AdviceTech Podcast #34 – MUA – Transcript

Peita Diamantidis
Hello, and welcome to the Ensombl advice tech Podcast. I’m Peita Diamantidis and the guest joining me here today to deep dive into MUA. Well, his earliest training was infecting banking Would you believe but has worked previously as a creative director at alkaline which is a funky German sustainable outdoor clothing brand. He’s created the concept of identity built branding, would you believe, and I love it based on a belief sign in the background of his screen that I’m looking at now as a fellow Ted Laso fan. So that just makes him awesome. As a given. And in the last couple of years has joined the ranks of SaaS solutions creators, which is why is he with us today? Thank you so much for joining me on the show, Julius Geis.

Julius Geis
Thanks for having me. What a nice intro. Thank you.

Peita Diamantidis
Not at all. You’re very welcome. All right, so we’ll in a second, we’ll dive into all things MUA, there’s so much to cover up, I feel like I need to give a public sort of service announcement to the listeners here. When this is an app is quite different to what we would normally cover. I’m excited about it. I think it’s really fascinating. But be ready to be taken on a journey. That’s just a little different to advice tech going forward. But before we do that, let’s just get to know you a bit better. Julius, what is your most used emoji? Do you even use emojis?

Julius Geis
So I’m not really I have to say it’s a bit of a contradiction, right? Because our app is pride itself that we use symbolism to catch emotions. So in my personal life, I hardly use emojis. Maybe a heart symbol to my wife. Okay. You know, we’re living in Hawaii, we use the Shaka sign.

Peita Diamantidis
Yes, yes.

Julius Geis
You know, yeah, I to be honest, I don’t I don’t use real in what she said,

Peita Diamantidis
No, perfect. Well, let’s cover the smartphone too. So most of us probably need those surgically attached to us. We just can’t let them up, can we, which is a bit dangerous. But if you had to delete all of the, you know, extra apps off your phone off your smartphone and just kept three, what would you keep? I think

Julius Geis
I could really keep it as I only could keep one, that one would be enough. And that’s LinkedIn. I do like yes, on LinkedIn. That’s the only social network I you know, I’m being active on and been there for over four, I don’t even know 2006 or something. So for a very long time, and all the other ones I wouldn’t need. So I am not a gamer. I don’t. I’m not really into photography. So again, there’s this from my personal site, and yet what you would see maybe and think there’s, there’s, you know, this this this interesting relationship after technology, so LinkedIn would be my answer. Okay,

Peita Diamantidis
I love it. So using a phone heaven forfend as a phone, set the matrix.

Julius Geis
Yeah, and maybe a quick quick side story for many times already. I, I buy like frequently this very old phones who can only do text messaging, calling to detox myself from from smartphone and so. So I don’t know. Yes, I have that. It’s a very interesting relationship I have for technology.

Peita Diamantidis
No, look, I completely understand it some? Well, as somebody that grew up with App such things, I completely understand it. And really, because the only time that I think, oh, you know, really, the world is better now is when you know, we all go out somewhere and you’re meeting friends and you realize that without a phone that you can call them to try and coordinate it, it was much harder, like trying to get it when he mates together in one place was quite a process before we all had phones in our hips. But aside from that, I’m completely with you. It’s not it’s not something we need, you know, it’s it’s just something that can add, but sometimes also subtract. So

Julius Geis
on my German side and me, you know, if you tell me you have to be there, 2pm I am. Yeah. I don’t need a phone.

Peita Diamantidis
We just organized. Oh, I love it. I love it. So let’s dive into Mun. Now. Like I said before, this isn’t an advice tech tool as much as it is a tech tool. Talk me talk to me about let’s go really high level just to get everybody sort of positioned about what it you know, where it fits, what category broadly of technology, does it fit under? You know, if somebody had to label the app, what would they put it under? And what sort of tools are you normally sort of lined up against, you know, as comparisons?

Julius Geis
Yeah, so we are anywhere between employee engagement and corporate wellness. Okay, so I think we’re in between to use an Australian company culture M. And maybe headspace for business.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, okay. Okay, well, and headspace. I’m trying to remember whether I’ve mentioned it previously on the podcast. But headspace the gentleman that does the voiceover for headspace can lull me into the most relaxed state ever. I think that voice should be everywhere. If I could have that as as my alarm in the morning I tell you, it’s fantastic. Okay, so that helps us get a bit of a position and we should start with what you If you can tell us what M UI stands for what’s what’s literally the letter stands for?

Julius Geis
It stands for me as all I can it describes the relationship with that relationship and the interconnectedness we have within organizations. And our belief is that all change in organization starts with a me. And so with the self, yep, with the employee, and then there’s a ripple effect within the organization.

Peita Diamantidis
Absolutely. And I, I’ve seen that happen a lot, you know, where in financial services and, therefore engage a lot with large corporates, you know, the big, yeah, whether it’s banks or insurance companies and things like that. And there’s a lot of talk in those businesses about innovation, you know, it’ll be the wall, we’ve got to innovate, but very little time or energy spent on the individual and their imagination and ideas. That didn’t mean like, it’s just, they’re just told that something that they should do not something that you nurture within the individual first, before you expect them as a business to do that. So all within

Julius Geis
a culture in general, I would say that most businesses do not have a culture that nurtures innovation. Yeah. And yes, the individual prosperity is definitely your part of it. But a lot, I guess a lot of companies still come like act from a place of control. Yes, trolling people pack keeping control, like being having everything measured. But if we kind of like tap into that, what we’re going to do throughout the podcast, tap into that emotional context of us humans, there’s just, you know, there’s just a part where we have to let go of control and just, you know, trust the the natural development.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, and I think like you say, how can we, I mean, innovation really, at its, at its core is about imagination. I mean, that’s you can’t innovate unless you can, you can come up with things outside of what your experience is, you know, you’ve got to be able to put yourself outside of that to come up with ideas. And I don’t think you can use your imagination when there is control. I mean, there’s literally to me almost the posing opposing sides of the same thing. You know, it’s it’s, it’s really letting go, is what lets you think outside the box, so I’m with you that level of restriction, and control stifles, that sort of thing. And if ever there was a time when both resilience and imagination are going to be required, it’s it’s all the fast paced change and action and demand and intensity that’s coming for people. So I’d love to know what what took you on this journey? I mean, given your background, I wouldn’t have said from a really sort of academics engineer just looking at it superficially that this would be where your head so what triggered this? What was what was how did that come about?

