Mastering the Art of Success: Understanding Personality Ethic vs. Character Ethic

[00:00:11] Kasim: One of my all time favorite books is Stephen Covey's, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I think I've gifted that book more than any other book. I've read and reread it more often than I can count, and what's cool about it is it reads really well from start to finish, it's also pretty referential once you understand it or understand the, fundamentals.

[00:00:28] Kasim: it's like reading. the entire lexicon of human success literature summarized into one book, which is more or less kind of his pitch. He said that he read all the success literature he could get his hands on going back hundreds of years. And, you can't say that he condensed it all, but he did a really good job distilling some of what was Hierarchically speaking the most effective information, and then he put it inside of a framework.

[00:00:48] Kasim: I'm obsessed. You'll hear me say this a lot. By the way, I'm obsessed with frameworks and I especially love his framework. You know, is he you from a dependence to independence to interdependence. And he has the kinda the private victories and the public victories and none of that makes sense if you haven't read the book.

[00:01:00] Kasim: But just allows you to see how certain habits interact with certain areas and facets of your life. then the sequencing to those habits, how they interact with each other. It's really, really cool. the book rests upon. An assertion that Covey makes about a significant change that he identified in in the US success literature, specifically around the turn of the 20th century.

[00:01:24] Kasim: So the book is written in 1989 and Covey said around I think it's around World War ii he noticed that. In his research, what he saw was a significant shift from what he terms as character ethic to personality ethic, and character ethic is all the stuff your mom taught you or your pastor or your rabbi like.

[00:01:43] Kasim: It's Do good for goodness sake. And personality ethic is the stuff that you learn from the clickbait magazines. and I don't think Covey could be placed in the camp of, curmudgeony old men who are lamenting the declining fabric of. Declining moral fabric of society. I don't think that's what he was doing.

[00:02:01] Kasim: was just commenting on, you know what? I think a lot of it is just the propensity for clickbait. Right around that time we started producing much more in the way of media you know, as something of a new age. And it's the personality ethic that appeals, , that'll probably get you to open up an article.

[00:02:16] Kasim: Fact, not probably. It definitely will, and we know that because that's the direction that personality ethic heads in. so to delineate between the two. Personality ethic is what you're taught to focus on by people who are results. Short-term results focus. So it's like surface level improvements, temporary fixes, quick fixes.

[00:02:32] Kasim: This is where you're like, you're polishing the leaves, not paying attention to the roots. This is like taking a pill to lose weight. or if you've seen those, electronic things that you can hook onto yourself and they'll like stimulate your muscles and apparently help you build more, like that's personality, ethic thinking.

[00:02:45] Kasim: then the character ethic is, that's what you're told To focus on by like philosophers and authentic religious leaders. It's like the foundational improvements, the long-term growth-minded. This is the roots and the soil. this is actual self-improvement. Personality ethic, character ethic.

[00:02:59] Kasim: you think to yourself like, yeah, dude, I got it. Why do I need a video on this? Well, maybe you don't, but what I've noticed, and this is me too, by the way, Is we very often default to the personality ethic, especially when we're trying to diagnose problems or plan ahead. So for example, the personality ethic asks, how do I get people to buy my product or service?

[00:03:17] Kasim: at first that seems like a really harmless question, but then if you dig into it, it's a little manipulative. It's like, well, you don't get people convinced Khan Cajole sell. Right. Instead, the character ethic would ask, how do I create a product or service that will truly serve my customer? Like, how do I create a product or service that they, they just couldn't live without?

[00:03:38] Kasim: That would be so valuable that the exchange would be an absolute no brainer. I learned very recently from a member of my mastermind, I absolutely love this. It was one of the best lessons I've been taught in the last decade. We were talking about the fear of selling and I'm trying to remember who said it.

[00:03:52] Kasim: Mark said, you need to be so confident in what you're selling, that it's like you're on the dock watching people board rickety boats, and you have life jackets. You are afraid for them. You know the risks and you realize this thing that I've got is of supreme importance given your current life situation.

[00:04:17] Kasim: And if you're not that confident, then maybe what you're selling isn't that good. Right? And that's obviously, it's hyperbolic, so it's taken to the extreme. But you wanna be offering something to somebody that really impacts them, really moves the needle, really delivers on the promise. That's the character ethic.

[00:04:31] Kasim: The personality ethic is like, oh, how do I get you to do this thing? You know, maybe if I change the button from red to blue, the character ethic is where's the value? How do I increase the value? How do we improve the value? Personality ethic asks, how do I make the most amount of money with the least amount of output?

[00:04:45] Kasim: This is, employers do this very often. It's like, man, how do I get the best person for the least amount of money, And y'all, I'm not better than anybody. I tried that game for a long time that's how we're taught. That's actually how employers, new employers especially, that's how you are taught to find hire.

