Think Differently. Solve the Impossible.

Show Notes

Perform & Function, LLC

A management consulting firm specializing in leadership, team, and organization development consulting and career management coaching.

Website: https://www.performandfunction.com

Transcript

My guest today is Dr. Karl Hebenstreit.

He holds a PhD in Organizational Psychology, a Master's in Human Resource Management, a Bachelor's in Psychology, French and Political Science.

He coaches clients in emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, authentic leadership, and success in their new executive roles.

He loves what he does, seeing the positive impact on clients who range from individuals to CEOs and teams at companies such as AT&T, Microsystems, Kaiser Permanente, Cisco's, and Sony.

Of notable interest, he used AI to scale his coaching business using a digital clone of himself, built an app program to model how he coaches clients.

Nicknamed Error Karl, AI R.

Karl.

That's it, yeah.

The AI is this twin digital clone, which he says enables his coaching services to be available to clients 24-7.

He says it's been programmed with his 30 years of experience, and it's not a substitute for himself.

The real Karl is to supplement normal Zoom calls with clients.

So clients get both.

He also says it's not an answer bot, rather it's an app that gives clients real coaching conversation, similar to chat GBT.

It remembers, learns, and recognizes you.

His books include The How and Why, Taking Care of Business with the Enneagram.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And Nina, and The Really, Really Tough Decision.

We'll talk about what that one's about.

Karl's also took a leap of faith and followed his dream.

In the midst of the pandemic, he quit his corporate job to pursue solo-preneurship, where he says he could make a bigger difference with a larger, wider range of clients in different industries.

Welcome to my show, Karl.

Thank you, Daniel.

Thank you for having me.

So tell me about this app, Karl.

AIR, Karl.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It reminded me of I took an NLP course once, and when I took the second class, our instructor trying to come up with more courses, he's like, if you like a small group of students, you're welcome to sign up for this special opportunity.

We'll meet at my home every weekend, and you guys can model my coaching, how I do it.

Literally, we'll work on each other, work on as if you were clients, and you guys take notes and try to model.

And I'm an engineer, so I recorded, I took a flowchart.

We didn't have a chat GBT and stuff then.

How did they do it?

I wish I knew the background, but I'll tell you how my involvement in it.

So I basically provided all of my content.

So the AI read all my content, my books, I have all the podcasts that I've been on.

It's just looked at my website.

It's looked at articles I've written.

So it's looked at all of that.

And then I even created some if-then scenarios for it too, because I wanted to make sure that when I was testing it, it didn't necessarily have...

It doesn't look like it doesn't have HR knowledge.

So if a client is talking, for example, there was one instance where a client was talking about something and it was a unionized environment.

So it didn't know to ask it a question about, hold on a second, did you involve the union?

Because if you just did it without involving the union, that could be a problem.

That's why there's a little footnote at the bottom of chat GBT.

Don't take this for granted.

It's prone to errors, etc.

Exactly.

So I came up with some if-then scenarios, especially when I use the Enneagram, because I do use the Enneagram in most of the work that I do with executive coaching, leadership development, team development, organization development, even in the speaking engagements that I do.

I talk about using the Enneagram in life, in work.

And so I wanted it to be able to give nuanced coaching based on the Enneagram type of the individual.

So if it knew that it was going to have problems with boundaries, like to really read, it was a whole lot of a second.

Yeah, I really want to dive into that because I didn't know what the Enneagram was before reading your profile and the nine personality types.

I just wanted to get the AI app out of the way because it was so interesting.

And it is.

And different coaches are using it in different ways.

So the head of this organization, amigo.ai, reached out to me over a year ago, and he wanted to just do exploratory work on just figuring out, would this be of use?

Would executive coaches use this in their practice?

And so I wasn't ready at that point to say, yeah, let's do it.

But I gave him my insights and my criteria and some watchouts and how it could work and what to make sure it could do and what it wouldn't do and all that.

And then I remember that the timing was really cool because I think it was about two months before.

So this must have been like maybe May that he reached out, like two Mays ago.

And in, I forget whether it was July or August of last year, there was the International Coach Federation Conference, where all of his target audience was going to be.

So I said, have you heard about this organization?

And this is where all the people that are going to be interested in this are going to be.

So he.

Well, you know what's interesting about that?

What comes to mind is keeping an open mind.

There's a lot of people that just, I want to be a life coach and they go take a course.

And then what's the first thing you do when they, when they get their certificate?

They try to create online content.

Yeah.

Well, how can you create online content that's new and unique and authentic and not just copy from your classes, if you haven't had any experience?

Exactly.

To which, Karl, the benefit I see of this is, it's almost like there's going to be a lot of bad coaching apps.

And quickly people will go, oh, use the Karl app.

And then of course, if you want the real Karl, call the real Karl.

Exactly.

Still available.

Yeah.

So you can program it with garbage in, garbage out.

Exactly.

Same thing in, same thing out.

Like what makes you special?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think like the actual baseline coaching chatbot that exists is fantastic because in coaching, you don't necessarily, you don't give advice, you don't tell the person what to do.

You help them come up with what's right.

Oh, that's another benefit of this.

Yes.

Why do we need a thousand more coaches teaching the same thing if I can just use an app?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the insights, the Karl-ized insights that it provides would be some models.

So if a person doesn't know how to do something, and it's not part of the repertoire, it's not part of their skills, it does give them some, oh, try this model out when you're dealing with this situation.

How does that work?

Well, it comes to mind as an app, a medical app.

Like, you have an issue at home, you're not feeling well, you got a cold or a flu.

Before you go to the doctor, you use the Internet.

Yeah, exactly.

Now you would use ChatGBT and you would also tell ChatBG, I'm allergic to whatever allergy medication.

So it gives you a better feedback.

You could do that with the coaching app too as a foundation.

And layer on top of that, you're a negrim in your unique stuff that you do, which I'm going to talk about next.

But yeah, get the AI out of the way, because so many people are worried about the AI.

They think it's going to ruin their life and kill their job.

And I think it will if you just want to go take a course, like be a coach, for example, and not do anything further.

But if you want to add to that your own value, then you're always going to be valuable.

Exactly.

I think it's really finding what your niche is and how much extra value you can add that people need, that people really want and they'll seek you out for.

Absolutely.

The other thing I wanted to say with the AI was, we started out with it just being for, not just, but being for coaching.

And then I've written a book.

My last book that I wrote was Explicit Expectations, which came out this year, this past June.

And they told me that I could actually create an e-learning class using AI of the book.

So, the AI would walk you through and would then act as a sparring partner.

At the end, it could be, let's do a role play.

And you'd be doing a role play with AI.

You don't have to have a human being that you do the role play with, or gives you an assignment, or checks in on an assignment for you.

So, I was...

Some people go, my partner is a robot.

This is pretty realistic.

He or she answers me always in a robotic, excuseful, repetitive way that's predictable.

So...

But that was another application that we're using AI R.

