Episode 35: Unraveling Your Entrepreneurial Superpower Using Wealth Dynamics with Diane Mayor
Transcript Episode 35
Stephanie Skryzowski
Welcome to the 100 degrees of entrepreneurship podcast, the show for purpose driven entrepreneurs who want to get inspired to step outside of your comfort zone, expand it to your purpose and grow your business in a big way. I’m your host, Stephanie Skryzowski, a globe trotting CFO whose mission is to empower leaders to better understand their numbers to grow their impact and their income. Let’s dive in.
Hey, everybody, welcome back to 100 degrees of entrepreneurship! I am Stephanie Skryzowski your host, and I have my friend Diane Mayor here with me today.
Diane is a business strategist who helps entrepreneurs build successful lifestyle businesses. With over a decade of experience in the finance world in corporate, Diane knows exactly how to take small businesses from decision fatigue and information overwhelm to confidently taking the right action in the right way with the right people for their business.
As the host of the Coffee and Converse podcast, she shares success strategies for lifestyle entrepreneurs each week. And in her spare time, this spreadsheet crazy, puzzle loving, systems nerd is passionate about travel, live events, Coffee and Converse, though not always in that order.
In our conversation today, Diane and I talked about her journey from working in banking. So yes, she is a numbers whiz, like me, to entrepreneurship and sort of the winding path that got her from working in spreadsheets to basically having a job generating ideas for other businesses. Like that sounds pretty awesome, right?
And her journey, and her story is really a good one. And not only do we talk about her story, and some of the lessons learned and how she has been pushed out of her comfort zone in that process. But we also dive deep into the Wealth Dynamics profile. So this is sort of like a personality test. It’s similar to Enneagram, or Myers-Briggs or StrengthsFinder, or DiSC or one of those, in that you take a quiz. And it gives you a result of what type of person you are.
This is designed for entrepreneurs to help them find their flow. And so Diane actually suggested that I take this test before our conversation today. So I did! And we are going to share all of the results with you today. And how this test can help you as an entrepreneur, get into your flow state.
What Diane talks about is really understanding the difference between competence, something that you’re really good at, and your actual flow state like where you could just go on and on and on for hours, and you are really operating at your highest level. And so for her, it was really interesting, because she’s very competent when it comes to accounting and finance and numbers and spreadsheets. But that is not her flow state. And so that is not the result that she got on her Wealth Dynamics profile.
And so we will share the results of mine. And she’s going to walk us through this particular assessment, and how it can really help you in your business and get out of that state of just operating from a place of competence. Like what are you good at to operating from a place of doing what you are best at like, what you are created to do.
So I am really excited for you all to hear this episode because it’s a little bit unlike what we’ve done before. And Diane is just a wealth of knowledge. And again, I just love that she’s a numbers person just like me, because I feel like in this entrepreneurial space, sometimes there’s just not enough of those numbers people that can get excited about spreadsheets like I can.
So without further ado, let’s dive into my episode with Diane Mayor!
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the 100 degrees of entrepreneurship podcast. I’m your host Stephanie and I’m here with my friend Diane Mayer. Diane, welcome!
Diane Mayor
Hey, Stephanie! Thanks for having me!
Stephanie Skryzowski
So I’m really excited to talk to you today for a couple reasons. One of the reasons is that you are a finance corporate person turned business owner entrepreneur. And so I feel like in a lot of ways, we really speak the same language. And I work with a lot of creatives. And so there’s not often a lot of people that kind of speak the same language that I do and understand what I’m talking about when it comes to metrics and numbers and financial statements and whatever.
So I’m really excited to dive in and just learn a little bit more about you and about your journey.
So won’t you tell us where you started and how you landed where you are now.
Diane Mayor
Okay, so I’m going to go way back on my journey. So when I was in school, I don’t know if you do this in the US, but when you’re kind of in your last couple of years at school, we do like some aptitude tests that you can do that kind of give you some steer on where you might be a good fit in choosing your career like before you choose your university.
Because here, your degree really does drive where you work. And the thing I remember the most about the conversation with the guy giving me the test afterwards was him saying to me, “I know you are saying that you’re going to be an accountant. But you really shouldn’t.” I mean, looking at him again, he’s like, “you’d be good at it, but I think you’re just going to be bored.” And I was like, “Okay,” and so then I went to university to become an accountant.
So step number one error, and then did audit and then moved to London and jumped into banking. Completely unintentionally, I wanted to work with small owner managed businesses, which is what I’ve done an audit, but you know, got sucked in by the glamour of banking. Who wouldn’t want to work 15 hour days?
