Episode 120
Which type of entrepreneur are you?
When Carlos was a teenager, he never thought he could be an entrepreneur. He had very specific beliefs around what it mean to be an entrepreneur or businessman – the entrepreneur type was loud, flamboyant and risk taking. The businessman type was sober, stern and hard-nosed.
He didn’t identify with either of those types.
These days, though, we’ve been given much more opportunity to start businesses; from anywhere, doing nearly anything, for just about anyone. The options feel unlimited. Anyone can start a business. But thanks to Silicon Valley startup culture we have a limited perception of the type of person that can build successful businesses.
At the Happy Startup School, Carlos and Laurence talk about doing the business from the inside out. They want to help people build businesses and create impact that is aligned to who they really are. The question then becomes “who am I… really?”
One way to explore this question is through understanding the Enneagram. This model can be described as a system of personality typing that defines patterns in how people interpret the world and manage their emotions. It's based on nine personality types and maps each of these types on a nine-pointed diagram, which helps illustrate how the types relate to one another.
On this episode, Carlos is joined by fellow Happy Startup members and Enneagram enthusiasts Beccie D’Cunha and Kieran Morris. This is the perfect introduction to the Enneagram and will show you how personal development can lead to professional development.
Links
Transcript
I'm joined by the wonderful Beccie D'Cunha and Kieran Morris, community members
Speaker:and to certain level teachers of mine now around this idea of the Enneagram,
Speaker:uh, which we're gonna be diving into in the next, for the next 45 minutes or so.
Speaker:But What I wanted to start off with was just trying to, uh, explain
Speaker:why this is happening, uh, now.
Speaker:I talked to Kira a while ago.
Speaker:Uh, we've had conversations about the Enneagram.
Speaker:I was curious, mainly from my perspective in terms of, there's lots of things
Speaker:I've learned along the way, uh, about entrepreneurship, the selling, making
Speaker:stuff, launching stuff, pricing, marketing, podcasting, all these things
Speaker:that the these skills that we, we learn, uh, along the way, particularly if you're
Speaker:kind of like building the parachute as you fall, uh, in terms of like not being
Speaker:ready or prepared with the business stuff before you actually start the business.
Speaker:Uh, and I've hit some, some kind of quite painful roadblocks along the way,
Speaker:which I thought was, uh, a limit of my understanding about stuff and how
Speaker:business works when in fact I've really discovered there's a limit of my own self
Speaker:understanding and why, uh, certain things I find more effortful, scary, challenging,
Speaker:or downright don't want to do them.
Speaker:It's like, no.
Speaker:It's like, ah.
Speaker:And um, I discovered the Enneagram like six years ago.
Speaker:A coach of mine, uh, shared it with me.
Speaker:I was going through this kind of process of just understanding what I
Speaker:really want, what I really need, what's difficult, and she said, you know,
Speaker:do this thing called the Enneagram.
Speaker:I did it.
Speaker:She gave me this thick book, didn't read it.
Speaker:Uh, found out what Ty I was, didn't quite resonate a little bit, did a little
Speaker:bit, didn't, and then I just left it and we stopped the coaching thing anyway.
Speaker:And so I never went.
Speaker:Much deeper than that.
Speaker:And then the conversation and the topic.
Speaker:Re, re reemerged, uh, there was a resurgence of, uh, the Enneagram within my
Speaker:universe through the Happy Startup School community, Beccie, Kieran, many others.
Speaker:Uh, Chris Kenworthy.
Speaker:Um, I think Anya is now interested in Frances, massive advocate of it.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:She's actually probably the one who's like, stoked the fire and everyone's like,
Speaker:oh, we're gonna talk about Enneagram.
Speaker:Um, but I, I, looking back into it, I, I had a bit of a mis turn, discovered.
Speaker:Another type thought I was that.
Speaker:Anyway, a lot of this stuff made start to make sense to me because of
Speaker:how I understood, uh, some behavior traits described in there that
Speaker:related to me, that then related to why certain things in business didn't
Speaker:work so well, or why I found 'em so difficult, or why I found 'em so easy.
Speaker:One of the things I was talking with Kieran about was like, there's, there's
Speaker:something around, it isn't about, it's not just about knowing that these things
Speaker:exist, it's about why these behaviors exist and where do they come from, which
Speaker:is an interesting bit, which I think is, uh, some of the deeper work that you
Speaker:can do if you think of entrepreneurship as a journey of self-discovery rather
Speaker:than just a way of making money.
Speaker:So just try to set the scene here.
Speaker:It is like, um, it's really about this, you know, stay with us for
Speaker:the next 30 minutes and maybe for subsequent episodes if this is really
Speaker:of interest, if you are really curious about your own personal journey through
Speaker:building a business, how you grow, as well as how the business grows.
Speaker:And I believe that's one of the things I'm passionate or
Speaker:interested about doing my own thing.
Speaker:'cause I want to do my own thing.
Speaker:The thing is, what is my own thing and how do I fit into that thing?
Speaker:So what we're gonna do is gonna brief overview for those
Speaker:of you who don't know it.
Speaker:And then rather than try and get into the weeds about what the
Speaker:Enneagram is, we're just gonna talk about ourselves because that's fun.
Speaker:So we enjoy that.
