@0:01 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Hello everyone and welcome to the Shades of Entrepreneurship. This is your host, Mr.

Flores. Today I'm here with Hugh. How are we doing? He's the executive chairman and founder of DNA Behavioral International.

@0:21 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

You are delighted to be here with you, Gabriel.

@0:24 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Meet me. We're actually talking. He's calling in from Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta. was actually out there earlier this year for a conference.

We're talking about how beautiful and diverse. Not only more importantly than that, but the food out there.

@0:39 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

How good it is. So, Hugh, how are we doing? Yeah, really good.

@0:44 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I'm hot because I'm in hot land. As we were saying. So Hugh, give us a little introduction. Please provide a little background.

Who are you and then we'll get into your business.

@0:56 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

Yes, so probably the audience has already figured out. Gabriel that I'm not from Atlanta originally. I'm from Sydney, Australia is where I was born, but I've lived in Atlanta for the last 20 years or so.

I think as you as you were alluding to before, Atlanta is sort of that hidden gem out there in the world that not many people realize actually how good a place it's to live.

Certainly, you know, within the confines of the United States. So, I love it here, but I suppose we sort of want to get to how I got here, but my career started as a CPA that's in American terms, Australian terms, chartered accountant.

I was an auditor then became a tax specialist. worked in Southeast Asia for four years in that journey, but then at around 30 years old, I decided that corporate life working in a big accountancy firm.

was not going to be for me. I was a bit of a caged up tiger and I needed to go out there and do something, as I called it on the street, Rich is really starting an entrepreneurial journey.

The one thing I knew when I started was that I wanted to create some sort of business that gave people a very personalized experience in wealth management.

And at the time, and I think it's changed today, but we're still working on it. It was very one size fits all and pushing a product at you, not really understanding you as a person, I think not dealing with the complexities of it very well.

And so it was, I was always interested in money, investments, doing deals. I thought, yep, that's what I would do.

But I think it's My boss said, when I was leaving Arthur Anderson, know, in, in, he said, you, uh, you're leaving us, but you haven't really arrived at your new thing yet.

And I think, you know, it's quite a poignant statement and that he made it quite a good observation. I think in you, yeah, I was ready to leave, although he didn't want me to, but I hadn't figured out what my real thing was.

And maybe, you know, and I'll say that because I think I know that Gabriel, we're talking to entrepreneurs today, not everybody fully knows that when you, when you start the next thing.

And so anyway, after a few months, I figured out that it would be a wealth management business. I went and got licensed.

I also at the time, I, uh, I did an MBA. I did my diploma in financial planning. So I was, you know, became pretty, I was pretty highly qualified.

And, you know, my accounting experience was was pretty good too. I started to meet people, I started to get clients and built business up.

But one day, about five years into it, four years into it, a friend of mine asked me, you know, don't, she said, you don't seem really entirely happy with what you're doing.

What are you really passionate about? And I said, I want to help people all over the world become financially self empowered.

And I realized pretty soon after that, that, you know, the fact that I just said that out of my subconscious, never having thought about it like that before, I need to do some work on this.

And so I went and thought about it, reflected on a new that, okay, if I'm going to help people all over the world become financially self empowered, this is not going to happen from running a wealth management business based in Sydney.

It's a very local thing, still a good thing, but it's not, it's just not going to be it. And so I started, I started with,

Working on that I looked at my day journal and here I had learned to hold been writing about human behaviour for quite a few years including when I was in the CPA firm and that's where I realised that what I was doing was creating customised experiences for people by figuring out who they were.

I wasn't using a process and so I knew how to customise the language, the communication, I could figure out who could take tax risks, not take tax risks.

That's a reproach I was intuitively doing in the wealth management business so I realised that this is about human behaviour and what I also noticed was that when people were under pressure they would behave differently to when they were in a socialised sort of setting, there was this behavioural flip going on, I needed to know what that was and lo and as soon as I got to that point

A woman came into my office one day to help me with some recruiting and what she thought she was coming in to see me about on the referral from her son, but actually she was an industrial psychologist and we started talking about my ideas about human behaviour and money.

And the fact that I thought people had this hardwired behaviour deep down that didn't always show up on the surface and that's what must be causing people to have this behavioural flip.