And as an accountant, I started off doing huge consolidations. Then I moved into looking at specific products, and then focused a lot on emerging markets. So looking at equity products, you know, shares being traded, derivatives of the back of shares being traded. So lots of maths, lots of spreadsheets, lots of numbers. Stephanie’s already excited.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yes, tell me more.
Diane Mayor
Yes, and I got to a point where I wasn’t even sure if I was bored with my job, or completely burned out. I literally couldn’t function in my role anymore. I was working all day, having a very active party, kind of Hong Kong lifestyle in the evenings. I was exhausted. I had been doing the same job. And the furthest I could see was that I was going to go and do a different job.
So I was going to go on a bit of a holiday. And then after that, I was going to come back as an accountant in finance. But maybe for a tech company! Like that was my big, let me expand my universe not work as hard so that I burn out by going into tech. I know, right? What was I thinking?
Anyway, I went traveling, and I kind of traveled like it was my job. So I burnt out at work. And then I traveled until I burnt out. Like I had no concept of a rest day, no concept. So I burnt out from that, did the cliche trip to a retreat in Bali, bawled my eyes out, did all the things and realized that A.) it was burnout, and B.) it was I just really didn’t enjoy my job that much.
So I think the thing I didn’t enjoy the most was that it really didn’t matter whether I came to work the next day or not, someone else could pick up the spreadsheet, they could carry on. And so I went on this quest to build a business so as not to go back to corporate. I’m not one of those people with a big why, I wasn’t out to save the world, I just really did not want to have to go back to corporate and have limited vacation days.
And I have cycled through many things. I’ve cycled through life coaching and wanting to save everyone from corporate. I quickly realized, people don’t want to be saved from corporate salaries are very attractive. I’ve move more into the operational side of things. Being able to look at how everything fits together is a core skill from banking. But then I realized everyone wanted me to implement that. It’s not something that excites me.
Until finally, I kind of came around to, “Okay, let me go back to, ‘what is my skill?’ My skill is being able to see all the moving parts in a business.” You know, when I was finishing banking, we were looking after multiple multi eight figure businesses at once, you have to be able to see a really big picture and against the detail. And I kept saying the same thing over and over and over again. I just want to have ideas for other people.
So I’ve said to every business coach, every course creator, every group program I’ve been in my messaging has been the same. And when somebody says to me, have you ever done your Wealth Dynamics profile, I was like, “Oh, no, another personality test? Let’s do that!” And I took it without really knowing anything.
And my particular profile is the creator. And my superpower is innovation or ideas. And I had this moment of like I have known the whole time, what I should be doing to move my business forward and have been told that it won’t work. It doesn’t fit in the box. How are you going to build a webinar funnel around having an idea for people? You know, but this kind of freed me up to be, well hang on a second, what does my business actually look like, if what I’m doing is having ideas for people?
And so what that has morphed into is me, helping people take their business strategy and customize it to their superpower. So I start everybody off with the Wealth Dynamics assessment. We look at what their superpower is, how they can use it, and then we take what they have. And then, we tweak things and twist things and mold things, and often stop things that aren’t in that superpower, so that they can feel that same feeling that I had. “If I can do this my way,” and then that’s kind of become my mission, I still don’t want to go back to corporate. But it’s also like a different kind of box to be told you have to do your business this particular way.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yeah, that’s really interesting, like the work that you set out to do, and that you were doing in corporate. I mean, that couldn’t be farther from generating new ideas.
Like in accounting, there are no new ideas. It’s a spreadsheet, there are rules that you just follow, and you execute and you do the work. So it’s interesting that was like that sort of idea creation was innate that was in you. You knew that that was your thing. Was it scary at all, to make that leap from something that you knew that fit very well within like a black and white box to something that’s the opposite end of the spectrum? Or were you like, “No, that accounting, that was not for me?”
Diane Mayor
Well, it’s interesting, because obviously, the accounting and the spreadsheets and the numbers side of things, I’ve had a lot of time developing that skill. I started studying accounting at school when I was 14. I can breathe debits and credits without really even trying. But it is a really learned skill.
And here’s how the two fit together. I’m very excited to try and solve a problem with a spreadsheet. Like if I have an idea of, Oh, how I could build a spreadsheet that could work like this. But once I built it once, I never want to see it again. And that was the thing for me in banking, that was really hard, was to review daily P&L, to review monthly books and records. I could feel myself once I’d solved the puzzle, I was off looking for the next, “Okay, what can I solve next?”
Having burned out so badly in that situation? It took a long time for me to even acknowledge that I had taken anything of value from banking. It took a lot of personal development, it took a lot of mindset work, to put aside the bitterness that I felt and how my career in banking ended. You know, the burnout, the recovery from that, to actually be able to look past that and be, “Okay, what have I taken of value from this?” and it informs my ideas.
