"Behavioral Intelligence" with guest Jay Johnson

You're listening to TFR, This Feels Right. Hi there and welcome to TFR, This Feels Right. I'm your host, Joel Silverstone. Before we jump in, let's check in with our first guest. Number 13, your defenseman, Jay Johnson. Jay, how are you feeling today?

I'm doing very well, Joel. How are you?

Great. We'll explain a bit more about the hockey introduction in a second. In a second, sorry. We've got Jay Johnson with us, and Jay is the CEO of Koyas Creative Group, which is in Detroit, Michigan. He is a renowned speaker and master trainer. You may have seen him because he has shared his specialization in behavior and organizational development in over 20 countries, 4 continents, and of course doing it virtually now all over the world. You may have seen him, maybe you're one of those close to 2 million people that have seen his TEDx talk on dealing with difficult people. Such a good job, Jay, really enjoyed it. And he's here today to talk to us today about behavioral intelligence. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that, but first, Jay, let me check in. Is this correct? Do I have this right about you? Is this where you're at right now?

Yes, sir, that's it.

All right. Behavioral intelligence is— this is going to be a really interesting show today because if you want to be able to influence others, it's really important to be able to understand what are your motivations, what are your behaviors, how do you react in certain situations, What are your values and beliefs? And Jay has figured out a way, and we're going to unpack this today, and you're going to learn a little bit more about yourself and a little bit more about how to communicate with others and how to influence them in a way that makes everyone feel right. And again, that's the segue into this show, which is This Feels Right, which is the ability to influence others without manipulation. And what that means is we're able to speak Speak to the logic, and most importantly, communicate to the emotions so the other person says, yeah, this feels right. And we're really excited to have Jay Johnson here again, the CEO of Coius Creative Group, renowned speaker who speaks about behavioral intelligence, who's going to be sharing with us the ways that we can do this, how we can influence others without being manipulative, learning about ourselves and learning about others. So Jay, I gave you that introduction as the hockey player because this is what's— what I find really interesting is that your whole life was basically Up to a certain point dedicated to being an NHL hockey player. So how does an NHL hockey player go from that to all of a sudden being a specialized, special master trainer, speaker on behavioral intelligence?

Yeah, I mean, the short story is realizing quickly that I wasn't going to make the NHL. But ideally, yeah, I played hockey for a number of years at a very competitive level, and it was my life. It was my passion. I wanted nothing else. I mean, I woke up in the morning, I was never the person that had to be told you have to go practice or go outside. I was the person that was told you have to come inside and go to bed because you have to go to school tomorrow. So I pursued that path for a long time, and I found myself after— in high school, and as I was kind of transitioning out of high school, found myself at a crossroads. And I was offered an opportunity from Wayne State University to, instead of going into something like hockey, to go into a different activity, which was debate. And ultimately, I ended up choosing the debate realm. And it was a difficult choice. It was a very challenging one, but one that I look back on and I'm very thankful that I made even at the age of 17 when everything told me that I wanted to be a professional hockey player. But then I realized I was also only 5'9 and, you know, there was going to be some challenges there.

There was going to be some challenges, and I think this leads us into the behavioral intelligence because we're going to talk about the elements that make them up. But, you know, this gives us a chance right now to unpack one of those elements. What element were you as a hockey player?

So I was, I was a fire, and in our behavioral elements profile, the fire preference behavior is very driven, very competitive. If not checked, it can come off very aggressive. And, you know, being of smaller stature, I was a very, very aggressive hockey player, and that was kind of how I made my mark out on the ice. So I relied very, very heavily, probably too heavily, on fire-type behaviors and did not necessarily mature some of the other behavioral elements such as air, earth, and water. Which we'll get to talk about a little bit today too.

Well, here's the thing, right? Because you needed that fire to be successful because you were one of the smaller people on the ice. And subconsciously, without even knowing it at the time, you figured it out, is that that's your, your, your, your other character that you needed to create, you needed to lean on. And that took away any trace of self-consciousness because you kind of put on your cape, your fire cape in a sense, at that moment to become that person. And then now we're going to go into behavioral intelligence because obviously you had to look at that element of fire and, and now bring in other elements. So let's talk about that now. Let's talk about what you've been doing for almost, you know, close to 20 years now about behavioral intelligence. So for those that don't know, what, what is behavioral intelligence?

