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Mr. Biz Radio: Keys to Successful Communication

Unedited transcription of the show is included below:

(00:03):

Welcome to Mr. Biz Radio! Biz Talk for Biz Owners. During the next half hour, Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth, a leading business advisor, and two-time best-selling author will cover topics that'll help business owners run their companies more profitably and more efficiently. If you're ready to stop faking the funk and take your business onward and upward. This show is for you. And now here's Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth

(00:28):

All right. Welcome to another episode of Mr. Biz radio with me, Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth. And we're talking about a very important topic for all of us, even if you're not a business owner, even if you're, you know, maybe you're not even an entrepreneur this is something that's very important communication. Communication's very important. And we're gonna take it a little bit of a different angle. So of course, we've, we've talked about communication on the show before, but we have our guest this week who is an expert. It kind of looking at things from a little bit of a different lens in the, in regards to communication. And I think it'll be very helpful for us. Our guest this week is miss Catherine Mattiske. And why is it that no matter how much training businesses provide teams still seem to fall apart when it comes to communication, we've seen this, especially during the pandemic and when things had to go virtual and people weren't coming into the office on a regular basis. As mentioned, our guest today is Catherine Mattiske. She's the founder of TPC, which stands for the performance company with Inner Genius. She is showing us how to communicate based on specific InnnerGenius archetype. Why is it Catherine? That communication seems to break down so often with teams. CI think there's a simple answer, Ken it's because we're human communication breaks down with teams. It breaks down in shopping centers, it breaks down in families. It breaks down in relationships. I think it is part of the human condition,

(01:54):

I think you're right. Unfortunately. <laugh> yeah. I mean, it's just, like you said, it's kind of human nature to some extent. I guess I, I, I kind of dived dove in a little bit faster. If you would Catherine walk us through a little bit some of your background and how you've gotten to be this Inner Genius genius at, at this point and, and sort of your background and, and building up to that.

(02:18):

Well, I can't say I had much of a strategy. I grew up with a entrepreneurial father before the term entrepreneur was even invented. And so that was my household discussing business and the family business around the dinner table when I was a tiny little girl. And so it kind of made sense that when I went into corporate life it didn't really fit for me because I'd never grown up in that circumstance where my dad had a nine to five job. So I did the whole corporate thing for a while and then thought, you know, I'll go and do my own thing for a while while I find another real job. Well, that decision was 28 years ago. So I started my business 28 years ago and I never did find that real job. So I grew up in the computer industry and I was teaching people how to do Microsoft word Excel PowerPoint in the very early days of the PC industry, I've now aged myself terribly.

(03:23):

But one thing I noticed was that there was some people that were success seekers. There were people that would come into my training room and want to embrace this whole new technology. And there were other people who were on the other end of the spectrum and they were completely fearful. And I started to think about how can I make more of those people that wanted success. And now after a life's work in learning science and looking at how people learn and how that directly influences how people communicate and how people connect with other people. That's what that's where I am right now.

(04:04):

So, excuse me. Would you say Catherine, that it's sort of just been an evolution for you? So you've learned this over the years and kind of developed this Inner Genius archetype.

(04:16):

Yeah, absolutely. And up until I wrote the book "Unlock Inner Genius" that was the first time, which was only, you know, months ago that I had ever embarked on what I refer to as the everyone market in the world. I have been deep inside, very large corporates, global brands for my whole career restructuring, how they're learning and development functions, work and writing training courses for them to go on and deploy. So then, so the, the stumbled business sort of, it's really been an evolution to say, okay, what have I learned that works in a company of a hundred thousand people? How can that work for the solo printer? How can that work for someone with the spark of an idea for a business? How can that work for a parent? How can that work for any of us who say, you know, I went to a meeting and I had a great idea and I was ignored and somebody else had that idea. And then everyone said, oh, that's a fabulous idea. And I was sitting there thinking, I had that idea, you know, half an hour ago. So all sorts of issues around communication. That's been the kind of culmination of my entire life's work.