So the reason I can have ideas for people, when I look at their business strategy, as easily as I do, is because I have seen so much business. I have been lucky enough to be in meetings where people are discussing really big strategies in the many, many, many, many millions. And understanding what happens when that doesn’t work, when it does work, understanding how many pieces need to come together, which had I simply avoided that had I just jumped straight into business. Yes, I would still probably be on the idea side of things. But I don’t know that my ideas would be as good or as useful to the person I’m giving them to.
Stephanie Skryzowski
I love that you were able to take that away from your experience. Uh, yeah, I feel like that’s not necessarily a hard skill that you’re like, “No, I know how to do pivot tables in Excel”, you’re able to really see that bigger takeaway that maybe wasn’t quite so obvious that you’re able to bring into what you do now. So tell us about, what does your business do now? How do you support other business owners and entrepreneurs?
Diane Mayor
Yeah, so my main offer is a VIP day. And it’s very strategically sought out. Because what I find is when you are thinking of something at that higher level, when we’re talking about your business, and how does this impact sales, and how does this impact operations? And how does this impact how much time you’re going to have off. If you’re in a kind of 60 minute a week session, by the time you’ve said hello, and you’ve saved some time for goodbyes. And because what you need to do this week, you don’t have that much time, you’ve got maybe 25 minutes, half an hour, let’s say that’s going to allow you to maybe look at one piece of the puzzle. And so you can miss all of the connections to everything else. And I always say to people, this is why big companies have off sites.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yeah.
Diane Mayor
They have to pick you up and take you away for an extended period of time where you think, and you draw on whiteboards. And the operations piece talks to the sales piece. And so that’s what I try to do for business owners is to give them that guided strategic walk-through of their business. So I look at three main areas, I look at ‘Do you know what your superpower is? Do you know what your strengths and weaknesses are? Are we comfortable that your goals are actually your goals and not some random “I want to hit seven figures” and are they in some kind of priority order?’
And then I move on to the business. And for most people, we spend a lot of time in what I call selling your superpower, which is really looking at are you offering what you are the best placed to deliver? Are you tagging on all these little extras in these bonus stacks of pieces that just drain you? And then, let’s look at what kind of clients do you need now. Because if that changed, how can you market this? Everything is designed to get you feeling lit up about your business.
If there’s something that doesn’t work with your superpower, you’re not going to really want to deliver it, or produce it for content side, and then you’re not going to sell it. Because subconsciously, you don’t actually want to do the thing. So we spend a lot of time there.
And then for some businesses who are already in their strength, we’ll move on to supporting their superpower. So looking at how do we find you a team of complementary superpowers. So it doesn’t help if we all have the one superpower, because we need some well roundedness. And we look at what that would look like. And then what systems do we need to support all of that, because that should hopefully have changed. And often that’s just simplifying, often it’s deleting systems that people have added in for some unknown reason along the way.
But that can take anywhere from three to six hours. Depending on how many pieces of the puzzle we need to look at.
Stephanie Skryzowski
There is something so powerful about having an extended period of time to just really go deep. And it’s funny that we’re talking about this now, because just yesterday, I released a podcast episode, Episode 20, about why taking a solo business retreat is a good investment. And so you’re basically the strategist leading someone through that on your VIP day. But there’s just something so powerful of being able to have nothing else to think about, nothing else to do except this bigger level strategy. You can’t cram in 30 minutes in between meetings, it’s literally impossible. You’re not going to get there.
And so I would imagine you would see pretty big results with your clients as you’re sitting down with them for a full day. That’s super powerful.
Do you often find that people think that their strength is one thing, or they think they should be doing one thing, because who knows why, maybe they’ve been told since a kid “Oh, you’re good at whatever. So this is what you should do.” And then when they do their Wealth Dynamics, they’re like something totally different. And what’s the process for that? What’s their light bulb moment? Are they resistant to that new information? Or are they like, light bulb moment, “Oh, my gosh, my world has just opened up.”
Diane Mayor
Yeah, so this is actually one of the biggest light bulb moments that I see, is when I talk to people about competence, versus superpower. And you can think of when you’re in your superpower, you are experiencing that flow state. So it’s that thing, that’s it naturally, you’re good at, you love it, time flies by you don’t notice it.
And then your competence is a skill. So if we think about me, I can talk to somebody about their business and have ideas for them for their business for six hours, and I can get off and I’m pumped, and I’m ready to go, and like, meet friends. If we think about my spreadsheets and my accounting, I’m highly skilled in that department, through learning and through experience, I’m never going to lose myself reviewing someone’s accounting financials. It takes effort for me to sit down and do it.