Speaker:But hopefully through that you'll learn a bit about how the Enneagram is helping
Speaker:us and also on how it can maybe be used for yourself, uh, when you kind of
Speaker:think about the way you respond to the events and happenings in businesses.
Speaker:Somebody posted, I can't remember now, who, oh, it was
Speaker:Ray, someone in the community.
Speaker:Martin posted something this week on LinkedIn about, and it was about kind of
Speaker:self-discovery and the importance of that and how that can kinda shape your life
Speaker:journey and your career, career path.
Speaker:And how important self-knowledge is.
Speaker:And there was a Thomas Merton quote in there that really stood out for
Speaker:me, which was, I'm not gonna remember it exactly now, but it was basically
Speaker:saying that people can spend their whole kind of careers climbing a
Speaker:ladder of success, whatever that's like, whatever that success means to
Speaker:us, and then realized that the ladder was leaned up against the wrong wall.
Speaker:And I really love that, that idea is that, um, and I think that links
Speaker:in a lot to the Enneagram that if we can really know ourselves.
Speaker:We can build our careers and our businesses, um, and our products.
Speaker:If we have a business around who we are, what motivates us, what, um, yeah,
Speaker:what gifts we have, um, and we can do it in a way that's much more, impactful.
Speaker:What's coming up for me as you were speaking about that, Beccie
Speaker:is just thinking back to myself.
Speaker:When I first launched my business, which is in my early twenties.
Speaker:I'd been made redundant and I had gone for several jobs, which I was
Speaker:probably far underqualified for, but in an eight-ish kind of way, I'd
Speaker:gone, well, surely they'll want me.
Speaker:Anyway, I decided when failure reared its head to instead start a business.
Speaker:And interestingly, I hadn't thought about this before, but
Speaker:it was about the same time that I actually came across the Enneagram.
Speaker:This is, I'd come across it maybe a few years before, sort of 2006 five.
Speaker:But yeah, five years later I found myself in that situation.
Speaker:And it was really interesting to start integrating the work of the Enneagram
Speaker:in quite a basic, introductory way at that stage, but to integrate that
Speaker:into my journey through those really early stages of building a business.
Speaker:And of course I was building it because I didn't have a job.
Speaker:I was building it because I needed it to make an income and I had all of
Speaker:these external needs for what it was.
Speaker:But none of that really provided what you were speaking to Carlos, that thing
Speaker:of taking entrepreneurialship sort of more as a journey into ourselves and
Speaker:finding what it is that I want to do, rather than just, I'm doing this to,
Speaker:to satisfy the need to make money.
Speaker:And I think it's, I found that really interesting how that journey has played
Speaker:out for me over the last 12 years, really.
Speaker:There's a whole little thread that I was drawn to around why we start
Speaker:businesses in the first place and why we do work in the first place.
Speaker:And there are various levels of needs.
Speaker:And if I think of Maslow's hierarchy, we can start talking about that, self ization
Speaker:on the top, survival on the bottom.
Speaker:Don't wanna go down that rabbit hole too quickly because we, I wanna
Speaker:focus primarily on the Enneagram.
Speaker:first.
Speaker:So what I wanted to maybe start off with was maybe Kieran, if, if you
Speaker:could just give a brief overview of what the Enneagram is, and then I was
Speaker:gonna get invite Beccie, maybe to dive a little bit deeper as to, um, how,
Speaker:you know, it isn't, well, a bit more of the su slightly the subtleties in
Speaker:terms of the ideas of connections and connected types and things like that.
Speaker:Well, the Enneagram in its kind of modern form is based on pretty
Speaker:ancient oral tradition, the kind of wisdom that was passed down by
Speaker:people, generation to generation.
Speaker:And it became more popular and kind of, um, psychological circles in
Speaker:the seventies in, in the States.
Speaker:And it's sort of made inroads over the years.
Speaker:And at its core, it's really a way of.
Speaker:Describing nine distinct personality types, nine ways of filtering the world.
Speaker:And what those, what those show is.
Speaker:Not the behaviors that we, that we might undertake, the habits that might be there,
Speaker:but what the motivations are that lead us to form these habitual behaviors.
Speaker:These, these are mechanical things.
Speaker:Usually how we might go about processing a particular task or doing something.
Speaker:And they get ingrained at such a level in the body that we don't really
Speaker:think about them consciously anymore.
Speaker:These, we call them type behaviors in the Enneagram.
Speaker:And by studying the Enneagram, what we're allowing ourselves to do is to
Speaker:develop that ability of the observer of self-observation to build our
Speaker:self-awareness, such that we can start to see how these habitual behaviors
Speaker:might be masking some of the other stuff that's out there in the world.
Speaker:That how our type is filtering the world for us and not necessarily
Speaker:showing us everything that's out there.
Speaker:Now a lot of that's for very good reason.
Speaker:Our type structure has protected us beautifully throughout our development
Speaker:as children, as adolescents, as adults.
Speaker:So there are many wonderful things about it.
Speaker:I think that can be a bit of a, a misconception to start with, with the
Speaker:Enneagram is the idea that now I find my type, now I just do the opposite,
Speaker:and it's not quite as simple as that.
Speaker:So understanding one's type leads to the ability to relax one's type.
Speaker:Really, that sounds almost stupidly simple, but that really
Speaker:is the full extent of the work.
