cathcart 15:30 Yeah, that's mine. By the way. Using the original format. Speaker D 15:35 Yeah. And that's exactly. You said you were a di. I definitely see you as an id. Yeah, I'm a di. Jim Cathcart 15:43 These two and move the D higher and the I. Speaker D 15:46 That's it. Jim Cathcart 15:46 Yep. Speaker D 15:47 But so you know, today we don't typically show our disc scoring like that. We can and we do. We do it for people like Dave Yoho. Jim Cathcart 16:00 Yeah. Who. Speaker D 16:01 Who uses it in the. In the door to door sales selection process. But mostly it is adapted and natural style. We do it that way. Jim Cathcart 16:14 Yeah. And that's the difference between adapted and natural is. Natural is what you're going to do without pausing to think. Right. Speaker D 16:23 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 16:24 And adapted is how you've learned to become a bit more appropriate to the world around you. Speaker D 16:31 Right, right. And to take that a little further, natural typically over the years won't vary that much. But adapted literally can change us by situation, by situation or by individual or individual. You're adapting. Adapting to either the situation or the individual. Jim Cathcart 16:51 When a highly assertive person chooses to stay quiet for the moment, you know, they haven't changed their personality, but they have changed their momentary behavior. Pamela, I wanted to go to you to get some insight into the Hartman profile. What? Speaker E 17:07 My Harrison profile. Speaker D 17:09 Pardon The Harrison profile. Speaker E 17:12 Harrison assessment. Jim Cathcart 17:13 Harrison. There is also a Hartman. Speaker E 17:16 Yeah, but not the one I know. Jim Cathcart 17:18 Okay, I was thinking that was the one you had. But tell us about the Harrison. Speaker E 17:22 Well, it's very different from what the DISC is or the Myers Briggs or any of the others. Predominantly a couple of significant differences. One, the Harrison assessment is measuring 175 behavioral preferences and tendencies. So it's got a massive amount of data that can inform work preferences, will inform what job you might want to have. So it's suitability, it's measuring suitability. In other words, there's eligibility, which is, can you do the job and anybody can learn anything? Yeah, you know, I always like to say smart people can do anything. And then suitability is, do you want to do that work? So if you don't have at least a 75% suitability for a job, you're either going to leave voluntarily or be invited out the door because it really isn't a fit. So it's not in your best interest to hang in there and do it anyway because your enthusiasm is going to go down, your optimism, your wants challenge. Those things that we measure go down. But the other distinction is that Dr. Harrison is a PhD in all kinds of things, all kinds of psychology, but also mathematics. And so he was able to do something that not very many assessments do, which is the reliability score. So in other words, we know how reliable the data is to the point where we can actually pinpoint which data points are unreliable and how unreliable they are. So that, you know, the mathematical wiring behind the Harrison assessment is way, way up there. And then, of course, it's an international tool, as I'm sure the DISC and the Myers Briggs are today. So it's got, you know, real use all the way around the talent life cycle. We say, right, so from recruiting you can, you can support, with all of the legality that it takes to support doing recruitment, personality tests, or whatever you want to call them, insufficient data to really be able to use for recruiting. And we can, we can do recruiting and validate that we're actually validating, right. That that's actually a support of. And then, so have succession planning and team building and all kinds of things that we can do the way it's reported. One assessment called a smart questionnaire, can populate all of that. The other differentiator, I would say, and then I'll stop and in fact, I have to leave in about eight minutes. But the other differentiator, Jim, is paradoxes. So there are 12 pairs of traits that are paradoxical which is like tough love. Right. You've got to hold the tension between tough and love when you're raising a kid. You remember. Right. So there's that tension variable that is available and it enables us to put traits to avoid that might hinder performance and be able to measure that. So, you know, there are a lot of differences. I use the disc, I use the Myers Briggs. I have a new one now called bank and another one called Bore. But you know, they're fabulous. I, I really enjoy. Jim Cathcart 20:31 I think the beauty of them is in what they do. They stimulate meaningful dialogue about observable and measurable things. And that's, that's the profound part. Thank you, Pamela. That brings up a sort of an overarching point related to all this. How do you use things like this? Well, one recruiting. How do you find the people that fit the situation you're hiring for? Another one is self understanding. Another one is developmental profile use, which is I'm going to get Fred to take X profile or assessment and then I'm going to use that to manage him and help him grow. When I was creating the sales IQ plus with Tony and with Jeff Gitamer, my whole driving idea behind it was to teach. In other words, not just to assess but to teach and make this a developmental tool so that a person