(05:43):

It's interesting because you know, my, my, in my corporate career, I worked at JP Morgan. So, you know, at the time we had 260,000 employees. And then now, you know, after I left the corporate world and working with folks, you know, that five employees, 10 employees, a hundred employees, maybe two or 300 employees still way different than 260,000. So I think it's interesting. You're able to boil that down. And clearly there are some things that are common, whether you're at a huge company or as you mentioned, maybe just even a solopreneur.

(06:13):

Yeah, exactly. Because at the end of the day, we're either talking to one person or a group of people and that group of people can be two people. That group of people can be a hundred thousand people. That group of people can be the entire JP Morgan organization. It can be, you know, whatever the number is. But at the end of the day, it's the same thing. You're either talking to an individual or a group and it doesn't matter who they are in your life. That's really the pattern. And if you can crack that code, which I've done to say, how can I do that better? How can I do that more efficiently? How can I do that? So people listen to me, get it. I can connect with them. I can influence them. That's the secret source. And then you take that into your life and things start to smooth out a little.

(07:03):

I love it. I love it. Well, we, we don't have too much time left in the segment, but I I've got, I'm gonna question. I wanna ask you about your career. What is the, what would you look back as you look back? What is the most important career lesson you would say that you've learned? Catherine?

(07:18):

I think the resilience part is number one. I've had my own business for 28 years. I can tell you at times it's felt like a roller coaster. At times, I've been sitting on the couch, I want to give up and you think if I stay here, it feels safe and lovely. And the resilience part is to say, remember why you did this in the first place and get up off the couch and get back to it. And sometimes I just sit at my computer and kind of make out on doing work because I think, okay, if I can just make out on doing work, I can actually get something done. And it's those rough times. And everyone talks about the sweet times. Everyone talks about the highs. I met this person, I did this, but you know what, it's the resilience for me in those really low times.

(08:09):

Yeah. I think that's a great one. And I think, you know, as I mentor folks now, you know, to your point about resilience and I, I, it's something a little bit different. I call it consistent perseverance, which is essentially the same sort of thing is if you don't have that trait in spades, you probably won't be a successful entrepreneur business owner because no matter how smart you are, no matter who, you know, all that good stuff, you have to have that because you will get knocked down. There are going to be challenges. There'll be bumps in the roads, things that you didn't anticipate. So you have to be able to have resilience and consistent perseverance to be successful, especially we're 28 years. Clearly you, you have that those traits and, and have done those well. So again, this week we're talking with Catherine Mattiske you can find out more at www.innergeniusnow.com Come back after the break. We'll give the Mr. Biz tip the week and we're gonna find out more about Inner Genius Archetypes

(09:00):

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(09:30):

Thank you for listening to Mr. Biz radio. Did you know our show airs seven days a week for more than 30 hours. Now, if you are in the B2B space and we'd like to reach thousands of business owners every week, including our more than 250,000 social media followers are thousands of daily internet radio listeners, our email list fans and Mr. Biz solutions members email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to become a sponsor. Tap into Mr. Biz nation to help grow your business.

(10:01):

Check out both of Mr. Biz national bestselling books, "Pathway to Profits" and “How to be a Cashflow Pro" on Amazon. Now, once again, here's Mr. Biz.

(10:12):

All right. Welcome back to the show. And as we do always at the top of the second segment, we give the Mr. Biz tip of the week. And if you wanna follow along with those, you can follow me on social media, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, all those good things, Twitter where we share the, the, our tips every week. But this one is actually a quote from I mentioned him before on the show, but Jesse , I'm a big fan of his and his quote is it's kind of, kind of a three part advice. And he says to look through the windshield, not the rear view mirror, make sure you celebrate wins even small wins. And finally you have to take care of yourself because as Jesse puts it, the life bus doesn't care. If you get sick <laugh> so, especially as a business owner and really, especially if you're a solo entrepreneur you gotta make sure you're taking care of yourself.

