Know When to Pivot: A 4-4-7-4 Kolbe A Index Result Unpacked | Private Sessions

But what's the point of slogging away for those other six hours if it's not something you enjoy? 'Cause I get it to that hour four, and then it almost like I lose the motivation, 'cause I'm not good at that part.

This is Eric, a man of many careers who currently sells pens to astronauts. He leads a team at work, and on the side he's a big gamer and game show contestant. We're talking about how he's built to pivot and how he'll turn his many ideas into reality.

Ended up getting on a game show called The Floor.

This is a game where from episode one to episode two, the entire trajectory of the game changes after every single duel. It sounds like you're on the right game show. You operate best when things aren't always just a system and a pattern. You're best when the plan gets messed up. What I see sometimes with people with a similar Kolbe result to yours is not that you overvalue yourself. I want you to value yourself a ton and be super confident. But not if it gets to the point where you start thinking, "Oh, yeah, I did all the important stuff. Now they're gonna do the easy, boring parts." They're doing parts that are just as important, just as difficult, meaning you know they're difficult because you wanna hand them over. So make sure that you're giving them the credit that they deserve. And kinda just jumping right in with your Kolbe results, you're You're a "let's just pivot and find a way and make it work" kind of person. I mean, you're an Idea-Generating Powerhouse. That's kinda the phrase we use for your Natural Advantage. So, you know, whether it's just finding a space to do your work from a home office or professionally, I imagine you're kinda the same. So tell us a little bit more about kinda what you do in your day job.

Absolutely. Yeah, I've had many careers, but traditionally most of them have revolved around sales and marketing. But primarily sales, right? And I think that kinda pivots to what you were mentioning of, like, this idea powerhouse where if you can't get creative, not just, like, on the fly with your customers and build rapport and build relationships, but also get creative with packages or how you can help people, it's very hard to excel, not just in sales, but probably in most things at life, right? So I transitioned into sales pretty early on. I currently work for a company called Fisher Space Pen, which is actually the pen that goes to space with the astronauts since 1968, which is really cool. A family-owned company here in Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas in Boulder City with a really cool history and legacy. But right now I'm the head of sales and marketing for that company, and to

your point, there's a lot of ideas and pivoting that happens on a daily basis, which is really cool, and totally consistent with what I would think from your Kolbe result in that idea-generating powerhouse and being the kind of person who pivots. It's also pretty common in salespeople at many levels to have that strength. No, it's not required by any means. I mean, there are some sales roles where you know, it's all about really knowing the details about the products you're selling. You know, it's maybe, "Hey, we don't have tons of different clients. I have three clients, and we just sell very detailed, like, you know, huge systems. You know, multi-million dollar systems we sell to a few or a couple clients." Then maybe it's not as much about the kinda strength that you bring to the pivoting and coming up with ideas and, you know, listening to what they're saying and coming up with new, something new and especial. More than any other result, I think we find the result that you have in sales professionals. So yeah, not uncommon. So I know you also have interesting hobbies. We were talking just before we started recording about you are a game show contestant and gamer. So what does that look like? And I'm kinda curious to hear how that might fit in with your conative strengths also.

You know, it's really interesting doing the test like this, and even just the first statement you said about this, like, idea generator powerhouse, because when it comes to that, I'll start with kind of gaming and just, like, a few hobbies of mine. One is gaming, and I've always leaned into more role-playing style games or chess strategy style games where coming up with creative ways to win instead of just doing the same thing over and over that works. Another thing that's interesting is, I don't know if you know what a trading card game is, but there's trading card games out there where you actually get a set of functioning cards that all have different texts and words and interactions and resource curves and et cetera. And usually in those types of games, there's what's called the meta deck, which is, like, the top two or three best decks. And I've always had a passion of not playing those decks, but finding a way to beat them with a creative idea powerhouse that works better that maybe someone didn't think of that could potentially find a way to win. And then lastly I was always the couch potato hero where when I'm watching, like, game shows like Survivor and stuff, or even, you know, just like with one of my friends that you guys work with, I was a pretty okay athlete. So there was times where I would watch these Survivor games or these baseball games, and I'd be like, "Man, I could do that. I, oh, I used to do that." Or, and at one point my wife goes, "If you can do it, why don't you just go apply? Start applying to game shows." And I was like, "You know what? I will." And I did, and I ended up getting on a game show called The Floor on Fox with Rob Lowe which is currently airing right now. Episode eight just aired last night and I'm doing pretty okay. So I went from couch potato hero to, you know, doing okay on a game show. I'm still alive, which is fun, so. So how do you see it? I mean, I know you can't give anything away that hasn't aired, but just how do you see using your conative strength, that Quick Start, risk-taking, Idea-Generating Powerhouse, how did you see using that in that game show? Or did you? Maybe the format didn't lend itself to that. It's really interesting because I think a lot of people went into this with a different strategy, right? And at the core of it, and maybe this is where my ideas and my brain starts going, at the core of it, this is a game with 100 squares and 100 categories, and you're trying to duel people in the categories, right? And I see that as the game, but then I think of, like, the deeper layers of this. How can I extrapolate this game to where I can give myself the best advantages to win, not by doing anything unethical, but by getting creative?

