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Marriage Startup Episode 33
[Intro music]
LESLIE
Welcome to the Marriage Startup Podcast, Episode 33 - Meet the
VALUES. In this episode we take a look at our Inner Matrix VALUES Index
test results to figure out what drives us and our partner.
LAURA
We have a couple community news items, and we have allergies so sorry
about the sniffling.
LESLIE
And potential coughs and stuffiness, and just all around…
LAURA
[chuckles] Luckily it's supposed to snow next week, so it should kill off all
the pollen.
LESLIE
That's such a terrible trade-off. Allergies or snow, allergies or snow.
Anyway, as always we close with what we're going to do for each other this
week.
LAURA
I'm your host, Laura Camacho. I'm the partner in Glimmering, founder of
Wild Goose Guidance, and currently I am adapting to the work-at-home
mom status.
LESLIE
I'm your co-host, Leslie Camacho. I'm the other founder of Glimmering
and the Chief Espresso Officer of the Camacho household, among other
things. I've denied the other things are no longer lesser. They are also
great things.
LAURA
I think the biggest community update we have right now is that some of our
listeners have taken the DISC Profile test that we talked about in the last
episode, and some of them have shared their results with us. It's been
very enlightening for them and really fun for us to see how other people's
relationships look on the graph. I really appreciate getting insight into our
people. It's been really fun, and apparently it's been useful for their
communication already, according to some of the people I've talked to.
LESLIE
Yeah. We're just going to make that a requirement to listen to the show
from now on. We're going to require all our listeners to take the DISC test.
LAURA
I actually have a plan for the DISC test and how it will be a requirement.
Not for podcast listening but for something else we have in plans.
LESLIE
Oh. Oh? Oh! The other thing -
LAURA
Mm-hmm, the other thing.
LESLIE
- that we haven't really talked about yet.
LAURA
Yeah. So anyway -
LESLIE
Ooh, secrets and teasers [laughter].
LAURA
Go take it and see if you can wrangle your partner into taking it. It's really
worth your time.
LESLIE
If this is your first time listening and you're totally lost about what we're
talking about with the DISC Profile thing, this is - I guess it's a Part 2. We
hadn't really talked about doing this as a series but it's sort of turned into
one. We're talking about the DISC Behavioral Assessment Profile, and the
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version we took is on Tony Robbins' site. If you check out Episode 32, the
previous episode to this one, we talk about where you can take it, what our
initial findings were and all that good stuff, and we'll have the link to the test
that we took in today's show as well so you can go take it yourself. It's
really easy, it's free. You'll get on Tony Robbins' mailing list and then you
just unsubscribe, unless you like what he says, in which case don't
[chuckles]. But it's a good one, so yeah, it was really good.
I've heard from some other people too. I know my friend Eric who runs this
awesome branding and development company called Focus Lab, he's
taken DISC Profiles to the extent that he requires their clients to take them
now LAURA
Oh my!
LESLIE
- as part of their pre-sales process. So if they get deep enough in
discussion, he asks that the key people that they interact with take the
DISC assessment test. His pitch is really - I haven't heard him give his
pitch directly, I've only had him describe it to me, but he has them do it as a
way to just - just so they can better understand and better communicate
with the client's project manager, with the client's stakeholders. I think it's a
really awesome idea, actually.
LAURA
Yeah, that's really smart.
LESLIE
So good on you, Eric. He was also the partial inspiration for us doing this
series on DISC Profiles, along with my Haywire team.
LAURA
Cool.
LESLIE
In other news, you wrote a blog post.
LAURA
I did.
LESLIE
Over the weekend, right? Or actually just yesterday -
LAURA
Yeah, yesterday.
LESLIE
You go into a little bit more about what it's like to deal with post-partum
depression and your experience with antidepressants. I don't really want
to give away the blog post so that people go read it, but basically you're
talking about how it really sucks, and it's wonderful at the same time.
Weight gain but still being healthy. Yeah, it's just a hot mess.
LAURA
Yeah. It's just kind of my testimony about my experience. I felt like we've
talked about it on the podcast a fair amount but I haven't put it into writing.
I know that there are people out there who don't actually listen to the
podcast - as hard as that is to believe. There are people in my life who
don't listen and who I really wanted to be real with. We're very real on the
podcast but it's sort of an isolated event still.
LESLIE
In all honesty, I feel like this show has a secondary to it called Startup
Depression.
LAURA
[chuckles] Yeah.
LESLIE
Because every time we talk about our guest depression, our unwelcome
guest depression, it ultimately gets more shares than anything we talk
about, whether it's a podcast or a blog post, and I know depression's a real
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issue in the startup community. Startup here, again we're talking about
anyone who's starting something significant and is trying to put something
new into the world. For us, it's definitely a business focus and LAURA
And our babies, which was the cause for me [chuckles].
LESLIE
Right, but the term is the intersection of life and business because we work
at home. So again, if you're new to the show, that's what we use the term
"startup" for. We're not specifically limiting it to people looking to get
millions of dollars of other people's money to spend, which is venture
capitalist, but that's totally legit and good on you if you do that too. But
yeah, it seems really important that we continue to be honest about that
sort of stuff.