(11:03):

Don't don't disregard your, your own health and wellness because it's extremely important. And if you're a so entrepreneur and you get sick what's gonna happen to your business. You know, if you are the person you gonna make sure that you're doing those things so very important if you don't follow Jesse, it's sorry. I would strongly recommend that as well, as well as following our guest this week, Catherine Mattiske, you can follow her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram and find out more on her website www.Innergeniusnow.com. So Katherine, let's get back into this. So I I've, I kind of mentioned it a little bit in the first segment, but you have this thing you call Inner Genius and you, there are Inner Genius archetypes, obviously that you've formulated and learned about over the years throughout your, your 28 years as a business owner and learning from folks. So what are those archetypes and, and how can identifying those, you know, help people.

(11:54):

Yeah. So coming back a step you've all heard of IQ and that was developed in 1912. And that was developed by a guy by the name of William Stern, like who knows that. And we all know that. And then there was EQ in the 1990s, and that's all about that emotional intelligence. And then I developed GQ, the genius quotient in 2021. And part of the foundation of that is, as you said, around the archetype, so we all have a preferred way of learning. And so I've created 12 different archetypes to describe that preference that we all have of learning. And the first thing to do is to find out what archetype you are. So for example, there's some people who connect really, really well with other people. They're always asking the why questions. They're the storytellers. They're the people who are inquisitive. And then there's other people who are the detailed people.

(12:59):

They are right down in the weeds. They're getting information, they're turning that into something else. And then there's other people that say, forget all that. Just let me add it. I wanna do it. They're into the construction of things. They're methodical. They're the people who like to get practical and get solutions. And then there's other people like me who are the inventors. And they're people that wanna see the future. They're about visioning. They're about the cheerleaders. They are the people who are all about innovation. And often those people mix well, but often they don't. And so these archetypes, for example, you could be a futurist, which is one of those visioning people and futurists have a language all of their own. And when a futurist speaks and a lot of entrepreneurs kind of fit into this inventing category, whether they're futurists or energizers or explorers, that's three different archetypes in that category.

(14:07):

And those people are all about the big ideas. Their brain is racing. And then other people who are all about the detail, they might be a, an archetype that I call the horologist. So they're saying, hang on, what do you want me to do here? What is the detail around this? What's the practicalities what's I, I, I need to make that process efficient. And the future says, oh, forget about all that. Let's just think about the ideas and let's brainstorm that. And then someone else comes in like the cartographer, who's all about the methodical. Let's get the structure, let's get doing it. Let's step it out. Let's test and learn says, okay, slow down, slow down. And the futurist is there going, why do these people inhibit me? All I've got is these great ideas and new people you are holding me back. I'll do it myself.

(15:03):

You're all too slow. I'll do it myself. It's classic. Once you know that people are different to you, you can then talk in their language. Just the same as if you grew up in France, you are speaking French. If you grew up in Germany, you are speaking German. It's the same thing. Archetypes who are different. It's like speaking different languages. So if I grew up in Germany and I've gotta learn French, then bang, I learn it. If I'm a futurist archetype and I'm working with the ologist, I need to learn the ologist language. Once I do that, the ologist says, wow, she's just like me. She gets me. She understands me. And I don't necessarily, I can just speak their language.

(15:55):

Well, I think it's, yeah, I love it. I think it's super important because you know, someone like you know, the late Steve jobs being the visionary that he, he was, you know, he needs people around. And I think it's good too. And we'll talk about this a little bit more. I think, you know, as, as we get into the third segment, but being able to use those archetypes as well, to build a team, you don't want all visionaries on a team or you'll never get anything done, right. It,

(16:24):

Yeah. And I, I, you know, I've talked about that before is, you know, if Steve jobs didn't have Steve Wosniak, who was the doer, who was, I, let me take your vision and let me put it in practicality. Let me get this done. If mm-hmm <affirmative>, if Steve jobs is just running off and surrounded himself with other Steve jobs, visionaries you know, who knows what would happen, right. You know, there wouldn't be, his execution wouldn't happen, right? If Steve Wosniak didn't have Steve jobs, he may have never been successful because he doesn't have the vision. He can get stuff done. He he's he's, you know, he's an executioner, but he's, you know, doesn't have that vision. So I love the fact of sort of melting those two and, and making sure that the different archetypes recognize them and being able to speak the language I think is, is very important. Otherwise, it's probably a lot of frustration.