Speaker:And so there's the nine types that I discovered and I tried
Speaker:to read about all of them so I could work out what my type was.
Speaker:But it isn't as simple necessarily as, oh, you are type and everything
Speaker:is there, and Kieran's alluding to that in terms of, there's more to it.
Speaker:Beccie, maybe just elaborate a little bit more in terms of just to give people a,
Speaker:an idea of the sophistication maybe around this model rather than it just being,
Speaker:oh, you're just one thing and that's it.
Speaker:So, there are, three centers of intelligence, head, body, and heart.
Speaker:And then within each of those, there are three types.
Speaker:So that makes up nine types in particular in, in total.
Speaker:And they're all laid out around a uh, a circle or a star.
Speaker:And so the top three, eight, nine and one are body types and then two,
Speaker:three and four are heart types, and five, six, and seven are head types.
Speaker:So I just wanna just say, well firstly, it's kind of
Speaker:complex, but it's also dynamic.
Speaker:So there's lots of arrows that connect the different types, and each type
Speaker:is connected to two others by arrows.
Speaker:And that reflects growth and stretch kind of, paths, I guess it.
Speaker:When we're healthy or, or unhealthy, we can take on attributes that are
Speaker:in those, almost moved towards those other types that we're connected to.
Speaker:But we've also got what's called wings on either side.
Speaker:So the two that are adjacent to us that can have an influence, we
Speaker:can kind of lean into any of those wings at any time or both of them.
Speaker:So there's already a lot of complexity there.
Speaker:And then just to add one other level of complexity, there
Speaker:are subtypes within each type.
Speaker:So, uh, each type has three subtypes, and that's about our kind
Speaker:of like basic survival instincts.
Speaker:So, um, self preservation, social social instinct, and, um, sexual or
Speaker:one-to-one, um, as in the desire to.
Speaker:Form a close relationship with one other person.
Speaker:So we're not gonna go into that level of detail.
Speaker:But I guess the reason I wanted to say some of that is just to say that this
Speaker:is a really kind of, it's really like sophisticated and deep tool like model.
Speaker:And there's years of kind of years and years and years, decades of
Speaker:exploration that can be done around it.
Speaker:And there's so much kind of deep wisdom in it, and it, so it doesn't kind of box you.
Speaker:I've heard the Enneagram described as.
Speaker:It's not a box to be put in, it's a key to unlock the box, um, cheesy, but I do like
Speaker:this idea that we're in many ways, we are kind of to an extent trapped within our
Speaker:personality, so the Enneagram doesn't box us into our personality, it's, it helps
Speaker:us to, it reveals the patterns that we might be stuck in patterns of thinking,
Speaker:feeling, behaving, so that we can kind of unlock that box and, and have more
Speaker:freedom, more, more movement, more growth.
Speaker:And as Kieran was saying, we can kind of step out of those,
Speaker:some of those personality or ego trappings and get closer to like.
Speaker:Enneagram describes it as, um, or a lot of Enneagram teachers.
Speaker:Describe it as kind of moving towards your essence, away from like some of your, the
Speaker:stuff that traps us in our personality.
Speaker:I know that the three of us are three different centers,
Speaker:heart, head and belly center.
Speaker:And I thought it might be interesting for people just to hear, uh, kind of a little
Speaker:bit briefly about the centers themselves.
Speaker:'cause the, the head center that was Beccie was speaking about
Speaker:the five, six and the sevens.
Speaker:This is kind of where we do our thinking and analyzing, remembering and it's
Speaker:projecting ideas and forward planning.
Speaker:And those types, the head types of people that tend to respond to,
Speaker:to life through their thoughts.
Speaker:And they really have, you know, very vivid imaginations and a really strong
Speaker:ability to kind of correlate ideas.
Speaker:The heart center, these are the twos, the threes, and the four, so this is,
Speaker:this is Beccie's center as a two is where is where we experience emotions
Speaker:and those kind of, kind of wordless sensations that tell us how we feel.
Speaker:And you know, rather than how we're, we're thinking about something.
Speaker:So, I mean, the, the emotions here can range from, from very
Speaker:strongly felt things, very dramatic emotions, to things which have
Speaker:a, a beautiful subtlety to them.
Speaker:So this isn't about emotions all being absolutely in your face.
Speaker:It's, you know, there's, there's.
Speaker:Gorgeous subtlety here in the, in the heart center.
Speaker:And then the belly center, the eights, the nines, and the ones is really the
Speaker:center sometimes called the, the gut of the body center is kind of the, the
Speaker:center of our instinctual intelligence.
Speaker:It's that, that grounded presence.
Speaker:It's, it's that sort of sense of being rather than that sense of
Speaker:thinking or feeling necessarily.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:We often experience ourselves, you know, how we experience ourselves
Speaker:physically in relation to other people and in terms of our environment.
Speaker:That's kind of, that's, that's belly type energy
Speaker:so we've got like this picture of these types and um, I liked what
Speaker:you said earlier, Kieran, about them kind of describing the filters or
Speaker:kind of, yeah, the way I heard it was these are the different filters
Speaker:that we can see life through.
Speaker:The way I like the, the reason I like that 'cause it can blind us to things as
Speaker:well as focus, help us, help us focus on some things and blind us to other things.
