From Real Estate, To Education, To Personality Tests: When To Pivot, with Brendon Lee
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Indroduction to When To Pivot
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One thing I've noticed about high performing creators or business people is an ability to pivot. And that's what we're going to be talking about in this episode today. When should you lean into what makes you light up inside your purpose, your authenticity. And today's guest did just that from starting as a real estate agent through starting an education company and ending up in.
a business where he does personality assessment. Our guest today, Brandon Lee is a serial entrepreneur, a serial creator, and we had a really amazing conversation today, talking about the different types of genius you might have and leaning into that. We talked about his journey, pivoting quite often, his really thoughtful, structured process in figuring out what your purpose really is.
And, we end with the [00:01:00] metaphor mishap or magic, but There's a really surprising thing that Brandon learned about people doing these personality tests. And he talked about what he found It was beautiful about the process of his current incarnation. So without further ado, this is the Meaningful Revolution podcast.
I'm your host, Shawn Buttner, and we help creators build the lives that they want by leaning into what's meaningful. So with that, let's jump into the episode.
Shawn Buttner: Hey Brandon, welcome to the Meaningful Revolution podcast.
Brandon Lee: me on. on.
Shawn Buttner: Of course. we'd like to start out with a question, like a personal story. And we know, based on your bio that you've had an extensive career as a creator in different [00:02:00] formats and methods. is, could you share with us today?
Okay. A time when you felt like you radically maybe needed to make a change in your career or hack your behavior to succeed. Why you needed that change and then what happened?
When you need to make a big life change
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Brandon Lee: hard to choose one because I've made so many transitions, but if I had to choose one, it would probably be between when I was transitioning out of real estate and transitioning into running the education company.
So the backdrop was that I had been flipping houses for about four years and I was, yeah, I think I was relatively successful at it. I had a mentor that basically taught me everything and basically I reached a point where I felt like I had learned everything I needed to learn. I, and my mentor had taught me everything he needed to teach me and basically everything felt like autopilot at that point I was coasting and I was itching for something.
To sink my teeth [00:03:00] into again, to pour my entire being into, to, to find something that actually also a little bit more meaningful again.
And so that was the starting point. I think that was probably around 20, 20, 16 ish. And basically my strategy that has been true for all of my transitions so far is Just have a lot of conversations with people that I normally wouldn't have conversations with.
That's
usually been my path to finding my next thing, which is just like almost shotgun blast. Talk to a wide range of people, consume wide amounts of information, expose myself to new ideas that I never normally explore myself or expose myself to.
And so that's what I did for about nine months. I got, I actually tracked this in a spreadsheet.
I got coffee, one on one coffee with over 200 people.
and that was in, that was one of the intents was to find my next thing, but the other intent was actually to find my own personal community because
I didn't feel like I had a [00:04:00] lot of friends at that time.but fast forward about nine months, I ended up getting introduced to the person who would be my eventual co founder.
I didn't. so I think one
thing is to notice is that I wasn't looking for a co founder. And I actually didn't know what I actually wanted to do after. I was just. Trying to throw myself out there until I found a thing that hit all the buttons in me that
made me internally go, ah, yes, this is the thing.
So I actually tried a bunch of things. Like I tried working with an incubator. I tried like dabbling with a coaching service. I think I dabbled with an architecture firm. ultimately I became friends with this guy who was, Who had, I guess there was like a competition for 10 million of funding.
for new high school ideas, like new models for high school.
And he was already doing this for a year with his own team. And basically by the time we met, it turned out that they didn't make it to the final prize. So he [00:05:00] was in this transition of okay, I've been, I've applied to this, program and I didn't make it.
So now what would I do? And we met around that same time. And so he was. Floating the idea of Oh, what if I turn this school idea into an afterschool program
And that's how we met, or that was the context in which we met. And when he told me that idea, everything in me just lit up. I'm like, Oh yeah, let's do this.
and basically we ran that as an experiment for about three, three months.
And after that test, I was convinced I'm like, great, let's do it. So altogether, that whole period of transition of being in real estate. Feeling bored, feeling unengaged, feeling like I reached the top. it took me about a year actually to meet all those people, finally meet him, run that test to reach the level of conviction of let's switch.
and then, yeah, and then I went working on that education company full time started after that three month test. So that's a, an example of one of those [00:06:00] transitions.
Shawn Buttner: That's amazing. So I love the idea of having like in a course of nine months, 200 conversations. I often, this is called the meaningful revolution.