LAURA
Yeah.
LESLIE
Which brings us to the other thing that I feel like I need to mention,
because I know it's impacting me this morning. We're actually recording
ahead of time. We didn't quite get recording on the weekend but we did
outline the show on the weekend like we've been wanting to. So it's
Monday morning we're recording right now, and I got a call from my mom
this morning that my stepbrother Brandon has passed away.
It wasn't entirely unexpected, though everything moved quickly. I don't
think it's fair to my family to really go into details other than it's tragic. It's a
really sad story, and he was beloved by his father and his brother and his
family, and by us. I didn't know him as well as I would have liked to, but I
wanted to mention for the sake of transparency that depression plays a
part in his story too and it certainly impacts our story as well, and it didn't
feel right not mentioning it.
But again, for my extended family's privacy I don't really want to go into it
much more than that, other than our thoughts, prayers and well wishes for
my family are always welcomed and appreciated, especially for my
stepdad. I know that it's hit him really, really hard and he's a really good
man who's in a very, very tough situation again.
It's hard to know how to transition from that. I think what I do want to say
about it is that it just reminds me of the Jim Rohn quote that's been really
motivating me this year - "Don't ask for life to be easier because it's not
going to be". We spent the last week in Portland, which was wonderful, but
then the transition back was - it wasn't hard per se, but it was challenging,
especially getting the kids back into the routine this morning. Then stuff
like this happens on top of everything else and it's hard to know what to
pause.
I have emails I need to write today, several of them really critical. I've
already written one email to a client explaining it, and then how transparent
do I be? With this particular client, I've been working with them for a yearand-a-half so I decided just to write a short paragraph explaining why I'm
not available today. Thankfully the guy I work with on the project, Andre who is awesome, by the way, thank you, Andre - has already stepped in
and helped, and having that support group has proved really good. Same
with our stewards' group and the Haywire crew, so I feel like we've got
really good support when stuff like this happens. I just want to encourage
you to start building your people, finding and building your people, so to
speak, because you just never know what's coming.
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LAURA
Yeah. The other thing is I think that it's very important not to try to
compartmentalize your life so much that you cease appearing like a human
being to the people that you interact with. Even clients. Obviously there's
a line of what is appropriate but everyone has hardship in life, and
everyone tries to tell this story about their lives being perfect and looking
perfect. There's kind of that trend on social media to only highlight the
awesome things.
That's part of the reason I wrote my article about depression, because I
don't want to fall in the trap of even inadvertently making people think that
I'm doing great all the time, and my life is peachy. I don't like complaining
and being a big downer so I try to stay positive, but I think it's also really
important to be human. If you do try to separate all the really gritty stuff of
life from your cool professionalism, you're going to end up feeling really
fragmented, and I don't think that's good for your emotional, mental health.
LESLIE
I think there's a time to be reserved, but that's different than being
fragmented. It's okay to say, "Hey, something's going on." If I hadn't been
working with this client for a year-and-a-half, I would've just said something
like, "I need to take a personal day. I'm sorry about that. My partner
Andre's going to take care of you, you know he's awesome. If I'm needed,
he'll find me, or he'll take care of it." That would've been fine, but with this
particular client I've gotten to know them, they've shared tragedies on their
end to some extent, so we have a real relationship aside from the
professional one, so I felt okay doing that.
But even with my friends, it's hard to know. There's that cliché of, "Hey,
how're you doing?" "Fine, except that my stepbrother passed away and
my family's having an intense time, and it's impacting all the work that I do,
and now I'm not sure what to do with the rest of my day. Does that
cascade into the week? Now I'm feeling overwhelmed, but now I'm off it.
But aside from that, everything's great" [chuckles].
For me, that challenge with being so transparent, particularly for this show,
is simply that we don't want to come off like victims, and I think that's also
really important in why the personal development is so crucial. Because
there's a version of events like this where instead of asking for help, you're
leveraging it as an excuse instead. It'd be really easy to write an email like
that and have that be the excuse for why work doesn't get done, and
instead of actually legitimately using some time away today to get things
right with myself and reset, I could just lose it playing video games or
ignoring it, or do something that isn't actually meaningful or healing to me
or my family.
That happens, and that goes back to our friend Depression. When you just
ignore life then anything becomes an excuse to leverage. Anyway, there's
a long rabbit trail we could go here too but yeah, there's this fine line with
being transparent and establishing real empathy with people that hey,
we're human beings and this happens. Then there's also the dirty, I would
say borderline evil attempt to just leverage tragedy for your own gain, even
if the gain is escapism of some sort, and I know that happens as well. I've
done that in the past too, when I wasn't paying attention. Especially my
early 20s it was easy to do that.
LAURA
Yeah.
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LESLIE
All right. I feel like we got off on a big tangent there, but what we're saying
is you have what it takes. Just stay on this journey that you're going
through, take yourself seriously. I think the last thing I want to say is this to
me is why the order I've established this year for myself is so important.
God, me, family, work, in that order, because if I - I know empirically for
myself that when that order has changed, I'm a lesser person for it and my
impact on the world is lesser, the things that I want to accomplish is lesser.