Karl for, and it's teaching the explicit expectations content, providing actual experience and...

Is that your course, Explicit Expectations?

Is that one of your...

That's the ones, yeah.

Oh, so tell me about that.

That seems kind of something you're passionate about, or it's on the...

Yeah.

So just like what you said earlier about the coaching, and we said that it wouldn't necessarily give you an answer.

The Explicit Expectations is the answer.

So instead of expecting that it's going to be coaching, this is actually, okay, no, we're going to do e-learning.

We're going to teach you these foundational, these models and expectations that your organization has of you without ever telling you that they had these expectations of how do you do performance feedback?

How do you do one-on-ones?

How do you communicate?

How do you engage your employees?

How do you terminate someone?

How do you hire someone?

All these things that no one actually teaches you but expects you to know when you're promoted into a supervisory or management position.

So this AI, R.

Karl, will actually teach you that.

We'll go through the content of the book to teach you that.

And at the end of each chapter, we'll give you opportunities to practice what you want.

You know, it's great, but at the same time, I'm thinking of I'm working on my job as an engineer, and my boss who's supposed to be smarter, more experienced, he's got his app out on his phone like everyone has their phone.

Seriously, man?

Is this the app that tells him how to interact with you and how to give people?

Yeah, exactly.

Why don't you just give me the app, like save money?

This is the way we can cut jobs.

If I was executive leader, I'd be like, we don't need that guy.

He's just give the app to subordinate.

Yeah.

Well, and that's the purpose of the explicit expectations.

It's to prevent the leader from sitting there trying to look up the answer and have the app.

It's to train them in advance so that they know what to do in every single situation that's going to be brought up to them.

Why don't we train them before they get in that position?

So, I actually saw that.

There was an recent article that said, I think it was 70% of people say that the companies do not train their managers or supervisors before they promote them into a people management position.

There's two reasons for that.

One is, they always promote people they want to get out of the way, because they want to move them out of your department.

So they move them somewhere else and how they do that, they promote them.

That's classic, right?

And the other is, the people that fake it, because they're just go-getters, they want that leadership position so badly, even though they really don't deserve it and not qualified.

They just want the money.

And somehow they, what's that?

They want the money.

They want the money, right?

Exactly.

And the prestige.

And somehow they talk the way into it.

Yeah.

And so you're right.

I think you're right about that.

I think people, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?

So people that say, I want that position.

And shame on the company for not saying, why do you want this position?

Because if the person says, I want this position because I want to make more money or I want the next step up, then the answer is, well, do you want to manage people or do you just want to?

Well, no one's ever be that honest.

They'll always say, oh, I aspire to be, you know, make a change, a difference in the world, blah, blah, blah.

This probably get it from AI.

Like AI, tell me what to say to my answer.

Tell me what to say to my boss so I get this promotion.

Yeah.

So I've worked in some companies that do it right because they know that in an.

Oh, cool.

Awesome.

Tell me about it.

Tell me about a real story like that.

Yeah.

So they understood that, hold on, people are just wanting to get promoted into people management positions because they just want the next level up.

They want a promotion, they want to raise, but they're maxed out at whatever their technical individual contributor role is.

So in addition to having this route that goes up into a people manager position, they also had an extra ladder that went up in the technical specialization where they still stayed individual contributors but were still able to progress to those same levels that the managers had so their salary could increase, their span of control increased, their responsibilities increased.

So it's really coming up with solutions like that, that really help to put people in the right positions as opposed to, no, I have to be a people manager to get more money, and even though I hate people.

Well, we had that at Motorola actually, and some of the older engineers who had just come to work in Jeans would be on the same level as the guy in the suit and tie.

They really frustrate the suit and tie people, but they're like, we can't get rid of him.

He's the expert.

He knows the technology.

Yeah, if you got rid of them, you wouldn't have a business.

Yeah, it's like a full-time consultant who's been there forever.

Well, it's good to hear some people other, that's what you teach or how you work with companies.

Yeah, it's looking for the solution to, what is the real problem here?

What do people really want?

Not what they tell you that they want, but what do they really want?

What is it that really motivates them?

And the Enneagram helps get to that, of course, as well.

You want to talk about that now?

Sure.

What do you want to know about it?

Okay.

So let me introduce it.

So Karl wrote a dissertation for one of your degrees called Using Enneagrams to Help Organizations Attract, Motivate, and Retain Their Employees.

I had to look it up.

Wikipedia says it defines nine personality types.

Tell me what it is and how you use it in these nine types in your work.

Yeah.

So it is called the, and so the enneagram is considered a personality typing system, but it's really about motivation.

So each human being, each one of us, has a drive that is related to one of these nine core motivators that human beings have.

And it's something that drives us for our entire lives.

We were born with it.

It's ingrained in us in our childhood.

We consider it a survival strategy, and we look at the world through that lens, and we behave according to these motivations or these understandings of how the world is.

And there are eight other different types out there, other perspectives, eight other perspectives.

But we have our own and we think, expect that other people also look at the world through that same lens.

And that's where-

But they don't.

There's eight other types.

Exactly.

So once we realize, okay, this is mine.

Oh, and there are others.

Okay, great.

There are others.

Let's then find out, how do I work with these others?

Like, first of all, what are the others?

And how do I work with them?

Do they-

maybe they even have some validity in what they're seeing, that maybe I'm missing.

Maybe my way of looking at the world is missing a couple extra things because they can see something I can't.

So how can I then integrate that?

First of all, understand it.

Empathize with it.

And then integrate it into my own world view so that my world view becomes more robust and actually more accurate because you're seeing the reality as opposed to just the interpretation based on that one world view that you're looking at.

So when you integrate those other eight world views, you really have the full picture of what's going on.

And now imagine that I'm trying to add some app like a Star Trek tool.

Can you scan that person?

Tell me what type they are.

And then, okay, here's the flowchart, how you motivate, respond, work with them.

Yes.

It does remind me of how if you get the, sometimes a person who knows the least bit of technical stuff in the same room as a melting pot.

People come up with different ideas you haven't thought of as the engineer.

Exactly, because they have a different perspective.

They have a different perspective, and that's exactly what we're talking about.

So unfortunately, we don't have one of those scanners, or Star Trek scanners, or strike orders, or whatever they call them.

You have to have a conversation with the person, and hopefully they will understand it as well, or you can ask questions to help find out what really drives them, or how they may be looking at the world differently than you do.

And it's actually really, really simple.

So there are nine of them, but you can break them up into three sets of three.

And if you think about it, three of them align with thinking styles, three of them align with feeling styles, and three of them align with action styles.

So each human being is going to be using one of the three action styles, one of the three thinking styles, and one of the three feeling styles.

And one of those that they align with is going to be their core motivation as well.

So I don't know if you want me to run through them.

Well, let's take I'm a thinker.

Thinking styles.

Thinking style.

I was with an action person.

