The Tarryn Reeves Show

Behavior + Money + Leadership

• Tarryn Reeves • Episode 70

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What if your company’s profits are being decided by something deeper than strategy, your team’s financial behaviour? In this episode, we unpack why behaviour makes money and how leaders can use behavioural economics and AI-powered insights to build high-performing, people-centric organisations. We dig into the six behaviours that separate top performers from the rest (think: financial goal drive, innovation focus, fiscal control, prudence, results drive, and relationship engagement), plus how behavioural AI can profile leadership teams, forecast performance, and help you make smarter money decisions, faster. If you’re an entrepreneur, CEO, or founder scaling for impact, this conversation is your blueprint for aligning culture, cashflow, and category leadership.


Key Takeaways

  • Behaviour makes money: Your leadership team’s money mindset and decision patterns directly influence profit and culture.

  • The six profit behaviours: Master the mix: goal drive, innovation focus, fiscal control, prudence, results drive, and relationship engagement.

  • AI as a profit predictor: Behavioural AI can scan leadership teams (even across the S&P 500) to identify strengths, gaps, and likely outcomes.

  • Innovation without waste: Invest in the right ideas at the right time, and set guardrails so spending fuels growth, not ego.

  • Culture x cashflow: A spender CEO breeds a spending culture; balance fiscal control with a healthy relationship culture.

  • Hire your missing piece: You don’t have to become what you’re not; design teams (and roles) that cover your natural blind spots.

  • From bartering to bandwidth: Money pressure is timeless; social media and tech have amplified comparison and stress, lead with clarity.

  • Hyper-personalisation at scale: Use behavioural data to tailor marketing, service, and leadership development for measurable gains.

Perfect For

Entrepreneurs, visionary leaders, and high-impact CEOs who want a behaviour-driven, AI-enabled edge in decision-making, team design, and sustainable profit.

If this episode hit home, share it with a leader who needs it and subscribe so you never miss a strategy that elevates your brand and bottom line. Ready to write the book that cements your authority? Visit automaticauthority.com.

Connect with Hugh:

