Episode 3 - The Teacher and Entrepreneur personality styles

(upbeat music) So welcome back. Today I'm joined by my wife B. And in our last podcast, we shared the team model. And we explained why it was important to know our own personality style and the personality style of others. So today we're gonna do a deep dive and look at two of the four team personality styles. We're gonna look at the teacher and the entrepreneur. In this session, you'll be able to understand how they think, what they value, what their talents are. And with all this together, you'll be able to identify your own personality style a little bit better if you're one of these two. And you'll be able to better identify the entrepreneur personality style or the teacher personality style in others. Now this podcast is always about giving you deep insight and also practical wisdom. So we wanna take it a step further and just point out that for each of the four personality styles, they can be found in any industry or any sector of society and they can function in a range of jobs or roles. But, and this is really important, when we play to our strengths or our natural tendencies, we tend to be happier, we tend to be more engaged, more motivated and this also makes it easier for us to contribute in meaningful and consistent ways in our daily lives. Another benefit of understanding our own personality style is that we tend to feel better about ourselves when we have that greatest sense of self awareness and that positive sense of well-being. It then spills over into our workplace, our workplace relationships. It also spills over into our personal relationships with our friends and family members. In our last podcast, we introduced the team model of personality styles. We explained how T stands for the teacher personality style, E stands for the entrepreneur personality style, A stands for the artist and M stands for the manager personality style. We gave the example of the film industry to show how all four personality styles can be present in any industry. So, the tea personality style, the teacher, will have a natural tendency to work with concepts and ideas. So, they would have a natural ability for maybe script writing. Now, the E or the entrepreneur personality style, they'll be the person who is the producer or they'll have the most natural tendency for that sort of skill set which involves handling resources, involves gaining money to be spending on the production. Now, the A or the artisan personality style, they're the ones who are really skilled at actually bringing the film to life. They'll be the actors, they'll be the cinematographer, they might be the set designers, they might be the wardrobe people, they might be actually creating the sets. So, that is really how one would see the artist personality type in the film industry. And the M or the manager personality style, so that's the person who's really in charge with protecting or organising the people who are involved in this project. So, that's your director, really. It's really important to know what our talents are. We want to know what comes naturally to us, what skills do we have that are often recognised and appreciated by others. And even with our natural talent, it's so important to invest in that talent. We want to make our natural talents as strong as possible. We can do this by taking lessons, like getting coaching, we can get mentoring, online courses, volunteering and also being around people who are really skilled in that natural talent. So, in relation to personality styles, what we're really tuning into is let's say we're trying to find the right career. We're looking at what are the main activities of that particular role. So, to the point that was made earlier, if someone's a teacher, and we will dive into this a bit more, then if they have a role where the main activity plays to their strengths, that will be really positive for them. If someone is an entrepreneur, again, if they have a role where they can really leverage their talents, which hopefully they've invested in so that they also are strengths, then that's when they can be at their best and most productive. Another key thing to bear in mind is that, if I know my personality style, then I can also use my leisure time effectively to hone that skill, which is also something that I often enjoy, find interesting, find motivating as well. So, I'm also developing my talent, investing in my talent, even in my leisure time, but it's something that I enjoy doing. So, it's a positive source of inspiration for me. Now, we'd like to get a little bit more into the specifics of the teacher personality style type. Now, the main motivation for someone with this personality type is to understand the truth. So, teacher personality types have values such as truthfulness and honesty. And it's so important for us to understand the value system of each personality type because it really helps us to understand what's important to people and also how to deal with them. For example, if we're interacting with someone who has a teacher personality style and we've done something wrong, the best thing to do is to be honest and say, "I've made a mistake." You know, we might have a tendency to want to cover up the mistake, but really, if we're dealing with the teacher personality style person, the best thing to do is to admit that we've made a mistake. Because if we don't, and we try to cover up, we're much more likely to lose the trust and respect of the teacher personality type who is someone who really values honesty and truthfulness. So, the teacher personality type has a particular talent of the studying. They love to teach, learn and research. And this is really because they love to analyse knowledge, organise knowledge and convey knowledge. With those of us, if we have this personality style, if we invest in this talent, we'll find that we'll be able to convey knowledge in ways that are unique, accessible and understandable