I'm guessing that means they just want to do it.

Let's not think about it.

Let's just do something, like get started, right?

But you take action to that, right?

Oh, sure.

After I consider, okay, what might be the solution to the problem?

Yeah, right.

What's an example of action in the feeling type?

So, okay, so it really depends.

So let's let's say, so every single person is going to have an action style, a feeling style, and a thinking style, even if it's not, and one of those is going to be their core motivation in addition to being that style in that center.

And you're absolutely right.

If you have the same style as somebody else, you're going to understand them better, right?

Well, you might be stuck in the room, not get anything done.

If I was with another thinker, he might just think all day until, like you said, the action guy, okay, can we do something now?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But so let's just say your thinking styles are the same, but your core motivation is in the thinking center, but the other person's core motivation is in the action center.

Even though they have the same thinking style you do, they also are more driven to action.

Oh, actually, I'm driven, motivated by action.

I actually would like, can we just do something?

I just think about it first.

Think before you cross the street, look both ways.

Yeah.

And that's what we should be doing, right?

We really should be thinking before we jumping into action because we want to make sure that we're taking the right action.

So the thinking styles are one of three.

So there's one that's very objective, taking the good, the bad, the ugly, looking at it, making it make sense, creating models, creating frameworks that will predict what may happen.

Because they want to make sure that they don't look foolish.

They want to be ready for whatever may happen, so they won't look foolish.

They want to have the knowledge.

They want to have the wisdom.

They're really collecting the data.

I'm not that kind of thinker.

I know the types.

I'm like, can we just run the experiment?

How many times are we going to design the experiment?

We never run the experiment.

We're never going to have any more data to actually analyze.

Right.

Stuck in that thinking.

Yeah.

So it could be.

That could be analysis paralysis if they don't then move on to the action style.

So that was the objective one.

That's type five, the observer or analyst.

Then there is a style that's more about worst-case scenario planning.

They don't see objectively.

They see the worst case.

They see, oh, there's a danger.

Oh, this could happen.

We didn't take that into consideration.

Right.

And it's not that they're trying to throw monkey wrenches into the project.

They're just, they want the project to succeed and they want to make sure that the project is successful by taking into consideration these things that could happen.

So we can have plans for them and then put them into action if that actually does happen.

Like the Titanic.

Yeah.

Too many plans and oops, one oops.

Yeah.

They didn't take other things into consideration.

So objective is the five.

The worst case scenario planning, which is loyal skeptic, is the type six.

And then the next one is the seven, which is the positive outlook.

So it's very much about vision and opportunity and freedom to choose and excitement and positive outcomes.

So really looking at the best case scenario.

What's the best case?

We don't have to worry about anything else.

The best case, we'll just go towards that.

It'll happen.

Like a manic depressive, a manic.

Probably on the manic side.

Yes.

On the manic side.

Yes.

Yeah.

So those are the three different thinking styles.

So people will either be very objective, people will either plan for the worst-case scenario, or they might always be looking at the positive, and basically discount the other stuff that could be coming into play.

So how do we get them to work together then?

Well, you want to work together, because you need.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah.

How do you get them to work together?

So by having them realize that those three styles are necessary.

Oh, just by having them understand that we are different, which is like your book.

You have this book, Nina and the Really, Really Tough Decisions.

Right.

And it won an award and it's available in several languages.

You also speak several languages, I think.

Yeah.

The cover makes it look like a children's book at first.

And then I read the subtitle, An Introduction to the Enneagram Through the Lens of Decision-Making for Children and Adults.

And it says, Nina meets with each of her eight friends to ask advice how to make, how they make decisions so she can make better decisions.

And it's designed to teach you about different personality types.

How bringing them all together is better than, yeah.

So you're absolutely right.

It's first of all, understanding which lens or perspective you're taking in, in this case, thinking style, and then realizing that, oh, hold on a second.

I'm not taking into consideration these other two that are also equally valid.

How do I access that?

Or how can I work with someone who already looks through the world through that lens?

Because we need that information.

We need that, like you said in the earlier example of bringing in the technical engineer and then the user who doesn't know how to use it.

You get that other perspective.

You need that other perspective, and that's how you create a better product that's more applicable to your audience.

Now, how do you, if you and I know this, and I go to work or any situation, I have two other people, they're in two other mindsets.

Yeah.

I realize I need to work with these people to really make the best thing happen.

How after I work with them for a while, do I really, I can't expect them to come on board and understand what I know about enneagrams.

Right.

What if they stuck still?

What if argument of conflict?

What are some tips like how to resolve conflict?

Yeah.

Meaning really it's just angst amongst the group now.

I understand I need to work with you guys, but we're not getting anywhere now.

I've been working with you for a while.

We're in conflict.

How do we resolve that?

So it's basically the exact same steps we already took.

It's finding out this is the way I'm looking at the problem.

How are you looking at it?

What lens are you using?

What perspective are you using?

So you're seeing it differently.

Or remember the whole elephant?

The whole elephant and people are going and they're saying, oh, I feel the trunk.

So this is it's a snake or whatever.

Oh, I feel the leg of it, but it's a tree.

But there's a whole analogy like these people are blindfolded and they have an elephant in front of them.

But each of them is looking or feeling or perceiving the elephant from a different angle or a different perspective, and they don't see the whole picture.

So the person that's feeling the leg thinks, oh, this is a tree.

It's a giant trunk.

It's a trunk of a tree, right?

The person that's sensing the, I don't know if it was the tail or the trunk, is saying, oh, it's a snake.

It's probably the tail.

So but they're looking at it from different perspectives.

So if we just communicate and we just ask, like, tell me how you're looking at it.

What angle are you taking on this?

What do you see when you're looking at this problem or challenge?

I'll tell you what I see.

Let's add it together.

What do you see?

The third person.

What do you see?

The fourth person.

What the fifth person see?

How do we then bring all these perspectives together?

We already know what the North Star is.

We know we have to solve this problem.

We know we're doing this because we need to create a product or solve a need or whatever it is.

So we know what the North Star is or the true North.

Does it help if you ask first, at first say, tell me how you see this, then I will tell you how I see it?

Let the other person go first?

Absolutely.

Because so from emotional intelligence perspective, you already know how you think about it.

You're already thinking, I'm seeing this.

It's a trunk.

It's a tree.

I'm looking at a tree, but it's not.

And they're saying, they're feeling and saying, it's not a tree, it's something else.

So you already know it's a tree or you think it's a tree.

And then you say, tell me, what do you see?

Right.

And you don't have to tell them what you see, unless they ask you.

Ideally, they're going to ask you because they're going to want to engage with you and also.

That might actually help me.

If I'd answered first, better for my answer to make me look smarter.

You see, I'm going this, Karl.

I get their answer first.

I'm the thinker.

I process it.

I make my answer better.

Here's what I think.

I think there's a trunk and a tree, and I think we should go climb the tree or whatever.

I didn't know about it before.