Welcome to the Tarryn Reeves Show, the podcast for elite entrepreneurs, visionary leaders, and high impact CEOs who are ready to grow their brand, amplify their message, and build a legacy. I'm your host, Tarryn Reeves, multiple international bestselling author, publishing strategist and founder of Automatic Authority Publishing and Press House. Each week we dive into powerful conversations with trailblazing entrepreneurs and change makers who are using storytelling. To scale their business and impact. So grab your favorite drink, settle in, and get ready for a dose of inspiration, strategy, and the truth behind what it really takes to turn your wisdom into wealth. Today I'm joined by Hugh Massie, who is the executive chairman and founder of DNA Behavior International, the Behavior and Money Insights Company. As a Titan 100 CEO, and widely recognized behavioral AI solutions architect Hugh Massie approaches every opportunity and challenge from the proven perspective that behavior makes money. By applying exponential thinking and AI driven technologies, Hugh helps growth minded leaders create an exponential future by building category king people centric businesses, enhancing financial decision making, culture and performance. Hugh, welcome to the Tarryn Reeves Show. Great to be with you Tarryn. It's amazing to have you here. Now. We have had such an interesting conversation off camera and you've led an extraordinary career and it intersects finance, behavior, technology. I'm wondering if you can take us back and speak about your experiences or turning points that really shaped the leader that you are today. Yeah, I, I, you know. It's great to share, share on this. And I, and there's a dimension that I'm gonna share today that I, that I haven't always shared when, when I get asked this question and because the, the drive to become an entrepreneur really starts very early in your life. And definitely I saw it from my mother and, you know, she was an entrepreneur forced into that situation because my dad died when I was one. Uh, but she, you know, is, is she at 94 still today? Uh, a great business woman and, and, and still make smart decisions. Um, I love that. Yeah. And, and. You know, she always said to me, Hugh, you, you should be an entrepreneur one day. And, and, but like all things, when with a very traditional, I had more of a traditional English upbringing because my mother is English, even though I was in Australia. Mm. You know, 40 years ago, uh, you, you, you went to high school or whatever school, prep school, and, you're supposed to go and do a degree in something and then go into the profession. So I went into accountancy. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and did that and, and found my way through to being, uh, a tax specialist at, at Arthur Anderson. And loved it for most of that time. But I was always dabbling in a deal on the side and, and, and, and, and in, and in a couple of cases, my mother helped me. Uh, do it or, or, or facilitated it so that I was always the one taking the risks, but she, she enabled things to happen so that I could do it, uh, financially as well, uh, by, by sort of suppose being backup support. But, and, and then, you know, I got to a point where I could get promoted at, at Arthur Anderson, or I could leave, you know, I suppose that's what I put in my mind and varying things were going on there that, that I just didn't see a life for Hugh and I thought, I'm 30. If I'm going to be an entrepreneur, I need to go now. Mm. And um, I think my mother said, you know, you're five years late, you should have done this earlier, but that doesn't matter. Life, you know, can't be ruled by age. And I set up a wealth management business, a family office business, and, and that flourished, but I was not happy inside that. Mm-hmm. And one day somebody asked me, Hugh, what are you passionate about? And this was at a Saturday morning breakfast, probably just like what we're doing now, Tarryn. And I just from my subconscious came, I want to help people all over the world become financially self-empowered. Mm-hmm. And I had no idea what that meant. Yep. But I knew enough that from my own growth journey that had been going on for the prior four or five years, if I'm saying that, and that's just new, I need to go and reflect on it. And I then reflect on it. And what I realized was this was about human behavior and hey, Presto, I look into my, uh, my, uh, day journal that I've been writing for a few years, and there's all these notes about human behavior. Mm. And, and so. That then got me to think, okay, how can I build a system? I had a, luckily I actually had a, uh, uh, person working in the office who was doing accounting work for me, but actually she, she had done psychology. Mm. And so I, and she was at university and, and, and so I said to her, Marta, why don't you, you know, go and research all this stuff for me? And she started to do it. And I would go through all the, uh, the research notes and I was constructing my theories and I came up with that, uh, you know what I, and what I could see with the clients was that people behave differently under pressure. And usually it was because of money pressure. Mm-hmm. And, and then I had a chance meeting with a psychologist and she said Hugh, this is people's natural, instinctive behavior. It takes over when they're under pressure. And it's formed from early in life. And that was the bingo moment. And I just said to her, Carol, can you help me build a system to measure this? And she said, yes, I can. And we started building a system and then I said, look, there needs to be a psychometric measure measurement part to it. She said, you need to meet these guys in America who are in Atlanta. And I flew over from Sydney to Atlanta 40 times in four years. Wow. To scientifically validate a system and build a a and, and, and then really from that, I never went back. I, I mean, of course I've come back to Australia a lot of times. because of other business interests and, and, and I had the wealth management business I had to manage and then sell off. But, uh, that they're the, they're, they're the big turning points in there. And, you know, in the end of the day, it really