Building Better Developers, Episode 688

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Developer podcast, where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We are in the second part of an interview with Naomi Gora, where we're talking about personalities and business. It's more about the entrepreneur, the owner, the visionary, but making sure that those people that are driving the culture, the ones that are going to be in the business no matter what, essentially, are also aligned personality-wise with the culture that they're building, with the way that they are approaching business. This is something she sort of essentially stumbled upon. I think it's a little bit unique in how she approaches it as far as from a branding, marketing placement of your business kind of approach. We're going to continue talking with Naomi and see where these ideas came from and how maybe you can apply them in your own situation. Here we go back to our conversation. I think that's what we run into is we take it on ourselves. If we're an entrepreneur, if we're starting a business, we take it on ourselves that it's a personal failure as opposed to a I'm not looking at it the right way or I'm not doing it the right way. It's not really a failure as much as it's like, hey, if you would shift gears and instead of following everybody else's rules, follow the rules that are more comfortable for you, then suddenly things start to fall in place a little bit better. Yeah, absolutely. And that just reminds me of especially talking about techie business owners. One of the tools that I use with the personality types is, do you know the E-Myth? The book, the E-Myth, I can't remember the guy that wrote it. I should know this. I've read it a thousand times. Yeah, the E-Myth is like a big book about how we should all run our businesses and there's different roles of business owners. So and what this author said, this was back in like the 70s or whatever, I think it was. A lot of business owners go into a business being the technician. So you go in like if you're a developer, you go in being the developer or if you're a chef, you go in making biscuits. But he says to grow a big business or to grow our business is really big. There's other roles. There's like the managers, the people who manage all the logistics and people and then the visionaries, the people that have the vision of where things are going. And he said to run a business, a big business and for it to be successful, you have to be the visionary and start employing technicians and managers. But what I've actually found is some business personality types don't want to be the visionary. So they're like they've read this book or learnt that this is the way that things should do. And they're like, but I don't want to. And I often find, especially with techie people, is that they often just love the technical stuff of what they do. They're like, I love coding or I love developing. And often with the certain not all the time, not all the time. There are some techie people that don't mind managing people. But I find a lot of the time, managing people is not something that's high on their things that they want to do. But they feel like they sort of have to. But you could actually be a techie business owner and just say, I'm just going to do I'm just going to cut. That's what brings me joy. I want to code, but I'm going I want to build a business that's an asset. So it brings me money as well. But I'm just going to hire someone else to run that. And I'm going to keep my role as being the technician. I don't want to be a manager or visionary. I'll employ people to do that and keep doing my techie stuff. So I think that's where. Yeah. No, go right ahead. Oh, no, I was just saying, I think that's where some of these, you know, the generic business advice or, you know, the business advice out there can be like, this is the way this is what you have to do to run a successful business when it's actually, you know, it's not always the way you can do it the way you want to do it. And I think there's some areas that are. I have to say, but are more acceptable to do that. So everybody knows that, for example, you have to. Yeah, if you have a business with employees, you have to have accounting and payroll and HR and you have to invoice customers and you have to be able to pay cut. You have them take, you know, do accounting and all that kind of stuff. The fulfillment, there's all these little areas of business that everybody knows always as a part of it. And I think it's more acceptable to say, hey, you don't like accounting or don't understand it, but that's OK. You're a business owner. You can outsource that. But I think there's it's a it's almost an aha moment, it feels like for some people to say, oh, wait, I don't have to be the visionary. I can have somebody else go out there and be even the face of the company. They can be out there and doing all of it. And I'm going to go back here and solve my problems or or do the stuff that that got me into this in the first place. The thing that is my special sauce that I add to the to the entire organization. Yeah, absolutely. And that's you know, this is one of the reasons that I've sort of brought in the personality typing is because it actually happened in my own business. I built a business that I wasn't enjoying and was sort of like, how did I how did this happen? Because I'm in branding. And so the natural, you know, what everybody says is the natural progression is you build a brand agency, which I did. But then all I was doing every day was budgets, scope, creep, project management. And I'm like, I got in this to build identities and be creative. And suddenly none of that was in my day. And I was like, what the heck's going on? I hate this. I hate managing time and things. And then, you know, as I started learning the personality types, I was like, oh, this is why. So then I started crafting my own business based on my personality type. And it all became a lot better. So that's and a lot of people do that. They they come into personality types from a personal thing. It's it's how they do personal relationships is that. And I don't think a lot of people have thought about, which is why I have you here, is that I don't think a lot of people thought about taking that personality and applying it to their their job or their business, even though that's a huge portion of our life is whatever our our