You just told me.

Now I know both.

Exactly.

And you know what?

That's not it, though, because then you need a third input and a fourth input, as many inputs as possible.

Then I'm going to go last.

I'll ask for everybody's input first.

Some people do that.

That's a strategy that they take, right?

And then they take the whole system and they put it all together and they say, okay, this all makes sense.

I now understand everyone's different point of view.

This is what it all has in common.

This is if we put it all together, this is what we have that we're working with.

So that is totally, I mean, some leaders do that.

Some people who are leaders don't want to give the answer themselves because, A, they may not know it, but B, the reality is just like you said earlier, the more people that you have involved with different perspectives, the better the answer is going to be.

Also, there's bias.

If I am the leader or if I'm Einstein, and Einstein were to tell you first, he thinks about the theory of relativity, you're never going to have your own thought because you're always going to think, I got to top that or stay in line with that because he knows what he's talking about.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So it's really, so it's engaging other people and finding out their perspective, just asking them, it's really being in conversation and relationship with them to figure out what is it that they see, how do they see it, and how can you make it make sense along with your own thinking if it's different?

How can you integrate that, that diversity of thought and diversity of perspective?

How can you use it to integrate it on and have a much better understanding of the total situation?

And all this is programmed into your Karl AI app somehow.

It is.

It is.

I was going to ask you if we could test drive it with me, but I think it would take too long for me to become familiar with it.

Just-

If you want.

So tomorrow, I'm actually doing a demo where people who can log in and dial in to the Zoom call, which I have an Amigo AI is going to be on it with me, allowing the participants to do a test drive of it.

So if you want, I can get you that information tomorrow.

That would be great.

It's tomorrow, 10 a.m.

Pacific time.

I'd love to participate.

So on your website, there's the test to do to see what your personality type is.

You're an Enneagram and it will send you a report.

There's also one for relationships.

Here we're talking about intimate relationships.

Couples report.

Yeah.

Couples report.

Tell me about the couples report.

Well, so the test is through a company called Integrative Enneagram Solutions.

They're based out of South Africa, and Dirk Colotte is the creator of this.

And it really is the most valid instrument to be able to tell you not only your core type, but your subtype and how much of each of the other styles you have within you as well.

And there's so many different variables.

So you have all this information.

You take the test, you have all this information, you know what your style is.

The couples report was created out.

It came second, or actually not even second, because they did a team report too.

So the team report is you're on a team of five, 10, 20 people, however many it is.

You each take the Enneagram report when all of your data is aggregated.

When you come together.

Oh, nice.

I didn't know that.

I was wondering how if I know your material, how I'm going to go to work and use any of this.

Yeah.

So you do a team report.

Oh, perfect.

I get it.

And then you know what Joe and Sally are and what you are.

Not only do you get to know what their styles are, not only their core type, but also all the different thinking, feeling, action styles.

Then you also figure out that when this team comes together, based on all of this, on the results that were given to us, you come out as a type five team or six team or whatever it is, or maybe an eight type eight team, meaning all of these energies are enhanced when you're all brought together.

Whether it's your primary or secondary or tertiary or whatever it is, this is what gets enhanced and bubbles up.

I'm not following you what gets enhanced.

We know what each other's types are.

What's the enhancement part?

So let's say, let's use a practical example.

How many people are in your team?

Five.

Okay.

Five people on your team.

Let's just say you have someone who's a type one, someone who's a type three, someone who's a type five, someone who's a type seven, and someone who's a type nine.

So we got all odd numbers.

We should put all odd numbers just to make it different.

Out of all of your data, your highest score is going to be your core type.

So I'm just going to...

What's core type mean?

Your core type is your core motivation.

This is what motivates you throughout your entire life, and it's going to reside in one of those three centers.

It's either going to be a thinking style, a feeling style, or an action style.

So I'm just going to make this up.

Totally.

It's just because let's say one, type one.

So type one is the perfectionist or reformer, always looking to fix things, to make things right.

What's the right thing to do in this situation?

And it's an action style as well.

So you have one person who's a type one.

However, the type three, their second highest score, their second highest energy, even though the type three was their highest energy, that's why they're a type three, their second highest energy was type one.

Okay, which is kind of this is kind of almost like astrology a little bit.

You got your moon and Saturn in yours or something like that, which means you're not that sign, but you have some of this in your sign in that house or something like that.

We have all of them, but we do have all of them.

So that's the difference with the astrologies.

We have every single one of these energies within us.

It's just that some of them are higher than others.

And we're not as aware of the others unless we focus on it because it is within us.

So there's some that are dominant for us and we just are comfortable with it.

It's our default.

There are higher accessibility and others that are lower accessibility, but they're still within us.

And we can become more complete by focusing on the ones that are the lower scores.

So the team report will say, oh, even though you have five people and each of them is a different style, when you all come together, you're actually a Type 1 team because the Type 1 energy is so strong in everyone, even if it's not their primary, maybe it's their secondary or their tertiary or whatever.

And that's the one that gets enhanced.

And that's the one that comes out as you are a Type 1 team when you all come together.

I see.

And then what do you do with that?

So yeah, so you can identify the strengths, and it also has blind spots.

So the strengths would be, oh, they're very highly attentive to detail, they're very highly attentive to quality, they really are focused on the mission, and they know exactly what to do because they put things through the rubric of what are the rules here, what's the right thing to do according to our values, and this is what we're going to do.

However, there may be a problem with not including stakeholders or relationship management.

So how do we make sure that that doesn't become an issue?

Knowing that this could be a blind spot or it may not be.

Letting us know our weaknesses so we can pay attention to them.

Exactly.

Be aware of them.

And you always get the opportunity to say, this is an issue.

This is not as much of an issue.

This is an issue.

So these are our top two or three things.

So let's make sure that we put in some sort of engagement rules that help us to remind us to focus on.

Kind of like going to your doctor, find out you're diabetic and go, yeah, you need to watch your sugar intake.

Exactly.

And then you'll think better and you'll just work better.

Yeah.

That's a great analogy.

Absolutely.

You're also a photographer.

Yeah, I am.

You're the second guest I've had on in a while, that is doing something really professional, outstanding, and you look at their website, and he was a musician.

He's actually had a record deal when he was younger.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, right.

But there's two things, the reasons I bring this up.

What's that?

I'm a musician too.

I actually.

Okay.

Yeah.

So two things.

One, your pictures are great.

I looked at your Instagram.

Thank you.

And you didn't just put I'm a photographer up just because you want to be a photographer.

I mean, you have some authenticity behind it.

But also it's admirable because it's authentic.

Like this other person was saying, it's who I am.

It's part of my story.

Yeah.

And you can see what catches my eye, what's important.

You can see my values through my photography.

You can see what I feel is what I find to be beautiful.

I focus on nature and architecture mostly.

Yeah.

Funny, you should ask.

So photography has always been a hobby of mine from grade school.