comes down to my, my passion, drive, the purpose. And, and, and, and you know, this, this came back to a boy I had to sit on. I was meditating, sitting on the floor of my bedroom. My, my home in Sydney and I was there reflecting and through the meditation, and I came back to my boyhood dreams that I always wanted a global business. And I thought, yep, I cannot do wealth management globally, but I can do human behavior and I've got this differentiated theory about how people deal with money. Today we know it as behavioral economics. At that time, that, that, that was very, very early. Yes. A year after I had built our system, somebody, na by the name of Daniel Kahneman, won a Nobel Prize for a behavioral economics theory and his books about the stuff from research about the sort of stuff that we actually measure. So that tells you there's something there and, and, and you know, it's very deep Tarryn and. I've had to stay with the journey, you know, because if you believe in your purpose, you gotta stay with it. Yep. I couldn't agree more. And that right there is the very essence of entrepreneurship, isn't it? It's, it's, I always, people being an entrepreneur is only for crazy people. And I, I honestly do think you're either born with it or you're not. You're born with that drive. You're born with that, I don't know, innate desire to have a global business, have a small business, whatever that success looks like to you. But it is like getting punched in the face again and again and we somehow keep coming back for more. Well, you need to be, whatever you're doing, you need to be very resilient. Yes.' cause there's many, you know, You could leave a job, you can embark on the journey, you can invest money, you can have your whole family behind you. You, you might even have a wife and kids, or it's if you're a male or a partner, let you know whatever way around you want to go on that and anything can happen. You can have a sick child, which, you know, I've had a child with, with, with, with some, you know, some problems. Um, you know, a million things can, can, can, can hit you on the way that you've gotta be able to deal with. And there's gonna be business things that come your way. Yeah. And you've gotta be able to adapt and, and, uh, shake it off and move to the next thing you know. Yeah, that's right. Now let's jump into behavioral economics, and I'm really curious about this because the way that society is set up means that money is really such a integral part of the ecosystem of the human's life. You can't get away from it the way that society is set up and thinking about it back in caveman times or whatever it was, we used to barter. Okay. Instead of exchanging stuff printed on paper that the bank says is worth X amount, you know, we used to barter, I'll give you corn if you give me milk, et cetera. I'm wondering, in your studies, have you looked back that far and seen any changes in human behavior when it comes to exchanging either services, items, money between each other and what that looks like then versus now? That's a really interesting question. No one's ever asked me that and, and being honest, I haven't gone back and done specific research like that. Mm-hmm. But, but I have, you know, in, in terms of a study by myself to come and, and, and come up with a conclusion on it. Have I done reading about that? Mm, yes. And and risk taking, for example, has always been there. Um, the pressure that money causes mentally has always been there because at the end of the day, what is money? Money is what you think it is, right? And, and, and having a, you know, dollar bill as, as a, as a medium of exchange or having food is no different. Yeah. And so the pressure has been there. I think the only difference is, is is that probably that it's, there's more, more and more pressure has come because of the society we are in and the way in which people measure themselves. Mm-hmm. Around, around money and, and there's more of it and there's more have nots. But the fundamental issue does money or a medium of exchange cause uh, pressure, which leads to stress that's been there since Adam was a boy. Mm. Yeah, it's so interesting. I'm wondering then with the rise of social media and everyone comparing themselves to this successful lifestyle and also marketing, you know, we're told that you are only, uh, valuable to society. This is the underlying, obviously, subconscious marketing message. They don't go right out and say it, but like you're only, um, successful if you've got the latest car or the latest TV or the new phone. And like Apple, I think is a very, very smart business model, but it drives me crazy, the consumerism that it causes, because your phone, it's like you've gotta have the next update. You've gotta have the next update. Yeah. The latest phones coming out. I'm like, what's wrong with the old phone? It still does the same thing. But I'm wondering if in your behavioral studies or experience, you've seen an increase in the pressure that money is now causing on people as opposed to how it used to be when we didn't have access to social media. Oh, I think absolutely it is. And, and you know, what you're talking about is subtle pressures. Yeah. It's, you know, in, in, in, in some ways it's, I suppose it's a different expense line in, in the budget than what was there 30 years ago. Certainly 25, 30 years ago. Because you have to invest in technology now. Uh. Otherwise you can't survive. I mean, your life is dependent on it. Even my 94-year-old mother who didn't grow up with any of it, has gotta be able to use a phone, computer technology, gadgets around her neck for, you know, security and health reasons and whatever else. Um, and if you don't invest in it. You, you're, you're excluded, uh, from, from life. But I think that, but, but also the social media makes, makes everybody's lives so much more visible. And this person's doing that, and that person's doing that. This person's showing off with this car. Um, this person's living in this home or doing this wonderful trip. And, you know, you see a lot of the good stuff. Probably not all the, not all the uh, the other stresses and pressures that are going on. Yeah, exactly. And, and, and I think, so it is