Cosmos:

Welcome back to the show, my fellow extraordinary Americans. For today’s guest, we have Hoog Massey Hug, the executive chairman and founder of DNA Behavior International, the behavior and money insights company. 

As a titan hundred CEO and widely recognized behavioral solutions architect, Hugh addresses every opportunity and challenge from the proven perspective that behavior makes money. With his unique analogical approach, Hugh helps growth-minded leaders create an exponential future by building category-king people-centric businesses and, in the process, enhancing financial decision-making culture and performance. Applying the pioneering behavioral finance research Hugh has undertaken since 2001, he aims to commercialize the DNA behavior AI-driven BSIDE tech platform so that, by 2030, it informs over 1 billion people annually on how to enhance decision-making and relationships, increasing life, financial, and business longevity by 30 or more years. Hugh partners with clients to create an exponential future by developing trailblazing financial behavior apps that build the new befi economy, impacting all key areas of life, finance, and business. 

He’s an extraordinary American, and I’m glad to have him on the show. Hugh, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. It’s truly an honor.

Hugh Massey: 

Okay, great to be with you, Cosmos.

Cosmos:

So, Hugh, can you tell me and the audience a little bit more about yourself, your background, and your story?

Hugh Massey: 

So you can tell from my accent I’m not from America, although I live in Atlanta. So my birth country is Australia. So, you know, I’ve been living in America for the last 20-plus years. I’m a citizen; I’m based here, and I suppose you could call me a reformed accountant. 

So I started my career as a chartered accountant in Australia, or a CPA in America, mainly working as a tax specialist. And then, when I finished that career, I started my own business, a wealth management firm in Australia, working with, you know, a range of families with wealth from a million to a billion. And they had all sorts of interests, you know, you know, in investments, family, dynamics, businesses. The whole lot was going on there. But it was in that journey, Cosmos, that a friend of mine asked me one day, you know, Hugh, what are you really passionate about? 

And I said I want to help, from my subconscious mind, people all over the world become financially self-empowered. And I knew that given I just said that from the tip of my tongue in that way and in the way in which I was asked, that okay, there’s something really serious here because it was somewhat of a mismatch to what I was doing, you know. 

And so it got me to reflect deeper. And over the next six months or so, I realized that what we were talking about here was human behavior. And that if I were going to help people become financially self-empowered, it would be by helping them with their financial behavior and understanding their talents. Because that’s where real wealth will be created, that’s where the decision-making comes from. It wasn’t going to be teaching people traditional financial literacy, what a stock or a bond is, or which particular companies they should buy. And I also knew that you know, part of my secret sauce as a wealth manager, and before that, being a CPA, was personalizing the experience for each person. So, it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach to wealth management or tax advice. It was about how it is presented to each person so they can recognize themselves. 

And so I connected the dots: I could achieve the personalization goal while also helping people, you know, gain the self-awareness they needed to create wealth through behavior. And that’s what set me on the path to building a behavioral system. Of course, I didn’t have a background in behavioral science. 

So by chance, or maybe you say by providence, the right person shows up on my doorstep, and she was able to show me, you know, the initial pathway to building a system. Because I wanted to have a system so I could make, you know, what I was thinking, scalable to help people all over the world become financially self-empowered

00:05:00

You can’t do that by meeting every person individually. So, so you know, and we’re talking 20 years ago or more, 24 years ago now. So it came back to: okay, what algorithms do you need? And you know, what are the theories behind this? And you know what I got to was that every person has a natural, hardwired behavior ingrained from a very early age, before they ever know what money is. In fact, that shapes a lot of their life, financial, and workplace-type decision-making. It’s where people go under pressure. 

And so I wanted to know all of that because if I could understand that, then I could put a tailor-made suit on people for the long term. I could manage their decision-making, particularly under pressure, because that’s when many of the problems arise.

They make bad decisions, usually. Now people can make good decisions under pressure as well if they’re very self-aware. But the emotional decisions that get us into trouble tend to be made when we’re under pressure and when we’re emotional. 