Speaker:And I, I see that, I relate that to this idea of luck, you know, and opportunity
Speaker:is like sometimes opportunities are right in front of us, we just
Speaker:don't see them for whatever reason.
Speaker:And so I think of the Enneagram as a way of actually understanding why
Speaker:certain opportunities might not be seen.
Speaker:This idea of unlocking and relating it to something we talked about before,
Speaker:Kieran, about a threshold I think you said, about being able to move
Speaker:through something or beyond something.
Speaker:So I thought I'd just touch on that.
Speaker:'cause this is this idea of like rather than the Enneagram suddenly saying, all
Speaker:right, you are this type of person and that's why you can't do with that thing,
Speaker:is like how an awareness of this threshold can help you then potentially cross it.
Speaker:Well, I'd be happy to talk about the, uh, the eight-ish vice or passion of lust.
Speaker:And it's really a loose, it's the kind of, um, it's the lust for life
Speaker:is really what, what powers eights.
Speaker:And before I knew much about myself and about the Enneagram, uh, this
Speaker:played out so clearly in my, in my experience as, as a youngster.
Speaker:And my dear mother, who is a social seven, tried her very best to steer
Speaker:me onto, uh, let's say a different path, a more sustainable path.
Speaker:And yet I would, I would go out, the bank and give me a credit card.
Speaker:I should use all of this money.
Speaker:I wanted these wonderful DVDs.
Speaker:I wanted a coffee machine as a student at 21, of course, I was
Speaker:gonna buy organic everything.
Speaker:Where's my student loan gone?
Speaker:Oh shit.
Speaker:I've got no money left.
Speaker:I've got, oh, but the credit card's been extended fantastic.
Speaker:I've got another 2000 pounds.
Speaker:And after three years of this as a student, because.
Speaker:Again, I, I put my energies into directing musicals, into doing
Speaker:all of these other activities.
Speaker:I was , thinking about the money, I was just allowing this
Speaker:thing to, to take what had been offered to me without even asking.
Speaker:And I got to this moment where I graduated and I'd gone to the supermarket and
Speaker:I couldn't even pay for my shopping.
Speaker:My debit card was completely overdrawn and my credit card was rejected.
Speaker:And I just remember I was in Brighton.
Speaker:I remember having to leave all of my shopping there on the counter and just
Speaker:walking outside and just weeping as I walked home because I just felt so
Speaker:disconnected from, from myself and struggling to, to really comprehend
Speaker:how any of this was even to do with me.
Speaker:Even at that point, my, my instinct was to, to reach out and ask for more help,
Speaker:to ask for more, you know, financial support from parents and, and actually
Speaker:what felt incredibly cruel at the time from my mother, I think was probably a
Speaker:wonderfully useful life lesson, actually, was to not bend there, which was to have
Speaker:this very strong boundary of not allowing.
Speaker:And as I say, it felt cruel at the time, but actually for me as an eight, that
Speaker:boundary, that clarity was something that made me go I need to sort this out.
Speaker:And it kind of got me back into that sense of, of being, of self and reconnecting
Speaker:with a different part of that belly energy instead of just like, I want everything
Speaker:now and I'm gonna have it because I can.
Speaker:It was like, okay, how am I gonna fix this?
Speaker:And that just came very strongly to me thinking about the kind of the lust
Speaker:energy we sometimes hear about the, yeah, the vices or passions and they can
Speaker:be a bit hard to connect to sometimes.
Speaker:It's like the words Beccie was speaking to of naming different types.
Speaker:When you first see the, the passions and vices, you know, sevens, you show
Speaker:them gluttony and they might think, well, what the hell's this all about?
Speaker:I'm not greedy.
Speaker:But it, it's this kind of subtlety and you can often see in retrospect,
Speaker:you know, with that benefit of hindsight and the deeper work.
Speaker:How clearly these things have played out through these
Speaker:kind of mechanical decisions.
Speaker:We've, we've just pursued this type behavior without even knowing it.
Speaker:Sometimes with the Enneagram in understanding ourselves through the lens
Speaker:of the Enneagram, we can realize that sometimes even those passions, the vices
Speaker:like Kieran's describing can actually, that and all of the other kind of
Speaker:personality trappings can actually kind of help to get us to where we're we are.
Speaker:So Beatrice Chestnut, who's one of my favorite Enneagram teachers.
Speaker:She talks about how what's got us to here isn't necessarily what's needed
Speaker:to get us kind of to there, you know, to where we want to get to next.
Speaker:So for instance, for me, a lot of my, the stuff around my personality, my Enneagram
Speaker:type is what's made me successful in where I have been successful in different
Speaker:areas of, um, work, running my own business or as a leader, it's stuff
Speaker:around, I'm an Enneagram two and we'll dive deeper I think, into all of this.
Speaker:But the, um, for twos, you know, the, the, I suppose the gifts, if you were
Speaker:to call it that with the two is it's things like, you know, being really
Speaker:relationship focused, being able to read people, empathize, build connections.
Speaker:So yeah, that means I can build strong relationships with clients
Speaker:or collaborators, et cetera.
Speaker:I can sell all of that stuff.
Speaker:But it's that thing of, it's, um, that's the kind of surface level stuff.
Speaker:It, it, they are in some ways they're they're strengths, but
Speaker:actually, um, I think the Enneagram kind of is more exposing than that.