Julius Geis
Yeah, I think it was a combination of two things like my personal development. So yeah, looking through my my vija, I started my Korean advertisement was successful there as an early age, my mid 20s. I was in charge of, for example, consumer brands, like all consumer brands of Microsoft, their creative campaigns, did automotive beer companies, like a lot of bigger, bigger companies, and then bigger budget. So in a career perspective, personally, you would say, this guy has figured it out. Yet, however, need to every time at this point in life, when you would ask me, you know, how did you feel? Or what what brings you joy? I couldn’t really answer this question. And I think it was when I was 26 or so that I felt something that you would call burnout today, that I was just really out of energy didn’t, I just was not happy and kind of like this training, feeling. It’s something I didn’t know those who have described it, maybe know what I’m saying it’s very undefined. You’ve been this vague vacuum position. It’s kind of like barrier, it’s a really weird place. Yeah, so that was the that is one side, because that led to traveling the world meeting really exciting people did not Chopra, Hawaiian artists, different cultures, that kind of like helped me understand there’s more to life than the concept that I knew from growing up. And so let’s call it a spiritual awakening, maybe. And then in the other hand, I was, you know, like, throughout my career, always interested in the concept of identity, which led you know, like later on to the to the, to the methodology of identity build branding, which basically was the approach that instead of building brands from the outside in, which usually a company who builds a brand has an idea of a target group. So we always focus on the outside, there’s a consumer, there’s a target group, there is a market. And so based on these concepts, we’re developing a brand to fit those needs or those demands. My There was Boothby, kind of like, from observation that there’s so many times are these disconnects. So how about we build something from the inside out. So something that comes from the intrinsic identity of a company. So the product on a brand is more like a natural evolution of that identity, then then kind of like outside creation, or, or you know, that that sacredness that sometimes are embedded in brands. Yeah, so that job led me to more and more work with change and organizational change, because branding and changing when you don’t do it outside into when you do it inside out, it goes hand in hand with changing organization. And while I was working on these change projects, I realized how hard it is for people to change. Yeah, and one of the biggest factor is the disconnect we have with our own emotions, and the ability to understand these habits that kind of like run in autopilot, that kind of like on a very, we’re not aware of those, that’s why we call them we run on autopilot, that hold us back from changing towards that new idea or new Yeah, that new idea that we want to move forward to, right. So that that was the moment when I kind of like, connected both sides of me into this concept of Moab. So I use something a mindfulness exercise, which I use on a personal level, and kind of like embedded into into this business exercise, which mainly said, do leadership, please write down your daily activities, and then rate them with an emotion. And by doing so, over time, you become aware of your emotions, you can recognize them, you understand them, and you can manage them. And interesting too, in a concept of change, you will have become more aware of your daily decisions, the habits that benefit the change, and that these habits that hold you back from change. That’s kinda like was the starting point of moolah.

Peita Diamantidis
And it’s it’s so interesting. And there’s so many things that touched on I mean, journaling is something that if if anybody’s ever touched on wellness at all, like any, you only need to have watched a TED talk or like, there’s not much you need to have dived into this as a topic and journaling comes up, you know, for three people from lots of different backgrounds. And it’s so, so interesting to me to apply that to work, because it’s it’s literally everywhere else applied to anywhere. But you know, like, it’s, it’s everything else, no, do it about the start of your day, the end of your day, the the weekend, it’s often not focused on work, which is so interesting given, for many of us, what we’re doing at work is the largest portion of our time. So, you know, there is there is some, some almost obviousness about that, but it’s like, well, of course, this is what we should be doing. And I agree, there’s and I’ve caught myself in this is there’s almost a zombie state we can get ourselves into when we’re working, you know, it’s the shuffling along, just keep on keep on going, you know, and, and it’s only once you become aware of what you’re doing and reflecting on it. And it. I guess for people that haven’t done that in any part of their lives, it sounds like it’s something that’s going to take a lot of time Do you know what, like, am I going to sit on my own and cogitate? You know, gazing into my navel for a day? It’s not that it’s it can be something that’s that’s relatively quick to do. But it’s about a new habit, isn’t it? So this isn’t even changing them to begin with. It’s just adding a new one, which is this awareness and reflection so that then you can start to see what you’re doing.

Julius Geis
And I want to add that I think what we made different, so we do have a journal in our app as well. So there’s a there’s a journal app in the app. But I think we’ve really simplified the concept of journaling. So it’s, it’s when I say writing down your daily activities, I mean, that literally like yeah, this conversation is written down, from breakfast to morning coffee, talking with colleagues, going into the lunch break, writing a proposal meeting with a client, all of these activities are, you know, have to be read, like we asked you to write them down into our application, you of course can integrate them with your calendar, so you don’t have to do double entries and stuff like that. But we are for retrospective, and it is for reflection. And there’s a lot of beauty in there. And it doesn’t take a lot of time. So in our app, like our average user takes between five to 10 minutes a day Max, like efficient. Yeah, it really doesn’t take a lot of time. Yeah. And it doesn’t that what I really like on our product on moolah is that it doesn’t take that journaling can be tricky. So I do turn and all that it’s it’s it’s sophisticated in a way it’s kind of like meditation right so when you when people sit meditate and you sit there and then it’s it can be it’s a Kalika, an overstimulation that there’s the silence can be really traumatic. Yep. So I think the way we designed this makes it really easy for you to get access to that like to tap into that space of retrospective and reflection, in a very gamey cheat, like in a very kind of like, fun way. And then you can add journaling, in addition, so our team helps people to journal when we want companies to journal exercises, we have template systems we provide so we really make it easy. And we also customize questions for specific needs. So

Peita Diamantidis
nice. Okay, so and, and I should have asked, asked, actually how to say, say the app in a more, which sounds much better, better than me, why’d you do musc? Sounds like a university. Yeah, saying, Father is there’s so there’s so much better. So I caught that. Alright, so let’s talk about the users. So clearly, the obvious one is the employees themselves. So this is, you know, the staff. And I’m assuming that it can be small, medium sized businesses, as well as large corporates that that really it’s just, you know, somebody working within a team. So

Julius Geis
yes, um, it includes, I want to say it includes leadership. Yep. Because sometimes when we say employee, you know, people kind of say it’s okay, it’s the the token base. Yeah, work base, yeah, has nothing to do with management or hire management, no. So it, of course, includes leadership leadership benefits, greatly from emotional intelligence, which we ultimately develop with MUA. So we encourage all all people working in an organization to go through through our software and exercises.