And so I wanted to know where those barriers were for each, you know, where those zones were, if you want to call it that, for each person, and what was important to each person. And that’s really what’s driven me ever since, with, you know, with the work I do.

Cosmos:

Wow, Hugh, this is a fascinating subject, and I have so many questions for you. One of the things I want to know is: could you tell me some more? Can you give me an audience and some insights into what you found out about DNA, human behavior, and their relationship to finance?

Hugh Massey: 

Well, the first thing is that, you know, understanding where people’s decision-making comes from? And you know, what I knew back in 2001, probably intuitively, before I met with psychologists and psychometric specialists, was that people’s decision-making comes from how they are wired from very early in life. And, in fact, we now know it comes from, in part, when you are conceived. But a lot of it is, you know, 75% of what we would call your enduring traits, those, those behaviors that automatically show up instinctively. 85 or so percent of that shake by the time you are seven years old. 

And so it’s coming a lot from nature. And that got, you know, in, in a more public way, that got stated by a famous behavioral economics professor who’d won a Nobel Prize around the time I was starting with this. But he said in his 2012 book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, that everybody’s got a level-one, or system-one, behavior and a level-two, or system-two, behavior. The system one behavior being 95% of what drives decision making is automatic, it’s instinctive, it’s ingrained from early in life, and that’s what happens in a split second. And then the system 2 behavior is more of what’s learned. Well, that was what we had started working on 10 years before that. 

And I just called it level-one and level-two behavior. So that you have this natural, hardwired behavior that’s there, it’s ingrained. And basically some of it’s coming from genetics, as I said, a little bit of it’s genetics. A lot’s coming from the life experiences that you have from very early in life, starting with conception, from there on, and you, there’s not really much you can do about, you can’t do much about how that was wired into you. But the key is that if you can understand it, you can embrace its strengths and manage its struggles. 

So, in a way, it comes back to the “check yourself before you wreck yourself” approach. The more that you understand about who you are and how you’re wired, take the strengths and the struggles which are different for each of us, and work with those, and the more you’re aware. You can shift from system 1 behavior to system 2 behavior to make more sensible decisions. Because that’s really what we’re talking about here. But you have to remember always, under extreme pressures, we’re emotionally triggered, which often is just caused by stress or life events, and, unaware of it, you will go back to that System One behavior.

00:10:00

Cosmos:

One of the questions that’s very intriguing to me is that DNA is essentially like evolutionary biology. This has happened over hundreds of thousands of years. But if our behaviors are governed by, like, DNA and early-life experiences, is it possible for us to consciously shape them to be successful in business?

Hugh Massey: 

So I think what I’m saying is that, if you think about it, look at the United States. You’ve got the Rocky Mountains out there in a relatively central part of America. And then you’ve got the Mississippi River, you know, flowing from north to south, right down the middle there. And they’re basically hardwired or physically shaped into America. There’s not much you can do about that. It’s the same with it; it’s going to change or evolve over billions of years. It’s the same with your brain. The neural pathways in your brain.

They are shaped predominantly by the time you’re three years old. You can’t change the structure of those neural pathways very easily, but through consciousness, you can make decisions to override them. And that’s really what I’m trying to bring out: the difference between System one and System two behavior. 

So if you’re going to be successful, the first step is to understand your System One, or what we’ve called DNA behavior, your level one behavior. Understand what the strengths and struggles of that are, and, situationally, know how to manage them. So, for me, for example, I am Hugh, a relatively extreme risk-taker, ah, pioneer-innovator. That’s A massive strength for me. One, moving countries and setting up a new business in an area that’s quite new and different. Right. investing a lot of money personally in that, you know, my life. But, and that’s where I’ve always solved problems and gone from, you know, if I’ve made a, a jump upwards, that’s how it’s happened.

But at the same time, I’ve got to act with some level of consciousness about what I’m doing. So I’m not taking stupid risks. Right. That, that are going to send me out the back door. And that’s where awareness is giving me the consciousness to work at that level-two behavior as needed. So there are times when I act very cautiously, even though I’m inherently a risk-taker.

