All You Need To Know About Behavior Assessment And Finding Your Purpose

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com and I'm super excited for today's guests because we're going to talk about behavioral assessment and processes, leadership and purpose, and all these fun things that we don't probably talk about enough. However, before we talk to our guests, I'd be remiss properly introduce my co host, the brain, the professor, the flight school sherpa, Scott Todd from Scott todd.net landmodo.com if you're not automating your craigslist and your Facebook postings, posting domination.com thelandgeek Learn anything about anything. Investor ninjas.com Scott Todd how are you, Mark?

I'm great. How are you?

Post is still normal. Respiration is fine. I can't complain. Just a quick little side note. Today's podcast is sponsored by none other than flight school. Figure out how the next 16 weeks can literally transform your life. Start building a passive income, get out of solo economic dependency, replace your income, retire your spouse, whatever you want to do. It all starts with getting properly trained. Let Scott Todd take you up that mountain of land investing. Go quickly, efficiently, safely. Learn more. Go to Langeek.com training so today's guest is Ken Keys, PhD. I'm already, I'm already sort of intimidated. He is the foremost global authority of behavioral assessment strategies and processes. An expert in leadership, purpose and wellness, he's authored over 4 million words of content, including 500 articles, four books and a dozen assessments. Dr. Kiese is present and CEO of Consulting Resource Group International which has served thousands of companies, associations, industry groups and leaders in over 30 countries. He is a highly sought after author, speaker, trainer, podcast host and TV media guest. His latest books include why Aren't you More Like Me? Deliberate Leadership and the Quest for Purpose. Ken Kees, welcome.

Well, good to be here and thanks gentlemen for having me on.

Yeah. So Ken, let's just rewind the tape. I can't imagine you were on the playground as a kid and you thought to yourself, one day I'm going to be the global authority on behavioral assessment strategies and processes.

Are you kidding me? I actually grew up on a dairy farm. I had my own dairy farm. And while I had my own dairy farm, I actually was a sales professional. That sort of was my industry now. I knew when I was young, I was in the 4H program that I enjoyed speaking. I was asked, excuse me, I was asked to be MC of banquets when I was 17, 18, 19. I did that quite frequently, this idea of being an author, absolutely not. My grade nine English teacher said I would not amount to anything because I couldn't read or write. So when I did my master's degree, my mba, they discovered I was dyslexic. So there was this little invention which we are using this very moment called a computer, which helped me to now write because he had a little red line under just about every word that I typed. So that's really how I was able to transition from there. And even when I got into the training industry in the late 80s, I didn't ever think that I would become an author. But, you know, we're, you know, world events changed and in 9 11, my speaking business changed and I went from being a speaker who was doing writing to an author who now speaks. That was really the mindset. And I bought Consulting resource group from Dr. Terry Anderson, who founded it in 1979. And then I spent 10 years revising the content at the company. So that was really the focus of this journey here. I've now done 3,000 paid presentations, 10,000 hours of coaching, and who knew, no way I would ever thought that would have led to where we're at today, you know, over 30 years later.

Wow, Scott, Todd, what are your thoughts?

I mean, I think that's pretty cool. I think that, you know, I think, I think 4 million words is quite, quite a large number there. But I think that the story behind it too is really, really incredible also.

And, you know, I love what you guys are doing and when you think about real estate and real estate investment and, you know, helping people growing up on the land, I mean, property, hey, that there is an identity. Identity, there's a connection. My son is a realtor. He's also, you know, becoming a real estate investment person, individual. So just love what you're doing and all the work there, you know, and people, this is a consideration for them, especially in these times.

So, Ken, that kind of leads me to, you know, if our listeners are mainly entrepreneurs are entrepreneurial, so, you know, everyone wants to have their passive income exceed their fixed expenses. Oftentimes, Scott and I will get prescriptive questions, how do I do this? How do I do that? But wouldn't the real question that they should be asking is should they rewind it and sort of say, where do I want to eventually be and start there? Or what's my purpose? Where should they start?