answers 48 out of 168 possible questions and they're presented with 48 sales scenarios that cover every aspect of selling preparation, targeting the right customers, connecting with them, assessing their needs, solving their problem, getting the sale, assuring they're satisfied and managing your accounts. So all of those 48 questions, 48 scenarios, each one multiple choice and you choose one and it what would you do? And then it gives you best to worst on the ranking of those answers. But the point of that one was to teach you how to rethink those situations and approach them better. Whereas the point of like Tony disc. Very different point. Speaker D 22:24 Yeah. Jim. I would almost call the sales IQ a test because there are right answers. Jim Cathcart 22:31 Good point. Speaker D 22:32 As opposed to an assessment that varies. There's no real right or wrong. Jim Cathcart 22:39 Yeah. And I think the importance in use of one like that one is if it's a test saying these are the best answers and these answers less good and these answers not so good as long as. And by the way, I designed ours so none of them are wrong. So you can't fail the test, but you can reveal which of the approaches you would take. The purpose of it all is to generate dialogue between you and let's say triggers your Manager and he answered it one way, you answered it another way. Let's talk about that. So it's teachable moments times 32 pages worth and that becomes pretty profound. Yeah, Trigger. Speaker B 23:24 Oh, Jim. In some of my leadership experiences I've used it heavily with teams. I also look at it to avoid conflict sometimes. We all know different personalities rub differently and when conflict arises, having that awareness as the overall team leader, I know how to better help the conflict. Understanding their personality and it works like magic and it makes them more aware as well. Speaker D 23:47 But help. Speaker B 23:48 I don't know how many leaders that think that way. Sometimes I don't think they use the tool to better the team. They just use a tool and say that's Jim, that's Jody. And that's all they care about. They don't think how it plays with the team. Jim Cathcart 24:00 The reason I giggled is my mom. When I went to her the first time back when Tony and I were just become partners back in the early 80s, late 70s, I went to my mom's house and I said, mom, here are four personality types and here's how this whole thing works. And this is you and dad and Kathy and me and da da da da da. She said, that's why he's that way. I said, excuse me. She said, that's why your father's like that. I said, what, what, what? She said, I thought he was just doing that to make me angry. Speaker B 24:35 That's the power of it right there. Jim Cathcart 24:37 That's the beauty of it. I know, man. Jody, good to see you. How are you doing? Speaker F 24:45 Doing great, thank you. Jim Cathcart 24:46 Outstanding. Do you have any quick questions for us as we're pursuing this? Speaker F 24:50 No, I just find this really interesting. I've done disc many times. I think the first time I did it it was for a sales job. And I was just checking back through the latest one that I did which is not solely disc, it just happens to be a part of it. And this one talks about behaviors and driving forces and it's to increase productivity in your team. And I was I dominant followed by D. So I just couldn't remember after all these years. But I've done it many times over the last 20 years. It's always interesting. Jim Cathcart 25:18 Well, thank you. Speaker D 25:20 Hey, Jim. Jim. I want to bring up something before Pam leaves. Jim Cathcart 25:23 Okay. Speaker D 25:24 Brought up an interesting point about reliability. Right. And which is a real issue. Reliability and validity and testing for that. And there are some assessments out there. In fact I know of at least one on your list when you sent out your invitation that there's an argument Whether it's ever been validated. It's a big, big assessment. But we won't even mention who they are. Jim Cathcart 25:51 Yeah, we're not going to say Myers. Speaker D 25:52 We won't say. We won't say it. But another, I think another important thing is you got to look and make sure that an assessment is validated and reliable. And I'm going to add something here. It's done. The statistical analysis is done by an independent third party firm. Because I can also tell you, and I've been in this business, I've been in the assessment business in 74. So it's been a long time and know just about everybody in the assessment business. And I even know that some people fudge if they do the, assess the validation internally. They can fudge the numbers if they don't look good. I know at least one company that has done that. So it really is important to have the sort of that Good Housekeeping seal that it's been done by the independent third party. Jim Cathcart 26:47 You bet. And there are forms of just a second, Pamela. Forms of validity that are different from each other. For example, face validity means when you read the result that looks like a mirror to you, you say, yeah, that's me. Okay. Then there's content validity, where the content of this assessment is reliable across multiple application. There is context validity, you know, when used in predictive behavior or in management counseling or in whatever else. And then there's, you know, there's all kinds of validity. But those are clinical things that are done to give legal