Peita Diamantidis
And look, I think, I’d even go so far as to say that, that it could be a must for leadership, because I think when you think about big corporates, particularly, then, as you start going up those layers, then you go from somebody who’s performing tasks and to dues and therefore the accompanying accomplishment, or, or the geography things done today can be quite high, like you can get some some good feedback on that. The higher you go, the less it’s about to dues and the more it seems like it’s endless meetings, right. And it’s just always, and I think this type of thing could highlight how you feel about that, how you can then adjust what you did, like, I think that could be super valuable at a LEED leadership level.

Julius Geis
Yeah, absolutely. And for sea level, so there’s, I mean, the the base level of Muah, we call self awareness. So it’s the context of emotional intelligence. So I teach you, the base level I’ll teach you is self awareness. So without self awareness, you can build anything that is emotional, or intelligence, and to build great self awareness. There’s this this perspective, the relationship, the awareness we have with ourselves, but also the others. So the the level of self awareness is defined on how good like Houchin like, how transparent you understand yourself, your own emotions, but also the emotions from others, it’s this level of empathy, so many times in C level, so the higher we go, they’re missing that feedback component, because you don’t have necessarily like the same structure like you would have in a team structure, or in mid mid management, you know, where you have 360s and all these type of things. So the higher you go, it’s actually a really important for those for, you know, for the C level management’s to go through exercises like this to kind of like keep in touch with them.

Peita Diamantidis
And similarly, I guess that applies here for somebody so like myself and you know, owner of the business, then it’s a similar, it’s, it can be a lonely place, you know, so like you say, it’s not, you’re not actually getting that much feedback or interaction in that sense. So yes, yes, it’s a real value in

Julius Geis
itself. I feel like me now has been self employed myself for so many years. We’re just in that, and we’re just accepting so many things, and we’re not differentiating an emotion, right? We’re just feeling a certain state, my favorite emotion is being overwhelmed. Yeah. I mean, that in the 9% of the time, we hear that, yeah. And then you ask, Well, what makes you overwhelmed? How does this overwhelm feel in which situation does that appear? Like is that can you separate it, like I said, in a specific time of the day, so if we try trying to take that apart, there’s so many layers to it. And then you actually understand, oh, wait a second, I’m not generally overwhelmed. It’s actually that situation at that point of time with this type of people or this type of work that can create that type of reaction, emotional reaction inside me. So maybe I should focus, you know, changing that versus just being depressive and feeling overwhelmed, which overshadows my My entire day and performance and well being

Peita Diamantidis
and doesn’t shift, because nothing doesn’t fixes that

Julius Geis
fact. And also because to sit down and say, well, it’s all this bad, I’m overwhelmed because you have already accepted. That is the reality of things that yeah, that’s my state.

Peita Diamantidis
This is my reality. This is just what Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, I guess, you know, an embodiment of that is when you go to events and how, how are you going? Good, busy? Like that’s another? State. What are you busy? Like? Yeah, probably more than I’ve ever understood

Julius Geis
that to be honest, I never there was something too. I never understood why people always say they’re busy. And they say it in a way that it makes them feel good. Like, the way they would say it with what what it sounded like that’s, that’s something positive. Like they had to know like, it’s I’m successful, this this association with, you’d be busy to be successful, you have a lot to do. And I mean, more and more, you see a shift in leadership. So and, you know, company owners who said, you know, actually, I’m happy, I have nothing in my calendar. Today, I’ll be protecting these things more or right, actually, I’m not busy that allows me finally to think about something. I mean, earlier, we talked about innovation. So we need space, to clear, clear your mind and to think freely. And you can’t do that if you’re constantly busy.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. All right. So let’s talk about then that first level, which is the and talk about you, even though we’re not using emojis, these icons that you’re using as a way for somebody to identify, like, start to identify how they feel about things. Talk us through how that works for someone, employee.

Julius Geis
So the so the app asks people to write down their activities like it disrupted earlier from your morning coffee to meetings, etc. And then it comes with an associated question, how did that activity make me feel? Okay, and so instead of now answering these questions in a verbal like in articulating it through conversation, or in writing it down, we decided we use symbols, because most people cannot articulate their true emotion on a specific task, or a specific kind of like sensation they feel in their body, because usually the emotion is somewhere in your body. Yep, you somehow don’t really know what it is. And many times you just in this in this example, that you said earlier, you just said I’m good. So we shortcutting it. So we avoid the we avoid the real emotion or we avoid, you know, to face it. And then we we kind of like do what what we do, and we just say we’ve got. So we use symbols and stat, we have a heart symbol that stands for any everything that is energizing, to simplify. So it’s not just something everything that gives you good energy. With the law stands for love, of course, something you’d like but let’s say this simplifies, it gives you good energy, then we have a flame and it’s not lit up, it’s not a positive emoji we did is sometimes you so this comes from burn out. So that’s why we use a flame. And these are energy, these are emotions that train you use something that makes you feel a little huge, kind of like you know, you you’re losing energy, you don’t be excited anything like that. Sometimes you’d be fear and other things as well. So we use that symbol for that. And then we have a line, it’s our neutral sign. You can use that when you don’t really know what it is. That’s totally normal. So sometimes we just don’t know whether it’s energizing, or it’s draining. It’s just something it’s there. Yeah, but I can’t really categorize it yet. Yeah. Okay. That’s how it works. So we use symbols. The reason why is it gives more people access to their emotions, because it simplifies them. And to a picture like a symbol in association with an emotion is easier to access for somebody, you can see that for example, I like to say, in real retail back in the days we had we used to just service and then we did surveys with Smiley’s right. So the interaction with the surveys where you touch a smiley, how was this experience? Yeah, is much higher than it is with the you know, verbal feedback or something, of course. And it’s not just because it’s time, there’s this urge when there’s a symbol that people want to interact with it because it’s this clear distinction. Yeah. So that’s pretty unique to us. So we develop our own three symbols. And that’s kind of like what you can see throughout the app. So you see these symbols, not just in this activity, which we call you also can raise your day overall with one of these three symbols and then you can categorize and compare your analytics based on these three symbols.