I wasn't getting that from reading it in books, I was not a trained psychologist and she said that is absolutely true and here's how this works.

When people are aged, at that time people are aged three years old, they are 85% hardwired. is the true natural instinctive person, that's where the first reactions come from.

And people can't really change. that hardwiring very easily. You can look with consciousness learn to adapt to different situations.

You can't change it that easily but you know through your life you have other experiences they shape you a bit as well.

thought okay so what I really need to be able to do I said to Carol what I need to be able to do is to scientifically measure what people's natural hardwired behavior is and how is that going to affect how they and understand how that affects how they deal with money.

That took me on the journey of coming to America 40 times in four years basically every month to validate the system that we have today and that was really the you know the genesis of the DNA behavior system and the business and because I wasn't so passionate about wealth management that I saw that off and made this my day job to basically build a behavioral

science, business, that measures people's talents, how they deal with money. you know, today we are leader in the area of behavioral finance made practical probably more to the point, you know, there have been lots of research studies on this area.

But the research scientists have not taken the research to practicality in terms of how do you know this specifically for each person.

That's what we do. Man, so here I am.

@8:34 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah. And, you know, I'm going to take a step back a little bit. Yeah. One of the things you said that I think was very interesting, specifically was, you knew you wanted, you knew corporate America wasn't your thing or corporate industry wasn't your thing.

@8:48 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

And so you wanted to get into an entrepreneurial endeavor.

@8:51 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah. And then I think this is where a lot of entrepreneurs struggle as well, where they feel stuck, they have the golden parachute to retirement, right?

got the 401k. employ match all these things. And then one of the things you also mentioned is you went back to your journal, your daily journal, to get inspiration about, I know I want to start a business.

I just don't know what I want to do. One of my core competencies, how did that transition, you know, going through that journal?

was that aha moment for you? of sounds like, you know, reading through that journal.

@9:23 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

But what was it in that journal that really made you say, you know what, I think I should actually pivot away from this wealth management and focus on the behavioral health?

Yeah, I think that if we just unravel that a little bit more, because you've cottoned on to some of the big point, I think the first thing was that I realized that when I was in the large corporation, if you want to call up that in the corporate life, that I was a bit of a caged up tiger.

that I think I was not passionate, I was not as passionate about the tax. work that I was doing as perhaps I should be.

And I wasn't loving the environment. And, you know, I think that it's easy to say it was at the firm's fault.

No, it was you developing and growing and becoming, you know, if you want to call it the man, I am or am supposed to be to become my identity was growing.

And so I always like to look at it that, you know, I had a great experience where I was, but maybe it wasn't right for me for the next stage of my life.

And now I know more about my behavioural style. can absolutely see why I'm pretty strong on risk-taking, fairly single-minded, et cetera.

Maybe with more coaching and development could have been made to work for me being there? maybe. I think, as I said to somebody on the golf course the other day, I probably would have left anyway at some later point.

It would have lot too much for me. So I think that temperament was- I was ready to go. What I hadn't figured out is what to do and but I was lucky enough it was not married.

I had some money of my own that I was able to withstand if you want to call it being hungry for a little bit or I was not going to be hungry if I didn't make everything work day one.

Whereas some people have got a family, they've got debt and they've got to make their entrepreneurial venture work inside three months or they're toast.

I wasn't in that place and that was also a point of leaving. I think that if I was still a back I've always said to people that being able to have my freedom was a reason to be an entrepreneur and that it does provide you with freedom and no one's going to fire me.

I think that was the big reason it wasn't about well I can just make more money in doing something else.

It was about my freedom. It was about building my own identity. I started the wealth management business because that's something I knew I would be good at from a competency point of view.

The tax experience is something that's relevant for all of that. I was good at consulting with clients. But you're right is that when where the real switch came to the venture that I have today came from looking at the day journal, taking all the notes and getting very specific around the fact that I had been looking at behavioural systems, human behaviour, writing notes about it.

What I thought worked out there didn't work, what I didn't like about other approaches. I'd been documenting that and then I'd looked at what I had in effect practically been doing in my accounting career and even in the early stages of the wealth management career and I realised that this is what

that I am good at, and this is how I can help do something for millions, or now I would say billions of people, but millions of people I could do it on a very wide scale globally, because it would be something that would become technologically driven.

