Learning to Read People is Learning to Lead People

Eric Gee has administered personality-based life coaching for more than twenty years. He built a successful education company that used his personality typing method to better the lives of more than twenty thousand students, parents, and teachers. As creator of the Youtopia Project website and the Youtopia 16 assessment, he has disseminated his method to over half a million users since the website’s creation in 2016. His book, The Power of Personality, is the culmination of decades of research and application. Eric graduated from UCLA, where he studied English literature and screenwriting. Coincidentally, he’s also a classically trained pianist, backyard-trained barbecue dilettante, three-time fantasy football champion, professional mentor, and amateur magician. He owns Youtopia Creative, a shared creative workspace in Los Angeles, where he acts as both a life coach and infinite Pez dispenser of saccharine bits of 80s and 90s pop culture.

Too often personality distinctions are disowned and labeled as “weakness”, or we default to accepting surface differences in the name of “diversity”. If we truly want to coexist with one another, we must learn that even our most sacred values deviate from person to person, and it’s that diversity that makes humanity strong.

More information at – https://www.projectyoutopia.com/university 

 

The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou:
Welcome to the nonprofit exchange. This is Hugh Ballou, Founder and President of SynerVision Leadership Foundation, where leaders have a vision and we build synergy with our teams. Well, speaking to teams, my guest today, Eric Gee is in California. I’m in Virginia, but we have a common interest. And that is, oh, I’ll let you tell people about what that is when you talk about yourself. So Eric’s topic today is learning to read people, is learning to lead people. So before we get into that, Eric, tell people a little bit about you and your background, and your passion for this topic.

Eric Gee:
Well, you know, my background is in education and my academic background is in creativity, like creative writing. I was a screenwriting major. So I kind of combine those things and try to look at leadership in terms of a more creative angle, right? Understanding people is the same as understanding characters, right? When you write something. And so I owned an education company for about a decade and I was able to establish or create my personality typing methodology based on like years of research before then. But you know, as you start to see it at a practical level, we had about a thousand students a year. So you put that together, a thousand parents or 2000 parents. So make that 3000 people that you have to read every year. And so that was basically where I started evolving a kind of methodology where you can kind of put people, I want to say put people into boxes. But I would say understand people in a way where you can connect with them better because oftentimes I found that my teachers had different personality types than their students. And as we all know, as leaders, you know, you can either fight it or you can try to understand the person that you’re trying to help grow better. And obviously, the latter is the goal. And so I did that for about 10 years and recently published a book on my method. and personality typing. And yeah, hopefully, I can share that message with everyone to make their relationships better, not only just in a leadership perspective but also on a personal level, like whether it’s with your spouse or romantic partner and specifically your parents and children. That’s the one thing I get it quite a bit. And obviously I have lots of experience in that relationship.

Hugh Ballou:
Wow. I bet you the things that you’re going to highlight today are things that we might see, but haven’t noticed. And if we did notice, we don’t know what we’re looking at. So you mentioned the book, you happen to have it handy.

Eric Gee:
Yes, I do.

Hugh Ballou:
Yeah. You have it in two languages, right?

Eric Gee:
I do. I have two versions of it one is in German and one is in English. I think this is the same in German because I don’t read German or understand it at all. But, you know, I was lucky enough to get a German publisher. And yeah, and the one on the right is the one that I can read, The Power of Personality. You can purchase it, you know, like they say, anywhere you buy books, Amazon, and all that good stuff. If you want to order from your local bookstore, that would be pretty awesome as well.

Hugh Ballou:
For those who are listening to the podcast in his book, we’re going to share where to find his book before we end this podcast. And it’s a fascinating topic. So, if I heard you correctly, you did primary research on this topic and you came up with your personality types. Say some more about that. I’m sure you explained the book, but give us some highlights.