Peita Diamantidis
Okay, and so that then is the layer of The analytics is, is what that means, say over time, I’m betting but also is it help trying to help identify activities that are particularly draining versus energized? Is that like some themes is that what you’re looking for isn’t things that appeal.

Julius Geis
So you have the the emotion itself. And then we have another layer, it’s called tags, which are completely customizable. And so tags could be something like accounting, a personal can be in a project ID a client name. So for those who work with clients are always encouraged to use a client name, yep, as a tag, because we do have these clients who really energize our team. And we do have these clients who actually take a lot of energy away. So as a leader in leadership, we want to know, you know, which, which clients are what and what are the reasons why those are draining, and those who are giving energy. So there’s a lot to, to uncover then behind so. But that’s what you can see in the analytics engine can compare these tags with each others. For bigger plans for bigger teams, we say 20. Plus, we have also the abilities to compare teams with each others based on their emotions. But what we never do, that’s very important as you can never see the identity of the user and employee in this analytics. So all the input you do is always anonymous, it’s impossible for leadership or account holder to see Oh, PETA is doing XY set. So it’s only on the top level of a team. And even though in teams, we have certain restrictions, so we pretty much eliminated the possibilities to spy on people or can use our tool for decision making to hiring or firing. That’s not the intention of the tool.

Peita Diamantidis
So that covers, you know, one of the questions I always cover is, you know, what business or practice in our instance for financial advisors, would this work work well for and who wouldn’t it work well for clearly, if they are obsessed with monitoring, and I want to know every detail, then this isn’t for them, because it’s not giving them that this is not designed to give leadership or the business owner detailed insight into every task team team member does in a day. That’s not the point. And that’s not what’s going to be provided.

Julius Geis
No, yeah, it only gives

Peita Diamantidis
unnecessary, like, it’s not something that I think good but some people in this new environment with people working from home. And I mean, our practice is fully virtual get obsessed with I want to know what’s happening every minute of every day.

Julius Geis
Yeah, I mean, I would love to have these conversations because I think it’s it’s it’s there are a lot of reasons why I wouldn’t advise doing that. I’m a it’s not it’s there’s no proof that it actually works. Like it already, there’s all proof that it prints the opposite, like controlling your people monitoring the people on a task level base. There’s something like, you know, you need a circle of trust and psychological safety to be safe to perform in your best sell. And we have all these beautiful statistics how much billions of dollars in this example, the United States companies are losing because of people are not fully pressing, or having sick days, etc. So my belief is always I hire people, so I get their full potential, right? So I need to nurture this potential in controlling and micromanagement never nurtures nine the potential of people. And that’s not my personal opinion. There’s like a million in one studies around that. Yeah, so we don’t do that you can bet. And so to kind of like, emphasize that you can, of course, see a lot of great things. So you can see, for example, we call it it’s like a pulse health pulse of your organization, you can see, am I is it a temporary peak, whether negative or positive? Or is it a trend, and if you see trends, then you can counteract, you can offer preventative measurements, we also have a process where there’s frequent coachee input input from from experts who go over the data with the account owner. And if we identify, you know, specifics, then we would recommend specific coaching, which is nothing that new address but our network partners are offering or the company already works with organization and developers, other coaches, then we would give data input for them so they can trade programs that help you know, help, whatever needs to be helped.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, fantastic. And I think it’s an it’s such an interesting conversation in this whole virtual hybrid in office like this new world where he and even small what surprised me is even small businesses that therefore can be nimble, like we can react to those things a lot faster than I mean big businesses who have 10 year leases like this is not a small thing that they need to consider, right whereas generally our ability to react Is, is a lot quicker, and we can sort of make different choices, even in that environment, the old constructs we hold on to and the stories we tell ourselves to justify those, you know, it’s a, well, you know, if they’re in the office, I’ve got more confidence about what they’re doing. And I remember having that conversation with principal ever practice, and I see well, but they could just be playing Minecraft on their computer at in the office. Like, I mean, it’s this. So you know, the trust is needs to be there no matter what, like, it doesn’t matter where they are. And it doesn’t matter, even if they’re on the other side of the world, you know, it’s, you’re right, these things are not monitoring and micromanaging in either place is damaging, and it doesn’t get you the outcome you’re looking for.

Julius Geis
At the other level, maybe on that is, since you just created that picture of you know, a person needs to sit on the desk, and then our understanding of productivity is they’re doing like there’s some sort of movement, tapping the keyboard, clicking mouse being loud on the telephone, I’m concerned, what happens up here in their mind, yeah, whether or not they’re engaged in the in their job, whether they’re like proactive problem solving, you know, doing what I hired them for, was just hacking on their keyboard and basically do nothing, right. So I think we’d really have to shift our understanding of what defines productivity. And to of course, with the increase of artificial intelligence, what actually is the different like, what is our role as humans? Like? What are we contributing uniquely, maybe even now, in future the question, What can we contribute uniquely and better as, as machines? Yes, that goes back to our mind, the emotional context of us humans, so, but honestly, we’re really weak in that what defines us as humans and right could contribute uniquely. So I’m really passionate about helping people you know, to train and to re identify our emotional context and to be in touch with ourselves. And interestingly, how do we start, you know, being much more all these qualities that we’re that we want an employee to? Have? They all start in their minds?

Peita Diamantidis
Yes. And, and, you know, you mentioned EQ before, and I’m one of those people historically that, you know, I’m a geek, I study easily, you know, math is innate to me, and people focus a lot on IQ. And, and it’s always bothered me a little in part, because the way that say things like universities and these formal education, places measure intelligence, is by being able to repeat something back. And to me, that’s not a lot about smarts that’s about repetition. And, like, that’s a different thing entirely, right? Whereas problem solving, critical thinking, like are these things that have an impact on another human being right, where you can change their future with IT transformation, you know, that is a different type of intelligence into me leans far more into the EQ side, because I think by knowing ourselves better, we’re going to be more able to help others. You know, I think that’s what you’re saying that that empathy, almost empathy for ourselves in terms of understanding why understanding where it’s coming from, I think will then translate and for financial advisors, that’s probably the biggest impact we can have.