career is. So did you was it something that you went into that and you were just you like the idea you were, you know, pursuing the idea of the personality types just in a personal sense. And it happened to spill over to business or was something where you were doing it. And you always sort of had that. How do I how do I take my personality and apply it to business kind of thing? A kind of an approach, because it it is something you don't see every day. I don't think people talk about, oh, you're this personality type. So you should do this type of brand or this type of business. Yeah, this. No, you're right. I have not seen it. I don't know if that maybe there is someone out in the world doing it, but I've not seen anybody take the personality types to to running a business. And so the way it happened was it did happen for myself in that I woke up going, I hate this business. I want to get out of it. What's going on? And then I happened upon a podcast about personality types. And I dealt as I delved into it and started hearing more about my type and mentioned the car model. The car model is like the center of the framework that I use, delving into not just the letters like the, you know, the ENTPs or the INTJs. But it's like a model that unlocks that at a deeper level to sort of tell you how you make decisions and how you perceive the world. And as I started learning more about this, about my personality type, all of a sudden, it just became so clear why I was hating my business, because in this car model, I won't. It's a bit complicated to get into. So I don't want to, you know, bore people. But in this car model, we all have a driver. So if you imagine your brain is a four person car, we all have a driver that drives our car. And this is our flow state. Then we have a copilot next to our driver. And this is our growth state. This is where in our business, we can grow the most. Then in the back of our car, we have a 10 year old, which is our I call it our O state. It tricks us, trips us up, and it makes us think we're making good decisions. But actually, where, you know, where we're tricking ourselves, it can be like where we self sabotage ourselves in business. And then on the other side, there's a three year old, which I call our no state. It's like, do not do this for very long. And what I discovered was the no state for my personality type is resource management and logistics and project management. And I was like, oh, my gosh, that's all I do. And it's my no state. No wonder I'm hating my business so much. So just all the bells and whistles started dingy. And I'm like, this is a thing. This is wow. And it helped me reshape my business. And then I started testing it out on my clients to make sure that it was a thing. Yeah. And that's I think that's where people get would a lot of people have been exposed to personality types and tests to some extent. But I think when you do it and you take that extra level in, there's one thing to just be like, oh, I'm an entertainer or I'm an architect or whatever the the the the fundamental thing is. But when you take that step down and you look at what what does that say about me as far as like, what are my blind spots? What are my strengths and my weaknesses? And what are particularly like, is it like the the nose? I think the the things that when you start realizing anybody with this type, whatever your type is, really doesn't like to or is really uncomfortable doing X, whatever X is. And then that, you know, that's that falls in line with you. You're like, oh, wow, you're right. I hate doing that. I don't like doing that. Like you said, like, yeah, my business. No wonder I'm unhappy because it's all what I'm doing is all the stuff I don't like. I think those things are where you really start unlocking being the best version of yourself because you start realizing these are the areas. No matter what somebody says, I really don't want to go into these. But these other areas, this is where I want to go. And in a particularly, I think when you start taking that, beyond your own personality, you realize that there's there's going to be for your your know, there's somebody else that's like, yeah, that is what energizes them. So you go find that person and you say, I hate project management. They say you go find the person. I love it. I could do it all day. You go. Good. You're with me. Come on. Yes, actually, the truth. And we're going on. That's it. And so it's not yet knowing what those things are. And like the back of that car model, what I try and help people do is understand that car model and the passengers in their seats and say just, you know, don't spend too much. If you're running your business from the back seat from too much, you're going to be stressed and unhappy. Whereas if you can get you and whereas, yeah, if you can get yourself into the front seat of the car, when you're in your flow state and your growth state, that's what I call your genius state and where you're most likely to be happy. And sometimes we do have to go into the back seat of our cars. But just knowing what that is. So now if I've got to do a bit of project management, you know, I know not to do too much, but if if it starts getting over the top or there's a period coming up in my business where I just sort of have to. I know now this is going to I'm going to be stressed out during this time and I can take actions to sort of prepare myself for it and and be ready for it so I don't burn out or don't go, oh, I hate my business. I can just go. I know this is just a period for the minute and we can move through it. Yeah, it's a lot easier when you when you're getting in there and you don't feel like this is my business for the rest of life. But it's like this is what I'm going to do because I have to. And then, you know, it's sort of like, I don't know, it'd be like you go work out and exercise so you can have that really good piece of cake afterwards or something like that. Yeah, I'm doing this, but it's it's finite. It'll be over and then I can move on to something else. Yes. And it's going to, you know, I've I've I'm not being forced into it. I have chosen to do it for a specific reason. You know, being knowledgeable of everything. And yeah, like you said, yep, like doing the hard yards at the gym or climbing a mountain, I know it's going to be worth it when I get there. Exactly. Now, with because we're going to go back to the idea of a of a brand