So we created behavioral intelligence. You know, you hear the different areas like emotional intelligence or You know, even things like musical intelligence, and those were kind of inspired by Gardner a long time ago, that there's multiple forms of intelligences. And Daniel Goleman and his work really popularized emotional intelligence. And one of the things— and I have a profound respect and appreciation for emotional intelligence, but I always felt that there was some kind of disconnect because for me, in many cases, it didn't feel like it was necessarily emotional, but there was a more behavioral component to it. So When I talk about behavioral intelligence, I like to give an analogy. Do you ever play cards, Joel? Do you ever play poker?

Sure.

So, you know, when you're playing poker, you're dealt cards. You know, if you're playing Texas Hold'em, you're dealt a couple of cards. You don't get a choice on what those cards are. Neither do I. I get a different set of cards. I don't get a choice of it. I don't get to see your cards. You don't get to see my cards. The cards in that scenario are very much like emotional intelligence. We have to know what they do. We have to know how they interact with everything else. But ultimately, at the end of the day, if I can't see yours and I don't get to choose mine, the only thing I get to choose is how to play at the table. I get to choose to play your behavior. So how you act, how you respond, how you bet, how you hold your cards, how you move, your body language, all of those things. All of those different elements would be, in the analogy, behavioral intelligence. So we have to have both in order to be successful. We, we defined it kind of very simply. Behavioral intelligence is the skills and abilities to accurately explain existing behaviors, predict future behavior, influence other people's behavior ethically, and then control or manage our own behaviors in a variety of different contexts.

Yeah, it really is. You know, the part of emotional intelligence I think that there's a bridge between these two is an awareness, right? So it's being aware of yourself and being aware of the person in front of you. And if you want to communicate with that person— this is what I'm hearing, Jay, correct me if I'm wrong— if you want to be able to communicate with them, you want to be able to influence them, then you might have to realize, OK, if I'm fire and I'm competitive and this person is another element and we'll unpack those other elements, then I'm going to have to be able to adapt Or they're not gonna hear me. They're just gonna judge me because we're— there's a conflict.

Yeah, and that's absolutely right. You know, if I, if I rely on my fire behaviors, that means that I'm gonna try to win the argument whether I need to or not. I'm gonna try to dominate the conversation. I'm gonna try to maybe be overly assertive, and in which cases it's gonna damage a relationship potentially, or it's going to have me come across in a way that's Not collaborative or not focused on other people or their, you know, situations or their contributions to even that relationship. So in that entire paradigm, we need to be able to think about, all right, I might have this kind of innate emotional reaction to something, but I don't have to choose to behave accordingly. I can choose a different behavioral path. than what I may have been feeling or what I may have intrinsically been driven to.

And I think we can only make that choice if we're, if we're aware that we're driven by this fire, which is, I said, very competitive. It doesn't matter whether I'm right or wrong, I just want to win. And so if we realize that that's what drives us, that that's what our current belief is, our current value is, we're not going to get very far.

And that's absolutely right. So an awareness of our own behaviors, an awareness of our own emotions, an awareness of why we choose to have that preference or where that preference maybe came from or how we developed that preference is absolutely essential. Once we become aware of it, well, then we can explain it. And once we can explain it, then we can predict it. Once we can predict it, then we can either control it or influence it to the outside.

So let's, let's, let's talk about the prediction and the influence part because here you are, you're the fire hockey player, you now become part of a different team in the sense of a debate team, and then you become a CEO, and then you become a speaker. So now you're having to lean into other elements. So let's go to one other element. So what was the other element now that you needed to develop as you went down that path?

Yeah, so when I joined the debate team, it was a critical thinking activity. You had to have a high level of strategy. You were looking to Essentially solve multiple problems and challenges. You had to come up with innovative arguments. You had to think outside of the box in many cases strategically in order to win. So through the debate activity, I really kind of developed my air preference, which is the innovation side of things, the, the strategic, the outside of the box, the back and forth, and In the development of that, it was one of those things where I started to see the value of critical thinking and creativity, imagination, and innovation. So I would say that my, my secondary— well, my secondary preference is really reliant on Air, which is part of the reason why I think you and I enjoy talking to each other so much, because your primary is right there in the Air side. It's true.

