February 13, 2016
Podcast from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2016/02/what-is-a-behavioral-analysis/
[0:00] Introduction/National Academy of Sports Medicine
[1:36] Kimera Koffee
[2:43] Introduction to this Podcast
[4:17] Steven Sisler
[7:51] How Steven Got To Doing What He Does
[9:46] How Steven's Method of Profiling Is Different or Unique
[12:11] What Is DISC Stand For/ What is HVP
[14:56] Ben's Profile Results
[49:22] Ben's HVP
[1:05:45] End Of Podcast
Ben: Hey, folks. It's Ben Greenfield. Today's podcast that you're about to hear it was kinda weird because I got psychoanalyzed, and that's something I haven't really done before on the show, but I think you'll kind of enjoy it. We talk a lot in the episode about careers and about choosing the right career for you based on your psychoanalysis. And I think it's quite fitting that our first sponsor for today is something that helps you to have a career in the world of fitness, and that's the National Academy of Sports Medicine.
The National Academy of Sports Medicine is one of the few fitness certifications that I actually respect and endorse. There's not a lot of these like fly-by-night weekend online personal training certifications that I trust at all. I certainly wouldn't want my mom getting trained by a trainer who filled out some training certification online via an open-book test. The NASM isn't like that. It's challenging. You're gonna learn a ton. But the cool thing is that as you go through their certification process, they guarantee you'll land a job as a personal trainer within 60 days of earning your personal trainer certification or you get your money back. Guaranteed. That's a pretty cool offer. You don't get that kind of offer from a college. So how do you get in? You go to myUSAtrainer.com. That's myUSAtrainer.com. You'll get a free 14 day trial of their online certification program. And that's myUSAtrainer.com. Restrictions apply, but you must visit myUSAtrainer.com for details.
This show is also brought to you by something that I just sucks down a big cup of, Kimera Koffee. The way that I prepared it today was actually how I prepared it yesterday via French press, then I let it sit in my refrigerator overnight, cold brewed-style, pressed it and sucked it down over ice with a little bit of chocolate stevia. Tasty stuff. So, it is high altitude premium coffee. But it's not just any old coffee because it's been infused with nootropics, which are like natural smart drugs, things like alpha-GPC, taurine, DMAE, l-theanine. It's a really, really good coffee.
It tastes amazing and it's grown at high altitude, which means it doesn't have like the mold, the fungi and stuff in it. Really good stuff. So go to kimerakoffee.com, that's KIMERAKOFFEE.com, save 10% off of any order there when you use 10% discount code Ben. That's kimerakoffee.com, discount code Ben. So get some coffee, become a personal trainer, and enjoy today's episode with Steven Sisler.
In this episode of The Ben Greenfield Fitness Show:
“You have an innate ability to compartmentalize your emotion in order to get a job done.” “So what I'm doing is I'm integrating attitudes and behaviors based upon emotions. Not many people are doing that.” “Optimism is an emotion that resides in the limbic system where religion comes from, where certain highs from recreational drugs coming from, where the sexual arousal comes from. It's a feeling part of the brain. You don't stay in there.”
He’s an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America’s top personal trainer and one of the globe’s most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield. “Power, speed, mobility, balance – whatever it is for you that’s the natural movement, get out there! When you look at all the studies done… studies that have shown the greatest efficacy…” All the information you need in one place, right here, right now, on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.
Ben: Hey, folks. It's Ben Greenfield, and I have a confession to make to you. I actually am not a fan of personality questionnaires or ways that folks get analyzed. I've always thought that stuff was a little bit, I guess kinda woo-woo, and ethereal, and it never seems to really reveal much about myself. And so, I was a little bit hesitant when one of my friends, who I trust implicitly and whose advice I actually listened to, recommended that I have something done called a behavioral analysis.
And the fella who does the specific behavioral analysis that I took is considered to be kind of an anomaly within the world of behavioral analysis. I don't know if you would call him something like “The Horse Whisperer For People” or how you would describe him, but everyone who I've spoken with has told me that this guy can literally tell you almost more about yourself than you know about yourself when it comes to the way that you tick.
And so I buckled, and I went ahead, and I took this fella's Behavioral Analysis profile. No clue what I was doing. I just answered all these questions and basically kinda gave my knee jerk reaction to each of the different little pieces of this analysis that I completed online. And I sent it off. And, viola! Today, I have actually gotten this particular behavioral analyst, let's see if I can use my words today, on the show to fill me in, and you in, on how behavioral analyses work, and exactly how I'm personally wired, and whether or not I'm completely clinically insane.
So, my guest's name is Steven Sisler. Steven Sisler. Now Steven is actually a guy who is well known in this community. He works with clients in more than 18 different nations gathering behavioral, emotional, and attitudinal information on people working in corporations, people working in personal settings, and then he takes the results of those, and develops strategies for leadership, for teamwork, for entrepreneurial success, for career direction, et cetera. So he's considered to be kind of a go-to source for issues when it comes to figuring out the way that you think, the way that you operate, and then applying that to your life.
I'm probably doing not the most fantastic job describing exactly what he does because I'm going to learn just as much as you about that in today's episode. But he's lectured all over the world, everywhere from the Vineyard Leadership Institute, to Mastermind Talks, where I initially met him and had the opportunity to hear him speak, the Entrepreneurial Organizations Global Leadership Conference: Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, Auckland, Switzerland, MIT Boston. He's been all over the place, and so he's quite well known and respected in this whole behavioral analysis community. So, Steven Sisler, welcome to the show.
Steven: (laughs) Now, I've gotta live up to that.
Ben: I guess so. My first question for you, man, is how does one actually come to do what you do? How did you learn all this?
Steven: Well, I've actually been reading people since I was about 12. I could tell if somebody was lying. It was really bizarre. Now here's what's even weirder. My mother could do it. The phone would ring and she'd know who it was. Her father could do it. So I dunno what that is. I'm not a spiritualist or anything like that, and I don't even want to go there 'cause I'm very practical, but I have a knack for it. And so, when I discovered that you could be actually trained in behavior analysis, I did it and instantly became extremely successful. As a matter of fact, the man who trained me, Grant Mazmanian, is a behavioral profiler in Media, Pennsylvania. He said out of 30 years, I'm the star student. So it's just one of those things where I did it, I felt like I would be good at it, and I ended up being fantastic at it.
