E762 | Are You A Type A Or B Entrepreneur?

The Types Defined: Where Do You Fall?

Type A individuals are the go-getters. They are competitive, driven, and ambitious. They thrive on achievement and constantly look ahead, propelled by the need to prove themselves to others or even to themselves. While these traits can fuel impressive accomplishments, they come with a cost: a tendency to overlook the present and neglect personal connections.

On the other side, Type B individuals are more relaxed, creative, and present. They savor the moment and prioritize experiences and relationships. They may not push as hard as their Type A counterparts, but they bring balance, mindfulness, and a sense of community that many Type A personalities lack.

Most entrepreneurs lean heavily toward Type A. If you’re reading this, chances are you’re more Type A than Type B, and that has probably served you well in your business. But here's the catch: what propels you to success can also be your kryptonite.

The Need for Balance: Why Both Types Need to Learn From Each Other

Type A personalities can burn out by focusing solely on future goals, missing the life unfolding around them. Type B individuals, meanwhile, might find themselves lagging in career progression without adopting some Type A skills. The trick is learning to strike a balance.

Consider my friend, a successful wine distributor and a Type B at heart. He enjoys life to the fullest—spending time with friends, attending concerts, and finding joy in daily moments. But he’s also learned to incorporate Type A habits like copywriting and time management, enabling him to run a thriving business. It’s this mix that allows him to succeed financially while maintaining a rich, fulfilling life.

My Journey: Lessons From a Type A Entrepreneur

I’m as Type A as they come. From competitive board game sessions as a kid to diving straight from college into a doctoral program and a military career, I’ve always been driven. My wife is also Type A, which meant we both hit the ground running, pursuing goals relentlessly. But the cost? We lost touch with hobbies, friends, and the little joys that make life meaningful.

The first few years of starting our business were a blur. I was constantly traveling, teaching, and learning how to run a business. My mind was always elsewhere, worrying about financial security and proving our naysayers wrong. As a result, I have a gap in my memories of those years—birthdays, holidays, and simple family moments that I missed out on because I was too consumed by the drive to succeed.

The Importance of Type B Skills

If you're Type A, learning to adopt Type B traits can be life-changing. These might be as simple as reading a book for pleasure, joining a recreational sports team, or volunteering to coach your child’s team. It’s about taking the time to enjoy life outside of work and making memories that don’t revolve around business.

Why does this matter? Because without these moments, success can feel hollow. Achievements are best enjoyed with people you care about. And if you're always looking ahead, you miss what's happening right in front of you. It’s ironic but true: Type A people need to learn how to have fun.

The Type B Challenge: Leaning Into Type A Skills

For Type B entrepreneurs, adopting Type A habits can boost productivity and career growth. Learn to wake up early, set structured goals, and stay organized. These skills can be draining at first but can lead to greater financial stability and success.

Finding Your Balance

If you’re a Type A, spend time with those who naturally embrace Type B traits. Let them teach you to relax, enjoy hobbies, and live in the moment. If you’re a Type B, surround yourself with driven, goal-oriented people to absorb their energy and learn how to push forward when needed.

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Podcast Transcript

Hey, real quick, if you're serious about starting or growing your cash based practice, I want to formally invite you to go to Facebook and join our PT entrepreneurs Facebook group. This is a group of over 6, 000 providers all over the country. And it's a pretty amazing place to start to get involved in the conversation.

Hope to see you there soon. Hey, are you a physical therapist looking to leverage your skill set in a way that helps you create time and financial freedom for yourself and your family? If so, you're in the right spot. My name is Danny Matta, and over the last 15 years, I've done pretty much everything you can in the profession.

I've been a staff PT, I've been an active duty military officer physical therapist, I've started my own cash practice, I've sold that cash practice. And today my company physical therapy business helped over a thousand clinicians start growing scale their own cash practices So if this sounds like something you want to do listen up because i'm here to help you

What's going on doc? Danny here with the pt entrepreneur podcast and today we're talking about the type of Entrepreneur you are the type of person that you are and how you might want to work on some areas that Aren't really your strengths and how that can really benefit you overall. So I'll give you some context for this one.