[00:05:01] Kasim: Train and maintain people is just keep 'em up to , the smallest drip you possibly can afford. And where the character ethic says, how do I provide the maximum amount of value? And that's how you get. That's how you get peak performers, and this is true everything. You know, it's not just in employment, it's with your customers too.

[00:05:18] Kasim: It's like, I don't wanna maximize my input and minimize my output. Well, do you though? You know, like, is that really the life you wanna live? What a parasite you'd be Instead, it's like, how do I give as much as I possibly can? Build a business so that that giving is sustainable. And if you look at the businesses it's almost not even a moral question.

[00:05:38] Kasim: it's a question of. The capability to scale. for instance, I wouldn't consider Jeff Bezos to be an exceptionally moral human. I don't think he's immoral, but he doesn't have like, Bill Gates has all those stories about him running around Kieran Polio and giving shots and helping with environmental causes.

[00:05:54] Kasim: And regardless of how you feel about the stances he's taken on things you could make a really cogent make and defend a really cogent argument about him doing things for reasons other than himself maybe Bezos, outside of, I know he gave $500 million to Montessori schools. Outside of that, I think dudes just making money, and I'm not trying to bash him by the way, or say anything about like the not just for profit model.

[00:06:14] Kasim: I some, I think that that philanthropy should be kept with philanthropy and business should be kept with business. And if you can do bus good business, great. This is what I'm saying I'm trying to deflate the idea that morality is involved in this particular example and say you get way more value out of Amazon than you've given it by, I can't tell you how many multiples, and if you don't think that's true, I'd ask you to go look back, think back on what life was like pre-Amazon.

[00:06:41] Kasim: If you're in a major metro, y'all. I've ordered something at like seven in the morning and had it by nine faster than I would've been able to go get it myself. Like, unbelievable. It's, and when Covid landed, Amazon saved the world, the modern world. You know, you can get anything you want at the absolute cheapest prices in the shortest amount of time, and you can get it shipped effectively for free if you're a prime.

[00:07:02] Kasim: Subscriber. and that's character ethic thinking it's the maximum amount of value. I'm pretty sure it was Bezos that said, your margin is my opportunity. I'm not trying to make a moral statement here. It's, it's a functional statement. of course there's morality applied to it and we shouldn't apologize for that either.

[00:07:16] Kasim: Personality ethic asks, how do I get my customers to. Say, act, think this way. Character ethic says, asks, what is it that my customers say, act or think that I can tap into in order to serve them? So the personality ethic tries to change the customer. The character ethic tries to align with the customer.

[00:07:33] Kasim: Now, that doesn't mean you do everything they say they're gonna do. Right, like, you know, everybody's favorite example is Steve Jobs. He didn't give anybody anything they wanted. Nobody knew they wanted a smartphone. He created that, but He created it with an understanding, maybe a supreme understanding of human behavior and psychology jobs understood better than any other

[00:07:50] Kasim: provider at the time that simplicity and reliability were paramount. None of the Apple products were, were better from a functional perspective, right? They couldn't do as much, they didn't have as many apps. They didn't have as many features. They didn't have as many functions. But gosh, did they work?

[00:08:04] Kasim: Just tried and true. what's so funny is the perception became the opposite. The perception became that like if you were cutting edge, you were on an Apple computer and it's like that thing couldn't do 80% of what the other computers could do, but those ones broke all the damn time and that one always worked.

[00:08:17] Kasim: Character ethic focusing on the character ethic in business and in life. If you wanna go there it puts you in a position to grow from a strong and stable foundation. It also makes you defensible if you do, if you operate from the character ethic. If everything you do, if, if the content you create, the social posts that you put up the policies that you enact, the way you treat your customers and your employees and yourself, if it all stems from the character ethic, even when you make an a mistake, you find yourself in a, in a position.

[00:08:41] Kasim: you're in a fortress. It's a lot like always telling the truth, which , I think those two are inly tied. it protects you on a cosmic scale. Anyway, I think the character ethic and personality ethic conversation is a really important one. it's something that we should return to regularly as marketers.

[00:08:57] Kasim: 'cause y'all, I do this all the time. My video titles are very personality ethic. I'm like, I wonder what I can do to get you to click. but my characteristic titles don't. They just don't perform as well. I'll prove that with this title. Actually. We'll see. Check out Steven's book though. It's amazing.

[00:09:12] Kasim: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And I'd love to know what you think of videos like this. I know I'm going far a field from the Google Ads stuff. We do so much Google Ads training. I'm honestly running outta Google ads, things to talk about. So here I am talking about entrepreneurship business.

[00:09:22] Kasim: I don't know what this was. Psychology, philosophy. I don't know. I shoot a video every day. I'll see you tomorrow.

[00:09:28] Kasim: