Emerge. Evolve. Lead.

Are you in the process of reinventing yourself, stepping into your power and creating the life you are here to live? I'm wanting to level up and grow my business - the challenge I'm facing is stepping into unknown territory, feeling like I don't have what I need for this next adventure.

Maureen Ross Gemme is a personality expert who believes that your greatest level of influence is not with your position, or your knowledge, but with your personality. Discover the 6 human needs and the 4 personality styles you must know to become an effective leader.



Maureen's Website: EmergeLeadershipAcademy.com
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One of the things I’ve discovered is that getting older often brings bigger questions. Who am I now? What do I really want? What needs to change? And how do I want to live this next chapter? Those questions are at the heart of my work. You might want to know yourself better. You might be looking for clarity and direction. You might know something needs to change, or simply need some healing and restoration. Wherever you are, there’s a place to begin. Explore at debrajones.ca.

If today’s conversation has you thinking about your own life and what comes next, I invite you to explore The Debra Jones Path. Because I don’t believe this stage of life is about becoming someone new. It’s about coming home to yourself, understanding who you are, trusting what you know, and choosing what comes next. There’s no prescribed starting point. Find the path that fits where you are right now at debrajones.ca.

Transcript

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Debra Jones: Welcome to OWN THE GREY, a podcast to dispel the notion that aging is undesirable and setting new positive attitudes. I'm Debra Jones, and I believe you can be vibrant and healthy throughout the best years of your life. Like me, many are in the process of reinventing themselves, stepping into their power and creating a life they're here to live. I'm wanting to level up and grow my healing business, but the challenge I'm facing is stepping into unknown territory, feeling like I don't have what I need for this next adventure. As a healer, I've been influencing and empowering people for over 20 years, but I never really saw myself as a leader. Then I came across a podcast called Emerge, Evolve, Lead with Maureen Ross Gemme, who explained something I never realized, and I knew I had to bring her on to OWN THE GREY to help us all emerge and evolve. She believes that your greatest level of influence is not with your position or your knowledge, but with your personality. Maureen Ross Gemme is a personality expert with a master's in education. She's the CEO of Emerge Leadership Academy. Born from her own caterpillar to butterfly story that she's going to share with us in a moment, she now helps others to emerge, evolve, and lead their best lives. Welcome to OWN THE GREY. Maureen 

Maureen Ross Gemme: Thank you, Debra, I'm delighted to be here.

Debra Jones: I'm so glad you're here because I was looking at your website and your podcast and your YouTube videos, and I discovered you weren't always a leader, were you? Tell us about your transformation.