I don't have the - they just don't have the effect that I would like them to
have. Okay. I think we're done with that.
LAURA
All right.
LESLIE
Anyone else going through things like that this morning, we're with you, we
have your back. You can always email us and share. If you don't have
anyone else to share with and you need us to step in and be a listening
ear, I can't promise how far down that trail we can go to but you can be
sure that if you email us about that sort of stuff, or post, this is a good -
LAURA
According to my VALUES Index, I can go pretty far down that trail
[chuckles].
LESLIE
Yeah, you can. We're happy to empathize with you and share in your
sorrows or hardship. Okay. Now we're really moving on. I think this is
actually a good tie-in to our main topic today, which is the VALUES Index,
which according to our outline I'm also supposed to introduce [chuckles].
LAURA
Thank you.
LESLIE
I'm going to change it up a little bit. I'm going to introduce it but if you can
go over the list?
LAURA
Sure.
LESLIE
Okay. So the Tony Robbins DISC Profile test, we did the Behavioral
Assessment last week. This week is called - the second document you get
from it is called the Inter-Metrics VALUES Index. This is based on a
combination of research by Dr. Edward Spranger and Gordon Allport. The
basic idea is to figure out what drives and motivates you as an individual.
They have spread this out over seven dimensions, which they helpfully call
the Seven Dimensions of VALUE.
It's hard not to just read what they're writing here but really, the purpose
here is to figure out how to utilize the gifts that you have and to understand
the weaknesses you have so that you can do what you'd like to do in this
life. Not just professionally but personally. It's to really help you engage
with yourself, especially in areas that aren't obvious. I'm going to actually
pull from something that I set aside for later, because I think it'll be helpful
here.
Basically, understanding your VALUES and how they help influence your
behavior and action can be considered somewhat of a hidden motivation
because they are not readily observable. Understanding your VALUES
helps to tell you why you prefer to do what you do. I think that's why this
particular thing is so, so powerful. If the other one is a good understanding
of your natural state in terms of your behaviors, the VALUES Index gives
you insights into those non-observable things, the things that you consider
common wisdom or are your blind spots, and puts words and helpful
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suggestions to them, and then you can also share the results with your
partner which is what we're doing today, in an attempt to see how we can
better work with each other. Forget work - better live with each other.
LAURA
Yeah [chuckles].
LESLIE
And then work with each other and all that good stuff. So, Laura, what are
the Seven Dimensions of VALUE that the study covers?
LAURA
The Seven Dimensions of VALUE are Esthetic, which is form, harmony,
beauty and balance; Economic, which refers to money, practical results,
and return on investment; Individualistic, which is your independence and
uniqueness; Political, which covers control, power, influence; Altruistic
which is altruism, service, helping others, probably empathy would be in
there; Regulatory, how you value structure, order and routine; and
Theoretical, which refers to knowledge and understanding.
LESLIE
I think the simplest way to sum this up is that the DISC Profile describes
how you behave. It's a good understanding of how you work out your
values in the world. The VALUES Index describes why you behave that
way.
LAURA
Yes.
LESLIE
All right. That said, why don't we jump into reviewing our profiles and what
stood out to us?
LAURA
Okay.
LESLIE
Why don't you go first?
LAURA
All right. I felt like both of us had mostly pretty average scores. You look at
our little bar chart there and we're kind of hovering above and below the
50th percentile in most of them, but both of us had a couple standouts.
Yours was you were much lower than average in Economic drive - you got
a score of 30, which is not at all surprising [chuckles].
LESLIE
No.
LAURA
Your Political motivation is very high. Now, I had a hard time
understanding - as I was going through taking the test, I had a hard time
with the Politically oriented questions because a lot of them were what we
think of as literally politics. There was lots of "Would you go stand out on a
corner with a sign at a rally?" Oh God, no! I'm way too inverted for that
kind of thing. Crowds scare me. But when you get into what the Political
VALUE actually is, there's a lot more to it, more about leadership and
initiative. While those are attributes that political activists might have, that
particular VALUE in the test is not speaking simply to what we think of as
politics or political activism.
I had a higher than average Political drive, which surprised me. It’s not as
high as yours. But then I have an even higher Altruist drive, which I
thought was a really interesting combination because those sort of seem
like they're at odds with each other, but once I read through the breakdown
of my actual test it really did describe me to a tee [chuckles].
LESLIE
Yeah. I think that's probably a good starting point question, just like we did
with DISC. Do you feel like this really nailed you? Were you able to read
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this and understand, "Oh yeah, this does explain why I am the way I am in
certain situations"?
LAURA
Yes, even in the fact that I have very average scores, because I feel like
I'm a pretty balanced person and I'm able to go back and forth between the
two different extremes pretty easily because I have that middle-of-the-road
kind of scoring. It made sense to me. When I was taking it, it was a
frustrating test because I didn't feel like I was answering the questions
quite accurately enough, but then reading the results I definitely felt like it
was accurate.