support to the, your reliance on the reliability of the instruments. Pamela, you had a comment? Speaker E 27:36 Well, let me, let me. Am I am, I am I live. Jim Cathcart 27:40 Yeah, you're good. Speaker E 27:42 Yeah. There are actually five versions of validity. There's test retest, there's face validity, content validity, construct validity, and criterion validity. Some people can say, oh, we're validated. And that might be true 1, 2 or 3. Harrison. Assessment is validated all of those ways. So that's one of the things that we make a point of saying when we talk about validity. And I'm loving this conversation. I think we ought to have more of this. I'd come back for a second round of people. Jim Cathcart 28:16 There you go. Yeah, well, we'll, we'll definitely keep it on the list. Speaker D 28:19 Well, Jim, let me just jump in and add one thing. Do you have one more thing you wanted to add, Pam? Speaker E 28:26 No, no, no, I'm, I'm just waiting for you, Tony. Speaker D 28:29 Yeah, so. So another thing that we have to do today because of the US Government Is adverse impact. Speaker E 28:35 Yeah. Speaker D 28:35 And adverse impact if you don't, if you want to stay afoul of the US Government is making sure that your. Your results do not discriminate against protected groups. So there has to be a gender, there has to be a racial and age disability. So also food preferences. Jim Cathcart 28:58 You know, when people look at you on screen, what they're seeing is. Is food preferences. Legalized marinara sauce. Speaker D 29:07 That's right. That's important for us Italians. Jim Cathcart 29:11 Stand up for your Italian culture. Speaker D 29:13 That's it. Jim Cathcart 29:15 By the way, years ago, Alan Pease in Australia came to me and. And he wanted to do a version of our model in Australia. And he produced this for years. And of course, you can tell the age by the format, you know, audio cassettes. And this is the first version of the ACORN principle audio cassette. See you, Pamela. Speaker D 29:40 Hi. Jim Cathcart 29:41 Good to be here. And then this is Tony and me. Oh, no, this is Tony and me. Can you see that for all the wrinkles in the. The lighting, they both have the big Speaker B 29:52 fat ties and they both have hair. So that. Lisa Marie's got her hand up. Jim, let's. Lisa, you got a question? Comment? Speaker G 30:01 Yes, I actually have a. Jim Cathcart 30:03 See that you're here. Lisa, hello. Speaker G 30:07 I know I'm behind the scenes working on a project, and I think it's always distracting sometimes, but I do want to make a comment because you know that I teach this and I absolutely love teaching it. But what I have found, especially the last seven years that I've been teaching this, is that so many people look at the disc and say, I'm this letter. And I try to clearly communicate, you are not a letter. Okay? This is a process in which we can first, learn about ourselves. Secondly, learn about others. And lastly, because I'm an. I have fun doing it, so I don't ever lead. Jim Cathcart 30:51 How could you be an eye if you're not a letter? Excuse me, I'm just playing with you. Speaker G 30:57 I know you're playing with me, and I didn't hear you because I was talking. But I always teach people that assessments are great. Jim, you and I have had some deep conversation about assessments, but I like to lead with teaching people how to read it in 30 seconds or less, because that way you can use it as a tool every day the moment you walk out of the training. Assessments are great, and they certainly have their place in corporate America, in our personal life and our family life. But I like to see people get their mind going and thinking about it and using it as a tool. So a lot of our exercises and things are interactive and fun, which cause people to stop and think about it. And I've been called back more than once with people saying to me, oh, everybody's saying, oh, yeah, your D's coming out there. Watch it. Your S is coming out there. So it is a lot of fun. But my biggest concern is I don't ever want people to say, you know, I'm a C, I'm an S. Because you're not. Jim Cathcart 32:03 Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that, by the way. That's the thing that's made this so popular, is first, it's simple. Second, it's easily observable. And third, it's fun to teach because it's interactive. I used to have audiences in Australia of as many as four or five hundred people. And I'd break them up into groups according to their style, and then I'd play them against each other and I'd do theater in the round, standing in their midst with a microphone, and, man, it was like a party, you know, it was. It was like a pep rally or something. See, Tony was teaching. He was at the University of San Diego, and he was teaching there. And he had written a book with Phil Wexler called Non Manipulative Selling. And in that book, Dr. Anthony Alessandra was talking about the four personality types which he had learned from Dr. David Merrill of Tracom Corporation. I, at the same time in another city, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, had learned and been certified by Wilson Learning to teach the same social styles model. Wilson learned it from Meryl. So what Tony and I knew were the same. The exact model based on the same wording and everything. And we had the same frustrations with. Took too long to teach. And many of the words they used were not words that were in common usage like