Conscientiousness and fixing your business personality

[Awoken]

Gonna save some time and confront the likely replies that are coming right here in the beginning

1. “Personality is more complicated than this”, chill out, this is about heuristics

2. No I’m not a psychiatrist, but I run a business and talk to business owners and employ teams of people and have been for years.

3. I am not perfect. I am actively changing my personality to fit the stage of business I’m in right now.

I don’t plan on arguing, this is just for the people who are on one side of the spectrum or the other of this particular personality trait to recognize what’s going on and put a label to something, and it’s so common I see it with every person I meet.

When I meet business owners that are starting out I can usually spot which type they are almost instantly. I can immediately pick out which set of problems they are likely to have, and which problems they are never going to have. And it’s all based on this one trait:

Conscientiousness.

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There’s two main archetypes I come across.

1. The bros
2. The cautious

The bros.

Bros are the people who start things without thinking. They have an idea, they are pitching things later that day. They have friends, smooth talk a few people, and take action. I know bros in their 20’s making 30k a month. I know a lot more of them that are broke too. They dropped out of school, they can do 100 pushups in a row, and they don’t wanna be wage slaves.

Bros have low conscientiousness. They got bad grades in school. So did I. I had one binder, every piece of paper was thrown in there, the zipper caught in all the papers so every assignment I had was wrinkled, torn, and done the last minute in between classes.

The business problems for the bros are that they cannot organize anything. They don’t register companies. They don’t pay their taxes. They don’t file anything. They don’t give attention to things that should get attention. To them that’s just bullshit stuff.

The roadblocks that bros run into is they are falling behind the power of disorder that pulls their life apart and their power of organization is too weak to keep it from breaking.

A bro will need to increase his conscientiousness and become structured to move forward, unless he finds a niche that fits his personality. An influencer can become rich without becoming that organized. A rapper can become rich without becoming that organized. But a real, scaled up business owner with employees and locations will get his a$$ handed to him without intense focus, discipline and organization.

To increase his conscientiousness, he must apply discipline and focus while changing one of his deep internal beliefs. The deep internal belief is that he must feel good NOW. He must adopt the belief that he doesn’t need to feel good right now, that it is better to sacrifice and be diligent now for a good future. He must practice his focus and discipline with routine and structure, applied to himself, from himself. He always wanted to be his own boss, but now he realizes that it doesn’t mean he has NO boss, but rather he still has a boss, it is just himself.

He must wake up early, go to bed early, prepare a to-do list the night before, set measurable goals and track their progress, etc. each small victory of setting appointments, following a list, making a system, or even cleaning the house, is one vote in his brain of his conscientiousness and orderliness, and confidence in his new personality.

Then he can cultivate the order and structure needed to run an organization. He will notice he wears new clothes. He cleans parts of his house he was neglecting. He speaks clearly and succinctly.

I have had low conscientiousness and it’s the most common problem especially of people trying to come from nothing. Everyone around them was disorganized. Each day is a fight to become more orderly and do things the right way. I am always breaking rules and using charisma and it’s resulted in doing so many things the wrong way. Now, I’m much better. I slow down, don’t skip any steps, and don’t try to reinvent the wheel. I try to spend the time on the details. I have learned to take pride in things, see myself as a craftsman, and slowly beat those old traits out of me. That is what’s needed as I build an organization, which will be governed by systems and processes.


Up next is the cautious.

The cautious are the smug upper middle class. They are the guys who went to school, got good grades, became engineers, got married, and have a 1200 credit score. They’re the good boys.

With these guys, I’d bet $1,000 that they checked their tire pressure this last week.

They want to start a business, they want to be financially free. They have 150,000 saved up in the bank. They have a 401k.

And they talk and talk and talk and usually never start anything. They sit and analyze and debate and never have an original thought in their life. They can only do what is given for them to do, and only think what is given for them to think. Just as they’ve always done in school.