And I think when people have that “Aha moment”, and for some people, this is really hard. For some people, they have never experienced that flow state in their business. So, nothing in their business makes them feel like that. And that’s equal parts, incredible to flick that switch for them. And terrifying to flick that switch for them. Because you do wonder what they’re doing in their business and how much you’re going to have to change.
If anyone is listening and that’s you, think about your personal life. What makes you lose time in your personal life and then look for similar activities in your business. And you’ll probably start to spot which areas are those kind of superpower areas for you.
For other people, it’s a huge relief that they can, like you validated that they’re allowed to outsource something that they hate doing. It’s the weirdest thing people feel like because I can do this, I should do this. And so there’s that freeing moment of like, actually, “yes, you can do this, but it’s gonna slow down, you, getting to your goals. It’s gonna make it harder for you to get your goals, you’re gonna feel a lot more miserable.” It’s that permission moment. And for those people, it’s probably one of the most freeing experiences that they have, and they’ll still be messaging me about it.
But it’s so easy to slip back into it. To fall into those skills that you know that you have, for me, it’s really easy to do my books and records. I always joke, it’s actually kind of relaxing. I said, like, “I know, like it has it has a definite answer. I know exactly what I’m doing. I get to the end, and I’m like, okay,” but I wouldn’t want to do that every single day.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Right.
Diane Mayor
Right?
Stephanie Skryzowski
I think there’s also like a money piece in there where people feel like because I can do something I should. And also, I shouldn’t be spending any money on that because I can do it myself. Are there any mindset shifts you see with your clients, or even that you help them through specifically regarding money? Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should, and sometimes you even should be spending money to get that thing done so that you really can focus on your superpower.
Diane Mayor
Yeah, so let’s think of a couple of things. What makes people pay you, people pay you because they trust that you will look after their numbers and guide them in the best financial decisions they can make in their business, right? People trust me that if they bring me a business problem, I’ll pull in ideas from all over their business and create something that they’re excited to work with.
They trust that we will deliver what we say we’re going to deliver really consistently. We’re going to get amazing results really consistently. Now, let’s use me as the example because I’ve talked a lot about my skill and my competence. “Am I more likely to turn up at my best, if I’m doing the thing that really lights me up, and it’s super easy for me, like having ideas?” Like last week, a client said to me, “Oh, remember that idea you had for my business? When I did this and this.” I don’t even remember the idea. Like, you know.
Stephanie Skryzowski
It just comes so fast.
Diane Mayor
Right? Super easy for me. Or I could turn up and I could come and work for you as a fractional CFO. And you would be on me all the time, because I wouldn’t have done any of my work. I would have been like I’ve had this client for three months, can I have someone new, right?
So, thinking about outsourcing things that aren’t in your superpower, is actually about allowing you to show up at your best, and therefore being more trusted, which means you’re more valuable, which means people are going to pay you more. So that’s how I shift the money one.
And then what I add to it is, when we think about how we make money, you can only make money, if you can take on clients, right? If you have capacity. If you are out of your superpower, you are, it’s taking effort, taking a lot of effort for you to sit down at your desk to do the work to pull yourself through.
If you sit down in your superpower, and you go into that kind of flow state, you get to the end, and you’re like, “Okay, now what’s next, right?” It’s not costing you energy. So you don’t need to recover. So you can do more things, you can do clients back to back, because you don’t need that recovery period, not suggesting anyone does clients back to back, please always have a buffer. But you get my point, instead of doing two clients a day, you could do five clients a day. And so it increases your capacity to stay in that space. And when we talk about leverage, that’s what we’re talking about doing more with less time.
So your superpower is going to hit both of those, it’s going to allow you to take on more clients. And it’s gonna make you more valuable to a client, you could probably put your prices up without a bonus stack without adding more work in. And therefore, you almost can’t afford not to hire. Now I’m all about an ROI. This is not for beginner businesses who have just started. This is for people who have clients who know they have the money coming in for the bills who are looking to go to that next level. That next level is you getting and staying in your superpower more. And the only way to do that is to get rid of the stuff that you’re not in a superpower form.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yes. I love that path that you drew from doing the things that you’re competent at to letting those go so you can stay in your superpower that will lead to making more money. That’s just so, so important. And I like that you just differentiated between, this is not for the person that just started their business two months ago, this is like you have a proven model you have proven revenue sources and now you’re looking to elevate.
Diane Mayor
The accountant still lives in me, deep.
Stephanie Skryzowski
That’s not going anywhere.
