Uses and Limitations of the Enneagram

Creek: 00:01

And we're back with another Awareness to Action Enneagram podcast. I am Creek, and with me is María José Munita and Mario Sikora. Two wonderful people in their own right. Today, we're just gonna rant.

Mario: 00:17

What does that mean? What does that even mean? In their own right?

María José: 00:20

That I'm not your appendix, Mario. That's what that means. I'm not just an extension of you, but I'm a person in my own right. Isn’t it, Creek?

Mario: 00:32

The whole universe is an extension of me. What are you talking about?

María José: 00:35

Well, I'm not.

Creek: 00:36

Well, okay, that's another discussion. Today we’re… So a lot of our episodes have been talking about how to use the Enneagram. And today we're going to be focusing on how not to use or the potential limitations of the Enneagram. And maybe just some things that we've seen that we would like to suggest some caution and critical thinking on. So Mario… Or actually MJ. We’ll start with MJ.

Mario: 01:03

Yeah, let’s let my appendix talk here.

María José: 01:10

Funny thing is that you can live without it. I don't think you can, Mario.

Mario: 01:15

This is true.

María José: 01:10

So, we don’t need to… An extension could be a better thing.

Mario: 01:19

Okay. There you go.

Creek: 01:20

Yeah. So MJ, tell us like, what are some things that you've noticed recently?

María José: 01:25

Well, I've been using the Enneagram for a long time now. And I've seen several things that are quite interesting, almost ridiculous in terms of how to use the Enneagram. Some people try to explain everything. I remember reading a book where they touched on things from cooking to the stars. And I just think that overall, the Enneagram is not a map that explains everything. And that would be my first word of caution.

Mario: 02:07

Yeah, so there's that quote from—I think it's Ouspensky who said that Gurdjieff said that for the person who truly understands the Enneagram, we can get rid of all the books and all the libraries because to understand the Enneagram to understand… And that's just nonsense, right? I mean, the Enneagram is a really powerful tool with lots of great uses, but no tool does everything. It is just a tool. You can do a lot with a hammer, but sometimes you end up doing things with a hammer that are better done with a saw or a screwdriver or a wrench. And you might get the job done, but you make a mess. And so, a good carpenter uses the right tools. And I think we need to do the same thing with the Enneagram. To recognize what are its potential uses are, and what its limitations are.

Creek: 03:05

Yeah, so I mean, there's the Enneagram of Personality, right? That's what most people are familiar with. And then you have all these other any Enneagons. Thoughts on that? What is that? 109 or something like that?

Mario: 03:21

Yeah, I can’t remember. 109. 108.

María José: 03:23

108.

Mario: 03:24

María José, you want to go first?

María José: 01:25

No, no, no. Go ahead.

Mario: 02:27

So which is I guess, 10 times nine. Huh, that’s interesting. No, it’s not 10 times nine. It’s 12 times nine. Thank you. Yeah, it's been a long time since second grade math. I don't know. All of Ichazo’s 108 Enneagrams, so I don't know what their usefulness are. I think when we're talking about the Enneagram of Personality, there are different Enneagons, Enneagrams, that are useful. There's the vices, the virtues. They were included among those 108.

I think for me, the distinction is between the Enneagram of Personality and the Enneagram as a process model. And that's how Gurdjieff used it as a model of tracking processes and so forth. Guy named Blake, A.G.E. Blake, wrote a book called The intelligent Enneagram some years ago. He’s a British management consultant that talked about how to use the Enneagram as a process model in organizations. I look at that stuff. And I think, Man, oh, man, this is just needlessly complicated and useless, quite frankly. There’s people who disagree with me and find great utility in it. I still don't get what it is after 30 years of trying to figure it out.

Creek: 04:49

Mario, maybe you're just not smart enough.

Mario: 04:51

Well, that could be, right? I mean, you know I’m a limited human being. And so for me the question is always, okay, how do I apply this? How do I apply it quickly? How do I apply it practically? And how do I apply this simply as possible? And in my experience, thinking about the Enneagram as a process model, it’s an interesting idea, but I just don't know what to do with it. And I've never seen anybody, anybody, anybody ever really applied in any practical way. And if somebody has done that, I'd be happy to see it.

María José: 05:34

I want to just clarify that it is a very particular thing what are you talking about here. Like the Enneagram is a process model. Doesn't mean that we cannot apply the Enneagram in processes of growth and things like that. That's a different story. Here, there's a particular description of the Enneagram as a process model, that doesn't make sense to us. And we can apply it for growth.