Maureen Ross Gemme: Well, it's really interesting because I was trained to NOT be a leader. Okay. When I first came into the world, my parents had six kids in eight and a half years, and I was number three, so that's called Irish Catholic, just in case you didn't guess. But I was one of the pack. I was told what to do and when to do it, what to say and not to say and how to behave and when to eat, what to wear and where to go when I needed to go there. So, I didn't know who I was at all. I was just a follower. I wanted to fit in. That's how I was conditioned, if you will, and I did. I fit into that little family unit just fine until we have to break away right as teenagers, which is what every teenager is supposed to do, break away from their parents and figure it out and grow up. But at the time I was growing up, the whole society of our culture was sex, drugs and rock and roll, and so I just dove right in. I wanted to fit in. I wanted friends, and that's what everyone was sort of doing. So, I started drinking and drugging at a very early age, and I never felt okay in my teenage years if I didn't have, like, a boyfriend or somebody giving me approval, that sort of thing, right. I also had a lot of anger because I was done with people telling me what to do. So, I had a real problem with authority figures. I had a lot of emotions and the way that I stuff that was through drugs and alcohol and any way that I could escape. And so, I had a bad attitude. I barely made it through high school. Always one of the guys. I was just ‘mo.’ I could tell dirty jokes for hours. I wasn't aligned with who I am today. When I tell people that now, they're like, what? That doesn't sound like you. And it wasn't. But it was my anger. It was my acting out. It was me trying to make a mark somehow. But one thing I always had was a strong work ethic. So, I did, as soon as I graduated high school, barely graduated, but I did. I got a full time job and a part time job working in a bar because I needed to feed my habit. And I continued to create chaos in that way all through those years. And some really bad things happen to me because I found myself in situations that I should have never been in as a parent now and watching my kid be a teenager, I would be absolutely appalled, like, if my parents ever knew what I was doing with my life. And I won't go into details, but I will tell you that it led me down to a path of self destruction, self isolation, self loathing, self hatred, and a ton of guilt and shame, right? So that's what my heart was filled with. It makes me cry just to even think about how devastating that can be on your psyche. No teenager or young person should feel that way about themselves. But I had to travel that path so that I could know what hell was like, so I could help people get out of it. So, I did have a major transformation when I was 24. I live in Connecticut now and for most of my life, but one of the things that I tried to do to fix myself was move away. I was constantly blaming people, places and things for my discomfort and my self hatred and all that stuff. So, I figured first I blamed my father. He was an alcoholic, although he was very mild mannered drunk. He wasn't like, abusive. He just was emotionally absent, basically. And I thought then Connecticut was my problem. These people here, they're just horrible. And then it was my boss or my boyfriend or my backstabbing girlfriend, you know what I'm saying? Or just because the car broke down or I didn't have any money and on, on and on. Excuses will never stop when you're trying to find happiness in the world, your excuses will never stop for blaming things for how you feel. So anyways, I moved to Texas and that's where I finally I was there for four years. I lived in San Antonio for two years, in Austin for two years. And finally, I reached out and I got the help I needed. There was a series of events that occurred, and I just knew I couldn't be that person anymore. I knew I was done. Like I said, I hated everything about my life. I had to change. But I also knew about recovery because, you see, my dad had gotten some help and had gone into treatment. I didn't go into treatment, but I knew about the twelve step programs and so I did reach out and I got the help I needed. And I haven't now touched a drop of drugs or alcohol since February 3, 1985. And for that I am so grateful. I've really been able to create an amazing life for myself.

Debra Jones: Wow. Well, I would never have known your story when I took a look at all the things that you're doing now. So that really is a huge transformation. And I'm with you. I went through some stuff when I was younger too. And I do realize the benefit of having experienced that because it does help me help others that are going through challenging times. And that is why, as I said at the beginning, that I'm trying to up level my business and be more of an assistance to humanity. That's what I'm trying to do. And in order to do that, I realized that I need to lead my own way. And that's what brought me to wanting to talk about this today. Because leadership, for me, I've never seen myself really as a leader. But the more I look at things now, I see that I have been leading. And what I discovered when I was on your website is that there are some things that allow me to accept and acknowledge that part of me. So it doesn't feel like a foreign part of me because at the beginning it did. It's like, how can I be a leader? I'm not a leader. So maybe if you can share with us some of those things that I shared with you at the beginning before we started the podcast, that really did affect me. And one of these things is about our needs as humans. Would you like to share that?

Maureen Ross Gemme: Oh, yes, absolutely. And what I would say right off the bat, Debra, is that what I believe about you and the work that you are doing is that you are a bringer of the light. You are a light bearer in the world. And there's not a lot of us that are doing this kind of work when you think about the percentage of the population. And so I want to just encourage you to continue. That is leadership in and of itself. It takes courage. It takes strength to step out on your own and do that. And those are all really good leadership qualities. Unfortunately, the word leader kind of got a bad name because we see leaders in politics that are ******** things up or just after their own benefits. And we also have experienced a lot of poor leadership or toxic leadership in the work environment. And so that makes people, like, shy away from, no, I don't want to deal with that. But the bottom line is that if you as a person really dig in deep and learn to understand your needs, your personality, who you are as a person, and what value you have to add to the world, that's, to me, that's leadership. The more you understand about yourself, the more you improve your own life, the more you improve the lives of the people around you. And then there's a ripple effect. It just goes out. It expands outward. Okay, so the six human needs that everyone has I did not make this up. These are some of the things that I've learned along the way in my life journey. But it is so appropriate. First, I would start by saying there's two common fears that everyone has, and so the six human needs, a lot of times are predicated by those fears. Do you know what the two most common fears are, Debra? Do want to take a guess?