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Stephanie Skryzowski
Okay, so when I asked you to be a guest on the podcast, you said yes. And you said, Do you want to take this Wealth Dynamics profile and this assessment and I said, Sure!
I had no idea what it was, I did not know what any of the potential results were. So I went in took it, and I got my result. And I was like, holy crap, this is spot on, like spot on, even to some of the little, these sort of funny little quirks that they put in the results like, has no patience for small talk. Yeah, that’s pretty much me. So this was, spot on.
And I would just love to hear how you walk people through this, we can certainly use mine as an example, how you use the Wealth Dynamics profile in your work.
Diane Mayor
Okay, so I want you to picture a pyramid. So everyone should have a four sided pyramid, that’s like coming up to a point at the top. And each of those sides, we’re going to think of them as an energy or a frequency. And we’re going to walk our way around the pyramid and at the top of the pyramid.
So on the first side, that’s Dynamo Energy, which is springy energy. These are the people who ask “What” their favorite question is, “What are we going to do? What are we going to do? What are we going to do.”, then we’re going to come around the side, that’s the energy I live in. That’s the Ideas Energy, then we come around the next side, and that’s Blaze Energy. And this is the People Energy. This is the hot summer fun social people. These are your big motivators, these are your people-people. If we come around to the next side, on the bottom, this is your Tempo energy. And these are your people who ask “When”, the easy way to remember this is their Fall energy and the leaves are on the ground. These are your super grounded people, that always know when things are happening, where things are happening, what’s going on in a team, this is the person who will always spot that someone in the team is having a tough time. And then finally, we come around to the final side, which is Steel energy. And this is the energy that asks “How”, and this is Winter Energy. So it’s pretty black and white, it’s cut and dried. And it can look really quiet on the surface. But it has a whole lot of stuff going on underneath. And this is where Stephanie’s profile lives.
So, Stephanie’s profile, so there are eight profiles. And there are a combination of these four energies or frequencies. And the way to think about your profile, or your superpower, is to imagine your favorite music on earth. And somebody has just turned it right up. And your feet just naturally start tapping, right, you can’t help it. Like if you’re at a party, you’re probably on the dance floor, or the introverts are cringing. If you’re an introvert, you’re in your living room, no one can see you, you’re dancing. And then somebody swings, or hits next. And some huge, I don’t know, Death Metal comes on. You can keep dancing to that, right? But it’s gonna take so much effort. And that’s what it’s like being in and out of your profile being in and out of your superpower.
The ease versus how much you having to think about what you’re doing. And so each of these profiles is a combination of one or two energies. So I’m a Creator, I’m pure Dynamo energy, and my superpower is innovation. Stephanie, You are Lord, and your superpower is data or analysis. You swing on the introvert side of the pyramid, I’m an ambivert. You swing between intuitive thinking, and database thinking. Whereas I’m only intuitive. I’m going by gut and feel.
So really what I walk people through is that kind of cycle. And then when you think about your team, is how you need all of that cycle. You need the person who has the idea. You then need the supporter who goes okay, who’s going to do this, they’re going to muster the team behind the idea of you, then you need the tempo person who goes, Oh, where is this going in our plan? Like how is this gonna work? how’s this gonna fit in? And finally, you need that steel person who’s going to go, how does this work? Like, actually, how does this become a reality.
And so there’s no good or bad energy, there’s no good or bad profile. We need all the profiles all the time. And the other thing to remember is, you can’t do everything. Right, so I have Dynamo Energy, but you’ve heard me talk about how I love Steel Energy in a job. I was paid a lot of money to be in Steel Energy, right? So you can do anything that any of these profiles can do. But only one of them is really going to feel like that perfect song coming on for you to dance to, right? So if we look at your profile and a little bit more details, Stephanie’s profile is much to my relief the Ideal profile for the job that she’s in.
Stephanie Skryzowski
We’re both a bit nervous. Thank goodness.
Diane Mayor
Not gonna lie. Until she took it, I was very nervous, but I was also fairly certain. And so the Lord is that kind of winter energy. So things are pretty black and white, there’s no time for fluff, like Stephanie said, not a big fan of small talk. And Data, Systems, Analysis. This is where you want your accountants sitting, you want your accountants sitting here, you want your systems people sitting here, this is a great profile for that.
Where the kryptonite comes in for the Lord is a little bit on the people side, not because you’re not nice people, people, just because people don’t necessarily come into that analysis. So often, when we talk about introverts and extroverts, in Wealth Dynamics, we talk about how we get things done. So not necessarily where you get your energy, but how do you get things done. And the Steel profile, the Lord profile will get things done with systems and processes. Whereas the Supporter, and that more play side is going to get things done with people. Right, so kind of two polar opposites. So you are 100% going to get things done with systems. But because that can be a little more isolated, it’s easy to forget all the fun social elements, you might want to add in that experience.