It's all about making that transformation in your life to something more meaningful. I'm curious. I was curious. How did one of those conversations go? Was it more of an exploratory? Hey, you work on, In this space. I just want to pick, figure out what you're doing and,
Brandon Lee: yeah,I'll answer that question and also try to answer the question beneath the question,
Shawn Buttner: okay.
Get Perspective To Find Your Purpose
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Brandon Lee: specifically those questions or those conversations were all very high level, get to know you questions
and conversations. like it was the first time meeting someone or.
it was the first meaningful sit down with someone. Maybe I had a conversation with them in passing and then we were like, Hey, like you seem interesting, let's have a chat. And so that was the context. So it often just followed the arc of, Hey, what do you do? Or like, how did you get to the reason why we met?
Like we, maybe we
met at an event or something, or [00:07:00] at a mutual friends party or something. So we'd start there and then go into work. And then I would usually ask, what, yeah. what drives you to do work
this, the work that you're involved in, what inspired you to get there? What makes you engage? What makes you stay there?
and so I'm trying to understand people's motivations because they can always be different. Someone can be, for example, since you're in the, we're in the Bay Area, someone can be in tech for, but it could be so many different reasons why they're in tech.
They could be in Texas because One thing led to another, And now they're here, they could be there because they're really passionate about the possibilities of technology.
They could be here because, I don't know, they studied it and it's just stable income,
And so, I just, I try to assume that the motivation is much more interesting than the optics of the thing that they do. And I try to uncover that. And, when I meet someone that's worth following up with, like continuing to build a relationship with, it's usually because they have a deeper meaning beyond what they Like a superficial, I'm just doing this for money. Or I'm just here. It's I'd [00:08:00] rather spend time with people who are deliberate, conscious, intentional than people who are floating by through life and not sure where they want to go.
so that's specifically how those conversations would go.
but the actual litmus test of how did I decide who I want this to talk to was just purely be listening to my internal curiosity of like, when I'm. at for example, at a meetup, for example, I just, I'm talking to 10 different people during that event. And I noticed, who do I feel most curious about
by the end of that day? who do I feel most interested to learn about their story? the backstory? Maybe it's the way they carry themselves. Maybe there's something they said in passing that felt like someone needs to have a very particular life view or life experience to say that statement. so it's those little signals and it's completely different for every person.
But I'm, the core of it is I'm listening to curiosity. I'm listening to a pool inside of me that signals, Ooh, I would be excited or interested to learn more about this person. And [00:09:00] then I would reach out, saying Hey, I'd love to get to know you more, maybe grab coffee. let's connect. And then, some people would say, yeah, some people would say no, but most of the time people are flattered that you would be interested in them.
usually that work.
Shawn Buttner: Right on. So then having these conversations, following your curiosity, which I absolutely love. I believe that finding your purpose in life or purposes, like it's not usually just one, it's just the, maybe the one or few you have at this moment in time, but, is out with contact in the world.
So what you're doing, you're getting all these different ideas, you're trying to get exposed to new things. How did you know? When you met someone you followed that curiosity, their passion or their perspective or whatever it was like, Oh, I want more of that. Maybe that's a clue to my purpose.
how did you, do you match that up or did you, maybe you didn't, but.
Brandon Lee: So I guess, to reframe the question, it's like, what is the connection between an [00:10:00] initial conversation and how it connects to me realizing purpose and figuring out my purpose?
Shawn Buttner: Yeah. how did this inform your purpose as you went through?
or maybe another question is how did you know that you didn't need to stop at like 10 people? You're like, Oh, okay. I got what I wanted or I figured out what I needed to figure out.
Brandon Lee: Sure. I think these conversations tend to get, trickier or more comp or, oversimplified for listeners.
I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who is younger.I think a lot of the times these conversations sound binary and, but the reality is that it's just very emergent and incremental, right? So it's not that all of a sudden in one fell swoop that I realize, Oh my God, this is my purpose. There was, there is an incremental journey of having one piece of the conversation that intrigues you.
You double click on it, you have another conversation and then it gets, you get more pieces and you as, Oh, wow, this is, [00:11:00] Feeling way closer than before you have another conversation and either that feeling grows or that feeling stays the same or it shrinks, right? Because you meet someone, maybe they have just completely different values from you and you're like, Oh yeah, that's not what I thought.
It's actually not that different from dating
or learning or or just any form of relationships where there's a slow incremental, feel you out period. And then you get to know each other more. And then if you're vibing in the same direction, then you spend more time, you lean into it.