I was listening to a podcast that I like and they briefly mentioned this concept of type A and type B people. And what they said was type A people have type B problems and type B people have type A problems. Um, and I thought about that, uh, and I thought it was really interesting because what they're basically saying is, you know, if you're a type a person, you probably want to lean into more type B skills or, uh, you know, preferences.

If you're a type B person, you might want to add on bolt on some type a skills or preferences. And I'm going to define these real quick, at least the way that I view it. And I'm going to take this in terms of, you can apply this. However. But I'm going to obviously run this through an entrepreneur lane, uh, lens, because that's what I do and that's who I work with.

And, uh, it's what I kind of always am kind of viewing the world through, through this sort of, um, entrepreneur driven approach to things. So I work with a lot of entrepreneurs and I think what's interesting about this is There's definitely type a entrepreneurs and type B entrepreneurs. So a type a person, many of you listening to this honestly are probably more type a.

So type a person is competitive. They're driven. They're ambitious. They're, they're the achiever, right? They're the ones that are trying to, uh, accomplish something. They're trying to, in many cases, prove something to themself or maybe to other people. Uh, there's lots of things that drive. People to do things to achieve things, right?

It's not always a internal positive thing. In fact, rarely is it an internal positive thing to start with. Most people that are this sort of like type a driven individual, they are trying to essentially prove somebody wrong or prove. Uh, that they're worthy of something, right? And that's not necessarily the healthiest thing longterm.

Hey, it can get you, it can get you going and get you pretty far. Um, but eventually you gotta, you gotta realize that you can't just be driven off of trying to prove somebody wrong or trying to prove something to yourself that, you know, that you're worthy of other people being in your life. All right. And that, that can be a really challenging thing.

I think for this group in particular, a type B entrepreneur, they're going to be more laid back. They typically are more creative and they're a lot more present, uh, in the, uh, day to day. Right. Like they, they live in the moment a lot more. Yeah. Then somebody that's more type a, who tends to be a bit more future biased, right?

They're kind of like thinking about things way down the line and in the process, sometimes they miss what's right in front of them, which is just literally life. It's all the fun stuff. It's the, it's the beauty of what's going on around you in real time because you're so fixated on. Future bias things.

So the people that I work with, and maybe you can sort of fall into one of these buckets a little bit, maybe a little bit more, or maybe you're like a, you're like a AB or a BA, right? You're, you're going to bias one maybe as a priority over the other, but you know, you may have some, some from both sides of that, but what I tend to see is, uh, You know, a lot of type a entrepreneurs that, that, that I work with, uh, most people that are listening to a podcast about business are pretty serious about improving their business.

And they're probably pretty type a, you know, um, and for you, that's probably served you really, really well. And that's something that you can really lean into in the business world. Uh, and, and I would say, I don't know, 80 percent of the people that I work with are going to fall into this type a category and what they're, what they're going to have as a superpower is also in many ways, they're kryptonite.

There's a guy that I train with. Uh, so he's somebody that is a friend of mine in the neighborhood where I live. And he is somebody that I, I coach sports with, and he just was interested in working out and hadn't worked out in a long time. And I, um, I eventually, you know, it was like, Hey man, I trained at this Time in my garage if you want to uh, if you want to train, you know, let me know So he's been working at me now for like a year and i've gotten to this guy pretty well And what's interesting about him is he's very he's a very successful Uh wine distributor so, you know Just importing wine and selling different wines, uh to different restaurants in the area.

Very very good at that and uh, I would say He's a very, very high achiever when it comes to that, but he's a type B, he's a B that's learned how to be an A. And when I look at this, this person in particular, what he has is an incredible ability to be present in, in real time. To focus on the things around him to really, um, be mindful of friends, family, to, to, uh, cultivate those relationships, to curate those relationships, to be a, to be somebody that brings a lot of people together, somebody that really intentionally thinks about experiences and is really good at, uh, intentional gifting.