emotive and things like that. I mean, nobody talked about somebody being emotive unless it was clinical. And so we said, well, why don't we go back to the roots of this thing, Just rethink it all and see if we come to the same conclusion. Hardest book I ever read was this Little Thin thing. Carl Jung, Psychological Types. I had so much trouble digesting this, I had to go through it and read it aloud. Man, that's some serious commitment, reading something like that aloud. And read it into a cassette player and played it back back to myself again and again. And then Tony and I would get together on the phone virtually every week, and then every month or two, we'd. We'd meet in some common location. Like once, I think we met in Nebraska and we met in Tulsa, Oklahoma, met in San Diego, met in other places and we would collaborate. And we finally came up with our version which we called Relationship Selling in a Sales Application and Relationship Strategies in Generic Application. And it took off the other people who were the, the leading thinkers of the day in training and development, like Dr. Paul Hersey of, Of Hersey and Blanchard, Blanchard being Ken Blanchard. You know, Paul Hersey said, you know what? Your, your models clearer and easier to teach than the other models. And then when Nightingale ran across it and they published it. Whoa. Three and a half million dollars in sales in two years. 1984, 85. And all of a sudden Tony. And Tony's leaving the university and he and I are throwing in together and I moved to California. We merge everything for five years. And Lord, it changed our world, didn't it, Tony? It did. And so you went from Professor Alessandra to Tony Alexandra, the guy that co created this new model. Tell us about that evolution in your world. Speaker D 36:01 Well, I. How I got exposed to this was in 1974. I had just finished all my actual coursework and my oral exam for my PhD, which was in business, Business administration, minor in psychology. And I was invited to this, I guess a private little, not a webinar, but just a private little get together at somebody's home. And he was presenting the brand new course, Social Style Sales Strategies, the four S's with Larry Wilson, right? Jim Cathcart 36:39 Yep. Speaker D 36:39 And I have to tell you, by the way, at this point, I had actually already had my doctoral dissertation proposal accepted. Just the proposal, which really was the big thing, because then you just have to go through what you said you were going to do. I go to this little get together one evening, I think it was November of 74, and I, I was exposed to the four styles, the Merrill Reed for trade com four styles. And I said, my God, this is it. You know, sometimes you just love it first sight. This was it. And so I went back to my doctoral dissertation chairman, who by the way, was Dr. David Schwartz, the author of the multimillion bestselling book the Magic of Thinking Big. He was my doctoral dissertation chairman. And I went to him And I said, Dr. Schwartz, I want to change my dissertation topic. I don't want to do it on demographics, I want to do it on psychographics. And he looked at me and he said, absolutely not. Not finish what you got accepted here. Get out of here. And then do what you want to do, but don't mess with this right now. You're almost at the finish line. Which was great advice and exactly, that's exactly what happened. As soon as I finished, I was off doing things all built around the four styles. So it's been a love since 1974. Next year will be 50 years. Jim Cathcart 38:11 Yeah. Speaker D 38:11 My, that old? Damn. But not as old as you, Jim. Jim Cathcart 38:17 You know what's funny is years ago, Tony, early in our, our partnership was so into this that if someone said, Tony, you know, we're going to buy a dog, what kind should I buy? He would probably have said, you know, there are four types of dogs. That's it. Speaker D 38:36 Yeah, four types of everything in my life. Jim Cathcart 38:39 And one time he was booked at a conference at the Hotel del Coronado for the theme of the entire conference was why he was hired. Because he had a training movie with published by Disney that was on listening. And so the entire conference was about listening. And Tony looked over the agenda for the program and he realized all of his key points on listening were going to be covered by all these other presenters. And his presentation was going to be redundant. And so when he got there, he said, you know, there are four types of listener. And it hit a home run. Right? Speaker D 39:26 Yeah, I was mischaracterized that ages ago, ages ago. But yeah, so I, I, I, I've always been in love with that topic and you know, when you do it that long, you could lose a little bit. But I, I always find it interesting. And I don't think I ever give the talk exactly the same way, the same time. Part of it may be the audience, part of it may be where my mind is going, where I bring up an example about whatever. But it's a, it's, it's great. And even today I say today, let's just say, you know, 20, 23, when I first presented this, this was like, whoa, an eye opener for everybody. Jim Cathcart 40:11 Absolutely. I mean late 60s with transactional analysis, you know, parent channel, adult child, ego states, and I'm okay, you're okay. This was that five years later. Speaker D 40:26 Yeah, it was. And, and, but then it came, it became fairly well known and I remember I was asked to do some