And then if not, you don't.
so when it comes to the finding purpose and having these conversations, I think you just incrementally get closer. The more you follow that curiosity, the more you lean into it. you'll have more of a clear sense of what is up and what is down and what is purpose closer to purpose
than, and what it's further from purpose.
I
Shawn Buttner: Okay. And you mentioned a spreadsheet. So I was wondering, were you mapping that out or was it just a intuitive feel? Oh, this feels a [00:12:00] little bit closer Then that informs the next set of curiosity and,
conversations.
Just Be Curious
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Brandon Lee: The sheet was multiple factors.
I think one, I was just curious. I just knew that. the number of people I was meeting was outpacing my ability to remember those meetings.
And I didn't want to reach a situation where I would see someone again and totally forget their life story, even though
we met like a month ago. So I think that was one layer of it.
The other layer of it was I was trying to lay out my own thinking in terms of what made me want to spend time with this person again,
as opposed to not. And so in after every conversation, after I would update the sheet, I'd realize. Yeah, this person had an interesting story, but I'm not, I don't feel like they are on the same page as me.
I don't feel like I have a deeper resonance with them. And so documenting it really helped me think out loud in a certain way
to Separate people that oh, these are just cool people that I've met versus hey These are people I really [00:13:00] want to double down on and have further conversations or maybe become friends with Because we resonate on a different level So I think those were the biggest factors driving it. it
Shawn Buttner: Okay.
Cool. Cool. I don't want to get like too into the nitty gritty details. It's just, again, super fascinating. just following it up. Oh,
Brandon Lee: it's like 10 years ago since I did that. And I, haven't really found a reason to do that again.
So
Shawn Buttner: Awesome. Do you think, so like the question I have now is, did you like settle on something that was like, Oh, this is, Who I want to be and what I want to do out in the world 10 years ago, or, you've just been busy just getting after it.
it.
Brandon Lee: You mean in terms of the conversation around purpose?
Shawn Buttner: Yeah.
Brandon Lee: Okay. I, yeah,
Be Of Service To Others
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Brandon Lee: I think I have a, I think my, how I would describe my purpose, it's been relatively consistent since my early 20s, where my mission in life is to, [00:14:00] Be of service to help as many people as possible. and that just, I'm just not attached to how it looks. I just want to know that the primary amount of energy that I'm devoting towards is to be of service to people around me reduce suffering somehow make people's lives easier somehow in a meaningful way.
And basically the different phases and parts of my career are just different expressions of it. So, when I, like, at a certain point, it was working with the homeless. At another point, it was working in real estate. At another point, it was running the education company, I was in tech for a bit, and now I'm running this personality test company.
So, I'm not at all attached to how it looks, but what has been constant is, and that hasn't changed for almost 15 years, which is, living a life of service to help people to improve lives, help people self actualize, help people, believe more of themselves, lift themselves up, feel more agency in life.
Those are the kinds of themes that I've always been gunning for most of my adulthood. [00:15:00] Awesome.
Shawn Buttner: I, I feel very connected to almost all of that myself, when I started. I've had a bunch of different lives and transitions myself out of corporate America twice, out of tech twice.
and like coaching and doing. and doing the podcast and connecting with people and finding ways to help people has been, that was the draw. It's Oh, this is more fulfilling because you can see a more direct, positive impacting people's lives. I love that. So you mentioned your personality. Test business.
How The Personality Assessment Helps You In Business
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Shawn Buttner: And so I was curious about, if you are a creator that is running a creator business, right? So you're trying to make your main source of income and everything. Your creator, the things that you create, is there a comp, so I'm trying to like, maybe this is too many ideas at once. I was trying to connect with how can figuring out your personality help you as [00:16:00] a business person or as a creator?
That's about, that's the question.
Brandon Lee: Sure. that's, yeah, that's the entire intention of the assessment that I built is to help create self awareness to best know how you operate so that you can know the areas in which, areas in your life in which you have almost like a bonus. Attached to your being
you know how in like video games, you get the gear and you get three X regen health regen or something,
or another gear that gives you like three x manna, regen or
basically the intention of the personality test is highlighting you have this invisible set of three X region in some particular arena that you might not know about, or maybe you have an intuition about, but you don't feel like it's explicit. or you don't feel like you're explicitly wielding it.
so that's, I think the intention. And I think that's the possibility with any personality test. And I think a well designed personality test, the better designed it is, I think the more equipped it [00:17:00] is to do that. so I think that's the intersection for me. I'm realizing in even building the assessment, I'm realizing, Oh, okay.