problematic and people are judging and the real issue that we are getting to Tarryn is that money causes a lot of mental health issues. Mm-hmm. And, and, and 'cause people are comparing themselves to others and they, and, and, and, and so much in society, the media is, idolizing, particularly in the United States, but I think it's everywhere idolizing people who have got a lot of money. Mm. But a lot of the time they're miserable internally. And many of them behave in a miserable way. Right? Yeah. And, and, and the extra misery comes when you start comparing yourself to John Smith next door. Well, he's got A, B, C, D and his business grew at X rate per year. What am I doing? And I mustn't be very good. That's a big problem. Yeah. For entrepreneurs. It's a huge problem. Mm. I'm gonna get a little bit controversial here as I like to do, but I'm curious because I'm a, I'm a woman obviously. Yeah. Um, I have kids, I'm a mom. I have a daughter who's nine and a son who is one. Yeah. At the time of recording this, and I know that I get quite, stressed out, if you like, watching all of my male counterparts in their businesses and how they are able to do like a 10, 12 hour day completely undisturbed, get all their stuff done. Whereas a woman has different expectations from society and, subconsciously from herself. Yeah. About she has to also do the cooking and the cleaning and the, you know, the school pickups and the drop offs and the organizing of the dentist appointments and all of those sorts of things, which means that we often don't get that amount of time in our business. Yeah. Which unfortunately, depending on the stage of business that you're at, means that it grows a lot slower than, often, our male counterparts. Do you, in your studies, have you seen a difference between men and women in, in how those stresses play out? I haven't studied that dimension in, in a specific, uh, way, you know, and, and, and going and asking questions and doing measurements. Mm. Have I observed it? Yes, because I, I was in, uh, entrepreneurs organization for 20, for 24 years. Uh, well nearly 25 years, but 24 years. And so there, you know, in there there's 19,000 businesses, run by men and women who have, who are, who are, who are a founder of a business or the controlling stakeholder and a growing number, now, luckily are, are, are women, at least 25% of women. But there, but there might tell the story that 25% make the threshold revenue levels and things that, that are required and have got the, the free time or the extra time, to do all the extra activities. Mm. Um, and then the rest are, you know, male. So that probably tells you something that, that and some of the, you know, I would say that, um, but you know, the, if we went more granular, who's got the bigger businesses? It tends to be, it probably tends to be the men, um, less than the women because of the reasons that you're talking about perhaps, um, financing. Yes. You know, again, a lot of the venture capitalists and, uh, whatnot won't provide the money to the women. I'm not saying, don't hear me as saying any of this is not right. Yes. Uh, or that, any of that's right. I, it's, it's, it's not, it's factual. You know? We, it is true. It, it, it, it, it is factual. Um, but, you know, if, if we, if we then go and look at, um. Can the women succeed, put that on the side as much as a man? Absolutely. Yeah. Um, but also, you know, to what degree do you want to, um, mm-hmm. As well mm-hmm. Um, because there is a lot of stress associated with it. Right. And, you know. How much do you want? How much do you want to go through? I think and, and, and there are some women that are, that are great at it and, and, and they've got their, their, their husband or their male partner, um, is, is taking more of the load on, on, on the home front that, that allows things to happen. There's certainly plenty of that with, with, with, uh, female executives. Um, so, but it is, I think it's challenging. Mm-hmm. It's very challenging to do. My mother had to, had to balance that part out to manage that part. Yep. In your experience, do you think that men and women have a different stress threshold when it comes to economics? Um, I think that that women, from what we've seen, at a foundational level, no. Mm-hmm. But women perhaps will be a little bit more cautious. Yeah. Um, will probably less likely go to the edge on, on, on risk taking. Mm-hmm. And, and that's measured up in our natural DNA behavior. We can, we could see, absolutely, we can see a variance there. But it's not saying that, that a woman can't go out on the edge or some don't. Mm-hmm. Some, some that, some won't. But the propensity probably is a little bit less. I, you only have to look at like, like I said, I've got a both, a daughter and a son, and you only have to look at them even at the age of one, and the behavior is completely different. Everyone says, oh, what's it like to have, you know, a boy and a girl? And I was like, well, the boys are harder to keep alive. Honestly, they have no sense. Like at the age of one, he has no sense of self preservation. He will just climb, jump, run over things, you know? And when Autumn, my daughter was that age, very, very different behavior. A lot more, um, slower. Like in, in doing things, not learning or anything, but in actually like moving around and assessing risk and danger and it, it is, it's part of our DNA I do think that that's true. I I think it's part, it, it's in, it's, it's in the DNA, but, but, but, you know, I, my, my, my daughter, I would, I would expect, and she's 14 and my son's 12. Little bit ahead of you, but my, my son is far, he's the younger one is far more cautious. Interesting. So birth order has something to do with it. Um, people put a lot on birth order, but, but I, I haven't, I haven't seen a consistent pattern. Okay. And, and, and, and to me, it, you either are or you're not. Mm-hmm. And, and, you know, my daughter would take more risks than, than my son. Um, interesting. Now she might be more calculated about it. He, but he's extremely cautious. Mm-hmm. Okay. So, so, so I think that, that, that, it just depends on, uh, you know, in a little bit, just depends on nature and how it happens. Mm-hmm. And, and