Because one of the other things that I think are misuses is like people say, I did the Enneagram, or kind of like if it was a one off thing. And what they're talking there, it’s usually taking a test and getting a result. And they think they're done. I think that's not necessarily a misuse, but a misunderstanding of what the Enneagram is about. It's the starting point. Although taking a test did not be, not even the starting point—I think it’s just one thing you can do to get an understanding of what your type is. But doing the Enneagram, I think I just cringe every time I hear it that way.

Creek: 06:49

To come back to.. I mean, I think I've said this on the podcast before, but okay, let's just assume that maybe there is something to the process Enneagram that… Maybe it is complicated, right? But maybe it is really helpful once you understand it, whatever. Right? But what we're looking for here is, what are the big stones that you can move and not worry about all the little complicated pebbles here or there, right? So I think about exercising where there's, you can go so far into like, working on your fascia, working on this mobility, that mobility, this exercise, like strengthening all these tiny little muscles.

But if you aren't actually doing squats, deadlifts, that sort of thing, like you're just wasting so much time. Like just finding all the little nuances here or there, when you're missing like the biggest thing that is going to give you the biggest bang for your buck. And I think that's what we keep coming back to is it's like, maybe, maybe it's helpful for somebody, but for the vast majority of people, they're not doing squats. They're like doing pinky raises, because they want their pinky to be stronger or whatever. Right.

Mario: 08:11

Yeah. So you know, so there's two almost contradictory problems. And it is a tendency to overcomplicate. To use the weightlifting thing, to focus on doing tricep extensions, but never do bench presses, never do squats, never do deadlifts, etc. And so you're working on little details, but you're missing the opportunity for real growth by not doing the big things. So it's getting too granular and missing the simple but most important things.

The other thing is becoming too simplistic. So you have these sort of contradictory problem. Overcomplicating it and oversimplifying it. And you don't know when you're straying into either of those territory if you really don't know the system. If you don't have those hours and hours and hours in the gym doing squats and bench presses, and deadlift.

So this is the challenge of the Enneagram. That because it seems really simple when you first encountered it. Oh, I did my Enneagram, and I found out that I’m a Two and I love everybody, blah, blah, blah. It seems really simple and really easy. And then the Dunning-Kruger effect kicks in—this idea that people who don't really know what they're talking about have a tendency to think that they know what they're talking about. Very human tendency. So they start spouting all this stuff. And this leads us into some of the misuses.

So for example, working in the corporate world for 25 years using the Enneagram. I have continually been having people ask me, Well, what personality type should I hire for this role? Or what personality type should I hire for that role? And I said, that's just the wrong question. Because our Enneagram type doesn't tell us what we will be good at professionally. Doesn't tell us who will be successful in a particular role. It tells us that no matter who we are or what we're doing, when we start to struggle, it'll probably be for some very specific reason. And my reasons will be different from María José, which will be different from yours. Because we're starting from a different preferred strategy. And we fall into different traps because of it.

So I think if we start off by talking about misapplications of the Enneagram, that's a good one. Assuming that I should hire a particular personality type to be on my team. Oh, you know, we don't have enough Sevens around here. Let's get some more Sevens. It's just stupid. You need to find people who actually know how to do the job. And who have the capabilities because people of any personality type can be successful in almost any role. I've seen it over and over and over again.

María José: 11:29

I would only add, because I totally agree that you hire the person because they have the skills that you need in that role. And then whatever they're missing… Because when we're talking about we need a Seven, it is something very specific that we have in mind that that team or that company needs.

And that we can provide through setting up mechanisms that help with those things. It doesn't have to be a person. It has to be… We just need to make sure that we're taking care of that. We're addressing that. We're providing that's needed in some way, but not necessarily hiring someone.

Mario: 12:15

Yeah. Just to run off of that example of a Seven. So to María José’s point, what we’re saying when we say we need a Seven? Well, are we saying that we need somebody to remind us of the opportunities? Well, no, we don't need that. We need a process for reminding ourselves of the opportunity.

So we put an exercise at the end of our session, and say, Okay, what's the bright side to all this? Boom, I don't need a Seven for that. So to look for a Seven to fulfill that role, you know, they may not be competent in what the job is. So you want to avoid that.

Creek: 12:58

I'm just going to kind of play Devil's Advocate. I think, what could be said here is—I guess we are addressing it—is we're looking for someone who's skilled in a particular area, or whose natural inclination is striving to feel excited or whatever, right? We want a more vibrant workplace. And if I think through, if I think through social situations that I'm in, the general effect of the group, it's like a math equation.