presentations at the IBM Management Development center in Armont, New York. And you had a, they gave you three shots. It was a half day program and I was doing it on the four styles and you had to score a certain score. So after the first time with the audience. Yeah, yeah, with the audience. The audience rated you. Jim Cathcart 41:00 Right. Speaker D 41:00 So the first time I didn't hit it, second time I did not hit it. Third time I'm having coffee the morning before my presentation. And the person who had brought me in said, you know, this is your last shot. And I said, I can't understand this. It's always such a big hit. And he said, well, let's go over some of the evaluations. And the evaluations almost to a T were loved his examples, loved his energy, loved his humor. But heard, you know, heard the concept before, heard it before, heard it before, heard it before. So the. Now, this was back in the 80s sometime, even when it was relatively new. So I got up that day, and I just made one little change. And so I opened up and I said, I'm going to share with you a concept today that I know all of you have been exposed to at least once. But just like a book or a movie, how many of you have heard or seen things the second or third time through that you missed the first? And everybody raised their hand. And I said, same thing's going to happen today. Even though you've been exposed to this before, you're going to hear and see things that you might that may trigger something, whatever it was. I said, and that day, I scored what I had to score. And I was on their faculty for a few years. But even today, where it's so widely used and known, I still use that line, and I say I still use it. I actually retired from speaking last year. We don't want to make that public. But, yes, I'm not speaking anymore. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of traveling. I just want to focus on my assessment business. But even if I gave a talk today, I do use that line, and it really does open up people's minds. In fact, back in 2013, I was giving a speech for Action Coach was potentially a huge account for me because they had almost a thousand coaches around the world. And I told the guy who hired me I was going to speak on disc. He said, no, everybody knows this. Everybody in the company uses this. They teach this. I said, okay. I said, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do this, acknowledge that they know it, and take them down a little bit different path. And of course, that path was a little different because they were actually teaching it, these people. So I said, I'm going to do my talk and I'm going to stop and analyze why I did what I did so that you can use some of this material and adapt it. Not adopt, but adapt it with your own stories and style. And it went over so well that the guy who hired me said, come to Las Vegas next month or whatever, sign the agreement. So, you know, and by the way, I never used to do this, Jim. When I first started out, I would just go in and give my talk. And one of the things that, that sort of drew Jim and I together early on was Jim said, hey, if you help me with sales and marketing, because that was my big background, I will help you with speaking and the whole concept of setting up and doing your homework work and, you know, setting up the, the ambiance and audience and learning. Jim Cathcart 44:29 Yeah, yeah. Speaker D 44:31 So that's when I started doing more homework about the audience, which really made a big difference. So anyway, I'm sorry. Jim Cathcart 44:38 That's beautiful. Speaker B 44:39 So, Tony, I got a question for you. Okay. Jim Cathcart 44:42 This is, this is sort of at the roots of it all on disc. This is one. William Moulton Marston's book, Emotions of Normal People as published by John Geier, A Persona press. Marston was also the guy who created, by odd coincidence, Wonder Woman, the cartoon character. But Marston was the guy who came up with the disc version of teaching that. I'm going to pause on this and let Trigger get in because I'm sure yours is more directly related to Tony's comment. Speaker B 45:18 Well, I'm going back to our basic question of the day. Can personality be measured? And Tony, you're right. I've taken multiple versions of disc and personality stuff. I'm curious and everyone else in the group here today, how many of you have taken multiple versions? And they all land pretty much in the same space, same keywords, same attributes. So the question is, can personality be measured? I think it can in some factor. Tony, I'm kind of curious. As you said, there's these versions out there, but I keep landing on the same dry plates. So are we measuring it or are we not measuring? Speaker D 45:52 Well, no. So there's a lot. There's several companies and big companies that have this. We're just one of them. Right. There are others that are. That are big and, and I have Speaker E 46:04 actually Speaker D 46:06 gone about getting how they break down their disease. What are the percentages overall and of the five or six biggest companies? Let's just say there were six companies. Five of us were very similar. One was way out and it was because they did all their initial analysis on the clergy. So it was a very different audience than a, than a widespread. Jim Cathcart 46:35 That's the. Speaker D 46:36 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 46:36 When you go back to like, go back to Carl Jung, who was the hero