you know, 'cause I've seen families where the oldest child in my family, between me and my brother, we are 15 months apart, i'm clearly the risk taker. Mm. But in other families I could, I, I, I, I know that, that, that it's the youngest one is the risk taker. Mm. Um, so you, you born with it or you're not, do you think you're born with it or you're not born with it? Mm. Um, can you, can you adapt yourself to do, to do it? Yes, but probably not, not completely, and not for, uh uh, sustained periods. I think that, that when it's going against the natural grain, that's where the stress comes up at some point. So you could be cautious and you take risks for five, 10 years, but you're gonna get very tired and there's gonna be a point where you're just gonna switch off from that. Mm-hmm. Um, but instinctively you are what you are through your life. It's, that's, that's what it is. Now, you can also learn to, um, you know, if you're a risk taker, you can learn to tone it down because you might have to. Yeah. To keep your family safe, or not to always be jumping off cliffs and things, but, but, but because it, because it does show up differently too. And, and, yeah. So, but I, I, I, I'm more a believer. You are. You're either you got it or you haven't got it. A lot of this is, and this sort of gets into the DNA behavior piece. Mm. Is Tarryn that you, the genetics is probably 20% of the picture. Yep. What you get at conception, if you want to get technical and then it's 80% is the environment between, um, conception and three years old. Mm. It's 85%. So let's say that 20% is genetics and then the next 65%. Now, you know, the scientists would say, you can't tie it down to a number, but, but there's a lot of research studies around this and, and, and that, that, that all, you know, from different institutions that corroborate themselves, we've done it. And, and so if you sort of just take those percentages to keep it simple, that's what it is. So you can look at your two children at one and seven have had some different life experiences. Absolutely, yeah. In that time, you know, there's a seven year gap for yours. There's a two 18 month gap for my two children and my me and my brother, 15 months, but in the 15 month gap between me and my brother, my father was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. So completely different experience for you. Right before the birth of, you know, straight after birth, essentially for me, within, you know, three or four months and for my mother's whole pregnancy with my brother virtually. Um, and then afterwards the impacts. Mm. Now that's not, again, uh, don't, I don't want anyone to, uh, to start crying for me 'cause I'm not, it is, it is what it is. But there's an environmental impact. It's very different. Yeah. Yeah. And that causes some of these different behaviors. That's why I'm a little, that's why birth order could be important in the sense that yes, in for, for my brother was in a more nurtured environment as opposed to me. Mm-hmm. But it's not birth order per se, it's the environment that's gone on. That's the relevant look and the parent, the parent is different, you know, between births as well. Yeah. I was listening to a very interesting podcast about exactly this on the Mel Robbins podcast, um, two days ago. It's, it's so interesting. Yeah. And, and, and, and, and it, it, it is, and you can, you know, while you could say at, at, at three years old or two years old, whatever, you're not, you're not doing financial transactions. You're not out there bartering and Mm, you know, selling a deal as such, although, you know, you're doing emotional transactions though. You are, you are. And, and, and your life perspectives are being shaped. Mm. And that's what drives how you deal with money. Mm. And that's the, that's the subtle point here, is that once you understand how someone's wired from a DNA behavior perspective, what the life perspectives are, the money, perspectives and attitudes follow suit. Mm. Subject to there being some major event that comes along later that changes your belief systems about it. But that can be, your belief system can be changed. Yeah. The DNA behavior part's harder to change that. You always come back to that and your life builds on that. That's the, that's the thing. And, and so, um, you know, for me, I believe in getting, helping people get in touch with that and understand that natural behavior and the role it's playing, and then you can align, you can align yourself and optimize. Hmm. And I'm assuming that this is where this, this statement that you make comes from that behavior makes money. Let's unpack that. What, what does that look like if a leader's financial behavior influences their entire organization or even a solopreneur? Yeah. Or just a person in general. Behavior makes money. Let's talk about it. So, I I, I, you know, early on when I was first started doing this work, you know, back in 2001, I suppose, when we really, we launched a system, I was always very scared of a statement like that. And, and we were, to give you some background and context, a lot of our clients at the time and the work we, the work we did was with investors. Mm-hmm. Um, and that's where the business started. But today it's a lot more with leaders. And, and, and last year we did a research study of all of the s and p 500 companies and we, and we were able to measure them using our digital scan technology, AI technology, and, and we can maybe discuss that, you know? Mm. Definitely soon. Um, but. Deploying that. So we got a behavioral style on every leadership team with a Fortune 500 companies. And we could see that with six behaviors, if they got stronger across their team or in the overall team, the profits up were higher than their competitors. Interesting. And so, so if you've got the right team construct with the right financial value creation capabilities, essentially the right financial mindset, if you wanna call it that in the team mix, your profits are going to be higher. Right? That's what it measures out to. Yeah. And, and, and so that's why I say behavior makes money because in those successful businesses, they've been able to get the right team construct