Like I really specialize in frameworks and structured thinking and strategy. And that's, and it's allowed me to double down on that and stop expecting myself to be more in the field, be more in the artistic, be more like, this is my form of genius. And I think seeing the numbers of my own scores just gives me rest to not feel like I have to be someone else.
And like truly, and just double down on embracing, this is what I like excel at and find easy, might as well spend more time doing that. and you'll find people across the entire spectrum of some people are far more artistic and don't like being in the structured thinking. it's in my data of the personality test.
And so I think when people see that and embrace that, it now just becomes a question of, okay, how do I [00:18:00] manage the downsides of this particular genius? Cause there's downsides for every single one or trade offs for every single one. so I think That's the self awareness component. And I think that's how it helps.
the more you have awareness, the less baggage and self talk that you have internally to fight against yourself of Oh, I should do this, or I should be more like that. It removes all of that. And so it frees up thinking energy, emotional and just being energy to throw out the thing that you're working on, full send without any reservations.
Shawn Buttner: Right on. Yeah, I, my experience with personality tests is years ago I worked at Walmart corporate and they're really big on the Berkman test.
Brandon Lee: Sure.
I've heard of
Shawn Buttner: what I found surprising going through that exercise without going into what the actual test is it gives you a way to think about people yourself.
So you have that self actualization and then a way to relate to other people. Oh, I know this person is by the book, process oriented. I need to talk about the rules and the process versus [00:19:00] this person who just likes to talk, so I'm curious, maybe you can explain at a high level, the different types of genius genius found through your personality test and how they might interact differently in the world.
The Seven Genuises
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Brandon Lee: Sure. so there's seven geniuses. One of them is. around, attuning to emotion. There's another one that's more around intuition and gut. And then the one that I mentioned that I'm strong in is more heady. So you have this kind of three decision making centers, geniuses of head, gut and heart.
and then you also have one that's about curiosity that is, or breadth of curiosity.
So it's not that they are curious about things, but they're widely curious about things. And then there's another genius that's about pushing. Limits and challenging themselves for challenge's sake and another genius around creative expression.
and one last genius around the [00:20:00] impact that they have on other people And wanting to be of service.
so yeah, those are the seven and specifically what makes this assessment unique is that it is about enjoyment.
and not competence or frequency
because you can do a thing a lot and not enjoy it. You can be good at a thing and not enjoy it. That's most people in their nine to fives.
and so I think that's what separates this assessment from a lot of the others.
And it's not designed for, I guess it's not designed primarily for a work context. So I think that's what a lot of other like work assessments miss is that they were designing to optimize people at work.
of us are actually bringing our full selves to work? for most of us, we have to like compartmentalize.
and so what I like about the assessment is it creates us a picture of you as a person. you outside of work,
and maybe that informs how you show up at work, but it captures more things I feel than what an average professional [00:21:00] corporate assessment does. but yeah, to answer the question, those are the seven geniuses.
Shawn Buttner: Okay.just out of curiosity then, if you were to, talk about if I were to take this test and then my wife would take this test and we would find out what type of geniuses we were. do you have any data or how to relate to specific types of genius orcould this be something that makes my relationship stronger with my wife or, anyone?
Okay.
Yeah.
Brandon Lee: all the time and we, it just gives us language now to realize, oh, so she scores high on the creative expression one. so as a result, when she has, she does things in the day to day that are around that genius, we both realize and say, oh yeah, I'm doing the artisan thing now.
and so that just helps create level expectations for both sides. of how we show up in life. I scored [00:22:00] negative on the one that's around emotional attunement. So it just means that it costs a lot more energy and effort for me to show up in that particular way. And so now that she's aware of that, she can calibrate her expectations.
And instead of thinking, Oh, like why doesn't Brandon do X, Y, Z? It's now Oh, Brandon's not doing that because he's low on that. Okay. So it creates more space for us just to be ourselves. and because of, and when you understand each other's highest geniuses, you also have a framework of, Oh, that explains why they do that behavior all the time.
And so I think that's just a general one. and that's happened multiple times for, me. Over a thousand people have taken it and I've gotten stories left and right around that kind of thing. So yeah, absolutely. It helps with significant others, helps with friendships, helps with colleagues. yeah, lots of applications.
Shawn Buttner: Right on. I'm curious, if you wanted to develop a particular competence or genius, [00:23:00] can this assessment help you? Or is it just assessing a snapshot of who you are and that's locked in? Or is that malleable?