to others. Now, with any talent, there are different ways in which the talent can be applied and it's the same in the case of the teacher personality style. They can be teaching people how to be effective leaders, coaching, mentoring, even guiding people through some personal challenge, such as marriage counselling. But they can actually be in any industry, but they'll do particularly well in roles involving guiding, mentoring or teaching. So, let's take the fashion industry, for example. You can even find a teacher personality style in, let's say, the human resources department, where they'll be found in roles to do with teaching and leading, guiding and mentoring. Or they'll be particularly well-situated if they're doing these kind of roles. It's interesting this point about the teacher personality style in terms of their guiding, mentoring, etc. And I think it's important to note here, that the reason why this is a particular talent is because with a teacher personality style, if they're really doing this, if they've invested in this skill, if they're doing this well, if they're doing this to their capacity, then they're not just giving an opinion. What they're actually doing is that they'll draw upon a lot of information and knowledge that they've brought together. They'll really assimilate or bring that all together. And then what they're giving in terms of guidance is more like a calculation. So, it's taking into account, for example. Let's say that there's an issue between a couple, right? The teacher personality type, if they're really trained, they'll really understand what are the characteristics of both people in the relationship. What exactly is the history? What have they done? What are their triggers? Right? What is the kind of point around human psychology in terms of what makes a relationship work? Having known those particular points, what are the things that these people are not doing that they need to do? For example, in terms of marriage counseling, a teacher personality type may understand, and we talked about this last time, the Dharma of relationships, meaning they may really understand, what are the things that make relationships work? What are the things which make relationships fail? And then, when they're hearing the couple speak, they're figuring out, what did he do or what did the other person do that went against the positive aspects of relationship? So they can see, okay, the damage was done because one partner was very sensitive about their appearance and they came from a background where they were always put down about the way that they looked and then their partner made fun of them so they hit or triggered a wound and that means that the person in the relationship now is very unhappy with their partner. So in essence the the teacher personality style they're able to analyze to calculate huge amounts of information and bring it all together to a conclusion and therefore one of the key skills or key natural talents especially when it's invested by the teacher personality types are the ability to have insight and the ability to have foresight because they're able to really consider carefully to analyze carefully what's going on and to consider okay based upon what's happening now this is how things are likely to turn out. For this reason for example they could also become very capable, very gifted strategic consultants but that's if they really invest in the natural talent that they have. Now there's one thing to point out here and that is it with the teacher personality style it is a rare kind of personality style of the four it's the rarest of the four and it's interesting that with this personality style they can sometimes therefore be overlooked or may not be recognized for their particular talent because they are in that minority space. Now where they do really come into their own is if the environment recognizes those gifts and or if they are able to spend the time and the energy to invest and really bring those gifts out. So let's just make it very real. Imagine you have someone who's very philosophical all the time very analytical always questioning things it may let's be very honest it may sometimes be a bit of a downer for other people because the others may not want to be so introspective about things they just may want to act play do and then you have this dude who just rewants to understand why things are done the way that they are. You know so that may also make them at least in their earlier years oftentimes a little bit socially awkward or unusual until they really understand what the gift is that they have and bring that gift out and be in their own space. Yes do you remember that time a couple of weeks ago we were at a friend's house for lunch and they told us about how they were concerned about their child because he just seemed to be kind of kind of different from the other kids. Now he was very very reserved and really quiet and so we were talking some bit more about the child and they told us their child's approach to a particular task and this really reminded us about the teach personality style and because the teacher personality styles approach the task is to gather information. You know they analyze it and they have some kind of strategy and when they develop their strategy that's when they act that's when they feel confident. So anyway so the friends of ours were telling us about their kid and they're telling us about the childhood past time childhood playtime experience of climbing a wall and the parents observed that other kids would just get to the wall they just immediately try to climb it in various ways and trying to you know work their way up the wall whereas their kid would stand before the wall and he'd wait he would look at the wall and it was like he was actually analyzing the fastest way he could get up the wall and so then after standing before the wall for some time looking at it observing it then he would choose the quickest