Well, of course you have a big question. That's a lot of times where people say, what's my purpose? In Life. And the question itself is too big for most people. And that's why I wrote the book the Quest for Purpose, to really provide a roadmap. Now, I went through this personally, so I'm not prescribing something I didn't do. In 1989, I hired a coach out of Seattle. I'm in Vancouver, Canada. I drove two hours, two and a half hours each way every month for six or seven months just to be coached by him, to help get clear about my purpose in life. So my purpose in life is to help others to live, lead, and work on purpose. The reality is the majority of people are miserable or they don't like what they're doing. And so the first step is that if you don't have your purpose, then your purpose is to find your purpose number, so you back off from that. And the other one is, don't worry about it. If you're not clear about it, then you want to have this intentionality. Now, the other thing is most people are not really aware of their strengths. They're not aware of their preferences. And so that's why I wrote the book, you know that. Why aren't you more like me? Which is based on our personality assessment, is that people need to know themselves. So as entrepreneurs, as a business owner, for myself for 40 years, that we need to know what our strengths are. We need to play to those strengths. A lot of times, as you're coaching your students, they are doing everything, and really, they probably shouldn't be. They should be hiring experts that complement them. Like, I'm terrible. I have an mba, but I hate bookkeeping. I love the strategic side of money. But, you know, doing the auditing and doing the books, not what I should be doing. And so everybody that's watching or listening that you want to get clear about, what are your strengths? What do you bring to the marketplace? And then how do you complement that with team members or experts or other people that fill in the blanks or the holes or the areas that you're not good at. And rather than feeling guilty or beating myself up over, I don't do this well, why don't I play to my strengths? Yes, I need to understand my deficiencies or weaknesses, if we want to call it that. But then how do I mitigate that? How do I deal with it? How do I address that? And it's a very simple process. And so I mark, just start wherever you are is the short answer. But begin this process of clarity of who you are, and then purpose is a separate question. You know, knowing my strengths is that. And that is really direction in life and who I want to be. And so if my purpose is helping others to find theirs, then that never ends. That's ongoing forever.

Makes sense. That's hard.

I mean, Mark, I mean, the purpose, right? Like everybody's purpose is an important piece. And if you don't really know your purpose, it's hard to get out and create the life that you want, right? Like, I mean, we see this a lot of times, people. And we talked to another podcast guest once before where he was really talking about how we see ourselves, right? Like how we see ourselves and who, what we do and who we are kind of defines the success that we have. But I think that when you come back down to everything, you really first have to understand, like, what you want that purpose to be. And it's not like, you know, okay, this is God's purpose for you. It really is like we can all create our own purpose. And, you know, I would like to, I guess, talk to Ken about, like, Ken, what do you do if somebody doesn't know that purpose? Or what do you do if somebody kind of has those self doubts that they can do something and achieve something? How does someone move past that?

Well, it's interesting. That's a very good question, Scott. And you know, that's one of the follow up components. A lot of times people are not walking into, let's say real estate investment because they don't. They lack the confidence or they're insecure about who they are and those kinds of components. So the short answer of that is that I was interviewing or having lunch with Dr. Dick Bowles. He's now just passed away. He wrote the book what Color Is yous Parachute? And then his colleague was sitting with me just close to you guys in California. I think that's where you are. And between the two of them, they had 80 years in career development. And I said, you know, with all this stuff going on, why there's so much confusion, lack of clarity, lack of knowing your life direction. And both of them, in unison, answer the question. They have not been willing to do the work. And so part of this is this commitment that if I don't know, then what are the steps in the journey to do it? I remember my son just came out of university not that long ago. In one of our assessments, the personnel style indicator is $45. And his friend says, I'd like to take your dad's assessment. And he said, how much is it? It's $45. Said $45. I'm not going to spend $45 on an assessment. And yet his friend went out for a movie, a pizza and a beer that weekend and spent 75 bucks. And so the answer, Scott, is that I need to start where I'm at. First of all, here's my belief system. Every single person has a purpose, if you know it or not. So this idea of I don't have one is not actually a correct assumption. From there I said I need to start in this picture or this question of what's your life purpose is too big. So we want to start with a thing what we call interest, gifts and talents, which is a separate measure. What do you like doing? Are you paying attention to those events in life? So what I get people to do in the book the Quest for Purpose and by the way, you know, as a gift for everybody watching, they're going to get my full Quest for Purpose ebook as a gift and we'll give you that URL at the end of the show. So just a sidebar on that. And I take you through this step by step process. I journaled over 60 handwritten pages to move towards this clarity. So interests actually compel or draw us. A lot of times entrepreneurs. And by the way, I screwed up. I had several bankruptcies, I had several businesses I was in where I was just in the wrong business. A lot of entrepreneurs go towards opportunity instead of passion or purpose. Now you still need to have purpose. Meaning I got into some businesses that it looked like there was going to be a financial opportunity, but I was, I didn't enjoy it. So what's my engagement going to be like? Right, so that interest, draw and compel. So I get people to journal all the positive experiences in their life that they've been enthralled with. No neutrals, no negatives. And you start sifting through, you know, diamonds are left for the people, they're going to mine. So I'm going to mine. I'm going to be doing this discovery and paying attention to those clues. So if I haven't been paying attention to life leaves clues. Now here's the other side. A lot of times we have advisors around us that squash our dreams. So you need to make sure that the people that are around you, that your advisors, your coaches, your confidants, your individuals that you interact with are supportive of those directions. Yeah, I remember when I was younger my dad says, listen, you need to shut up, you talk too much. Well, that is what I do for a living. My self worth in High school in college was very, very low because I was never honored for who I was as an individual. So, Scott, you're that exact situation where a lot of families don't necessarily support your direction. My wife worked as an academic coach at university. She had a girl in tears because she was unable to do her science courses. And so she asked the question, why are you doing the science courses? Because my mom and dad have a manufacturing company and I'm taking over research because that's what they told me, what I was supposed to do. And so we see so many of these where, well, family members have just really destroyed our dreams and our direction. And so go and get legitimate support, wise counsel. You know, you don't want to be stupid about it. Don't go quit your job and go start a new business right now, but use that as a transition point and then start paying attention to all these clues and do the work and start filtering through this. I mean, we all are constantly refining, you know, who we are and what we're bringing to the table. And that's our job, that's a responsibility. But 90% of the population don't know, and that's the real numbers.

