In an inspiring 20 minutes, Jeremie shares his experience and insight on the power of understanding natural tendencies and patterns of behavior, in order to enhance emotional intelligence and communicate and lead effectively at every level of relationship, from your staff to your patients. Highlights include:
- How the shift in patient-focused healthcare has created a need for patient typing, and what makes the 5 Voices system unique
- How understanding yourself and your natural tendencies can take your listening ability to a whole new level
- The easiest way for a practitioner to type potential patients
- How to handle the “grenade launcher” in your office
- How doing the 5 Voices assessment can help gel participants in your group visits
- And so much more!
Resources mentioned in this podcast:
www.5voices.com
www.giant.tv
James Maskell: All right. Welcome to a very special episode of the Evolution of Medicine Podcast. We are here at the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute conference here in Chicago, Illinois. We’re going to have a conversation about something that is critical to your practice, but you may not have even thought about it. If I’m talking to you right now, maybe some of these ideas resonate, that some patients do really well with changing behavior and some patients don’t do so well. Some patients take all your advice, some patients don’t take any advice and you’re wondering why this is happening. Ultimately, what we’re going to talk about today is the personalization of behavior change, how do we facilitate behavior change in different people who act in different ways. I’ve got with me here today Jeremie Kubicek, he is going to share a little bit about his work.
I’m super excited to share this with you because I don’t really think this is something that’s being talked about in functional integrative medicine. Leave it to Jeff Bland and the team here at PLMI to bring in personalization on a much deeper level. Jeremie, thanks for being here today. I know you’ve got your first flavor of functional medicine this weekend. What’s your first impression?
Jeremie Kubicek: Amazing. It’s so encouraging to see there’s alternatives and I think that’s what most people don’t realize—there’s another way and a much healthier way. I’m excited for that.
James Maskell: You’ve actually been on this path for quite a while. Why don’t you just share with our audience to start with the general thesis of your work.
Jeremie Kubicek: The idea, every one of us was born in some way. You’ve got brown eyes, brown eyes, some have blue eyes, some are right-handed, some are left-handed. Those are obvious, right? We’re born with certain predispositions for things in the same way we have the same thing for personality. Some of us are thinkers, some of us are feelers. Some of us are intuitives in the future, some of us are present-oriented, so on and so forth. The complexities of humans to bring that into functional medicine, into the idea of motivation and patient engagement is really, really unique. I just think it can be really a fun conversation to go, what would it look like to be engaged or engaging with those that we’re working with.
James Maskell: Absolutely. One of the biggest things that happens in functional medicine is that the patient is now the center of the equation, right? In the past, the doctor was the most important. This shift, this evolution of medicine is to a more patient-focused system. That means the patient actually has to participate, has to be part of it. There are practitioners that I know that have done, have jumped into typing. What are some of the typing strategies that are out there and what did you find they are lacking that led to you starting something else?
Jeremie Kubicek: Yes, for years there’s Myers-Briggs, it’s been around forever, building off of Jungian typology. There’s DISC, there’s Enneagram, which is kind of the buzz right now. The problem with them is they’re good. Any tool can be used that’s good, but they’re so complex, they don’t scale. They don’t scale with staff. They’re hard to understand. Okay, I’m a D, I’m E, I’m an ENFP. I don’t know what that means, right? We basically took ideas and concepts and made them so simple that a 13-year-old could get it. If a 13-year-old can get it, no offense to the staff, it just spreads faster. We made it so easy so when someone comes in, you’re not typing people when they walk in. You’re seeing what their tendencies could be, to go, “Oh, they might be a Guardian or a Nurturer or a Pioneer or Creative or a Connector.” Those are the five voices. We took Jungian typology. We created a formula around it and we simplified it down to the five voices. The five voices now become a really, really simple way to look at tendencies and/or helping people as they come in to go, look at the tendencies and the patterns that are shaped based on your wiring, based on the inside of who you are.
James Maskell: That’s great. Why don’t you just take us through just because I’m sure there are doctors and practitioners that are listening to this now thinking through patients. They got patients in their head, maybe patients who didn’t do anything that they were thinking of and maybe they’re thinking, “Hey, I’ve just got this one spiel and I do my same spiel every time to each practitioner.” Why don’t you just take us through these five types you created. One of the things you said last night at dinner that I was really fascinated is not just like who are you and how you show up, but who are you under stress? Because I feel like ultimately making behavior changes can be stressful, and ultimately understanding where people might go when they’re trying to do things like make behavior changes that they’ve never been able to make. What’s it going to lead to? If you can predict that for people, then they’re like, “Wow, this person really gets me.” This is like listening and attention at a whole new level.