route of the wall and so when we heard this it was clear to us that this child is very likely to have a teacher best artist so because we could see that there was activity to gather information to develop a strategy and only one such strategy has been developed then one has the confidence to act and I think that's a really important point because oftentimes in the modern society we're talking about being confident having self-esteem but different personality styles feel more empowered and more confident in different ways so with the teacher personality style a lot of their confidence is generated by their understanding so the more that they know they have a clear understanding and clear knowledge of a given situation the more confident that they feel so that confidence is really something that drives them and makes them rock solid but again it's coming because they've really gathered the information properly they've reflected on it properly they've analyzed and evaluated it properly and they've come to conclusions which they are now sure are true so it's interesting point that this gift is not just about the interesting research and bringing information together but there's something in here about being able to weigh up information being able to analyze and evaluate it correctly but of course this is a double-edged sword as well because although the teacher personality style to their nature tend to be quite objective and impartial they can also be then for perceived as being a little bit too blunt sometimes about the truth a little bit too raw about the truth and sometimes they may be perceived as being lacking in emotion because for them it's very much about what's the truth of the situation without necessarily recognizing that the others the emotional aspect and even for the teacher style but just maybe a different degree the emotional aspect is also really important that said because the teacher personality style is really attuned to just knowing the naked truth you'll find that it's it's very easy for them to take a stance if they feel that that's the truth even if that position may be unpopular or maybe not so emotionally satisfying so that's a key strength of the teacher personality type this tuning in to the objective truth and it also makes them quite straightforward in their delivery but they're also by nature the personality type of the teacher by nature tends to be self-reliant the teacher personality style can often come across as very philosophical quite intellectual in the way that they approach things and they may sometimes also appear to be slightly a loof or away from the crowd due to their tendency to be independent minded and very independently thoughtful and this means that they're not necessarily so easily swayed by whatever the current trends are in a given situation and you'll see that especially as they grow older when they're younger then naturally there's also still the dynamic and the tendency of wanting to be accepted by one's peer group but as they grow older you'll tend to find that there's a stronger tendency if they've invested in that gift or if they've matured in a natural way there's a stronger tendency to just want to align with the truth irrespective of what Elfriars is going on one of the things that really helps the teacher personality style to be at their best is when they have time and space to learn regularly to study regularly and also to reflect now reflection is really important because reflection gives them the head space to really assimilate and digest everything that they've been learning and also when they when they do this when they do the reflection especially when they give time intention as well to the skills that they that they have been learning it really helps them to assimilate the knowledge and they can reproduce that knowledge in clear expressive and sometimes very original ways the teacher personality style is particularly skilled at understanding a large volume of information breaking it down into the essential truths and then conveying these essential truths in a way which other people can understand so for example if the teacher personality style was in the role of a doctor they say that they had a patient who came to visit them and they could take all the information about the patient's lifestyle how they're feeling the different symptoms and then they could consider that in light of all the stuff that they learned about medicine to really hone it down and tune into what the exact issue is with the patient's health what the exact cause is and then they could explain that in a way that the patient could easily understand that having to use all the technical terms even though the teacher personality style would know all of those technical terms they could bring all that information together and then explain it in a very simple and clear way and maybe even use a simple example or a metaphor that the patient would understand and the patient like, "Yeah, okay, I get it. I understand what's really going on now." So the main thing that happens when the teacher personality start is not balanced is that they can get into this analysis paralysis where they can end up overthinking a situation and they don't get to the stage where they're actually able to act because they're caught up in this trap of thinking and thinking and basically over-analysing. So a key thing to really highlight is how the teacher personality style does really well in the role in which they're discovering and sharing the truth and the facts. So they really do well in occupations such as the researching and they can be in any field and any industry, but researching, also dealing with ideas, concepts of contemplation. So for example, you know lecturers or scripturiting or other forms of writing, journalism or science and these are areas where they're really able to discuss ideas, especially abstract concepts and to share the conclusions of their analysis. One last thing to mention