Millions of people have discovered their natural way of taking action. What's yours? Go to kolbe.com and take the Kolbe A™ Index to find out. Yeah, very cool. So let's talk a little bit more in depth about your Kolbe result. And yeah, so Eric, your Kolbe result overall is 4474. So, four Fact Finder, four Follow Thru, seven Quick Start, and four Implementor. We talked about your Quick Start, and we can maybe get back to that, but let's talk about the other three, and actually I'll start with the pattern for you rather than just looking at individual what we call Action Modes®. Fact Finder, Follow Thru, and Implementor are the other three. The pattern for you is you don't have any of them where we would describe your strength as being a counteract or kind of resistant strength. There are some people where in one of those Action Modes, really what they lead with there is pushing back. So for instance, in Follow Thru, which is how we deal with systems and structure, some people really resist structure and bureaucracy, and they don't drive everything to completion. They leave kinda some open-ended things hanging out there. You might do that. You're a four, so you're more toward that end of the spectrum than somebody who's really systematic and thorough and create, you know, the where the first thing they do is, "All right. I'm gonna put together a plan and a schedule and a calendar and map it all out." You kind of accommodate that. But it's interesting to me and I think to other people who would work with you is you kinda go with the flow in those other three. You've got your Quick Start, which is that idea-generating, risk-taking, hey, let's experiment with stuff and see what happens kinda strength. The other ones you accommodate. So I talked about systems and structure. That's the Follow Through. Fact Finder is how we all deal with gathering and sharing information. So you're toward the end of the spectrum that's more about simplifying and looking at just some key information and data and not going deep, deep, doing more and more research. But you don't push back on the research. You're just like, "Okay. Yeah. Got some stuff. That's good. Now let's move forward." You accommodate that. And then the other one, Implementor, is how we deal with three-dimensional, tactile, kind of the physical world that we live in, and you also accommodate the need for physical, tangible building kind of solutions. You're not all the way toward that end of the spectrum. You're a little bit more on the envision, imagine side. But you'll kind of bounce back and forth in all of those and not really push back on people who are operating. What we see with this pattern a lot of times is somebody who really operates within a team where you are bringing the team together, you're getting people to work together. Now you've got that initiation and Quick Start, so that's where you'll really start to step forward. And then I've heard some of that already with the way you've described yourself, where, yeah, you know, it's changing and that's how you want a game to play. So it sounds like you're on the right game show because you operate best when things aren't always just a system and a pattern that you can count on and that is gonna repeat. You're best when the plan gets messed up, which is what it sounds like they do from episode to episode. You need to find opportunities where you get to do novel things, whether it's you changing the rules or you're just in a situation where those patterns get broken down and, or the system either hasn't been created or doesn't need to be followed rigorously all the time. You're gonna do well, and most people, because you tend to do better in that, have a sense of accomplishment. It's just easier for you in that kind of situation Yeah.