Eric Gee:
You know, I would say the big difference between my methodology, is because there are a lot of different personality typing methodologies out there, and one I studied quite a bit was Myers-Briggs or MBTI, which is going to sound somewhat familiar as I go over a little bit, or at least summarize some of mine. But I separate people into four different packs. I call them personality packs. Each pack values something and has a different core value. And I know we can all say, oh, I value this as well. That’s true. But we prioritize our values as human beings, and we do not all value the same things. And I think that the one thing that I found that we assume about people is that the other person sitting across from us has the same core value, right? And that can cause a lot of problems, right? Everyone says like, oh, you know, like family is the most important, right? You know how it is. And I’m like, well, I don’t know, like family wasn’t the most important for Einstein. You know, no one’s ever heard about Einstein’s daughter because he did have one. And, you know, maybe we should all be thankful that it wasn’t his priority because we as a society got to benefit from it. So anyway, like every core value is different based on your pack. And then within each pack, there are four different animal personality types, which is why I call them packs to begin with, which makes 16 different individual types. And I use animals to symbolize them, because animals are really easy to remember, and people are always like, yeah, I’m a fox. I know exactly what a fox acts like, and a shark, and all that good stuff.

Hugh Ballou:
So what are the animals? So give us an overview of just a little bit of this. So the different types of animals, and how does that relate?

Eric Gee:
Okay, so we have, so the first personality pack is the gatherers, and gatherers value safety and security. So as you imagine, like traditional, traditional, I’m putting out quotes for listeners, traditional values in terms of family, duty, responsibility being organized, structured. And we have four animals within that pack. They’re the stags, the beavers, the elephants, and the bears. And now they all value the same thing, which or at least have that same core value, but they go about it in different ways. So the cool thing about it is you could have two people who are in the same pack and they’re going to get along and quite the same fashion. And yet they’re going to also be very, very different. I used to have a lot of teachers, a lot of the teachers who worked for me, the ones that gravitated to this were parents because of course they’re just like, oh my gosh, no wonder why I like this kid and I don’t like this kid. I love them equally, but this one just irritates me, you know, and so that was a great way to identify like stuff about ourselves that, as you had said before, I loved how you said like, things that we notice, but we didn’t fully notice or didn’t fully understand what it meant, right? Like it’s kind of taking advantage of our own experience with people. And, you know, if you read the book and understand this methodology, you can start using that in all aspects of life.

Hugh Ballou:
Yeah, it’s the analogy there as a conductor. I listen to music in a very different way and I hear different things going on than the person who’s not a conductor or not a musician. So, it’s a trained ear to listen to certain things. So, you notice things about people that we might see, but we don’t notice it. Or we notice it, but we don’t see it. I don’t know which is the correct way to put it. But we don’t get it because we don’t have enough data. So why is it important for us to know this information, both for ourselves and for other people who work with us?

Eric Gee:
Well, I love that you mentioned your conductor, right? Because, you know, as a conductor, you know, there’s different, there’s the brass section, there’s the woodwind section, there’s the percussion section, there’s the strings. Thankfully, I have some classical music training, so I know those four things. But they all have to work in synergy, right? And each one is bringing something different. We all know, that when I think of John Williams, Superman theme, or maybe John Williams in general, I think brass. The brass brings the power, but you get too much of that and it’s overpowering. Much like personalities, it can be the same way. Certain personalities are a little bit more forthright, they’re a little bit more aggressive, and that’s great. They tend to take command of things, but if those same personalities don’t understand that they need to give other personalities time to shine because they also have a reason, for being there, you know, like, it’s not like we can just have like, like an instrumentation where it’s all brass, you know, I would like to hear some strings now and then. And I think that’s the same thing with leadership, right? It’s like the ability to conduct and see, okay, these personalities bring this to the table, these personalities bring this to the table. And my job is to make sure that we can all have the same goal and work towards the same vision because we can synergize all our values towards that, that goal.

Hugh Ballou:
So your title is learning to read people, to be able to lead people. So go a little more in-depth on that topic, please.