Debra Jones: Being seen in the world.

Maureen Ross Gemme: Well, yes, and the part of it is that we want to be seen, and we want to be liked. We want to be approved of. We want to be loved. So we have a fear that we won't be loved or accepted. Okay? And that's an underlying fear that everyone has. And that's why we do things in a certain way, so that people will like us. We know also, people say, I don't care. I don't care if you like me or not. And that's just because they're afraid that you won't like them, and so they hold you back with that. The second fear is I'm not enough. And it really goes right along with I won't be loved if I'm not enough. And you can fill in the blank in between there. I am not pretty enough, smart enough, rich enough, skinny enough, right. All those enough words. And it's that ego part of our brain that speaks to us, that tells us we're not enough. And it tries to keep us small. It tries to keep you from not shining your light. It gives you your doubts. It's negative. And it's also very judging and critical of other people, because, remember, we're mirrors for each other, right? So, when we find somebody that really irks us, that's only because there's something in you that you need to look at. You're not owning that dark part of yourself. Okay, so we want to own all parts of ourselves, but let's talk about six human needs. All right? So I'm going to go through them pretty quick, but you stop me anytime you want. If you have a question or you want to make a comment, sure. The first four are individual human needs, and the last two are more of a spiritual nature. But if you're a listener, just try to figure out which two do you think are your highest priorities. So think about that as we're going through them. Like, these two are the ones in my life that are really important to me. All right, so the first one is we want certainty as human beings, we have a need for certainty. We want to know that there's a roof over our head, that we got money in the bank, that we have love in our lives, that things are going to run the way we want them to run. And so if you have a very strong need for certainty, you might want to control things happening in your life. If anybody's ever said you're a control freak or you like to control things I know I am a controller. I want to control things. That's part of my thing. And I've had to overcome a lot of that just so I can get to acceptance of what's really happening. Some things you can't control, most things you can't control.

Debra Jones: Almost an illusion.

Maureen Ross Gemme: Nothing can you really control. So if you have a high need for control and certainty, and there's not a lot of certainty in your life, like, say you lose that job or suddenly somebody dies that's close to you or you get in a car wreck, I mean, there's things, right, that happen that upset our lives. These are the curveballs that life throws at us.

Debra Jones: Like a pandemic, for instance?

Maureen Ross Gemme: Oh, hello? Yeah, that provided a ton of certainty, right? It's certainty that we had to stay home every single day and uncertainty that we had no idea what was going to happen next. So, the second need is for uncertainty. And so we do, we have a need for certainty. We want to know that we're safe and all of those things, but we also have a need for uncertainty. Or in other words, variety. When we have variety in our life, like, nobody wants to eat the same thing every day unless you're four or go to the same place on vacation, or we want new and different experiences. Nobody goes to the same movie over and over or reads the same book. We need that variety. We want different variety in our lives. But if you have a high need for variety, then you might do things that are risky, right? You might have an affair, or you might decide to ski down a mountain being let go from a helicopter. I don't know. Right. There's a lot of high level, risk things that you can do, and that's okay if that's really part of what you want to do and all that stuff. But you can get variety even in a humdrum life. So how did we get variety? Like, during the pandemic? When everything first shut down. Well, people did all kinds of dance videos, and they created all kinds of really cool and interesting things online. We learned how to use zoom. We did. We found ways to be creative. Some people went back and actually started painting again or those kinds of things.

Debra Jones: Now, you used that time for creating your online school. I did exactly the same thing, creating an online school. So, yeah, it gave us time to do that. But it's that variety that we just needed to change from all that monotony of doing nothing and staying home. Right?