I think a really interesting thing, two things that really stuck out there. Well, there was a few. You're right with the chess scenario. Chess ended up getting inevitably pretty boring because they all do the same things, right? Which is why I started leaning more into that kinda trading card environment because there's like, there's new sets every three months with new envisions, mints, and new cards, and new play styles, and new ways to play the game, which is really exciting, while also trying to capitalize on the older stuff. The other one is in the game show environment having that ability to… The funniest part about our season right now is I'm being labeled as the head of this big alliance of people, right? Due to no real fault of my own I didn't necessarily even know that I was in an alliance, but I think I have that gravitational pull or that bringing togetherness of people where I end up in those roles of people looking to that person to pivot or kind of like… I, it was funny, I almost like to say I have these two conflicting attitudes a lot of the time. One is I'm very confident and driven, and the other is I come off very laissez-faire. Like, it's not a big deal. And then, yeah, the last one is just in relation to kind of the ideas side of it. And it's so funny when I think of, you'd mentioned marketing is more researching and finding information, and sales is usually more kind of doing or executing on the information you found. And I was thinking about the difference between texting and calling, right? I will text, but if I need something, or I want something, or I need to figure something out, or I need to get something, I will pick up the phone and I will call if I'm nervous, if it's a situation where I don't really know exactly what to say, and I'll just start talking and then I'll pivot off of where that conversation's flowing, because I'd rather be in the opportunity to start the conversation and pivot off of it and develop it and move forward in that pivoting role versus trying to research and delegate- Yeah and send the perfect text message.

Well, that makes sense to me 'cause conatively with your initiating quick start you shouldn't be overly scripted, especially 'cause then you add that Quick Start does need to improvise some and just you get ideas that you didn't know they were great ideas until they came out of your mouth, and you're like, "Damn, I kinda like that." And also with the Follow Thru and the Fact Finder to some extent, you know, the Follow Thru is the plan, so that would be more the script. Like, there's some people, salespeople where, yeah, they need to know, "Here's where I start. Here's the flowchart," basically. I start here, and then it branches, and then depending on their answers, I go this track or that track. That's fine if that's been developed and you can read and go, "Yeah, okay, I got the general concept." You're more, "I get the general concept of what the flow could look like, but I just wanna be in it." Yeah, let you make it your own, and let me make it my own, versus other people who are like, "No, I love that I have this flowchart and the script even. I'm gonna stick with it." You know? And their problem then is if they get to a branch and that hasn't been written up and anticipated, they're like, "Oh no, I don't, I wasn't ready for that response." I don't know where to go or what to say. I'm stuck. Right. And then that person, what they would do, you know, if they had different strengths than you, they would kinda be stuck, maybe not handle the call really well, but they would then add, they would add to that script and be like, "Okay, here's a new thing we need to put on there. Let's train the team so that now everybody's ready for this variable that we weren't expecting." Whereas you'd be less likely to follow that up. You'd kinda do it in the moment. You'd naturally be more inclined to have a, an answer for it, even if you were just making one up. But then you wouldn't go back and change the whole system necessarily. Another thing that I was struck by in listening to your response is you were talking about the game show and the, you know, kind of you just became the leader of this alliance apparently. And I think there's probably a lot going on and, you know, we're talking about your conative strengths, your Kolbe result, but undoubtedly there's part of the affective part of you. So the, some of your people skills are driven by your affect. So, you know, how warm you are with other people, the, you know, do you give off you can trust me vibes versus do you give off kind of prickly be aware, be wary of me vibes. So I think there are both of those. I think the, your Kolbe result, the people side is, as I was saying earlier, because you accommodate in three of the modes and there's none of them where you really push back and resist, it is more natural for you to be able to work with a broad breadth of people.

I have a small question, and I don't know if this is jumping ahead or back, but in the same kind of ideas realm, what I've always found myself personally doing is, to your point, I would come up with what I felt like were really great ideas or I don't know if you game or if anyone you know is a gamer, but there's like a game where you would create a character. You would build them, you'd create their race, their class, their size, and you'd do their skill sets, et cetera. And let's say the game takes 10 hours to complete. I found myself a lot of times getting that character to about hour four and then wanting to restart with a completely new character, different race, different build, different style, and then I would get to that character to hour four, and then I'd wanna restart. So I always like, I always find myself in these scenarios where I feel like I have these great ideas, I jump in and I start going, and I get it going, and then I just kinda like drop it, not necessarily because a new idea comes up, because I get to a point to where it's like, okay, like that kinda ran its course or I don't know. I've always kinda had that feeling. And I think in a gaming environment, it's easier to just say, "Okay, that's fine." Like, there's nothing compelling me to need to take it to hour 10 or, you know, do those other steps or add those little incremental changes that are gonna get you that much more successful and gain more power, whatever the goal of that game is. I think in a work setting, there are times where you're gonna feel more pressure. It's like, well, this project, I can't just drop this project at hour four, kind of the, you know, metaphorical hour four. It's like, my job is I need to take this further.