Speaker:It kind of helps us to, to look at the icky bits, to see that those gifts
Speaker:are actually sometimes compulsive.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:So for two there can be this compulsive drive to win people
Speaker:over, to meet other people's needs.
Speaker:And what we're, and the Enneagram has helped me to realize that there's
Speaker:all kinds of stuff going on in there that in doing that, I'm not always
Speaker:noticing my own needs that I've had to face, kind of 'cause the, the vice
Speaker:for, or the passion for twos is pride.
Speaker:And that was a real kind of blow discovering that because I'd always
Speaker:been told my whole life that I'm really kind of humble and modest, but
Speaker:the pride for twos is that kind of almost making yourself indispensable.
Speaker:And, uh, it's that kind of that sense of I'm needed here.
Speaker:If I was, if I didn't do this, what would happen?
Speaker:So I've had to grapple with that on that.
Speaker:Um, but the journey for me, there's all kinds of threads.
Speaker:I could take it down, but I'll be brief.
Speaker:But the, there's been a journey for me around realizing that actually I don't
Speaker:have to be at the heart of everything.
Speaker:So in terms of, uh, I, I can empower, uh, whether it's teams that I'm
Speaker:managing, I can empower them to support each other rather than come
Speaker:to me for their needs to be met.
Speaker:Or if it's, um, clients to empower them to find their needs met through each
Speaker:other or through setting up peer support things, it doesn't always have to be
Speaker:me, but there's a pain in there as well.
Speaker:'cause there's a pain for twos of, oh.
Speaker:If I'm not needed, who am I worth in the world?
Speaker:it's very different from like looking at strengths.
Speaker:I'm a big fan of looking at strengths and like, you know, psych
Speaker:positive and building on strengths.
Speaker:But actually the Enneagram, it's, it's different to that.
Speaker:It it because to be really, um, almost to, to really grow in our self-discovery
Speaker:journey with the Enneagram, it's actually more about facing our.
Speaker:Shadows, the things that we're not looking at that are driving some of those things
Speaker:that on the surface look like gifts that actually are probably limiting us.
Speaker:I'm liking where we are getting to in terms of, one of the things I wanted
Speaker:to do was just provide our own personal experiences of, um, the Enneagram and
Speaker:how we're related to our lives in, in, you know, our, our actual day-to-day
Speaker:sort of progress through business in particular, but also just generally
Speaker:our life experiences and what, what it's helped us learn or unlearn maybe.
Speaker:And I just wanted to reflect, 'cause I'm just very new now to the Enneagram.
Speaker:I don't have the depth of knowledge that either Beccie or Kieran have, but
Speaker:there are things that I've been reading about the type that I've been drawn to.
Speaker:And this is a type six and like.
Speaker:Kieran was talking about, it's a head type and fear is a very strong part of it.
Speaker:Well, I see that there's an element, there's a drive.
Speaker:I dunno how best to articulate it.
Speaker:I'll, I'll defer to either Beccie or Kieran to express that better.
Speaker:But what I wanted to say was, there's two things that jumped out me when
Speaker:I was reading about this type, which I hope will be helpful for anyone.
Speaker:Just understanding, oh, how is it gonna help me and understand myself?
Speaker:There's something around, what I read was this idea of, um.
Speaker:being drawn to structures, to organizations, to companies,
Speaker:but only if I trusted them.
Speaker:If I don't, there's a deference authority and structure, but if I don't trust
Speaker:that authority, then I will break away.
Speaker:That's how I understood it.
Speaker:And it made me think about, I, I remember early stages of my sort of
Speaker:professional journey, wanting to go and work with a big consultancy or a
Speaker:big company doing, you know, some of these kind of the, the entrance exams
Speaker:and, and all the, I can't remember how they described these days, but anyway,
Speaker:just trying to get a job there through these, these tests they were giving us.
Speaker:And at the same time, through that, realizing I actually
Speaker:don't like this place.
Speaker:And so on one hand I was really drawn to the idea of, oh, you know, I loved school.
Speaker:I loved knowing what to do and being told in a sense, all right,
Speaker:do this, this, and this, and if you do it well, you get a tick.
Speaker:I loved that.
Speaker:I loved the idea of the process and the structure and understanding
Speaker:that, and for some reason, I didn't trust being in an organization.
Speaker:The organizations that I was looking at was something that I was resisting.
Speaker:I was like, I didn't like being told at the same time.
Speaker:I didn't like being told what to do, which is again, i's like, oh, this is
Speaker:something that I kind of intuitively know.
Speaker:And this was kind of articulated black and white in this Enneagram thing.
Speaker:And so this is, oh, I don't like structure, but I'm also now drawn to
Speaker:community, which is a form of structure that feels, I trust it somehow implicitly.
Speaker:And that's why I'm wedded to being part of a community and building a community and
Speaker:trying to create this group of people or to draw this group of people around me.
Speaker:The other thing is like, the whole fear thing is like, thankfully I went into
Speaker:business with Laurence and Laurence.
Speaker:He has an idea and he will just go with it and run with it.
Speaker:And that's why we have lots of different things that worked
Speaker:and also things that didn't.
Speaker:And, and I know in the early days I would be very much the.
Speaker:Hmm, what about this?
Speaker:What about that?
