Interview with the Extrovert

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I definitely can appreciate my downtime, but get me in a crowd and I’m just a mothful flame. That’s right. And you test that way as well. Yeah, I do. Yeah, my MyRsBriggs profile is ENTP, but we can talk about that later. Right, right. So there’s objective proof of your extroversion. Yeah. So curious, what is your spouse? You know, I’m going to guess that she’s an introvert. I don’t know for sure because I’m not sure that she’s taking it, but just knowing her personality wise and how I always leave her at the table at parties, I’m going to guess she’s an introvert. Interesting. I’m just doing some informal research and seeing how those pairings wind up. My wife is a non-chai introvert. So she is an introvert, but she is very happy to get up and talk to people at parties and doesn’t have social anxiety. So that’s one of those funny things. A little bit about our background together. So we know each other. Is it like 14 years? Yeah. Yeah. So we work together at a company called YesMail. It was the same company. The first interviewee on my podcast was that also at the time you are a product manager. We both were. Correct. Yeah. We’re the engineering manager. So our cubicles weren’t quite cubicles, but they were like three person desks that faced each other. And you sat across from me. Do you have a fondest memory from your time at YesMail? Does not have to involve me. I’m not fishing for anything. Oh, wow. I mean, YesMail was kind of a tragic story. I mean, I enjoyed working there because I liked the people. But a memory that sticks out to me, I was at a sales kickoff event in the CEO of the company was there. And he asked me, you know, who I was and what I did. And I told him that I was from the YesMail side and I was in charge of our client migration off of our product platform onto Adobe campaign standard. And he says, Oh, okay, good. So you’ll have a job for a while. And that really summed up for me the kind of attitude that he had as a CEO towards the people that work for him, leaders, personalities and culture values, wrinkled directly down to the employees. You know, it was a rough place to work, but, you know, good people and I did enjoy my time there. It’s pretty interesting at the time when I joined that there was private equity takeover and some of the stereotypes of private equity were just very true. You get your new management and legions of consultants come out and they’re interviewing and they’re looking for efficiencies and then become waves of layoffs. And it’s interesting how blatant that is. So one of the things I wanted to ask you about is your background and, you know, reflect a little bit about how your extraversion played a role in that. So what was Greg like in high school for a say? You know, honestly, in high school, I was, I think I was a bit shy. I went to a private grade school and then I went to a public high school. And when you go into a public school system that you haven’t been in before, you’re immediately at a social disadvantage because people have, you know, either gone to the same school for many years or, you know, even live in the neighborhood with their friends in this and that. And I was hit with both, right? I didn’t go to the local schools and I didn’t actually even live in the neighborhood. I lived up in the mountains in Santa Cruz. I kind of kept to myself, you know, I had a couple close friends, but I would say that I was definitely more introverted in high school until I got to my senior year and, you know, kind of started expressing myself a lot more. Right. And you definitely don’t come across it shy, you know, as an adult, I never had those thoughts about you. Forget her bad. So you, did you go directly into the Navy from high school? Yeah. So, I did it. I did a quick pit stop at North Carolina State University. I wasn’t a, you know, a great student in high school because of a lot of reasons. So I tried college and that didn’t work out either and my life direction primarily was really not going in a positive direction. I chose to join the service and, you know, effectively get my act together. Was that internally directed or parents playing a role in that? Yeah. I would say that my dad had a very heavy hand in it indirectly. We had a conversation when things weren’t going well. I was living in North Carolina with him and his new wife and he told me he’s like, you know, you’ve got a couple choices to make. One, you can go to school, which you don’t seem to be able to do. Two, you can get a job or three, you can join the service. And we kind of left that conversation as is, but it planted the seed in my head. So eventually, you know, some weeks later, I wind up signing up for the Navy. I came home and I told my join the Navy and he wasn’t going to tell me what to do anymore. That’s right. He about to. He showed him. And how was that experience for you? Yeah. You know, it’s such a mixed bag. You know, you have to remember the years, right? I was in, from the time I was 19 to 25. So six years and men flash boys. That’s when we grow and mature. Men don’t develop executive functioning until they’re mid 20s. And so this is why we make all the stupid choices like joining the service at the drop of a hat or or other things that we might do. I matured in the service. I learned discipline. I learned hard work. I learned skills. I learned respect. I learned a lot about nuclear power, which I’m not using today. And I, you know, I got a lot of experience out of it. Sometimes