Maureen Ross Gemme: Right. I had 70 classes booked on my calendar for the year of 2020, and it was a little scary at first, but yeah, we used it to our advantage, and I created that recovery at workhorse. So that is pivoting. Right? So we just pivot and we do what we have to do. But there's a lot of people who don't have the tools that you and I have to understand how to do that. So what happened? Liquor store sales went through the roof because a lot of the bars shut down and liquor was deemed a necessary service to add to the world. There was a lot of people that tried to escape. So, gambling went up. **** sites suddenly had huge spikes. People were just trying to escape. Shopping also happened. Amazon blew up because everyone was shopping online. Now, those are the ways that we do that. And we also, when we want to create certainty, we put things in our body that we know will make us feel a certain way. Right. Like sugar. And so if you don't really know how to deal with all your feelings or all the uncertainty, then you try to make yourself feel certain in certain ways that are sometimes many times unhealthy.

Debra Jones: Got it!

Maureen Ross Gemme: All right, so certainty, uncertainty, or variety is the second one. The third one is significance. Everybody has a need for significance, and we add that in our own way. If it's a really high need for significance, if that's one of your number ones, then you might be a super accomplished person. Right? We have very high achievers who look for significance. They get their PhDs, they do unbelievable research. They get published, or they get on stage and they're speaking. They do the Ted Talks. And we do we get significance in all kinds of ways. We write books, and then if you're getting it in a negative way, you might buy a gun and hold it to somebody's head. Right? If you don't get enough need for significance, you might join a gang, because they give you that there you see how you can get it both positive and negatively. The fourth one is love and connection. Every human needs love and connection. I don't care who you are or where you are in the world. In fact, we know that a lot of the babies that were born in China. Girls, they got just put into orphanages because nobody wanted to keep them. They wanted to have a son or whatnot. And it was a very sad situation because a lot of these babies were dying, and they came up with a term called failure to thrive because they were not getting the love and connection. Even though they were just babies, they weren't being held. They would just stop growing. And we've seen this phenomenon happen. So, it's at a very early age we need love and connection. And so sometimes if we're born into parents who don't have any skills, then we may think that love is being hit. This is the way I love. Or every time the kid starts crying, here, eat this. Like, just shut up. And so we stuff our feelings. We stuff by eating. And those are ways that we also feed ourselves love and connection. But love and connection is just a basic human need that we all have. And the more healthy ways to do it are obviously to give love to people. Then you get it a lot back. All right? And then the last two are, like I said, more spiritual in nature, and they are personal growth and contribution. Okay? So I don't think I need to go in to explain all that because you wouldn't even have listeners if they weren't already into personal growth. So I'm pretty sure that anybody listening to this is into personal growth and contribution, is how do you give back, right? So what we do is, especially when we get clean and sober or we go through that transition, we have this major transition, and then we want to share that. We want to help other people to go through the same thing that we went through, whether it's a spiritual awakening or some sort of way that we were able to grow. And this is why people start businesses all the time, right? They were healed, and then they go out and they start healing others. We develop ourselves as leaders, and then we develop others. We go out and we want to help other people become the more full person that they can become. So the only one other thing I want to say about that is if you focus on, say your thing is, well, I've always been striving for certainty and love and connection. Those are my things. Those are my top two things. I promise you. If you focus on personal growth and contribution, you will get certainty, you will get variety, you will get significance, and you will get love and connection. All of them are met. But if you're always looking for certainty and love and connection, you're probably going to be disappointed.

Debra Jones: That's really interesting. So really what you're saying is we need a balance of all six of these needs being met. Are you saying that we need all of these?

Maureen Ross Gemme: Yes. It's sort of at different levels. Like I have a lot of love and connection in my life, so I'm not striving for that anymore. I don't strive for it. I know how to get it. I have it. I don't have to get it. Do you see what I'm saying? It becomes just a part of everything. Certainty and uncertainty, I think those are the biggest ones. If you have a need for certainty, then practice growing your need for uncertainty. Practice growing being uncomfortable in, having a lot of variety. Practice letting go, practice surrender, because there's nothing certain in this life. And the more need you have for that, the more disappointed you're going to be, like I said. But if you focus on those last two, personal growth and contribution, how do you give back? I promise all the rest of them will come into your life, and you will be so it does sort of even the playing field all across. Does that make sense?