Jeremie Kubicek: Yeah. See, if you think about people dynamics, this is you, this is whomever. This is your staff, this is your spouse, this is the patient, right? Those dynamics change every time. Well, you are who you are. If you don’t know yourself, it’s hard to connect with other people, but once you know yourself and your own tendencies, then you’re able to connect even better. In this case to go, this is you, this could be a Nurturer. Nurturers, out of the five voices, Nurturers are 42% of the population, and they make up 70% of the 42% are women. These are the teachers, these are moms, these are nurses, so on and so forth. To think about them, they give themselves away for everyone else so their voice is really low, and they’ll tend to give themselves away and not ask a lot of questions and they don’t want to impose but they can worry and they can talk with other Nurturers, right? If you understand that, then you have to set yourself up to go, “I really care.” They need to sense and feel that you care.
Once they have, then they’ll be endeared to you forever. That’s 42% of the population. That’s important to understand. Well, the next one is the Guardian, 30% of the population, 70% are men. They are question-askers, black-and-white thinkers, they don’t want experimentation. They want, “What’s going on? Why is it happening?” Solve the problem with me right now, good. We’re good. They move on. They’re going to ask questions and it could appear highly critical at times if you have something that they feel as an embellishment or exaggeration.
James Maskell: Yeah, that’s interesting. Just even already, I’m thinking that, you know, when we look at functional medicine, 75% of the patients are women, 75% of the doctors who do it are women. I think a lot of these are just Nurturers who end up in the regular system are not listened to, are not taken seriously. Then, “I want to be with someone who’s going to listen to me.” That’s one of the benefits of functional lifestyle medicine that we’re doing is that people take the time to do it. I can see why that group is better served by our community. Right.
Jeremie Kubicek: That group of people, roughly 72, 73% of the population are present-oriented. They’re only thinking about today what’s going on. They’re not necessarily the innovators and the future-thinkers. Then you get into the next batch and there’s the Creatives. The Creatives are around 9% of the population, they’re idealists, they’re kind of quiet because they’re internal thinkers. They love experimentation and dream big, but they can come across as almost dissatisfied because in their head they have an ideal of how it should work and if the plan that you created together doesn’t work, then they don’t celebrate small wins. That like 90% worked but 10% didn’t so they’re like, “Yeah, just wasn’t what I thought.” That cynicism can come out and be really frustrating to the doctor. Then you’ve got the Connectors, the Connectors are like, “Man, what’s going on? How are you? Hey, how are you doing?” It’s all about likability and they want to establish rapport and likability and then move into the program.
I was in with a doctor recently just for an annual physical. The guy literally barely looked at me. He was on his computer. He was just typing forms. “Anything here? No. Anything here? No. Anything here?” Like, I’ll never be with that guy again because he didn’t connect with me. That’s 11% of the population. Then the last one is Pioneers and there’s 7% of the population, 50% of them, they make up 50% of the CEOs of the world. If you ask someone what do you do, and they say a CEO, there’s a good chance they’re a Pioneer, but Pioneers, they are short, sweet, but they’re going to be asking other people if you’re credible or not. They’re going to find out if you’re credible. If they’re showing up in your office, chances are they found out that you are credible. They don’t want a lot of BS. They want to go right at it.
James Maskell: It’s so funny because there’s implications for patient care, 100% I see that. I can see certainly with managing the staff and organizing those teams. We work with a lot of practitioners that are just trying to work out their marketing and maybe… We’ve seen practitioners who are going after, they want to work with high net worth individuals, CEOs, they want to work with top people. I can see what you’re saying because you know, a lot of peer-to-peer information transfer, how do you facilitate reviews, how do you get it out there and get people who already know those kind of people to share out. A lot of ideas firing in the brain. What’s the easiest way for a practitioner to type their potential patients coming through?
Jeremie Kubicek: This is the part where it is difficult because you’re not typing them as purest form. It wouldn’t be fair. You’re reading people in what they’re acting like on TV, you know what I mean? You could come across as someone different than who you are based on fear or worry or stress or what have you. What you’re doing is you’re basically just looking and seeing, you know what, they have a tendency towards a Nurturer. Okay. They feel warm, friendly, talking about their kids a lot. Well, that’s going to be a Nurturer. They’re not going to ask too many questions. You have to draw them out. If you sent someone as a Nurturer and they’ve got more in them than taking the time to go, no, no, no, no. Really, come on. Ask what else is in there because their voice is so low so you have to help them elevate their voice and step into confidence. To a Guardian, you’re going to know a Guardian by their questions. Again, they may not be a Guardian, but they’re acting like one.