I don’t want to say that it was, you know, an amazing experience for me because of the hard challenges associated with it. And the personal experience of working with people in the military is not good. It’s a culture of toxic masculinity, put downs, and, you know, just belittling people to no end. It’s really an awful environment to be in. So for that reasons, I don’t like to give it a lot of credit. But overall, yes, absolutely positive beneficial for me. And it gave me direction, right? Once I was, I got to a certain point in the service and I was going to get out. I was laser focused on being better and improving myself, getting my college degree and doing something with my life. No doubt about it. Shout out like a cannon. Like a cannonball out of the military. I was like, okay. Really? Do you think that your natural personality type played a role in your experience? Did it was that helpful or not helpful? Well, you know, back then, I wasn’t exposed to, you know, personality types are quantifying those sorts of things. It’s like how we talk about how ADHD wasn’t a thing when we were growing up because you didn’t qualify it like that. People were just rotten kids or misbehaving imps or what have you, right? Yeah. Let’s say that yes, my personality did play a role in my experience. I was definitely anti-authoritarian. I was definitely challenging and questioning, you know, what you put into it is what you get out of it. And I definitely put in a lot of negative vibes. So you may have received some negative attention and return. It is possible. But you eventually harmonized that and that gave you direction. Did you have a particular rank by the time you left? Yeah, I was a E5 and listed 5. So that’s a petty officer’s second class. That means next to nothing to me, but it sounds impressive. I think it’s a staff sergeant in the army if you want to put it that way. Sure. Yeah, I watched Mash. There you go. See? All right. So then you got into college. And so what did you study? Well, when I first got out, I wanted to study chemical engineering because I had done a lot of chemistry when I was in the service and I found it really fascinating. Unfortunately, I did not get advice that would have been super helpful to me in that even if you get a season chemistry, you can still pursue the degree. And I felt that if I was getting seas, how could I be a chemist? And so I wound up switching to environmental resource sciences. And then I also got a minor in geology. Secret of mine is I love geology. I took a geology course and loved it and had a similar experience in terms of I might have pursued a computer science degree if I couldn’t tolerate anything other than an A and my transcript, which I heard of pathologically, could not at that point in my lifetime. Because I also enjoyed that and later picked up programming. So cautionary tale. What would they say? Ds get degrees. What do they call the person in medical school who graduates with a D average? This is one of my favorite questions. It’s a doctor. I usually say who graduates last in their med school class. Yeah, there you go. Because I maybe the person with a D was actually kicked out of medical school. What was the path to software product management? Yeah, you know, after school, the quick story worked as a geologist for a while for a water department in in free month. And I worked for a private consulting firm out in the East Bay. You know, I was not really happy with that. I ended up going to a career fair, handing out my resume. And then I got a call, got interviewed and hired by a company called Informix, which did enterprise databases work there for a while. It was acquired by IBM. I left IBM. It moved up here, joined a small software company in Portland called Covey. You know, I saw what it was like to do software development at a small business. And I decided that product management was where I wanted to be. And that really started to gel with my personality type of an ENTJ. Because I wanted to lead a team of developers and the product direction and be that person responsible for all those things. So that fits really well with that commander type of profile. I just loved it. I really found my groove. What is it like being an extrovert in the land of introverts? Well, yeah, it’s interesting because, you know, I can just talk, right? Because I’m so vocal and I have so much to say and I want to get my ideas and my concepts out and maybe even move the conversation in the direction I wanted to go. I found, you know, over the years that I’m not always right. And that I have a lot of biases that come into play. And so what I’ve started to do is make room to give introverts an opportunity to speak and express themselves. And this is why I’ve gone from an ENTJ to an ENTP. You know, just because you’re quiet doesn’t mean you’re dumb, right? I mean, it just means that you’re reflective and maybe you just don’t have anything important to say at the time or maybe you’re just waiting for your turn. And so when I’m having conversations, I’ll, you know, pause and let that space happen. Or I will solicit feedback directly, you know, maybe not try to put them on the spot. I have a designer that I work with today and I had a conversation with her. She’s very much an introvert. And I told her, I said, look, I will talk and talk and talk. And I want to be mindful of that fact and allow you an opportunity. So if I’m just talking all the time, don’t take that negatively, right? Just understand that that’s my personality. And I will make efforts to