Technology was not as advanced then, but it was something that I could do. So I think that's the point, but I think where you're going, Gabriel, is that the makings of this was very early on.

Yes. Customised experiences, to create a customised experience for the person, you absolutely need to know who they are at a pinpointed level.

It's not a guessing game. I started off with a guessing, which is what a lot of people think they can do, but really, at scale, it needs to be more measured than that.

@13:58 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, and I think you brought up a great point in regard to hard to, you know, understanding yourself, not only your customers, but understanding yourself as well, really important, understanding more competencies, because it sounds like, you know, you went with your core competencies with, you know, wealth management, but that wasn't your passion, right?

You're, you has a core competency, but it wasn't your passion. And so that's one thing I'd always encourage folks to think about, you know, there are a lot of things you probably do on a day to day basis.

That is your core competency that you actually enjoy, you know, it becomes at the golden hour, right? That moment where you're doing a task and you actually forget about what the time is, because you're actually enjoying the thing that you're doing.

So time just kind of goes by, right? Now, with that said, you need to find a way to monetize that, because there are tasks, there's a lot of tasks that I do on a daily basis that I absolutely hate, right?

And I would love to automate it or have someone else to do it for me, right? Outsource it and identifying what that value is to other people, what your core, how your core competency

can provide value to someone else. And then if you have a passion for it, you can begin to see you can actually have a business model.

And one thing I'll tell everybody, you know, before you do write a business plan, get a minimal viable product out there and see if people are willing to purchase it.

If somebody is actually willing to reach in their back pocket, pull out their wallet and purchase the item or service that you're providing, and you enjoy it, okay, now you have a business.

Now you can begin to write a business plan. you know, to his point, now you can begin to scale it.

Because now you're, because then you kind of dive deeper into it, you start to learn about your customer flow, you start to learn about customer acquisitions, you start to learn about your SEO to bring dry people to your website.

But you don't want to go down that rabbit hole and tell you have a minimal viable product, right?

@15:45 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

Yeah, I think that's right. think there's got to be a lot of things that we all can be eight out of 10 out.

You want to find the one thing you can be 10 out of 10 out. Very true. What's the business model around that?

And as you say, by building a minimal, viable product, you start to figure out whether you even like that business.

I mean, I think there's two sides to it. You are pointing out, well, do the clients and people will they buy into it, but do you actually want to do it?

I think that one of the points for entrepreneurs here is that once you're at that stage of MVP or minimum viable product, I call that business plan A, you are probably not going to get to traction with something you really love that can really grow and be successful to you at about business plan G.

@16:37 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, very, very true.

@16:39 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

Very true. there's a lot of iterations and variations. And in a way, you develop as well as the entrepreneur as you're going through that, as you're going through those cycles of getting to that place.

And, you know, I've been at it now for 20 years or so with DNA behavior, even and last year we went through a really big process around, you know, 10x exponential growth is better than 2x optimization.

you know, in some ways, yeah, we could have looked at our model and just continued to perfect it a bit more, fine-tune things.

But if we really want to go for it, what do we strip out and allow ourselves to go 10x?

And what does that look like? And how do we do it? And the principle being, you've got courage to do that, the 10x can be easier.

And so we stripped away things, changed things. And in fact, if we did that, and then we've done it again, and sort of we're in a way, we're on the 100x.

And, you know, I think that all comes from getting clarity, working out what you really love to do, yourselves, are they the clients to do?

it. But we could have, I suppose what I'm trying to say is that we could have kept on a path of doing, you know, providing a service that, you know, that we like and enjoy, but actually it's not, and the clients are prepared to pay for it, but there's actually more out there to be done, right?

@18:19 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, yeah, if you're not getting comparatively better, you're getting competitively worse. So, it's always important to kind of continue to look at where you can pivot.

Now, this next question I'm ask you is a bit of a two-part question, because one of the things you mentioned, know, your DNA behavioral is now kind of a industry leader, right, in your field.

So, the next, this is a two-part question. So, one, what has been the key factors in your business success and then based off of your business and all the information that you have now obtained, what are the key factors that hold people back and their own life and business?

@18:55 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

Yeah, so I think that that's a good point. I think one is, we've always held true to our values and what we believe, so that we've always wanted to, in terms of this self-empowerment, people optimize their lives, financial success, business life, from knowing their talents, knowing their financial behavior is a hard-wiring, we've never been on the methodologies.