Really, for me as a creator. My superpower is ideas. I like everything that’s big picture. I am really bad at, thinking through all the little details that go with it. I can do it as a skill. But it’s not my natural state. And for me with a team, I will have one idea. And then another idea, another idea and another idea and everyone’s still like “what are you talking about? Idea one was like three hours ago.” Right? So I have a tendency with spreadsheets, as much as I’m skilled with them. I like to break them. I like to do my books and records a little differently every year, just to see if I can, right?
Stephanie Skryzowski
Haha! Anxiety attack over here.
Diane Mayor
Right? Right. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure I have links to the previous year and everything. So it’s very easy to follow. Don’t worry, I haven’t lost all my skills, those two profiles. Now if you think about if Stephanie and I swapped jobs. How hard would it be for me to build the business that Stephanie’s built? Where detail and analysis and numbers are the forefront of what you do? We can tell I burned out doing that business.
And the same for Stephanie is probably listening to me talk about my business going, I feel so unstructured. I don’t understand. Where’s your recurring revenue? Like, how does this work? Right? But what’s happening is if either of us jump into somebody’s program, and that person is say, for example, supporter, they’re in that blaze personality, very people orientated, they’re gonna tell me and Stephanie, that 100% the way we should get our goals is we have a huge team. And we should motivate them to do everything. That’s gonna make Stephanie want to vomit, because she’s gonna go Well, where’s the process to this? What are each of these people doing? What’s my ROI on these people? And it’s going to, for me, I’ll be like, maybe hire a team. I’m completely unequipped to manage them. Because I’m on idea 17. And they’re still trying to implement idea one, which I’m now bored with, right?
So this stuff becomes really important in a couple of different ways. It’s important that you know what your profile is, because it’s going to give you that confirmation that, hey, I’m on the right path here. It’s going to flag any weaknesses to us that you can keep an eye out for them. But it’s also if you’re not on the right path, it’s going to point you at the right path, it’s going to give you that opportunity to swing, it’s going to allow you to stop blaming yourself at all those programs that you’ve done that never worked for you are probably not your fault. Right? That thing, that’s it’s a mindset, it’s a block, it’s a belief. It’s a business model. And somebody else had a different profile. Right? Maybe they had a trader profile, which is pure tempo. And so they spent a lot of time figuring out all the details of things and they handed a super detailed checklist of these are the steps you need to do. Handing that to me, is never gonna work. There’s no room for me to grow and change and move in that space, I’m trapped. But not knowing any better. I’m reading these testimonials of people who are like, “This is amazing! How did I ever live without it?” and I’m like, this has to be me, right? It’s gonna give you all of that confirmation about yourself.
And the second thing is it’s gonna stop you doing that exact thing to someone else. And I think this is a piece people don’t think about is how Stephanie would teach somebody to start a business versus how I would teach somebody to start a business – very different.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Hmm.. interesting.
Diane Mayor
Right. And so where we see this is a profile that is part Dynamo. So part ideas, part blaze, and part people called the star profile. And we see a lot of entrepreneurs in this profile. And the star, their superpower is attraction. They will bring light onto themselves, but also light on to others. So these are the people who, if you say to them, I need you to go do a reel, they’ll be like “Ooh fun!”
If you say that to the opposite corner, who’s steel and tempo, much more introverted, that feels like a lot of work. So when they sign up for that reels program, they’re like, “Oh, I didn’t use that at all, like, Oh, no, no.” right? So what’s really important is that you and your profile, know that that’s your profile, and understand that there are seven other profiles, who are going to get results in a different way from you. So when you hand out a cookie cutter approach or your framework, you need to be really upfront about who it’s going to work for, and why it worked for you. And you’re not going to know that unless you actually know what your profile is.
Stephanie Skryzowski
I love that. How have you found this particular profile being either more true or more helpful or more useful in creating those light bulb moments, then something like the Enneagram, or Myers-Briggs or StrengthsFinder, or I mean, there are so many out there, and I really like all of them. And I feel like how I have been typed into each of those different ones, they all resonate with me. And I feel there’s different things I take away from all of them. So I personally don’t have a favorite that I’m like, “Oh, I live and die by the Enneagram.” Not at all. I like all of them. But what do you think this one is different? Or how do you use this one in a different way than some of those others that I mentioned?