So, Ken, I always like to think about my, my son, who, you know, I was very interested in. I like, I love basketball. So obviously I wanted to play with my son playing basketball. And he in the beginning hated it because he start dribbling, it hit his knee, he'd run off into the street. He'd have to run, he'd go get it and then he'd keep trying again, run off, go to the street, go and do it again. And it was so hard in the beginning. But suddenly that next day when he stuck with it, he got a little bit better. And slowly and surely, as he kept practicing deliberately, he got better and better and better. And then suddenly it wasn't, I want to just please dad and play with dad. It's I really like the feeling of mastery. So how do we bridge this gap of in the beginning, I just kind of suck at this. I don't think this is for me. I'm off to the next thing versus how do I know I've been doing it long enough, where I've attained some competence and mastery, where I get to that feeling of self esteem and accomplishment.

Well, interesting question. I'll reverse engineer it for employees. There was a study done. It said one of the number one, one of the top three reasons that employees disengage is responsibility without competence. So competence breeds confidence. It also increases Engagement. Now, I had my own dairy farm. I got up one morning, I talk about it in the book, and I said, listen, if I was doing this 20 years from now, would that be okay? And the answer was, unequivocally, no. I'm doing right now, this very moment, I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. I mean, there's no question about it. There's no doubt. So for some people, Mark, you don't know what you don't know. And fair enough. Go test some things. Go try some things. Allow yourself to maybe be engaged or maybe not. I mean, I dislike golf because I suck at it. I suspect if I was really good at it, I might enjoy it a little bit more. But I know that I'm a motorsports guy, so I love my motorcycle. Atving, skidooing, you know, whatever race car driving. Those would be the. Those are the things that I love doing. I don't need to kind of think about it. So I think, Mark, people need to kind of have these inquiries, and they start testing it out. And as you get better, you're right, you'll find out I'm good at it, but I don't love it. So I'd be really good as a dairy farmer. I know all the technical things growing up on it, but it's not what I want to do every day. So competence doesn't necessarily link to purpose and passion. Those two are independent. And so, again, this is back to this journey. I mean, how did you guys come to realize that this is what you want to do? I suspect you have a story behind it of other things you did before you got here. That's okay. We can allow ourselves to do that as well.

Ty, what are your thoughts?