LESLIE
I would say for me it really helped understand why there's a big split in who
I am, in how I behave sometimes. For me - you said we both had pretty
average scores but that's not actually true for me. I'm outside the norm on
4 out of the 7, where I'm either above or below the standard deviation from
the norm. For me, it's really weird that I have very strong Theoretical,
Regulatory and Political scores but a low Economic Drive, where
considering how much I focus on business all the time you would think that
a lot of that focus would be on generating revenue.
LAURA
No! No, that doesn't [chuckles] -
LESLIE
And even though I think a lot about it, when it actually comes to deciding
what I'm going to do, how I'm going to do it and who I'm going to do it with,
the revenue generation part is kind of like this thing that has to happen to
make sure the stuff that I really want to see happen happens. It's never
just money for money's sake, and that has been my greatest strength and
greatest weakness in the business world.
This time around, having this VALUES Index just describe to me why that's
a strength and also why it's a weakness with some concrete suggestions and I do, it makes me - well, it helped me choose who I should work with
this time around, in a big way, in particular my friend Matt who is very, very,
very good with money, and not in a greedy unethical way. He's just good
when it comes to closing deals, negotiating, and understanding the
economic value something has.
Where he and I differ is that we both understand the economic value. I can
look at a business opportunity and evaluate its potential revenue, just as
succinctly and clearly as he can. The difference is that it matters a lot less
to me and it matters more to him.
LAURA
Right, which is why your Theoretical score is high, because that's what
that's about.
LESLIE
Yeah [chuckles].
LAURA
You can understand the value but actually asking for the economic value to
be met has always been difficult for you.
LESLIE
I've always felt a little bit lost in the business world because of this. We
mentioned people going for VC money, for example, and people generally
go for VC money out of a strong economic drive. They're trying to start
million/billion dollar companies and the hockey stick curve, and all this
other stuff that they talk about. I have a very good theoretical
understanding of that but I have just no desire to go spend someone else's
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money for my own economic gain. It sounds ludicrous to me, even though
I respect the people that can pull it off.
LAURA
Yeah. It was actually the section called Continual Improvement Insights for
Your Economic Drive. There were a couple that I actually pulled out and
put on our script because I wanted to read them. They describe you so
well. "You should avoid spreading yourself too thin by taking on
responsibilities that could be delegated to others" - I see this happen in
business a lot with you. "You may need coaching to increase revenue
awareness or profit motivation" - that's where Matt comes in. He is really
helping you with that.
"You may need training on tools to help you do the job more effectively" - I
was thinking of having to set up the spreadsheets and whatever,
QuickBooks or whatnot. That's been a huge hurdle for you in part of the
startup process. I think that's probably been one of the biggest points of
paralyzation for you, and I thought those were really great insights.
LESLIE
Yes [laughter]. I don't really have anything to add to that. Yeah, I've had to
learn a lot about my economic motivation this time around, because in my
former gig it was taken care of. I worked with two people who were just
rock solid on the bookkeeping and the spreadsheets, and in terms of our
view on money all three of us aligned which was great. None of us were
outliers in terms of how to spend money or why it should be spent. But I
never had to worry about the actual setting it up or tracking of it as well.
So what else stood out to you?
LAURA
Your key strengths in the Regulatory section I definitely resonated with.
You bring a strong knowledge-driven ethic. You gather the maximum
amount of information on an issue because you ask the necessary
questions. I think there was a suggestion for continual improvement was
"Don't get bogged down in the details" [chuckles].
I won't read them all but this one was good - "When others internal or
external have a question, even if you aren't familiar with it you can usually
create solutions, or make up an answer on the fly and sound really
authoritative." We both share that trait, by the way.
LESLIE
Yes. Yes, we do.
LAURA
For me, what didn't make sense to me about the Political score was I was
associating it too much with politics, but there were a couple lines in the
breakdown that made sense to me of why I got higher on that, which was
"You enjoy a feeling of accomplishment and getting a difficult job done on
your own". It's particularly that "on your own" thing. I love collaborating
with people but I take way more pride in having conquered something all
by myself.
"You enjoy winning" which I really do. I'm actually super competitive, I
think so much to the point where I just avoid it, and especially with you
because I think that would be an ugly situation if we tried to compete
against each other. I really don't like it. Even when we just play Lords of
Water Deep I'm like, "Oh God, I have to win! I have to win!" [chuckles].
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LESLIE
It's true. You are a surprisingly competitive person. I forget that about you
because we do avoid competition with each other to a large extent, on
purpose.
LAURA
I think it's because I do not get enjoyment out of my competitiveness.
LESLIE
Yeah, I don't either.
LAURA
That's why I feel the most accomplishment and pride when I've done a job
on my own, because if there's other people involved then there's a sense
of competitiveness and I just hate that feeling. I really hate being
competitive, as competitive as I am. Then I do appreciate occasional
public recognition and praise for successes, very much. I do enjoy status
and esteem in the eyes of others. I've had to work with that for a while, not
allowing that to become my self-worth or self-identity, and not going out
and looking for that kind of adulation, but I really do like being noticed and
being appreciated for what I do.
LESLIE
I have the same thing where it says that "You need the recognition", and
that's actually something I've been in denial about quite a bit, where I
would say things like "That's not important to me". Turns out it is and I was
just lying to myself. I can think of some times, last year in particular. Man,
I don't know how to talk about the specifics without potentially getting into
trouble of some sort, but there was one particular project I was involved in
last year that was a big community effort. Wasn't a client project, it was a
community effort.