and it being, I will say, well suited to the founder or the person that runs the company. Do you do you go into Delvente a little bit about how to take that and apply it to people that that maybe aren't that personality? I mean, because that's obviously your your your your superheros sort of also it's for you, but also your customer. But then there's going to be people that as that team grows out that are are not going to be that personality. But for example, it'd be the kind of idea of like, you know, you hate project management, so maybe you should go look for somebody that loves it. Is that part of what you what you guys get into as you as you delve into really making the brand and the organization work? Yeah. So in terms of like building a team and a culture around the brand. Yeah. So that's a really that's a really interesting point. It's not something I specialize in. So I haven't gone down the route like I work with founders to help them match their personality types out. But in terms of growing a bigger team and a culture, I don't do it so much. But I have found some interesting things that happen like that. So what can happen as we're building a brand? That's just, you know, just like us. What we can do is tend to hire people that are just like us. And then we can sort of get into this echo chamber, I guess, of like lots of you hire lots of little little me's. And then so you bet your business is still a bit unbalanced because you've got you've got a lot of blind spots happening there. But then what can happen is if you consciously and I don't suggest people hire based on personality type, that's been proven to not work so well. But what I do suggest is you can look at your personality type, flip it. So if you flip the opposite letters, you can get an idea of like the things that, you know, someone else might be good at and then test people for those specific things rather than the personality type. But what you can what can happen is when people try to hire people that are the opposite of their type or their brand, is that the culture can sort of reject them. It's like this is a foreign object. Get out. Even though it could possibly be exactly what the business needs. So that's where I do find that, like understanding your type and understanding each other's car models and why people do the things that they do can be really beneficial to to helping create that like balanced culture and everybody understanding each other. So you obviously you you start with the personality type for the the owner, the whoever's the brand decision maker or whatever. Do you then tend to carry that into the entire organization and try to say, hey, why don't you why don't all of you go through, you know, like a personality assessment and so we can talk about how how that works for you or against you, I guess, in each of those situations? Yeah, absolutely. So if so, if so, if the business is just a sole trader, it's just like their their personality type. But if there are multiple founders, what I usually what I usually find is is it's the founders that set the stage, right? You know, like what the founders ideas are or what they love is what trickles down to everybody else. So usually if the founders are there, that's that's the core team of of what works. And I sort of I think of them as a rock band. Right. So, you know, like your Guns N' Roses or Metallica back in the day, you know, I don't know what the big rock bands are now. But generally, I find that in the business personality types, there will be a lead singer that comes out as like the brand voice or the overall brand. So every part of that rock band is important. Like, you know, Guns N' Roses or Metallica couldn't, you know, if it was just the lead singer, they wouldn't they wouldn't be there. They wouldn't exist. But it's the flavor of all of the people melded together that creates the brand. But usually, yes, there's one one voice that that stands out. And sometimes it's the visionary. Sometimes it's the technical person. And usually when I'm interviewing founders, as we go through the process, we we find which of that which of that voice is the strongest voice to lead the brand. Now, have you had situations where they like you come in and it breaks the band up in a sense? Because there's some cases where you have, you know, you get you do get personalities at times that just they don't work together. And you even see that like bands is a good example. As you've you've seen cases where they were they were together and they were OK. But then they went their separate ways and did completely different things and maybe even got, you know, much better known and did more success or more successful separately than they were together. Have you have you been in some of those for you? You come into that that brand discussion and somebody realizes that they're not a good fit for it and they need to like, you'll go find their own brand. Oh, my goodness. Thankfully, no, I have not seen that. Usually I've seen the thing I more often see is once they start to understand each other better, they go, oh, right. So, you know, this is what you're good at. And I'm trying to, you know, sort of get up in your area of genius where really I should just step back and you should be the one that's making the calls on that. So it sort of helped them go, OK, yeah, that's not my area. So I'm going to understand that when we're talking about this thing that you're good at, you've got the final call. And when we're talking about this thing that I'm good at, I've got the final call. But I have seen it happen in with sole traders like so I've had so sole traders or founding business owners where it's just them come to me. And as we go through this business personality process, they have this realization that they hate that they're like, this is not the business I should be running. I don't want to do this anymore. So I've had quite a few. So I had one one business owner. He ran a big skincare company, like an e-commerce business. And we went through this process and he had the realization he's like, I don't want to do this. This isn't my business. And he shut down this big e-commerce business and went and started a yoga business, became a yoga teacher and started a yoga business. So, yeah, that that has happened. And, you know, when it's happening, I sort of I really feel their pain. It's quite a painful thing. But once they, you know, start to follow