Well, we'll talk about me after the break. That's enough about me. What do you think of me? But we'll come back to me after the break. Okay, so you're using air now, which is this visionary, this imagination to be able to think out of the box. And so fire and air sound like they're pretty— there's similarities. The fire is the competitive and the air is the visionary. And then I guess we got to go to what's the one you had to work on the most as you went into business, basically?

Yeah. So I think that those 2 came fairly naturally to me. Uh, one of the ones at my weakest and still my weakest in my, in the elemental profile is earth. And earth is, you know, being a, being on a hockey team or developing a team nature.

Mm-hmm.

Water, which is more of the collaboration side of things, the more people side of things. I've always valued people. I've always enjoyed people. And I've always enjoyed some level of teamwork. So that one even came a little natural later, but Earth was not my forte. I did not think systematically, process-focused, or anything else. You know, there was never a— there was never a strategic, here's how we're going to do this first, second, third, fourth, fifth. It was always just, here's a great idea, let's go. And, you know, that can create some challenges every now and then.

For sure. You already lost me when you said strategic.

I already tuned out as soon as I heard the word strategic.

All right. And so you, so you have an example here, right? Because being a fire air, you need someone, you need an earth person on your team to basically ground you. So there is someone like that on your team. How do you, what did you learn and how to communicate with them?

Yeah. So one of my business partners, and oftentimes I feel very bad for her because she is the only one with the highest earth profile in our company. But she's fantastic. And we would fight like cats and dogs constantly over different initiatives or different things. We never seemed to necessarily agree. And part of it was, I would come in, you know, with my high air and my high fire, and I'd be like, hey, I've got this great idea. Let's try this. And this is how it's going to work. And this is what it's going to mean, you know, 10 years from now. And she would take a step back and say, well, how are we going to implement that? How— what, you know, what are we going to do with capacity? How are we going to create a process for this? How are we going to fund this? And my typical response as an air was, I don't know, we'll figure that out as we go along.

Right.

And that wasn't necessarily the thing that she would be looking for in that communication. So as I started to learn more about these behavioral preferences and these sort of intrinsic behavioral values that we all have a preference for, I started to learn to approach those conversations in a very different way. And I would come and I would share, here's my vision. This is what I think it looks like in 10 years. Here's how we're going to operationalize this. Here's how we're going to create a system for this. Here's my thought process on the way that this will look like in the next month, in the next 6 months, in the next year. I'd like you to take a look at this over the next couple of weeks, and maybe we can come back and have a discussion because I'd like to see how you would operationalize this and how you would implement this. And all of a sudden, a lot of the conflicts— we still have some, but a lot of the conflicts just dissipated. It gave the other person the opportunity to feel acknowledged and heard that their behavioral values and preferences were important. It gave them the opportunity to think through those systems. It gave them the opportunity to contribute to the conversation and make ultimately the conversation much more effective and a much more effective outcome. The number of times that my swirling air and fire caused maybe jumping the gun or not thinking things through the entire way, it could become very, very problematic. So I've learned to lean on that side. And to really prop up that side, especially with it being one of my weaker elemental preferences.

Yeah, again, it goes back to being aware of who you are, what your values and beliefs are, you know, and you could put it into the sign. I'm fire and I'm air. And then what's this person's values and beliefs? Earth. And so as soon as you said the word operationalize, her ears perked up.

You got it.

It's speaking. It's— if we want to get our message across and you want to get your vision across, there's no point in going on and on and on about your vision because she's not listening. Anymore. You're making her stressed.

Exactly. You know, all, all of the things that are going on in their mind is not the vision and what it looks like in 10 years. It's in 10 minutes, how am I going to try to make this actually work? And that was a huge communication disconnect, which I think we find ourselves in more often than not. We communicate from our own preference in so many different ways. Without necessarily having the tactical empathy to identify how is this person experiencing my communication, how are they feeling, what uncertainties am I creating for them, what fears am I creating for them in the way that I'm communicating my perspective or my position.