I remember I spent so much time making it run smoothly, and we got the
best feedback, and I got no public recognition for the effort I put into it. I
found myself really distressed by that. I was distressed by it for two things
- (1) I had no idea how important it was for me to get recognition for it, and
then (2) it distressed me that I wanted recognition for it. It was like that
double whammy. "Should I have guilt for wanting recognition about this?"
In general, I have a hard time - it goes back to the Economic drive. That
aspect of my leadership, my Political score is in conflict with my Economic
drive because I have a hard time valuing my own efforts, especially when it
comes to putting a dollar figure on them. But if I'm not getting the
monetary compensation for what I'm doing, which I certainly didn't for this
particular project, and I'm not getting anything that helps me build any of
the other things I want to do, I find it difficult.
I think that's something I've ignored to my own detriment. I need to find a
healthy way to want that recognition, because I don't think that there's
anything wrong with wanting recognition. I think like most things, if you
take it too far then it becomes an ego chase.
LAURA
But if you take it too far the other way, it's a different kind of ego chase. It's
like the oppression of ego.
LESLIE
It's a false humility, and that can be just as damaging as undeserved
praise. There's got to be that healthy ground to find. I'm not even going to
call it a middle ground because I don't like the idea of compromising there.
I think that there is this healthy point in there and that's something I want to
look for, and figure out how to live that out.
LAURA
Do you feel like your work is recognized and appreciated enough at home?
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LESLIE
Yeah. Yeah, I do. I don't think that was the case in the past but I don't - I
wasn't putting the effort in before, and so it was a different issue. So I've
never felt like not being recognized. You do a really good job of letting me
know when I've done something that you really have enjoyed or
appreciated, and you call me on it when I haven't. I've never felt like I
haven't gotten the recognition. With the kids sometimes it's hard, but it's
hard to feel like - I don't know that that's the same thing, and I don't think
that it is. But even -
LAURA
Yeah, I don't think you can look to your kids for that kind of stuff [chuckles].
LESLIE
No. That's deadly. I think with kids in general, you just -
LAURA
It's a thankless task to raise children.
LESLIE
But even there I can see where the effort I'm putting in is paying off. This
past week, Sophia actually snuggled with me on the couch, and between
the two of us she chose to snuggle with me. We were both sitting there but
she put her head on my shoulder and wanted to be close, and that's pretty
unusual for her. That felt really good, to get that and see the impact there.
But if she hadn't done it, I wouldn't have felt like, "Oh man, she always
chooses Laura. What's with that?" So I don't think there's that going on.
But I think it's important for me to keep a heads-up to that with the kids,
because I could see myself - I could see that being the at-home equivalent
of craving Twitter followers or Facebook likes. Even on the show we've
asked for Facebook likes on occasion. Now I'm looking back on me doing
that and wondering, "Man, is that that weird thing coming out? Was it that
or was it strategic play?" But I think in the same thing, if you expect your
kids to recognize you, I think it can be the same thing as expecting Twitter
followers to somehow give significant meaning into your life, versus
relationships that happen on Twitter. Because that's a real thing. You can
have real community, you can have real engagement with people, but
seeing that number of followers go up and down is not an indication of that
[chuckles].
LAURA
Yeah, and that's why we ask for people to engage. Hi, Twitter, all 51
followers of you. I looked at you all today and thought warm thoughts
about you. I'm sorry that we neglect you. We do need to work harder on
maintaining our relationships on social media, I think, but that's really why
we ask for more reviews and likes and follows and everything, is because
the more people do that, the more visible the community becomes, and we
get to share what we're doing with lots and lots more people.
LESLIE
Was there anything about either your score - either your results or my
results that surprised you?
LAURA
No. No, not really. It all made sense once I read through the breakdown.
It all made a lot of sense to me. The thing that I've had a hard time doing,
it's just sort of slipping through my fingers or the fingers of my brain, trying
to put together the DISC Profile and the VALUES. How my VALUES
scores underpin my DISC results - that's what I really want to analyze.
I don't have the brain power right now. I had three hours of sleep last
night. I don't know that it's even necessarily worthwhile. I think at some
point the introspection is going to get too all-consuming to be useful. But I
feel like there's this missing piece a little bit of the VALUES. It's interesting
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to look at and yeah, it explains some stuff, but I want to see those two
really connected more.
LESLIE
Yeah. I would like to know more about how these are supposed to tie in.
There isn't really a crossover piece between the two things, they're just two
separate tests that they give you at the same time to help you understand.
Maybe there's some paid test that we missed on the site that does that.
LAURA
Yeah, that's true [chuckles].
LESLIE
For me, I was surprised that my Altruist score wasn't higher. It was good
for me to see how that actually plays out in describing why it is where it is.
It's right in the middle there at a - I forget what the exact number is.
LAURA
41.
LESLIE
At a 41, which is in - it's one above the norm. Given my low Economic
motivation, I expected that - and my love of people. I say it all the time, I
love helping people succeed, so I expected the Altruist score to be higher.