Depending on what we're doing, and where we're going, like I'm going to invite particular people, because of their particular effect that is shaped by their strategy on some level—correct me if I'm wrong, but that makes sense to me—and then you also have like the instinctual bias going along with that as well.

So with that level of… There is an effect to the strategy, to the instinctual subtype bias, combination. Where's that line? Obviously, a Seven doesn't equal skill, but it does represent an effect that could be desired.

Mario: 14:11

So let me ask you this, Creek. Because the the example that we're operating in here, for the moment, is organizational design and group design to accomplish things. So you're a musician. And you're pretty much I believe, a kind of a singular solo artist. But if you're putting a band together, and you need a drummer, what are you looking for?

Creek: 14:39

Yeah, a skilled drummer.

Mario: 14:41

There you go. So it doesn't matter. You don't say, you know what way we need more fun on the road. So let's get a Seven drummer. No, you want to find the best drummer. Now, once he's in the band, it helps to know what his Enneagram type is. Because now, the four or five or six of you have to do a tour, and you have to interact with each other. And you're going to get on each other's nerves, and you're going to have these problems. So now it helps you to know, what is this personality style that I'm interacting with? How can I understand his values, so I can better interact with him?

And the same thing applies to companies. I mean, they're there to provide a service and make money. And I know that my Enneagram friends get all worked up about that, but you know what, publicly traded company, I hold stock in these companies in my investment accounts. I want them to make money, because I'm gonna retire on it and so forth. Now that's not the only thing they do, but that's what they're there for, they're there to perform. And if they're not performing, they're going to lose their jobs, and rightfully so.

So you've got to find somebody who does the job. And then once you have them in place, this is where the Enneagram comes in. This is the right use of the Enneagram is to say, ah, we've got these people on this team, let's understand them and where they're coming from. So that we can all work together more effectively.

María José: 16:21

Yeah, and if you're on a tour, and the drummer is really great but has no charisma, well, you have to deal with that. You need to compensate by doing certain things, and not expect that he develops acute charisma, because probably he or she won't. But you can do other things to compensate for it.

Creek: 16:46

And so it's like, maybe I'm looking for a really great performer, and that may coincide with a particular subtype. But what I'm looking for is a good performer.

Mario: 16:57

Yeah. And so. And when it comes to performance, there are some things that are innate. And there's some things that can be taught. I’m a believer. Look, as somebody who works with leaders, and this is not necessarily a popular view, but I look at some people and I say, they've got it. They've got something that you can't teach, that you can't learn, that you have or you don't. And I think a lot of performers are the same way. You look at actors or musicians or something like that. And they say, I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, they've got it. They didn't learn that in the book. They didn't get taught that. But you can improve on what you have. So if you're not the most charismatic drummer, for example, you can learn how to be more charismatic.

So it's these things, in my view. And it's funny, because I was just out in Los Angeles last month, and I was talking to some people in the entertainment industry and asking them this question, what is it that separates those people who pop from those people who don't? And all of them said, I don't know what it is, but I know when I see it. Some people, it's just, there's something there. And that's independent of type. It's more likely to be a transmitter. I will say that. All right. Or that person is more likely to be a transmitter. But you don't want that kind of charisma necessarily in your CFO perhaps, unless it's a role that requires wowing Wall Street or something.

Creek: 18:36

If it's more likely to be a transmitter…

María José: 18:39

In the entertainment industry.

Mario: 18:40

In the entertainment industry.

Creek: 18:41

Sure. Right, then…

Mario: 18:43

So I will think the instinctual biases have more…

Creek: 18:46

To do than the strategy.

Mario: 18:48

To do than the Enneagram talks the strategy, yes. And here's the way I'll say it. Okay, take a role like CFO or Operations Manufacturing, that kind of thing. You are going to see more preservers in those sort of preserving worlds of all different types. Now, not every CFO is going to be a preserver, but there will be a disproportionate number of people who are preservers in certain roles. And in sales, and in entertainment and performance is better. You’re going to see more transmitters.

Creek: 19:26

Just because the zone of enthusiasm, even if they aren't necessarily skilled in it, it's going to be much easier for them to become skilled in that area, because that is their focus of attention.

Mario: 19:38

Yeah, there's this selective process. I mean, look, you look at the NBA, and most of the people make it to the NBA are really tall. Why? Because there's a selection process that's partly tall people have an advantage. And kids growing up, they're more likely to stay playing basketball if they're taller than if they're shorter. Now again, there's lots of great shorter basketball players. But there is a kind of funneling process that will happen. And so the same thing happens around the instinctual biases.