Diane Mayor
Yeah. So this one is actually developed for entrepreneurs. So my first encounter with DiSC was in banking, when we all had to draw this profiles. This was actually developed for entrepreneurs, and it’s designed less as a personality test, and more as a business development tool. So it’s guiding you on, how do you add the most value, how to create the most leverage, so that you can hit those goals, whatever they are.
Something like DiSC, I’m also certified in that, DiSC is about communication and behavior. So I find DiSC is really helpful to talk team dynamics. Yeah, I find that really, really useful.
For something like MBTI, I’d like it, but it’s quite complicated. There’s like four letters you have to get right. And then do you really understand what that means. I don’t feel like that, that many people who can understand it super clearly. Whereas this one’s really simple to use and to understand how to move forward.
Enneagram, I’m really not particularly versed in, I will say DiSC, MBTI, and Wealth Dynamics are all based on the (unclear) that was brought over and translated for Carl Jung, who created the work that MBTI and DiSC are based on what’s happened with Wealth Dynamics is Roger Hamilton who created it has actually gone back to the source, and brought in some of that Chinese wisdom into it as well. And, really, that’s where we see the seasonal aspects coming in thinking through the seasons of a decision, the seasons of a project, the seasons of a business, and aligning that with the profiles.
So if you thought about a startup probably needs a lot of Dynamo energy, they need creators who are having ideas, then as you’re starting to go after market share, you want those people with the people energy, more people out there selling for you doing deals for you. And then as you’re growing and building, you want that tempo energy, you want someone who knows where everything is and what we need to work on next. And then as you go into a mature business, you really want that steel energy to make sure everything’s working as efficiently as possible.
It really brings that beautiful cycle feeling to it, I feel like isn’t there and the others, which makes it always really easy to think about who you need and what role without having to think job titles. That’s one of my pet peeves is people in small businesses, hiring for job titles. You need to hire for what you need. If you are a Lord, you were traditionally in your team, we would suggest that you had a creator to help with the idea generation and a deal maker who is part blaze and part tempo. So they’re really good at nurturing long term people relationships with clients, but then also they can lean on their blaze energy to help manage the team. And so you can spend your time in your zone of data and numbers and doing the things that really light you up. So it also points to not only where do you fit, but who should you hire like it’s really thought through from a business perspective versus a corporate. Okay, how do we get the team to all talk to each other kind of vibe that we see more in a MBTI, DiSC kind of space.
I also wonder, and I have no evidence to back this up at all. But I do wonder what StrengthsFinder, I haven’t done it in a really long time, would have spat out for me. Because it’s very easy for me to do all of the Lord stuff. But it still wouldn’t be the thing that would keep me going in my business. So I don’t know how well it would deal with the competence versus kind of flow scenario. I haven’t really looked into it very much.
Stephanie Skryzowski
That is really interesting, actually. You’re right, I guess depending on the way questions are phrased and the way that you answer them. You could answer something and it would think that because you are highly competent at it that that would be one of your top strengths. Well if you take it, I want to hear what your strengths are and if you feel like they’re aligned, I took it in the last year or so, and I don’t have my top 5 strengths memorized, but if you take it, I want to hear what they are and if you feel like it’s aligned with your creator.
This is so interesting, if people are really interested in this, where do they go to find it? I’m assuming you want to take the real one, I’m sure there’s probably knock-offs like there are with all of them, but where do they go to find the actual Wealth Dynamics test?
Diane Mayor
So, what I’ll do is, I will put all of the resources on a special 100 degrees site, on my website, so dianemayor.com/100degrees. And what I’ll put there is a link to take my quiz which will help you see whether your business is your super sidekick or your arch nemesis right now. It will point you in the direction of which of those areas you need to focus on, it will give you some great resources to help you. And I’ll also link to how you can take the assessment yourself.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Oooh I love it, quizzes galore! That’s awesome! So, we will definitely put that in the show notes again, but, you just said dianemayor.com/100degrees, perfect! Well, I just have a couple questions, we’re gonna break away from talking about Wealth Dynamics. I feel like I could talk about this all day long though, because it’s super interesting, but I just have a couple quick questions for you to wrap this up today. So what is your favorite productivity hack, or tip, or trick that you use in your business or your life?
Diane Mayor
Oh I am very unsurprisingly and very boringly a Pomodoro person. For me if I’m doing something, I mean my number one hack is stay in your superpower because then you don’t need any productivity hacks, but if you have to do something outside of it, that’s when Pomodoro come in for me, whether it’s a 25 minute one, or a 50 minute one. For me starting the thing I really don’t want to do is the hardest thing, so I know if I can put my butt in my seat, and I tell myself, it’s actually lie to myself, you only have to do 1 then you can go watch Netflix, normally by the time the buzzer goes off, I’m irritated that the buzzer’s gone off, and I’m like knee-deep in in a piece of work. So, I definitely think other than get into your super power and stay there, that’s my number one productivity hack.