But what I've discovered is that if I really want to describe what I love doing
honestly, it's about the environment around a person that enables their own
success that I really love.
So if you look at the Political score, the Regulatory score, and the
Theoretical score, it comes down to I love coaching people, where I can't
make them succeed. I can't force them to do the things that will make
them successful, but what I can do is help them create and sustain an
environment in which they can be successful for themselves, and help
teach them how to make that sustainable.
It's like when I coach a business. I don't have a magic bullet to make that
business - I'm not a growth hacker, I'm not - there's one person who I really
like and would love to work with but he wants a lead generator, which is a
legitimate need - it's just not me. There's this thing where I'd love to step in
and help, and I can help create an environment in which leads come, but I
can't actually bring the leads like a great salesperson can, or like a great
marketing person can.
So what this has really done for me is it's helped me really define what it is
I actually do for people, and that's really the purpose of this thing. It wants
to tell you these things so that you can figure out is what you're doing
aligned with what actually drives and motivates you? This also explains
why project management, even though I'm great at it because of my
Theoretical and Regulatory and Political scores, I don't actually enjoy
project management so much as training in project management, so much
as teaching people project management. I think I've said it on the show
before. If I'm one of many project managers, I hate it. If I'm running all the
project managers, I love it.
LAURA
[chuckles].
LESLIE
If I'm in charge of operations versus being a project manager, I love that
because I can see -
LAURA
That explains your high Political score.
LESLIE
I can see the entire workflow from start to finish across all aspects of the
business, and there's that amazing puzzle. The invitation is to make the
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whole thing this environment in which everyone gets to experience
success, and that's where I'm most happy, in doing that for people.
LAURA
So here's a little synthesis for you. The Altruism score that you got and
your explanation of it totally describes the drop that we see in the
Interactive score in your DISC Profile. You go from a 39 in your natural
style, which is when you're not involved with anyone. When you adapt to a
situation it drops to 25, and in our discussion last week you were talking
about how when you are on as a business coach, you have to be less
interactive because you need to maintain that sort of authoritative coach
kind of persona, and not get in the trenches and become one of the coworkers because of that desire to train.
LESLIE
Right. There's the idea of a player/coach, and there's a part of me that
really wanted to be a player/coach. Back in my EllisLab days, that's what
used to grate on me so much, is that I couldn't be a player/coach. That's
what they really needed. They needed someone who could be in the
trenches with them and coach them at the same time, with the strategic
direction that they wanted to head. I couldn't be a player/coach. Looking
back on it, even if I could've been, it would've been a bad fit for me
because that's not where I'm at my best. So seeing this really put a
spotlight on that.
I think that what I want to point out here is that the value of this is not pop
psychology. We've been engaging in pop psychology for the past two
episodes, and we freely admit that. This is not in any sort a real
psychological evaluation, it's not medical or scientific or anything like that,
at least from our understanding of it. So then why, because we don't want
to promote pop psychology in that sense. But what this can do is that you
could act on it, and that's the real strength of that.
This gives you enough of an insight from a layman's perspective into your
own life that you can go from just saying, "That explains my Altruistic score.
My Economic drive is low." If you stop there and just have the pop
psychology, you've missed the opportunity. So for me, when I originally
took this test at the end of the year, it helped me understand, "Okay, if I'm
putting a team together and Matt's on my team, I can look at my weakness
and Matt's strength and say yes, this is where Matt and I really synergize,
in here," or, "This is where Phil and I really synergize."
Or in the work that we're doing together here with Glimmering, it's really
helped me understand how my practical view of altruism and your highminded view really work hand-in-hand. The things that we do are so
missional and you're really good at holding us to the mission, I'm really
good at finding practical ways to live it out. Trying to create a family
environment where we can be our best, and knowing that that's my
strength but also knowing that I have a weakness because I tend to
disengage to do that, which can be great in teams but it's bad in family. I
have to be a player/coach with my kids. I can't just be all theoretical with
them [chuckles].
LAURA
Yeah. Thank you.
LESLIE
You can't just explain, "I'm sorry, Sophia. I took the VALUES Assessment
Test and I can't be a player/coach with you, so just play by yourself outside
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and then I'll tell you why that's great." [laughter] That sounds so terrible.
There is a time and place to get in the trenches.
LAURA
Was there anything about my results that either surprised you or gave you
an "Aha!" moment, or anything you felt didn't accurately represent our
relationship or your understanding of me?
LESLIE
The thing that really surprised me about you was that your Theoretical
score wasn't higher, and I'm wondering what this might have looked like for
you at age 22, 23. Because I think that this is one thing where being a
parent has impacted you. I know that when we get into private discussions
and we have space away from the kids a little bit, you love to go theory
diving with me.
LAURA
Oh yeah.
LESLIE
You're clearly - and Theoretical is not equating to intelligence in any sense
of the word. It's simply -
LAURA
No. It is the drive to understand, gain knowledge, or discover the "truth".
LESLIE
I think that when you become a parent, you have to get a lot more practical
just right away. It's like, "No, I don't need to understand it, I just need it
done." You get into that mindset. But I'm wondering what the 22-year-old
version of you would've scored on the Theoretical, and I wonder what the
50-year-old version of you will score on the Theoretical.