Ben: That's crazy.
Steven: It is. It is crazy.
Ben: I'm reading a book right now called “The Medical Medium”. Have you heard of it?
Steven: I have not.
Ben: Okay. It's about this guy who was able to diagnose people's medical conditions from the age of like 8 years old. He could literally look at people, and stare into their eyes, and look at their body, and tell them like what parts of their body were operating, I'm trying to get him on a podcast as well. But there is something kind of weird there, how some people are just born with these crazy skills. I have yet to wrap my head around how that all works, but it's pretty funky.
Steven: Right.
Ben: So the other thing that I've been told, Steven, is that your method of profiling is different than many of the other methods out there. I'll readily admit, just because I kind of shy away from behavioral analyses, again it's just not something I've ever really gotten into. I'm not really too familiar with many of the methods out there, but how would you describe how your method of profiling someone is different or unique?
Steven: Well my method, in some ways, is similar. I put you through a behavioral analysis, which basically measures four emotional pieces to your, they're called primary emotions. Now we have more than four, but the primary emotions are the emotions that really are going to dictate how you're going to act. And so, what I've done is I use what's called an advanced DISC model. So the DISC, which people are very familiar with, I use as a springboard in order to get the numbers. So I'm measuring for emotions, and once I find out where they set on a graph, then I will know a lot. And so, what I do is I integrate the four primary emotions into what are known as the seven attitudes, which I measure. And when I take these, I put them together like a tapestry and I look at it as a whole. From what I've been told, I'm one of the only people who can do it.
Now somebody who did it before me was Dr. John Geyer from the 70's, and he's kind of a sleeper. You don't hear a lot about him like Tesla. He did a lot of inventing that other people got the credit for. And so, I basically work off of his ideas and his methods, but only I intuitively did it until somebody came forward. A good friend of mine and partner in business called Zeke Lopez, he said, “Steve, here's the data based upon years of research that back up what you do intuitively.” And so, that's what I ended up putting in my book, showing how I've been able to come up with this. And so, that's really what I'm doing. So what I'm doing is I'm integrating attitudes and behaviors based upon emotions. Not many people are doing that.
Ben: Okay. So you actually threw out a few things that I wanted to clear up. The first thing you said was that the type of behavioral analysis you do is an advanced DISC model. What does DISC stand for?
Steven: Okay. DISC it's a model of an assessment that measures four emotions: anger, optimism, patience, and fear. So those emotions can have intensities. In other words, if it's really high, then it's intense. If it's above 50, it's considered in play. So if you have an anger emotion that's above 50 when you measure it, then your anger emotion is in play, and therefore, you will act a certain way.
The one I have is extremely accurate, not all of them are the same. I mean people go online and can get them for free. People pay a lot of money for me, but they're not paying for the assessment. They're paying for me to look at the numbers, and then tell them what these numbers are going to mean. That's my niche. But I'm not doing the DISC only. I'm doing the DISC and I'm also doing something similar to the Hartman Values Profile, known as an HVP, which you did. So I'm looking at your world view…
Ben: What'd you say that was called? A Hartman Values Profile?
Steven: Yeah. HVP. The Hartman Values Profile. Dr. Robert S. Hartman, who's really the father of human decision making theory, created this algorithm. He was a mathematical genius. In his 40 years of his work, he was actually nominated for a Nobel Prize on it. Extremely accurate. But who's gonna read it? You see? I've had people just come up to me at random with numbers from a profile they took that I'm not even associated with.
Ben: Yeah. That's the thing!
Steven: And I basically told them, “Here's what's going on with you.” So it's not as much about the assessment, as it is about my read on people.
Ben: Okay. Got it.
Steven: I've looked in an assessment, and then started talking to somebody, and knew the assessment wasn't even correct.
Ben: Interesting. Yeah. See, that's the thing that I seem to run into with some of these tests is you'll get random letters. Like, I remember one that I took categorized me as an ISTJ or EFTP, I don't even remember. You get all this…
Steven: Myers-Briggs. Yeah. That's an MBTI.
Ben: You get this big alphabet soup of letters and categories that you fall into, but then it's very difficult to actually figure out what you do with that information. And so what you do is you look at all this information, these four primary emotions, the seven attitudes, the results of the advance DISC model, the Hartman Values Profile, and then you basically tell people how they tick?
Steven: That's right. Uhmm.
Ben: Okay. Alright. Well, let's go ahead and have some fun here and dive in, because I took this profile, and I think perhaps using me as an example could be a good way to fill people in on how this actually works.
And by the way, for those of you listening in, I'm taking notes. I'm gonna link to Steven's book, his website, the information on these profiles, and all this other stuff. If you just go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/behavior, that's bengreenfieldfitness.com/behavior, you can access the show notes because I can already tell that this episode is gonna be dense with info. So, Steven, how do you like to go about doing this?
Steven: Okay. So I'm gonna begin with your emotions set, which is your behavioral profile, then we're gonna move to your attitudes, and then we'll move to your decision making pattern.
Ben: Okay.
Steven: We're gonna do three different things. You took three different assessments. So let's begin with your behavior. So, your behavior is based upon four emotions, and I'm measuring them on a scale of 0 to 100. So I'm gonna begin with your anger emotion. So your anger emotion, you ready for this, Ben, comes in at a 98.
Ben: Wow.
Steven: So you are less than 2% percent of the population.
Ben: I'm not sure if I should feel proud of that, or if that's a, it sounds like a bad thing.
Steven: Okay. I know. But it's not. And this is where people, they just don't understand how these things work. Anger is about decisiveness. So you are a decisive-style person. In other words, if you don't have problems and challenges, you're going to get extremely restless. So the higher the anger emotion, goes the more problems and challenges we must have. If you don't have a problem and a challenge, you're gonna create one because you need them. You rise to the occasion when everything is against you.
Ben: Interesting. Yeah.