their dream and what makes them happy, then there it's a lot better. Yeah. And I think that is sometimes you've got to you got to shut that down to to be able to give yourself permission, really, to go do the thing that you that you really want to do. And I think a lot of times and I've heard some of those stories where people had something and they failed and then they switch gears, you know, did something completely different. And they were happier. They were in the long run, they were probably more successful. And if that's more successful, they were at least more happy than they were in the past. So they would say they were more successful because it's, you know, it's not always about the, you know, the biggest customer list or anything like that. Sometimes it's just keeping your sanity and being a happy camper at the end of the day. Yeah, I just wake up liking. Yeah, it's like that. That's it. It's like, also, what is your definition of success? And that's a big thing in the business world as well. So often you can hear that it's, you know, like the six figures, seven figures, build it, grow it. But sometimes, you know, having a little business where you just wake up every day and do something you love can be that's your version of success. And that's OK, too. Yeah. And I think that's it. Yeah, you got to give you got to give yourself permission to do that, is to say that's that's the success for you. It doesn't have to be what everybody else has decided for you. It's what makes what what does your, you know, ideal life look like? And how does that business fit into that? Or if it doesn't, what business would? Would. Yeah. And sometimes I think, you know, when you do start out your business without having an idea of, you know, your business personality type and what you can like, and you've invested so much into it, it can be hard then to pull the pin and go. But, you know, I've invested all this time into it. I can't let it go. But ultimately, if you do, you might be a lot happier in the long run. It's a hard choice. Now, I do want to get back to one thing, because I don't I don't want to eat up too much of your time. I do want to ask one thing as you talked about the idea of founders, particularly when there's more than one founder and them coming together and understanding each other better. Now, when you're building a brand and you've got, you know, with one person, it's easier because you have a personality and sort of the things that that suit that you have that one superhero to deal with. But now do you how do you work it when you've got two or three or, you know, a whole, you know, I can't think of it like the Justice League or whatever of several superheroes that are now working together and trying to figure out what that brand looks like. Yeah, absolutely. It's so interesting. That's actually a really fun thing to do. It's like putting together this personality jigsaw puzzle. And, you know, and like I said, some of them will be, you know, the stronger voice you can you can sort of see as you're talking to the founders, you know, and then looking at their customers, how they're going to connect. So it may be that, you know, the visionary is really loud and like their personality is really loud. But then another founder, they're they're more of a technician. They might be a bit quieter, but they're like they're the research and development person in the business. And the product is like a really technically advanced product. And that's the key competitive element in the marketplace. So you start it's sort of like this dance of matching up the personalities and the product or service and the customers and going, well, how does this all all connect? And it may be that, you know, the technical voice may be a bit stronger. It may be that the excited voice may be a bit stronger. But what I often find in that area is suddenly I'll come up with these personalities and I'm looking at them going, this doesn't fit together. This doesn't this doesn't fit. But that's actually the best place you can be when you get these sort of like brand elements that look like they don't fit together. What it actually creates is a really unique brand, the one that's not going to stand, you know, it's not going to be like, oh, there's another apple. It sort of morphs into its own unique personality by itself. That can be a real competitive advantage because it's not like anything else out there. That's what I'm wondering, as you were describing that, is I'm wondering if that is where you really get an ideal niche for that, for that product, that company is because that they are that that combination of those personalities of those people and how they do, how they work together, then becomes that unique voice that that nobody else can, you know, can touch. And it's only they can get there. And that's you know, that that is it when you go out as your own personality as well, instead of just trying to, you know, win your customers. It can be a competitive, like just a natural competitive advantage because people can't copy that or they can try, but they probably won't do it as well as as you do it. So, yeah, it can create this really strong competitive advantage. I mean, I guess that really that goes back to that whole rock band ideas. There's some that sound have similar sounds and you have somebody out there that has a very unique sound. And it goes back to because they have, you know, they have the right that guitarist and bass player and singer and drummer and keyboard. What all of what all of the stuff is together combines for such a unique sound. And of course, then you add like writing and all that kind of stuff again. So their product is so unique that you know, like that, if you hear you just know that's who they are. And sometimes that's, you know, that works for a product as well, that it's you see it or you see something about it and you just know that, oh, this is that product or these people produced it. Yes, that's such a good point. Like, I'm so happy you touched on that, because so often people think a brand is like a logo or like you said, fonts or colors. But your brand is that like, you know, so if somebody sees a social media post, they should know even before they see the name of the account, that that's your brand. It's like the essence that when you're scrolling through, you go, that's that reminds me of that company. And then you go, oh, yeah, it is them. Like, it's