But what I would say to you is find the opportunity professionally to be in a position, and maybe you already are, where your role is to take things to hour four and then to hand it off, and to say to other people in the professional setting, "I know this is on the right course. The best use of my time and energy," and it's really your energy is the better way to think of it. Other people need to see it through. Like, the company will be successful when we go all the way and make this great, not just to where I got it. But I need to start on the next thing because the company will do best when you're able to thrive using that. But what we see sometimes in company setups is they don't know this conative piece, so they think, "Okay, well, you were great at getting it this far, so you must be the right person for the next three steps. But what's the point of slogging away for those other six hours if it's not something you enjoy? You're not particularly great at it. You really love this other part of the game. So I love the fact that you've kind of recognized this. You do it. You're like, "Yeah, I scrap it. I start over and do the parts that I thrive on." But it's harder sometimes, again, to set the ego aside. Yeah. Well, and what I've found a lot of times too is I get it to that hour four, and then I don't necessarily have a team or others that I can hand it off to. Or in, to your point, I get it to hour four, and then you've done such a good job to hour four, just take it to hour five and six, and then it almost, like, I lose the motivation 'cause I'm not good at that part. Whatever that part is, like, I feel like, "Oh man, I have such a good thing. This is going great. I've got it here. Okay, who can take this? 'Cause I know this is gonna need someone that can do this and this and this." And then it's finding those people or those situations where I can get it in those hands, and then if I can't get it in those hands, it's like, okay, well, now I'm stuck because I don't wanna push it past hour four. So then I go back and I start. And in the same vein, sometimes I'll get something to hour four, and maybe the ego is, if I take this to hour 10, I don't know if it'll be the best or the greatest.

So maybe I need to start over with something

else, but honestly, I would think that's probably not true for you. I mean, I understand it's like, oh, maybe it's a fear of failure. It's not what I'm hearing. It's not what I would predict from your Kolbe result. It's much more about, yeah, I might be super successful doing that, but I'm not gonna get that sense of joy and accomplishment, so I'm gonna go back and start at the beginning 'cause that's what gets me pumped. You know- Yeah. If you wanted to pursue it further and that, you know, given that you are a gamer and you are a game show-er you know, if it's esports, I would say yeah, get yourself on a team. I see you being most successful in team esports rather than And I mean true interdependent cooperative teams, not just, oh, our scores add up. You know, I, we each do our part. Find a team situation where your role is that more idea generating and formation up to a certain point, and then other people maybe take the character and execute on it and then add a little bit to the framework that you've built.

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense actually. What I've found, David, is finding that person that I can hand that off to, that I feel that trust and that recognition or that cohesiveness is, especially in a work or business environment, can be very challenging. And then in a lot of industries, they just expect that person who got to hour four to take it the rest of the way, which is almost the most discouraging thing you could tell that person that just got to hour four.

Yeah, and there's sometimes that is gonna be the expectation, and you're gonna need to do it. But try to create a role for yourself or find one, you know, professionally and personally or in your hobbies where you can hand it off. Another thing that I'll say, though, thinking we've been talking so much about you, yes, in the, you know, maybe on a team, but when you're on that team, also keep in mind, you know, yeah, you need to set aside your ego so it's not, "Oh, I have to do all parts of this." You also have to give the other person credit. So I, what I see sometimes with people with a similar Kolbe result to yours is you start over… It's not that you overvalue yourself. I want you to value yourself a ton and be super confident, bordering on cocky. That's fine. I don't mind. But not if it gets to the point where you start thinking, "Oh yeah, I did all the important stuff. I handed it over and now they're gonna do the easy, boring parts." No, during, they're doing parts that are just as important, just as difficult. I mean, and you know they're difficult because you wanna hand them over. Like, they're, if they were so simple, you could just, without thinking about it much, just do the next few hours and get great results. But you need those other people. So make sure that you're giving them the credit that they deserve and thanking them for doing all of it. Forget about your exact Kolbe result. We can all fall into that trap of, "Oh, our strengths are most important and most valuable, and the other stuff is just the drudge work that somebody else is handling." So don't fall into that trap. So pivoting a little here, you've kind of mentioned your personal life and your wife and your kids. You know, it's very similar and it's a really important relationship, especially, well, it's all the time, but then when you've got kids, and your kids are young. How old are they again?

Four and a half and six and a half girls Yeah, so, you know,

they're challenging you and taking up time and, you know, throwing curve balls that you can't expect. And you're a conative team with your wife, and I don't know her results, but you guys can figure them out. If you have questions, you know, give me a call and we can talk about that too. But the key thing is whatever your respective strengths are, really value what she brings to the table, communicate with each other about, "Hey, this is who I am. This is how I operate conatively." So for example, with you, you're not the natural planner person and the, you know, the thorough calendar and make sure everything's on it and make sure that every box gets checked off as you go along. You'll do some of that. You know, you're not a total outside the box. Well, a little outside the box. But, so I don't know what your wife is. If she's a planner, figure out how that works between the two of you. That's great that you guys would complement each other, but you might also have some conflict around it. So figure out what that is, and then let understanding it in a new way and understanding, hey, it's not that- She's not smart about it, or it's not that you don't care because you don't things the way she would like you to necessarily or the way she does them. It's we're just different people. And let's make that work to our advantage 'cause the more bases you cover, kind of the better, generally speaking. It's just making sure that it doesn't become a point of conflict.

My daughter's kindergarten graduation was today, and we dropped her off at

10, and the ceremony to get in was gonna be at 8:00, 8:00 AM. And after we dropped her off, my wife was like, "Okay, let's go park in the parking lot and wait at the front gate." And I was like, "I'm not gonna stand at the front gate for an hour. Let's go to a Starbucks, grab a coffee, come back and park, and then we'll at least shaved off some time from that." And to her brain, that gets her in a little bit more of an anxious panic kind of mode because she has this plan and this structure, and we're gonna be there, and we're gonna be on time, and we're gonna be in front of the gate. And I'm thinking, "We have time to kill before we need to be there. Let's just go pivot to this, kill some of that time so we're not sitting around not doing anything." So that's like a little example of, like, some of our situations is she definitely plans, and I usually go with the plan, and then improvise on it a lot of the time.

Yeah, so with that as an example, and let's kind of assume that she's… I mean, you're describing her as a planner. Let's assume that means she's an more Initiating Follow Thru in terms of Kolbe. A suggestion I can have for you then is, okay, now, you know that. So again, let's assume that's true. So it's not a matter of changing her and letting her, you know, trying to force her to, "Hey, you have this plan about what we were gonna do, but just ignore that and do what I wanna do." Even if that's the outcome, if you approach it as, "Hey, let's have a quick alternate plan. I know it's important that we're here at least 10 minutes before that gate is open. So working backward from that, we've got a 40-minute chunk that we can drive to the Starbucks. It's gonna take two minutes. If the line's long, it's five minutes. We've got plenty of time." You get to the same outcome But now instead of her having an immediate defensive push back on you kind of reaction, it's, "Oh, he just gave me an alternate plan. He showed me how it's gonna fit with what I wanted to do." I mean, there are other ways you can do it. Another thing could be… But you're probably not gonna do this, especially with a small thing. I mean, we just wouldn't think of it. But if you thought of it the night before, you know, you saw, "Oh my gosh, there's this 50-minute gap," the night before you could say to her, "Hey honey, tomorrow morning what's a good plan so that we can drop her off but not, like, just have to sit in a parking lot for 40 minutes? You know, I was thinking maybe we could go to Starbucks, but is there something else we can do?" Give her time to think about it, and then whether it's that night or in the morning she'll just tell you, "Oh honey, you asked about the plan, so we're gonna go to Starbucks and sit there for 40 minutes." You're like, "Yeah, that's what I was hoping for anyway," but now it's her idea- Yeah so it's all good.