And there are other times when I’ll take the risks. That’s how you work with this. But I’m not fundamentally rewiring myself because if I were, I would be giving away my strengths. And no one should be doing that because that’s where your greatest opportunity actually is. Doesn’t matter how you’re wired, whether you’re, you know, a pioneering risk taker that’s creative or you’re the opposite of that. Right. And more, far more cautious feelings based on a relational person. There’s a place for all of us to excel. 

So I don’t think we should try to rewire ourselves in that way. But we should be more conscious of our go-to place. Because if you’re someone who’s the opposite of me, that you’re a more cautious person, a more sensitive relational person, that’s perhaps how you’re going to do well in your life and create community, building connections with a lot of people. But there will also be days when you’ve got to take a risk to reach the next level. But you’ve got to, you know, it might be uncomfortable, but you’ll need to do that. That’s the adjustment for you. That’s the level two behavior kicking in for that person, as opposed to me. I need to slow it down in some places.

 But if we’re all rewiring ourselves completely at a hardwired level, if you could ever do it, you’re taking away your inherent strengths, and you shouldn’t do that. So, what I’m getting at, really, is that the cosmos is about being super aware of yourself and knowing when you’re triggered to slow yourself down and make the right decision, depending on how you are wired.

00:15:00

Cosmos:

So, Hugh, this is fascinating because you’re a risk-taker. Still, Extraordinary America is designed for a lot of people that are, they might be cautious, and they’re

job and everything. Still, they want to take risks in business and, like, take financial chances to succeed and make something. And so basically, for people who are the opposite of you, they’re more cautious. How would you advise them so they’ll start a business and take on the risk? Ah. Despite their inherent nature to be cautious.

Hugh Massey: 

Yeah, I think that you know, it’s interesting. I was hosting a podcast myself the other day with someone whom I call an expert in this area, around startup businesses, for example. So he’s dealing with a lot of founders and entrepreneurs. And I said, you know, what’s the right age to start? What do you think is the right age to start a business? And he said basically there is no right age. Right. 

And that’s about when you have the right idea and feel ready. Now, for some people, that’s going to be when they’re 20 years old, in college, like Mark Zuckerberg and others. For others, it’s going to be in their 40s. And the average age for someone venturing out into, you know, a startup business is actually around 44 years old in that area. 

And the reason I think that is in today’s day and age, those people have been through some ups and downs. You know, they’ve had wins and losses in business. They’ve been in some kind of career or worked with somebody; they’ve had experiences, but they’ve also had time to see what the opportunity is, perhaps have built a little more life resilience to do it, and have got some financial resources. 

So I don’t think that, you know, every person who’s 21 should think, well, okay, I’m 21, I’ve got to go and jump into some entrepreneurial venture. I think the key thing is first to identify the opportunity, then assess whether you are capable and prepared, and finally look at your behavior.

So I’m not saying that even if you are a very cautious person, you can’t ever go and chase the dream of building something, because one of my early clients was relatively cautious, and he built a mammoth business. It can be done. But he did it out of a lot of expertise. He did it in software. He’d already accumulated a lot of expertise in that particular area at a larger company, and he knew how to build the right sales team.

And so again, it’s finding the right partners to do this with, so you could be the more cautious person, the more relational person. But you, but you build the, but you build, you build it with a go-getter. Right. and then you’ve got, and the go getters then got to understand that if you’re the relational, more cautious person, what your role, you know, that you’ve both got, you’re both important to the process. Right. 

So you know, I think that’s how people have got to look at it. But also, one really clear thing is that if you’re doing it just for money, you should never start. Yes, it is a financial transaction starting a business, but if your only purpose is about making money and it’s not connected to a deeper purpose or cause, it won’t last. And that’s, and that’s something that, yeah, you could, you know, if you want to be a transactional person and just flip in and out of things, yeah, that’s okay to do that for money. But that’s not really building a business; that’s just doing transactions. If you’re serious about building a longer-term business that creates enormous wealth, you’ve got to be fighting for a course that is more than just the money.