Their questions and just the regimented, like, almost interrogation and so to be patient with them and to go, “Anything else? What else? Any other questions? Come on. You probably have one more in there.” Without being cynical, but that then allows them to get it all out. When they get it all out and they feel like you’ve answered it, then you’re golden and they move on. In their minds, they’re not interrogating. Then when you get to the Creative, the Creatives are a little bit difficult because sometimes they won’t say. If you’re not credible, they won’t lay out their plan but if you’re with a Creative and go, “Ideally, what do you see in your head? Like what’s going on? What would be a helpful plan here?” You’re working with them to create.
James Maskell: They come up with their own vision for their own healing, basically.
Jeremie Kubicek: That’s right, because they’ve probably done a lot of research and they might drive you nuts with the research they’re doing. You almost have to, like, corral their research and help build a plan together and they’ll value that. If you step on their plan and mess up their puzzle, you can cause—
James Maskell: It’s so funny because I’m literally sitting here thinking of 14 years of being in this field and listening to doctors. I was a sales rep. I spoke to tens of thousands of doctors in my career and I can hear doctors in my mind complaining about a certain type of patient and what I could probably imagine is that they’ve got very good at dealing with one of these types. Hopefully, they’re natural because there’s just a lot more of them out there but they got good at dealing with one of these types, but these other types really befuddle them. They don’t really know how to interact with these kinds of people and ultimately what it sounds like is just a little bit of emotional intelligence and training, I guess, to be able to work this out in real time.
Jeremie Kubicek: We certify people on the system and so people can learn it if they wanted to get really good at it, because if you think about the dynamics to take to the staff, like you mentioned under stress, so we teach under stress what happens. It’s called the weapon system. A Pioneer doctor under stress has a grenade launcher and they’re blowing people up all day long by their comments which then cause all types of chaos and havoc.
James Maskell: This segment is going to be particularly popular with the front desk people who get to watch it. Go through that again, the grenade launcher.
Jeremie Kubicek: The grenade launcher is when anyone is under stress and then they start blowing people up with, “Why didn’t you do this? Come on, can we get… ” Then they start using all of that dominating kind of fear and it doesn’t produce the right results. It doesn’t create empowerment. It creates compliance. Then you have the Connector, which is what I am. I think it’s what you are. We’ll see. We use cyber warfare. Under stress you can kind of slander people really or, “Oh yeah, you know him? Yeah, he’s okay.” We use subtle things to take other people out if we’re frustrated. The Guardian, they’re interrogators. Their questions become almost an inquisition. “You didn’t know that we had this, that we were doing this today? Susan told you, right? You didn’t.” All of a sudden they’re trying to solve a problem, but it feels like I’m about to get in prison, you know? Then the Nurturer, their weapon is actually, they’re a medic. Well, medic has a gun and they’ll use it, but most of the time they’re patching everyone else up.
It’s not necessarily a weapon, but push comes to shove, they will shoot someone. It’s almost like a mama bear with bear cubs. If you pick on people and you don’t value them, then they will lash out but it takes a whole lot. Last one is the Creative, is the hulk. The hulk is they’re pushed, they’re pushed, they’re pushed and if something’s not right in their head, if someone messed with their puzzle, then they just lash out in a hulk rage for a moment and then they go right back down. Everyone’s like, what just happened? All of those things are in this book, it’s in the 5 Voices, but it’s just helping people understand the dynamics of your nature, how you’re wired, your nurture, all of your upbringing and the choices you make that really affect behavior.
James Maskell: Yeah, it’s super interesting. I think there’s a lot of implications for personalized care. One of the themes that we’re bringing this year is this idea of a group medical visit, right? With people coming together and working together in a group. One of the things that I’ve heard time and time again is that the power of the group dynamic lies in the fact that some people are introverts, some people are extroverts. Exactly what you’re saying here, that ultimately, everyone gets value from the group dynamic because there are other people that may like to nurture up, might be interested in listening to the other type of person who’s asking all these questions because they just don’t have the gumption to do it but they’re still getting value from the answers that are coming out. There’s part of the group dynamics. Could you imagine that doing this kind of assessment or something, as people go into a group environment, could help gel a group, could help people to understand their roles in the group and ultimately could lead to a situation where people are solving the biggest problem of all, which is their loneliness?