Brandon Lee: what I'm trying to comment on with the assessment is this is where things are at right now with how you relate to this genius.
I outside of you going through like a traumatic life experience or like something that really shifts your perspective, I don't think the macro. shape of your geniuses will change that much. Like I'd be skeptical to see that someone's lowest becomes their highest, unless something dramatic happens.
But I think thematically, they will remain consistent and maybe small changes can happen. Maybe you're like second becomes your third or your third becomes your second stuff like that. but there is a section in the results page with the assessment that talks about, Hey, if you score low in this genius, here are a couple of things you can do about it.
Here's, maybe you won't enjoy this as much, because maybe that doesn't change as much, but here's things that you can do to [00:24:00] strengthen it as a skill or as a competence to know how to speak that language, right? Because it's not about competence. It's about enjoyment.
So even for me, even though I'm low on the emotional attunement one, That doesn't mean I can't feel my feelings.
It doesn't mean that I don't know how to label and articulate my feelings. It just means it costs me more energy.
Shawn Buttner: Yeah.
Brandon Lee: so it's the same thing across for everyone. It's just doesn't mean that you can't operate there. Just means that it costs you more energy and so you just don't use it as much. Okay.
Shawn Buttner: Okay.
So it's more of a, energy cost type thing where your genius generally is probably least resistance. And then your least, your, I don't want to call it your like dumbest one, but like your least genius one is, okay, I got
Brandon Lee: Yeah,
a hundred percent. Yes. Because if you just think about stuff you enjoy in life, I don't have to force you to do anything you enjoy.
You're going to do it.
right? And then, but it's the stuff that you don't enjoy that Hey, I'm like, Hey, Shawn, you got to do the thing you don't enjoy right now. Like what happens in your body? [00:25:00] How do you react internally? You're just there's like a dread and you're like, I don't know do I have to like, okay, only if the incentives make sense then fine.
I'll do it, it, right? So that's the case for everybody across the different geniuses or some of them. You don't need to tell me to do it I'm just going to do it all the time. And then there's other geniuses that I'm Like Oh,pulling teeth.
Shawn Buttner: Okay, I'm curious then, so I'm a high performance coach, so my job is to push people.
Brandon Lee: Yes.
Shawn Buttner: Usually, and so I'm trying to think, if I was to apply this to clients that I have, sometimes you have to operate in places that aren't your genius for the bigger picture, for the bigger purpose. do you talk about strategies to Like when the necessity is there to manage that as just I have to build or just be aware that this is going to be a huge lift.
I'm introverted. So going to a big conference, and talking to a million people in one day is that [00:26:00] sense of existential dread for me, but I have a business. I have that desire to help people. So it's something I gotta do from time to time. And, I prep for it. So how do you, This idea of finding your performance edge of really being performative when you need to, even if it's your least favorite thing. do You talk about that at all in the assessment.
Yeah.
Brandon Lee: think I comment specifically on that layer. yeah, I, because that's just really nuanced to pack into,
an entire, but in terms of my reactions to that, I'm like, as a coach myself over the last 10 years or so, I think there's just, it just gives you awareness around how you nudge people,
just helps you see the distance traveled that the other person might have to traverse for that particular goal.
I think that's the biggest thing. cause absolutely, you're right. I think, yeah, everyone wants, has a time and place that they are willing and wanting to push. I think another layer of this also is that. People who take this assessment and people who look at coaching to begin [00:27:00] with they have to be on a certain level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs to be willing to think about.
Oh, how do I design my life around enjoyment?
And how do I cause otherwise you're at a certain point where?You have more pressure At least to to address the lower rungs of your life of if you're not going to be able to pay the bills next month I'm sorry, you're just going to have to do the hard thing,
Otherwise you're going to get evicted or
or whatever.
So it's just yeah, that level of pushing only happens because you're at a certain place in your life. And then everything else, after you reach that point though, once you get enough, high enough on that ladder, then everything just becomes tradeoffs and choices. and you push because you think the tradeoff is worth it.
Maybe it's compelling for you in the moment to stretch that part of you. Or maybe the outcome, it's worth it. but doing hard things is off. is rarely in a vacuum in of itself of just doing the hard thing just because.
usually it's because there's an outcome that someone cares about.as a coach, I think it just creates awareness again [00:28:00] around how much distance someone needs to travel to do that specific thing.
And if the incentive on the other side is big enough, then
yeah,
likely they'll do it
And
Shawn Buttner: makes sense.