And so the easy way I talk to people about that is to think about something that you can do using your talents that would impact a lot of people. If you want to build a billion-dollar business, how are you going to impact a billion people? And then, once you’ve got that laid out, no one’s ever going to work out the complete answer at the start. But you’ve got to be fighting for a course because you’re going to go from business plan A to at least business plan G before you ever gain traction.

Well, many people give up in that window, let alone going from business plan G to business plan Z.

00:20:00

Right. And there’s going to be many forks in the road, and you’ve got to be prepared to tough it out. And I think this is where the number one trait for people building, you know, a serious business is resilience. But you’ve also got to be adaptable. So part of the resilience is also being adaptable.

A lot of people are not. If you’re going to start building a business with mammoth debt already, and liabilities at home, even if they’re just meeting household expenses, they’re all nooses around your neck. They’re going to make it harder. But the hardest thing is that if you don’t have that purpose underneath, you never really will do it. You’re like, you’re likely to stop unless you’re just going to be what I call a transactional, you know, deal-doer. So that’s the Hugh Massey hardline measure message to that.

Now, for some of us, we don’t find what we are or what our purpose is. I found that my out. I was about 34 years old when I made that discovery.

Cosmos:

Right.

Hugh Massey: 

I’d started as an entrepreneur before that in the wealth management business. But I wasn’t happy with it. It wasn’t my purpose. I hadn’t fully discovered the purpose. When I started a business, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and I was in a way transactional. I’d been doing deals on the side, you know, since I was 18 years old and thinking about money and whatnot. But I didn’t know what the purpose was once I discovered that, you know, helping people become financially self-empowered basically hasn’t changed in 25 years. I get out of bed every day to fight for that cause. But that’s also what allows me to potentially build a very big business. Right. And to do something that I’m happy about, and I’m not, as you know. I was never that excited when I had the wealth management business about helping other people with their investments. I don’t mind doing it for myself. I quite enjoy it, but I don’t like it for doing it for others.

But I had to be in it a little bit to find that out.

But I’d say for anybody out there listening today, you’ve got to find that purpose and that passion, something that’s going to drive you, and then think about what’s the business plan around that, and the more people that you’re going to impact, and it’s got a human impact type thinking, and we’re not talking about, being a social worker. We’re talking about building something that many people will touch. That’s probably the goal now. You know, for some people, it might be less than what I’m talking about. They’re working as an attorney somewhere, and they don’t like, you know, they’ve been in that for five years or eight years, and they don’t like all the controls of a bigger firm and working for somebody else. They realize that they’re more of an independent, free spirit. Okay. And they can see an area of the law they love doing. Go and set up a legal practice, and it might take you to the next thing. And you might find that after a while, that’s not what you want to do, but through clients and life experiences, you find the next thing. 

So there’s going to be telltale, you know, but you’ve got to have enough love of legal work to want to go and set up a business in that. Not everybody who sets out to start a business, I think, has to go and try to become a billion-dollar unicorn in five years. I think that’s probably where the mistake is, looking at others and saying, oh, gee, they did it, so I’m going to do it. That’s good to have that ambition. But you’ve got to be clear about how you’re going to do that. And that means you’ve got to be clear about yourself. 

And that’s a big part of, you know, the message here is you’ve got to be as clear about yourself and do as much work on developing yourself as an emotionally intelligent human being as you do on working on the business and transactional type concepts. And it’s the same with investing money. You know, I think everybody, you know, forgets that the people who are successful at investing are also. 

And you can make money from doing that, and they are usually emotionally intelligent. That helps having an advisor. But you’ve also got to be emotionally balanced yourself. Not just doing stuff because somebody else is doing it, or you think, gee, that person got rich, so I’ll go and do it too. It doesn’t work that way.