Eric Gee:
Yeah, I’ll go back to how I was explaining the personalities, and then I sidetracked myself. But one of the other packs are the hunters. I call them the hunters, and they seek excitement. And you can understand how a pack that seeks excitement might have conflict with a pack that seeks safety and security. I mean, those are two different values. And understanding one, helps the other get along with that one. So a lot of teachers, let’s say, are gatherers. That’s just a natural thing that happens. It makes sense that a teacher would have a value of safety and security, especially elementary school teachers. They keep the classroom safe, right? A safe place to learn. But what happens if you get a hunter student? And the hunter student is not going to want to sit there and just listen. They’re going to bounce around. They’re going to grab things in the room. They’re going to want to toss things around. They want to just go out and play. They love recess. So how do you work with that student? You can’t force them to value the same things you do. Much like when you’re leading people, you can’t force them to change their values to match yours, at least not at a healthy level. So what I used to tell my teachers when it was a gatherer teacher and they were talking to hunters, I would tell them, don’t tell that kid to be careful. I know it’s your instinct when they’re taking all these risks to tell them to be careful because that was what you value. You should be careful, otherwise you’ll get hurt. But if you tell a hunter that, then you’re taking away their greatest strength, which is the confidence to take risks if you’re telling them that they should always be careful. What you tell them is to concentrate or to focus. And just that change of word really engages them. That’s why it’s so important to be able to read people to lead them, right? Because if you read someone as a hunter, you’ll know, okay, I got to talk to them in a different way. I can’t tell them to be careful. But if I tell them to focus, if I tell them to concentrate, they’ll understand what I mean, which is like, it’s okay to take these risks. But when you do, like if you’re juggling chainsaws, make sure that you’re focusing on those chainsaws.

Hugh Ballou:
And I think that’s like kind of an example that I would bring up in terms of leading people or reading people to lead people So this brings a question to my mind, you know, we grew up totting Okay being taught to use the golden rule treat others as as you would yourself So I think the worst thing that we can do is for me to treat people like I want to be treated Mm-hmm. I want to treat them like they want to be treated. So is that true with your methodology? I

Eric Gee:
Yeah, you know, I think the only way where it works is I think we all want to be understood for who we are. And so in that sense, we should use the golden rule. We all want to be understood. So try your best to understand the people around you. But of course, once you start understanding, you’re gonna start realizing, oh, I guess I need to treat them differently, right, based on what they need.

Hugh Ballou:
So is there any similarity? There’s lots of, there’s, there’s LIFO, there’s Birkman, there’s Myers-Briggs, there’s DISC. There’s also, uh, Murray Bowen has family systems where there are eight, eight concepts. And there’s Enneagram, you know, that puts us into nine different ego types. So is there any similarity in any of these that people could connect so they could understand better why you have differentiated, your knowledge base?

Eric Gee:
I think the similarity would be, the closest one would be Myers-Briggs or MBTI. That’s the one that I have the most experience. I’ve researched Enneagram and all at DISC, and I’ve worked with them, but MBTI is the one that I grew up really learning about. And as I started, I wouldn’t say flaws, but I started seeing things within it where I was like, well, I don’t totally see that at a practical level. Theoretically, it makes sense. But at a practical level, I saw very different things. And that’s why I started developing the way you go about finding the 16 types are different. Because MBTI also has 16 different personality types. And I have 16 animal personality types. But the way you get there is very different than Myers-Briggs. Because Myers-Briggs oftentimes is based on value. I’m sorry, mine is based on values. Myers-Briggs is kind of based on what people see. And I’m not a huge fan of extroversion or introversion. I know that’s a big one that people talk about because it’s very easy to see. It’s very easy to say, oh, that person’s extroverted because they talk a lot. But I’m like, well, it’s based on context, right? Because take, for example, me, sometimes people think I’m an extrovert because I talk a lot. But my extroversion is more like, putting me in front of people and I can give a TED Talk. But I’m not going to always, I’m not going to do body shots in Cabo. That’s not the thing that I’m going to do. And so I think it’s based more on values. You know, my value is like I’m a different personality pack. So my values are self-knowledge and helping people reach that. So if I believe in something I’m definitely going to promote it, like I said, talk or advocate for it. But a hunter-type that’s extroverted is all about excitement. So they’re going to want to be up in front of on a, you know, a bar counter and doing body shots and dancing and stuff because they’re going to like the attention.

