Striving to Feel Perfect (Enneagram Type One)

Creek: 00:01

Welcome to another episode of Awareness to Action Enneagram podcast. My name is Creek and along side me is Mario Sikora and María José. How are y'all doing today?

María José: 00:11

Great. Probably better than you.

Creek: 00:17

Mario and I are a bit under the weather, so…

Mario: 00:24

Yeah. So wake me up until we get to something interesting.

Creek: 00:29

Well, we should just stop right there then. All right. Well, today we begin the long and arduous journey of stepping into the types or as Awareness to Action model refers to them, the strategies. Now, often people that are interested in Enneagram, they end up stopping with the types, but the great part is you don't have to stop there. You can change. You can use this information to live more authentically and with more purpose.

So today, we are going to be stepping into Type One today, which María José knows very well.

María José: 01:08

What a great way to start.

Creek: 01:10

Yes.

Mario: 01:12

Like I said, wake me until we get to something good.

Creek: 01:18

Ones were actually the number that I had the hardest time wrapping my brain around for some reason.

María José: 01:24

So, how can they be in the world?

Mario: 01:25

Wow, really?

Creek: 01:27

Yeah, how do they exist?

María José: 01:29

How can you live being a One?

Creek: 01:32

I don't know why, but...

Mario: 01:34

Yeah, that's interesting, Creek. Is it because it's a type that you have a hard time understanding? Or it's a type of you have some sort of inner bias about?

Creek: 01:45

That's a great question. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I've considered both, right? Because my connecting point to One.

Mario: 01:55

The reason I'm asking is because I think this points to a bigger issue that we should get onto the table is about how biases slip into our conversation about all these types, right? And the instinctual biases. And, you know, we joked a lot about that when we talked about the preserving instinctual bias, but we start to see the same things filter into the way we talked about the different Enneagram types.

I remember one time being at a conference in South America and an Enneagram teacher there said to me, that she didn't think Threes had souls, right? And asked my opinion on it, and I wasn't seeing any evidence of that, so... And we should do our best to be aware of our biases, and to take them out of the way we talk about these types. But I think that we also have to acknowledge in order to be able to get better at doing that, that we will have tendencies to have biases, because maybe my mother was a One, and I loved my mother. And so I love Ones or maybe the opposite to the truth, or maybe I dated a crazy Three one time, and whatever it is. So recognizing that biases exist, I think is really important.

María José: 03:10

It's funny that you mentioned this at the beginning, because before you started talking, I was thinking, How do I make people not feel exhausted after this episode? Like wishing, I mean, thanking that they're not a One, because it feels tiring for people when they hear about all these things.

I was talking to a friend the other day, who had listened to a really short video that I did on Ones. And she said, I'm exhausted, and it's not all exhausting. And I think they're really great things about using this strategy. So I hope that that comes across at the end of the episode.

Mario: 04:58

And that it's not all negative. And that being the qualities that Ones bring are not all negative, because there are certain types, I think, it's easier to focus on the negative than on others. And I think sometimes Ones fall into that category. And I just did a training session with a group of IT executives, and after I got done talking about the One, because I kind of talked about the positive things and the negative things. And then I say, but thank goodness, there are Ones out there.

In fact, this afternoon, I'm getting on an airplane, and I hope the people that put my luggage on the plane are Ones, and I hope the people that did the safety check are Ones or whatever. So I think it's important for all of us to highlight the value that each of these strategies brings to us as individual and to groups.

Creek: 04:52

You know, as I'm thinking about, the immediate words that come to mind is just, it's critical and rigid. Right? And so María José, give me an example of what does it feel like when the strategy is being used really well and brings joy to yourself and the world.

María José: 05:15

I think the, One of the, maybe I'm jumping ahead, but one of the things that I'm really proud of, it's how you can use it in a way that perfectionism. It's not, doesn't capture you, but you decide what perfection is. And for example, with motherhood, like being a parent, trying to feel perfect, but defining perfection as having fun with my kid, as having a good communication, as having a good environment, emotional environment, at home makes me do things that are more flexible.