Which goes back to your TEDx talk about dealing with difficult people, and you talk about, you know, not having a heart attack and, and dealing with stress, is that You're going to be stressed and you're going to create a lot of stress in others if you just continue to stay on the same path that you're doing, right? We've got these highways in our brain from, you know, behaviors that we've done over and over and over again, but we have to build new highways in our brain. And it starts by being, you know, just putting into these simple elements of fire and air and earth. And now let's go to water. So what is— so what— where does water fit into all this?

So water is the collaboration side. That is the high-performing teams. When you have strong water quality, that's really your ability to kind of tap into that empathy and see from the other perspective. So the waters in our, in our company, they are the people that when we come up with something new, they're going to say, okay, well, how does that affect this division? How does that make morale feel? How can we work together in a way that's more cooperative, more collaborative? And more consensus building. So they're going to be very focused on the people and that sort of team element, that team culture and that team collaboration.

Yeah, which, which you really need. And we'll come back to me after the break. But, you know, I find water is such an important part of that. It's the glue, in a sense, to all of this. All right. That being said, we're going to take our little break here and get ready, Jay, because this is something we like to call Improv, improve your communication style.

All right.

Are you ready for this?

I think so. We'll see. All right.

Well, we're gonna do a little something we'd like to call yes— well, call yes and, but we're gonna start with yes but. All right, so I'm gonna explain to you what we're gonna do. Jay, let's pretend that I'm over there with you in Detroit and I'm a I'm a colleague, a partner, and you want to get me to come back and play some— play hockey. I haven't played in 10 years, and you want to get me motivated to come back out on the ice and play some hockey with your league there, your recreational league.

Okay.

All right. Just so you know, at the beginning, I'm always going to answer with— no matter what you say, I'm still going to answer with yes, but.

Okay. Just so you're prepared.

All right, so you ready? Are you ready to start?

Absolutely.

Okay, here we go.

Joel, I hear you love hockey.

Yes, yes, but you know, now I'm getting more into baseball.

I wonder if you wouldn't mind trying to come out and play with me on my team. I'd love to see your talent.

Yes, but it has been so long, it would— I would just be embarrassed.

We're all out there just for a good time. You know, maybe you could give it a try.

Yes, but Jay, I know you're competitive and I just— no way I can keep up with you guys.

I really need you to come out so that way I can feel better about myself.

Yes, but, you know, I'm still dealing with how I'm feeling here. All right, we'll pause right there. Good, good, good, good. That was good. We're gonna go back in time. Do do do do do do do. Back in time. We're gonna start all over again. Don't change anything.

Whoops.

And I'm gonna answer now with yes and.

Okay. All right.

Here we go. Let's start all over. We're going back in time to a minute ago.

All right, Joel. I hear you're a big fan of hockey.

Yes, and I can't wait till the playoffs start again.

I was wondering if maybe you'd be interested in coming out and joining my team for a game or two.

Yes, and I would love to get back in. I'm, I'm, I'm a little rusty.

You know, that's okay. We're all rusty. I think that it would be a great opportunity for you to meet some amazing people.

Yes, and that is so true because I do need to build my network, so that would really be helpful and sounds like fun.

And scene!

Yay! Bravo! All right, Jake. How did you feel when, when you were being yes-butted?

You know, it was one of those things where, especially with having an air element, it was like, okay, well, how am I going to get past this or try to get past this? But it was frustrating. It was, it was that sort of— I almost felt negative just from the reaction of the but. It was like, yes, But, and it was like, what's the next but? Gosh, what's the next but?

Right. Yeah. You're, you're kind of always anxiety and you're kind of sitting on the edge of your seat. You're almost, you're almost like a defenseman. You're almost getting ready for that, for the rush all the time.

Yep.

How did you feel when you, when with the yes, and when you were being yes-anded?