Debra Jones: Totally. Yeah, totally. And I can see you've laid it out in such a simple way to understand it, but I see it from all other perspectives. But I've come to the conclusion of when I'm in service and when I'm giving something or providing something to better humanity, for instance, I do feel better about all of these other things. And yet it's good to understand that certainty and the uncertainty, I mean, that's life, isn't it?

Maureen Ross Gemme: Absolutely.

Debra Jones: It's never one or the other. It's always both, right? There's always some things that are going on.

Maureen Ross Gemme: You want both of them. Right. Because that whole idea that life is ups and downs and there's good times and there's, quote, bad times, I don't even like to judge it that way, but almost for certainty, every time you go through adversity or a really difficult time in your life, if you have the attitude that, oh, I'm expanding, I used to call them AFGOs, another effing growth opportunity. Oh, I'm having an AFGO. And that attitude helps, you know that there's going to be another side to this. I know there's going to be something good that comes out of it. I'm going to look for the gift. And then you don't have to suffer. You can feel your feelings and get past it, including grief, including every bad thing that can happen in life. It's meant for your highest good. That's another belief that I have that I try to instill into all my clients. Everything that happens is for your highest good. If you accept that, if you don't accept it, you're going to suffer. Yeah.

Debra Jones: And suffering is a choice, isn't it?

Maureen Ross Gemme: Indeed.

Debra Jones: So emerging and evolving and leading, why did you put those three terms together?

Maureen Ross Gemme: That's a good question. I don't think I've ever been asked. I think because it shows a progression. You don't just jump into leading, do you? Some people do, and they're not good at it. So there is a certain emerging this is my spiritual side coming out in a kind of corporate, more professional way. So emerging though is really awakening, figuring out who you really are, allowing yourself to be, accepting all the parts of you, even the shadow side, even the negative, what you deem negative. Because if you don't, it's going to come out in disease. It will come out in negative ways in your body when you stuff things right. That's why we need healers in the world because we have just stuffed the **** that we don't want to own. So emerging is really awakening and coming into your own understanding and owning who you are and then evolving is figuring out how are you going to really be able to serve, how are you going to contribute? And when you figure that out, then you step into the leader role. Then you step into showing other people how it's done. You model it, you use it as your identity. I just happen to use the word lead because I'm a trainer, I'm a leadership trainer, and I want to help managers become better leaders so that people stop leaving them all the time. That's why we leave jobs, because our managers suck.

Debra Jones: It's not the job. It’s the people.

Maureen Ross Gemme: Sometimes, yeah. I would say not all the time, but probably like 60% to 70% of people leave their jobs because they just can't stand the people that they work for. And that's sad.

Debra Jones: Yeah. So that ties us around to the other topic that I want to talk about and that's about leading. And you've identified that there's four personality styles of a leader. Would you like to share those with us?

Maureen Ross Gemme: Yes. And actually they're really four distinct personalities of all people. We all have a personality type. We also have little bits of all of the types within us, but we have a natural inclination towards one or two of those styles. So I don't want to say that personality is the be all, end all of everything because we also have our beliefs, our values, our experiences, our culture right. Our age and maturity. There's so many other things that go into who you are as a person. But if you're in the workplace and you're having any kind of difficult time with relationships, I promise you understanding the personalities types will really help you. I studied Myers Briggs for many, many years and then I got into the Enneagram. I love the Enneagram. It's very complex, it's very deep. The disc everything disk is what I teach now. And it is the easiest to explain and I think it's the easiest to apply in a work situation. Okay. Okay, so let's go through them. And as a listener, think about yes, you probably have some of these qualities or know somebody who's really strong in some of these qualities. But I want you to think about where's the one that you most relate to? Where do you naturally fall when you're at your most relaxed in your life. The four are four words, and they start with the D and then I, and then S and C. If you picture a circle and then it's divided into four quadrants. The D is in the top left hand quadrant. The D stands for dominance. The Ds are very dynamic, they're outgoing and they're sometimes forceful. They are very directorial in nature because they strive for results. They want to get stuff done, and they sometimes don't really care how you feel when they're trying to get stuff done. They're more task focused. Like I said, they can be forceful, they can step on a few toes along the way. And in my quiz, if you go to my website, it's represented by the Wolf. They are drivers. They go after what they want, but it's always like for the betterment of the pack. The healthy ones anyways, right? The healthy ones. All right. So the dominance folks are very self assured and confident, and they are problem solvers and decision makers, oftentimes. Okay, the next one we're moving over to, the top right is the I. The I stands for influencer or influence. And this personality type also is a driver for results. They're very action oriented. They like to move fast and quickly, but they're much more people focused. They're friendly and warm people. They also have a lot of enthusiasm. And these are your very creative types. They think in random thoughts sometimes. It doesn't always feel linear, can sometimes be chaotic when you're with those folks. But they love collaboration. They like working on a team and they like really making sure that socially everyone's having a good time while we're working together.