ensure that you’re included in conversations. And she really appreciated that directness about it. And also like in that same vein, she’s Vietnamese and I asked her how to pronounce her last name because she’s not Anglican and, you know, she used to people, you know, mispronouncing it. And she just let’s it happen. And she really also appreciated the fact that I took the time to ask and get it correct. Really, I guess to answer your question correctly, it’s about making an effort to establish relationships with introverts to ensure that they feel that their voices are being heard. It’s so great that you’re doing that naturally as an extrovert. It shows your self-awareness and, you know, that intention to open up that space, you know, partly for selfish reasons because you’re going to have a better result, but, but also just kind of out of consideration. Yeah. And that’s the, you know, so the, in the Myers-Briggs, Jay is judgmental. And absolutely, I have all kinds of judgmental characteristics to my personality. But he is prospecting. And that means that I’m looking for things and I’m trying to understand. And this is, again, as part of my maturity as a person at a product manager and as a husband, let’s, let’s be honest. You can’t just be judgmental all the time because you will put yourself into a trap because you’re following your own path, right? And you’re not opening yourself up to alternative ideas. You’re, you’re getting trapped in your biases. I can sometimes just say, I’m also sharing responsibility when I include other opinions. Because if it’s always just me, then I’m really the one who’s made all the decisions and I’m solely responsible for all the faults as well. And the other thing that I do, I never take credit for any of the work that comes out of the product development team. I am really just the person who tries to understand what the problem is and the need in that space for the customers and communicate that to the people who actually work and actually build things. They are the ones who I think should get all the credit and responsibility. I have another Yes, Mail story. I think it was Missouri, the Mississippi River was going to overflow its banks. And so we had a 24 hour Tiger team arranged to move our servers out of a data center which was in the floodplain. I think it was like a three or four day effort might have been longer. And this was like lots of people, lots of engineers, lots of project managers, all kinds of people. And at the end of it all, the only acknowledgement was they gave an award to some vice president that I’d never heard of before. I mean, how does that make everybody feel who actually put in the time and the effort? Now this guy may have done something, but there were there were dozens of people working to make this happen and save the business, frankly. That’s a lesson I learned. Always give credit to the other people. For sure. I mean, that’s part of being a leader is understanding how to motivate your team and giving people credit, standing back, shining the spotlight on them. That’s super motivational and good leadership. You had your shift from ENTJ to P and it sounds like that was through your process of maturation. You discovered this recently, is that right? Yeah, I was actually surprised because we have this product social event that we do once a month. And so doing this, my erstbriggs was one of the things that we did recently. And I was fully expecting to be an ENTJ, which like 90% of my colleagues are. I was the only ENTP. So I had to do quite a bit of looking up to see what that was. And I recognized that it was from my deliberate actions and choices around trying to be inclusive. One of the other techniques I use when I’m doing interviews with customers and whatnot, it’s kind of a disarming statement that I make. And I say, I don’t know anything that lets them know that they’re free to tell me anything that they want. And it also allows me to be more childlike in my inquisitiveness and keep asking why’s. And by disarming myself and able to dig deeper into the needs and pain points that they have, which ultimately creates a better product and better solution in the end. Speaking of other products, you have three kids? I do have three kids. And I absolve all responsible effort. No. I have a one that’s in college. She’s a senior and she’s a math slash statistics major. She wouldn’t be proud of her. She’s much like you calls us up whenever she gets an A minus to let us know what a failure she is in life. That is definitely something that drives her. And then my son is 20. He’s a community college studying Japanese and whatever else takes his fancy. And then I have a high school freshman introverts or extroverts. You know, I kind of feel like my kids might all be introverts. I don’t know if it’s having been around me and embarrassing them as a father with my extrovertedness. Interesting. We’ll look for patterns here. I don’t want to speculate too much. So you also recently began starting your own business for people who are on video. I have a, it’s, hopefully it’s not upside down. The product right here. It’s personally roasted, small batch, artisanally crafted, bike delivered coffee. I’m fired. I don’t work in marketing this money. But you’ve all looked right buzzwords. Is there anything else to kind of describe the business and what you’re doing there? No, no. Well, right now, I would also caveat as saying it’s been an experiment, right? I’m not really promoting the business much. I’ve done a couple ads here and there. You know, I