Tell me about your vision.
You know, I would just,
I would really love for everyone to just understand
that the things around us don't necessarily,
might not necessarily match who we're meant to be.
And I think that's a big thing.
When you realize that half the population fit
into like one personality pack or group,
I call them packs because I use animals
to signify my personality type.
So that's a lot of people that fit into one pack
and their values and their desires tend to get pushed
on the other half of the population.
I think it's just important.
My vision is that everyone figures out
what truly makes them happy.
So, and as early as possible,
so then they can kind of go towards that
for the rest of their life versus like spending
half our lives pursuing something that we really don't love.
And you know, with that being said,
I think that there's a little bit more of a challenge
with social media.
How does that take place in this personality
and where do you go with that?
You know, it's great.
I had this, I'm just gonna disclose,
I have a student and I always like to ask my students,
if you had, if a genie came out of the bottle
and gave you one wish, what would you wanna be?
And I had a student say, real estate agent.
I'm like, okay, that's great.
Like, I wanna know what you wanna do
because I can help you try to get towards that path, right?
Or go on that path.
And I was like, why do you wanna be a real estate agent?
And she was like, the lifestyle.
I was like, the lifestyle, hmm, what are you talking about?
I'm like, are you watching too much Selling Sunset?
And I think that was a big part of it.
Like, I think in general, she was the personality type
that is really into excitement and visceral sensation.
So something like watching social media
or looking at social media and watching these shows
that really glamorize professions
would have a strong effect on her,
even though I had to break it to her that that's,
come on, that's not really the reality.
But it still doesn't mean
that you can't find an exciting life.
You just gotta go towards that versus like,
chasing these illusions, right?
Absolutely.
And it's so funny you say that, Eric.
I am a real estate agent.
And I'm sitting here like, what?
Like full-time, that's what I am.
I wanted to go like this.
Tell me more.
I'm sorry.
Selling Sunset, I was like, she had to be watching that.
She had to be watching something
that glamorized the field.
So if she is watching right now, slow down, take a look,
read a little bit more.
You know, it's not the sunset or the sunrise.
You know, it's literally
something you definitely have to work at.
And as I speak to most individuals on here
as entrepreneurs and people such as yourself
that are life coaches and authors,
you know, it's this big thing that I realized
that influences not only us as adults,
but children and this idea of what life could be like.
If I must mention, if I can mention,
my 10 year old had saw me reading a book
and it says, the millionaire real estate agent.
And she goes, mom, are you a millionaire?
And I was like, I'm gonna be.
She said, she ran across the house and she's yelling,
mom's a millionaire, mom's gonna be a millionaire.
And so with that being said, I've realized
how our personalities and how the world can influence
what we do and who we are on the inside.
So as you have started with such younger children
and have you had some students all the way through college?
And if so, what changes did you notice?
You know, it really depends on their personality.
I tend to, I would admit that I probably work best
with certain personality types.
And I don't wanna get into all the specifics,
but the personality types that are a little more
soul searching, so obviously something that what I'm bringing
is really appealing to them,
but they don't necessarily know it's appealing
until they hear it.
And then they're like, oh, okay.
It's like, this is great.
You know, so I think I've seen those students
who work with me for a long period of time
and there's nothing more satisfying than, you know,
like let's say 10 years after you stop working
with someone and they text you and you're like,
hey, I just wanna say hi and let you know
that what, you know, all that personality typing
stuff really meant to me
because I really discovered myself.
I have a student who, what they told me,
first thing they told me was for that genie question, right?
Was they're like, I wanna be governor of North Carolina.
And I'm like, that's great.
Cause actually I know where that's going.
Now you might not necessarily get there,
but I definitely know it means that you're on the path.
You know what your direction is
and whether you become governor of North Carolina
or something else within politics, like I get that.
And I've worked with this student throughout
through college and now he's going to Georgetown.
And I think that's, he's on the right path
because he truly knows what he wants.
And I think that's the most important thing.
Absolutely.
That's amazing to hear.
And I love how you help them figure it out, right?
And the way that I'm getting this at your,
your personality is protruding through the camera, right?
I feel a soulfulness in you.
So it's like you're totally easygoing and low.
And with that allows a lot of people that may meet with you
to be able to just calmly figure out their personality.
You know what I mean?
Rather than this, I have to do it
and I have to figure it out now,
or I may not be what I wanna be in the future or even now.
How did you get started?
You know, it's funny, like I was,
I had mentioned my academic background
was in screenwriting and I studied that at UCLA.