LAURA
Even just the non-depressed version of me would probably be different. I
took this, what, January 20? January 23 of this year. I was doing pretty
well, but the stresses are all still very real, and the sleep is still very nonexistent during many weeks. So yeah, if I was well rested and had a little
more space for my own thinking, I think that it would be a very different
score.
LESLIE
The other thing, it's really helped me to understand that you're really not a
planner in the way that I think you are.
LAURA
I know. I felt bad about that.
LESLIE
I've always envisioned you as this great planner, especially when it comes
to trips. I think with your high Altruism score you really want to be and so
you try to be, and I think that's a place in our lives where you've kind of
walled me off from it, as in somehow planning a trip isn't something I
should be doing, for some bizarre reason. That we both contributed to, I'm
sure.
It's helped me understand that planning really isn't your thing. You want
things to be successful and so when it comes to the strategy of a trip, just
using trips as an example - where we should go, why we should go there,
the type of things we should do there - you're excellent. The type of
research and things you put into finding a place to go, that part of - the
strategy part of the planning you're really, really good at. But when it
comes to the practical stuff, like when we're actually in the car driving some
place, and getting directions or making sure that all the things happened,
I'm the one who should actually be doing that [chuckles].
LAURA
That is so true, because I was just thinking back. I have planned some
amazing trips, even before I knew you. I was - this is almost practically
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pre-Internet, planning a trip to Italy and trying to do research using real
books instead of Internet pages. Where every hostel now has a Web
page, there was none of that. I planned an amazing trip and it was great.
But it's true - once we got on the ground, I knew where we were staying
that night but I did feel a little adrift in all those between stages, and I feel
pretty adrift right now.
I feel like I fail as an adult in some ways as far as regiment. I grew up - my
mom is the regiment person. She will schedule you down to the minute,
she will keep everyone on it, and she's amazing at it. I've always
subscribed to the idea that that is parenting well done, or that is the
homemaker's thing that they should aspire to. I am so not that person. I
really just want to be told what to do on a minute-by-minute basis. I do not
want to have to make those decisions. But planning the framework and all
of - I love research [chuckles]. So yeah, that's really true. That's
interesting.
I think we need to remember that next time we're planning a trip, because I
kind of felt like we wasted some of our time in Portland because I didn't
really think very far in advance about what we should do on a daily basis, if
we wanted to do anything. We kind of didn't do a whole lot, and then we
were leaving and we're like, "We were just in Portland for a week and we
went out for coffee once. Oops."
LESLIE
I mean, it was a great time.
LAURA
Yeah, it was.
LESLIE
But it's also helped me realize that I need to communicate my expectations
for the practical side of a trip a lot better, and part of that expectation also
has to be me doing a lot of it, in areas that originally I thought you should
be doing. Not because you're the wife, but because I've always thought of
you as the planner in our family. It turns out I'm the planner [laughter].
When it comes to actually walking out the door, I'm the one best suited to
wrangling the kids up, making sure the checklists are done, making sure
we've got the directions, making sure that we've got - there's been so many
times where we've gotten into a car and said, "Where are we going?" and
you've started pulling up your phone right then, and I'm realizing you don't
actually know where we're going or how to get there.
LAURA
Or I went to go and get the map ready and realized I had left my purse in
the house, and we were halfway out of the alley. But I think I've evolved or
devolved, because that's getting worse and worse in that respect. I'm
becoming more and more Type - is it Type B?
LESLIE
I don’t know.
LAURA
I think it's just a lot of burnout for the most part. I really do. I think I'll come
back and someday my brain will be flexible again [chuckles].
LESLIE
All right. We're already 50 minutes into this show and I feel it's been a little
bit rambly. It's been fun. I have one more question, though.
LAURA
Okay.
LESLIE
Since the pop psych part is fun but not really valuable all by itself, is there
anything that you - is there a next step that you plan to do based on what
you've learned for yourself?
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LAURA
With this one, no. I think I would really need to do the synthesis. Maybe
that is the next step. But I feel like I got so much out of the DISC test that
this one really is just kind of interesting to look at. I'm not sure how to
apply it. Whereas with the DISC test, I was very clear how I could apply it,
in particular in my relationship with you and communication with you, and
there's not - even though there's insights and things like that, it's not quite
as actionable to me.
LESLIE
For me, the Economic side is always a reminder that I need to incorporate
that into what I do, and just to make sure I'm always red flagging that as,
"This is not a motivator but it doesn't mean money's not important." We've
got to get the invoices out on time, we need to keep the books up-to-date,
and so for me that's my takeaway, is to get training on it, like you said at
the top of the show. I need to find some valuable tools to help me keep
that in line. And not just people, because I have people that help me with
that in terms of reminding me and complementing me, but with where we
are in life right now, I need to help with that too. I need to increase my own
knowledge and skillset there.
All right. We're going to take a short, mostly imperceptible break, and we
will be back with what we're going to do for each other this week.
[Break music]
And we're back. We're going to close the show out with what we're going
to do for each other this week. [sighs] It's felt like it's been a pop show and
a heavy show all at the same time.