And just honestly, he's like a friend, a billionaire, right? Like this guy. Knows so many people has so many great relationships and he just has a lot of fun in his life, right? And he's been able to bolt on type a Skills, right? Like this is a good example of it. So he there's a there's a korean spa in atlanta And, uh, you know, he, he's like, yeah, this is mid, you know, on like a Monday.

He's like, yeah, I'm going to go to the spa and he'd like a recovery day. So he goes to the spa, but while he's there, he writes, he writes some emails for some of the wine distribution stuff that he does and generated 40, 000 in sales while he's there at a, at a spot. Right. So like, this is a, this is a type B person that, that is like, you know, enjoying life, but then also has bolted on type a skills like copywriting to be able to generate.

Income and revenue, uh, for his, for his, uh, company while he's, uh, I don't know, sitting in a sauna, uh, or wherever, uh, he typed these things up. So that's a good example of a B that has, has learned a skills organization block schedules. Uh, you know, the ability to follow through on things, the ability to, uh, you know, write copy, the ability to sell the ability to, to actually like build the skillset needed to function in a.

Corporate environment, like he functions in, right? So this is a B person that works on a skills and has had a problems, right? Like maybe got a later start in their career than other people that are more type a, because they're not as driven for those things, right? They're, they're focused on experience and, and other things in life that are important to them, and they have a lot of hobbies and fascinations outside of just their work.

So when you look at what. What a category you fall into like for me, I'm a, I'm an a, like I'm an a plus. Okay. Like that. And, and many of you are probably, are probably similar to that. Uh, you know, I, I went, I I'm very competitive, like to, to a degree. In a bad way, like, like I'm the kid that would like flip a monopoly board over if I wasn't going to win Um, you know, I got in a fight at an uno tournament one time whenever I was nine uh, because I thought somebody was cheating like These these are the kind of things that this this wasn't this was wasn't ingrained in me This is just I mean it wasn't taught.

It's just the way that i'm built, right? it's the way that I i'm wired and it's created a lot of problems for me, too, but from an early age, I went straight from high school to college college to Uh to to Uh, you know, uh, my doctoral program in, in, in the army, straight into the army, you know, did everything that I was supposed to do, checked all the boxes in the army to build, to make rank, um, got married when I was 22, you know, my wife was 21.

Like, think about that, like that is a type A, we're, we're going places. My wife is also very type A and you know, we are very, very driven people along the way. Here's what you lose friends, uh, in enjoying hobbies, enjoying things in life, pausing to take a breath and look around at all the wonderful things around you, you know, family, staying in touch with people because you're just so busy moving the direction that you want to go.

You have your blinders on and you forget about everybody else because you're so driven to achieve the thing that you feel compelled to achieve as a type a person. But that type a person is lopsided. That type B person. Is lopsided because whether they like it or not, they can't just go to jam band concerts, you know, and fish all day.

They have to also make money for their family. That's how it works. Like, so they have to gain a skills. And if you're an a, uh, type person, you have to gain B skills. And I, when I heard this, I was like, man, this is so spot on. I wish somebody would have been able to explain this to me. And what's funny is my kids, one is an A and one is a B.

My daughter is, she is an A plus she's driven. She's like. Super, super motivated to achieve my son, man. He likes to hang with his friends. Like he's super creative. He likes to go fishing. Like he has hobbies. He likes these, he likes things outside of it. He's not as like driven to achieve something. Uh, naturally as my daughter is.

And the other day, I don't think they knew what the hell I was talking about. I tried to explain this concept to them and they, I'm pretty sure they just, they may get it one day, but I don't think they got it today or the other day. Uh, but they're going to have to really bias those things. And for us, what's nice to know is cool.

Well, then we can help our son with that. Executive function skills and, and learning how to use a, uh, an agenda and block scheduling and, you know, making sure that he has a task list of things that he needs to do. And he knows what his week looks like. My daughter remembers all that shit. She doesn't need to know that, but what she needs is she needs downtime.