Speaker:This might not happen.
Speaker:This might not happen.
Speaker:And even with my own ideas, sometimes I'd have a, you know, I'd have a big idea,
Speaker:but before I've even had the idea start, I'd be thinking about, oh, what ha if
Speaker:this happened, what if that happened?
Speaker:I'd be trying to second guess and plan ahead for potential
Speaker:failures or potential dangers.
Speaker:And then I discovered the Lean Startup idea, which was rather than build,
Speaker:build, build, build, build, and then fail, it's like how can you do little
Speaker:things lots of times to then just generate an understanding of knowledge?
Speaker:And that for me, felt comfortable even though the fear was still there,
Speaker:by launching and doing things, small things that weren't so catastrophic
Speaker:if they didn't work, but got me learning how to do the stuff because
Speaker:once I knew how to do something, for instance, this podcast on the Friday
Speaker:first, I was like, alright, I've got a process now, I know exactly what to do.
Speaker:Boom.
Speaker:I don't care who I talk to, I'll do it.
Speaker:And it was like, it's fine.
Speaker:I'm not scared to just even launch into this, which I had no idea what
Speaker:it was gonna be like last week.
Speaker:And then the final thing I think is just like I've just learned was this
Speaker:thing about, as a head type, the, and I'm gonna use this word advi, well just
Speaker:don't take this too strongly, but this idea of the, the antidote for me is to
Speaker:be an, to be present because I'm too easily going, uh, and doing something
Speaker:like this is my growth opportunity.
Speaker:Because if I start thinking, oh, what's Beccie gonna say?
Speaker:What's Kieran gonna say?
Speaker:How's this gonna go?
Speaker:Is anyone, if I do that, I just can't talk.
Speaker:But if I just like stay present, stay present, stay present, work
Speaker:with what is a, I get really, I get a lot of enjoyment out of that
Speaker:because I'm not worrying anymore, but b, it just, it feels like it flows.
Speaker:I think you've described really well, some of the kind of, the seeming contradictions
Speaker:in, in being a six, is there's that desire for sixes have a desire for,
Speaker:uh, their year, their longing for authority, um, uh, some kind of authority
Speaker:figure or, and structure, et cetera.
Speaker:But they're also skeptical of, of it quite often or suspicious, maybe of authority.
Speaker:And I guess un the driving thing in all of that, and the stuff that you
Speaker:were describing is that there's, there's this fear and, um, for
Speaker:sixes there's a, desire to manage uncertainty so that you feel safe.
Speaker:And I think that was coming across in what you were saying, Carlos, that kind
Speaker:of finding ways of managing, um, or finding ways of feeling safe and secure
Speaker:and managing uncertainty, whether that's, um, uncertainty in terms of growing a
Speaker:business or whether it's, uh, uncertainty around how this session will go.
Speaker:You've put in place strategies, you head strategies in a sense quite often to,
Speaker:to, not all though, 'cause you back, you are accessing your body there.
Speaker:You, there's growth in there around kind of grounding yourself, the
Speaker:presence you were describing to kind of, um, feel safe as well.
Speaker:But you, you're describing kind of some of those six challenges
Speaker:really, really well, I think there.
Speaker:Well, what I was thinking about Beccie was how, what Carlos was describing there.
Speaker:In maybe not feeling that this structure of business was, was for
Speaker:him is something that actually is, is very relatable outside of that.
Speaker:And I was thinking about how that played out for me as an eight and,
Speaker:and how actually, and this is why I think the Enneagram is very interesting
Speaker:because whilst I remember my early jobs, not really feeling like it
Speaker:was the right place for me, the reasoning for that was different.
Speaker:The, the outcome was the same.
Speaker:This, this sort of sense of, of mistrust, but from, from what I
Speaker:heard from Carlos's description was this might be about questioning, you
Speaker:know, is this, is this trustworthy?
Speaker:Is this the right path?
Speaker:Are they doing the thing that fits in with my values?
Speaker:My motivation was about testing the people in charge.
Speaker:It was about testing boundaries.
Speaker:Do I respect this person?
Speaker:Are they going to come down on me hard if I push more?
Speaker:And I had an absolutely lovely nine as my manager when I first worked
Speaker:in a job, and he was wonderful.
Speaker:But he would take me out for lunches.
Speaker:I mean it, it felt like it was the eighties.
Speaker:This was the mid naughties.
Speaker:But he'd take me out for lunches and we'd just go and drink bottles of red
Speaker:wine and some Italian restaurants and have this sort of wonderful time, and
Speaker:the boundaries just weren't there.
Speaker:But there were other people at the company who had very strict boundaries, and I
Speaker:found this as an eight, very confusing.
Speaker:So it wasn't that I felt that the place wasn't for me because I didn't trust
Speaker:that the cultural or what was there, but it was because I had these really mixed
Speaker:messages around boundaries from different people in positions of authority.
Speaker:And therefore I questioned the authority because it, it was inconsistent.
Speaker:There's so much.
Speaker:I'd love to dive in on one hand I would love to continue,
Speaker:but there's some questions I'd like to tackle before we leave.
Speaker:Um, I'm gonna start with, uh, Marianne's question, which is
Speaker:at the top from, at the moment.
Speaker:Uh, and she was asking, I think it's just to do with, all
Speaker:right, you're a particular type.