LAURA
It has been.
LESLIE
Allergies, death, VALUES. It's just another day in our lives [chuckles].
LAURA
Yeah [chuckles].
LESLIE
This is the part of the show where we do our best to be proactive with each
other. I felt like I've had several of these stack up, and I haven't had the
chance to follow through yet. So what I'm going to do is actually a twoparter. One, there is something I've been looking forward to for a long time
to doing with you, and next week will be the perfect time to do that, so
we're going to do that. But it's also lightweight, so I'll have the chance to
actually follow-up with Marco's suggestion and a few other suggestions for
the show and things that I really want to try out in our life, to see how they
work for us. That's the part I made a commitment a couple of weeks ago
to and now I'm hoping that since we actually have a week-and-a-half
between recording and the next show that I'll be able to do that.
LAURA
What are you going to do?! [laughter]
LESLIE
So next week, I want to make sure that our work schedules on either
Monday, Wednesday or Thursday have a 3-hour clear break so that we
can go on a date to see Furious 7 together.
LAURA
Oh yay!
LESLIE
We have - neither one of us are car people and it shouldn't be our type of
movie, but it so is. We've so enjoyed watching those films together.
LAURA
I am a Vin Diesel person.
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LESLIE
Yeah, I am too.
LAURA
And Michelle Rodriguez. So yay, awesome.
LESLIE
That comes out this Friday and so we'll just make sure we plan our budget
and our schedule next week that we have time without paying for any
additional babysitter stuff, that our schedules are arranged as such.
Planned, if you will.
LAURA
[chuckles].
LESLIE
So we can go enjoy some Vin Diesel together.
LAURA
Awesome. Thank you.
LESLIE
You're very welcome.
LAURA
What I would like to do for you this week is create space for you to be
transparent with me, because sometimes you have a hard time just
initiating that on your own.
LESLIE
Yeah.
LAURA
You get sort of stuck in the mindset of holding everything together so you
can do your work, and I want you to know that you don't have to do that
with me.
LESLIE
Well, from the VALUES, you know that I need to understand all sides of a
situation first, so all I have to do is to guess all the things that you might
say in reaction to what I might say, and then I'm ready to have a
conversation.
LAURA
Is that why [chuckles] sometimes - yeah, okay. That makes a lot of sense.
LESLIE
And I say that humorously, and I realize people may not - I may be too
tired. It's also true and it's a terrible, terrible, terrible way to live.
LAURA
Yeah [chuckles].
LESLIE
Because I'm wrong most of the time [laughter]. And usually I'm wrong in
the negative, or I think that people, you especially, will have a bad reaction
instead of giving you way more credit. You'd think after, oh my goodness,
almost 12 years of being married that I would know better, so I'm going to
act like I know better, because I do.
LAURA
I'm just going to be pushier than usual.
LESLIE
Do you see how much I don't want this and need this at the same time?
LAURA
I know. You're making jokes at me.
LESLIE
Yeah, I know.
LAURA
I am going to say, "Leslie, at 3:00 you're going to sit down with me and
have a conversation about how you are doing, really." So you can plan
ahead for it and you're not - because you don't like things like that sprung
on you, it's too hard. But you also need to do it. Usually I just hint around
it and let you get away with not really answering my questions, and I'm not
going to do that this week because that's not good for you.
LESLIE
That sounds terrifying and wonderful all at once.
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LAURA
[chuckles].
LESLIE
I will gladly accept. It sounds like a very worthwhile thing to try. I'm up for
it.
LAURA
Thanks. Good.
LESLIE
Thank you. All right. That's going to do it for us this week. Thank you,
guys, so much for listening and more importantly, thank you, guys, so
much for taking your relationships seriously. We're so glad that you're
here, we're so glad that you take your partners seriously, that you take
yourself seriously, and what you want to do in the world that you take that
seriously, and that you also have fun and you do it with other people. I can
just tell that today is an introspective day so I'm trying to build things up,
but you guys get it. We love you.
All right. As always, if you want to comment directly on this show you can
do that by going to marriagestartup.com/33. That's the shortcut to get to
any episode of our show, actually, and leave a comment directly there for
us. We're really good at responding to them. You can also leave us a
comment on Facebook at facebook.com/marriagestartup, and all 51 of you
who follow us on Twitter, that's awesome! Thank you so much.
As we've jokingly said on the show before, we're terrible about being
proactive on Twitter but we will respond with all sincerity and as much
swiftness as possible on Twitter just like we do any place else. So if you're
most comfortable Tweeting at someone and leaving short bursts of
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@marriagestartup.
Of course you can always email us directly at [email protected]
and anything you email us is considered private by default, and we won't
disclose it on the show without your express permission, because we want
you to feel safe. This is a sanctuary if you need to vent. Again, we're not
counselors or anything like that, so sometimes our ability to help you may
be limited, but a lot of the times people just need to be listened to, and
we're stellar at that. We will always listen, we will always take you
seriously. It's always a safe place to communicate, especially if you don't
have any place else. So again, that's [email protected].
That's going to do it for us this week. As always, be kind to each other.
We'll see you next week.
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