Julius Geis
Absolutely, I think absolutely. For everybody who deals with people and advises people day to day did not just like, like I said earlier, this this concept of self awareness, it goes beyond yourself, those to the like, to your surroundings, it’s the ability to understand how someone else is feeling and having like addressing this with empathy, not just by casual saying, oh, yeah, I hear you or something like this, or sometimes that even can be helpful. Yeah. But yeah, so I absolutely agree with you. For this type of works. I think EQ is highly important. I think IQ is comes from an old concept of industrial, Ryan Arkhipov, that we don’t have, like repetition at this time was was what was needed. Probably that’s why we were all trained that way. But I believe now, more and more different qualities are important to us as humans. And yeah, we really think we should nurture them.

Peita Diamantidis
Absolutely. And in fact, now that I mean, this is literally just a realization as we’ve been talking, but if we’re trying to distinguish between AI and I mean, you, as you said, you were on LinkedIn, I mean, you can’t open LinkedIn without there be something being something about AI, right. I mean, it’s just it’s all there. Then when I think about AI that more closely connects to IQ, right? Because it’s information, its analysis, its data, like it’s all of those things, whereas as humans The thing that differentiates us from that EQ, you’re not gonna mean that that to me, is it now I’m simplifying massively, but I think that actually helps me understand where I can develop myself, to them. Not counterbalanced, but to see AI delivering one element. Sure, but it can’t deliver the other, you know, and that’s where we can double down on that’s where we can develop ourselves, you know, really go forward.

Julius Geis
Also, if I, if I may add, I think that to say the question where they I then of course, becomes, so if we, on that rational level, and I want to recall IQs in some some sort rational? Yep. It will, it will out beat every human. Yep. It’s just what it is. Yep. So the question then is, and I think that’s where the fear comes from many people in how fast AI is developing itself and becomes that that super, super intelligence. So the the, our job, in my opinion in the future becomes to to kind of like build up parameters in what type of world do we want to live? That that world still is human? Yes. Is it a human experience needs to be possible for us to be identified as humans? Yeah. Because, and that’s kind of like, I believe the balance. And again, here, the the emotional intelligence, the context of emotion, is highly important is to to counterbalance and to design that future world.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, absolutely. And, and so that’s for us as individuals, then, like you say, we connect that through our teams, you know, and so in the business, and I’m betting that, you know, by improving emotional intelligence over time, and applying some focus and energy to that, then their resilience and their ability to adapt, you know, all those sort of things. There’s a, there’s a strength that gets behind those, and what you may not be aware of, so financial advisors and industry in Australia as well, it’s effectively been under siege for a couple of decades, it feels like like, it’s one industry, lots of legislative change, lots of you know, in depth look, by government, all sorts of things that have gone on. And so that ability to see the build up, or the well of resilience, I think, is going to be something we probably underrated historically, because it wasn’t something we ever focused on. But we’re going to still need that it’s just going to be a given, I think, for our industry that we this is just going to continue, we’re going to be under the microscope forever. So So I like the idea of of giving our teams some tools that will that will help them with that. And and of course, let them thrive. I mean, fantastic, you know, let’s, let’s give them something that really unleashes them.

Julius Geis
And communication. One of my, like, most favorite elements or qualities that we contribute to teams and organizations is the way they talk with each other, right? Because there’s no better conversation that you can have with someone who actually can articulate what do I need? How can you help me in a very specific form is the best foundation for a team to sell solve problems? Yeah, and to thrive and to you know, build camaraderie and all these beautiful qualities that we always look out for. But where should they come from? Because most team situations are as we said earlier, I’m overwhelmed. Like these these these over these add all this definition of this is how I feel nothing is possible. I don’t have time I can deal with this all these avoidance and rejections. Yeah, just we don’t have that clarity within ourselves. We can’t be specific. But that’s kind of like what I love on moolah, and when we talk and work with organizations together is when that stage fades out, and the new states come in, and people actually say you can help me and this is how you can help me. Yeah, and that’s, that’s beautiful, because then the self dynamic kicks in. And that’s what I love to see when we, you know, you don’t need a lot. This goes back to control, you don’t need a lot. Usually teams organized itself beautifully. Because we all want to do good things. And we all want to be happy and being productive. And our work is part of contributes, you know, largely to our state of happiness. So I don’t fear you know, when I don’t I don’t need to see somebody but we definitely need to nurture that culture so that people can, you know, can express and live who they truly are. And the rest is kind of like an it’s really an odd it’s an automatism. It just works magically by itself.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the I mean, that’s the best way to go about it isn’t it is when you like, like with what you’ve designed is these small things. Let’s just add a small thing we’re going to ask to, you know, add to what you’re doing. And then let’s get some insights from that. And then like so. So to make any change, I mean, when we’re trying to do behavioral change for money, like giving somebody a 40 point plan, with lots of difficult and traumatic things, it’s just not going to get there. So, you know,

Julius Geis
you could use the same exercise we have tested in the field of addiction, you could do that behavioral change. I mean, it’s that simple thing. It’s very, very simple, but it’s very impactful. And the fun thing, too, is it grows with you. Right? So the more aware you get the symbols, you know, many times we get the feedback, why don’t you add more symbols and so that I can color? Why don’t you do zero to 10, or something like this? And I always said, you know, there’s something like a baseline of awareness. So what is a heart for me today, in five years, and a year and a month, is feeling entirely different. So the way I chose or I relate with this emotion will change. So for me, it’s always accurate. I don’t need one to 10 and add all these complexity to it. Yeah, it’s still the same, and it does what I wanted to do. So I don’t need it. So let’s keep it simple.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. And you You survived in terms of it being a, you know, an icon or an image or a symbol, as opposed to a number. We mean, to me, you know, maths is a bit of a language for me, because that’s the way my brain works. But for many people, you know, when they look at those zero to 10s, sakar, for goodness sake, they’ll just pick 500. Just because it seems easy. And I’m not offending anybody. And it’s not other random. Like, it’s not, you know, my brains like, right, well, if I assign this many points to this, right, like, Okay, fine. But for most people, it’s not, you know,

Julius Geis
and to because many times, it’s your one to 10, you think of the of the observer, you don’t think of yourself, yes. And so I will I see with the emotion, like it’s a bit different. Exactly. But becomes different. It’s more intimate. And I don’t have it doesn’t represent a judgement, necessarily. Yeah, it’s just a selection of a hopefully beautiful looking icon.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. So then, I mean, one of the things is a topic we always cover is the extent to which an app impacts client engagement. Now, clearly, this isn’t going through to the end client. So it’s not something they’re, they’ll see as an app, but from what you were saying it, it could provide great insight in terms of the types of clients that add energy versus subtract. So there’ll be some great insights from a team’s perspective of, because it might not just be the individual, like it might not be the fact that it’s, it’s, you know, Mr. Grumpy, malicious, or whatever to deal with, you might actually see some trends about a type of service that’s just proving tough. Everybody has finds it super draining. And so it gives you that opportunity to take a look at it and go, Oh, okay, wait a minute. You know, here’s some here are some themes, like you say that are showing based on a certain client time as an example. Is that the case? Is that the sort of insights that you could glean over time?