Debra Jones: And what kind of animal is associated with that one?

Maureen Ross Gemme: Would you want to take a guess?

Debra Jones: I don't know.

Maureen Ross Gemme: So, some animal that's like kind of chatty and friendly and very family oriented. I thought of the dolphin. So the dolphin is represented by the I style.

Debra Jones: Cool.

Maureen Ross Gemme: All right. And so then we're going to go down to the still on the right, underneath the eye, in the lower right hand quadrant is the S, and the S stands for Steadiness. And I think you'll recognize this one, Debra, because the S is also a people person, but they are more calm, they want more stability. They don't like the chaos. Right. But they do like collaboration. And they are friendly, very resourceful people. They also are very loyal and very receptive to hearing other people's ideas. Often people say, oh, they're great listeners, right? And they like people, but where sometimes they can over accommodate, sometimes they get overworked because they don't know how to say no. They want to please all the people all the time, and that gets them into trouble sometimes. Okay? And so the S is represented by the St. Bernard because they're loyal, they come to the rescue. But of course, in my world, they don't have brandy in their flask. They have green tea. Okay, so some other healing drink. I don't know, but yeah. So the St. Bernard is represented there, and I sometimes think of them as the type that at work. Imagine the duck on the pond. They look like they're calm and cool and just gliding across the surface and underneath their paddling like crazy. That's a good representation because they do seem to have everything together all the time, but that's because they're trying to put that front up. When they're overworked, they have a hard time asking for help sometimes. Okay. And then we get over to the last one, which is in the lower left hand quadrant is the C. C stands for conscientiousness, and the conscientiousness type is very objective. They're experts in their field. They often are super quality, focused and accuracy and precision. Those are words that come to mind when you think of, like, an engineer or a professor who does a lot of research and make sure all the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted. They're detail oriented people, great with spreadsheets. These, again, are generalizations, but it explains the sort of type of people analytical in nature, and they're very precision oriented. However, sometimes they may come across as very unemotional, cold and aloof. Okay. Sometimes they come across as unapproachable because they would rather work in their cubicle than really be with people. They're not so much they don't want the warm, fuzzy icebreaker at the beginning of class. Right. They're like rolling their eyes. Give me a break. They don't roll their eyes, though. The I's would roll their eyes. The Cs would just have a blank expression. It's harder because I'm an I. It's harder for me to read the Cs because they don't show a lot of emotion. But in my classes a lot of times, they are so attentive. They listen deeply. They want to know as much as they can, and they're processing behind the scenes like crazy. Okay. But they like things stable, like the S.

Debra Jones: And so what's the animal associated with that?

Maureen Ross Gemme: Oh, yeah. So I chose the beaver leader because they're really good with systems and processes and putting the whole thing together with exact precision and measurements for the good of the whole family.

Debra Jones: So listening to all of these, I can check off all of them?