Jeremie Kubicek: Just imagine if you are a physician and you mastered personality and emotional intelligence. Think about the communication. As they’re coming into a group, let’s say, how many people will come usually?
James Maskell: Yeah, like the optimum has been like 16 but they got anywhere from 10 to 20.
Jeremie Kubicek: Let’s just say there’s 12 people in the room. We’re all sitting around. I’m the doctor and all of a sudden, I’m observing and very quickly establishing, I’m not judging and saying they are, but they’re acting like a Guardian or they’re acting like a Connector. Whatever. I can then help control the room a bit. The problem is the louder voices will overshadow the quieter voices. The rules of engagement, we make the Nurturers go first. We establish rules of engagement for any meeting. The Nurturers go first, then the Creatives, then the Guardians, then the Connectors, then the Pioneers. You let people, it doesn’t mean you have to go through and organize it to that degree, but we’re letting the Nurturers talk or the Pioneers and Connectors specifically will overshadow and really overcome the whole entire meeting. The other reality is, I doubt many Pioneers come to those because they’re not going to waste their time and their mind. It’s probably overly focused on those who are present-oriented, which are going to be Nurturers and Guardians. I don’t think the Creatives probably come there. It might be a few Connectors. If you think about it, they’re going to probably be dominated by two or three voice types.
James Maskell: Okay. Have you ever seen any negative side to typing in that way where people are like frustrated that they are that type?
Jeremie Kubicek: You mean they’re frustrated that they’re being typed or that they are that type?
James Maskell: I don’t know, maybe resonates at this level or yeah, they just don’t like that part of it because I remember doing some sort of typing with my team in a company I had a few years ago and ever since we did it, one of the employees was just like, “Well, you just think I’m this.”
Jeremie Kubicek: That’s just an insecure, an immature person. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say that, but a secure, mature person is learning about themselves. It’s like in the same way that you learn about genomics, or the same way you learn about just any, your physical. “Huh, I do that. Huh?” If you do it right and do it correctly, the problem with a lot of typing is it causes a lot of damage because they go, “Oh yeah, you’re such and such.” Well, now we’re more than that. We are made up by nature. For instance, I’m an extrovert by nature, but I was raised by an introvert in a tractor cab. I mean, I’m a farmer, so the nurture of me affected my extroversion. I’m not one thing or the other. I think that’s the beauty of the voices, we’re not trying to tell you this is who you are you’re exactly. We’re saying this is how you’re wired and this is how you’ve been raised and this is the choices so you’re acting like this person. It’s almost unraveling people and they find it really, really fun. The other benefit of five voices is because it’s simple enough, people start talking about it and you can start recognizing your kids at early age, around 12, 13 years old. I have a Creative, a Guardian and a Nurturer. I now treat them differently. I’ve been a better father because I can connect to their language much better.
James Maskell: Absolutely. I feel like we’re at the beginning of a journey to implement this kind of thinking in personalized lifestyle medicine and functional medicine because it is so unique and I think that we’ve just scratched the surface of what’s possible. I’m super excited to do this. If people are watching this at home, practitioners or if they’re listening to this on the podcast, where’s the best place for them to go and find out what type they are and what is the best starting point to start to bring some of this into their own understanding? Maybe it’s something they want to share with their team. Most practitioners are in small teams, but you know there are clinics that have a lot bigger teams. What’s the best starting point would you say?
Jeremie Kubicek: 5voices.com is a free assessment. That gives you just a free assessment and you can have your teams looking at it. We also have something called GiANT TV, we create series around this. If people wanted episodes and like almost TV shows around this, we’ve created these series and episodes at giant.tv.
James Maskell: Okay. You go through it, you find your type and then there’s relevant content to your type to learn more about yourself and do that. Okay, great. Well, Jeremie, I feel also like we’ve just scratched the surface of what I feel maybe you can bring to this industry. One of my favorite things about these kind of conferences is meeting people from outside of the functional medicine space who have things to offer. If you like this podcast, let us know and maybe later in the year, come back and share some more of this and we’ll see where to take people. Check out 5voices.com. This has been Jeremie Kubicek. You can check out his book, it’s 5 Voices: How to Communicate Effectively with Everyone You Lead. This is the functional medicine community moving to the forefront as the Evolution of Medicine Podcast. I’m your host, James Maskell. We’ll see you next time.
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