Steven: That brings you to life. And so, you live a life where constant challenge keeps you going. It keeps you engaged. Okay? If you were low here, you'd be passive. You would be avoiding problems and challenges, and you become a conflict avoidant. But you're actually a conflict creator. So you create conflict for yourself, so you can overcome it.
Ben: Umm. Interesting. But both I and probably even much more so my wife would very much agree with you. I do, as our listeners know, sign up for incredibly masochistic events all over the globe and use those as challenges, as carrots on the end of a stick, and part of that is due to my high anger drive. So does that mean I'm an angry person, or does that simply mean that I like to engage in conflict?
Steven: It means you like to engage in conflict. Now, some people can have a very high anger emotion, but because of their attitude, they end up somebody else. They could be like an ass. And so that kind of a style, people see them coming, they go the other way. You like challenge. You're very challenge-oriented. So you need challenge, you create challenge for yourself. That doesn't necessarily mean you're a challenge to everyone else. But people in your life will feel like they're trying to keep up with you because you're like a snowplow going 90 miles an hour.
Ben: Interesting.
Steven: And so, if you get in front of that, you could get hurt. And what I mean by that is it's uncomfortable for a passive style to be doing something with you because you're so nuclear. Now a 98? That's as high as this algorithm will go.
Ben: Wow.
Steven: So you're topped out. Alright. Let's move off of that. Let's go to the influence line, which is “I” in DISC, and it's the optimistic emotion. Okay? You're coming in at a 23. Okay? And what that means is, instead of being an emotionally driven person, you're driven by logic. Okay? So this means you do not dwell in your limbic brain. You are more in your rational mind. In other words, you want proof because people that are logically driven are matter-of-fact. They're incisive. They're logical. They're suspicious. They're reflective. And so, your style is very matter-of-fact. You're like a realist. And so, what happens is you're not a pie-in-the-sky style, you have your feet firmly planted on the ground. And so, if you ask me, “Steve, are you going to the meeting today,” and I'm not going, I can look at you and you just go, “No.”
Ben: Right.
Steven: And you're good with that. You might do the same thing to me. You don't want to make a conversation, you wanna give me the results of my question.
Ben: Yeah.
Steven: So you're very results-oriented. So people will misinterpret that as maybe you're not interested in them.
Ben: Yeah. I've gotten that before. Aloofness or arrogance, when I'm simply short and get straight to the point.
Steven: So people see you, now this is how they see you, and only certain people will see you this way, but it will be between 47 and 52% percent of the population will see you as arrogant.
Ben: Interesting.
Steven: Even though you're not.
Ben: And that's because of the high-logic drive. Basically, I have kinda the ability to detach from emotions and simply have a simplistic, black and white, yes and no response to things?
Steven: Yes. That's right. So people don't see you as you are. They see you as they are.
Ben: Interesting.
Steven: And 98% of America are not dominant like you.
Ben: What do you mean they're not dominant?
Steven: It means you're a core dominant, which means when you're being you, the only emotion in play is anger, which means you are aggressive, pioneering, quick, no-nonsense, decisive, venturesome. You do adventure or nothing.
Ben: Yeah. That's perfectly true. You know, what's very interesting is a lot of times I will talk to someone about something that they think about me based on some kind of a questionnaire or an analysis like this, and my knee-jerk reaction is, “Well that could apply to anybody.” Like somebody says, “Oh, you really enjoy nature.” And I'm like, “Oh, great. Thank you for pointing out that,” something that is probably true of most people. But so far the first two things you've told me about myself, these two things, they really are true. So I'm intrigued. Tell me more.
Steven: Okay. Alright. So let's look at your patience emotion. You're coming in at a 52, which means, because your dominant emotion and your patience emotion, so anger and patience are opposite. So if they're together, we get passive aggressive. So it's like having a cricket on your shoulder that when you're about to pull the trigger, it just says, “You sure you wanna do that?” Like this quick (snaps). Boom. Little question that you are really good at overriding it. You're like, “Yes.” You hear it, but it doesn't stop you. And so when you're adapting, it drops down to a 49. Now in this world, high, low, 50 or above is high, and 50 and below is low. So 49 is low because it's below 50, even though it's just one point.
Ben: Okay.
Steven: Okay? So because of that, you become, when you're working or doing your thing, you become what I call the machine.
Ben: Yeah. That's absolutely true.
Steven: You're not human at that point. You are a machine. Now, I'm not just saying this because of who you are and what you do. These are the numbers.
Ben: Yeah. I have certainly been accused of, or others have observed that about me before, when I'm working out, I simply check out and I am like a robot. People will ask me things and I will literally treat them as though they are just like a fly on the wall or a mosquito buzzing around my head. It's just like, “Boom. Go away. I'm in work mode.”
Steven: So this is actually, now I don't want you to take this wrong what I'm about to say. At all. Don't take it wrong because that's the initial reaction. It's a sociopathic tendency. Now, what I mean by that is you have in innate ability to compartmentalize your emotion in order to get a job done. In other words, we gotta put the dog down. “Welp, let's get the shovels.”
Ben: Right. Yeah. And then your opposite is crying and get the dog's favorite blanky and toys, and put it in the hole, and say a prayer and yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda. You're just very efficient, you're very quick, you're very direct. You get it done and then you can go have a coffee.
Ben: Yeah. That's 100% true.
Steven: And it doesn't mean you don't care. It means caring doesn't hijack you.
Ben: Interesting. Yeah. That's completely true.
Steven: So, you could be a great assassin. You would get in, get it done, and get out.
Ben: Because I can check my emotions at the door.
Steven: That's exactly right.
Ben: Get in, do the job, and not have my emotions interfere with them.
Steven: You could be a sniper. You could be, you know, I have a job to do. You see them interview war heroes. “I'm not a hero. I just was doing my job.”
Ben: Right.
Steven: So they're not even looking for accolade because their emotions are not part of that equation. So you do things much better than you do people.
Ben: Yeah. That makes sense.
Steven: So you're like a project manager. And what happens is people become a part of the project. So they're project more than they're people.