Maureen Ross Gemme: Yes, you can, but your natural style may be more my guess is okay. So I'm going to give you some examples. I also have all of them. And as I've matured, I'm an I, a very strong I. So, the dot, when you take the psychological assessment, your dot will fall somewhere on the map. It could be closer to the center, it could be midway, or it could be on the outer edge. I'm on the outer edge. So if somebody was sort of immature in their style, that might mean that they were always chaotic and talking all the time and never listening and just out there. You see what I mean? I'm not like that. I can be very reflective and listen. I also can be very quality conscious. This is the opposite of me as the C. In fact, I had to be for my job. I learned how to be very organized. I learned how to be a very planned person. I couldn't just always act in the moment because that wouldn't have served me, it wouldn't have helped me to grow. So it's that idea that you have to be all of those things. And the S, they would rather work calmly. Give me a nice project, give me a deadline that's manageable. But when they need to, when it's deadline time, they are going to get up and maybe demand, I really need to have this by 04:00 today, but it's not in their nature to do that. It's a little bit uncomfortable. That will get them outside of their comfort zone. Same thing with the D, they're easy. Oh, I don't have any problem. I'm going to butt heads with anybody who wants to have a conversation with me in an argument. I don't have any problem with that. And they'll talk a mile a minute. But then when it's time for them to be receptive and shut up and listen to your people, that's when they have to get out of their comfort zone a little. Doesn't mean they can't do it or won't do it. It just means that it doesn't come as natural and it takes more energy. Okay, so what one is the least energy that you have, so it takes the least amount of energy. What do you feel falls in? And a lot of people might be right on the line. You might be an SC or an SI right on the line in between two styles. It often happens. A lot of people are. So where do you think you fall in the matrix there, Debra?

Debra Jones: Well, I took your test, your free quiz that I'm going to put a link to for our listeners as well. And it said I'm a St. Bernard leader and I read what that was about and yeah, I could check those things off, but listening to all of your explanations and I see now there's different intensities of these skills. And I think I see myself being a beaver as well because I am very detail oriented. So I guess with your offering, so you find out what your predominant leadership style is. But I imagine that the conversation with you afterwards would then indicate where you are on the scale and then what you would need to evolve into a more rounded person. Am I on track here?

Maureen Ross Gemme: Absolutely. So there's two things. One is that that quiz that you take on my site is just seven questions, or maybe nine, I can't remember, but it's very brief. And if you answer one or two different ways, you'll get a different answer. But I think based on what I know about you now, you're probably on the line. You probably have a predominantly you are an S with a secondary of a C-I think you're an SC. And so in that you would find out, though, precisely where your dot falls when you take the 20 minutes psychological assessment online. There's a small fee to that, but still, you get a 20 page report that tells you what are your Motivators, the things that motivate you the most, where are your strengths, where are your challenges? And specifically, you can figure out what other people are too. So if you have a significant other or an ex or a mother or somebody or a boss or a client that you want to type, I would ask you two questions. Okay? So if you're listening, go ahead and write these questions down because they tell you so much about a person. So I would ask you, are you more fast paced and outgoing or cautious and reflective? What would your answer be Debra? So just thinking, just by pausing, tells me cautious about you. That's so funny. I see myself in both. But, yeah, it's cautious. Of course, when you're in your expertise, you can talk a blue streak. But when you are asked a question and you pause and you have to think about it, and that's not a label. Cautious and reflective, that means you're more introvert style.

Debra Jones: Right.

Maureen Ross Gemme: You have to think before you speak. Now, outgoing and extroverted people, they have to speak in order to think. The very big difference.

Debra Jones: Wow.

Maureen Ross Gemme: Until you evolve, until you've awoken, until you really know who you are. But yes, a lot of times I have to say, let me think about that, and I'll just start talking about it. And I was like, yeah, this is what I think. And then I'll tell you. But yet, no, fast paced and outgoing people are more they're moving along much more quickly. When you walk into a networking event, the fast paced outgoing people will walk right up to a circle of people or one person and just start talking to them and, hey, how's it going? And they just fit right in. They get into the groove. What does the introverted person do? They walk in, they sort of step to the side. They observe who's in here that I even give a **** about to have any kind of conversation with and who's not talking to anybody and let me go talk to that person if I have to talk to somebody. But until then, I'm going to stand by the drink table or get a plate and a muffin because I don't want to be here. All right? So that was just a funny way to sort of explain, right? Yeah. And the second question is then are you more questioning and skeptical when it comes to first meeting people or more warm and friendly when it comes to meeting. Do you trust people easy or are you more I'm going to be skeptical until they prove to me that they can be trusted.