I feel more flexible. I can just compromise on things. Because what's most important is to feel light, happy, have a good communication with my daughters. And that's perfectionism anyway, but perfection is different. It's not doing the right thing, or what I'm supposed to be doing, or what mothers always do, or what my parents did with me or didn't do with me. I define it. And it works. Not all the time, of course, but it's a way that it's fulfilling.

Mario: 06:41

So everything María José said is good examples of this. But I think too, one of the values of this is that having this strategy of striving to feel perfect means that there are people out there who are just looking for ways to make things better. And that's always a good thing. All of these strategies are neither good nor bad in and of themselves. It's whether we apply them in adaptive ways or maladaptive ways.

So if María José or any other One or any of us is applying striving to feel perfect in an adaptive way, then we're making the world a better place. We're making a safer place. We’re making it higher quality. We're making it more technological advances, et cetera. So it's a matter of, am I using the strategy adaptively or maladaptive?

The other piece I would add to this. I would draw a distinction between being a perfectionist and striving to feel perfect. And this is exactly why we use this language. Because if we start thinking of people as perfectionists, then we think of them as something… There's an automatic pejorative to that. It's somebody who is focused on something being perfect, rather than it being good, or being practical, or whatever it is. It's automatically something dysfunctional. Striving to feel perfect, on the other hand, does not need to be dysfunctional. It's only dysfunctional when it's dysfunctional.

María José: 08:21

Let me give you an example. So in March hopefully, I'll be going on a trip with quite a few friends. And I have a really good eye for choosing places to stay. And my striving to feel perfect strategy has made me really good at it, because I look at the pictures, and I kind of know what will work, what won't work. So I'm usually the one in charge of doing that and moving things along and making it happen. And because I want it to be great and to happen, I usually take control of it, and I just do it myself.

So I'm looking for a place to stay for 16 people. It's not easy. And I've spent a lot of time finding the perfect place. But I don't only see the perfect house. I think about the dynamics that we will have at that place, and how we will interact and how we will sleep, how we will split the rooms and the beds and the bathrooms. And I think about all of that, and it usually works. Now for 16 people, it's more challenging, so I've seen myself getting a bit paralyzed because I just want it to be perfect. And it's hard for 16 people trying not to spend a lot of money, but I think that it is an asset that I have. And hopefully people will enjoy that experience, and I wanted to make it perfect for them and for myself, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Creek: 09:59

It's fueling your desire for the most ideal situation to occur. I can definitely resonate with that and find myself being paralyzed as well in certain situations where I'm like, but like, it's 2% off. I can't have 2%. Has to be 100.

Mario: 10:20

Yeah, I think... So for me, just to add to this, again, because I'd like to emphasize that these things are not just dysfunctions. They're not just vices that we have to deal with, because we're flawed and sinful creatures. These are evolutionary adaptations that serve a purpose. As a social species, we get along better if we specialize in some way. If María José is good at one thing, you're good at something else, and I'm good at a third thing. Now we're good at three things instead of being mediocre at everything. That is a good thing.

So with María José having this need to make things better. This need to feel perfect. And when it's done in a way that is not maladaptive, then that's good because that, for me, having her as a partner, means there are certain things I don't have to worry about, because I know that she'll probably take care of them. And I can focus on the things that I do well, instead of trying to do everything. And I think one of the things we want to do as we talk about these strategies is reinforce what we talked about last time, or in one of the previous episodes, that the way we think about it is not levels of health, for example. It's that how people are at their best, how they are typically, and how they are under stress.

And the example that María José gave of going away with 16 people is a great example, because the complexity of what she's doing. She's not just creating a better environment for herself and for her two children and her husband now. Now, it's 16 people. That builds stress, because there are added variables, and added consequences. And so what happens under stress, we start to constrict in the way that we use the strategy. And we start to use it in a less adaptive way. And so it starts to turn into this kind of angry perfectionism to some degree, so that is a great example of how stress will change the way we express the strategy and learning to manage stress. Learning to recognize it is really important in being more effective and the way we demonstrate these strategies.