Cosmos:

So, Hugh, most people go through their lives not really knowing their path or purpose. They actually help other people’s dreams come true. So you talked about path and purpose, and I completely agree with you. But how would people listening to this go deep within themselves and find their why, path, and purpose? Because it might, you know, beyond the superficial, thing about, like, just making money.

Hugh Massey: 

Yeah. So there are varying books out there. I suppose you could, you could read. There are some good books written by a guy called Eckhart Tolle.

Cosmos:

I love that.

Hugh Massey: 

And that’s a fairly, you know, feelings-based approach to it. I get a lot of people to focus on what their identity is in terms of who they are, how they want the world to see them, and who they aspire to be as a person, because that’ll shape a lot of decisions. 

So if you can get your identity right, it’s a great book called The Power of Identity, written by Bill Wursmer. And the reason I like the book is that I think identity is even higher than purpose. I think your identity comes from the purpose. But Bill Werstner, in that book, provides a really good framework for you to work through to do that discovery. And the thing is, not all of us are going to discover our purpose that quickly. Even when I hit on mine. I’ve been doing soul searching, probably for five years. 

So it’s not something that just automatically comes for some, probably like my brother, although I wouldn’t say he might express it as a purpose, but he knew he wanted to be a pediatric doctor from very early in life. Right. He just knew, and that’s what he did. Nowadays, you know, he works with patients, but he also works on the ethics, bioethics side of all of that. But he knew from very early on, I didn’t know that it was, for me it was always going to be more of a financial career because anything to do with the human body and blood I didn’t like. Right. 

So I think you can go through a process of distilling what you love and don’t love, and what you love to do. You can find things that are easy for you to do, just instinctively come, and then you can start looking at your passions, and that’s probably where it’s going to be. Now, that’s something we, you know, do at DNA Behavior. We help people understand who they are and what they’re good at, and find what they love to do. 

And, I think that’s going to start to put you in that place of finding, of finding the purpose. So, others are also going to tell you, you know, you can go through a feedback exercise where you could ask others what you have, you know. I think that if you do some self-reflection, it’s important. You can ask others, and they might say, ” Well, you know, Hugh, I’ve seen you doing your best work and operating this way, much better than doing these other things. And so, in a way, you can start with a process of elimination. 

I think most of us already know, at least subconsciously, what we’re great at doing. I think part of the journey of life is to go and find it. And that can, through consulting with friends and family members or getting a coach, be good for doing all of that. And it will always be hard to make really good, committed financial, business, and entrepreneurial decisions till you get this part right.

Cosmos:

No. Amen. What you’re saying is so relevant.

And Hugh, I know you talked about identity, and I want to stress this at least for the sake of the audience. 

A lot of our purpose comes from our identity and who we are. And eventually, we find that out later in life. But what I realized, like, at least from my personal experience with a lot of people, is that their past identity, instilled in them since childhood, clashes with the new identity from which that purpose comes. So, do you have, like, any advice on how to, like, merge into this new identity and find your purpose, like, if you find this out in your adult life?

00:30:00

Hugh Massey: 

Well, that’s a really, that’s a really big, deep question. I think that there’s no doubt your identity, say, under 25 years old, is going to be very tied to your early life. You know, from where you were born, what family you were born into, the schools that you went to

 to the activities you did as a, essentially as a child, as a youth, at the university, you know, the university you did. Your identity is very tied to that. As you go along and start working and getting jobs, your identity can start to change, you know, and part of my identity early in life would have been not only from where I came from, as, you know, in terms of my family and where I was brought up, but also my early career as a tax specialist. 

So people, when I started a business, in the wealth management business, for example, associated me with being with me, being good at tax advice. But I knew that wasn’t it. At the end of the day, I was very good at it, but overall, I was probably 8 out of 10. Right. 

So I’m good yet in terms of my potential. So some of it is you’ve got to start being prepared to question and confront your family life. Because, you know, the fact that, you know, in a way, my mother said to me from pretty early on, Hugh, you’ve got a lot of entrepreneurial streaks in you, but it’s good to go and get a meal ticket. That was sort of like, so go into the accountancy profession, get a meal ticket behind you, so you can always have something that you could do. That was part of the traditional thinking. 