just so you that, you know, you know, when you're scrolling through stuff that your your brand is so strong that it's known before even seeing your logo. That's a that is a perfect, I think, perfect place for us to sort of wrap this up, because I think that's a that is a that's incredibly good nugget, though, is that that really is in your in your brand. I think that's it. That's the best brand is that even if your brand name isn't there, your logo is not there, that it exudes through your your communications or your like you said, your social posts or your commercials or whatever it is that you have that it feels like, oh, that feels like that company. And then you realize, oh, it is because they, you know, they stuck to their brand. Yeah. Yeah. So this has been this been awesome. This is like flown right by. I had a feeling that was the way it was going to be from our initial discussion. And sure enough, it has been. But before we before we let you get back to your day, what is a great way, because I think now everybody listening probably is just excited as we are. Hey, I need to talk to me about how do I find my my niche and my brand? And what's the best way for people to get a hold of you? Yeah, sure. So they can head to my website. So it's brandwhispers.com.au. And on there, I have a free quiz so they can take the free quiz and find out what business personality type is, their business personality type is and get some initial information about what a healthy and happy business is for them. And then, yeah, through that process, like I've got guidebooks for each business personality type. So you can have a look at your guidebook and find out a bit more about your strengths and your stresses, what your brand might look like, how you might want to stack your team. So these guidebooks have got lots of handy hints for how to start shaping your business in a way that really works for you. Wow, that's awesome. And I have to give you extra kudos because I went and took a look at that at that test. And one of the best things about it is it upfront, you say, this is roughly how long it's going to take. I don't know how many times I've gotten into those. And it's sort of it is a lead magnet type of approach or whatever. But you have no idea what your investment is going to be going into it. You don't know if I'm going to take is this a quiz is going to take me two minutes or is it going to take me 10 minutes? And personality ones are the worst of that, where they you keep thinking, OK, I think I'm about done. And it's like, oh, here's another page of questions. And that to me, I've got to recommend to everybody that that's like the best. Go take it just to support that that kind of approach of saying, you know what you're going to get into, you know what your investment's going to be. You have a good idea of what's coming out. And then I love that that it's hey, you're going to get a you're going to get that initial. Here's what you are. But then providing that that's what we talked about, that extra depth of going into that, you know, that booklet of this is where you're going to have blind spots. These are your strengths and your weaknesses and where you can really not just know who you are, but how to apply that. And of course, you know, if you want to actually talk to Naomi, then you've got links for that as well. So you can actually spend some time and get even deeper and have her help you figure out that superhero that is you and how you can take that out into the world and save the world. Yes, exactly. If you would like your brand aligned to your personality type or just, yes, some some strategies on how to apply your business personality type and that guidebook to your business, I do also offer coaching sessions. You know, I've got a brand one on one brand experience where I read your brand. And also, I've got a course that I run twice a year called the hamster cure, which is aimed at helping you get off that hamster wheel and creating a business, you know, reshaping your business into a way that running it in a way that you love. So that the next one of that is happening in October. Excellent. So, oh, good. And this will be out, I'm sure, before before we get to that time frame. So we'll have those links in the show notes. I want to thank you again for your time. This has been this has been a great time. I hope every I hear people standing up and applauding in the background. It's been a good time. Thanks so much, Rob. I really appreciate it. And that will wrap this one up. We will be back next episode with yet another interview, but we're getting close to the end. We're going to break this off and, you know, pause for a little bit on the interviews, catch up on a couple of other topics. Hopefully these things have been very helpful to you, in particular, some of these that we that we may vary a little bit from the the technical approach. But it does go back to the whole why that is something we have found ourselves returning to over and over again, that our goal is not simply to to hustle on our side hustles or to just create stuff as a entrepreneur, that entrepreneur side of us, or even to become simply a better developer for the sake of becoming a better developer. We're not looking at this as something where we should be be doing work for work's sake, essentially. We want to find what our particular niche and our particular happiness and joy come from. And sometimes we've got to step back a little bit and think about, hey, what am I like, what do I like, what are the things that are going to be most suitable for me, such as you would get in a conversation with Naomi, there'll be show links in the show notes for you if you want to go spend some time with her talking about stuff. She is a personality geek in that sense. So if you just want to talk more about Myers-Briggs, MPTI, Enneagram, those kinds of things, was it the car model that she she referred to, those kinds of things. She loves it. So, you know, feel free to drop her line and say, hey, what do you think about this kind of personality assessment or this tool that we're using? And that'll keep both of you busy until you come back for the next episode. So go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week. And we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Nor podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember, just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success.