I think that, but we've always been prepared to be adaptable, to make changes in the business model as needed or to adapt to a client, know, we've worked on customizing our solutions in the way things get delivered to meet varying client needs, and have always worked with differentiation, you know, you talked about being a market leader, you know, yes, there's lots of personality systems.

was out there. But really where the only one that is is is standalone out there on how you deal with money.

And that's been proven over and over again, even, you know, working with a large consultancy firm the last few weeks that have bought our solution at the enterprise level.

It was because of the fact that we deal with money gets us there. But we're also dealing with other behaviours too.

So for organisations. But I think that's the thing we've always been, know, fair with clients. I think that's something that's important, you know, that being fair, transparent, very reliable.

So, you know, meeting our own core values is being something that's important. And I think the other thing that we've done with this is, I would now put words around it, psychological safety, that when when I always said that.

If somebody is going to use our system with a client particularly, but even with other employees, you've got to be prepared to go through it yourself and show who you are.

And if you're not prepared as a leader as a financial advisor consultant, whoever it is, to be transparent about yourself, then don't use it.

And I think it's a different level of leadership when you're prepared to do that because if you're not prepared to put yourself out there and be open about who you are and have open conversations be approachable, then not much is going to happen.

And, you know, I always wanted psychological safety with what we do, not manipulation or people playing a game. And we've held true to all those things all the way along.

@21:55 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

One of the things you mentioned was leaders leadership. Yeah. How do. How do leaders, how do their financial behavior impact an organization that they lead?

@22:06 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

Very good. Very good question. You know, if I start this way and say that, you know, we've all as leaders, we've all for any leader, you've got a behavioral style.

That's, that's why it into you comes with that, you've got a, you've got an inherent perspective about money, inherent motivations that are wrapped up with, with money.

You've got to drive to, to make it, save it, innovate with it, have experiences, whatever money is there in every decision you make.

It's there in every waking, waking moment and sleeping moment. And therefore every decision you make in the company, the culture that you set, comes with it, you know, is going, comes.

whether it is your attitude to money or it will reflect or mirror your attitude to money. Optics, every person can look at a situation differently.

You can look at an expense to just head of sales, go and entertain a group of people and one person will look at it as lavish and why did we do that and spend all that money and another person will look at the sales number that came in because of it.

That was a good thing to do or we've innovated a new product that now moves us apart in the market from a good perspective but it cost us quite a lot of money.

that a good thing or a bad thing. Money is wrapped up in all of that and it goes in how you as a leader stand up and handle money is then going to be reflected in how you handle the reports below you and all the way through the organisation.

I think you can see it, particularly with some of the Boeing, the aircraft company is a great example of financial behaviour.

built its reputation on being a safety first company building their airplanes that were safe in the sky and then they did a merger deal with Douglas.

The Boeing leadership was there for about a year. A year later, the McDonald Douglas leadership, House moved aside the the the the stayed boring Boeing people that were safety first and it became all about results and numbers and financial behaviours and then the culture changed.

And then when people started to raise it, corners got cut on safety issues, people lower down raise. concerned, they get fired, there's manipulation with the the regulatory authorities blah blah blah and now we've got planes falling out of the sky and I don't think there's a day where Boeing gets good press and it's a disaster it really is and it's very sad and frankly it's quite scary in a lot of ways I don't do as much flying as I once did but it's quite scary getting on some of the am I going to be on the plane where the with the door falls out or the you know ABCD happens yeah it's very true and it's funny you mentioned that because you know Boeing I'm here in the Pacific Northwest Boeing is a big Washington company Alaska Airlines you mentioned the door falling up happened actually right over my home we actually got a notice to look around our home for debris that fell out of that plane that that with the door came open because you know you know one thing I'll tell

@26:00 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

all the entrepreneurs. And, you know, you brought up a great point. know, once, once Boeing kind of sold off, they kind of lost their, their, their kind of true north, essentially.

And that's true also for smaller businesses and entrepreneurs. If you're going, if you're going for funding for venture capitalists, you're essentially selling your business to someone else.

And once they kind of come in, they may begin to dictate, you know, who is on the board, who, who runs the business.