And I love taking pictures, and I just put them out in the world.

I put them in Instagram, I put them on Facebook, people like them, and I've always complimented me on them.

So I thought, well, how, they're just out there.

How can I make this a little bit more focused on helping people as opposed to it's just on Facebook or on Instagram or whatever, where people can randomly run across them?

So on my website, I actually put a new tab on photography, and I decided, wouldn't it make sense when you're coaching someone and they say, I have this goal, I have to remember this, how do I sustain this focus on what I'm choosing to develop?

If they chose a picture that's meaningful to them of what that development goal is, rather than having a little sticky on your laptop or an email reminder or calendar reminder that pops up that tells you to meditate or whatever it is, wouldn't it be great if they had a picture that they could put in their house or they could put it in their screensaver or on their phone or whatever it is, that that's the reminder, that's the constant reminder.

It's kind of like a personnel.

Is there some association you ever noticed between the pictures people choose and the personality types?

Sometimes.

There's one, one exercise that I do in team workshops where I have pictures of lenses, of glass, like glasses, and the lenses are different colors, and the rims are different, the frames are different.

And so different people tend to be attracted to different, different enneagram types that tend to be attracted to different lenses and esthetics.

So yes, I do see that.

So the posting of the picture, tell me more about it.

It's is it just it's to remind them or it's a feeling they associate with that picture of feeling?

It's both.

Whatever it means to them, so they select whichever of the pictures that they want.

And I have it in different categories, like if you're having trouble with boundaries, if you're having trouble with relaxing, if you're having trouble with relationship, all the different elements that they might be working on or including others or creating relationships.

There could be bridges that they want to look at.

I want to need a bridge.

I need a bridge to remind me to bridge these gaps or bridge these relationships or whatever it is.

Yeah.

It be doors or portals or windows that can help them with boundaries and can they open?

Can they be shut?

Or what is it needs to happen here?

Do you ever find that when you took the picture, you have one type of feeling, maybe like euphoria or wonder or sadness?

Yeah.

And then they actually have a different one?

Yes, absolutely.

Because it's different for different people.

Right.

And what's the beauty of art?

People interpret it.

It's very, very subjective.

So you don't ask them what they feel or think on this.

You just take it because I don't want to break it.

I don't want to ruin your picture for you by telling you what it means for me.

Oh, no, I wouldn't tell them what it means for me.

It's what it means for them.

I will ask them what it means for them, but I will not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's their interpretation and what makes it meaningful to them.

So your company is Perform and Function, right?

Yes.

Management consulting firm.

What is a common problem people come to you?

Like what's a typical day?

A typical new client.

So it depends.

It can start either from an executive coaching relationship where someone's either promoted into a new role, and now they're a CEO or a chief of staff, and they have not been in that position before, and they want to be successful.

So how can they make sure that they focus on the right things to be successful in that role?

Back to what we were talking about originally with having an app to help you out.

In the meantime, you didn't get the training you should have had before they promoted you.

Exactly.

And a lot of times, especially now, there are many more people reporting into one leader, and the leader doesn't have time to work with them or develop them or focus on their training.

Or doesn't want to.

I had one boss explain to me, a middle boss, that the bigger boss doesn't want to manage people.

Yeah.

He wants to lead the company.

He doesn't want to micromanage people.

That's why I'm your manager.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And a lot of times I'm brought in because they don't have the time or even know how to do it.

Sometimes they don't even know how to do it, right?

They may not like doing it.

They don't have time to do it.

Now they're given an additional role.

Now they have two leadership roles as supposed to the one that they had before.

They have more people reporting to them.

So they need someone to be there to help make sure that the person is successful.

So what's the first thing you do with them?

Have them take the test to see what type they are.

Sometimes they've already taken it, and that's why they've reached out to me because they know that I use the Enneagram in my coaching.

Or if they haven't done that, then yeah, and especially if it's a team.

So the other way, the other entry point is going in and doing a team building.

So someone reaches out to me and says, we need to do a team building.

We're having some issues, or it's just our end of year thing or whatever we're doing.

We want a team building and we've heard the Enneagram is the best way and the best solution that really gets in deep and is going to help us.

So once I do that, then different coaching engagements can result from that.

Or I come in and then the leader says, yeah, let's do this with the entire team, because I see the value in it.

And now they get the training as well as a team and they all know how to work together better.

And then again, executive coaching sessions can come out individually from the people on that team.

I can definitely see the value of starting with the whole team.

So I understand everybody else's type as well as mine.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Some people, when I was doing the Wikipedia to see what this term means exactly, think that Enneagram is pseudoscience because it can't not be tested scientifically.

Whatever that means, scientifically is also a definition.

What does it mean?

Yeah.

So some say it has no reliability or validity.

What's your experience with that?

So I hired a statistician.

I'm not a statistician myself.

I hired a statistician when I did my PhD thesis.

And I said, here, I've done this survey.

I've gotten all these different people's input.

They know what their Enneagram type is.

They answered my questions.

I have all these different hypotheses about related based on the Enneagram, that this is why they decided to join an organization.

This is why they decided to stay with an organization.

This is why they decided to leave an organization.

I want to see if that's related to the Enneagram.

So Alan Bostrom was his name.

He's in San Francisco.

And he did all this different Cronbach's alpha analysis and everything that he did on there.

And he said, yeah, this is a disparate system.

So these nine constructs, they have constructability, they're totally separate constructs.

They do exist separately of each other.

There's not an overlap.

There's not.

So he used his statistical methods to prove that these nine constructs do exist, that they are valid.

And for the people that are questioning it, I say, find out, try it out for yourself, because...

How did they find out there were nine and not 10 or seven or eight?

That's...

It's ancient.

It's actually an ancient model.

It's traced back.

The symbol itself is a Sufi symbol.

And...

But you see the concepts of the Enneagram in the pyramids of Egypt.

You see it actually in the Odysseus' travels.

I did not read far enough in Wikipedia, apparently.

This is...

This is fascinating.

Yeah.

If you read the Odyssey, the nine lands that are visited by Odysseus are the nine Enneagram types in order.

Oh, a story like the Parabell to do...

Look kind of like your book.

Exactly.

So it's ancient.

And people go and tour.

There are tours in Egypt where you see all the different symbolism.

That's enough for me, at least to respect that it has some solid foundation.

It's just...

It's old.

It's old.

It's ancient.

Unless you're going and doing graffiti on the pyramids, which I doubt is the...

No.

You don't want to do that.

It would be nice if they left us more about it.

Yeah.

How it works.

So is there anything we haven't talked about, Karl, that you'd like to mention or add you think is important for people to understand about this stuff?

Well, we talked about the thinking styles.

We didn't really mention the action or the feeling styles.

And I just want to really quickly talk about those because that may resonate with some other people on the call, on the podcast.

So the feeling styles, again, remember, we all have these.

Even though you might consider yourself a thinker, you still feel and you still speak action.

