Julika Novkova on the Human Side of Small Business

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This week on the Unscripted Small Business Podcast, host Jeremy Rivera sits down with Julika “Jules” Novkova, PhD — a business psychologist behind the brand Juls’ Psychology. Drawing on a PhD studying human creativity and innovativeness, Jules unpacks the human side of running a business: why founders freeze, what creativity really means in a “boring” service business, and why authenticity is alignment, not a public-facing mask.

Rigidity Is the One Predictor That Matters

In her research, Jules found that no single trait guarantees creativity or innovativeness — but one thing reliably blocks them. “If you are rigid and inert, you can’t show creativity or innovativeness, even if you have them as natural gifts.” That finding pushed her toward helping leaders “debug their mindset” so they can stay open, fast, and adaptive in a fast-moving market.

The Freeze Response in Business

Beyond fight-or-flight, there’s freeze — and Jules argues it’s the founder’s hidden default. Because business is, by design, a stressful environment full of uncertainty, founders run on stress hormones most of the time, and as that load accumulates “our freeze state becomes the natural state.” The amygdala doesn’t kill creativity, she says, but it does block innovativeness, which requires slowing down and lowering the emotional load.

“Without action, business is just having good idea.” — Julika Novkova

Creativity in a “Boring” Business

Asked where creativity lives in a stucco or window business, Jules rejects the idea that creativity is only art or music. “Creativity is by design the way you make decisions.” In services it shows up as new ways to craft things together, serve, and build relationships — how you make people feel about who you are and what you do. “Even most boring businesses can be transformed radically,” she says, “especially because of that creativity of ours.”

Authenticity Is Alignment, Not a Mask

Many people think authenticity means building a facade for public consumption. In psychology, Jules explains, “authenticity comes hand in hand with alignment. Whatever you say, you just do. And people just follow.” In marketing terms that translates into consistency — which is what audiences actually perceive as authentic. Her advice: focus on what clients need rather than self-promotion, and ask why a client hesitates instead of pushing them emotionally.

Empathy Is a Business Tool — and the Oxygen Mask Rule

Jeremy pushed the idea into concrete territory: a business under a safety regulation that needs an oxygen monitor to stay compliant isn’t just buying hardware — the connection gets made when the manufacturer and the people representing it show they actually understand that pressure. Jules agreed, then extended it with the metaphor every flyer already knows.

On a plane you fit your own mask before helping your kids — counterintuitive, and, as a parent of two, something she says still feels wrong. Business works the same way: a founder has to know what distresses them and set their own boundaries on terms, money, and time before they can genuinely serve anyone. And half the time, she notes, clients already have the strategy — the mask is on their face and they still can’t breathe. The real work is teaching them how to use the thing in a way that makes sense for actual humans.

Build on Your Own Land

Jules advocates building “on your own land, not on borrowed land,” calling a website a “virtual home” for your ideas and journey. She’s kept two sites for 15 years — one local, one global — redesigning them many times. Her favorite illustration: a frustrated restaurant owner Googled what to do about a struggling business, found one of Jules’s articles, and discovered the fix was simple — rewriting the menu and clarifying the pricing removed the friction with customers.

Where AI Belongs — and Where a Human Has To Stay

Jules uses AI to automate the repetitive layer, but draws a hard line where it would “distort the authenticity and empathy” a brand pushes out across every channel. Jeremy backed it with a line from Matt Brooks of SEOteric: tools like ChatGPT and Claude are your most popular but least trained customer support rep. The fix isn’t less AI — it’s the clarity one-pager underneath it, including the don’ts, so the automation has something true to repeat.

Connect with Julika Novkova

Julika “Jules” Novkova, PhD, is a business psychologist and the founder of Juls’ Psychology, where she shares free frameworks at julspsy.com. She’s most active on LinkedIn.