Ben: Do you ever do these analyses and have people observe that the very first thing they need to do is have their wife listen to, or see their analysis results to help them understand their part in that. That's the thought going through my head.
Steven: You wouldn't believe the letters and the things I get from doing this. So your patience is what we call situational. It can go up and down, but it doesn't vary that much because you have this overriding dominant anger emotion that causes you to push rather than pull. Okay? Now let's look at your fear emotion.
Ben: Okay. And this is the fourth of four?
Steven: This is the fourth. So we got anger, optimism, patience, and fear. I wanna say this one thing. I don't think I covered it. Optimism is an emotion that resides in the limbic system where religion comes from, where certain highs from recreational drugs come from, where sexual arousal comes from. It's a feeling part of the brain. You don't stay in there. You can visit it, but you don't live there. Your opposite lives there. So they make decisions based upon how they feel, whereas you make decisions based upon the facts.
Ben: Yeah. Sure.
Steven: Okay. So if it doesn't make sense, you're likely not going to do it, unless you trust the person, extremely trust somebody, you're gonna take their word for it because you know they've done their homework. Either way, you don't dabble into areas where you're taking a chance, so to speak, when it comes to information. So you're very logical. You reside in your, not in your limbic system, which, when they see a garden hose, they see a snake, you're seeing a garden hose. Now, everybody sees snake first because that's how our body protects itself, but you go from snake to garden hose really quickly.
Ben: Right. Now that's the optimism or that's the fear one?
Steven: That's optimism. So because you're not optimistic, you're logical. You won't dwell on snake, you'll dwell on garden hose.
Ben: Right.
Steven: Okay. So you can rain on somebody's parade. They like the idea of the snake. So what does that look like? “Hey, let's go to the beach. It's gonna be great.” You're thinking, “I just saw on the news that we have 6% chance of rain. You sure you wanna load everything up, take it all out, put it all back in, and come all the way back home?” So you're thinking like that. Like a strategist. Okay.
So let's look at fear. Your fear emotion is basically a 30. So no fear. You're independent, self-willed, and stubborn. So you're a rhinoceros. You run 30 miles per hour, but you can only see 31 feet. Now, here's what's interesting. When you're adapting for your work, you go from a 30 to a 50, a 65.
Ben: Can you explain what you mean by that?
Steven: Your antennas go up.
Ben: Okay.
Steven: In other words, you go from running on a soccer field to running on a mine field.
Ben: When I am in work mode?
Steven: When you're in work mode, you're extremely cognizant of errors and mistakes.
Ben: Right. Yeah.
Steven: So that's when you become the machine. So, that's probably most of your time is when you're engaging with somebody, you're doing something, you become very aware of errors and mistakes. It's sort of like dismantling a bomb. You're not laughing, telling jokes, and having a good time.
Ben: Very much. I've been accused of being a perfectionist in work situations.
Steven: That's right. You switch, your fear increases. It basically doubles. Your fear line doubles when you engage. So when you're engaged, in other words, if you didn't do that, you would run out into the battlefield, and never have checked your gun to see if you had bullets in it.
Ben: Right.
Steven: But what you do is you check the gun first, and then once you realize, “I got all my ammo. Now I'm going out.” You do that every time. So you become a style that's machine-esque, or what I call “Attila The Hun”, which is sort of like kick ass, take names, and make sure you don't hurt any children.
Ben: Right. That makes sense.
Steven: So you're very cognizant of a mistake, but at the same time extremely driven, and you just go into machine mode. So it's not good to talk to you when you're in that mode, unless it's necessary, or else it becomes an interruption.
Ben: Right.
Steven: I would interrupt you.
Ben: Yeah. Which is probably one of the reasons that I found a complete mistake for me is to do my work at the kitchen table when the family is around.
Steven: You actually become dangerous. I don't mean that in the way it sounds like you're dangerous in the normal sense. It means it's like messing with a time bomb. In other words, your intensity is extremely high, and no one will see it coming, and out of left field you're like, Boom!
Ben: Yeah.
Steven: You snap. I don't mean crazy. I mean, “Listen. I can't do it here.”
Ben: Right.
Steven: Like you're so intense.
Ben: Yeah. I know. My wife will sometimes come up to me when I'm working, and ask me if I might be able to take a couple things in the garage and list them on e-Bay, and I simply look at her blankly and say, “E-mail me,” and then turn around and keep working.
Steven: That's like being in a car, looking straight ahead, and being hit by a train on the passenger side when she comes and does that.
Ben: Right. Yeah.
Steven: Now based upon the relationship and so forth, how much you love each other, that's going to be what it is.
Ben: Oh, yeah. It's taken a while though for us. I mean we've been married for 13 years. It's taken a while for us to get to the point where she knows that any attitude I have when I'm working is not her, it's me. Right? So we've been very clear with each other about that.
Steven: It's you and it's a reaction to the situation, not the person.
Ben: Right. Exactly.
Steven: So to work with you, I've got to address situations, not you. So rather than saying, “What have you done, Ben,” I would say, “This is interesting how this turned out.”
Ben: Uhmm, yeah.
Steven: You see? Very different. So I deal with the problem and the challenge, not the person. Because you're not in that personal space.
Ben: Right.
Steven: Alright. We gotta move quick here.
Ben: By the way, for people listening in, just you know, I realize that's today's show sounds like it's just me getting analyzed by Steven. But the reason I'm releasing this publicly is because I want you to see what a behavioral analysis could do for you. And so, again go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/behavior, if you want to learn more about Steven and what he does, and we'll keep going here. So go ahead, Steven.
Steven: Okay. So looking at your attitudes, which is what you want. Okay? Your attitudes are your desire framework. So, “I desire this, but I do that.” So we don't always do what we desire. There are some people who think about buying a Hummer, but they come home with a minivan. So their imagination is bigger than their actions. Okay? So looking at your profile, I can't wait to do this. Okay, I'm measuring a line called an aesthetic line, and what that means is it's about unconventional thinking.
So you're what I call an alternative thinker, and what that means is you're an artist. Okay? You're an artist. So, you have alternative ideas and unconventional thoughts about solving typical problems. So you're going to take a different road than normal. And when I say normal, I mean the norm. In other words, 7 out of 10 people in the world are between 30 and 50. You're a 68.