Creek: 20:14

Yeah, that makes sense.

Mario: 20:16

Yeah. So it's not every, but it's a higher… It’s disproportionate in different fields in my experience.

María José: 20:22

Yeah. And talking about hiring. I remember years ago, I saw a book written by a guy here in Chile, about leadership and pain. And he used the Enneagram, so I was very excited to read what he had to had to say. And he was describing the types briefly. And there was like a table, and one column of the table gave kind of advice on if we should, you should hire them or not and for which roles.

And there was something like Eights, you should never hire them as CEOs because they're all psychopaths or something like that. But I'm not exaggerating. And there was something about Fours and very, very stereotyped, but it's also dangerous. And I saw that written there, and I got his contact details and went to meet with him and said, Why did you do that? Kind of where did you learn about the Enneagram? He said, well, I read some books. And it’s like Well, it's wrong.

Mario: 21:44

This takes us to the simplistic side of the argument of making these simplistic assessments of, oh, all Fives are going to be great researchers. All Threes are going to be great at marketing and so forth. All Threes are image conscious and are gonna look really polished, etc. No, no. And, again, this…

So to back up here for a second. In preparation for our podcast today, I decided to go out on the internet, and just start doing some googling about the Enneagram, because I'm looking for examples of misuses. And I was actually heartened by some of the stuff I saw that it wasn’t… It took me longer to find really, really bad stuff. And even the stuff that I thought was overly simplistic, particularly one person I was watching was making qualification.

So here's what One's like to do at the gym. And One's like to go to the gym, and they do this, and they do this. And they do this, and they do this. Now, not all Ones are going to do this exactly, but this is what most Ones say that they like to do. Well, first of all, it was just crap. But at least there was this acknowledgement that not every One will do this.

When you see, for example, that Sherwin-Williams has a paint palette for each Enneagram type. And you go and you look at the paint palette. For me, I forget what the colors were, but I looked at the Eight and I said, Yeah, I don't like those colors. When you hear what kind of music that Eights like, and I listened to and say, Yeah, I don't like it.

María José: 23:36

Or what they like in sex, I’ve heard that too.

Mario: 23:39

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

María José: 23:36

We don’t need to go into that, but I heard about it. And I was kind of shocked when I heard what's Ones are supposed to like and not like and avoid, you know?

Mario: 23:57

There is so much out there that is purely theoretical. And the other thing I see because one person I was watching that, oh, I took a survey of all the Ones in my group or whatever. And here's what they reported. Well, there's a couple of problems with doing surveys of gathering assumptions about a particular type based on a survey.

Number one, you don't know if those people are actually typed correctly. Number two, very often what happens in these sorts of things, people read an Enneagram book, and they say, Oh, I'm a Type Two. I just, you know, I do all this Two stuff. And then when somebody asks me, okay, well, you're a Type Two, what do you like to do? What would I do is I repeat back what I just read. I don't stop to think for myself. I don't question is this true? I don't question, is it more complex than this?

So we have to be really careful about any assertion we are making about anybody of any Enneagram type. Because the answer is always, well, they do until they don't.

Creek: 25:14

I'm not entirely sure when this episode is coming out, but Fathoms just recorded an episode about prototype, archetype and stereotype. And along these lines of how the simplistic side of it is just insanely dehumanizing. And perhaps like the paint, like for instance, the paint color, right? I just looked it up. Of course, it's cringy. But it is like Enneagram-inspired color palettes. Now, that's not saying that every person with that particular type is going to connect with this paint color. Right?

It's focusing on the archetype. The the general affect of it. Still cringy. I still think it's a misuse of sorts. But it's completely different when we're talking about type than we're talking about a person who has a type. And that gets switched up all the time. When we limit other people by their type is a form of dehumanization. I mean, it feels like a very strong word, but I think it is.

Mario: 26:32

It's an accurate word. Yeah.

Creek: 26:33

Anytime we limit another human based on one label, I think that's wrong.

María José: 26:38

Yeah. And I think that it might be harmless to draw all sorts of conclusions about the type, and say they like these colors or these type of homes. I've seen everything, like these kinds of foods. But to me, the danger is that if I'm a One, and I see the color or the food that I'm supposed to like, or the kind of houses, and I don't resonate with it, I'll say I'm not a One. So it goes against the possibility of me understanding myself better, because you oversimplify the model, trying to apply to so many areas, that it loses its power.