Stephanie Skryzowski
That’s a good one, I know, sometimes you just gonna get yourself into it, I feel like that happens often with exercise too sometimes, Alright I just gotta go do something for 20 minutes, I can survive anything for 20 minutes, and then after that you’re in it, you’re having fun, and it’s all good.
Diane Mayor
It’s funny, we’re so the same person, because that’s exactly how I phrase it to myself as well, I’m like “You can do anything for 25 minutes, It’ll be fine, you can do anything.”
Stephanie Skryzowski
Exactly, exactly. Okay! What is your favorite book that you’ve read? And we’ll go non-fiction. Give me your favorite non-fiction book.
Diane Mayor
My favorite non-fiction book is Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, it’s the story of Nike.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Ooh yeah! I’ve heard of that one.
Diane Mayor
It’s magnificently massive, I think it’s like 10 hours on Audible, it really is just a story of like, from the idea, the whole way to building the business, so that is the best of both worlds, it’s the story with all the business juiciness behind it.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Ooh I like that, so yeah, I just Googled it really quick, it’s a memoir, but also a business tool. I feel like I asked this question to build my own reading list. So, thank you!
Diane Mayor
Yeah, and it’s my favorite recommendation to people, because I think people are always quick to give you this kind of tactical book, but I know you, like me, will really enjoy the business story behind it.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yes, that’s awesome. Thank you!
And then my last question is, imagine you have a week day just completely free from work, completely free from obligations, and let’s also say completely free from COVID, this is in a “COVID doesn’t exist world”, what do you do?
Diane Mayor
Goodness, it’s been a long time since it’s been completely free from COVID, I mean sadly, I’m the type of person who wakes up at 5am without an alarm on, on any given day, so I’ll probably be up then, but I would probably, It’s really interesting because it so depends on my mood. I’m not one of these people who, when you think of an ideal day like “I really love it when I see my partner”, No, it just depends, if I need a recovery day, I’m probably in the mood for my bed or sofa with Netflix accompanying me. So, I do love to lose myself in a really good series or a really good book. Those are my favorite things to do.
If I felt like I hadn’t been super social recently, I would probably be trying to get outside for a walk, I live in Wimbledon and we have the beautiful Common, if anyone ever knew the Wimbles, that’s where they lived, and I love to go with my friend and her dog, which is really my dog, and go beautiful long walks up here, have coffee, stroll around, chat, really unexciting really. Pre-COVID spa days, for me it really is so dependent on my mood, and that’s something I really have to learn to accept in business, as well as in my life, it’s like I can go flat out for 3 days, and then I will be on my back leaving to Napoli for another day, and then I will go again for 3 days. Really, I have to be in the mood for something for it to work.
Stephanie Skryzowski
I love that the answer just kind of aligns to you Wealth Dynamics profile of creator, where it’s like “I want to do all the different things, just depending on my mood, depending upon the day.”
Diane Mayor
Yeah, and if you told me what your day would be, I would be like “Ooh that’s a really nice idea! And then what we could do… and we could do these three things.” I mean, if it’s really pre-COVID, I’d probably be looking for a day trip somewhere.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yes, Awesome! Well, Diane, I’m just really appreciative of your time today and walking us through the Wealth Dynamics profile. That was super interesting, let’s see the best place to find you, you just tell our listeners where to find you, where are you hanging-out, and where they can learn more.
Diane Mayor
Yeah, so the easiest place to find me is Instagram, I’m @diane_mayor, just my name, super original, I’m in there pretty much all the time, please do slide into DMs, if you’re listening to this take photos, tag the two of us, I’d love to say “Hi!”, That’s the easiest place to get me. It’s probably the place I’m most active, and then if you’re looking for any of the resources its dianemayor.com/100degrees or has my podcast it’s called “Coffee and Converse” and I’d love to have you come hangout there too.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Yes, Oh that’s right, yeah, Diane’s podcast is awesome, I love all the value that you drop, and I feel like a lot of times your episodes have nice little snippets, so you don’t have to commit half a day listening to a podcast, you get nice little snippet with diane. That’s a good one. I was a guest there too, at one point.
Diane Mayor
I’ll make sure to link your episode on the 100 degrees page for everyone.
Stephanie Skryzowski
Awesome! Thank you! Alright, Diane, thanks so much for chatting today! And we’ll catch everybody next time!
Diane Mayor
My pleasure! Thank you for letting me go on and on about the things that I find exciting!
Stephanie Skryzowski
I loved it!
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Transcript Episode 35