have my full time job. My long term plan or goal with this is I want to retire from, you know, the nine to five rat race. I could definitely fill up my idle time with what’s other stuff. But I thought that maybe if I had a semi productive activity to do, that might be more beneficial to my mental health. You know, I have probably two dozen subscribers at this point in time. Like to get up to 50 would be a very good volume for me. I love coffee have other, you know, trajectory of my life where I worked in coffee and high school and, you know, after the service and whatnot. To me, coffee is a social activity. You know, I used to be a beer drinker. I love drinking beer and going to bars and hanging out and talking. And you can do the same thing with coffee in the morning, right? It’s an opportunity to connect with people. And because the individuals that I initially reached out to for my business were people that I knew, it’s actually been extremely cathartic for me to reconnect with individuals that, yeah, okay, you know, I worked with this guy, you know, 14 years ago or this guy even 20 years ago, we have this fake friendship relationship over social media. But, you know, delivering to them and meeting them once a week or once every other week and just having a little chat has been very powerful and positive on my mental health for sure. I can see myself, you know, down the road having a little coffee shop where, you know, I’m there and I can meet people and talk to people and have my little extrovert energy vampire moments with other people. And we’ll work on ways for introverts to protect themselves from extrovert vampires. Absolutely. To protect your energy. And it’s important for introverts to get out and be social as well. So introverts love coffee shops because you can talk to people and then you can sit and read your book or get on your computer, do your thing. Yeah, yeah. These have been very powerful tools for introverts. You know, a lot of people. Yeah, my daughter, she just leaves them in all the time. That way people just don’t bother her. Sometimes people don’t see them or they perceive them as earrings. And so then the over the ear headphones, whether it’s for when you really want to build or don’t talk to me. Exactly. Well, I can definitely see your future laid out, but I’ll definitely be patronizing that coffee shop. Yeah, I hope so. You know, connecting some of the dots, I could see where some of your discipline and your focus you’ve had with your business. It’s a subscription service. So people will be justifiably upset if you miss a week. Oh, speaking of what that, no delivery during Thanksgiving. So you need to double up. All right. All right. Noted. Last question. I know you recently went through a job search. And I’m curious what you felt like, you know, for those of you who are our intact, everyone knows people who are maybe not intact. These have been kind of hard times in the past year and a half coming out of COVID. Yeah. It’s awful. It’s always awful. In product management, I probably have 16 or 17 years of experience. And I thought that that meant something. In some ways it does. I mean, that’s honestly how I landed the job I have now. But you know, it’s so depressing to put yourself out there. Obviously, get the rejections because they’ve made the barrier to submitting resumes. So frictionless that they just get thousands of resumes all the time. And for what I do now, product management, when I started very niche, not very many people doing it, now it’s just flooded with people. It’s hard to stand out. And as an extrovert who needs confirmation of my value, it can be pretty challenging, right, to get rejection after rejection. It does take its toll. Yeah. Well, it’s a challenging time all around. Do you think some of your qualities of extrovert and where they helpful in some ways? I think once I got in an interview, absolutely helpful. I can articulate concepts and I can explain methodologies. I have examples that I can pull up and I’m not necessarily tongue tied. The personality trait of an extrovert and product management is there for a reason, right? You are a person who has to get out in front of customers. You have to ask questions. You have to defend positions to senior stakeholders. You have to convince teams that you don’t manage to do work for you. It really lends itself to that extroverted personality. I did rely on that pretty heavily in the interviews of coming across as being very confident and well spoken. That’s right. So all these are things that introverts can do as well. Speaking from personal experience, it may just take more preparation and certain things, certain aspects of those may come less naturally. Well, thanks so much for joining me on this podcast and sharing your life and your life experiences with me. We were all underdeveloped, forebrained, 20-somethings at one point and we may have looked more successful but we really had no clue what we were doing. Yeah, some of us joined the service. Some of us went on long hikes in Alaska. Do you have a, for example? Well, Greg, I really appreciate you asking me on your podcast. I think it’s a great project. I have profound respect for introverts and their thoughtfulness and their perspective and just, you know, maybe it’s a trope but their meticulousness as well. They’re not talking all the time. They’re thinking. Excellent. And it’s great to have self-aware and mature extroverts like yourself is making room for quiet voices in the room. 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