Mario: 27:30

So first of all, I apologize to Sherwin Williams for misrepresenting their work. But I hear your point on that, Creek. But my question is, so then what is the value of saying here's Enneagram-inspired paint colors? Why would I even bother with something like that?

Because these things—and I'm very conscious of seeming like the old guy standing on his lawn, yelling at those rotten kids for hitting their ball into his yard—and as somebody who has been in the Enneagram world for a long time, there were those old people waving their fist at me 25 years ago, and that's kind of a rite of passage almost. Okay.

María José: 28:21

Not so long ago, actually.

Mario: 28:23

Well no. And, yeah, so it's common for the people who have been around in something longer to get frustrated with the lack of understanding of the people who are newer in it. So I don't want this to come across as a cranky sort of, oh, these people are screwed up or something.

Creek: 28:48

Kids these days.

Mario: 28:49

Kids these days. Yeah. And their rap music.

Creek: 28:54

And their TikToks.

Mario: 28:46

And their Tiktoks. Yeah. But it's important to point out that, okay, we have to be careful with some of these assertions, and we have to have… I was just reading something. I'm reading a great book called, “How Do We Know Ourselves?” by David Myers. And he talks about the importance of both conviction and humility. That we have to have conviction. We have to stand for something. We have to believe something. We have to assert it.

María José: 29:29

You were born with the first one.

Mario: 29:30

I was born… Oh yeah. You know, I've got the conviction of 10 people. And he says that we need that. And it’s a good point. And we need humility. And the first way to start developing humility is to recognize and identify your pride. Because otherwise you can't say okay, I'm gonna go out and cultivate humility today. That's just another form of pride. So you have to start recognizing, oh okay, do this.

So I've done this. I have said, look at that dog, clearly a Seven, you know, sort of thing. I have said, oh you know, Threes are going to be better at this than other things and so forth way back in the early days. And as you go on, you start to learn that these things are much more complicated. And that the best use of the Enneagram correlates with a quote from Kierkegaard that life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.

And this is the beauty of Enneagram, it's not a predictive model, I can't say, Okay, well Creek’s a Four, so he's going to be good at this, or he's going to be good at that. Or he's going to respond to this situation this way or that way. Because I just don't know. But when I see Creek’s reaction to something, or I see my own react, when I'm looking backwards to understand, I can say, oh, yeah, there's that Four thing. There, I did that Eight thing again.

And the better we get at that, at recognizing that, the better we get at heading problematic behaviors, often at the path. I feel this Eight thing coming up, because I have learned to look.

María José: 31:22

Yeah, I would only add that it's not like we don't know anything when we know that Creek’s a Type Four. And we need to be open and hope—I mean—expect anything from him.

Creek: 31:57

I am a mystery.

María José: 31:57

There's a probability that he will react in a particular way.

Mario: 31:42

Probability is the right word.

María José: 31:44

Probability, but I cannot predict how he will react. And that probability gives us a lot of tools. It's powerful. We need that. Otherwise, we would go about new situations without any judgments about what could happen. But thinking that I know it's a trap.

Creek: 32:07

It makes me think of art in a lot of ways is… Like I'm thinking okay, the paint colors. I've also seen, there's a photographer in Nashville that did this series on… He did Enneagram types, but in photos with lighting. And beautiful photos, right? And I guess when we think about art, it's admitting to the incompletion of the fullness of the idea, but it's like it's stabbing at something that isn't containable.

And I think if you're able to approach something like this photo representation of what an artistic expression of a Four. The energy of the Four, the affect of the Four. I mean, we were talking about this off here, where it's like you can just feel there's an energy about a particular person. Could be wrong, but Fours I can smell a mile away, because it's a familiar…

Mario: 33:08

A clove cigarette that they smoke all the time.

Creek: 32:16

Yeah, like the melancholy just kind of oozes out their ears, right? So I don't want to discourage like, people... I think there's a way to do art that is respecting the affect, the strengths, the general behaviors, or giftings of a particular type. But it is… We don't we don't go to an art museum and see someone's painting of a bowl of fruit. And then limit…

Well, if anything else doesn't look like that bowl of fruit, then it's not a bowl of fruit. I think approaching the paint colors, the artistic expressions, the whatever. There's a way to be simple in your presentation without it being reductive. But that takes maturity, I think.

María José: 34:13

And I think it also depends on what assertions you're making. You can say that you're trying to portray the affect of each type and that's fine. And it’s your take on that. But if you're saying, this is a One, and this is a Two, this is a Three, in a way that people either resonate or identify with that or not, I think that's tricky.