María José: 12:53

Yeah. And I think it also shows my example how, for me, look, I pay attention to the beds and all of those more typically preserving things. But what matters to me the most, it's the interaction, because I'm a Navigating One. So I want the experience, the interactions, to feel perfect. And if people are going to be fighting over a bed, or a sofa, or whatever, I care more about that interaction than sleeping well, really. There will be differences between Navigating Ones, Preserving Ones and Transmitting Ones in the way that the strategy manifests.

Creek: 13:37

Let's dive a little bit deeper into what does it actually mean to striving to feel perfect?

Mario: 13:42

So I'll tell you what. Let me talk about the theory. And then María José can talk about what it's like from the inside. So from a theory, we talked about how we talk about strategies. This desire to maintain a particular effect as a way of interacting with the world that shapes the way we think and that shapes the way we behave. But One is somebody that we call a One because their preferred strategy is what we call striving to feel perfect. And this is a desire to make sure that things are as the way that they should be, both of the things that I do, and the things that happen around me.

And so when I feel like things are the way they are, then everything is good in the world. I can just sit back, have a piece of pie and life is good. It's when things are not okay, things are not the way that they should be, it starts to activate something in me. I feel this, okay, things aren't as they are. And depending on how good I am at managing that feeling, I either need to act on it or not?

So I think María José can tell you that, as she has grown and matured and worked on her selves, the imperfections in the world around her, that activate that need to act are fewer than they were previously. Sometimes she just very naturally lets things go. And other times she sees, ah this bothers me, but I know that it would be maladaptive or dysfunctional to act on it. And other times, she just gets pulled into the trap. And this is what happens with all Ones. They have this feeling need to make sure that the things around them are as they should be. And that shapes the way they think and the behaviors they show.

María José: 15:35

I was just thinking that... Okay, so yeah, you're absolutely right. And there's this feeling that you know how things should be. That's the first thing. So Ones usually believe that they have the truth in that regard. That I know. I don't need anyone to tell me how things should be. I just know. And I assume that it's correct. And people should be seeing the same thing. People should know that that's how things should be. And if they don't do it that way, it's because they just don't want to, you know.

That's kind of the typical, automatic logic. And if they don't see it, they've surely want to know about it. So I'll tell them. So that people see that as criticism, but it isn't really. You're just being generous in sharing with people, and I'm joking here, but how things should be. They don't know that or how they are, because there's this gap that you see all the time. How things should be, how things are, the gap. And that gap needs to be closed, eliminated. So that feels... things feel perfect.

Now, it's interesting, because you mentioned how I have grown. And I think that it's not that I don't fall into that logic anymore. I just I can't help it. However, understanding more about human nature, my how things should be has changed. My parameters are different though. So when I see things happening, and remember the chimpanzee rule that we share, like 98.5, whatever, percent DNA with chimpanzees, and maybe things shouldn't be as I thought they should be before. It's not all a Disney movie. iIt's not all how it is in the books. When it's real and in reality, it's a lot more complex, and a lot more chaotic than we think. And that's how it should be. So I don't need to act on it. My gap is different. It's smaller, but I pay attention to those things anyway.

Mario: 17:53

So two things there. Number one, I think that takes us into the authenticity part of this, that we're going to talk about. But before we do that, I want to make sure that we capture the connecting points. Also, I want to say that you only shared half of the chimpanzee rule.

María José: 18:08

I know, I didn't want to. Yeah, I know.

Mario: 18:11

I know you didn't, so you leave that part for me. Again, we are who we are. So the chimpanzee rule is that we share 98.6% of our DNA with chimpanzees. So any day we're not swinging in trees and throwing poop at each other is a good day. And so and this is the feedback that I give Ones of, hey, just lower your expectations, which sounds counterproductive. But it's this process of acceptance that to María José's point, well, that's the way the world is. And it's more perfect to accept that the world is the way it is, and then operate from that place, try to make it better from that place, than it is to be pissed off all the time alienating people all the time, causing myself stress and misery, because I'm criticizing how things are.