Yeah. It's, more the whole framework is to design a life that you enjoy. And sometimes there's those things that we don't enjoy, but yeah, I like the idea of it just being a it way to understand and maybe okay, we really need to focus on some strategies here to get you into gear for this because you're expecting Yeah.
happiness and joy after it.
Brandon Lee: Yeah. If anything, yeah. To double click a little bit more as a coach, I think it just creates more awareness or not only on the distance traveled, but also what is the carrot that motivates this
person extra. right? So maybe for someone who scores high on the wanting to impact people genius.
So when there's something that they want to do or something that's really hard in front of them, you as a coach might remind them that, Hey, remember again, why you're in this. who's the [00:29:00] person that you're trying to make a difference for and it's calling back into remembrance that motivator. or maybe the, like for someone who's more somatic or more intuitive, you reflect back to them, Hey, there's this really hard thing.
Maybe listen to your body right now, check in with yourself. What is your gut saying about how you want to relate to this particular challenge? So like it could affect the style of coaching that you cater to each individual and Maybe yield more results because that's the language that they're speaking in in.
Shawn Buttner: Okay. Right. on.if say you're somebody that takes this, test, you find out what your genius is. You compare it to your life right now. And you're like, and you're in the up, the might as well as hierarchy of needs. So it's like, you have some, you do have agency to make a change. And you're like, Oh, I'm in a sales job. And really I want to be doing I don't know, art.
I don't know what the exact scenario is, but basically you've you're taught, identified your genius. You're not doing it in your day to day life.
how would you [00:30:00] go about. Suggesting people transition to that since pivots in your life. And it seems like a really good tool to figure that out and then make some shifts.
Brandon Lee: Yeah.
Yeah. I think general best practice, I suggest people to run experiments. So if you're, let's just run with example, you're in sales and you realize going more, the artistic route is something that. feels resonant, feels true to you. So I'm like, okay, in your evenings or weekends, start running experiments like that.
Start spending your time investigating for like mediums that resonate with you, forms of art, start looking for artists, communities and the forms of art that matter to you. and just slowly incrementally ramp up that time. Then again, fall back to our original thread around curiosity. If you find energy there,
as you explore on the side, spend more time there.
and you keep doing that until you reach an internal breaking point of you might think, Holy shit, I found the thing. I like, [00:31:00] I don't want to do this medium in this way. And I'm ready to like cut the cord of my job. I highly, that's a very proven path. And I think that's a very, incremental and tested path rather than the whole, I.
I hate my job and I didn't want to do art. Let's quit.
like just cold turkey. I don't miss, I don't think that's the right path for most people. I think most people, at least from a nervous system standpoint would do much better with the incremental version of that.
yeah, to answer the question in a brief form is,
yeah,
test it slowly, run a small experiment in the evenings, weekends, spend more time on it as you reach more confidence and excitement about it until you finally get to the point.
and it might take you a year. It might take you five years to get to that point. but when you get to that point of holy shit, this is it, then cut the cord because you'll be ready and you'll have a grounded conviction about it.
it.
Shawn Buttner: And then what I love about that approach too is. in my coaching practice, so many [00:32:00] people have an idea of what they think they want.
Brandon Lee: Oh
yeah,
Shawn Buttner: And then you get into it and you're like, Oh, I'm going to like, volunteer at the law firm. and this is a lot of reading and office politics. I don't like this at all. and that's good information to know. And definitely before you do the grand axing of your current situation to align about around something else.
Brandon Lee: Exactly. Yeah. That is the opposite part of what I did not mention, but yes, that's why you run experiments because you find out that maybe the thing that you thought you wanted is not actually what you wanted.
Shawn Buttner: Definitely.there this is a random, more, random question, but is there anything, beautiful that you found in doing this work, building this assessment of just about people about the world or something that surprised you. you?
The Surprising Beauty of Brendon's Work
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Brandon Lee: Absolutely. when I built this, the way that I built it was I ran 300 user interviews,[00:33:00] and they were about an hour each. And I basically was trying to understand people as they are through the lens of life experiences. So I was asking
people to share stories of their life. and I would collect eight specific eight moments from each person's life.
And so that's over 200, like 2000 data points.
And when I started doing these interviews, I was not attached or to what categories I was assessing. I didn't even know what I was assessing. I just wanted to figure out, like, what is out there? And as I had more of these conversations, I realized that there is these common buckets.