And then their core competencies, right, your mission statement may begin to fall to the wayside. Because again, their goal is not to, you know, scale your business to make people happy.

Their goal is to scale their business to make the shareholders happy. And the best way to make shareholders happy is make money.

@26:45 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

Yeah. I think that, you know, that given that, that many startups, smaller businesses at some point, take on outside capital of some, of some sort, the type of capital

you take on and the terms of it can very much shake the business. I think a lot of people take on, you know, the formalised venture capital, private equity, probably too early in their journey and they're not ready to manage it and don't understand an actual fact it's glorified debt because those those those blenders and I've been on I've been on that side of it too want their money back.

And so you've got to understand what that's going to do to the business. Are you the type of leader can actually handle it?

The other side that I've talked a lot about as well is, you know, from a financial behaviour perspective is the investor, the VC investor doesn't always know who they are investing in.

They think they do. They've had an, they've been inspired by this person and they've got a great business now that's in artificial intelligence or doing something in health.

You know, we better get in there. And I push the money at the person. But not only is the business model not ready for it, neither is the human being receiving it.

And they don't realize that this person might be a gun sales person, but they're not really capable of running a business beyond a few million dollars of revenue.

Because it's not that. And then it's not saying that they're a bad person, maybe they should still have a very key role in the business, but it'd be different.

And I think there is a, you know, one of things I've been addressing is there's a lack of transparency all around there on both sides of the fence.

And but this process could be a whole lot better for everybody if done through, you know, people first and understanding what are the financial behaviours that are there.

So, and this happens at the private equity level as well, where You know, they're very sophisticated, know, businesses are bigger, but they're pretty sophisticated deals.

The CEO and founder might have done a great job to get the business to the level of private equity.

But are they the right person to handle the investors and the investment money and really make it work? A lot of the cases know and you see that up all the time, you see the results of it.

And it is about people.

@29:29 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, you know, I think it's a great time to actually plug the nonprofit, actually started a nonprofit Latino founders.

Again, folks, you can go out and in your community and find a lot of nonprofits that will help support the scale of entrepreneurship.

We actually have a free business accelerator program. We actually had 33 applicants of this year, some from Paul Alta, from Illinois, from New York.

So we had a pretty diverse group of individuals applying. And the goal behind us is to really create a 12-week immersive business accelerator program.

That's very busy. agnostic. So we can really talk about all these different operations, financing, scaling, marketing, very organically. But then we'll set you up with a mentor.

We set you up with a mentor to really help talk about scaling your business, what things work, what things do not work.

But the best part about it is actually our pitch competition. So we actually have a pitch Latino competition. And we have you, the entrepreneur come and pitch your business idea to the community.

We had last year about 250, 300 guests. Those attendees will then vote live right then and there on who they believe the winner is.

And then the winner actually receives grant funding. So as you know, he was mentioning venture capital is basically glorified loan grant funding.

That's not a loan. You get that money. You do with what you need to it. You can put it towards marketing.

You can put it through your sales. But the beautiful thing about the pitch as well is you're going to get insight because we have VCs that attend.

you're going get live insight from them as well to kind of let you know, Hey,

@31:00 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

you're kind of going down the right path, or it might be time to pivot. Yeah, and I'd love it if in the not-for-profit environment you're talking about, Gabriel, or perhaps that we get a DNA discovery done on every person that's seeking a grant, and that will provide an extra layer of insight for the person's giving the grant.

Because what, you know, do you want to give the grant to somebody that, yeah, they might have talked good game, they're not going to be able to really do it, or as you say, you know, they've done a great presentation, great idea, the person giving the grant wants to be involved, but the person's going to need coaching and who do they bring on their team.

This will soon tell you that, and I think it would be, you know, that would be, you know, something I'm prepared to offer today, you know, for you and then for anybody listening, why not know this and know the truth?

and make decisions around the truth. It will save a whole lot of trouble later on.

@32:05 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I love it. We'll definitely connect a little bit more, discuss that little bit more after this show to definitely build that relationship, because I think a knowledge is power, Now you work with, we're talking to entrepreneurs, we have a lot of entrepreneurs listening.

What would you say is one of the most common financial errors that either businesses or entrepreneurs make that you have noticed there in your work experience?

@32:31 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

Yeah, so from a financial decision-making point of view, I think that probably, I know what the winning stroke is, is it's around how you invest in innovation.