Julius Geis
Yeah, I would say yes. So you we can we, I have not worked with financial advisors yet. So we have worked with with marketing agencies, and we have realized that there’s a huge difference between clients. And in many times, in addition to those who rather create stressors for teams, they’re also the ones who the margin, the profit margin is rather limited. So why

Peita Diamantidis
is the case, right? It’s

Julius Geis
but but then, you know, the, that brings me to an entirely other things. So the I believe to in your, in your economics, you should include something that I call energy available? Yeah. So the so many clients don’t just, you know, have have a, you know, kind of like, have a limited margin, they also take a lot of energy, which then takes away the energy from others who would convert it in a much more profitable way. So I think absolutely, yes, to answer your question, you could do that. I also want to say that it it, of course, enriches the relationship and the forms of relationships you have with your clients, because you communicate differently. I mean, people with that sense of awareness, and people who are not feeling stressed or people who breathe before they pick up the phone, or people that are have a calm in their cells, right, communicate differently. Yeah. And that communication creates trust. So and I would say in an industry like yours, that trust that calm, that has a positive effect on the relationship I have with my client and in all these different things and nuances that may be create conflict in the future suddenly, or did create conflicts in the past now are, you know, avoidable? Yeah. Because you don’t have that in you anymore. So I think in these in these service industries, advisors, there’s a lot that we that we mirror out and sometimes Yeah, we receive a lot that we can train to, to just not attach to these things to, you know, sometimes this can be offended. Sometimes there’s a lot of raw emotions specifically, when money is lost or, you know, whatever.

Peita Diamantidis
We’re all Yeah. Link so much to the share market. Yeah, that’s doing

Julius Geis
so and then and then you have the ability to breathe, but also address it with empathy and compassion. I mean, that’s more now from own experience with dealing with with other service providers many times to think, wow, you know, you could have just address it or say, I hear you, I feel you. Yes, I know, it’s a difficult time. But this is what we could do. Like, if you don’t keep the car, if you don’t have your emotion under control. How can you guide that person who is clearly currently Yes, in a difficult stage. So I believe our tool would help greatly to just improve your own ability of, of handling your own emotions.

Peita Diamantidis
Yep. Yep. Absolutely. I completely agree. So integration. So you mentioned that the tool can integrate with sort of the calendar, basically, the Calendar tool, so whether that’s Google or Microsoft, so that then you don’t need to enter that meeting in to your sort of two days activity that can be integrated, which is great. Okay. Any other integrations? Or is that the main thing? Because it’s mainly just about what happened in the day?

Julius Geis
Yeah. So we currently don’t have any standard integrations, we can do custom integration. So if a client has a specific, let’s say, a time tracking tool, that’s something we hear often. Yes, we do. And there’s an API, we are able, of course, to customize that. And, you know, many times it makes sense, we just don’t have it is a standard integration, ala carte for everyone.

Peita Diamantidis
Okay. And I should have asked, actually, so in terms of the user experience, is this something that sits in, say, Chrome, or is an actual app on the dislike, how does it work in terms of how they get to it? The team.

Julius Geis
So it’s a it’s a private club, we don’t have an app. The reason is mainly that, you know, since we address companies, that that was always our market, like b2b, we experienced that mobile apps can be rather tricky. In a rollout, there’s a lot of privacy concerns and data breach concerns with mobile phones. So we decided, we will be browser based first. We are planning to do you know, Chrome extensions and stuff like that. We work on on on specifics for the transportation industry, something entirely different, and there might be an app. So that’s something on our roadmap, and something I’m somehow super passionate about. So that kind of like the whole interaction can be much more on what we said with the retail spaces, tapping the emotion instead of really going to the individual in and outs. So but yeah, it’s all browser based.

Peita Diamantidis
Well, and given most of us are now operating in most of our tools, a browser base to then that’s where we’re living, you know, so you know, Samsung, and then, you know, working towards, like you say, a Chrome extension or things like that. I mean, that’s how, for example, we use something called guru or get guru, which is like our lovely guru how to love them. It’s our IP, it’s it like people talk about, you know, selling businesses. And I’m like, well, that, to me, is the thing, I’m going to tie up in a bow, you know, should we ever decide to sell in the future? Because it’s literally how we do things. So yeah, it’s an app in our browser, it’s just little thing there. And we all just know, to, to refer to it all the time. So I can see that as a natural extension of what you’re doing. Is there anything else that sort of down the track of, of, you know, on the development path? Or even wish list? Like, Oh, I’d love it to get to this point. Is there anything like that?

Julius Geis
Yeah, we have a lot of course, on the wish list. One of the things that I’m excited about is like, we will work to to to optimize our journal with more, what what if this, then that kind of idea. So basically, self help through specific templates, we’re also working on integrating AI actually, to kind of like help contribute and customize. Solutions questions. So for us, it’s all about asking the right questions to reflect on Yep. The other part is body mapping. I would like to include body mapping so you can then assign emotions to, to to your body. Like there’s a basically a body map, because it’s the body mind experience and getting an awareness of that as well. Yep. Something that I’m interested in that’s not fully discussed, but I’m interested in and then I think the bigger scale for us, and that was since the since the founding date of the company. We always had the passion tend to include persona type heatmapping, to be a we their site management systems, so TMS, Elton, Australian, one, for example. So basically at the end, I want if you look at our dashboard, you get an idea of what type of people work in your company, right. And that’s not specific and identity, it’s rather the way how they react and deal with their emotional capade capacities, you then build a culture, the team that is fully balanced with itself.