Ben: Yeah. So, basically that would be kinda like outside-the-box style here.
Steven: You're outside the scope of the norm. So you're an out-of-the-box thinker. Literally, you're out of the norm box. And when it comes to this thinking, it's unconventional. This is like an artist. Now, I'm also measuring a line which is known as a utilitarian line, or sometimes they we'd call an economic line, and it's about competition. Now here's something extremely interesting. You are not competitive.
Ben: Interesting.
Steven: I know.
Ben: And why do you say that?
Steven: Because you're not high enough here. In other words, you don't value competition as much as you value uniqueness. So because you value uniqueness, you look like a teacher. This is a professor profile. This is a lecturer. This is somebody who has these out-of-the-box ideas, places them in a forum in a unique way, and then gathers followers. So, it's a presenting profile. So you're more concerned about discovery, uncover, discover, and recover the facts, find a unique and interesting way to present it, and then solve an impossible problem. That's better than money.
Ben: Yeah. That would be very much true. I mean that's really a big, big part of what I do with bengreenfieldfitness.com.
Steven: So money that you make, Ben, follows you. In other words, making money is more a result than a goal.
Ben: Yeah. And so when I am, and I know we don't have tons of time to dwell on each of these attitudes, but when I am, for example, standing on the starting line of a race, like an obstacle race or triathlon, for me, being there, doing that is more of a function of me being hard-wired to go out, and explore, and discover a way to conquer that course than it is necessarily me having some kind of a blood thirsty competitive drive to beat the person next to me.
Steven: Right. Listen. You are not competitive. It's a misread. Anybody who thinks you're competitive because you're cut. It's a misread altogether. You look the way you do because you're a body artist.
Ben: Yeah.
Steven: Okay. You're an artist. You're a sculpture.
Ben: Yeah.
Steven: You're not just trying to be strong. Now some people do this because they're insecure. Most people are in the gym out of insecurity.
Ben: Yeah.
Steven: That's just the way it is. Your style is not an insecure style. Your style's very matter-of-fact. So your style is all about, and if somebody did say that to you about the outdoors, it's really true with you. You are about the experience. If you compete with anybody, you compete with yourself.
Ben: Yeah. That's so true. Interesting.
Steven: You don't see other people as competitors. You're not a competitor in that respect. You're an artist who's competing with your own limitations.
Ben: Yeah.
Steven: Because you're just flat driven. Listen. Nobody else has to be on the planet. You're still gonna try to get up on top of Mt. Everest.
Ben: Yeah. That's very much true. Interesting.
Steven: There's some people, they wouldn't do that unless somebody was watching.
Ben: Yeah.
Steven: Completely different. Okay? Alright. Let's look at your individualism. If you're a penny in a jar of pennies, you're gonna be the red penny, because you're 80 on individualism, where the majority of the country is between 55 and 36. And you're an 80. So this is in the innovator. So you're very innovative. Like you're not going to be a penny in the jar of pennies. You're gonna be the red penny, and the only red penny. So you're looking for uniqueness, autonomy, and freedom.
Ben: Yup. Very much true.
Steven: So you are a freedom seeker. You want to be free from, you wanna be independent of, not dependent on. So, if you're giving a speech and your teleprompter goes out, your speech gets better.
Ben: Yeah. I actually, I hate teleprompters.
Steven: Because now you can say what you wanted to say. So, Bill Clinton, his speech gets better. George W. Bush, speech gets better. Joe Biden, his speech would get better. No one would know the teleprompter went out.
Ben: Yeah. Every TV show I've done, I've refused the teleprompter because I hate it so much.
Steven: Yes. That's why Donald Trump refuses the teleprompter. Because it gets in his way. Okay? Barack Obama, if he doesn't have a teleprompter, he can't do the speech.
Ben: Yeah.
Steven: Why? Because he needs a road map. It doesn't mean he's not smart. It means, “You want me to build the deck, give me the blueprints. I'll build it just like you want it.” Whereas Bill Clinton's like, “It's just a deck. What the hell are any blueprints for?” So that's how you think. So you have this intuitive part to you, and you like this freedom and this autonomy, and to kinda have the freedom to do your own thing. Okay. Here's something else that's different. You don't need to be in charge. In other words, you don't need the credit. Some people, like they need the credit. They need people to know they're the boss. They need people to know that they offered that idea. They need people to know that. You don't. In other words, you're very comfortable not having to have to shoulder all the responsibility that comes with being in charge of something.
Ben: Right.
Steven: You can openly share it, share ideas. You're extremely open-minded. You're one of the most open-minded people I've profiled all last year.
Ben: And that is the individualism score?
Steven: It's part of it. It's half of it. So your individualism score is an 80, but your regulatory score is a 13.
Ben: Okay.
Steven: What that means is, the regulatory person is the black and white thinker. In other words, there's only one way to skin a cat, my way. You're like, “I don't care how we skin the cat, just get the cat skinned.”
Ben: Right.
Steven: Now if you have a better way of skinning the cat, please tell me about it and we'll do that.
Ben: Yep.
Steven: Like that's what you're doing. Some people, they're like, “No. Even if your way's better than mine, I'm not doing it 'cause it's not my way.”
Ben: Yeah.
Steven: So you're the opposite of that. So for you, when you look at rules, you're gonna sit back and make a determination of whether or not that rule's worthy for you to follow it.
Ben: Right. Right. Exactly.
Steven: Okay. You look at that rule and you might think, “You know what? That is the dumbest rule I've ever seen. So we're not doing that.” Okay? You have that ability. Your opposite, no matter what the rule is, they must follow it.
Ben: Yeah. Quick question for you. Is this type of approach, or this type of behavioral analysis coming from the school of thought that this stuff is genetically hard-wired? Or is it more of like a nature vs. nurture type of thing?