and, and, and, and if you wanna call it, deploy themselves in the right way to grow their companies. Now their attitudes, to money and how they handle money, starting off with the CEO, filters all the way down through the culture. If, if the leader is a spender, there will be a spending culture inside the company. If the leader is a, is is a tight wad, with money to be more Australian with the term, um, then it's likely to be ruthless inside the company, you know, around expense controls and we'll think about what that does to the culture. So fiscal control is important. It's one of the behaviors, but, but they, but it's gotta be balanced against, how does that impact the relationship culture inside the business?'cause that needs to be high enough for the business to work. If a business is only about money, it will fail. Yeah. But, but you've gotta have that raw material in the mindset, but then it's gotta balance out with culture. That's so interesting. So essentially you are saying that your studies and your AI technology can allow organizations to build their leadership team, their executive teams with all of the necessary behaviors and approaches to money to allow them to have maximum profits. Absolutely. That's amazing. And I can pinpoint which companies will, will succeed or fail right now, you know? And, and, and so therefore, it's the importance of this is that it can provide a leading indicator of what might happen in the future. That's amazing. And, and, and that's what's important to investors to understand, for example. Yes. Right. And for the leadership teams to understand as well, to get it right. Yeah. Yep. So you mentioned fiscal control as one of the behaviors. What other types of behaviors do you assess? So one is, so if we break it down, there's the overall results drive so that the drive for profits, if you wanna call it that, which is then, you know, uh, the opposite to that, not, not complete opposite, but, it's, it's, it's sort of, it comes with opposite traits, is the relationship, uh, engagement. So how do you engage your employees? How do you build a culture? Um, so, so that's something that's important. And then, and then we look at the financial value creation capabilities and, and, and there are four of them there. That one is, which is, this is the strongest one is, is the financial goal drive. So the ability to build a sales pipeline. But a sale in today's world, a sales pipeline only lasts for so long. A product is only good not for 50 years anymore, with, with technology, the windows are much, um, shorter. So you have to be able to have in, you have to be able to have what we call innovation focus. So you've gotta not only be able to innovate, but invest in innovation. Mm-hmm. They're businesses that are good at innovating, they come up with ideas, but they don't back it. Yeah, that's what, that was the problem with Kodak, Blockbuster, you know, and, and, and, and, and those types of businesses. Then there's the fiscal control. So how much do you spend innovating? You've gotta be very careful with that. And then the operating expenses, you know, these, these leaders of these, you know, uh, I don't wanna defame companies, but these old guard companies out there that everybody's flying around in private jets and first class and, you know, living high on the hog with expenses. Art on the walls. Mm. That's no good to anybody. Right. And, and, and those companies don't work very well in today's environment. Mm. 'cause you've gotta be nimble as well. And then the other one is just, is what we call financial prudence so that the decision making is really built around the culture and the mission of the company. And, and there are some guardrails there. And that gets to organizational structure, that's, that's a problem for entrepreneurs a lot of the time that they wanna play King Kong in the shop the whole time and dunno how to put that organ organizational structure in place. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but it's gotta be there. But while you're still doing all the other things. So the sort of, that's a balance for ent, it's a balance for the, to keeping the entrepreneurial culture, but it's really just keeping the company directed in the right place. Mm-hmm. So to summarize then, what patterns do you see among top performers versus those who struggle? Yeah, so the, so the top performer is, is usually very strong on the financial goal drive. They are an innovator. And they've got enough of that, of that fiscal control. Um, probably not the maximum, but enough of it to, to, to drive their companies. And while those people will not naturally be the relationship engagement or culture builders, they are aware of it and play and, and, and will invest in it. Hmm. And that will show up in who else is in the team. Yeah. So do you believe that to a point people can learn these more successful financial behaviors to a point, and then they will have to hire on. Or invest in either AI or people in their teams to, I think if you like, I would put it this way, you may not be able to learn them all to deploy them yourself. Like there's only, so if you're not an innovator, naturally, it's hard to become one. If you're not a risk taker, it's hard to become one. Mm-hmm. On a continuous basis. But if you are aware of what I'm talking about, you can hire the right people. Yeah, but it's going to be hard as a CEO if you're not a risk taker enough and prepared to invest in innovation enough to, and you are, and you are responsible at the end of the day for financial results. It's gonna be hard to adapt and, and allow it to be in the business, but that's something that you're gonna have to manage. Mm. Uh, but, but I would also say that the innovation drive may not and probably should not all sit in the senior executives, they've gotta recognize this. There's going to be some, what I call innovation nuggets down, down the line in the business. There could be a 24-year-old in the business that's got a really good idea about what the future product mix should be and is able to create it. And you've gotta find a way to bring that person forward. I mean, the heads of a head of AI for a business today. Yep. Yeah. About may need. Let's