before we go to the entrepreneur personality type is that with the teacher personality type, one of the things that you'll find is that if they become angry, one thing that can happen is that they can become honest but honest in a way that's brutally honest. So they can actually start saying stuff that they've really picked up before but saying it in an extremely direct way which they know may come across as very strong, very harsh and very cutting to others. At the same time, what's interesting about the teacher personality style is that that type of very harsh speech born of anger. It doesn't come so often because they do have the capacity to be quite tolerant as individuals. So that's also an interesting fact. So what do you think is particularly important to point out about the entrepreneur personality style? Yes, it's a really interesting personality style in of itself and I think there are some misconceptions about the entrepreneur personality style and it's an interesting personality style because compared to the others, the entrepreneur personality style, an individual who has that kind of character or nature, they tend to be more aware of their talents and their gifts at a younger age and there's a very interesting reason for this. So the modern world culture that we live in tends to promote the entrepreneur personality style as a particularly attractive and admirable personality style as a personality style to aspire for. Okay, so what do I mean by this? Let's say that you have a young child in school and it's noticed that that young child has a talent for making a profit for being able to sell goods, for being tactical in terms of figuring out certain trends, for being able to make money, even from an early age. That would often be seen as an admirable trait. Many people would look at that child and think, "Oh, he or she is going to do really well in life because they're able to figure out quickly how to generate a profit, how to promote and sell a particular good or service more than their peers of the same age." So because that particular set of attributes or talents is admired or seen in a very positive light, then the environment, the people around them often, even and not just the people around them, even maybe what they see in the media, etc. in social media, those kinds of images and examples can give us certain kind of encouragement to that particular personality style that what you have is very special and it can give them more motivation to tune into those gifts, to invest in those gifts and to express those particular talents. One interesting example that really stands out for me is Warren Buffett and I remember seeing an interview where he was speaking at how, from a very young age, he was already reading about investing, making investments, etc. So he was already attuned to this and very attuned to the fact that this was something that he wanted to do and this was something that he wanted to focus on. Now, of course, that's not to say that all the different personality styles do not express themselves in some way or to some degree. I mean, they all do, but it's just really to emphasize the fact that the entrepreneurs when they are expressing their ability and the many gifts that they have, this ability to generate a profit, generate gains, that may be particularly attuned or rather that may particularly stand out to others in the environment as a very special gift in that sense. Although, obviously, all the gifts of all the different personality types are special, necessary, and useful for society to run in a positive, progressive and harmonious way. That said, if we look at modern society, we see that this idea of scaling things, this idea of doing things on a very big level, again, is very much promoted. And again, it links to the entrepreneur personality style because one of their gifts is the ability to scale something. So you'll see with very successful business people, many times they may create a franchise. So they may create a particular model for a good, a service, a product, and then they can replicate or mass market that particular project, product, service in many different locations or countries. So by scaling and many other talents, the entrepreneur personality style tend to be very productive. And in many cases, they can be hard working, but they can also work very smartly. So they can find tactical or clever ways to achieve their goal more efficiently than other people. So when we think about that, the sense of being productive, the sense of being able to see trends, which is also another skill of the entrepreneur personality type, they tend to be able to notice patterns. So there's something around pattern recognition, because that helps them to understand, okay, this is moving in this direction, this business, this industry, this service is moving in this direction. And then they can get ahead of that particular trend and take advantage of that trend in order to generate profit and in order to generate outcomes. Now there are literally tens of thousands of online courses, in-person courses, where people talk about how to be an entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial mindset, but in most cases, these particular programs or courses, they've not been able to tune in to some of the essential natural talents of an entrepreneur. Now one of them, and this is really very interesting and very key for us to understand, the entrepreneur has a natural skill, a natural talent for like all reframing. So let's think about this carefully. What connects advertising, marketing, business, and even persuasive communication, right? So these are all areas in which the entrepreneurs can often do really well. What connects them all is the ability to reframe. So what do I mean by this? Let's say that I go to a particular country. And let's say that in that country, I find that one of the products which are made in a certain location are made by local people and are