You know, I'm just thinking. I'm thinking through, like, what Ken's saying, like, how did I get here? Right? Like, and my journey to here isn't, like, the same as yours, Mark, right? Like, you have your own journey story. I have my own journey story. And, you know, I think that when it comes to, you know, like, do I love land? You often say this. Do you absolutely love land? Well, I don't love land. I love what land does for my business. Right? Like, I love what it does. And there's definitely parts of the land business that I don't like. Okay. There's things I don't like, but guess what? There's things I don't like in everything I do. Right? That's the way that it is. And the one thing that I teach like in flight school is you gotta unload the work that you don't like. You got to focus on the stuff that you love. And so when you start to focus on the stuff that you love, well, then your skill sets come out right. Like, everybody should just be doing the things that they love to do and they should be getting rid of the work that they hate and despise. And I mean, Ken talked about like he has an mba, but he hates accounting. He may love the analytical piece behind it, but he doesn't like the accounting bookkeeping. So essentially, when you look at these pieces, I think that you really have to look at yourself and say, look, yes, I'm going to build a land investing business. Yes, there's going to be things I don't like about it. It doesn't mean I have to do it. I got to have an understanding of it and then I got to get people who can go do it for me. I think that kind of gives you that peace of mind that you know you can be successful in things because you don't have to know it all.

Now there are some things that we think are global skills that all of us, if we have them and develop them, it will help us. And I appreciate your comments, Scott. So when I wrote the book, why aren't you more like me pretty well? Our whole life is about relationships, is it not? It's about interpersonal communications. So there was a study done and said, what were the top two reasons why leaders failed? Well, the number one reason was hubris or arrogance. I don't need any of this stuff. But the number two reason was interpersonal or emotional intelligence or self awareness. So Dr. Tasha York did a study said what percentage of people believe that they know themselves and how they come across is congruent with how other people think about them. So my opinion of you is congruent with what you think about what you think my opinion is. And 95% of people believe that they knew themselves. When she had her students do the research that says, what do people really think about Mark, it was only 10% that were congruent. So 85% of people, what they believe about themselves, they, their impact of their behavior, how they come across is delusional. So part of the quest is that, can I get to know who I am? Do I know what those strengths are? Scott, as you're talking about, what is it that I'm good at? Have I paid attention? Do I have a roadmap? What is it that you're good at? So that I Can help you who? If you're a team player or somebody that's helping me in facilitating this process of working together, then can I have that communication? And then the other one is, is when we think about interpersonal communications, all of us have to deal with people who are different. So how do I manage self? We have a three step process in building credibility. Is that first of all, do I know who Mark is? Can I get out of the way of my self centeredness to get to know Mark? And number three, what does Mark need from me so that I can build relationship? And so we teach that we actually have an online course. Why aren't you more like me? That supports that and takes you through that assessment that this is the kind of work that when I do it, it can apply anywhere in my life personally, with my kids, you know, with employees, with potential investors, all that stuff. Even if somebody's going to a bank and I'm trying to get money, if I can build relationship, what's the likelihood that I'm going to have approval versus you hate my guts even. This is just basic interpersonal skills. Everybody talks about emotional intelligence, Everybody talks about self awareness. But self awareness needs to lead into a concept we call self management or self mastery. So if I know I'm a jerk and I continue to be a jerk, that's different than knowing a jerk. And then can I shift and can I adjust to build relationship with Scott and Mark versus just being self absorbed?

Yeah, I love that. I mean this is kind of like ancient wisdom. I forgot who said know thyself. Was that Socrates or Plato?

Yeah, Greek mythology.

Yes, Greek mythology. Yeah. So. So Ken, I think that, you know, the application of what you offer can be used for literally every listener. Before we get to the tip of the week, I would just like to know. So Scott and I are hiring VAs virtual assistants all the time to work and help us in different tasks in our business. Is an interview even worth it? Shouldn't we just give them this assessment? Like we should assess ourselves, see what we're strong in, we're weak at and then give them an assessment. Because just like you said, I'm not going to know through an interview if someone's going to be a good fit or not or competent or not. But I might know through an assessment.