And I think that at the end of the day, you could spend too much money on innovation. You do need to innovate and innovate regularly, particularly in today's dynamic world, we've...

with AI, but I think it can be done with a lot lower cost and get, as you said, get MVPs into the market at lower cost.

I think that a lot of entrepreneurs spend too much money on the wrong things. They spend too much money on the wrong people.

You don't have to pay as much in this in the environment for people as you think you do. There's the gig economy out there, there's offices, the way you travel, the way you wait and live, I think that there are all things that can become a threat to the business.

You need to be able to run a relatively tight shift, but be smart as well. You do need to make strategic investments, but I think that there's on your business DNA behavioral.

@33:55 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

How do you help individuals in groups improve their decision making?

@34:01 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

Yeah, so the first thing that we do at a number of levels, of course, improving your decision-making firstly comes down to knowing who you are and what your strengths are, but also on the other side what your struggles and what the biases that you might have are.

I think that also everybody talks about your intuition being very powerful and people say, well, my gut says, I'm going to do X and I absolutely think that the intuition is powerful, but it's got to be tuned first.

And I think that in making decisions you should get more data points before you use your intuition. In fact, the data points will help you make the intuitive decision.

In its rawer sense, the intuition is only 20. 8% accurate. You know, if that's just your initial reaction, I think that getting more data points, check yourself before you wreck yourself, will help a lot.

But I don't want anyone to hear this to say that your intuition isn't powerful, it is. I absolutely rely on mine.

And it's very, you know, relatively very tuned. But I also look for data points, I think being patient is important because you don't know, you know, with your intuition and timing of things, it might be a little off, certain days, know, it's got to be very careful with that, depending on how you interpret intuition.

So I think it's a balance. Gabriel is, you know, is what I would be saying. But also, you know, if you're sitting around the table with a group of people, understand at the table, who's the authority bias there, who's just going to say yes, because

That's the easiest thing to do and then duck their head, who's extremely anchored. So understanding who's around the table with you, who's got to be persuaded the right way, not manipulated but persuaded the right way, I think it's important getting people to come up with their own decisions and from their experiences data points is important.

So laying the table for the decision-making process is really important.

@36:32 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, very true and I think that's true also when folks are identifying employees to work for your business as well, making sure you have the right people on the bus.

I always say there's three types of employees, There's an engaged employee, everybody knows the engaged employee, right? a person comes to work, does shows up, everything they've been asked and even sometimes more and then you have the RIP and the cave employee.

Now the RIP employee is the retired in place. They come to work, they kind of do the bare bit of mum, they're just looking for retirement, they're just there.

And I'm okay with RIP because I know I can get them to becoming an engaged employee to your point, just making sure leading them in the right direction.

Now the one person that's very difficult is the cave employee. They're constantly against virtually everything. The food sucks, the parking's horrible, I don't like the buy boss.

Those people are difficult because when you hire a new member of your team, it's that cave employee that's going to be training them.

And what are they going to be training them? How bad the food sucks, how bad the parking is, how much they hate their boss.

making sure you get the right people in the buses is just as important and they have to believe in your mission as well.

When you craft a mission statement, shouldn't just be a statement, but it should be also be a goal. What are you trying to accomplish with this, Nike?

Everybody's an athlete. Okay, well they want to accomplish the feeling that every individual that puts on an article their clothing.

It feels like an athlete, right? It's not just a mission statement, goal.

@38:04 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

Yeah, I think that absolutely the company itself has got to have a very engaging culture, which is what you're referring to.

They've got to have a very clear goal. And then all the roles have to be clearly defined. Now, course, that changes as the business grows in developers, but the more clarity you can provide people of what's expected of them, that all helps the way the leaders then show up each day is important.

know, if you're the leader and you get emotional or you rough handle people, it's not going to last very long and there's not much forgiveness, really.

Got the wrong teddy bear down there in the ranks who's not properly engaged, they can poison it for everybody and you can't have that.

And, you know, some people start off as being the right person, but as life goes along or the business goes along.

on it's not right, then you need to be working on that. But I think one thing that's got clearer for me about all of this is while we are very big at DNA on and helping others do it is what are the talents required for a role and then ensuring the person's got the right talents and passions.