talk about that. Be a much younger person. But managed. But managed with the experience. Mm, yeah. AI is all the rage and I feel like every day we're waking up to a new advancement in, in the area. And obviously there are people now being born into an AI existence if you like. Um, I mean, I remember we still had dial up internet. I'm 37 at the time of recording. We still had dial up internet, all of that sort of stuff. Yeah. But even from then to now, the advancements are mind blowing. Yeah. And so it makes sense that you would say our younger people in the organizations are going to have, uh, more open ideas, but managed with experience. How are you using AI driven technology with DNA behavior? What does that look like? Yeah, so we've been using AI as I really think about it for quite a long time, in the sense that we've built, you know, we've got our core, if you wanna call it psychometric system. People complete a survey. We've, we, you know, reduced the time of that now to 10 to 12 minutes, but still it's exactly the same as what it was in 2001. Mm-hmm. But, but the way it's done is a whole lot better. Yep. And, and then it's all the tools that come from it and the insights that come from it. So like, we've got a dashboard. Once we know someone's profile, we can measure their market mood. How are they, how are you reacting Tarryn to the stock market today? So we've got AI driving that when we've got hundreds of tools sitting inside our system. That's AI that's been built over 20 years. But I think the big AI driver for our business is, you know, I, and this is back around exp, exponential thinking and how Hugh Massie's brain works is, you know, I said to my team, we had, you know, we had a goal as to this, at the end of 2023, we had a goal of reaching a hundred million profiles completed by 2030. At the time we were at about two and a half million and we knew there were ways to get there. And I said, well, what if we, what if we, what if we just change this goal instead of reducing it?'cause there's a big gap. Mm-hmm. What if we said, we want to have a billion people in our, in our database by 2030, the end of 2030, what would we need to do? Didn't take very long to say, well, we need to do something with AI. And we had actually started to build something about six or seven years before, but we never went anywhere with it. And that was really about clients and circumstances. So we dusted off all that work, fine tuned it, and as of now, we have what's called the AI digital scan, where we're able to have our profile completed without a human having to complete it. Wow. So we can, if we know, you know, the person's name and, uh, where they're working. So we've basically got an identifier on them, we can go to public data sources, not behind walls and private data sources, and get enough information to construct the profile. Yeah. Wow. Not as accurate as them doing it, but now you see what that does is that lifts the lid on a whole lot of things. That's how I was able to, you know, talking about the, uh, the leadership, uh, work we did, we used AI. We went and found the 5,000 or so leaders of the s and p 500 companies. Mm-hmm. Got all their names, roles, whatever, ran the digital scan through them. And we're able to do the profit, um, uh, analysis as well. Could we get that from AI? It's in public documents and prepared that analysis. And that's like just leaving a computer running and, and bang, it happens. That's crazy. And so now with all our clients, what we are doing is because the, and one of the barriers to our growth had been the friction point of having to get someone to complete a profile. Mm-hmm. Even though, right, a lot of our clients were financial planners or are. Okay, Hugh. We think it's a great idea. Yeah. We'll profile some clients and they do it in dribs and drabs. Now I can, I can present them with a dashboard that says, this is all of your prospects, this is all of your clients, and this is how you market to them. Wow. And how to serve them and put a tailormade suit on every one of them. That, and that's my always been, my goal is hyper personalization. Put a tailormade suit on every human and have them treated the way they should be. And, and, and, and so AI has enabled us to do that. And, you know, we've got 50 million people profile just to do the leadership analysis now because we can, we've, we've run the nu nu numbers over every company. Out there in, in public capital markets, we've got databases that we've got access to through clients that want us to do behavioral analysis on the big data they have. Yep. So now our numbers, you know, hit, hit in the 400 millions within inside a year of us launching this. Right. So is my goal of a billion gonna be reached? I think so, but that's, but that's what, but, but you know, partly it's your mindset is preparedness to do it because mm-hmm. I think some would say, gee, are you threatening your own business model? Yeah. But if you're not prepared to threaten your own business model, you're gonna get wiped out. And I think this is one of the mindsets. It's gotta be, this is part of exponential thinking, but I've made a quantum leap. Hmm. Little bit by accident. Some of it I put myself in the game, but I knew it would come. Right. Yeah. It's just a matter of being in the game and, and, and the right things fall into place. Hmm. But again, you've gotta be innovative and prepared to take a risk. But we figured out how this doesn't threaten our core business model because what we know is one in 10 of these people will actually complete the full profile. Yep. Because they're going to have their interest peaked. Yeah. You know, and that's, that's, that's the, that's the, in, that's the interesting part for this. Well, my interest has definitely peaked here, and I know that the, the listeners and viewers of this episode are going to be very, very intrigued. Um, I think it, I think it's amazing what you're doing and, and so, so smart. What excites you most about the future that you are really harping to build? Now we're talking for individuals, organizations. Society really as a whole. Yeah. Well I'm glad you said society because I think that's really important with all of this and you