Hugh Ballou:
probably a lot of people listening to you don’t know even what you’re talking about with body shots, but that’s all right.

Eric Gee:
That’s okay.

Hugh Ballou:
You know, my generation is very different. So, you know, there’s doing work in corporate settings where the people have just been through a disk training, for instance, or Myers-Briggs. They will say, this is my type, and this is who I am, so there. So they didn’t get far enough to understand the value it is in community, and they hid behind an excuse. They’ve been typed here. They use that as an excuse. So how does your methodology help us not do that?

Eric Gee:
Well, for starters, I’m not a huge fan of tests. And obviously, I have a test on my site. It’s fantastic. But at the end of the day, a test is like a cookie-cutter thing. You’re going to ask 70 questions, the same 70 questions to a person. There are a lot of mistakes that can happen. The person who’s taking the test could feel like they want to project themselves in a certain way. So for starters, I think you should understand the methodology before trying to figure out who you are, taking a test to figure out who you are. right? Like people take this test and they’re like, okay, now I’m so and so they have these four letters and I’m going to read all these prescriptions on it. But it’s like, well, what did the diagnosis is wrong? That can be harmful. So at the end of the day, I think we understand, what makes us who we are. And my book goes over in a very wonkish way, the how to type people like the exact methodology in terms of, okay, this person’s like this, these people are like that. And, um, we will learn that then we’ll truly understand who we are. And then I think we can go from there.

Hugh Ballou:
That’s a really important point. I’ve seen people take the Enneagram test, for instance, and they’ve assigned a number, you know, with a winning number, and then they find out later, that’s not true at all. And I do think I’ve taken Myers-Briggs in different work settings, at different times. And it varied by the context of where I was. Was I at home when I was taking it? Was I at work? Was I in a different community? So we have different ways, like introvert, extrovert even. I’m a profound extrovert. But in some settings, I’m an introvert because I’m outclassed by other people. And it’s not about being shy or anything. It’s about the way we… Restore our energy, you know extroverts we get energy from people introverts burn up energy with people So, you know, there are a lot of misconceptions around any of these platforms So how does yours help us be anchored and have the right? Conceptions about ourselves and the people we work with

Eric Gee:
Especially with that extrovert-introvert example, right? It’s talking about getting energy from people, but it’s also the context in terms of in what situation are you interacting with these people, right? If you’re at a club and you’re dancing, it’s very different than having a conversation with people. I’m not saying one is better than the other, but one is better than the other depending on your personality type, right? And I think my book, in a very relatable way, of course, I’m going to say that because I wrote it, but I use a lot of like jokes. I tell a lot of stories. I use a lot of pop culture references to just help people understand that the things and the patterns of behavior that they’ve been seeing their entire lives, there’s a structure behind it. There’s an invisible web. And that if they can just grasp it, they can feel it, even though they might not be able to see it. And once they feel it, then they’re going to be able to use that as kind of like scaffolding to understand, oh, okay, like no wonder why this person was acting in this way. Even in this movie, I understand why this character wasn’t getting along with this character. And it kind of reminds me of like my relationship with my mother or my father, you know, like they can start seeing, oh, there’s a reason for the way things are versus like having this very like set kind of, oh, like you are the extroverted, introverted, or in terms of Myers-Briggs, either judging or perceiving. And also, I do tend to focus on the negative, and I do want to throw that one in there quickly. Like, in terms of, like, I think a lot of times when people take these tests, the tests are always like, oh, you are great because of these 10 reasons. And I do think that if you tell someone they’re great for 10 reasons, they are going to find that all 10 of those are correct in some form or fashion, even if they are not, right? Whereas if you tell people, oh, well, you are this personality type, so you have this negative characteristic, You know, they’re going to only accept it if it’s true. So that’s another way to kind of like type people better try to go with the flaws first because if you go with the positive things, you’re going to believe everybody.