María José: 19:03

Yeah, I want to share something else about Ones. And although people might be affected by the criticism of the One, it's nothing compared to how self critical Ones are and how they suffer because of how much they demand of themselves, how much they feel that they need to be perfect, and they see all the ways in which they're not. So that's even worse. So you're showing it as you make people miserable, but I would say that most Ones would agree that it is with ourselves that we're the most critical.

Mario: 19:43

So this is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you is what you're saying right?

María José: 19:48

No, I'm not saying that.

Mario: 19:49

It's fine.

María José: 19:52

I want to show that, because it needs to be portrayed, because it's part of the picture.

Mario: 19:59

The journey for the One is not starting to ignore the things that are wrong with the world, or thinking that, you know, or stopping to believe that things could be better. It's all in the affective tone that they take in approaching improving the world, and on the decisions they make about what they need to act on and what they don't.

So if we take the first thing, okay, well, that's wrong, and it needs to be fixed. And there's two ways I can go about that. I can do it in a adaptive, positive, loving, caring, supportive way. I can do it in kind of a neutral way, or I can do it in an angry way. Well, the old me might have done in an angry way. But now I'm still going to see the same thing, and I'm still going to try and produce the same outcome, but I'm going to do it in a more skillful way. Or I can just realize, well, life's too short to worry about that thing. And yes, it's wrong, but I have other more important things to focus on. So that I think is the is the path.

María José: 21:19

And the anger there, it's because things shouldn't be like that. People should not be doing these things. I should have not done that. So you get angry about that. And it feels like such a truth. And of course, I should be angry about it.

And I was talking to a client the other day about... He's a One, and we're talking about people around him who did things that he didn't like, and he just couldn't let go of the idea that it should be different, you know? And he said, Yeah, but I'm really good at it. I don't say anything to them. And I asked him, but what are you thinking? Are you still thinking that they shouldn't be doing those things? And he said, Yes. Do you think that doesn't come across? You think that they don't see that in your face? And so it's these, as you're saying, the attitude and the kind of the emotional affect, and it's like criticizing it, because it's wrong that you're doing it that way. It shouldn't be like that. You need to fix it. Doesn't help much.

Mario: 22:29

How about if before we get more into the transformation of the One, we talked about the connecting points, because we kind of jumped over that. And I think they're important. I remember for a while there was some discussion in the Enneagram world about whether the connecting points were really relevant or not. And some people said, Oh, I don't talk about. I don't think Naranjo or whoever talked about the connecting points in any particular way. It was a thought experiment that he did and then he abandoned. So he just focused on the the type itself. But I do think there's value in looking at the two strategies at the connecting points and how the dynamic at play is good.

One of the things about the Enneagram is just a construct. And so when we look at these points, it's a bunch of concepts put around a diagram constructed in such a way. And one of the reasons that Bob Tallon and I spent two years getting the words right at each point is because we want to make sure that they fit at the connecting points. So we came up with this idea of a neglected strategy and a support strategy. But it's important to point out, like we talked about last time, that we do the strategies at the connecting points in both positive and negative ways. But for us as coaches, we're more focused on how people do them in ways that cause them to suffer. Does that make sense? I'm always curious to see if that construct is clear.

Creek: 24:00

I think so.

Mario: 24:01

Okay, good.

María José: 24:02

I've heard that so many times.

Mario: 24:08

She sets her internal timer.

María José: 24:09

Ah yes, I have free time to focus on other things, then come back.

Creek: 24:16

So the connecting points of One are?

Mario: 24:22

So to Point Seven, striving to feel excited.

Creek: 24:24

Good job, yep.

Mario: 24:25

And to Point Two, What's the other one? Point Four, striving as we feel unique. Thank you. Yeah, Seth. I have my little Enneagram cheat sheet here. It's kind of embarrassing when you forget these things. You’re standing in a big group of people and yet, Oh geez, what is that one again?

We call the relationship to Point Seven for the One, the neglected strategy. And this does not mean that Sevens aren't never happy, that they're never... I'm sorry, Ones are never happy, they're never excited. They're never having a good time, because they do. María José can be fun to hang out with sometimes, but there's this almost like a contradiction built into these connecting points. So if I'm a One, and I'm striving to feel perfect, and I look over this strategy of striving to feel excited, it makes me feel uncomfortable if I'm fixated in my strategy. Because if I get too excited, I'm going to make a mistake. If I'm having too much fun, I'm going to do something stupid. I'm going to do something wrong. I'm going to say the wrong thing.

So I tend to resist the strategy when I'm feeling a bit of pressure, stress or self-awareness in a negative way. So the Seven has this love/hate relationship. I'm sorry, the One has this love/hate relationship with Point Seven. Part of me that wants to feel excited, just like everybody else. I wish I could have the fun that those wacky Sevens are having or seem to be having. But I don't want to screw up. So I neglect it. So they need to learn to integrate that strategy. Use it in a positive way. See it for what it's worth.

Creek: 26:16

What about having fun? Is at risk of screwing up, María José?

María José: 26:22

Yeah, well, I think that when you're in a safe environment, it's a lot easier. When people know you, when you know that they're not going to criticize you, that they're not expecting you to do certain things, it's a lot easier. So I use WhatsApp a lot. I have lots of groups. And one of the things that I've been collecting lately is stickers, and I send stickers and I really enjoy it. And I have lots of them. And in one of my groups, before starting recording the session, I saw a friend who usually sends the same sticker, use the same sticker over and over again. So I sent her a sticker saying, Here you go, you have some money to buy more stickers with a sticker, I use that.

And it was like a joke, but I felt bad. So after doing that, and I was joking, I felt the need to say it's a joke. You know, I felt awkward, because I never know how it's going to be received on the other end or not never, but sometimes I don't know. And then it becomes a bit stressful. So you do things, and what if they take it the wrong way? And they don't think I'm perfect? And they think that um, I don't know.

Creek: 27:52

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense.

María José: 27:54

See, we worry about such silly things. But...

Mario: 27:58

But again, to our previous point about the logic behind each type, it's perfectly logical. The discomfort with striving to feel excited make sense from a constricted perspective on striving to feel perfect. I remember having a Type One client who said to me one time that I never really get excited. She said, Even if I won the lottery, I would probably just jump up and down for a few seconds in my own home, but then just put on a kind of normal face outside, because it's that fear.

Now, what happens, of course, is that whenever we repress something that's human and very natural, it starts to come out in distorted ways. And it can move into our shadow. And this can be the problem of the One, and that we call this contradiction — restraint versus indulgence — that there's this part of me that's trying to hold on to myself. And there's this other part that is eager to get out in the weird way.

María José: 29:06

Why in a weird way?

Mario: 29:08

Well, it tends up being... Well, I don't know exactly what I said about a weird way. I just spit words out. I don't remember them. But it can come out in a distorted way. And that can look different ways. So the movie Chocolat about the woman who opens the chocolate shop during Lent in a little French village and the mayor who is trying to shut her down, and so he decides to smash all of her chocolate until a little bit of it ends up on his lip and then he starts shoving all the chocolate in his face. So that can be this restraint versus indulgence that we see.

It's also why we see the occasional TV minister being discovered in a hotel out by the airport with a couple of hookers and an eight ball. It's like I've been repressing all this stuff for so long that it comes out in a very distorted way. So, learning to integrate that need for excitement is important for Ones.

María José: 30:05

Yeah. So it's like, people should not see us doing the things that we're not supposed to be doing. And so it's done, or it's repressed or done, you know, I'm in hiding. And it could be as you say, like eating a chocolate bar and not eating it in front of other people or different things, or the minister, as you said.

Now, it's weird, because of course, everybody wants to feel excited. But there's something about the One, which I've noticed is that most Ones feel a lot lighter and happier, then they're perceived from the outside. So our inner experience is lighter. And people...

Mario: 30:52

They're usually funnier too.

María José: 30:54

Yeah, but people just stay with the more serious, rigid, perfectionistic kind of image. And they don't expect that angle to appear at times.

Mario: 31:07

And this is... I'm glad you brought that up María José, because it points to, again, our need to stereotype. And our need to see the One as this sour, unhappy, critical, angry person, because that's a simple story to tell ourselves. And then we'll start to see a One who was actually having a good time at a party and telling jokes and we say, well, it can't be a One, right? Because Ones are like this. We see this in all the types.

I was talking to a guy recently who was already familiar with the Enneagram. I was doing a group training session. And as I was speaking to him, it came clear to me that he was a Preserving Seven. But because Sevens have this One-ish quality, it's their support strategy, the people around him, especially his wife, and the people that knew him really well, thought he was a One. And I've seen that in a number of cases.

So we have to be aware of the complexity of the connecting points to really understand the types and you can't understand a One if you don't understand their relationship to the strategy at Point Seven. And how they don't go to Seven. They don't become a Seven for a short while, but they engage that strategy like a One does, which is what I call the Happy Gilmore principle about our types. Happy Gilmore was the Adam Sandler movie about the hockey player became a golf player. He was great golf player, but he golfed like a hockey player. And that's how Ones will express the Seven strategy, not like a Seven will, but like a One will. And the same thing works the other direction to Point Four.

María José: 32:59

Yeah, it's a profile as we've said before. It's not some discrete movement to one side or the other, it just how we live and use these three strategies in a particular way as Ones do, and not how we become a Seven or Four.

Creek: 33:20

Yeah. Speaking of which, how does striving to feel unique make you a better person?

María José: 33:31

I didn't see that coming. I see some bias there.

Creek: 33:35

This is obviously the best number to be connected to.

Mario: 33:38

Yeah, right. Right. So I'll describe the theory and María José can describe it from the inside. So again, the theory is that we use that in our language. Sometimes Ones express striving to feel unique in a very positive and adaptive way. They have creativity. María José is a creative person, for example. You know, she does our ads. When she creates our slides and all that sort of thing, she likes to have an elegance to it, an artistic quality to it that other people might say, Oh, well, that's, you know, that's a Four or whatever. No, it's her using that strategy of making a difference and making it beautiful and creative and so forth.

But where Ones get into trouble is when they use the strategy of striving to feel unique in negative ways, as a way to reinforce or support, prop up striving to feel perfect. I'm not feeling perfect enough. So I'm going to start feeling sorry for myself. I'm going to start feeling resentful that nobody appreciates me. Nobody values me. Nobody understands me. So it's kind like they're taking on the negative qualities that we see in Fours in that way. So again, can be positive or negative, but it's problematic when it's in a negative way to support the preferred strategy.

María José: 35:01

It's not like we choose. Now I'm going to behave like a Four and feel sorry for myself. It's kind of a continuum. When you're trying so hard to do the right things and do what you should be doing, and people don't appreciate it, or people resent it, or people very legitimately kind of don't like it, it's a very natural thing to feel sorry for yourself, because you are the only one who cares about it. And that sometimes, it can be used in good ways. Because you just don't stop trying to do something. Because you're the only one. I'm okay.

If I'm the only one who has to do that, I'm willing to. But sometimes when it's about feeling sorry, and justifying pretty much anything, because I'm just misunderstood. People don't get it. And that might be the wrong way to go. Because you're not looking at maybe you're just pushing that too hard. And maybe people don't want to do it that way. Or maybe you just have to let it go and not just blame it on people not understanding you. That's easier because that makes me feel perfect. I'm not wrong, they're wrong, they are not getting it.

Creek: 36:35

So you are uniquely able to see what is the perfect path?

María José: 36:41

And willing to do it. Willing to do something about it.

Mario: 36:44

Again, there's an inherent logic to this. If I am not... If I'm doing whatever I can to strive to feel perfect, and it's not working, then it must be somebody else's fault. It must be, because people aren't appreciating me and so forth. I mean, because I've run out of other explanations. And we start to see this in all of the support strategies. I've tried everything else, and they're not working, so let me try this in order to prop back up that feeling of being perfect. Okay, well, I am perfect. It's the other people who don't appreciate me that have the problem.

So again, the strategies are designed, I'm not going to striving to feel unique for its own sake. Even when she does it in positive ways for María José and for other Ones, often this creativity they bring is because it makes it better. It's not, oh, I need to express who I am like a Four is doing, but there's a logical support in the way we manifest the strategies to support the Prime One.

Now, I want to be really clear that we're not falling into an essentialist argument here. And saying, well, it's all about just because she's constitutionally a One. Now, again, that's where the Happy Gilmore thing comes in. I'm a hockey player. I became a hockey player because I played a lot of hockey. I wasn't born a hockey player. And because I'm a hockey player, I've developed these habits, physical in Happy Gilmore's way, that affect the other things that they do.

Creek: 38:27

Yeah.

María José: 38:27

The other way in which this strategy manifests that I've realized is if I happen to make a mistake... Doesn't happen that often. Nah, it does. But I tend to try to justify it by playing the victim of it. You know, yeah, I've been going through such a bad time or this was so hard. And it's not very adaptive, really, because it doesn't allow me to take full responsibility for it. But I see that temptation to use that strategy to justify mistakes or imperfect behaviors.

Creek: 39:09

Like it's obviously easier to exist imperfection when you're by yourself, because you have nothing and no one to compare yourself to. Does that fuel some isolation sometimes?

María José: 39:21

No. I think that it's the... I remember a friend, Mario, who said that he would describe Nadler just trying to feel perfect but beyond reproach and this is where this kicks in. You don't want people to criticize you. So doing imperfect things on your own, tell easier and doing them in front of other people who are going to criticize you. I don't know if that's only because I'm a navigator. But I guess that it's the same for everyone and that why, sometimes the Point Seven and striving to feel excited manifests in isolation. It's like I'm giving myself permission to do certain things on my own, that I wouldn't do in front of other people. Now, does that make me isolate more? Not really, but do certain things in isolation? Yes.

Creek: 40:18

So as we're closing out this episode on Ones, I'm curious, starting with you, Mario, what is it about Ones that you really appreciate?

Mario: 40:27

I view everybody for their utility. That's just part of my nature is that what value… to my world.

Creek: 40:34

What a way to begin this statement.

Mario: 40:43

So, for me, the thing I appreciate about Ones is the precision that they bring to the world. I mean, there's diligence, there's rigor. Can it be irritating? Sometimes, of course, just like everybody can be irritating, but thank goodness, they're there to do this. So I think that's great.

Now, at a more human level, I like the earnestness I often see in Ones. I love that they really are trying to do the right thing. That that's what drives them. And when I remember that, it becomes easier to appreciate them and not to be irritated by the things that might otherwise irritate me.

Creek: 41:30

So María José, what is the one thing that you think Ones do better than anyone else?

María José: 41:37

Well, I was prepared to what do I like about being a One, but I'll respond to that question. I'll respond to that question, because I'm not sure that it's related to other people, better than other people. I think that, in my case, what I like about being a One is that I can create things and experiences for myself and for others, that when they feel perfect, and there's a lot of effort behind it, it is happiness.

For me, it just feels great, but great is not enough of a word to express how it feels when something works, how you want it to work, when people are enjoying it when it looks good.

Creek: 42:26

Exhilarating.

María José: 42:27

Yeah, it just... And it could be that it's things that are symmetric and they look fine. Or it could be that it's a big party and it's working. So it's at all levels. It's all important. And when it works, and especially when other people are enjoying it, it's really fulfilling.

Creek: 42:52

So once again, hopefully you enjoyed this episode of Awareness to Action Enneagram podcast on the Type One. We will be diving deeper into Type One eventually with different aspects and ways to grow and a lot of other things so stay tuned for that. So with that being said, we will see you next week.

Thanks for listening to the Awareness to Action Enneagram podcast. If you're interested in more information or talking to Mario, MJ or myself, feel free to reach out to us through the links in the show notes or by emailing info@awarenesstoaction.com. All episode transcriptions and further information can be found at awarenesstoaction.com/podcast.