I'm like, Hey, this person rhymes with that person, And perhaps with that person. And that's how I started Initially clustering people together into the genius categories that we actually mentioned, So by the time that I defined the, actually it started out a six before it, like maybe a while later, I added the seventh.
But one of the most surprising geniuses was the one around intuition
I like if you asked me to [00:34:00] design an assessment from scratch and a personality test, I would not have pegged intuition, to be one of the core things that I'm measuring. but it became like really inescapable once I had a series of three or four conversations almost back to back of people that were incredibly highly intuitive that I would've, my younger self would've just written off as these people are way too woo.
And they're like space cadets. They can't explain anything concretely. They just say, it just felt right. And I did it. And then, but it was too inescapable because they had so many specific stories along those lens. And it was multiple different people. And I'm like, either this is totally fake.
Or, there's something I'm missing, in terms of my lived experience, and so I'm really glad I ran with that because that is now an entire category, and those people who take the assessment are the ones that feel most validated and seen by my assessment [00:35:00] because there's no other assessment, like, our conversation around corporate, right?
Like, all, corporate is not friendly to intuition. I don't think that's, like, a, that's it's a pretty well known fact. And so here comes along an assessment that actually creates validation for that and saying, this is a really powerful genius and this is how it shows up. there's almost no, there's no cultural education around how to operate in intuition because it's beat out of us, from both from a school and work standpoint.
so I think that's one one very clear example of. My life is so much richer because now I understand this as a way to live and be, and there are plenty of people on the planet that is their highest genius. And they feel completely dismissed or written off in the corporate context. And especially actually people like me who are more thinky.
Like we demand the explanation, we demand the, what is the framework? What is your rationale? And these intuitive people don't always have that. But that doesn't make them any less valid. or [00:36:00] their gifts, any less valid or anything, and if anything, it's, we've actually been like,it's been a disservice in that we've,shunned them from most corporate environments.
and so I feel like I have a lot of power in kind of representing the thinky corporate y world to welcoming them back into the fold and celebrating them and, creating just, conversational fluence around, Hey, this world of intuition has a lot to offer us. let's actually listen.
that's been one of my favorite parts of working on this is, In your words, it's one of the most beautiful things. I think it's very cathartic
to feel like I'mopening the door in some way back for a whole segment of the population that feels hidden and swept under the rug.
so yeah.
so yeah.
Shawn Buttner: right. on. that's super, super cool. and I agree with you, a lot of, I, I, I think the best leaders, the best, performers have a [00:37:00] combination of, or have some form of that intuitiveness.
Brandon Lee: Yeah.
Shawn Buttner: but it's not something. It's something a lot of thinky people, as you said, would immediately discredit because what, you just, okay, you're just pulling that out of the air?
alright, but, oh, that's cool. cool. Yeah. okay. starting to wrap up. is there anything people can do right now to immediately better their lives and their creative journey or their business journey? From your perspective, maybe it's the assessment or maybe it's something completely different, but
Brandon Lee: It's of course my recommendation to be take the assessment.
It's also free. So like,
it doesn't hurt you. it only takes 10 minutes, but even outside of taking the assessment, it's maybe taking the philosophy that I've learned as a result of building the assessment
and helping people through understanding the results of their assessment. Which is just fundamentally, there. everything in your life that you find resistance to, [00:38:00] or dread,
There's someone on the planet who enjoys it.
and that was so hard for me to wrap my mind around. I could under, like I've heard people say that before, but it wasn't until I saw the data
actually helped me make sense of it. Because I never met, I, it's, it was hard to talk.
I never had conversations with specific people that were like, Oh, that thing you hate that, like you, like transcribing this data from to this Excel sheet, you hate that, you know what, I love that, like, I don't, you don't have conversations with those people very often.
So in having take, built my assessments and have had people go through it and also had like people that I've hired go through it. I now have like very tangible experiences and stories of wow, there are literally people that every aspect of my life that's that I hate doing or dread. I can literally point to a person that's Oh, let me do that.
Because I like it. And that's that was initially so mind blowing. And, but now that I've been [00:39:00] working on this for a few years, it's just permeated how I see and think. And so now it shifts your thinking to thinking, how do I try to do all of my creative work by myself? How do I lift this organization or this vision or this, company that I have off the ground all by myself and shifts you to thinking, okay, these are the things that I love doing and come easy to me.
How do I find partner, meet other people who like the very thing that. I dread, I absolutely hate doing, would give so much to not do it ever again. and how do I find people who love that? And of course my assessment gives a way for people to quantify that now, but that as a philosophy. I think just changes so much.
It creates so much more spaciousness, openness for collaboration and wonder and appreciation for each other realizing that, yeah, like I can't do it all myself. or there's very few people who have that capacity, for The rest of us normies. it's about understanding what comes easily to us and then, yeah, sifting through the [00:40:00] people in our life that, and looking for people in our life who can compliment us really well.
So I think. That would be the most concrete thing I could, lend to your listeners, even if they've never taken my assessment,I hope you take that to heart. Maybe there is someone in your life where that concrete thing that you've been avoiding all day, and all week or maybe months or even years, there's another person close to you or maybe one conversation away that absolutely loves that and would do it for fun, do it for free, right?
you don't have to tell me to do data analysis. You give me a spreadsheet, give me a bunch of data. I will, that's fun for me.
And that might be weird to you. That might be weird to everyone listening, but that's my brand of weird. and that's what the assessment helps surface. so yeah,that's my two cents.
Metaphor Magic or Mishap...
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Shawn Buttner: That's
awesome.I think that's probably what we'll end with the main portion of the podcast. I do have a segment called metaphor, magic, or mishap, where we try to come up with a metaphor on the fly about what we talked about. It's either great [00:41:00] or it's funny because we completely missed it.
just as a fun thing, if there was, so what's coming to my mind is this is like understanding yourself, that self assessment, understanding other people and where they are. It's like seeing the code in the matrix. where it's very powerful to stop things you don't like or to, shift or change things if you're aware of what's really going on.
how does that resonate for you?
Brandon Lee: Yeah, I absolutely liken it to a form of seeing the matrix. Absolutely.
Shawn Buttner: Sweet.
cool. then I guess, was there anything you really loved about what we talked about today or something that really spoke to you from our conversation?
What Brandon Loved About Our Conversation
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Brandon Lee: I'm actually surprised and really love that you asked the question around what's the most beautiful thing that you've learned in building it? I don't think I would expect that as a question.
But I think there's a, there is a part of me that really enjoys sharing that part of the journey Yeah. because it feels significant. It feels profound to feel like I'm [00:42:00] shining a light in an aspect of society that kind of has written off and ignored. And it feels like a real honor or privilege to, or powerful to be able to, to bring that up.
And I don't, yeah, that rarely comes up in conversations, So I'm really glad that whatever prompted you to ask that, I'm really glad
you did.
Shawn Buttner: Sweet. Yeah. Awesome. and then signing off, where can the good folks, follow up and take this mighty assessment?
Follow Up with Brandon
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Brandon Lee: Yeah, it's genius of you. com, genius of you as it sounds, because fundamentally the belief is everyone has inherent genius, and my job and my goal is to try to help you understand that better.
but yeah, if people go ahead and take it, this is this, I've been pretty generous with this, but if you email me or just submit to the contact form and you want me to Personal commentary from me. just do that. Just drop me a line. I think I have my emails and the results, and you can reach me at the contact page. it's one thing to take an assessment [00:43:00] and try to parse out your results yourself.
It's another to have input from the guy who made it. and I'm happy to do that because it's made such a big difference for me. And I earnestly, I just care about helping people live a life that fits more with that. To me, that's the kind of world I wouldn't want to live in. And so I'm happy to do that if people are interested.
Shawn Buttner: Awesome. Definitely take up Brandon on this. the link will be in the show notes too. If you're worried about spelling or whatever, it was, your rails go really quick when you're listening to, a podcast. with that, Thank you so much for being on the show and talking about what you're passionate about. I'm really excited to take this assessment myself.
That was a great episode with Brandon. And if you've ever had to pivot in your career in your life, I make a big life change. It's it is a difficult thing. And I think it's really cool hearing about how he's made the different career choices in his life and ended up with his personality [00:44:00] assessment, which. I took and my results as I pull up my notes here. I'm a deconstructor assessor innovator. So when I thought that was pretty accurate for what it's worth, I definitely go to genius view to scope out. Your personality tests. And if you want to listen to another episode about when to make the pivots, I have that in the show notes below, or if you're watching on YouTube somewhere around where you see my face.
So with that, thank you for listening to the meaningful revolution podcast. I'd love for you. If you could share this episode with two or three friends, you think might find it interesting or might be in a pivot moment of their life. Oh, it might need to make a change and hopefully this conversation then will help them. nudge them one way or the other it's to make the change or not.
So with that said, we'll see you guys in the next episode of the [00:45:00] meaningful revolution podcast.