Hugh Ballou:
So you’ve said in the notes you gave me, too often personality distinctions are disowned and labeled as weakness, or we default to accepting surface differences in the name of diversity. Elaborate on that. Those sound interesting.

Eric Gee:
You know, it’s one of those things where I feel like people tend to make assumptions based on gender, based on ethnicity. I mean, those are the two big ones, right? We’re like, oh, girls are like this, guys are like this. Like guys are from Mars and girls are from Venus, right? And oh, this person is like Italian or Chinese, so they’re going to be like this. And it’s like, that doesn’t even make sense on a practical level, because you go to any country and meet tons of different types of people with tons of different attitudes on things. that just doesn’t even make the lot doesn’t pass the logical sniff test. So I think personality is great because it makes us understand, oh, there are different personalities within society. And though cultures can have a certain kind of energy, that energy is not necessarily good for every personality type in it. So if you have a touchy physical personality type, the example I always use is if they’re huggy, like some personality types are, like elephants are huggy, peacock personality types are super huggy, and they grow up in a very traditional Japanese household in Japan, it’s going to be a little difficult because they’re not going to want physical contact. They’re usually going to be like, no, do not touch me. And vice versa, if you are a more private, personality type that values their physical space, it’s going to be difficult growing up in a Latin American country, at least traditionally so, where hugging is a big part of it, like physical contact.

Hugh Ballou:
Yeah. And it, it, it varies hugely. If anybody’s traveled at all. I mean, if you’re, you’re in, um, um, Dubai, you know, here we all men open the door for a woman in Dubai. It’s an insult. I mean, it’s just the opposite of what we think it is. And in Mexico, you know, some of our routines are an insult to people. So. It varies so widely. So we’ve got our little set of norms and, you know, especially in the South, you know, we got our language vocabulary, you know, it’s a subset of English, you know, but, you know, get out and find out it’s a real education. So, um, I want to show people your website but talk a little bit about the utopia project, please.

Eric Gee:
So the Utopia Project is basically, it started as a website kind of advocating and promoting the personality typing methodology. And obviously, it’s also, we have a life coaching aspect to it. I am a life coach. I work with a lot of clients, specifically young clients because that’s my background. And I tend to find most of my clients are about 11 years old and above. And I think that’s when parents are just like, I do not understand this kid anymore. Why do they hate me? Like, I’m just trying to help them. I think everyone can, at least all parents understand that age range. And so Utopia Project is also, so I use the personality types to help with the life coaching as well. So, and also we, another thing, part of the Utopia Project is we have a creative space here in Los Angeles, where I’m located, where kind of people can come and be creative. That doesn’t have anything to do with the personality typing methodology, but people can, you know, it’s a shared creative workspace, basically, in Los Angeles.

Hugh Ballou:
So, people, you were very modest when you introduced yourself. You’re a classically trained pianist. You’re a backyard-trained barbecue. What is this, dilettante?

Eric Gee:
You know, I say dilettante because, you know, like I would never want to call myself an expert because once again, I’m an amateur at it. And that would be an insult to all the people who barbecue for a living. But I do barbecue quite a bit in my backyard.

Hugh Ballou:
Three-time fantasy football champion, special mentor, and a musician magician. So you’re a man of many talents. So let’s go to your website for a minute. And, um, for people that are listening, um, the website, I’m going to give them the link. It’s, um, project utopia.com. So I’m going to, I’m going to share that with people who are watching, but if you’re, if you’re listening on the podcast, you can go to project utopia.com. And we’re on a page called, on that website, we’re on a page called University. So what do people find when they go to projectutopia.com and then where do they find your book? Tell us about your website.