Speaker:So can you work with energy from other centers, eg.
Speaker:If a heart type moving to belly or head type.
Speaker:There are different schools of thought about this, but I would
Speaker:say that we all have the ability to, to move in to a different type.
Speaker:In fact, certainly when I've done work in person with the Enneagram before,
Speaker:some of the earliest exercises I remember were getting everyone in the room to
Speaker:stand up and actually, or kind of move themselves physically into that type.
Speaker:And I would notice when I was putting myself in my head, the analysis, the
Speaker:details, the thinking would be there.
Speaker:When I, when I placed my attention in the heart I felt
Speaker:connected to those in the room.
Speaker:And when I connected the body, I found myself stomping around
Speaker:the room at sort of top speed.
Speaker:And that experience was totally different to everyone else's experience of, of
Speaker:those respective centers because my experience of those different types of
Speaker:energy is through the lens of eight.
Speaker:But, but I still have access to all of that stuff.
Speaker:But how that shows up for me is, is still always going to
Speaker:be through the lens of eight.
Speaker:Yeah, I like that and agree with that.
Speaker:I, guess the idea from a lot of Enneagram teachers is that it's not enough
Speaker:to adjust, operate from one and be immersed in one center of intelligence.
Speaker:There are three centers and we need to be able to access them all,
Speaker:but we're, some are more readily accessible to us than others.
Speaker:So for me, I mean, I'm right in the middle of that, that heart.
Speaker:I'm right in the heart center, so sometimes I find myself
Speaker:even talking and doing this.
Speaker:I so I so much of what I do and say and feel is coming from a heart energy,
Speaker:connecting to people, a heart place, and I, but I've needed to really, there've
Speaker:been times where I've realized in the last kind of couple of years how disconnected
Speaker:I can be from my body in particular.
Speaker:And so, you know, when people ask, where do you feel that in your body?
Speaker:I'm like, I haven't got a clue.
Speaker:Um, and I've been really working on that through doing lots of yoga, more exercise,
Speaker:just being more present in my body.
Speaker:And then there's the arrow lines.
Speaker:I guess it's worth saying no.
Speaker:Mentioning again that, um, twos are connected to eights and fours.
Speaker:So there are times where twos kind of really benefit from the authenticity that
Speaker:come that eights and fours both have.
Speaker:Because twos that can be hard, it can be hard to kind of be vulnerable
Speaker:and to really show, uh, there's this deep fear that if we really show our,
Speaker:um, true selves to everyone, will we be loved for who we are, we'l be
Speaker:rejected, so we adapt to people a lot.
Speaker:So it really helps me to go to the body type of eight at times, you know,
Speaker:and to draw on the, you know, to be, to learn, to be direct, to learn, to
Speaker:feel stuff in my body, to learn to express anger in a more bodily sense.
Speaker:All of that kind stuff helps me.
Speaker:Thank youBeccieky.
Speaker:Um, all right, we're gonna have to whizz through these two questions.
Speaker:Um, let's start with Tom, uh, one of you.
Speaker:Um, why is anger associated with the belly type and not
Speaker:part of the emotional spectrum?
Speaker:Well, it'd be interesting to hear more from Tom, but I
Speaker:know we don't have time here.
Speaker:I, I would say that that anger is the passion associated with the position one
Speaker:on the Enneagram, which is a body type.
Speaker:And for ones the transformational work is about transforming anger to
Speaker:serenity and how anger and serenity are kind of part of the same thing
Speaker:really, they're part of the same strata.
Speaker:I think it's quite easy talking about anger as well, to think about it quite
Speaker:one dimensionally as the sort of like, you know, anger's almost a negative thing
Speaker:and joy is over here as a positive thing.
Speaker:And actually I would say more that, that these expressions of emotional,
Speaker:you know, outpouring are just energy.
Speaker:And that's one thing I really like about the Enneagram is the expression of anger
Speaker:is not with a, is not with judgment.
Speaker:It's just that anger is energy and it's, that's how that specific expression of, of
Speaker:oneness is, is with that, with that anger.
Speaker:It doesn't mean eights can't get angry.
Speaker:It doesn't mean nines can't get angry.
Speaker:It doesn't mean any other type on the Enneagram can't get
Speaker:angry and experience anger.
Speaker:It's just there is a, there's an intrinsic connection with the work
Speaker:of particular body types and anger.
Speaker:it's probably a little bit confusing.
Speaker:Just to add to that, Tom, that cause he, I think what Tom, I think maybe
Speaker:what Tom's saying is kind of if anger's an emotion, why is it there in the
Speaker:kind of bodied or belly types and not.
Speaker:So basically the idea is, is in the three centers, there are that each of
Speaker:the three centers, there's a kind of, ever present, like a driving almost
Speaker:emotion that, or a dominant emotion.
Speaker:Sometimes it's repressed, sometimes repress it, but
Speaker:it's, it's a important emotion.
Speaker:So, um, for the body types, it's anger for the head types, it's fear.
Speaker:And I think Carlos has indicated well that, talked a lot really
Speaker:clearly around fear for sixes, but that's for other head types too.
Speaker:And then for heart types, it's sadness and, and also shame
Speaker:that are, that are there.