So the feeling styles are the type 2 is the helper or giver, very considerate and very intuitive about other people's needs, putting other people's needs before their own.

So they're always helping other people.

So they have an intuition of what other people need, and they actually jump in and help them in order to be liked.

The 3 is the performer.

So even though they do feel, they push down those feelings because they need to perform, they need to achieve, they need to know, I need the eyes on the prize, I need to achieve this goal, feelings get in the way, I'm not going to deal with feelings.

I get that they're there, but I'm not dealing with them.

And then the type 4, and that's the performer or achiever.

And the type 4 is the more empathic.

So they are the artists, the creatives.

They're very introspective and they're very emotional.

They feel, they empathize, they feel their own feelings, they feel everyone else's feelings as well.

So everything is brought internally.

So if you think about it, the 2s are always externally focused on their feelings, the 4s are always internally focused on their feelings.

And the 3s are, yeah, there's feelings, but I'm going external and I'm going to achieve.

So each one of us uses one of those 3 styles or flavors for our feeling, when we access our hearts and our feelings.

So for you, I don't know if you decided on a thinking style, but have you decided on a feeling style?

I definitely have feelings.

I'm sensitive, I'm highly sensitive, intuitive, also highly logical, which is-

It can be and, it doesn't have to be an or, it can be an and.

I'm not following you.

I have all of the above and I take action.

Yeah.

No, no, the action isn't even part of this yet.

Okay.

So the action is the next triad that we're going to talk about.

So yeah, so if you do all 3 of those, you might want to try on, and as a practitioner, I'm not allowed and I shouldn't be in it, nor do I tell people what their type is.

But try on all of them to see which one fits best.

But if you're really identifying with all of them, I would check the type 4 out because most people would say, no, I'm not the 4 immediately.

So when you say try on, what do you mean by how does that work?

Try on?

You pretend or you focus on one?

Think about it.

Think about like, am I really, am I feeling everything that's going on here?

Am I feeling things are going on with my team, with my partner, with the world?

Am I taking all these in internally?

Oh, I would tell you, I feel first.

I take a moment, I feel, and then somehow I kind of intuitively know good or bad or which direction or something is not right.

And then I think, why?

Or is it me and I'm making it up?

And then I might take action by actually asking somebody, hey, is the building on fire?

Why are y'all panicking?

Or has the boss gone?

Why y'all sleeping?

Like, I have this feeling, but I think that's my eye.

And actually, that's the best sequence, right?

We should all feel first, then we should think, and then we should take action.

And that's the, because a lot of people skip the feeling part.

A lot of people think-

It's, it was Willie Nelson, when he got, when he got not sued, the IRS told him, you know, you owe us $2 million for not paying your taxes, and his bookkeeper did something he didn't know about or accident.

It was an accident.

And what are you going to do?

He's like, what am I going to do?

First, I'm going to think about it for a day.

Or not think, I'm sorry, not think, feel.

He meant first, I'm going to feel what to do.

I'm going to check in, unless how do I feel about it for a day, then I will tell you what I think we should do.

How do I feel about it first?

And then he came up with a brilliant strategy, which was he would pay the IRS by giving a free album, making an album that all the proceeds would go to the IRS.

Oh my God.

And he made a deal with them too.

Doesn't matter how more or less that album makes, you guys can have it all.

You might not make 2 million, but if it makes five, you get it.

Navigate, negotiate.

And of course, he didn't put his best songs on it.

It wasn't in the fine print.

But anyway, so that stuck with me because like instead of getting reactionary, like, okay, everyone get in here, get my attorneys and my accountant.

Heck no, I'm taking the data, just process.

Yeah.

It's the pause.

It's the pause is really important before we take immediate action because that immediate action that we take is just reactive, and it's not necessarily inclusive of all of our faculties.

So making sure that we process our feelings first, then think about like, what is the right thing to do based on the situation?

And then what is the action to be taken?

Then they take that action.

What type are you, Karl?

Um, so I lead.

So we always say I lead with, rather than say I am.

I am is a shortcut, but I lead with is more real because we are all of the nine types, and we can choose to use a different type.

So I lead with type two, which is the helper.

Okay.

Seems appropriate.

You're helping people.

Which then automatically becomes my feeling style because it's in the feeling center.

Then my thinking style.

What does that mean exactly?

How to break it down further from you?

So the helper or giver is always, so the feeling part is I am looking externally to see the needs of other people, and to fulfill those needs, sometimes at the detriment of my own.

So the learning for the type two is put those boundaries in place, make sure you're putting your oxygen mask on first before you put the oxygen mask on other people.

What's a tip for people on how to do that, by the way, boundaries?

What's a simple one?

Yeah.

So the simple itself actually gives you these opportunities because there's a line that every type two, for type two, the type two is connected to the eight.

The eight is great at boundary setting.

So you go to the high side of eight, which also involves boundary setting, and say, first of all, this is what I'm capable of and this is what I need to do for me.

If this is in my remit, of course, I will help you, but I need to take care of my goals first before I can help you.

This is what's good about a team.

I would look at my playbook, my team, and go, oh, so-and-so's got that number eight, that boundary skill.

I'm going to him or her, hey, our team doesn't need anymore work from the big boss or whatever.

We're focusing on this problem.

Can you do whatever you're good at setting boundaries?

Apparently, I might be the leader, the good leadership than if I was the one to initiate that, because hey, maybe you should.

So you could learn, absolutely.

So the learning is, how do you channel that team members' energy?

What if they're gone?

What if they're on vacation or whatever?

How do you channel that?

Because again, we all have those nine styles within us.

It's just remembering that, oh, the eight is really good at setting boundaries.

How do I do that?

If they're not here right now, but like in the book, Nina and the really, really tough decision, if her friends aren't there, she now knows how they think about things.

So she can then, oh yeah, I'm going to access Juan's way of thinking or Kate's way.

She has the Karl app, the Air Karl app.

Exactly.

So what is, in plain English, a simple phrase to remember if you're trying to set boundaries at work or at home?

That's good.

So I think the first thing to do is to say, to check in with yourself and say, am I being, am I honoring myself here or am I giving myself away?

Right?

So are my needs being met?

Do I have my goals met, my needs being met?

And is helping this other person going to continue those needs being met?

Or am I now going to put myself in jeopardy?

Right?

If all my needs are being met, if everything's all taken care of and I have the capacity and the ability and the willingness to do it.

Yes, absolutely.

It's almost like, and there's a big resurgence of this now, the urgent important matrix, the Covey.

I don't know if you're familiar with the Covey or the, so Eisenhower had created this urgent important matrix to decide priorities, right?

So it's a two by two, because of course, if you want to become a millionaire, you create a two by two matrix.

What is it?

Like four box?

Like one, two, three, four?

A four box.

Exactly.

Okay.

So things are highly important or not important, and highly urgent or not urgent.

And important means that they are relevant to the achievement of your goals.

They are relevant to you.

If they're not important, that means they're not relevant to your goal achievement.

They're relevant to somebody else's goal achievement, and they've asked you to do it, right?

And then urgency is, is there a deadline that needs to happen?

It's coming up soon, or there's no deadline.

This is just going on forever, and who cares?

So when you assign all the tasks that you do, and you're asked to do into those quadrants, those four different quadrants, then you see that the ones that are urgent and important, the ones that are coming up soon, they have a deadline, and that only you can do because they're relevant to your goals, those are what you should be focusing on.

If they're urgent because someone else has decided there's a deadline on them and given to you to do, but it's not relevant to your goals, and other people could do them, can you delegate them?

Can you find a way for some other group to do it?

How do you say no?

And that's another boundary setting, right?

The other boundary setting is, okay, I need to meet my urgent and important goals, and by doing this, I'm not going to be able to do that.

You're asking me to do something that's not part of them, and hasn't become part of them, because that's not my scope, and now you're asking me to do it.

So it's very logical.

I could see how you could program it in an app.

You could do that.

Yeah.

I see why Amigo asked you to volunteer to model you.

The downside, I think of, if you got used to using this every day, this technology and you also didn't have it, you'd be like a child, a kindergarten, unable to make a decision because your app, your chat GBT is not asking you, is there a deadline?

How valuable, important is this to you?

Is Sally or Joe able to do it?

As you know, no one asking the questions to give you the answer.

I almost wonder if you'd be able to think for yourself.

The Explicit Expectations training class, though, teaches you the model so that you could then put it through the model.

I mean, it's not going to do the shortcut of just asking these questions.

It's the model.

Go ahead and you put your stuff in this matrix and then figure out for yourself, because you're putting the stuff in there, right?

You're putting in all those tasks and asks in there.

You're learning the process.

Yes.

Not just being asked by the computer questions, you're actually understanding the algorithm, and you're understanding the algorithm.

You're showing how to do it.

Yeah.

And the really cool thing about the Amigo technology is any question that AIR.

Karl asks you, there's a little drop down that says, why is it asking me this question?

Oh, nice.

So you can click on the little down arrow, and it says, it's trying to get to this, it's trying to understand this, it's trying to make a connection, it's bringing in what you said yesterday or whatever.

So you don't get offensive, like, why is he asking me if I went out with her last night again?

Is it judging me?

Does it tell me I shouldn't?

Yeah.

Yeah, go ahead.

I was going to say you can really use this for a lot of different reasons.

The last three that we didn't discuss, so we discussed the thinking and the feeling, and the action styles are eight, nine, and one.

Eight is the boss or director or general, and that's an immediate execution-oriented action style.

Let's jump in and do it.

Let's take action immediately, through others, through the whole team.

Let's get everyone involved.

Let's do it.

Not necessarily thinking first.

High-strung, like high-strung, eight-type, high-strung.

It's definitely type A.

Yeah, it's definitely type A, personality.

It's action-oriented.

Out of the three different action styles, it's the one that takes action the fastest, the soonest.

I'll go to the one next, because the nine is the one that takes it the slowest.

So the type one is the perfectionist or reformer, and they're going to put it through a list of what's the right thing to do.

What are the rules?

What are the ethics?

Thank goodness somebody's considering that, the right thing and the ethics.

Exactly.

So they're going to put it through that rubric first and then take the action that that rubric tells them to take.

So it's not as immediate as the type eight, which is like, oh, this needs to be done.

Let's do it.

The type one is going to say, okay, let's do this.

Well, there's benefits to that too.

It's not just ethically like, oh, let's be goody-two-shoes.

There are a lot of things that will make you, that will help you prevent doing something that makes things worse or has an outcome you didn't predict, another sub problem, another problem you didn't expect.

Right.

So then let's go to the nine though, because that's exactly what the nine does.

The nine looks at the whole system, and the nine doesn't like conflict, and it believes that action, immediate action could create conflict.

So they're like, no, no, no, any action that we take could disrupt the equilibrium of this wonderful system that we have.

So let's just wait a second, hold back, just see what's, you know, see what all the different options are.

Let's wait.

If we do nothing, maybe that'll be okay until they realize, okay, then we need to do something.

So then, so it's the slowest on the uptake to take the action, but it's still an action style because they do take action.

I've done that too.

Maybe it's when you're climbing a mountain and you're waiting for the weather to change and you finally go, well, got to do something, got to stay or go.

Yeah.

You really-

Looking at the whole system, right?

You're looking at the whole system as opposed to maybe the eight would say, no, let's keep going up the mountain.

We have to get up the mountain.

Yeah.

Or the other one's saying, no, let's go home.

It's too dangerous.

Exactly.

Then you're just hanging out and waiting and waiting and hoping for the perfect time of perfect weather window.

Yeah.

Especially if they have a type 6 thinking style, which is worst-case scenario, the danger in it would be like, yeah, let's go home now or strike a camp or something like that.

Though I was almost wondering if there was, I'm completely making this up.

This is like science fiction movie, but it's on the pyramids, you say, in ancient civilizations knew about these nine types.

If maybe, if they had genetically engineered method, ways of actually in a society encouraging the procreation of the nine types in an equal amount such that the society in general would accelerate in terms of development.

Yeah.

Because you have these nine types.

Yeah.

And I don't know if we have an accurate understanding or analysis of what is the percentage.

Is it equally distributed?

Is it an equal distribution of the nine types?

Or is there a preponderance of one type over another?

Because we need to really assess every single person on the planet to figure out what their types are, and then look to see what that distribution is.

So now we're not so much of a closed-knit society.

You know, you have money and you have segregation in the different countries and stuff, and interest and defense and stuff.

So it's not the classic way of evolution in that way.

Anyhow, somebody might have bombed all the eights or ones out of existence accidentally when a weapon hit the wrong country by accident.

You never know.

Different countries, by the way, do have, remember how we said the team reports, like a team comes together and they come up with like a culture of their own, an Enneagram type of their own.

Different countries have Enneagram overlays that are representative of their culture.

Yeah.

And companies do that as well.

I mean, different companies can say, this is a type six company.

I've worked for one company that was very much a type six.

What's type six?

I worked for another company that was a type seven.

What's type six?

Type six is the loyal skeptic, the one the worst case scenario planning, not a little bit more conservative, not risk taking.

Hopefully, that's like Merrill Lynch or a financial planning institution.

It was a clinical diagnostics company.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's probably valid.

What's an example of, did you say there's ones of countries?

Yeah.

So they used to say that the United States was very much a type three country.

So very much about achieve, achieve, achieve, individual achievement.

Right?

And now they're saying that there might be movement for it to be more of a seven, type seven country, which is more about still maybe focused on individual, but it's individual being happy, being taking advantage of opportunities, being more happy go lucky.

So, if I follow you with the individual achievements, are you saying that the achievements are monetary or something, not happy, happy go lucky achievements?

So, for the threes, we usually, the threes usually equate success with money, with monetary achievements.

And the sevens are more about experiences, and diversity of experiences, and just a gluttony of experiences, as experience after experience after experience.

I thought you were going to, that you might be meaning that originally we thought it was for individual achievement.

You know, come to, welcome to America, the dream.

But then you ultimately realize that you have to give it back.

If the country is supposed to stay strong, then you have to work together to make it better.

Like, kind of we take care of you first, and then you contribute.

That would be more of a nine.

That would be much more of a nine-type country.

And Canada is a nine-country type.

Canada is thought to have a nine-culture.

Interesting you say that because I had someone on my show who was talking about immigration, and they used Canada as an example where to apply for immigration legally, they'll ask you what you do, what's your skill, what's your education, what can you bring?

Right.

But you contribute to our society, right?

Not just get in line, take a number, and we'll look at your application.

But yeah, can you contribute?

Yeah.

Absolutely.

And ultimately, that's the goal.

The goal is really for global citizenship, right?

And that's the expansion of our own mindsets to be more system oriented, more thinking about the entire structure and how the ecosystem works and can be sustainable.

And that's a type 9 way of thinking.

Sounds like interesting work you're doing.

I love it.

So last thing, tell me the story on, I was looking today to confirm our meeting, and I was like, well, he's not on that website.

He's not on that website where I find guests.

How did I find him?

Because I know too much about him.

I didn't find him on LinkedIn.

And there was something they posted on my show that said, you know.

Yeah.

So there was a, there's a podcast.

Podcast guest.

Yes.

And where I'm going with this, Karl, is as I found it, I found where you had submitted.

And it talks about in the middle of the pandemic.

The reason people were asking to be a guest is because I told this service.

I'm looking for people who follows, took a big leap and followed their dream.

Yeah.

And apparently that was you, right?

Yeah.

So tell me about that part of your story.

So I've done this a couple of times.

So first of all, I'm, I'm actually Greek.

So my mom is Greek.

I was, I was conceived in Greece.

I was born in New York.

And then when I was two years old, we went back to Greece.

And so I was raised in Greece.

And then back in 1980, we came back to the United States, to New Jersey.

So I have this multicultural stuff going on here, where I had to learn to assimilate all these different cultures and fit in, in fourth grade to transition from being European with a British accent because I've been going to a British private school there to the, you know, the, the not so niceness of the ten-year-olds in fourth grade.

So that was one major transition that I had to navigate.

And then later on, I transit.

Well, the other, the other big thing was coming out as gay.

So that was, I didn't know that I did.

I wouldn't.

I'm so non-judgmental.

Yeah.

Or whatever the word.

It's not even judgmental.

What's the word?

Like, it would be like if I may say, oh, I could see your, what's the other word when you, when your man likes woman or woman like that.

I don't even know how people.

Your heterosexuality or whatever?

I don't even know how people do this to other people.

But yeah.

So that was another big thing because there are societal expectations or illial expectations, and how to navigate that, that ability to just be true to myself at that point.

Then there was another transition coming from, I decided, I don't know why, but I had this pulling, this calling to said, I need to go to California.

I'd only been there once before, and this was with my parents, and we had just been on vacation, and I just felt like California is home.

I just know that that's where I need to be.

Is that your feeling personality, like you're eight, or you're one, or you're seven, or whatever the number is?

Yeah, it's that intuition of the type two, probably.

Yeah.

So it's packing up from New Jersey.

Luckily, I worked for AT&T at the time, and they were headquartered in New Jersey, but they have obviously operations all around the country.

And so I said, if there's ever an opportunity for anything in California, let me know.

I'm happy to relocate out there.

And they did.

They had a big downsizing where they mushed together, I think it was at least three different jobs, and they gave me it.

They put three jobs together.

I said, here, now you get to do this.

So it was awesome, but I didn't know anyone out here.

So I came out to California on my own and had to figure it all out.

Luckily, I did some non-traditional things where normally people would sell their house or whatever and then try to find a way to get to California.

But I knew that California was more expensive, and I found a way to keep my house and rent it through an executive relocation company that would give me a lot more money than just a traditional rental situation would.

Plus, they would be managing it, so it was fantastic.

So that was paying for my mortgage in...

It was paying for that mortgage plus also my mortgage in California.

So it was fantastic because that was the only way I could make it work.

And then really finding my family in the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus.

So I joined the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus.

I was with them for over 20 years.

And really having that structure.

And then just, I guess, my latest big transition was from being from the safety of corporate work, where you have your benefits, you have your bonuses, you have your stock options, all that just...

And if you're not working, you're still getting paid.

Yeah, you take a vacation, you're still getting paid, whatever it is, to saying, you know what?

Again, I'm not being true to myself.

I need to be able to go somewhere where...

And I think I'm looking at it from the standpoint of go where you're appreciated, go where you're recognized, go where you're valued, and not where you're disrespected and just neglected.

So it's really that, that really helps me to help all of these, the variety and diversity of different clients that I have now, as opposed to being an internal where you're given these tasks and goals, but your clients may not want to do them.

So you're like, well, your clients are trying to make a difference in their life.

They're trying to make change, positive change.

Walk the walk.

You've made positive change under difficult circumstances for yourself.

Yeah.

And I think the books are helping making that positive change.

I think that now that clients that I get want that, they're ready for it.

So they're looking for it, as opposed to me trying to force, no, we have to force this initiative that the corporate headquarters wants you to have.

And they're like, we don't want to we have other things to do.

So it's much better being able to work with clients that really want the services and they see the value of the services that you're providing.

So I see, because people come to you, whereas before they would make you do it, or the company would make them work with you, they don't really want to work with you.

Exactly.

And a lot of times also, the internal consultants are not valued as highly as the external consultants are, because the externals have broader perspective, they see other industries, they see other companies, how it works.

So they bring all that with them.

Yeah.

So we bring that with us now.

I mean, I have that, I see that now.

I see all the different industries and companies and organizations that I work with, that all again, very similar challenges that they have, but also very different situations that they're in.

Any last one bit of advice to listeners before I plug your website?

So I think that the only ask that I would have in my cheesy plug to save the world, and world peace, is to get out of our own way.

To get out of our own way, meaning we think things are a certain way.

If we can expand our minds, we can use the Enneagram for that or other systems as well, but I'm a big proponent of the Enneagram, obviously, to understand that it's not just treating the world the way we want to be treated, because that's very introspective and selfish, and it doesn't take into consideration the diversity and needs of everyone else and their perspectives, but to expand that to finding out more about how do they want to be treated?

What are their styles of their preferences in communication, in feeling, in thinking, in taking action, in all these types of things?

And then how can you integrate that knowledge into your own self?

Nice.

His website is performandfunction.com.

That's performandfunction.com.

Karl, thanks so much for being on my show.

Thank you so much, Daniel.

It was a pleasure.

Take care.