and even love interest of the mother in Myers Briggs, to look at other models that have come along since then, multiple intellects that in. This is in the classroom, it's Thomas Armstrong. And he also wrote Seven Kinds of Smart. But he was a colleague and associate of Howard Gardner, who, in writing Frames of Mind, was the first to popularize the concept of multiple types of intelligence, multiple ways of being smart. And he measured seven of them at first, and then as he continued with that, started adding more onto it. I think he was 9 or 10 at the latest. Here's the danger. Here's what happens when you fall in love with your model. You start using it for everything. So if. If all you've got is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail, right? And you say, okay, how. What nail qualities does that little animal have? You know, I've got. I've got to go make these compatible. And I think that's what. I don't know, but I think that's what happened with Gardner, is that he was taking his concept, which was pretty solid, and saying, well, we don't measure this, so let's call it that, you know, and. And that sort of thing. But I don't know how valid the current model is. I just do know this, that when Daniel Goleman came along with the concept of emotional intelligence, something we already knew started making sense. When Marston came up with the DISC model. Emotions of normal people. Normal people, wow. Not bizarre. Not criminals, not. Not abnormal psychology. Normal people, wow. Then all of a sudden, things we already knew started making sense. When Gordon Alport came up with his values model, we said, no, I. Now I understand Jody's motives and Lisa's motives and Fred's motives and Michael's motives and how they're different. Yes, duh, that. It all makes sense now. When I started studying all this to create what became the acorn principle, one that I really liked was Robert Sternberg. Now Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind was at Harvard. Sternberg was at Yale. They were both exploring human intelligence. And in the triarchic mind, Sternberg said, there are three things that your mind basically is capable of. One is adapting to circumstances. You know, so it. It rains, you put on your raincoat, or you just get used to the rain, or you stand under a little temporary shelter, you adapt to your circumstances. Number two is selecting. So that means I don't like this situation or this feeling or this outcome. I'm going to select a better one. And you navigate toward that. So you run to a shelter nearby and you're protected from the rain. That's an example. And the third thing is shaping your circumstances, which would be things like if, if it's not raining and hasn't you fly up there and seed the clouds and cause rain, you know, so shaping your circumstances is another aspect of intelligence. And he was talking in the triarchic mind about all the many nuances and iterations of all that. Tony. Speaker D 50:32 Jim, it's interesting you held up that book about Sternberg. Back in the 80s, you may remember, I was writing a book called Street Smarts. Yep. And, and we were looking at what is street smarts? And we, I, we went out and interviewed a lot of different people. I mean, Abby Hoffman and you know, it just goes on and on. But one of the people that I, I actually interviewed on my own was, I went to Yale and did Sternberg and he was taught he, his was seven different types of smarts. It was either six or seven. There was street smarts, book smarts. Yeah, seven kinds of smarts. So it was interesting interviewing all these different people about what street smarts was and what it wasn't. But, but with Sternberg, seeing all these other ones was, was quite interesting. Jim Cathcart 51:31 Yeah. And when you look at values and where they fit in this mix, the way I articulated in the ACORN principle is I say values are what you care about. Style is how you go after it. Intellectual bandwidth or thinking style is, is how you process it. And, and what, by the way, the conclusion on Seven Kinds of Smart was that you have all seven and so do I, and you can develop them all more highly. So that means that unlike a lot of other aspects, smarts are to a large extent within your control. But there's such a thing as intellectual bandwidth. An intellectual bandwidth is processing capacity. And if you think about nature, a human brain is a natural creation, an organic creation. And human brains all depend on their DNA sources. So if you came from a gene pool that produced a lesser capacity, beginning piece the brain, then your overall capacity is going to be less than say, an Einstein gene pool. Right. So there is such a thing literally as a physical limitation to intellect. However, the vast majority of people, vast being like above 99%, have all the intellectual bandwidth they will ever need to deal with everything they ever encounter in their life. Trouble is, society has placed judgment. Now we're getting into values, judgment on whether you've got more IQ or less iq. Oh, you're in the slow group, so you go sit over there with them. You're not one of us. Right. Judgment. And that's all based on values. And your values are rooted in what you care about. And there tends to be a predictable, enduring Pattern in what you most care about. Some of that's natural to you, and much of that's learned through your parents, your teachers, your schools, and your life experiences. So what we found