Steven: Okay. Everybody's born with a cardinal trait, a bent. Okay? A behavioral bent. If you've had children, they're different at six months. Same family, same parents, same environment, but they are different. You can have a choleric baby, or a melancholic baby, and from the get-go, they're that way. So dig up a diamond out of the ground, you birth a child into the world, you put that diamond into a rock tumbler, and you tumble it for a while, and it comes out looking different, but it's still a diamond. So, your environment polishes the stone you already are.
Ben: Yeah. The reason I ask is…
Steven: And how you’re polished determines what's going to happen after it.
Ben: Yeah. I was homeschooled K through 12, and I've always wondered how much that's influenced my perception of things like rules, thinking outside the box, et cetera because I pretty much grew up educating myself.
Steven: That will have an influence. Yes. So that environment was a certain way and it was that way all the time. So basically, looking at this profile, you're able to make this adaptation to where rules are important, you understand that, but they can be broken. And so, let me say a couple of things 'cause I wanna be able to not do your HVP here.
Ben: Yeah. Sure.
Steven: Your altruistic line is a 46, which means you care about people. You care. Some might say you have a funny way of showing it because they're judging the book by the cover, which is the behavioral piece, the observable indicators. I'm watching you deal with the clerk who is arguing with you, and they're wrong. And so, I'm watching that, so I'll make a determination without really knowing you. But when I look at this profile, you're a caring person. You see? So you probably don't really like it if somebody's not pulling their own weight. So, that means what you'll do is you'll work hard for people that are doing everything in their power to help themselves, but you might not have time for somebody who doesn't do that.
Ben: That's so true. Yeah.
Steven: Okay. So if I'm on your team, I better pull at least all my weight, at least all my weight if we're gonna get along. But if I'm mooching or taking credit for things you've done, and that's okay if I'm doing everything in my power to do my part, you might even let me get away with that because you're like touche. But if I'm not doing that, you've already, I'm marked already.
Ben: Yeah. That's very true. One of the things that I tend to detest most is laziness in people, and I tend to be very aloof and judgmental towards folks who don't seem to be driven.
Steven: That's because you drive in your sleep.
Ben: Yeah.
Steven: You probably have driving dreams.
Ben: Yeah.
Steven: You're also above average on your theoretical line, which means your brain is very itchy. The only way to scratch it is to learn new things. So you may find a way to do something, and you find these insights and do it, and then you find later something else. You will abandon the former and go with the latter. And you'll keep doing that. You have the ability to change direction as necessary.
In other words, some people, they have an idea, and they live with that idea, they do that idea, and then they find out, “Oh, that's been disproven.” They don't let it go. They keep doing it. “Well, that's the way my grandfather did it.” They stick with traditional ways, but they can't stand change. And so, they fear what they don't understand. You welcome it.
Ben: Yep. Makes sense. That's spot on.
Steven: So you will always climb. You will consistently grow, and learn, and grow, and learn, and you can't stop because of this itchy brain of yours. You'd rather be taught than entertained. And so because of that, you have a strong drive towards getting to the bottom of things. So how deep does the rabbit hole go? You wanna know. And if it goes further, “Let's go!” “But we need more oxygen.” “Don't be such a baby.”
Ben: Yeah. It's true.
Steven: You see what I mean? It's incredible. Alright. I wanna look at the HVP results 'cause this is gonna to be, hopefully, mind-blowing.
Ben: Sure. And by the way, we had four primary emotions: anger, optimism, patience, and fear. We had seven attitudes: desire, individualism, regularity, altruism, theoretical, and what were the other two? What am I missing?
Steven: Okay. Political, which is a drive for control. The first one was aestheric. Economic, which is competitive, bottom-line thinking. Individualistic, which is the need to be unique and outside of the box, and you named the others. So very, very powerful when the combinations are at differing heights of intensity. It all means something different.
Ben: Yeah. Now before we jump into the HVP, when people go through this profile with you, did they get some kind of like a PDF, or a printout, or something of that nature?
Steven: Yes. I didn't print out the big one for you 'cause you're getting a full-on debrief. But when they do it, they end up with about 68 pages.
Ben: Okay. Well if Steven sends me anything, for those of you listening in, I will link to, or embed it in the show notes for you over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/behavior. Alright.
Steven: Yeah. I've created eight pages for you.
Ben: Wow. Amazing. Okay. HVP. Let's do it.
Steven: Alright. So, here's what happens. Everything, the human mind evaluates and organizes. It does it through six separate views, but they are integrated in a sense. So this is about integration of views. If you sprain your ankle or break your ankle, imagine getting six separate x-rays from different viewpoints. So now we know exactly what's going on with that ankle. Alright. Three of these views, we call outer world, three we call inner world. And I'm gonna go through these rather quickly for the sake of time.
Ben: Sure.
Steven: So one of your outer world views is empathy. In other words, how well do you, Ben, understand how your choices are impacting other people. You're coming in with what's called a crystal clear score. In other words, you know exactly how your decision and your choice is gonna affect those around you. Okay. Let me measure something out. How important is it to you? It's extremely important. When you make decisions, you take into account how this is going to affect the people around me when you do it.
Ben: Like a people-pleaser?
Steven: No.
Ben: No? Okay.
Steven: Because you're not a people-pleaser. You have a heightened awareness about how this decision is gonna affect those people. So you're a, I-don't-hurt-people person.
Ben: Okay. Gotcha.
Steven: I help them. Okay? Donald Trump hurts people. Okay? He starts out this interview with a female reporter. “Let's start by saying you're pathetic.”
Ben: Yeah.
Steven: Doesn't even know the girl. Okay? You wouldn't do that.
Ben: So even though I'm an assassin-sniper, I don't actually like to hurt people?
Steven: That's exactly right. That's exactly right! So, I can easily misjudge you if I just watch your action. But in your mind, you're holding the baby down. It's screaming, and kicking, and looking you with wild eyes while you're pouring the medicine down it's throat saying, “Believe me, this is for your own good.”
Ben: Yeah.
Steven: That's how you do it. So whatever you do, in your mind it's designed to help, not harm.
Ben: Right.