And I don’t decry that. And by making that statement, I’m being positive about the advice my mother gave me. But at the same time, you’ve got to break loose from that. Like, you’ve got to break loose from maybe certain things about the traditions of your own family, to, to, to go further because, you know, if I, if I stayed tied to my family and the upbringing I had, I’d still be in Sydney. 

And I had, you know, most people who know me, they’re, a great life, everything at my disposal. I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. But the thing I knew inside was that I couldn’t flourish unless I broke out and started doing things for myself. And that first came up when I was 25, and I went to my bosses and said, “Look, I’d like to go and live overseas, and can I work at Arthur Anderson in the UK?” And they said, now I’m in Sydney at that time, no, but if you’d like to go to Singapore, we’ll send you there. There’s a spot. And I went there, and then I went to Thailand. I did four years of that. That was part of Hugh creating his own identity. I took myself. I suppose what I’d say is to keep it simple, you’ve got to be prepared to take yourself out of the paddock or the environment or arena that you’ve been brought up in and go and expose yourself somewhere else. You don’t ever have to give away your friends, but maybe go and play somewhere else to make new ones and take up a new activity. Ah, it can be as simple as, oh, yeah, you are passionate about playing the. You know, you’re an accountant, you’re passionate about music and playing a musical instrument. We’ll create an activity you do every weekend or once a week at night, playing that instrument, and build a new set of relationships. So part of breaking the cycle is putting yourself in an environment where you can meet new people.

Cosmos:

So, Hugh, what is interesting about your story is that you have an immigrant identity where you’re traveling place to place, and it’s in flux. And the American identity was, and is, actually about an immigrant identity, where people would come from all over, find themselves in this new land, and create business opportunities. 

And I think part of that identity was what made a lot of people in America so successful. So I do think immigrant identities tend to be more adaptable and resilient. What are your thoughts on that?

Hugh Massey: 

I definitely think that if you’re an immigrant, you probably have a lot more independence in your thinking. That’s going to help you come to a new country. Even though America is reasonably open to newcomers, you still have to build relationships. There’s still a lot of adapting to go on. There’s a different culture here. 

You know, a lot of things are going on under the surface that we don’t all know about. You know, so there’s, there’s, there’s a tremendous amount of adapting to do just personally, let alone starting a business and going through all the things that, that, that, that, that, that, that that might involve. 

So I think that absolutely, you know, I think absolutely, cosmos, that what you’re talking about is true. And I think that

00:35:00

I was probably lucky to have my first taste of that going into Southeast Asia, which is a far more foreign place to go than Australia or America, and to have to cope in that environment. You know, I had to learn new tax laws, advise clients, and deal with people from a completely different culture. That teaches you a lot about yourself. I think I learned some. I got some of that entrepreneurial spirit from that, yeah, I can break loose and go and be independent and make things work and not always know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I think that, you know, that’s the issue for some cautious people: they want to know what’s going to happen tomorrow, and they want life security. 

Well, an entrepreneurial career is probably going to be challenging. It’s not impossible if you think like that, if you’re that way. But it’s going to be, it’s going to be harder. You’re going to need to be well prepared. Already have some clients who work in, you know, an arena that works for you. I broke out into an arena that’s almost as far away from accounting as you could get.

Other than being a doctor, perhaps, you know, or an Engineer. So, you know, it’s something that I could never do, really. But, but, but yeah, so, so, so I think that it is about adaptability in the thinking, having a desire to. You know, for me, part of the desire was to test myself and see where I can maximize my potential. And that’s about it. I go back to, now that I understand it, the work of Aristotle, you know, in. In the three hundred years before B.C., around flourishing. Right. 