That's all that's all important. Value is important. The organisation can have set of values and be clear about that and the employee can come to the table with their set of values.

But if they're clear about their values and they know who they are, I don't think you can sit there as the employer and say I'm going to get them to change those values.

That's either a fit or it's not a fit. Correct. they could be the best person in the world but actually their values aren't and what's important to them is not a fit with your business.

And that's something to figure out.

@40:00 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

as early as you can. Yeah, I can play.

@40:03 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

And you shouldn't expect them to change their values, actually.

@40:06 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

And you know, I would also encourage, don't set yourself up or your employees up for failure. And the best way to minimize and mitigate this is operational planning.

You know, folks, I got to tell you, I think one of the difficulties of being an entrepreneur is actually letting go, to be honest with you.

You built something, we work, you know, I'm down in this basement 12 hours a day, sometimes, you know, grind it out, except there's so many operational things that I don't want to let go, because I created this essence of, okay, this is my quality standard, this is how I like to do things.

However, if you create an operational playbook, you can begin to let things go because now it's operationally sound, and you say, hey, if this issue pops up, this is what I want to resolve.

If this issue pops up, this is how you resolve it, you know, and making sure that when you're starting your organization, having those in place is very key, because when you do, if you decide, you'll be a senior, if you decide

sell your company one day. only are going to look at your financials, but they're going to look at your operations as well.

How well is this business operating?

@41:08 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

Because that's also a big thing of financial loss if it's done incorrectly. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you got to have the right people there in your team to do that, particularly if you're the founder.

@41:19 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yep. Yep. Now you've written a lot of books and folks, those that I'm going to have a list of these books on the Shades of Entrepreneurship newsletter, opportunity to plug the newsletter, visit the Shades of E.com to sign up for this newsletter, leadership, behavioral DNA, financial DNA, DNA.

So these are all e-books and I'll have them on the website. But one of the things that I really thought that really resonated with me that you do is you actually mentor boys without fathers.

Now tell us about that program and why is it so important to you?

@41:50 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

Well, it's important to me because for a couple of reasons. One is I a boy without a father. My father died when I was one.

I've had a great life. My mother did a fantastic job for me and in fact while I was one years old my brother was not quite born when my father died.

And so that's the very whichever way you want to look at it, a very shaping life event. It's one that I am grateful for, and the way I talk to people about this is not to be the victim, but to be the victor.

And so what I learned on my life journey, a little bit from my mother, but also working with some of our clients, did six podcasts that we do behavioural identity podcasts with people and Gabriel, you could do it with me as well if you like.

I'll reverse the tables but I did six in a row with our clients about two years ago and They were all a boy without a father and one of them had done a doctorate in the traumatic impacts of it and there are a number around obesity, social skills, talking later depending on when it happens, know, the earlier it happens the bigger these issues are but also aggression and violence, ABCD and as a boy without a dad you can get yourself into a lot of trouble pretty quickly with time of 12 but also just have life challenges and so we all agreed after that that we would do something about this so I pushed the barrow to set up the charity boys without fathers so that we could help other boys, it's a big issue out there in terms of what these boys if they're not helped go and do or don't do or what's wrong so that's what it's a big societal issue if

it's obviously is a big issue for the families. And it's not saying that the girls aren't important in it, but the issues for the girls are very different and perhaps have different societal impacts.

And I can't talk to about the impact on a girl, one, didn't have a sister, I'm not a girl and I know how big this issue is for boys.

But I think it is really an issue for the families and it's an issue for everyone. And so we are doing this work as well, you know, for really any family where there's been a loss of a parent, there is a traumatic impact.

But for boys to speak.

@44:43 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah. And you know, folks, I think this is a good opportunity to remind folks to, know, not judge every book by its color.

There's a lot of things that our people are going through that we do not see. Too often in society, we have our iPhones and our, you know, or have our headphones in walking around and

Take a moment to look up from what you're doing and look at people and then smile.

@45:05 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

You'd be surprised how that small smile would impact someone's day dramatically.

@45:11 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

last thing we can do is wake up every day, go to our closet, pick out the ugliest outfit and then blame the world for what we look like, right?