was the old nurture nature equation. Are you the way you are because you were born that way, or are you the way you are because of your experiences and your learning and, and you know, your discipline? And the answer is yes, that it's largely determined by how you approach it. You start with whatever you start with, which is almost always way more than adequate, and then you develop it depending on how you live your life. And the brain at certain points in, in childhood, development is only capable of certain things because there are parts of the brain that aren't even online until 10 or 12 years old. So expecting great things from very, very young children is a missed, a misplaced expectation. You can get them to do amazing things, as you often see in the Asian culture, where they seem to generate more prodigies per capita than anywhere else on earth. But there are still parts of those little brains that aren't even fully grown yet and able to flourish. So let's look for a minute at values story I've been telling for years. When I in my speeches, I say, okay, there's seven basic natural values. Sensuality. That's the basic importance to you of your sensual physical experience. High sensuality, you really care what your iPhone feels like in your hand. You care about the difference between Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi. Low sensuality, you say it's cola for God's sake, give me a seven up. You know, sensuality is one thing, empathy is another. It's the relative importance of your connectedness with other people, your affinity with or sense of connected with others. The next one is wealth. The relative importance of owning things of value, of building wealth independent of what you can do with it. The next one is power. The relative importance of being in control and being in charge and being able to direct things as you choose. The next one is aesthetics. Relative, relative importance of beauty and balance and symmetry and blend and alignment and patterns and so forth. There are two more. The next one is commitment. The relative importance of having a cause, kind of a bigger reason behind everything, something to champion, something to stand for, to do what's right by God, no matter what it costs. And then the final one is knowledge. The relative importance of knowing, learning, discovering and understanding. Well, all of us carry about care about all those seven things, but in different ratios. So assume for a minute a man and a woman are married. They're both in sales. She sells financial products. He sells computer equipment. They're both successful. But one day she goes out and she makes a sale that nets her $100,000 cash bonus on the spot. Huge, huge sale. She's got mad money and she goes out and she buys a painting that she's been wanting for years that costs twenty thousand dollars. And the reason she buys a twenty thousand dollar painting is because she's got a very high aesthetic value. She loves beauty and balance and all these sort of things. And so she goes out and buys this painting, has it brought to their home and installed, not hung, because you don't hang a $20,000 painting, you install it, right? And her husband comes home from work and he walks in the front door and he sees the painting and he says, what's that? She says, it's a painting. He said, yeah, I got that. Where did it come from? She said, I bought it today. Aren't you. Isn't it beautiful? He said, what? It costs? Because he's got a high wealth value. Her wealth value is like zero. But her aesthetic value is very high. His wealth value is very high. His aesthetics value, zero. He doesn't appreciate beauty and balance and all that much. So she says, isn't it gorgeous? And he says, what it costs? She says, what? What it cost what? $20,000. He screams, 20,000. And he. And he hits the ceiling and he's raining and he's raving. He's screaming, how could you spend $20,000 on a painting? She says, honey, can you see the painting from up there? He said, yes. She said, do you see the artist's name? He said, no. She said, well, it's Paula Cathcart. And he said, well, who's that? She said, well, Paula Cathcart's art has been appreciating at 27 a year for seven consecutive years. And he floats back down to the ground, says, look how it picks up the colors of the couch. Did he change his values? No, he did not change his values. All he did was understand how what she had related to what he cared about. Okay, so that's the thing. When you understand these patterns in all these different measures, then you can adapt to them and use them wisely. Trigger, you got a comment? Speaker B 59:48 No, I was going to say, I think you're landing a plane really well here today on the Wisdom Parlor. Because now we're back to the original question of can personality be metrics? So, Jim, I'm curious, after all the conversation, what do you think? What did we really get? What Are our takeaways today. Can we measure personality? Jim Cathcart 60:06 Well, let's ask Fred and Jody. Fred, can personality be measured? Speaker H 60:11 Yeah, it can. The challenge is having a consistent metric, a system like the ones we've been talking about. That's the way to do it, where you have a. A defined references and system to do it. And when you measure it using one way, it's not so easy to compare it against a personality that's measured using a different system. So you do want to have those matched up. Jim Cathcart 60:44 Yep, exactly. And