Where can you put yourself in the world where you can flourish the most? And that does require having your purpose and your identity. Right. But being prepared to cut loose from the environment you’re brought up in doesn’t mean you have to reject it or the history or traditions you’re brought up in; it means you need to be able to maybe operate outside of them. You know, I don’t need to throw the upbringing I had up in the face of my family. There’s no, absolutely no reason to do that. In fact, I should celebrate it, and I do. But I’ve also had to go and be who I am, not limit my life to others’ perceptions.

Cosmos:

 Irene Hug, especially for me, I would. I personally took the best of all cultures because I had been an immigrant as well. And one thing I notice is that it’s difficult to have roots. But you can take the best of all cultures and make it a super identity in itself.

Hugh Massey: 

So, where did you come from?

Cosmos:

I mean, I was born in India, but I lived in the Middle East for quite a while. Then I came to America. And then, just basically, I’ve been across three different cultures. Yeah, just the integration of all those cultures. 

I’m taking the best out of all of them. And it teaches you a lot about yourself, but, paradoxically, it also makes you feel more spiritual because you realize that when you’re traveling through so many different places, your core identity ultimately comes from a source. As some call it God, some call it the universal consciousness. 

But all of our identities right now are temporary, yet there is a core, permanent identity that unites you with everything and everybody else.

It’s basically a one, a one.

Hugh Massey: 

And I think if you can get in touch with that, that’s what’s going to allow you to step out.

And you know, part of it for me was when I understood, when I connected the dots, that my early childhood dreams could be brought to reality. That’s when I really decided I knew I could break out and what I was going to do about it. And I think we’ve all got through, we’ve all got that, possibly we’ve all got the possibility to do that if we want it.

That’s. And so I agree with you. We are spiritual beings. Whether you want to define that as God or you know, connect to the universe and past life, and you know, a whole lot of elements like that, you know. 

And I don’t believe that if you allow yourself to go with the flow, which is, you know, can be sort of a trite type expression. But if you really allow yourself to go with who you are. Ah. Which is why I’m saying for people not to change their behavioral style but work with it,

00:40:00

Hugh Massey: Then, opportunity, massive opportunities can open up, and as we know, it’s who you connect to at what time. But there’s also. That’s why there’s no right age for this. You know that this, this is. It’s about all of our beings, and as we allow ourselves to, in a way, grow into the call, it.

Cosmos:

I mean, here personally, like I meditate and like whenever, whenever I’m doing meditation, I see I feel like I’m getting detached from my thoughts and emotions, and yeah, the characters and identities, and you just realize that you are kind of like in 

Eckhart Tolle’s own words, you’re like the awareness behind your identity or your thoughts and emotions that you are not. Because many people associate with and identify with their thoughts and emotions, which become a core part of who they are, it becomes difficult for them to change. For me personally, meditation was. It’s an integral part of my life. I recall I need it personally.

Hugh Massey: 

Yeah, I think if you can meditate on that, you know what we’ve seen, you know what the research shows, what we’ve done with DNA behavior. What this guy I was interviewing or having a Converse podcast conversation with last week, Rich Hagberg, has done. Has done in his work that the successful entrepreneurs are the ones who give themselves more time to reflect. And so they tend to. It’s more natural for an introvert.

Extroverts can learn to do it. But absolutely, meditation is a key step, I think. To allow, in a way, the information packets from your subconscious to come through and take advantage of them. Right. And, and, and to be more connected to the universe, if you want to call it that.

I totally agree here.

Cosmos:

And you can tell me a little bit more about the DNA behavior International and how you started it.

Hugh Massey:

So it came, you know, it came from me connecting to my purpose. So I’ve wanted to help people become financially self-empowered. I knew it was behavioral. I wanted to be able to measure it because it was the only way that if I was going to help people all over the world become financially self-empowered, I had to have a system. 

And then I had the belief that the core of your behavior came from early in life, the natural, hardwired behavior. And then that really became the question: can it be measured? The answer comes back from the team I hired. Yes, it could be. And that’s when I started coming to America, particularly to Atlanta, where I am now, and where I worked with specialists in the field who’d done a lot of what we call psychometric work, as well as with universities to build a system that would give me the algorithms. 