Much more empowered. Like, I felt like there was a better connection. I felt like we were more in sync. I felt You know, I actually felt acknowledged, like I actually felt like the things that I was saying, you were acknowledging and contributing and building upon that, not necessarily cutting it down before, you know, having to completely change the nature of the communication for the next question.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's taking the censorship out of it. So you're feeling more motivated to keep giving up, giving ideas. And we came up with some new ideas. And even though I still felt awkward about coming out to the ice and I still feel rusty, I can now— I can, because I'm saying yes and as opposed to yes but and sort of cutting it down, I'm more open now to the ideas that I'm going to be networking. I'm going to be having some fun. I'm more into it because there's that collaboration that's going on which happened.

Yeah.

Lovely. Great. All right. Well, now let's go over to— I did this assessment.

Mm-hmm.

So thank you very much. And this was, this was really interesting because I came up as Air. As you say, we're both, we both have some similarities with the Air. And it was validating. I also want to, you know, give myself a pat on the back. It was validating to go, okay, I'm not crazy. I do have an imagination. I do have big ideas. I am a very motivated person. I do like to come in with fresh ideas and have that. And then I also saw my challenges or my weaknesses, which is no long-term planning and no detail-oriented— I'm not detail-oriented. And it's like, oh yeah, you got me. Absolutely. As my mouth was open, you got me. And even though I know these things, but just to see it now makes me much more aware of that. And now when I'm doing something, I might even just go, All right, this is something I need to work on. I'm not detail-oriented, and this is— I don't just have to be relying on my sign. This is my behavior, and I can have an effect on my behavior. I can control this. I can be more detailed, or I can be more focused on that.

Yeah, and I mean, that's really one of the fundamental things that I approach, whether it's dealing with difficult people, whether it's anything else, is that our behavior really is a choice. And we may choose to rely on a behavior like fire for myself, which was the comfortable, the, you know, the neurons that fire together wire together, right?

Yeah.

And I've relied on those for so long that it's hard to kind of break away from there, but I can break away from there. And bringing that awareness, as you said, to some of these different places gives us the opportunity to further develop those behaviors that then complement us as a more holistic or rounded performance, you know, performance-driven person.

Yeah. So then, so here's my question now, because, you know, we talked about sort of the differences. So who would I be challenged with? So for example, Fire and Earth doesn't quite work so well. You know, what's someone I have to be aware of and maybe have to maybe shift The way I'm going to communicate.

Yeah, I think that in a lot of cases you end up finding it's really how people operationalize the behavior. So for example, Fire and Earth may not necessarily— because Fire is very, uh, Fire is very driven, it's, uh, it's much more individualistic. Earth is also a bit individualistic, um, but Fire moves very, very quickly, whereas Earth would want to establish the process and build the ground and the framework. With you being an Air, uh, one of the challenges that you might end up finding is connecting with somebody that is a very high Earth. Uh, it would feel as though if you came out with the ideas and threw these out there, that Earth would almost be like a stopgap for you, that they would be trying to shut those ideas down. And vice versa, the Earth would in turn look at you and say, Joel is just hanging out in the clouds, there's no plan, there's no thought process there.

Right.

So that could be a potential Flashpoint. Um, water is very good at getting along with all of the different elements, and they're very supportive of each of the different elements. So the fact that you are a primary preference towards air, but you also— your secondary and your third, your secondary being fire and your third being water— you probably have a very, very good capability of getting along with a lot of people. You probably tap into that water and that teamwork and that collaboration very, very easily. And slipping into that gives you the opportunity to make a better connection even with somebody that may on the Elemental Profile be at odds with the preference of your behavior.

Yeah, you know, that's a really good point because if I look back at sort of young Joel wanting to be a professional actor and probably more fire than I realized that I'm I'm finishing high school, then I'm finishing— in Quebec we had 2 years of college after high school— and I'm gonna go into acting school. And I'm so sure that I'm gonna get in that I have no other signs but fire. I'm so sure that when it came time to being sort of the callbacks, we have to— they watch how you work as a group, how you have vulnerability. And I had zero vulnerability, and it was all about me. And it took Took a few years before I even got accepted again because it took a few years to realize I needed that water sign. I needed that to learn how to collaborate. I needed how to listen. I need to be more empathetic and I need to be more, more vulnerable if I was going to be an actor.