Peita Diamantidis
And that’s an interesting, you know, as a, as a female in a male dominated industry, that type of approach, like I could see if, if a large corporate so one of these financial institutions did that, what would start to there would be some of those themes that will be why, and I don’t mean that it’s necessarily gender based, but I think it would naturally be an extension of, we’re not getting enough viewpoints, we’re not we don’t have enough diversity we don’t, because I think that comes out in people’s behaviors, the way they interact, the sort of things they’re comfortable with all that sort of stuff, the more insight we can get broadly or that, then you can start to see the holes, you can go away, we’re missing this thing. You know, those were really weak on that side. So it’s a fascinating sort of areas of bigger picture. For corporates to go down.

Julius Geis
I think there’s a lot for corporations, I think our what we hear a lot at the beginning is always flow. But why like, like it, it just feels like too, too. It’s not technical enough, you know, or they do feels like, again, it goes back to this concept of control that what do I gain from it? And how do I do that? We always want that, that that, yeah, we always want that control. But I think all of those when you let go of that control, and actually empower your people, I mean, we like to say that, but if you actually do that, and you give back the authority to your teams, and self manage themselves, it’s possible. And suddenly, you have really a wonderful organization and a true culture that does all the things that you need them to do in a time that is constantly changing and asked so much further from this workforce right now. Yeah, I mean, that’s what I wonder all the time, we see that we see the world is literally transforming. And we know we have to change and adapt. And at the same time, we just cannot, yes, this there’s this thing and change and humans that is it’s just, it’s just hard. It is it’s

Peita Diamantidis
yeah, it’s almost like our our in our minds are like, like sheer bloody mindedness. You know, it’s that, no, this

Julius Geis
isn’t this just as conflict, this is conflict, that inner stands that we have, we just don’t want to change. But if you break that, and if you’re like, if you allow your your people to, to do the work, it will happen, you will see that your organization truly thrives. It is it’s able to, to go through these paths of change, because there are a lot of bumps on the road. And there’s a lot of transition innovation again, I love that you said it earlier. Where should it come from? When not from that source of, of empowerment, it definitely doesn’t come from control to your point. Yeah, so absolutely,

Peita Diamantidis
absolutely. And it’s interesting, when you were talking, you know, you’re just talking about, you know, the positive emotion and things that, that light us up versus drain us and it’s something that when I think about it is lots of us, I guess have just been trained that the same or the things that are repetitious that we know provide comfort, like there’s this thing in our heads where that’s how we translate them now, people like me, I’m sort of more of a bit of a squirrel approach No So curiosity and things like that light me up so I’m lucky in that sense. So change you know, all this, like, I’m one of those weirdos is like what, you know, the great unknown, whereas most people aren’t but I think that’s a conditioning I think part of that is the way we’re brought up and and the experiences we have so starting for even our teams to learn that curiosity can have a positive feeling, you know, and that can therefore be more impairment therefore more growth therefore, you know, like that, that’s where you know, innovation all these things are going to come from is when we associate positive feelings to those

Julius Geis
and but it starts there too with an experience right? I mean, the renews when you when you talk about yourself, I’m pretty sure you had a wonderful experiences or outcomes, you know, that came through your path of curiosity. Yeah. So but most people haven’t had these experiences. So they’re kind of like locked in their box. Yeah. And again, it’s the it’s our as leadership or as company is, it’s our job again, you hire these people to receive their full potential. Yeah, then then do something for it, so that they can come in their potential so they can really cook attribute to your company’s need and success. Yeah. And that’s kind of like what sometimes bothers me on that bod. Is that the right way? What I just don’t really understand why would you hire somebody, when you then are not interested in really getting to their full potential?

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Yeah. to only get a small part of who they are and what they can do, because you’re limiting their part, by your reactions. Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything else we’ve missed? Like, is there any sections of the app that you’ve we’ve missed in terms of for people who are going to check it out and, and take a look at it for their teams, we covered everything, I’m just saying, I have

Julius Geis
maybe one, I think it’s a really want to emphasize it’s very simple to use. It’s we have a full onboarding service, it’s all for free, we have a great, I will record customer success team. There also to give individual guidance, I think that’s very important. So that it’s it’s there’s a lot of flexibility. So we’re always trying to make it work for for the customer and really are interested in their own unique situation. Yep. I think that’s where we also are different than others. Yeah. And yeah, we are playing the advantage of being a young company where wherever it goes, you can even call us if you want. Yeah, fantastic. My point is, you know, like, we’re not a large corporation. And we really, truly want companies to thrive. And we make it as easy as possible. So there’s no huge investment, whether it’s time or or money to get your team started and improving their emotional intelligence.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, fantastic. All this is so exciting. All right, advice, explorers. If you’d like to find out more about more than the website, link is in the episode show notes. And I’ve also included Julius’s LinkedIn details. So I’m hoping that’s alright, that the you know, somebody’s really curious, they can just reach out and sort of see where you know, where you’re at what you’re about, and also maybe connect with questions, and you might forward them on to a member of your team. But then I’d encourage people to really start thinking about the way that we both support and engage our teams going forward, I think we all know, it’s something that’s necessary. But up to this point, probably haven’t had something that was a tool we could just start doing, that would just be a beginning, you know, to doing this as businesses. So thank you so much for your insights, fascinating conversation, I really appreciate your time. And I can’t wait to see where you and more go. Because I think it’ll be something that can really change the way that we both run and, you know, engage our businesses. So thank you.

Julius Geis
Thank you for having me. Thank you so much.