being sold by them for a certain price. The entrepreneur has a natural instinct to see that product and to be able to figure out a situation, another context, another kind of environment in which that same product or that same service will be perceived to be more valuable. So that's actually how you generate profit. Profit means that you take something, whether it's a good, whether it's a service, or whether it's a combination of different goods or services, you take them from one environment or from one situation and you present them in a different situation and different situation may be you present them to a different audience, you present them in a different combination, like you know, different combination of goods and services, it may be that you present them in a different packaging, but you present one thing in a different context, in a different situation in which the same thing is now perceived to be a lot more valuable. And that's how you generate profit. And that's what connects marketing, advertising, communication, business, because it has a lot to do with how I reframe something. So for example, in marketing or advertising, you have the product, but you have a story about it. You have a narrative around it. You have a certain kind of tagline. You have a certain kind of offer, a deal, a discount, whereby more people are going to look at that product or service and think, yes, I'm going to buy it now. It's now more attractive. It's more valuable. It's more desirable. And because of that reason, I'm prepared to spend time and money pursuing that particular product or service. Link to that. When the entrepreneur is doing a deal, he or she is again having a conversation with someone or making a pitch, right? So they're making a pitch for funding. And what they're doing again is the same point. They're explaining how this particular endeavor, this product, this service, if you invest in it, it will be worth a lot more, right? You'll be able to get more out of it than you've put in. For this reason, another key mentality or another key skill or gift of the entrepreneur is what I call the effort to output ratio. Again, this idea of gain, what does gain mean? gain means you pull in one unit of effort and you've got five units of output. So entrepreneurs are very good at working out. Where can I draw the most outcomes? Whether that outcome is profit, whether their outcome is prestige, whatever it is. Where can I draw the most outcome? The most gains while making the least in terms of the effort. So the effort to output ratio of an entrepreneur is very high compared to the other personality styles. So what this means is that for example, if you want to scale something that you're doing, it's very wise to partner or work with someone who has the entrepreneur personality style because they have a natural attunement to scale to quantity. In fact, it's interesting as a contrast with the teacher personality style, their actual focus is more on the quality over the quantity. In fact, let's play it another way. With the teacher personality style, their quantity, their sense of magnitude or scale is actually concentrated in the quality of their output. So it's really a deep quality of their output. Whereas with the entrepreneur, that doesn't mean that the entrepreneur isn't concerned with quality, but they tend to be more concerned with scale and with quantity over quality. So what this means is that while a teacher personality style will tend to be focused on the facts, but the entrepreneur personality style will be tend to focus on the numbers or the outcomes or the gains. Do you remember someone you knew? Some of you knew a few years ago actually, and he was describing something that he used to do during his childhood, and this really reminds us of this entrepreneur personality style. So only he was telling us how when he was a kid, he used to go with his dad to the golf course. And so what he would do is while his dad was playing golf, he used to collect up the golf balls that he saw lying around on the golf course. And then what he'd do is he would go to the front or the entrance of the golf course, and he would sell these discarded golf balls. And then what he did after that to expand his little business, he would get his friends to help him to collect discarded golf balls on the golf course. And then he would collect all these balls, and he would sell them to people who'd come to take off. So when we bring all these points together, we can see that with any particular personality style, they have their own value system. They have their things that they particularly resonate with, things that they particularly find attractive. So the entrepreneur personality style, and this is something that's also general, but particularly with the entrepreneur personality style, they may be naturally attracted to wealth, to the sense that someone has a lot of opulence, a lot of material acquisition or assets, so they have a lot of money. These things can be impressive to the entrepreneur personality style. They may be impressed by the scale of something that can really impress them. They can also be impressed by the prestige of a particular organization company individual. So it's interesting, because in the modern world, people are often talking about having impact. Now, if you really look at that word impact, in most cases, that word is used as another word for scaling something. When people say impact, what do they mean? They affect millions of people. They affect large amounts or large areas of society, so they had "impact". So it's actually the same mentality, the same value system of the entrepreneur, the idea of doing something on a large scale or large quantity. At their best, therefore, entrepreneurs are very capable when it comes to generating profit, generating wealth, but at their best, they'll be doing this in a very ethical way, a very fair way, they'll be using that wealth for the good of society, so