Our assessments are for development purposes. Good question. We believe in both. I mean, you still, I mean things like character traits. So you and I could have the identical preferences or personality if you want to call one a police officer, one a criminal. So we're not measuring sort of more a moral compass for people. So the personal style, what we're doing is we're understanding how I like to work, how I like to interact. The other side is, Mark, you want to share your report with the VA's Scott, you want to share your report with the VA so they understand how you work. I mean, people get offended or they don't say, this is Ken seems to be under communicating right now. Is he mad with me? No, that's my style. We have a whole different definition. We don't have time to get into it. Introversion, extroversion has nothing to do with people. And so yes, understanding self. Every single person we have hired in the last 20 years will go through our personal style indicator as part of the short list, as part of getting to know the individual, understanding their work tendencies. And the other side is that if the nature of the work doesn't match the nature of the person, then they're not going to be able to sustain the engagement over a long period of time. So all that stats is there. We are now giving you a tool and a process to be able to talk about job fit. So even from an entrepreneur's point of view, there's another tool where you actually measure what does a job need. Then you measure who the person is. And then you do this compatibility report that says Ken's a fit for the nature of the work. I'm really honoring him. I want him to play to the strengths so that he can bring his best self not from a self centered point of view, but from a self honoring point of view. And a lot of times we beat ourselves up as we started the show over who I'm not. Well, I don't want to feel guilty over that. Yes, I want to be aware of it. But then how do I play to those strengths? Do I know what those are? Can I communicate that to others? Do I know what yours are so then I can draw out of you and not give you roles and responsibilities that will be defeating to you as well. So it's all a system, very simple, easy, not a test, but a communication tool. Mark has got so that this is really for the learner, to own my space, to articulate what I'm doing and just really create this self awareness on a whole new level with the person, not to the person.

That makes a lot more sense. I'm really glad you brought that up. But now, Ken, your mentorship has been invaluable. But we're at that point we're going to ask you for another tip. A website, a resource, a book, something actionable where the art of passive income listeners can go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What have you got?

Well first of all the gift. So the gift is my entire the quest for purpose book. And you'll be able to find that at my speaker site, Kenkeys K E N K E I S Land L A N D I wonder how I got that right.

Mark and Scott, I have no idea.

I have no idea how that came into play there. And so you're going to get the full book now. Here's my tip. My tip is that all the research is clear is that the number one top performers have clarity, commit to doing the work, whatever it is, so that you can get clear. Start wherever you are and just begin the process and do the work to get to know thyself. And it never ends. We're always developing. I mean I've been in this for 30 years. I'm actually better than I was five years ago. And I said well how's that? Because hopefully I'm continuing to grow. Even so we're all growing. I'm sure Scott and Mark, you have new levels that you're reaching as well. So those are the tips. Just work on yourself, go get that gift, read the book and it's all outlined there about finding your purpose.

Phenomenal. Thank you so much, that is so generous. Scott, Todd, what is your tip of the week?

All right. Mark, you ever want to send a self destructive message? Of course, like you know, like. Well I send you a message and only you can see it. Well check out this website. Burn.Link, burn link and you can go there, you can compose a self self destructive message. In fact I've got one right here, Mark. Let's see, go here. Click this link right now and I'm just sent you a self destructive link that the minute that you click on it, nobody else can see the message, not even their own staff. It's a, it's encrypted. It's, it's like mission impossible now.

Okay, I've received a self destructing message. The burn link contains a crypt message that can be viewed only once and they'll be permanently destroyed. Ready to view this message, unlock message. No one will ever see this message. Once we see it, it will self destruct. Cool.

If Ken were to use that same link, he's going to get a message that says it's been used. Sorry.

Oh that's genius. I love it.

So now how do you use this? Is it just for Fun. I mean, you could put important information there, like for your kids, like, should I die? This is important. But if you use it now, you'll never be able to get to it again. So only use it in case of an emergency. This is the map to the property or map to the gold, right? Like, well, once it's gone, it's gone. Or could you do something fun, even from a marketing standpoint, and, like, put it in there and the first person that clicks on it, they get to see the gift.

Ah, I like that urgency at like the nth degree.

Yes.

I really like this. All right, well, look, as cool as that is, nothing is cooler than Dr. Ken Keiths. So learn more. Just go to crgleader.com crgleader.com There is a plethora of information in there. And Ken Kees, this has been phenomenal. I want to just thank the listeners and remind them the only way, the only way we are going to get a Dr. Ken Keese to come on this podcast is if you do us three little things. You got to subscribe, get a rate. You know, you gotta review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review to supporthelandgeek.com we're going to send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit course, as well as the latest whole tailing course, how to double your money in 30 days or less. Ken Keith, are we good?

We're good. And thank you, gentlemen. You guys are awesome.

Thank you. Scott, Todd, are we good?

We're good, Mark.

All right, let's do this. 1, 2, 2, 3. Let freedom ring. Yeah. Ken's like, all right, that's it.

Well, I was not prepared. Sorry, guys.

No, no, it's okay. I, you know, but good statement. Just. Just glad you didn't, like, give us the eye roll, you know, like, oh, boy, these guys geeky. Anyways, thanks, everybody.