Yeah, you know, when you, when you look at it and fire kind of is the— you want to go fast and, and we, we know the quote, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. Water is much more of that understanding of we need to go together. And that's something that actually, you know, from the teamwork side of things, I think that I had some of the Water. But the reality is, is when I started to learn that with a team and with a company, I had so many more opportunities to kind of focus on the things. For you, it seems as though once you realize that, okay, I've got to be considerate of the other people that are on the stage or that are sharing the stage with me, That's something that all of a sudden, it's a game changer.

Yeah.

We've become aware of our behaviors and how they can be limiting, and we've learned that there's an opportunity for a different set of behaviors or a different set of choices that may be completely empowering. You know, the very first time I met you at the conference that we were speaking at together, it was immediately apparent to me, like, if I would have taken a guess at that point in time, I would have assumed that you were very high air and very high water because You're very, very easy in the communication. You connect very well and you are incredibly considerate, but also just full of amazing ideas and these innovative thoughts and great conversation on that question. So it's nice to be able to watch you sort of even in the short amount of time that we've known each other, be able to move fluidly in between multiple elements. It shows a great sign of behavioral intelligence.

Oh, well, that's great. Thank you again. It's good to know I'm on the right path. This is— but this is, this is something that's taken years to learn. And now that you have put it into this format, I can, I can use part of that earth to actually operationalize this now and actually see how this fits in. Things that were— that took years to figure out, now I can actually say, okay, I need a little bit of this, I need a little bit of this and a little bit of this. To be successful, but I'll be— I'm only going to be successful if I'm bringing other people on board. And if you're just fire, if you're just air, if you're just earth, if you're just water, if you just stick to that element, you're just protecting yourself, but you're only going to go so far. Is that correct?

And that's absolutely right. You become over-reliant on one set of behaviors because they're comfortable or because they've helped you out in the past. And we miss a whole lot of opportunities to connect better with other people. We miss a lot of opportunities to influence people where they are at rather than just where we are coming from. And I think that that's one of the really critical aspects of this is by understanding, being aware, we can then choose the behaviors that are more appropriate for us to be both personally and professionally successful.

And this feels right. Jay, thank you so much for your time today. Before we sign off, where— I mean, people are probably now really— our listeners are probably really curious now about a few things. You know, where can we find your TEDx talk? But most importantly now, where can we find out more about this behavioral intelligence? Let's start with that.

Sure. So we actually just launched our Behavioral Elements website, and it's very simply behavioralelements.com. You can find our quick free assessment there. There's also the full assessment, which is the one that you got to take, Joel. And there's also a whole handful of different opportunities for you to sort of engage in Behave Intelligently, which is our hashtag that we go with that. But our company is Koyas Creative Group, which the website for that is also koyascreativegroup.com, and you can learn a little bit more about how we look at things from that perspective as well.

Terrific. And then also, um, on social media, if we sort of want to join a group or anything, where could we, where could we do that?

Yep. So we are on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, pretty much anywhere that you want to play. And, uh, in all of those spaces, we are the @CoeusCG. So Coeus CG, you can find us pretty much in any of your favorite platforms.

Great. And then finally, your TEDx talk, Dealing with Difficult People. Is that the title of it?

Yes, it is. Behavioral intelligence approach. And if you search Jay Johnson dealing with difficult people, watch out, there is a ventriloquist Jay Johnson. He's very talented, but that's not me. Not quite my skill set. But Jay Johnson and dealing with difficult people on TEDx, you'll definitely be able to find it.

Well, this felt right, Jay. Thank you so much for your time today. I learned a lot about myself, and I think our listeners also learned some great tools and abilities here in how to be able to communicate with others, influence others, and build more awareness about themselves. So I'm Joel Silverstone, and we will see you next week on This Feels Right.

Thank you, Joel.

Thank you, Jay. Thank you so much for listening. And if this felt right and you would like to see this interview, then come on over to our YouTube page at youtube.com/thisfeelsrightpodcast. Or join the conversation with our Facebook group at facebook.com/thisfeelsrightpodcast. Or if you just want more influencing tips and communication skills, then please connect with me on LinkedIn, Joel Silverstone, or come on over to Silverstone Communications at www.joelsilverstone.com. I look forward to connecting with you.