Creek: 34:41

Great example, Ryan O'Neal, “Sleeping at Last.” The artist, huge fan, Ryan, if you're listening. I live two hours away, let's collaborate. But he did a whole nine type thing musically done. And it was every number from the perspective of a Nine, because he's a Nine. And he did the Four. I'm like, yeah, you got like some of it. There's some great lyrics. He obviously did some some work on describing the type. He did a good job. And many people really connect with their type song. And he did a really good job.

He's a really gifted artist, but the Four song, everyone expects me to love it, and I don't dislike it, but it does not convey what I perceive to be. I need dynamics, and it was just Nine the whole way just even keel. And it's like, no, we need like rocket up dynamics, then go to the basement, in darkness. And then I need dynamics. So that's an example of a beautiful artistic expression that a lot of people connected with, but it's through his lens. And that's…

Mario: 36:01

Yeah, so I'm not familiar with his work, so I can't comment on it. But I think what you're describing is very common, and kind of the crux of the issue. In that the temptation when using the Enneagram, is to assume that we know, or assume that our inferences are correct. Without testing them, without having actual experience in the field of what really happens.

When a Seven drummer or Four drummer or Five drummer, and you only know that by seeing hundreds of drummers. And then you can start to see a pattern, but you have to make sure your samples big enough. And the danger is in jumping to conclusion without doing the work of understanding. And that's okay, because… I mean no, it's okay to create a hypotheses based on little understanding, or a little understanding, I'll say. But then you have to have the integrity to recognize that, okay, I haven't gone out and tested whether my idea really works.

So for example, in the business space, I see people who learn about the Enneagram, who've never worked in a corporation, who’ve never worked in organizations, and think they can take the Enneagram and go in and start using it with a bag load of stereotypes. Okay, simplistic assertions, and then that's okay. And it's not okay. It's unethical. And so we have to be able to test our ideas, to gain the experience and gradually build up our conviction.

María José: 38:15

And be able to change our mind.

Mario: 38:17

Absolutely to be able to change our mind. And I want to go back. Creek, I loved what you said about art. So you go into a music… And I'm a Jackson Pollock fan. So I love Jackson Pollock work. But how many times have you heard somebody look at a Jackson Pollock painting and say, eh, my two year old could do that? No, your two year old can't do that.

Because Jackson Pollock was a student of art. And he knew what he was doing when he was flinging that paint around the canvas. He had a point of view that was hard earned after years of painting and experimentation. It wasn't just some two year old throwing paint against the wall. He knew what he was doing. And it's the same thing with a bowl of fruit. A bowl of fruit by Vermeer, perhaps, is different from a bowl of fruit by my Aunt Loretta, who’s doing paint by numbers.

Creek: 39:25

Loretta. Oh ok.

Mario: 38:27

Loretta, if you're listening, I love you, but you make your art, you know, it's got something to be desired. What can I say? Picasso is the same way. No, you look at latter Picasso and you think that's bizarre, or unless you know what he's doing. And he got there through hard work. So I just want to give an example. So I recently encountered the… I came across this, “How Your Enneagram Type Determines Your Wealth” in a blog for a kind of second tier business magazine. It is somebody who clearly read a few blogs about the Enneagram. And then decided to publish something saying how your Enneagram type determines how wealthy you're going to be.

And every single word in the article is nonsense. It's stereotypes. I'd have to go through line by line to describe everything that's wrong with it. And yet, people are going to see that. So for me, that's an act of irresponsibility. That's an unethical act. It's an act that lacks integrity. Now we can write it off to ignorance. But this is the thing as Enneagram users that we have to do is say, I'm going to take the responsibility, because I'm playing with fire here. And you don't let your kids play with matches. Teach them.

María José: 40:55

Yeah, I was also looking at the Internet, and…

Creek: 40:58

Scary place.

María José: 41:00

Yeah, I know, and there was a blog about misuses of the Instagram. And I think that we would fall into some of the misuses—our approach—because they call it like the sugarcoated Enneagram. And what I understood they mean by that is that the Enneagram, that it's not kind of talking about the deep wounds and traumas and everything that's wrong about the types.

If you're not screwed up, then you're not talking about the Enneagram properly. And I think that's a problem too. When you think that it's all wrong, that you're hiding things, and that your personality is not your true self. And you need to get rid of it. So that’s problematic for me as well. And we've talked about that several times in other episodes. But that's a problem that I see with the use of the Enneagram.

Mario: 42:00

Yeah. What María José said reminded me of something I want to go back on and challenge a little bit on. Creek, you said something about a human being versus a human being having a type or something like that, right? Yeah. But our type is just something we call those things that we do.

It's not, you know, it's not a suitcase, you're carrying around, change of clothes. It's, you know, you are the sum total of your experience and your expression. And part of that is something we call personality. That part of you is not the only part of you. But it is you. So the type is something we call somebody who has certain characteristics, certain expressions.

Creek: 42:59

That's a good distinction. Yeah. Coming back to what MJ was saying, there's a fascination out there—like what you were saying MJ—of only the negative or being obsessed with the pain of discovery of how screwed up you are. But it often gets, like it's a more, when you become more fascinated with the explanation of why your quote screwed up, versus the exploration, and actual work of becoming less screwed up, it makes it feel like you are doing work when actually you're not.

And I don't see that as the ATA approach at all. You get confronted with the ways in which adaptive, maladaptive, but it's not about bad person, good person. It's like this isn't serving you well. So I think it was just, ATA does a completely different approach than a lot of the teaching out there, which is more of the good person, bad person. It's like no, you’re a person doing something adaptive or maladaptive. I think that's a small shift, but a very important one.

Mario: 44:16

I can promise you I've never had a client accuse me of being sugar coated or you know…

Creek: 44:24

Yeah.

Mario: 44:25

But there's need that some people have to wallow in misery and confuse that with actually doing work is problematic.

Creek: 44:37

It’s puritanical.

Mario: 44:38

It's puritanical. It's hubristic. It's prideful. Look, Dalai Lama seems like a pretty happy guy to me. I know I need to find another example, Creek, here. You pointed that out to me before it. But you know, I don't see the Dalai Lama rolling around in sackcloth and ashes, talking about his pain and suffering and how awful he is.

No, you can grow by being happy. You can grow by folks and positive, as long as you're not denying the ugly. So I got no time for these people who, Oh, you gotta suffer, you gotta do that. Life's tough enough.

Creek: 45:26

Seriously.

María José: 45:27

So another use of the Enneagram that I don't agree with is to try to explain type, because of what happened to you when you were a kid, or how your parents raised you or things like that. So I was once told that when I was exploring my type at the beginning, and I came out as a Seven in a test. And the teacher said to me, no, you cannot be a Seven because that would mean that your mother didn't pay attention to you when you were a baby.

What are you talking about? And I've seen a lot of that. A lot of conclusions drawn from your type and how it's asked. And that's, I think, also irresponsible and not true. We don't not know what makes us have the personality we have. Nobody knows.

Mario: 46:21

It's really, really complicated. And I think that only people who have never had children who believe that a child becomes the personality type, because of their childhood experiences. Anybody who's ever had children—and particularly more than one—understands that there's a whole lot of innate going on.

And your children are in many, many ways baked in from the moment they pop out of the womb, and probably even before that. And they spend most of their lives reacting to the world through the lens of their temperament, which probably includes personality. So I just, you know, I agree.

María José: 47:05

Which doesn't mean that certain events shaped the way we see the world.

Mario: 47:12

Yes.

Creek: 47:12

Sure.

María José: 47:13

I mean, they do. But we probably, as you say, see them also through the lens of our personality, anyway.

Mario: 47:20

Yes. And the reality is, is that within a normal distribution of childhood environment, meaning not extreme trauma, not extreme Buddha-like being protected from all signs of pain and suffering. That for people in the middle doesn't have that much impact on their personality and temperament. Especially parenting.

There's a woman, Judith Rich Harris, I think is her name.

María José: 48:00

Yes.

Mario: 48:00

Yeah, who wrote great books and did great research on how a child's friends and peers actually shaped who they become far more than the parents do. Now, there’s not to say…

María José: 48:13

“The Nurture Assumption,” I think is one of the books.

Mario: 48:17

Yeah. And one of the examples she use, if the child comes from a.., say they're from the south, and they moved to Boston, and the parents have a southern accent, that kid is not going to have a southern accent. It’s going to have a Boston accent, because we are wired to morph more toward potential mates and allies. So we are going to change our behaviors toward peer group. So the little childhood things.

Creek: 48:48

It's such a tricky subject. I mean, I do think that is an interesting field that has not been explored well, yet of like, how does one use the Enneagram? And just trauma? And that how do those relate to one another? Again, not necessarily…

Mario: 49:11

Do they relate to one another?

Creek: 49:12

Sure.

Mario: 49:13

Is a question.

Creek: 49:15

I mean, they have to interact at some point is what…

Mario: 49:19

Sure. How are we defining trauma too is the other question I always ask in this situation.

Creek: 49:25

Right. so I think it's an interesting field. It’s a highly complicated field, and no one should be doing it unless they are highly skilled in both.

María José: 49:34

And again, how you define trauma. It's interesting because I was reading the descriptions in one website of each type. And I would say that three or four out of the nine were described in the first line with the word trauma in it. So their trauma is this or that and you know, we need to be really careful.

Mario: 50:00

It's called concept, Creek. I mean, 20 years ago, what the definition of trauma was, is different than what it is today. And I have no… Again, I'm not making any assertions on this. I just think if we're going to have that conversation, we need to first start with defining what we mean by trauma. You always have to define your terms with all of these things. And then we can start to have a conversation.

Creek: 50:25

I guess, last last thing, and then we'll wrap up here. The thing I run into a lot, at least in my world, is relationships and like, what type should I marry? And all these other sort of things. That one just drives me up the wall. But what has been your experience, as I'm sure you've been asked that question as well. What's typically your your answer?

María José: 50:50

I stole Mario's answer. If I knew I would be rich, I wouldn't need to work. Or something like that.

Mario: 51:01

I’d have a million followers on Instagram. Right?

María José: 51:06

And it's tempting, because it would sell really well, if you had that kind of advice for people, but you simply don't know. Some people have behaviors that are more adaptive, or maladaptive, or have a different background, or just, there's no chemistry. Just don't like them.

So it's like having the skills for a job or not. You might see a Seven and that's what you need for your life and no appeal at all. It's tough. It’s an impossible act.

Mario: 51:44

Darwin, when he was deciding whether or not to marry Mary. I think was her name. Made a list of pros and cons. Darwin was probably a Five, right? So he makes this list of reasons to marry her reasons not to. And the list of reasons not to was longer than the list of reasons to. But he married her anyway. Why? Because, again, there's just something that happens between people that says, that's the one.

And it has nothing to do with your Enneagram type. And anytime you start to try and construct the ideal person that I'm looking for, you're doomed. And we all know that there are times when we're just with somebody, we say, yeah, you know what I dig her. And now, so relationships tend to happen because of some variety of factors that we don't fully understand. Pheromones is one of them. The way they smell in ways that we can’t even perceive has a lot to do with attraction. It’s why people wear perfumes, all this sort of stuff.

We don't even know it. There's just something in my brain registering in the way that he or she smells that I'm drawn to. Now, what's the Enneagram good for in this? Once I'm in that relationship, why does she keep doing that? Why does she keep saying that? Why does she think this is so important? Ah, because of her Enneagram type. It's not because she's crazy. It's not because she's bad person. It's because she's a whatever.

María José: 53:31

Yeah. And if we use it, or if we limit the use of that application, to Ones do this, Eights do that, Fours do that, or don't do these things, it's not enough. I think that what the Enneagram provides is a better understanding of the logic of the person so that you can communicate with them more effectively.

Mario: 53:55

I've seen these manuals of well, here's what's going to happen when a Two and a Nine are in. My question is always okay, what is that based on? You're looking at how many different variables here. What is your sample size for making those conclusion? I mean, those things are just made up based on assumptions.

Now, if you come to me and say, You know what, I've studied a million couples, or 1,000 couples of all Threes and Sixes. And I know for sure there's Threes and Sixes, I still need 1,000 of them. And here's what the data says. Okay, well, now you got me interested. But good luck with that.

María José: 54:39

If you don't mention instinctual biases, I’ll lose interest.

Mario: 54:43

Well, then you got whole other problem. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. It's just too hard. Whenever you're trying to assess these things, you got to consider the possible variables and your dataset. What's my sample size here? The rest of it's just crap that were making up. But if I know…

So I'm married to a Seven. Okay, so I just remind myself she's a Preserving Seven. And that's why she does the things that she does. Allows me to take a deep breath and not try to judge her through my Navigating Eight lens. That's the value of the Enneagram. You can get that done.

But here's it here's a final thought I want to leave with. It's another quote from H.L. Mencken, the great journalist satirist, who said, for every complex problem, there's an answer that is clear, simple and wrong. And so anytime we find ourselves grabbing for simple answers about people—really, really complicated creatures—we're probably wrong.

Creek: 55:50

And on that note, thanks for listening to another episode, or rather, just a rant. Thanks for listening to our rant.

Mario: 56:00

Don’t forget to tip the waiters and waitresses. I'll be back here next Friday.

Creek: 56:05

That's great. We'll talk to you next week.

Outro: 56:10

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.