Steven: Some people, they don't care how their decisions affect other people. Some people don't know how their decisions affect other people. They're saying, “I don't know why everybody's so upset.” Okay? You do. Alright. Next one. Practical thinking. This is about comparative choices. So if I said to you, “Ben, I want you to go down to the dog pound and find me a puppy for my three little kids.” And you get there, and there's 20 puppies. What are you gonna do? So how well do you understand how your choices and your solutions are influencing the targeted results?
In other words, “I gotta get Steve a good puppy for the kids.” You have a crystal clear understanding. So you see those puppies clearly. Alright, they're all dogs. How important is it to you that you pick the right one? Extremely important. Very results-oriented. You are gonna come home with the best puppy. I don't have to worry about it. You are not going to come home with the Pitbull. And then when I say, “Ben, my kids are like 2, 3, and 4.” You're not gonna say, “But he was cute!” You're gonna be like, “You know what? Probably a beagle would be good for that family.” You're gonna think about it. You're gonna know. You're not randomly grabbing a dog. You're making comparative choices.
So you have excellent understanding, and it's extremely important. Which means the odds of you getting the right dog are extremely high. Alright. System judgment. How well do you understand how your decisions and choices are working with established structures, rules, standards? Okay. You have a clear understanding, but you're reactive, which means you have a negative cautious bias, which means, “I'll look at these rules and determine which one makes sense,” but I'm not gonna just blanketly go, “Just obey it because somebody told me to.” They might be stupid. That's how you do it. So you pick and choose based upon your own horse sense. Alright. So that's your outer world views.
Now look at your inner world views. So just like empathy is about understanding and appreciating others, self-esteem is about understanding and appreciating yourself. So where's your self-esteem score? You have a clear score, which means you understand that it's important to know how your choices are impacting how you value yourself. But, you have a double negative bias attention score, which means you're extremely demanding on yourself and you're very critical of yourself. You might win a race and think after, “Dammit, I could have done better.” So think of this: take that demand upon yourself, couple it with extreme high dominance, anger emotion, couple it with super creativity, and what do you get? You get a person who is relentless, that will never give up, and will keep striving to be better, and better, and better. And nobody can stop you as a rule.
Ben: That's 100% true.
Steven: Okay. Now let's look at this. Role awareness. How well do you understand how your choices are impacting your valuation of your current role in life? Like, “Who am I? Who's Ben Greenfield?” You have a clear understanding that you need to know who you are, and you know exactly who you are. You have attentive social role image, which means, “I know who I am and I know who I'm not, and I just stick with who I am and that's what I do.” You get some people, they have a very low score here. They don't know who they are and they're trying to get into an organization to be the VP. And I'll measure it and I go, “You don't know if you're a VP or shoe salesman.” They don't know. They don't know who they are.
Ben: Yeah.
Steven: They're hoping this will help them figure it out.
Ben: Right.
Steven: Well, that's not very bright to be hiring that person at 300,000 bucks a year.
Ben: Yeah. Maybe that's also why I've been so resistant to these type of analyses because I've always thought that I understand myself.
Steven: Listen, Ben. You don't need an analysis. You're right. You don't. You have strong social role image. Most of the people I do this for need this. That's why they're paying for it. Or a company or whatever, they need it. Now, how you see yourself is how you'll exercise, it's how you'll do fitness. Like some people, they can't do fitness without being with other people. They see you and they're like, “Why can't I?” Well, they're wired differently. They're completely wired differently. So they need a different kind of environment. So you have to construct and design the environment to fit the behavior. Alright.
Self-direction. Where is Ben going? How well do you understand how your choices are contributing to where you believe you need to be in the future? You have a very clear understanding of where you're going, and you are perfectionist, idealistic, and insistent on arrival. You will go wherever you want. Period. You know where you're going and you know you're going to arrive. You're just waiting for it to happen.
I've used this on people coming into an organization. Let's say we're hiring a very important role, maybe even a partner, and I look at this line here and it says, “Unconventional clarity, maybe visible clarity.” And then when it comes to how important is it to them, it's not important at all. So going into that position is like trying on shoes. “Let's see if these fit.” Well what if they don't? Well, we'll get another pair. So this company's gonna invest six months of training, high dollar salary, and recruiting fees for somebody who's trying on the organization like a shoe to see if it fits? You see? You will likely do nothing else other than what you're doing 'cause this graph tells me you have found your niche.
You know where you're going, you know you're going to arrive, and what drives you is your image of self. You are actually driven by trying to be better. Now because of this, Ben, you're likely 10 times the person you think you are. So you're, for whatever reason, you're very hard on yourself. And so when you make mistakes, it's grievous for you. Whereas other people are like, “Sorry! My bad!” You're like, “Sorry. How could I be so stupid?”
Ben: Yup. Makes perfect sense.
Steven: “How could I have done that? That'll never happen again.” You really work hard at making sure you do things right the first time and you're relentless. So, your profile is truly, Ben, an anomaly.
Ben: Really? Interesting. You're not just saying that? You don't tell everyone that they're a unique snowflake.
Steven: No. I'd say 40% of the people are crying when I do that.
Ben: Interesting.
Steven: Because of one thing or another.
Ben: And so that's the HPV? The ones that you do, or the HVP?
Steven: Yep. That I just went through.
Ben: And I know that we freaking flew through this in the limited time that we had available. My mind is absolutely blown. I mean, it's kind of seldom that I will have a podcast interview with someone, and be telling myself, “Oh, gosh. I'm gonna need to go for a walk after this, put this thing in my ear buds, and listen to it again, and take more notes.” But the fact is, I am intrigued and blown away. And like I said, I really didn't know what to expect going in, and for those you listening in, I really truly did not know what to expect. So I took the analysis, and Steven and I Skyped this morning for about 60 seconds before the call, and then just jumped in. So, Steven, this is amazing, absolutely amazing.
Steven: Yeah. Now, can you imagine knowing everything about everybody you're highly associated with, especially if you're trying to produce income with them and the like that, or maybe a partner, or your kids?
Ben: There are people that work with me in my company who I wanna get this analysis for now. And I'd like to get for my wife as well.
Steven: Now, I want to say to you the one you took was the more extended version. Most people just take the behavior and the attitudes. They don't do the HVP. I do that when it's a very important hire, or a very important decision, and the person they need is a decision maker. So we want to know how they make those decisions. So this was my top analysis.