Speaker:So it doesn't mean that the other types, you know, I still feel anger, but, um,
Speaker:but it's that they're really underlying emotion for the heart types is this
Speaker:sadness, whereas for body types, the work is often to work out their relationship
Speaker:with anger, um, whether they're repressing it or over expressing it.
Speaker:Alright.
Speaker:I'm gonna ask you now and for a quick answer on the next one.
Speaker:Well, Melissa, is, I wonder how much our typers are related to
Speaker:the nature nurture question.
Speaker:IE how one's true self is hidden to some people due to trauma, mild or stronger.
Speaker:Two things that come up for me.
Speaker:One is, I've said this before, but I always like the anecdote of the,
Speaker:uh, the midwife who could predict at birth with about 80% certainty.
Speaker:What, what children were, what newborns were, just by their,
Speaker:their actions there outta the womb.
Speaker:Now that is to say, uh, who knows?
Speaker:But, um, what I do know is that type forms between the ages of
Speaker:about two and 10, it kind of crystallizes and it will crystallize
Speaker:into one of those nine filters.
Speaker:Now, how type expresses itself in the world is very much part
Speaker:of the nurture part of things.
Speaker:So I, I think that it is a, there's a duality there.
Speaker:How type is expressed very much and, and particularly subtype behavior,
Speaker:which Beccie briefly mentioned earlier, is so much about how our
Speaker:type, how our filter plays out in our interactions with the world.
Speaker:And the thing, I'd say the second thing I'd say is on this question about, about
Speaker:trauma, which I might interpret here as.
Speaker:As living in a, in a stressed position that Beccie again
Speaker:mentioned the arrows earlier.
Speaker:So certainly some types can, can perhaps look not like their, their core type
Speaker:sometimes, and that is often because they are living in a stressed position and
Speaker:perhaps have been living in existing in that position for so long that they are,
Speaker:they look similar to, to the direction of the arrow that they're moving towards.
Speaker:So a, a six who's lived for a long time in stress might look
Speaker:quite three-ish, an eight who's lived in stress for a long time.
Speaker:Might look quite five-ish.
Speaker:I certainly relate to that very strongly from my teenage years in particular.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And last, but by no means least there's a quick answer or
Speaker:quick question here from Alan.
Speaker:Uh, can you recommend a good online resource?
Speaker:Well, other than the next episode of this podcast, what could you suggest?
Speaker:I think I, I think many people know I'm not a huge advocate
Speaker:of, of the online tests.
Speaker:I am a big fan of the traditional typing interviews because I think there's
Speaker:a lot of subtlety that gets lost.
Speaker:I also will say that for anyone that's done self-awareness work and any kind of
Speaker:self-development work, Enneagram or not, I think the tests are less accurate because
Speaker:often there's been some development work in internally and therefore a a,
Speaker:you know, a computer simulation can't necessarily see the nuance of that.
Speaker:So I think it's always good to, to talk to somebody with that experience first.
Speaker:And then there are, there are lots of really good resources in
Speaker:terms of things that you can read and do that deeper exploration.
Speaker:But I think actually talking with, with others and, and also observing
Speaker:the, the oral tradition, it, it was like that for, for a reason.
Speaker:It is an incredibly powerful way to learn about other people is to hear them speak
Speaker:and to witness other people's experience of the world and, and truth of the world.
Speaker:I Trained with, um, Beatrice Chestnut and, Pies.
Speaker:and I, I agree with Kieran that I, I love the way, the way to really learn this
Speaker:stuff is to see people like, like we've been doing, but more at like, uh, to hear
Speaker:panels, you know, to hear a panel of.
Speaker:Threes talk about what it's like to be AP three, et cetera.
Speaker:So seeing those kinds of videos, there's a brilliant podcast, Enneagram 2.0,
Speaker:that's my favorite Enneagram podcast.
Speaker:And I, I, I do think there are two really accurate questionnaires out there
Speaker:that, um, you have to pay for, though.
Speaker:I think the free ones are all really low accuracy.
Speaker:There's two paid ones, um, that 40, 50 quid.
Speaker:And I think they are gen, they are really accurate, but not
Speaker:a hundred percent accurate.
Speaker:And I think you then need to go and test it out.
Speaker:And like said, I love traditional typing interviews too, but it's
Speaker:whether if you've got time and energy to just do a slow exploration.
Speaker:It took me a couple of years to work out what type I was, but some
Speaker:people kind of wanna know quicker.
Speaker:uh, I think in acknowledging what Kieran said, I think if you've already done
Speaker:some of the work, it becomes harder to use the tools to pinpoint yourself.
Speaker:And so I had to end up reading about these things more deeply to then
Speaker:clarify what, what, what resonated most.
Speaker:And I think the other thing which I, which is why I'm attracted to this, when
Speaker:you're talking about the oral tradition, Kieran just being able to talk and
Speaker:like Beccie was saying, hearing other people talk about their experiences
Speaker:of the type, doing it in community.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:Doing it as a group of people.
Speaker:So the more of you who are interested in this, the more
Speaker:we'll probably all learn together.
Speaker:Thank you very much everyone.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Uh, thank you for your attention.
Speaker:I hope to do this again soon.
Speaker:Until then, have a great weekend and have a good rest of your Friday.
Speaker:Thank you Ki Thank you, Beccie.
Speaker:Thank you so much.
Speaker:Thank