see, there's so many measured tools. There's enneagram, there's heck, there's. There's astrology, you know, and. And if you trace all this stuff back, it goes back to the ancient primitive ways people didn't understand the world. And so they said the way Jody behaves is like the way gene behaved 20 years ago at the same pattern. What's similar between them? Well, I think Jody was born in the fall. So was Gene. Speaker D 61:16 It's the stars. Jim Cathcart 61:18 You know, when they threw it all out to something they didn't understand. The movement of the heavens. Right. And then Hippocrates came along, said, no, it's not out there. It's in here. It's. It's blood, bile, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. It's the temperaments in your body. Speaker D 61:34 Blah. Jim Cathcart 61:35 And then the others came along with different forms of measure. But the point is, there are patterns. And the answer is we have created models to measure those patterns, and the models are not the measure. For example, a map. If you look at a map, it does not look like the territory it represents, but it'll guide you through it. You can look at a picture of Cincinnati and a map of Cincinnati. You'd never know they were the same until you start studying the patterns. Right. Same thing's true in personality. The maps are not the reality. They're a tool for exploring and navigating the reality. Jody comments. Personality. Speaker F 62:24 Yeah. I think measuring personality is like measuring success. Each person has to design, like, define what is important to be measuring. And if you want to change some aspect of your personality, then you have to identify that that's the aspect you want to make a change to. Just like with success, someone may say, oh, success is based on financial, or it's based on family, or it's based on all these different things. I think that's the most important thing is, well, you know, as far as personality goes, how would you define it and what are you trying to do with it? Jim Cathcart 62:54 Exactly. Exactly. Purpose drives everything. Trigger over to you. Speaker B 63:00 Another great, another great landing. Jim Cathcart 63:03 We need to take off and fly it again. I think in the future we will Speaker B 63:08 definitely be coming back to this conversation, this topic again, can personality be measured? There's much more to dive into. This has been fabulous. Thanks for everyone. Contributions or ideas. And just as a reminder, everybody, we will be back once again to do this every month and we're gonna be back again next month on Wednesday, August 5th. Let me know, let me check that date here. Let me make sure I have this right here. Let me make sure I got it absolutely positive. Right. And it will be August 2nd. Now there we go on August 2nd, Wednesday, August 2nd, come on back for the Wisdom Parlor with the amazing, always entertaining and always knowledgeable Jim Cathcart. And by the way, this is sponsored by the Cathcart Institute Experts Academy, a 12 month membership that results in people receiving the CPE a certified personal expert designation. Professional Expert. I missed that. Thank you, Jim, the certified Professional Expert. Learn more from that Jim Cathcart@schedule.com backslash Cathcart. And of course get that free copy of Jim's book what to do when you are the speaker. Go to free.carcart.com again. Join us next month, Wednesday, August 2nd. We'll be back again when the Wisdom Parlor doors open up. More questions, more conversations and insights from the award winning world class speaker, bestselling author and great guy, Jim Cathcart. I'm Rich Bondweger. Jim Cathcart 64:35 Thank you, Trigger. By the way, this is the medallion. So when someone is certified as a professional expert, this is what they will receive as well, well as a certificate. So at the end of the year of, of mentorship, that's one part of what they get. And be sure to go get a copy of this. What to do when you're the speaker because it's about, it's not about giving a speech, it's about what to do when you're the speaker. And all the things, the amazing things that happen to speakers come up and it's been endorsed by just best of the best in the speaking industry. And by the way, quick update on scheduling a call with me schedule once.com no longer a subscription, so go to bitly bit.ly/call Cathcart. I put it in the, in the chat notes bit ly/call Cathcart and we'll chat. Great. Thank you all. Great to see you. Stay wise. See ya. Speaker A 65:45 Thank you for joining us today in the Wisdom Parlor. A thoughtful discussion of important ideas among people who are committed to succeeding in life. If you are committed to making more success happen in your own life, go right now to my website, free.cathcart.com and download my free ebook and then watch the video. If you decide that you'd like my assistance in helping grow your success, then come with me and let's discover how much more successful you can be. Jim Cathcart 66:28 Foreign. Speaker A 66:33 Thank you for joining us today in the Wisdom Parlor, a thoughtful discussion of important ideas among people who are committed to succeeding in life. If you are committed to making more success happen in your own life, go right now to my website, free.comcarcart.com and download my free ebook and then watch the video. If you decide that you'd like my assistance in helping grow your success, then come with me and let's discover how much more successful you can be.