We have to understand that everybody's going through something, nobody's problem's bigger than everybody else's. We're all in this together.

are in a global economy, whether you like it or not. Everything that's done is on a global scale. A lot of the items you purchase are from a global, a different country globally.

so understanding that everybody has different experiences. They have different backgrounds. They have different cultures and religions and that's okay because it's our imperfections as human beings is what makes this life so perfect because there's so many things you can learn from so many other people.

@45:58 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

Absolutely. And I think you've said it really Well, Gabriel, and we've all got a set of challenges in some ways.

it's a matter of how you want to look at those challenges and hurdles. life, we all develop in life at different times and in different ways.

I'd say I'm pretty much a late bloomer. I'm hitting my straps now. And of course, I've got to make sure I live longer to benefit and enjoy that.

But I think that that's part of the journey and that for entrepreneurs to realize that we don't all make it after two years or five years.

Don't measure yourself against somebody else because you don't know what they're going through, what they had to do to get there, or what the circumstances were.

You don't know any of that. It's about your game. And more stress will come into your life. you start measuring yourself against somebody else and measuring how much you got in the bank because there's always somebody that's gotten warm.

@47:07 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yes, yes, very true. And folks, I got to tell you, it took me about five years for SL my parable for me to scale it and then close the doors because I realized I didn't know what the hell I was doing, right?

And that's when I went back to Portland State, got my business degree, met my wife, went and got my MBA at Syracuse and then restarted again.

Okay, now I have the tool belt with some tools. And now I know how to use these tools. So let me begin to use them.

But you know, at the end of the day, it's getting out there and trying to try and experience traveling is a really good way for you to learn quite a bit, going to a different country where you do not know the language, you're going to grow immensely because you're going to have to figure out how to do things in a way that you never knew how to do before.

And that's a really, really good learning experience. Now, you've you've been doing this for some time, you got a lot of experience.

What advice would you give aspiring entrepreneurs or Or as you mentioned, those caged up lines.

@48:03 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

What advice would you give to them? Yeah, so I think the first thing is is have a big dream and don't sell that short.

And I knew as a child, I had an entrepreneurial dream. You know, to have a global business, I think that have that and then start small and finish big.

Don't go and try and fulfill the whole dream at once because that's not realistic. This is a journey. Stick to your guns on what you absolutely believe in and why you're doing what you do.

Yes, there will be business plan A to business plan G. At least that. then enjoy the right. know, even when there's a bad moment, look at it and say, okay, what's the silver lining in this?

What did I learn out of it? And, you know, maybe you hit away. wall. I've had a few disasters here and there, and bang their head against the wall.

It's, you know, nearly cost me a lot. But every time, actually, I was lucky that it happened when it did.

And I saw it and moved on. And somehow, I immediately, I very soon after became bigger and better. And I think that's the thing with it.

But you've got to have resilience to go on this journey. And, and so does the your spouse and your family, right?

They've got to come on with you.

@49:38 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yes. Yes. Very true. And making, I could not set it better yourself because at the end of the day, it's, you might be the entrepreneur working, but it's, it's your family that's also a part of it, because it's the time away, the time on calls that they also fill that brunt.

@49:54 - Hugh Massie-Behavioral Solutions Architect, Initiator

Yeah. they fear the blunt, feel the brunt of your moods and mood swings and motions. so if you don't

believe in what you're doing and have confidence in the future and believe in a bigger future and that the future is going to get even bigger and bigger and you've got an abundant attitude in that then you know that will always be that will always be a problem very true and remember folks nobody starts at the finish line right nobody starts and nobody's perfect in fact the last person that was allegedly perfect walked on water and look how the world treated that individual so you know think about think about that and again test things out test ask people how things if you have a minimal vile product take it out to a road show take it to a conference take it to a pitch competition and see if it works before you invest a lot of money to try to scale that business because you may find out that that MVP you have a great idea but no market for it so make sure you have a market before you scale yep and don't die wondering and don't die wondering yeah get out there and try everybody else is trying to you thank you again so much for being on the show is there any last words you'd like to say before we

I don't really have anything else, Gabriel. think we've covered it. As I said, think don't die wondering and yet go out there and enjoy it and, you know, live the dream.

@51:16 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Live the dream so we do not have to. I love that quote, don't die wondering. Hugh, the executive director and founder of DNA Behavioral International that behavior and money insight company again, folks, I'll have all this information on the Shades of Entrepreneurship website and newsletter.

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