know, is what I'm doing important? Yes.'cause I think you've gotta believe in humanity and having a human impact. And, and that's how I measure success is from is, is through that and, and, and, i've got my role in it. Um, like you do Tarryn, right? Promoting people and helping people get their voice out there and, you know, writing great books. You could, you, you know, if you added up one day the people that you've helped, author books. Yeah, it may impact a billion people, right? Or more. Absolutely. It may have happened already and you dunno it one word. Yeah. If just one word or one sentence changes somebody else's life, job, done. Right. So how? Right. And so how you think about that and the metrics, that's where it comes, right? Mm-hmm. And so, um, but I, but I think that what's, what's out there is, you know, I'm excited by technology because without technology I couldn't do what I'm doing. But if I hadn't have done, if you wanna call it my homework over the last 20 years, I wouldn't be able to capitalize on technology, but I knew it would come true and now it's come and, and I think if, if I tried to invent all this thinking today because I suddenly AI showed up, no, it wouldn't work. Mm. I I, I missed the vote by 20 years. Right? Yep. Um, so you can you, you, you, that, that's it, that's one part of it. I think the other part is that societally, you know, we've got enormous health issues out there. Um, you know, climate issues, environmental issues, political issues, et cetera, that, that, that, that are problematic. Technology allows those to be, those problems to be solved. You know, getting people educated. Uh, people aren't going to, you know, certainly in America, go to university or college the way they used to. Mm-hmm. They're gonna have to work in the gig economy. There's gonna need to, jobs aren't gonna be the same. Yep. I think the other element is that there's a lot of chaos coming. It started. You can see it coming just from the political environment and what's being done. Um, and there's gonna be more. It's going to the ramifications we don't know yet, but I think if you're an entrepreneur with a positive mindset, you should be thinking there's something in there for you to do. But stay authentic to your own game, right. Yeah, that's you. You can't change yourself for that, but you can, I suppose, sort of, you sort of asked me all of these questions before the session started, what's my sort of superpower? Yeah. As a strength. And I really realized that at, I had it written down, but I realized that at the beginning of this year, and it's my ability to reflect and then know how to capitalize on an opportunity. From using my sixth sense. Yep. Inbuilt intuition. We all have it. Yeah. And you've gotta, you, you know, for someone who's a bit analytical like I am, in a way, you've gotta allow to that, to that part, to, to flourish. And for me it's providing myself with plenty of space to be reflective. And I sometimes do that through exercise, walking my dog, sitting on the floor. There's, there's, there's numerous touch points, but it, but. People, some people say, well, gee, that's a waste of time and whatnot. No, it it, it's actually allowing me to be extremely productive. Yes. And to pinpoint everyone's built differently. Yeah. And so it's my talent, it's how I help friends, you know? Mm-hmm. If they tell me a problem, I go away and think about it, and then bang, the solution comes. Interesting. Yep. Yep. Whereas I couldn't sit still and meditate for more than three minutes without losing my mind. I need to do something active. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and, and you know, I don't think everybody has to sit there for an hour. No. I think it's quite, if you can quieten yourself for 10 minutes and, and you know, I'm not, I'm, I'm don't, I'm, I, I can get, uh, restless too. It's not easy. No, it's not. But I think that providing, there's different ways to do it. I like when my son, believe it or not, here, here in America's playing cricket. Yep. I'm in the park. I just go and sit in, in, on, on the side of the field where no one else is. And, and, and I'll do it there. Mm. You know, there's lots of places to do this ways. Amazing. Hugh, I think what you're doing is such a gift to the world. Thank you so much for the work that you do, and we have had such an inspiring conversation, but we do need to wrap it up now. Yeah. Because I feel like you and I could talk for so long on so many things, but we have a tradition on the podcast called The Book Drop, where we wanna know what book has impacted you either personally or professionally. So my number one book, uh, there's, there's a few there, but the number one book is The Power of Identity written by a guy called Bill Wiersma. Ooh, I have not heard of that one. Yeah. And, and it's a great book for, and, and it's got a lot of tools in it. To help you discover your identity, because at the end of the day, when you know your identity, that's gonna be the framework through which you make every decision. Um, and, and in a way holding yourself to account who, who, who am I? Who do I wanna be? How do I wanna be seen by the world, and how am I gonna hold myself to account to that? It's very important and, and, and your identity does evolve. It's, it's, it's a little, it does come from your talents and, uh, values and your purpose, but it's actually, I, I believe it's higher than, than your, um, than your purpose. And it's more reflective of your brand and of your personal brand. Mm. And that's what's important. And, and, and the book. You know, really strikes a good chord on why it's important, but also how to get there to, to, to build that for yourself. And once you've got it and you're clear about it, you're not gonna walk away from it. Mm, that's true. Amazing. Hugh, thank you so much for your insights today. It's been an absolute pleasure. Pleasure, Tarryn. I've really enjoyed it. Me too. Thanks for tuning in to the Tarryn Reeve Show. If today's episode lit a fire in you, share it with someone who needs to hear it and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a story that could transform your business. 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