Underneath everything is this unspoken, subtle requirement for something to already exist before it enters their brain as a good idea. If they accidentally have a good idea, they quickly write it off as it doesn’t possess the proper support or backing from the outside world.

This person is so close to being extraordinary wealthy though.

When they finally do start a business, they are systematic, and they have structure to get the work done.

They are an ace at organization, easily making sure the procedures are documented, the jobs are done right, the taxes are paid.

It’s easy for them to eventually manage a professional team of 20 people. And not a step was skipped.

But to get there they must loosen up a little at first, since they struggle with accepting chaos. At the start of a business, it is all chaos. The cautious person must think less and do more. The cautious person would go buy a book on how to take action, ironically. What they need to do is flip a coin, say “F*ck it, Yolo”, and get their hands dirty. They need to think less.

In the end, both types have benefits and drawbacks. I think the bros have a hard hill to climb, but their life is naturally a bit more enjoyable. And the cautious ones are extremely organized and close to great, scaled up success, but things are a little more boring for them.

Depending on your niche or industry, one style is better suited over the other. A manufacturing company with 5 locations needs extreme orderliness. A dude selling courses making 50k a month living in Dubai with a model girlfriend is doing just fine sleeping in until 9am and doing whatever sounds fun that day. Each person has their strengths and the world needs both.

When I chat with people, I can sense who they are in this regard very easily. You’re almost always either one or the other. It’s the guys in the middle who can kick a$$ when they have the best of both. They can be thorough and do things the right way, but they can also shoot from the hip and take action and not overthink things. Those are the killers. They wake up at 5am, bang out their 100 pushups, do all the work, set up the systems, and go jet ski that afternoon.

Just know that you can change your conscientiousness, and you likely need to make some tweaks if you’re going to accomplish your goals. I do, that’s why I make an effort to go about it strategically. I know that as my organization grows, I need to grow too.

Mate. Thank you.

I can't tell you how amazing this was for me to read. The past couple weeks have been a mental implosion for me after a major FTE, and I've been uncovering my own mental deficiencies. And this has aligned with everything I've uncovered so far.

Despite being mainly 'a Cautious' my whole time in school (where I did very well because of it), I've been going against my natural self. Months ago I came to this forum and saw the 'Bros' personality being promoted and the 'Cautious' personality being widely disapproved of. I think there's a general bias for the 'Bros' personality here. The whole 'take action right now' motto.

This caused me to decide to go against all my natural instincts and jump recklessly into an Ecom venture. Fast-forward to now and I have made substantial tangible progress with supplier samples, product design, branding etc. BUT I've made a good few mistakes.

In reflection, I've realised the moments during these months where I produced good work were when I paused the 'Bro' ways and let myself deeply focus on something, liked I'd do in school. Obsessive studying & absorbing knowledge to piece things together.

The times I've flopped are when I've been totally reckless and not done any prior research. This is because this pure 'Bro' way significantly reduced my focus, and frankly just doesn't compute with my brain. And it took a major FTE to make me assess this!

Key takeaways:
1. Self Mastery & Comparative Immunity: I ignored this at the beginning and decided to go all out 'Bro' rather than what my natural 'Cautious' instincts said.
Now I realise that some 'Bro' is definitely needed for launching something new, as you can't study your way into taking action. But I shouldn't cut off my natural 'Cautious' ways as they enable me to produce my best work (and always have!).
Just because you read about successful 'Bros' doesn't mean you need to purely be one to succeed. You'll need to enable a bit of chaos if you don't have that already, but use your 'Cautious' ways as the strength it is.

2. Dig into your mind: I can't stress this enough. Think how your mind thinks. Become self aware about your mind. Or let your mind control you.

Amazing Johnny, thank you so much.

 

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[Johnny boy]

In other news, here’s the bathroom drawer of a business friend of mine. Which brand of autism is this?

 

[NervesOfSteel]

In other news, here’s the bathroom drawer of a business friend of mine. Which brand of autism is this?




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OCD at its best!