You know, she needs to be focused on things besides that. She needs, you know, hobbies outside of, uh, school and sports and, you know, and, and just to be in a bit more of a relaxed environment. More than my son does because he naturally thrives in that environment. He likes that environment versus the other ones.

So, so like knowing that can be really helpful to anybody, whether it's a business or not, but if you're in business, this is really important because if I can go back and tell myself anything, and I actually don't know if I would have listened to myself, cause I'm, that's, that's the kind of asshole that I used to be where I just didn't matter what anybody said.

I just was like, I was going to do something. I was going to achieve something at the expense of. Any, anything else that would get in the way and it, it would, honestly, it would be to focus on, uh, like at least a percentage of my time outside of business, like thinking about something besides business and what I was trying to accomplish and the money we were trying to, to make in the business.

Like I was very, very driven by, you know, financial security. More than anything else. Like I wanted to have enough money that I felt, uh, financially secure. That was something to me that I really hadn't felt, uh, before. Like I didn't know, like I, it was, I always felt like I didn't have enough. Right. So, so being able to get to a point where we had financial security, which by, by the way, it's funny, you never get there until you, you, you never get there until you work on your money mindset, because you may say to yourself, Oh, I just need an extra zero.

Well, I can, I can tell you this, once you get that extra zero, you're going to say, well, once I just get like another zero, or if I get, you know, X amount more, once I hit this number, I'm going to be good. It doesn't work that way. I mean, there's definitely like money that can help you not, you know, freak out if you have a, you know, an auto, uh, you know, whatever accident, or, or if you have to like do something to your house or a medical bill or something like these, that's, that is, Not that much money, honestly, to have a baseline level of just almost like insurance that you have built in.

But, you know, for, for me, I was driven financially, I was driven by security. And, and also just like a lot of people told me that what we were trying to do was a bad idea and it wouldn't work. And. And that was like fuel for me to really prove them wrong. So I was constantly thinking about that and what I missed out on.

And, and, and it's, it's, it's really like frustrating and sad for me to think about, you know, the first few years that we had our business. I don't remember much of that time, like, Hey, sorry to interrupt the podcast, but I have a huge favor to ask of you. If you are a long time listener or a new listener and you're finding value in this podcast, please head over to iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to the podcast and please leave a rating and review.

This is actually very helpful for us to get this podcast in front of more clinicians and really help them develop time and financial freedom. So if you do that, I'll greatly appreciate it. Now back to the podcast. I just, it's funny. I don't remember a whole lot of the first in particular, three years of, uh, starting our business.

And it's because I was traveling two to three times a month, you know, for, for teaching. I, we were constantly just grinding to get this business up and running, learn, trying to learn as much as I possibly could about something I didn't go to school for, which was, you know, starting and running a business.

Um, just sleep deprived for years, two young kids. Uh, and, you know, it's, it's, it's odd for me to see, uh, pictures or videos of that time. It's like three year period. And it's just like, it's like, I'm seeing it for the first time. Sometimes it's so weird and it's because I just wasn't there mentally. Like I was there physically as much as I could be when I wasn't traveling for work or at, you know, or, or doing something for the business or working.

And, but even when I was there, My mind was somewhere else. So there's, there's this three year period that I just didn't even, uh, experience really with my family, with our friends. And I, I turned everybody around me down, everybody down for anything, whether it be, you know, going to a dinner. Nope. Can't afford it.

Like, uh, we're focused on, you know, That like we can't spend any more money this everything's going back into the business right family events. We didn't go to um, you know friends, uh hobbies outside the business like I used to play Sports, I used to play pick up basketball and i'd play on softball teams and I turned all that stuff down Stopped doing it, you know just like completely had no room for it at all And sometimes I look back and i'm like, I don't know If like this burden of being like a very type a driven person Like that's a superpower in that timeframe as well because it's really, really, really hard.

If you go to start a business, it's so hard. It's so hard, but I think there's a way that you can have better balance than what I had. And I'm not saying you're gonna have fantastic balance, but if you're just aware of this, at least it's, it's hard to dig yourself out of this hole. Once you start to turn everybody else around you down, once you start to mentally not be there for your family and your spouse, and.