Yep. Yep. And to that point, for me, if the plan was X and we had 50 minutes, I would just be down to do whatever. It's like, "Okay. Well, yeah, sure. Let's kill 40 minutes. We can go there, we can go there." Sure, 'cause I'm thinking about killing it, but for her, assuming she falls into that Kolbe, she may need that preparation or advance notice on those processes so that she's feeling comfortable and non-anxious and all those, and so. Yeah, and some of it's the preparation and some of it is just the plan. Like if in her mind, like she prepped for it, let's just assume, and she probably did. Like the night before she thought about this 15-minute gap and her, her solution was, "I'm fine sitting in the car. I'll be on my phone and handle emails and other stuff." So that's her plan. So when you change it's the anxiety in that case is probably coming from, "But I had a plan and he's messing with my plan. And Eric doesn't even care. Why does he care? He's not a planner guy, and he's messing with my Meanwhile, you're not thinking, "Oh, let's mess with my wife's plan." You're just like, "Well, this sounds like a good idea." Another thing from a parenting standpoint that my wife and I talked about a lot is divide and conquer. It's like, "Well, here's a plan. How about you do what you wanted and I do what I wanted?" And it's okay. But again, you communicate that like, "Hey, I know how important it is. I'm still gonna be on time. Don't worry honey, I'm not gonna leave and not show up until midway through the graduation ceremony. But in the meantime I'm gonna do this, but I don't wanna mess up what you had planned for the next 45 minutes," so.

Right. So you do the plan you had, I will meet you at the X point of that plan that we agree upon, and we should be good. Parenting and dividing and conquering, it's when you know your different roles. So let's say it's coming up with a plan. You both shouldn't come up with the plan. Let her do it. You need to be informed of what it is, but you don't, you know, you trust her. She's gonna come up with a good one. You need to know what it is, but you don't both have to be involved in the planning process.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point.

Do you have any other questions or things we haven't touched on you wanna talk about?

I guess back to the kind of like one hour to four hour and then picking it up from there, is there a good way to find those people that can mesh with me in that scenario, right? Like for example, I have a friend named Derek, and Derek is very different from me in a lot of elements where, you know… I don't know how he would score on the Kolbe, but I assume we probably have very different scores based on what I know about him, right? And I guess like sometimes I feel like I struggle at finding those types of people that can help me piece the whole 10 hours together, and I don't know if there's like something I could be seeking or a way to be defining, you know, I think it's if you're doing it at work, you know,

you've got a group of people who you work with, and I would just try to see how they operate and figure out the ones who do things differently, where like, "Hey, I think we mesh well because they- we can trade things off." Then there are other people where it's like for you, there are times you're gonna need a brainstorming partner, where it's, "Hey, let's just talk about stuff," and both of us know we aren't necessarily gonna take these to the next step, but I just wanna bounce some stuff off of you. And you'll find those people are more like you than dislike you or they're similar to you.

Yeah. No, that makes sense. And you kinda realize like you just working in general, you kind of end up… and just relationships and communication, like you end up understanding some of those pieces and things like that. But yeah, it was just a... I guess one of my questions was around trying to give off some sort of a vibration so those people come to me, and we can build things together.

So, I think they will come to you. You give off vibrations, and you'll find them. But it's really being on the lookout. And be a little specific, so if it's, "Hey, I really need that planning systems kind of person in my work life," you know, I kinda have that with my wife at home. I'd love to work with somebody who's like that. Look for those specific traits. Read your own Kolbe result and it'll talk about your counterpoint a little bit in there too, and you can say, "Okay, I'm gonna look for people who operate like that, and maybe those are the people I should spend more time with."

Yeah. That makes sense.

Very cool. And I'm also curious, you know, what are you gonna take away from this? Where, what kind of applications or where are you gonna put it to use?

Yeah, I think you know, maybe if there's a game show contestant career in my future, I could definitely apply it there. But I think just the deeper understanding of not just how I approach things, but understanding that where I work best and where I function best is in the 4474, and communicating and finding those people that can help put those pieces together to complete the project. Because that was really always something that was kind of frustrating to me, is I felt like I would have these really great ideas and I'd get them to X, and then I wouldn't get them to Y or Z. And I always thought that was because maybe I was inadequate, or I wasn't doing something properly, or I didn't have the motivation, when in reality it's like, no, X, Y, and Z are three separate letters. I'm just really good at X. I need to find the Y and the Z that can help me complete the end of the alphabet. So whether that's, you know, an assistant, a junior person, you know, professionally who you can hand stuff off to at that point, yeah, find those people to collaborate with that do Y and Z great.