Peita Diamantidis
So what a fascinating conversation, right? I mean, normally, I’d say, Hey, are you a current user have more, but I’m almost certain that nobody listening to this podcast in the Australian advice, financial advice sector is using this tool, it is in early stages, and, you know, is really just starting globally in terms of interacting with employers to use the tools. So I have no doubt, you’re probably not. However, it’s really sparked some thoughts for me, I’ve got to admit, and I’m hoping for you in the way that we can potentially engage our teams, and really, you know, sort of help them thrive going forward. So I’d love to start that conversation on the Ensembl community platform. So if this is sort of leading you curiosity, a little, maybe you’re just completely think it’s a waste of time, what, you know, all views, welcome. So please feel free, head over to the ensemble community platform and post tag me, I would honestly love to hear what you think. And you know, what your take is on this type of app and this type of insight into our teams. And as for my thoughts, well, look out so many things running through my mind right now, one of them is in relation to change management. So you know, Julius mentioned that a couple of times and as, as an industry broadly, well, there’s lots of that isn’t there? I mean, that’s a given. But even in our practices, you know, there’s a couple of key things that are going to be happening in the next maybe few years for anybody’s business, one, there’s probably going to be a major tech change, right? At some point, we’re all gonna go, right. I’m shifting from here to here, whatever that is, and I’m not talking ancillary apps until you know something fundamental of business, we’re gonna make a big change. So that will require some change management in the business. The second thing is we’re potentially going to shift quite significantly that either the service we provide or who we’re targeting, right, so those are two major projects that we’re going to be working on in the next few years and we’ll change management is tough and quite honestly can be quite a demoralizing and negative experience for the staff depending on how it’s you know, handle So I can see a tool like this, where it gives the team the opportunity to reflect on the work they end up doing on those types of projects, how it makes them feel, and makes us better aware of how the team is feeling about it. Because I think, you know, as entrepreneurs or business leaders, we can get very excited about these things, and have just decided to go sing, and that’s great. But we aren’t taking the team on that journey with us. And we’re not taking their temperature as we go. And so I think this can be a wonderful way to monitor and also help the individuals understand the reactions to these things, right, understand that the hex, they just reacting to the fact it’s different. It’s new, you know, and this is a process we’ve got to go through. And when they get to the other side and see value, wow, that’s going to feel really good. So I think there is immense value in that. I also think that, you know, I’m a big believer, as you know, in curiosity and the power it has to innovate in our businesses. But what is clear from what Julius is saying is we need to over time, associate positive feelings with curiosity, right, we need to have that as something we reflect on and notice, and that our teams are rewarded for being curious about something for showing interest in something outside the box for bringing a new idea to the to the team for you know, all those sorts of things. I mean, imagine the insights from the different types of team meetings you have in the way they feel about it broadly, across the team. So look, I just think there’s so many ways that this could bring insights. And honestly at a cost, you know, that is, is sort of ludicrous, when we compare it about compare it against what we think those things are going to cost, you know, so team building or, or employee engagement, or any of these things, feel and honestly are often very expensive. Whereas my understanding, I checked the website again, but us $10 a month per team member, right. So, you know, 420 us a year, you can be getting these wonderful, thematic insights into how the team purpose and how the team are going. And you know, how they’re feeling about things and imagine contributing so significantly to your team’s EQ. I mean, I don’t know about you, but that feels, that feels fantastic. As an employer, that feels like you’ve contributed even if somebody is only with you, for a certain period of time, maybe it’s a couple of years, that’s the new world, right? When we’re not going to have these long roles in corporates anymore, potentially, they’re going to be longer, but imagine for the time they’re with you, you take them on a journey of discovery, to resilience to thriving. But that’s just, it’s magical to me. So I have to admit, no surprises, then I’ll be taking a really close look at more. And we’ll be considering how we roll it out and what we do. But, look, I’m excited. I really am. And I think this is quite an unusual app for me to bring to your attention. And for those of you still with us that didn’t sort of click off in the first minute or so thank you for your attention. But I feel like then we need to be more holistic, ironically enough about the approach we take to technology and the benefits that can give us and so I feel like this is you know, a gap in maybe what some of the things we’ve been chatting about to date. Now she I was just talking about curiosity was an eye. And we all know bionic advisors, we need that curiosity is something that we develop as a muscles. So today’s curiosity corner app that I wanted to suggest you take a look at is spoke.ai. That’s SP o k e.ai. And they tagline is smarter meetings with your AI assistant. Now you can find them at spoke dot app. And while what we were talking about before was a very emotive and therefore less tangible, app usage. What we’re talking about here is particularly tangible. So it’s a bit of a counterpoint for for more on what we were discussion discussing. So this is a tool that can work with Zoom, Google meat and Microsoft Teams. So across the board of any of them, and it basically is provides automated AI driven minutes video highlights the meeting and search for during team meetings. So provides hands free notetaking agenda tracking, all those sorts of things. And in fact, highlights or specific talking points from a team meeting could then easily and almost immediately be captured for with transcripts for training for future reference materials. You know, put them in your knowledge base if you use guru, put them in get guru and For me, you know, for those of you holding virtual team meetings, we are lots of us are now, then I think this sounds like it’s well worth a look. Now, there are elements of this that each of the tools do now provide, you know, transcripts, things like that they started to get better at note taking. This is sort of taking it to another level in terms of almost repurposing that content. What can you use it for? What what snippets can you take out. So it’s taking it to that next level, very important that you when you take a look, dive straight into the security and privacy settings, run them past your license. See, I feel like this is the type of thing that’s a team meeting tool rather than a client meeting tool. But you know what, I think you need to look at that yourself, and then check in with your licensing how they feel about it from a security and privacy sense. But for any of us holding virtual team meetings, then I think it’s absolutely worth the first cut, and probably a bit of a play. I want to say a big thank you and shout out this was actually a tip from Grant Miller, who’s in the ensemble community, in response to a post by Adele Martin. So there’s also in the community. So thank you both, very much. And I’d encourage you the listener, if you have other apps that work for you, or even an app you’ve seen, even if it’s outside advice, tech techniques, you know, technically outside advice, but you’re curious about it, and you’re not sure about it, then please either dropper post in the ensemble community platform and tag me Peter dermatitis, or reach out on LinkedIn, because I’d love to know about them. And I’d love to check them out as part of the podcast in a future episode. Well, that’s all we’ve got for this week, was a little bit of a longer one. So thank you for sticking with us, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you’ll get your advice tech fix automatically sent to you each Friday. And if this episode has sparked some ideas, or maybe a need for you for some ways to further engage your team and you know, connect with them and connect them with each other then I would actually love to and have done many before of facilitated team building sessions for your particular team tailored to you and them and what you’re trying to achieve and we work on building their curiosity muscle, in their personal lives and then connecting that to how we can all work together. And you work together as a team and, and innovate for your practice. So, if that’s of interest, please reach out to me on LinkedIn that’s LinkedIn forward slash Peter M D PEITA. M for Molly D for dog, I guess, right. Otherwise, I look forward to turning up in your earbuds next week. And remember advice explorers Stay curious.