That is, uh, something that may never bounce back, right? There, there, there's a reason why so many entrepreneurs struggle with, uh, anxiety, depression, and, um, and, and many of them end up divorced. And it's because of these periods where it's just so challenging and you're so solely focused on the thing that you want to achieve for whatever reason that is, that everything else around you is secondary.

And when you start putting people in your life that are important to you and, and they become secondary and they feel that. That's not, that's not what they signed up for. That's not where they want to be. And if, you know, if they're unwilling to put up with you, then that's where you end up, you know, with, uh, with a relationship that sours.

You know, with, with the inability to connect to your kids. Because you don't even know them. You haven't even really even paid attention to them. You know, you're there, but you're not there. I see, I see pictures of myself during this sort of three year window, whenever we got started and like it, you can tell, I'm just like looking off into space half the time, just staring, you know, often to nothing.

And I'm just thinking about all the shit that I need to do and the things that I, that whatever was on, on my mind at a time that was related to business. Right. Uh, and it wasn't anything about the birthday party that I was at for my, you know, daughter or, uh, you know, Christmas or whatever, like that these things just Weren't even on my radar.

So this is where, when I look at type a people in particular, people listen to this podcast, they're eight out of 10, you are going to be type a, you need to work on type B skills and these type B skills are going to be, honestly, they're, they're going to be hard for you, but they're also, it's ironic that this would be hard for you because these are actually like fun things to do, right?

So actually intentionally spending time where you're not focused on the business. Right. Like you could read something that has nothing to do with your business at all. You could learn something that has nothing to do with your business. You can join a intramural team, right? You can volunteer to coach your kids, which I didn't do that for years, years.

I didn't start doing this until about two years ago. And it wasn't because I didn't feel like, you know, I wanted, I, I wanted to do it. I didn't have the time to do it. But. But I did like, that's the thing. It's like, I didn't prioritize the time for it. I prioritize the time for growing businesses, you know, for building the businesses, the way that I wanted to, to hit the goals that I wanted to achieve.

And, uh, I didn't prioritize something as meaningful to me as coaching, which may seem insignificant in some respects, but to me, it's like that is volunteering my time with. You know, both my kids, uh, teams, whatever it is that they're doing. And, and honestly, at a certain point, you're not going to get a chance to do it.

Like they're going to be in middle school, high school. My son's in middle school. I can't coach his teams anymore. He plays for school. It's a, that's it, you know, like if he plays a rec sport, then yeah. I could do that, but it's just not going to happen after a period of time. So you have this finite window where you could do something like that, spend time with them, uh, and, and, you know, volunteer your time so you can be there and, and, uh, you know, pour into them and the people that they, uh, that they played sports with, which is, you know, you can be a really positive influence on people if you, uh, if you allocate the time for that.

And I, I did not, I didn't do that. Right. You can, you know, go to a concert, like enjoy. The things you like to do if you like to go, you know, hunt fish go do that, right? Like don't take these things away from yourself that are times where you're relaxed because The the brain needs downtime, right? The the body needs downtime.

It needs a reset. It needs a pause it needs to collect its thoughts and just chill and reset and The interesting thing about it is if you give the the body and the mind the time it needs To be able to recover and to let your thoughts settle. You're going to be far more effective and efficient at the things you are doing for your business, right?

It's like, we know athletes can overtrain. And if you're overtraining, cause you're just redlining yourself so much, you're not as efficient as you could be. You just, you're just not. And I see it now. And now that you know, there's, I've been involved at this point in, uh, three and three businesses, right?

One, one, We have sold two, I still own. And the way in which I utilize my time in those is so different. It's so much more leverage. It's so much more, uh, effective because I learned a lot of these lessons the hard way. And, and for me, these type B skills, like I engineer them into my life, community, right?

Like doing something creative, taking time to be present, focusing on things outside the business, like not, uh, not doing work every single day. Like there was a period of years where I worked every single day, every day for a very long time. And if we'd go on vacation, it was miserable for me. God, it was so miserable.