Debra Jones: I see myself as the warm and friendly.

Maureen Ross Gemme: Yes. So that's the S. Okay. So, if you're listening and you answered fast paced and outgoing and questioning and skeptical, that means you're D. Or if you're trying to type somebody else in your life, your boss or somebody, right? And if you are fast paced and outgoing and warm and friendly, that means you're an I. If you are cautious and reflective but warm and friendly most of the time, again, more than 50% of the time, that means that S is probably your predominant type. And if you are cautious and reflective and questioning a skeptical, you're a C. Again, this is just a tool, though, right, Debra? When we learn where our dot falls and we learn about who we are in that moment, in that day, you might evolve over the next five years, and your dot might move a little bit. But really what you're doing is you're just expanding. You're getting more comfortable with uncertainty or getting out of your comfort zone more often. And this is when you can really grow your emotional intelligence, right? Because you, Debra, being an S as your predominant and probably a C as your secondary are probably more composed most of the time. It's easy for you to be composed. I would also guess that it's easy for you to be receptive to what other people have to say, right? Because you're open, because you like people and you want to hear their ideas, and you sort of like collaboration. All right? But if you wanted to expand and grow out of that quote, comfort zone, then you would need to be probably more self assured and more dynamic. Those might not come as easily for you because those are the Ds, the high Ds, and the DIs that are more in that category. That means if you are an F, you may get feedback that says you need to speak up more at meetings, you need to contribute your expertise more often. And so, for anybody that even just knows that they're either on the top of the scale or the bottom, I would say if you talk too much, it's time to zip it and learn to listen like me. But if you listen, quote too much, nothing is too much. But it's time for you to speak up and let your voice be heard even more. And that takes courage, right? It takes strength, and you have to walk through that fear, because what are your two fears? I might not be good enough. I might not be liked, or I might not be appreciated for giving my opinion in this situation.

Debra Jones: Wow.

Maureen Ross Gemme: So we hold ourselves back.

Debra Jones: You have made this so easy to understand, and it's also a very gentle teacher and a gentle reminder of how to blossom as a person, because we would all feel better about ourselves if we're living authentically and the way, like achieving or being or whatever is our value, what we really value in life and being that person or living that life. I find as a healer, when I'm talking to my clients, when my clients are talking to me, there's always a focus, it seems, on not being good enough or things aren't going the way they want it to be. And we have the power to change. That, I think, is the message that I'm trying to say. And your tools are very easy to understand, easy to implement, some basic strategies. I'm sure there's a lot in the coaching process that we could learn a lot more than we have done in just a short podcast here. But if we understand who we are. And that's what you're saying. If we see what our tendencies are to round things out and push into our uncomfort zone in a way and at a pace that is okay for us. We will feel more satisfied. I would think.

Maureen Ross Gemme: Yeah, and satisfied, that's an okay word. The thing that keeps coming to my mind is fulfilled.

Debra Jones: That's a nicer word for what I'm trying to say. Yeah, right.

Maureen Ross Gemme: And all my life I have tried to chase happiness. But the thing about constantly chasing something outside of myself, you'll never be fulfilled. It's going within and being at peace with who you are, with what you feel and how you feel it, and also with understanding your values and aligning your heart and your head to help your head be okay with following your heart. Does that make sense? Right? That's why we're listening to podcasts. That's why we're trying to grow. We want to listen to our heart. And our head often tells us that we're not good enough or we're too afraid to do that. I do have another course, also called inner leadership, and how to manage that critical inner voice in your head. Because it cannot be your friend. You have to make it your friend. But you're either your own best friend or your own worst enemy, right? But that's the thing. It all starts up here. If you can get that head and heart in alignment, you can create a really awesome life for yourself.

Debra Jones: Thanks for listening. And did you know that positive reviews from listeners like you help me get these messages out into the world? Leave a rating for OWN THE GREY on your podcast app, or at ownthegrey.ca.