(17:13):

Well, miscommunication, dysfunctional teams, the list goes on and on. And for an entrepreneur, you know, we are talking about miss sales opportunities because you might be talking to a customer who's completely different to you or a group of people. How do you then send one communication out by email or a newsletter and hook in all 12 archetypes? You're only one. So how do you do that? So that's the problem that I've solved. And I've created a toolkit to do this, follow the tools, use the tools bang done. So it's, it is a whole new world. It's a new world of communication for people and they go, oh my goodness, I can do this. I'm much more confident. I'm a better presenter. All of this feedback's coming back to me. That is pretty rewarding. I've gotta say,

(18:04):

Well, I can imagine. And especially with the pandemic, and especially as, as the business world has become more and more virtual, right. That adds a whole another communication layer to it, to where you don't, maybe you don't see someone and, and maybe they're on on a zoom and they've got their camera off, so you don't get the nonverbal. Right. And so then how, how do you also mix that in not only the language you're using the semantics, et cetera, but the, the nonverbal cuz you can't see them. So how do you do that? This, this is a fascinating topic and I'm sure. I want, I want to hold off cause I know we're gonna talk about some of the keys to successful communication. Cause we're kind of scratching the service on that, but I wanna really dive into that during the next segment, because I think this is gonna be revolutionary for everyone listening and you can use it in your personal life as well. I know you talked about that a little bit Catherine in the first segment, but so come back after the break, we're gonna continue talking with Catherine Mattiske you can find out more at www.innergeniusnow.com.

(19:00):

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(19:29):

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(20:02):

To submit questions to the show, email them to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Now once again, here's Mr. Biz.

(20:11):

All right. Welcome back to the show. I want to dive into this because I know Catherine's got a lot to share and I know this is gonna be very impactful for all of us because as we, she alluded to, I know I, I mentioned a little bit as well. These are things that can work, not only as a business owner, not only as an entrepreneur, but in your personal life, realizing that some of your friends and family that you interact with on a regular basis have these different Inner Genius archetypes. And you may have a particular family member. I might be able to think of one or two myself that are probably different archetype than myself. And so that leads to frustration as Catherine mentioned. So Catherine tell us, you know, in your experience, what are some of the keys to successful communication?

(20:51):

The first key is to work out your archetype and then there's the fast realization that probably everyone around you is different to you. That insight into yourself is the absolute foundation stone. Because without that, it's really hard to get moving and get, get on with a whole new skill set. The other thing is to recognize that it is a skill, this whole idea of communicating a different way is a new skill. We've been communicating our way in our preferred archetype, completely subconsciously for our entire lives. It, it doesn't change from when you little children to when you're adults, it's your way of communicating. And once you tune into other people's way of communicating, you can then really start to create what I refer to as a translation bridge between one person and the other. And that builds a connection. The very first thing to build between someone that is different to you is a connection.

(21:59):

Now that doesn't matter, whether it's that family member that's getting on your nerves, whether it's a friend that you go, you know what? I'm so frustrated with that person. I'm gonna just cut off them. I can't be bothered with them anymore, whether it's somebody at work in your team, whether if you're working for an organization, it's your boss, whoever it is, a supplier, a customer, whatever. The key thing is once you've worked out, how you learn is to build that bridge of connection, find something in common. Now you might say, I have nothing in common with this person who is completely annoying. You guess what? There is always something in common that person, if you think of that person as being not difficult, but different to you, then that's the beginning of the bridge and really amp up your listening. Did you know that people talk at about 150 words a minute, but we listen at about 450 words a minute.

(23:10):

So there's a lot of air time in there for people to drift, do something different with their mind and not be listening to you. So by building that connection, you are building up that opportunity for yourself to listen to someone else and for them to listen to you. And then it's about communicating. How do you then structure your communication written, spoken, presenting, whatever it is, one on one to a group that hooks in that person, that individual, or that group of people where they feel like you are speaking their language and you are doing that in a very constructed, skillful way. So I happen to be the archetype of a futurist. And when I talk to other futurists, ah, we're great together because we talk the same language. I't have to do anything. But when I talk to another archetype, someone like the scribe, for example, that's my opposite.