I'd go on vacation and I would literally have to work. Like, I, I couldn't not work. So I would wake up early. I like 4. 30. I would knock out like two hours of work before anybody would wake up. And that's the only way I wasn't a miserable asshole to be around for the rest of the day. I had to be productive towards the things that I wanted to do.

And if I didn't do that, man, I sucked. Like it was miserable. So you're telling me that you're bad at vacation. For real. Like that's a problem. If you really think about it, that's a problem. You got to learn how to relax. You got to learn how to let your mind settle. Like it's not, it's not good for you to just constantly have these racing thoughts that like, it's your brain, you're in charge, like take charge.

And if, and if you're a B and you're just like, man, I just cannot force myself to, you know, to do things or to stay on, uh, on task or to show up on time. It's like, what are you talking about? It's just your brain. Like you decide to make the change one way or the other, whether you have to chill more and relax or you have to get your shit together and fucking show up on time and be punctual.

That's you. Do it. Like you just have to know which, which one are you naturally going to be? Because for that person that's a B, getting ready, getting up early, staying organized, it's super draining for them. And if you're an A and you suck at going on vacation and it's draining for you to sit there at the, at the beach while everybody is like, you know, Playing in the waves and you just have a thousand things you're thinking about.

You suck at that. You need to work on that. Like it's draining for you to do that. Just as draining as it is for somebody that's a B that has to think about trying to get somewhere at six 30 in the morning. These are the skills that add balance to our life. These are the skills that will round you out more.

These are the things that people don't, they don't talk about this. They tell you, Oh, okay. If you're an entrepreneur, lean into your superpowers, right? Lean into your superpowers. And there's, that is true. You do want to Lean into the things that you're naturally good at. Like that's a business is going to highlight that no matter what, but don't forget about, you've got to work on the things that you suck on, because if you just lean into your superpowers, you're going to be a, you'll be a successful entrepreneur with no friends, no family, a bunch of money, and nobody to share it with.

And if, if you lean into your, your B side, if you're an a, you're still going to be successful. As an entrepreneur, but you're going to have people around that you can celebrate that with. You're going to have, you know, meaningful interactions with people along the way that, that frankly are so important.

They're so important. And I promise you, if you knew you were going to die tomorrow, you wouldn't just work extra hard on your business today. It's not what you do. You would go and actually enjoy time with the people that matter most to you. Most of us, that's what we would do unless you're a psycho, right?

Like you're going to seek out the things that are intrinsically so important to you. You're not going to just write that next email or redo your sales process again, or whatever it is that you think you're going to do. Like, don't forget that success without fulfillment is a failure and the fulfillment comes.

From some of the B side, right? Like it's funny, a lot of it is there, a lot of it's there. And don't forget that you need that balance because without that balance, you're going to be very, very one dimensional. And in most cases, in my experience, when I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs, very unhappy people, they're very, very unhappy people.

And it's because I don't think they figured this balance out, you know, and I hope somebody hears this, that this makes it a meaningful difference. But I hope you hear this and you don't do what I did. You know, don't have a three year stretch where you literally don't remember. Much of anything. You don't remember what the hell you were doing, you don't remember what your kids said, or what they did, or whatever, like, you don't Like that's a meaningful time in my life.

I just don't have any recollection of it's crazy It's like somebody just wiped my my memory and it's because I wasn't there and I hope that that doesn't happen to you So in summary, listen, if you're an a you got to work on b skills find a friend That's just like they're a b like they're a they're a hard b Like they are, they, they love, they love live music, you know, they have a shitload of hobbies.

They, they love to read, you know, uh, fiction stories, like, like learn a bit from them. Spend time around people like that. And if you're, if you're a bee, get around people that are a bit more ambitious than you. People that are more organized, you, people that are trying to achieve things and try to lean into that a little bit more and learn from them because I think the balance is where it's at.

I hope this helps you as always. Thanks so much for listening and I'll catch you next week.

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