But before then I was that same awkward student
that I tend to work with all the time.
Or I would say awkward, I was probably moody.
I guess that might be the same thing.
And so, I felt a little different.
My personality is one of the personality types.
It's not that common.
I mean, but there's a lot.
There's like maybe eight personality types
that are like in 16% of the population,
which is kind of small.
So, you know, you grow up feeling that way
and you're like, oh God, like why are my values different
than other people's values?
Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
And being that way, I read up a lot
on different personality typing systems
and methodologies like MBTI and well,
I guess it's Myers-Briggs and the Neogram.
And I studied those.
And eventually I went to college
for something totally different.
But coming out of that, I realized,
oh, you know, this is really fun to learn about these things.
And I started my own education company at that point.
And that's when I really started using it
and developing my personality typing methodology more.
We saw about a thousand students a year.
So, I would teach my teachers to use it in that realm.
And that's kind of where this all developed from.
That's awesome, and when you work with individuals,
is writing one of the things that you have them do?
Yes, generally that's what I tend to get hired for
at the beginning.
And then I lean into the life coaching quite a bit.
Cause I think life coaching is one of those things that,
you know, I think as we're older, we realize,
oh, this is an important aspect, just like therapy, right?
Everybody should go to therapy.
I mean, who doesn't?
Like it's always helpful.
But I think at a younger age,
especially with parents, they're not necessarily going to say,
oh, this is, I'd rather have my kid learn how to do algebra
or whatever, versus something like this.
When I think it's important
because that's kind of how you get kids on the right path.
You know, like intra and interpersonal intelligence
are so important.
And then I think they're kind of not developed
at an early age because we don't learn that in school.
Absolutely.
So I'm gonna ask, what did you get your degree in?
Oh, you know, I was on an English and screw writing major.
So English, yeah, English you're reading a lot.
I mean, that's essentially what, you know,
I always tell kids like when they do all the character
personality stuff when they're in school,
and when they read books, I'm like, you know,
it's not about knowing what happens to the book
because at the end of your life,
no one's gonna come up to you and say, okay,
I'm gonna test you on all the books you read.
And do you remember what happened in chapter 12 of Moby Dick?
Like no one's gonna care about that stuff.
But I think what's important is
when you're meeting these fictional characters
and these fictional characters are just like real people,
they're really deep, they have feelings,
why do they feel a certain way?
And I think it's learning about them
is helping us learn about ourselves ideally.
But I think a lot of that tends to get lost in school
where, you know, kids are just focused on
remembering what happens in the book,
but it's like, no, understand the people
because that'll help you understand yourself
and the people around you.
Oh, that's never thought a bit like that.
And as I sit here and think about kids
doing book reports, right?
I wonder is that really the focus is the characters
rather than the outcome of the book.
Interesting, never thought about that at all.
What's your why?
Why, oh, that's, you know,
I actually don't necessarily think of why I do things
as much as, as long as it's making me feel good.
And I know that's such a simplistic mode of thought,
but I generally think that if something
is making you feel good while you do it
and time goes quickly while you're doing it,
then I think you got your why already.
Okay, and you know, that's that statement
that's often said to do something
that doesn't make you feel like you're at work
or do something that makes you happy and expand on that.
So I totally get that.
And a lot of people do have this big why.
And so I love the simplicity of that
because it definitely says, you know,
you don't have to necessarily have this big, big why.
And regarding your vision and your methodology
of personality, how many personality types are there?
Or that you-
Yeah, there are 16 types.
And I think a lot of people will be familiar with that
because I think Myers-Briggs has,
not that I think I know, Myers-Briggs has 16 types.
And they are similar to mine,
but I think I've evolved it through my, you know,
not to say experimentation,
but my practical research and observation
with my education company.
And mine focuses more on motivations and desires.
So this is gonna get kind of wonky,
but I find there are four different personality packs.
And each one of those has a core desire.
And then within those personality packs
are four animal personalities.
So four times four is 16.
So if you're within a pack,
you're gonna share a lot more in common
with the animal types within that pack
versus the animal types like in this pack, right?
And I think that's the thing.
It's like, we are similar to people,
but we're also going to be different in our own way.
And I think if you think of like one of the packs,
their main desire is safety and security.
And then another pack,
their main desire is like visceral excitement.
And I think those two things are very like in conflict,
right?
So within the conflict that's gonna happen
with someone who wants to always feel
somewhat comfortable and safe,
and someone who's like,
no, I want like things thrown at me
because it's exciting, you know?