And then I hired the technology people to build those algorithms into a system, package it up, and that. And you know, and from that, once you have that, then it’s about going and doing testing with, with, with potential customers. 

So I went to a lot of financial advisors and said, ” You know, if we have these insights about financial behavior and how to communicate with clients, would you use this with your clients? 

And then, you know, one by one they say yes. And we go from there. And then we’ve helped people with teams and leadership development, helping leaders understand how their attitudes about money are impacting their company. And so, you know, it’s just a progressive journey of building a business. And that’s, and that’s really where, where you know, I’ve got to today, and we’ve still got a long way to go, but that’s what’s been done, you know, over the last, over the last 20 years.

Cosmos:

That is amazing, Hugh.

And Hugh, I also know that you, like, have a goal of reaching a billion people with this tech platform. Can you tell me a little bit more about this in the audience?

Hugh Massey: 

So I think, you know, our business has been largely, to date, up to this year. We’ve always required people to complete our behavioral profile. So that was really the, you know, the psychometric measurement comes from each individual who wants to become financially self-empowered, if you want to call it that, or to learn more about themselves, has a complete profile, right, that took 10 to 12 minutes. You can understand that while it’s powerful and it leads to a lot of insight, there’s a friction with that

00:45:00

because people have got to come and complete it. So, at the end of 2023, two years ago, I did a team session, a team building session with my team, and did the business planning. I said, ” What if we change the goals? 

And, we said we want to have a billion people in our database by the end of 2030. What do we need to do? Okay, so the answer comes back. We would need to use AI to complete the questionnaire for people automatically, and then we can provide them with that feedback.

Cosmos:

Right.

Hugh Massey: 

And actually, in 2017, we’d actually built the methodology, not the technology, but the methodology to do it. So we, in a sense, dusted that off and programmed it up. And then this year, we launched what’s called the digital scan. And already Today we have 275 million people in the database.

So I don’t see why, by, and we’ve got plans out there now to get more; we’ve got a strategy for that. There’s no reason we won’t have a billion people in the database by 2030. That is, it’ll come because AI allows us to do it. And really, that’s the thing: technology allows us to do that without the changes that have come. We couldn’t do it, and now, you know, instead of somebody having to explain the profile to you, AI can do that. You can go to our system. It will give you whatever interpretation, coaching, wealth mentoring, or identity coaching you want, including for leaders. 

We can help them look at all the people in their organization, fairly instantly, and make decisions about them. You know, where are they going to start with business improvement? Or, if you’re a financial advisor, you can now get a picture of your whole client base and how you’re going to engage them differently. Put a tailor-made suit on each person, or, you know, how does the planning work differently for different people? That can all be accelerated because AI allows us to do it at a pretty high level of accuracy.

Cosmos:

This is amazing here and here. How can the audience connect with you? Let’s say they want to reach out to you, like to connect with you, or to get to know more about you and everything you do. How do they go about doing so?

Hugh Massey: 

So the best two ways are to go to LinkedIn. So, Hugh Massey, in Atlanta at DNA behavior, you would. You would see me there. So you can write me a message in there or go to our website@dnabehavior.comm and, you know, take a look around, and there are plenty of ways there to connect with me from there.

Cosmos:

That is amazing, Hugh. And, Hugh, I’m so grateful that you came on this podcast and shared your understanding of business life, human behavior, identity, and purpose, because this is so relevant. 

And most people just go through their lives not knowing who they are and, like, what their purpose is. So I really appreciate that we talked about this, and I definitely hope you come back to the show later.

Hugh Massey: 

I’d love to, Cosmos. And I really appreciate the questioning, and I know you understand what I was talking about because of your own life journey and belief system. So that helps, I think, in putting this across as well.

Cosmos:

No, for sure. And I want to conclude this episode by letting my fellow extraordinary Americans know that, hey, look, there’s an extraordinary within every one of us. It’s our duty to awaken it and unleash it. Until next time. Bye for now.

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