Eric Gee:
Well, the first thing you’ll see is a big old advertisement for my book. And, you know, I, of course, want to hawk my book, but it is the, it is the crystallization of all my ideas, at least for this type in terms of reading people. So I would recommend people if they are interested in this topic and they want to learn more to purchase the book. And you can also find me there in terms of like, you can leave a comment for me. And if you’re interested in receiving life coaching, or just even consulting to see if life coaching is good for you. And there’s a little bit about me. And yes, I am all those things because my personality type is one that I could say is a jack of all trades and maybe an expert at none, even though I do think I’m pretty good at certain things. And you’ll see different testimonials from clients and especially, it’s a call to action or a CTA. If you wanna take the test that we have and after all the things that I trashed online tests, I still have a test and you can take it and I think it’s gonna be a little different than you’re used to. It only takes like a few minutes, but it’s not gonna be that obvious when you take it and you’ll get your results on what animal personality type you are.

Hugh Ballou:
And just as a visual on the website for your folks on the podcast, you’ve got the four quadrants, the gatherers, the hunters, the shamans, and the smiths. You the four animals in each type. So I’m just curious about this. You know, after 78 years of studying all kinds of stuff, this is interesting. So the subtitle to your book is Unlock the Secrets to Understanding Everyone in Your Life. including yourself. Now, what a concept. So, people that work with you, what happens? What’s the benefit for them?

Eric Gee:
You know, the first thing is they hire me as a writing coach. That’s funny enough, that’s where I get a lot of my clients. And people are like, well, where’s the life coaching come in? And that’s, it took me a while to understand the connection, which is weird because I’ve always been into both things, writing and personality. And I realized, oh, you know when you teach writing, it’s mainly about finding your voice. How do you express your ideas and your feelings to the world, right? And to the people around you. But it’s really hard to find your voice if you don’t know who you are. Who are you? Right. And so what I do with my clients is I help them figure out who they are. So, yes, the grammar is great. That’s important. I don’t go over any of those kinds of things. It’s more who are you and who the people around you and how and understanding what they value and understand what you value and then understanding the best way to express that. And that’s kind of what I work with my clients on.

Hugh Ballou:
I love it. I love it. You didn’t say this, but the word that comes to my mind when you’re talking about knowing yourself is authenticity, how to be authentically you. Does that resonate?

Eric Gee:
Oh, yeah. I think the problem is, I’d say half the population, I didn’t mention it, but I’d say half the population are gatherers, which is great. We want a safe society, right? Gatherers prioritize safety. The only problem with that is when you have half the population that values one thing, it tends to be, for lack of a better term, promoted to the other personality types. And sometimes that doesn’t always work. And some personality types are fairly deferential. And they might find themselves trying to be something they’re not. And as we all know, that can be damaging emotionally. So definitely, authenticity is incredibly important.

Hugh Ballou:
It is essential to be a true leader. It’s being true to yourself. So, Eric, we’ve covered a lot of stuff in this 25 minutes. Thank you for that. What do you want to leave people with today, a parting thought, challenge, or tip?

Eric Gee:
I would say find your anchor first when it comes to personality. Find who you are because I always say everyone can do everything, but you’re going to have something that you probably like doing a lot more and being like a lot more. And once you find that, then you can experiment and explore other different styles because at the end of the day, we do want to practice and work on our flaws, but you don’t want to try to be something you’re not before you truly know who you are.

Hugh Ballou:
Eric, thank you so much for being our guest today on the nonprofit exchange. It’s just, um, I’m encouraged to be more of me and what a great fresh perspective on all of the values that we each bring to the world and embracing those. So thank you for being my guest today on the nonprofit exchange.

Eric Gee:
Thank you so much for having me here.