And so animal types within those packs
are gonna relate to each other better.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I get that totally.
With learning the personality,
is there a space or an area
in which yes, you might be that personality,
but you might, there's a certain time or a certain point
in your life that you may shift to a different personality?
I don't believe in shifting or changing.
I do think we grow into better versions
of who we are or worse versions.
I'm always of the, like,
cause I worry because, so the gatherer types,
that's one of the personality packs,
they love safety and security,
and they make about half the population.
So they're the type of person who tells,
let's say the one who likes visceral excitement,
let's say there you have a kid who's,
I call them hunters, right?
So hunters love grabbing things
and doing things within their surroundings.
They love things thrown at them that are different
so they can react to it.
If you have a kid like that,
a gatherer parent would probably say,
like, hey, you know what, you're like that,
but just wait till you get older.
You're gonna wanna settle down
and you're gonna wanna have kids and da, da, da, da, da.
And it's like, well, no, they only think that
because you're a gatherer.
So that's what your natural desire is
for comfort, safety, security,
building a family, building a home.
But a hunter, they, like Hemingway is a hunter,
they will just travel the whole world,
like their whole life,
and have all these different experiences.
And they might have kids, they might not,
they might settle down, they might not,
but whatever they're gonna do,
they're gonna do it not because they wanna feel safe.
They're gonna do it because they wanna feel like
the world is spinning them around.
And I'm not saying either one of those is bad or good.
I think it's just funny to see the influence,
the outside influence from how different personalities
can just assume that that's something that we all want
when it's not.
And you know, what's crazy is as I'm sitting here thinking
about number one, being a business owner,
and then on the other side of that is being a parent,
you just said something that we all have this thought process
of like, oh, you'll settle down, you'll, you know,
we don't ever, and like you said, it's not wrong,
but in my head, I'm like, I know I'm right, right?
Because I'm an adult and I know that I'm right.
But as you just stated, never thinking that that's something
that because they're different, you know what I mean?
And they're okay with being the hunter, right?
And I'm okay with being safe and secure.
And I guess that's another thing,
it's not only social media that presses upon, you know,
a child or a person's personality
or finding out who they are, it's also your parents,
it's also in your home.
So that just sounds challenging to me.
Yeah, you know, I had a cousin
and I've been telling this story quite a bit,
I was talking to my cousin's kid over New Year's
and my cousin's kid is a hunter
and he has just graduated pharmacy school.
And my cousins are both them
or the husband and wife are gatherers.
And they kind of, I don't want to say forced him,
but very strongly encouraged him to go to pharmacy school,
you know, cause pharmacy is a very,
I want to say it's a safe profession that sounds like,
but it is like very steady, you know,
you're going to get your shift, whatever it is.
I know the, when you first start,
the shifts aren't that great, but like,
eventually people love to get that nine to five
or 10 to six shift.
And so I asked my cousin's kid, who's the hunter.
I'm like, okay, now that you graduated,
what do you want to do?
And he's like, I don't know,
as long as it's a job where I don't have to be
in the same place all day long.
And I'm like, I hate to break it to you,
but that is exactly what a pharmacist is going to do.
So I said, hey, maybe you should try
to get into pharmaceutical sales
because that's something where you can go travel.
You can use your experience from pharmacy school.
You can, you're going to have to hustle, but that's okay.
Hunters do not mind hustling, you know,
and you can kind of do the sales aspect.
And he's like, oh, that sounds fun.
He's like, but I don't want to waste the years
that I learned at pharmacy school.
And I was like, well, yeah,
but do you want to waste your life?
You only get one of those
and you don't want to do something you don't want to do.
Right. And I think,
but his parents had a hard time seeing that
because they're gatherers, right?
They're like, wait, no, not the business side.
We want him to do the route that we know
he's going to make money, right?
Or be safe and secure.
I'm like, you know, well, number one,
you can make a lot of money going to the C-suite
on the opposite side, right?
It's just a different experience.
You might have to have years where they're pretty lean
or you might have to have years
where you're really stressed out
because you're trying to make sales
and you're kind of like traveling all over.
But funny thing is hunters don't mind that.
They're not stressed out about that stuff.
They enjoy it.
For them, they're like, wow, this is really fun.
Am I going to do well?
I don't know.
But if I do do well, I'm going to get rewarded.
And that is kind of fun for them.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
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Have an excellent time building out your vision
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