they'll be charitable, and they'll be using their profit and their impact to literally make the world a better place. And therefore, you'll see that they'll also be connection to corporate social responsibility. And so the idea is the profit, the enterprise itself, is considerate of the needs of people, considerate of the needs of society, and contributing to the betterment of society. If, however, the entrepreneur personality style, if that gift, or those natural gifts are overplayed or out of balance, then as with any personality style, this can lead to some issues or challenges. So for example, if the entrepreneur personality style isn't in balance, then what tends to happen is because of the focus on outcomes, on gains, on profit, they may minimize ethical means to achieve the gain. So the gain becomes so important that doing it ethically becomes less important. Now of course, the downside is in the long term, the outcomes go down, because by damaging or by, let's say, by misbehaving in their behavior, in their treatment of others, they lose trust, they lose goodwill. When they lose trust and they lose goodwill, then people do not want to do business with them. And therefore, because people do not want to do business with them, which is due to the perception that these people are not ethical, they're not well behaved, they're not fair, then that lack of business, that lack of goodwill, that perceived lack of integrity on the, on the side of the entrepreneur, means that the profit will eventually go down. As no one wants to interact with that particular person, because they see that they can't be trusted in some way, shape or form. So in essence, this is what happens when entrepreneurs are out of balance, they tend to go for profit way over people, or even profit over healthy, fair, and ethical principles. Entrepreneurs are naturally very tactical, that means they're very quick to see an opportunity, quick to see how to efficiently and quickly season an opportunity in a very shrewd way. So that's a natural gift that they have. And when they see something is working, they also have the gift for replicating it by creating some kind of system, some kind of regular process, that means now I know how to generate money in this area, or how to generate profit in this area. I slap a process so it just keeps working for me again and again and again, ideally without me having to put the same amount of effort in on a regular basis. And often this involves being able to persuade other people to work on that particular enterprise and to maintain that particular enterprise on behalf of the entrepreneur. And that can be in the form of employees, it can be through a business partnership, etc. Another contrast between the entrepreneur and the teacher personality style is that while the teacher personality style is very much focused on the accuracy of the truth, on philosophy of the entrepreneur personality style, they really want to know if something works. Meaning, does it generate the gains that we're striving for? That's really a key concern for them. In addition to that, because they do tend to be efficient, because they do tend to be productive, they may naturally find some frustration when they have a necessary loss of profit due to inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of people who are working with them or for them, and this may even, on occasion, lead to some kind of fallout or some type of conflict. That said, entrepreneurs have a real talent for managing resources and the ability to see how best to invest in resources. And those resources also include time. When we talk about effort to output, where best to invest in resources, where best to invest, even in particular relationships, which will in the longer term, or even sometimes earlier than the longer term, generate outcomes or profit or gains that they are striving to achieve. Indeed, an interesting parallel between the teacher personality style and the entrepreneur personality style is where the teacher may tend to be very objective and impartial when it comes to just looking at the at the truth of something. There is some kind of parallel with the entrepreneur who may be very impartial when they're looking at the figures. So is this business making money or not? So it's not a question that they're not looking at it in terms of feelings or sometimes even in terms of the others who involve, but they're just looking at the raw data and deciding, is this business profitable? Is it making money? Is it making the money that we're expecting it to make? Or is there another opportunity to use the time, resources, people, etc to generate more profit in that same time period? It's interesting that another famous example of the entrepreneur personality style was Steve Jobs. So he was very clearly able to see the potential of certain technology trends, at the time, or at various points actually. And then what he did with the Apple iPhone product and even certain things that we used before, so the iPods and different products that were made by Apple, these were all examples of an individual who could see what kinds of goods or services were there, see their potential and bring them together in such a way that they were perceived to be far more attractive, far more valuable, and he actually was able to therefore really drive a powerful trend that many other companies are still to this day contending with. So today we've shared a few key attributes or key characteristics that you can look out for when you're trying to identify the teacher personality style and the entrepreneur personality style. In our next session, we'll be looking at the artist personality style and the monarch or manager personality style. Thank you very much for joining us again. Feel free to follow us on Instagram. Please do share the podcast with your networks, leave us a review, and we look forward to connecting with you again for the next episode. Take care. [BLANK_AUDIO]