(24:10):

That's my complete, as far as I can get away from myself. And so how do I construct that language and use words in my email, which I give to you use these words when you are talking to someone who's your opposite. Use these words to talk to somebody who's close to you, but they're not. You use these words in this tructure to create a balance communication. It's a new skill set. Does it take a while to learn? Yep. Some things are really fast, but then other things are a skill that you have to hone at the end of this. The goal is that you become more influential people who are on that times, top 100 list of great influences in the world are great communicators every time. And they're great communicators. And we feel like we know them. We feel like from this, from the last list, which was 2021, we feel like we know Billy Eilish. We don't, we feel like we know prince Harry and Megan, we don't, well, I don't, we feel like we, you know, know all these people, but we don't, but what, what is it about them that makes them most great communicators it's because they can do this.

(25:25):

Yeah. And I think it's critical. And I would imagine too, I know back in my corporate days as I was assembling a team or, or as for, for example, someone on my leadership team would leave. They'd go on to be promoted. They to go on a different job. You know, I think so often what happens is we seek and I love your opinion on this is oftentimes we seek people that are like us, probably because they speak our language, right? You, our archetype language. And so if you're if you're a visionary, if you're a futurist, when you go to hire someone, you're gonna automatically be drawn more towards another futurist, however, to build a strong, diverse team. And I don't mean, I mean, diverse personality wise, not necessarily background or gender or anything like that. It's very important. I think for, for leaders to be self aware of some of these things and how critical knowing these archetypes and knowing that I've got a leadership team of eight people and what, what, what are one of the archetype gaps that we have? I think that would be critical to building a really strong team. Is that, is that your, your experience? Absolutely.

(26:28):

Absolutely. And I created a tool called the team map for exactly that purpose so that you can see where those gaps are. And it is the ultimate in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, because you are saying that we are not just talking the talk about diversity and belonging and inclusion. We are actually putting it on the ground to say, how do we create an inclusive group of people that we can respect and communicate in their way and the way they like to work for their optimum efficiency and their optimum ability to get into their expert zone? How can we do that? And when you do that team map and you look at my, your team, you might have a very unbalanced team and you go, oh, okay. How do I work with that? Well, you kind of know who your next hire might be and the kind of things to look for in interviews.

(27:30):

But then you might also say, okay, we need to back fill. We need someone who's in the detail and we don't have that right now. So we can all go into those spaces, but it's not our expert zone. The key to success is to keep everybody working in their archetype, in their cuz that's their expert zone. My expert zone is dreaming up new ideas. My expert zone is creating a future. Can I do the detail? Absolutely. But I struggle and it's slow and it's awful. So we help people to get into their expert zone and stay there. And even when you are doing work, that's not in your expert zone, we give you a Spotify playlist for your archetype that helps you to bridge that gap. So you crank up that Spotify playlist. And for me, if I'm deep in Excel or doing detailed work, that's what I put on because I go, okay, this is not my gig, but I'll make it an environment that I can really hone into

(28:35):

Catherine. And I gotta tell you the reason I was chuckling a little bit when you just said that playlist. So I'm a big music person. I listen to music all the time and I literally have, and I, one very specific example I have is that I hate doing compiling all the work for my taxes. I hate it, even though I'm a, I'm my undergrad's in accounting and I'm a numbers nerd. I hate it. And I have a playlist that I listen to when I have to do that, because I know that it'll keep me focused. <Laugh> yeah. Yeah. So I could definitely relate to that. Catherine we're out of time here, but go out again, guys, go to www.innergeniusnow.com. You can find out more there father on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, Catherine. So thank you so much for being on Mr. Biz radio. I really appreciate it.

(29:19):

It's great to be with you.

(29:20):

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, guys. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Have a great week and don't forget as always cash flow is king.

(29:32):

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