Ben: And this one was called the, it was called the what?
Steven: The executive summary.
Ben: Executive summary. Okay.
Steven: And it's a one and a half hour debrief.
Ben: Now, for people who are listening who want to get this, like if the CEO is listening and who wants to get this for their employees, or someone just wants to know more about themselves and the way that they tick, can you give folks kind of like some action steps? Are you gonna have some kind of a link or something that I can give people to go to if they visit the show notes? Something like that.
Steven: Yeah. Definitely. We'll create that, and then they can take that, and just follow those simple steps.
Ben: Okay.
Steven: Typically when I'm doing a call, we go over their graph and then they ask me, “Okay. So this is why this is happening to me. What do I do?” And so I call it uncover, discover, recover.
Ben: Gotcha.
Steven: Most of the time it's one call. Like I had a guy from Australia, he called back today because he had to because we couldn't finish it because there's too much going on. So it depends.
Ben: Okay. Gotcha. Oh, and also, when we were emailing back and forth, you mentioned that you might be able to connect to the people who are listening in with some kind of a discount or a coupon to use. Do you have any idea what kind of discount you might be able to offer to folks who want to do this, or I honestly, and complete transparency for everybody listening in, I did this analysis for free with Steven, and so I don't know how much it costs or anything like that. But can you fill us in on like the cost, the discount, things of that nature?
Steven: Yes. Typically, what you just did is $525 of an hour and a half. That's the typical rate.
Ben: Okay. Gotcha.
Steven: What I'm doing is taking a 100 off of that for your listeners.
Ben: Oh, wow. Okay. Cool. That's very generous. Thank you.
Steven: The other one is typically three and a quarter, with a one hour debrief. And I'm taking 50 off of that one.
Ben: Okay. Perfect. And folks if you're listening in, we prerecord these podcasts, so but by the time this interview gets released, I'll be sure that in the show notes, I have all the details in terms of how to get a hold of Steven if you wanna do this, and also the specific code or the specific page to visit if you wanna get a discount on a profile like the one that Steve and I just talked about. So again, everything in terms of the show notes are over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/behavior. bengreenfieldfitness.com/behavior, spelled the way Americans spell it, B-E-H-A-V-I-O-R.
So, Steven, I know you gotta run. I gotta run, but I wanna thank you again for being so generous with your time, for going through this analysis with me, and again I see now at the beginning why you said you found at 12 years old to have this crazy skill being able to read people, because I can't say anything that you have said in the past hour about me has not been spot on. So again, I'm blown away. My head is spinning right now with all this very cool information. Can't wait to download this one, listen to it again, and also send it over to my loved one. And thank you so much, man.
Steven: You're welcome. It was a pleasure, Ben. And thanks for having me on.
Ben: Awesome. Well, folks this is Ben Greenfield and Steven Sisler. And he also has a book, he has a website, I'll link to all that in the show notes over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/behavior. Thanks for listening in and have a healthy week.
You’ve been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. Go to bengreenfieldfitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.
Prepare for your mind to be blown by today’s podcast guest.
Mine certainly was.
My guest is Steve Sisler, and today’s episode, he tears me completely apart, absolutely amazes me as he “psychoanalyzes” me, and during the entire process, you’re going to learn a ton about yourself and your behavior.
If you’ve ever wanted to know what makes you tick…
Exactly why you think the way you do…
What drives you personally when you exercise or race…
How you interact with people and relationships (and how you can make this work for or against you)…
And why you behave the way you behave…
This episode is a must-listen for you…
Steve is author of the book: The Four People Types: And What Drives Them, a behavioral profiler and lead behavioral analyst at The Behavioral Resource Group. He works with clients in more than 18 nations, gathering behavioral, emotional, and attitudinal information on individuals within corporate and personal settings. Then he develops strategies for leadership, teamwork, and entrepreneurial or career success.
Steve is widely considered as the “go to” source for behavioral and attitudinal issues within the framework of both business and family (he’s been doing this stuff since the shocking age of twelve!). He is considered a true anomaly within the world of behavioral analysis.
During our fascinating discussion, you’ll discover:
-How Steven developed the crazy skill of being able to “read people” extremely accurately from the young age of twelve…
-The one unique attitude Steven found me to possess – an attitude that only 2% of people on the face of the planet can match…
-Why people perceive me to be aloof and arrogant based on my high level of no-nonsense, black-and-white thinking…
-Why Steven observes that I could be either a very good assassin or a sniper…
-How when I am in work mode I become a complete perfectionistic machine and check my emotions at the door…
-Why I score very high on alternative ideas, unconventional thoughts and thinking outside-the-box…
-The reason Steven thinks I’m not competitive, but rather simply an artist, discoverer and educator…
-I don’t compete and race and spend time in the gym because I’m competitive, but rather because I am, what Steven describes as a “body artist”…
-Why I score extremely high on individualism, innovation, uniqueness, autonomy, freedom (and hate teleprompters)…
-The reason I’m very comfortable not necessarily being the person in charge…
-Why I am a rule-breaker and why I have a negative, cautious bias when it comes to following rules……
-The reason some people can perceive that I don’t “care”, and why I tend to care the most about people who are making an effort to help themselves…
-What it means to have an itchy brain, and why some people will change direction very quickly in life and let go of non-effective ideas easily…
-Why my score is crystal clear when it comes to how my choices affect those around me, and why it’s extremely important to me that any decision I make not hurt anyone around me…
-Why I’m extremely demanding and critical of myself…
-The personality that makes me relentless, want to never give up, keep striving to get better and better, and have a perception nobody can stop me…
-Why I’m very clear about who I am…
-And much more!
Steve is offering a significant discount on the exact behavioral analysis we do in this episode. Details below!
Resources:
Steven’s Full Behavioral Analysis – save $50 with this link and code “ben”
Steven’s Full Executive Summary (what I did and what we discuss in this episode) – save $100 with this link and code “ben”
Steve’s Book (link includes free audio of first chapter)
Below are my own results, which Steven and I discuss in this episode.