Ep. 79-Personal Development & The Enneagram with Dr. Jerry Wagner

This is the You Winning Life Podcast, your number one source for mastering a positive existence. Each episode, we'll be interviewing exceptional people, giving you empowering insights and guiding you to extraordinary outcomes. Learn from specialists in the worlds of integrative and natural wellness, spirituality, psychology, and entrepreneurship so you too can be winning life. Now here's your host, licensed marriage and family therapist, certified neuro-emotional technique practitioner, trainer and certified entrepreneur coach Jason Wasser.

Hey everybody, welcome back. Today's topic is going to be full of spirituality and full of psychology and personal insight and personal growth, and especially for everybody out there who's hanging out on what other people might call the fringes of self-development, personal development. You're really going to love today's episode with Dr. Jerry Wagner, who is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, consultant in private practice. He's a retired professor in the Department of Psychology and Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University in Chicago. In 1971, he was introduced to the Enneagram, and he was among the earliest students of this in the United States. His dissertation was one of the first written descriptions of this personality typology, and he pioneered formal research studies on this Enneagram, which led to the creation of a highly researched and statistically validated Wagner Enneagram personality style scale. He's the author of two books, Nine Lenses of the World: The Enneagram Perspective and The Enneagram Spectrum of Personality to Styles: An Introductory Guide. And he's also the creator of the Enneagram Spectrum training for those that want to learn more and get certified in this modality. Dr. Jerry, welcome. Thank you so much for coming. Exactly, exactly. And I know we're going to spend some time talking about that. This really isn't that fringe. This really is a real deal thing. And I hope that the people who are listening today will have some really good insights and some ways to tackle some serious things that might be going on in their life and walk out at the end of the— at the end of the game, at the end of the day, with some better insights and maybe have something really practical. For them to, um, to apply to their life. But before we get there, let's talk a little bit about, you know, 1971, you were first introduced to that. So what was going on in your world? Where were you at that time? And for that to just show up for you?

Well, good question. Um, in my previous life back in '71, I was a member of the, um, Jesuit religious order, and, uh, we were studying theology down in Hyde Park in Chicago. And Bob Oakes was a teacher of systematic theology, but he drifted. He got interested in, um, you know, psychological experiences, and he went out to Esalen, and there he met, um, Claudio Naranjo. So Bob was either in the first class that Naranjo taught in the United States. Claudio had just come back from Chile in South America, where he learned the Enneagram from Oscar Ichazo. So he then had this class and he taught it to Bob Oakes. And I think Helen Palmer was there and Sandra Maitri Almas. So a lot of the people who have gone on to teach the Enneagram. So he learned it. He came back to Chicago and taught it to us over a 2-semester class on religious experience. It was just a great course, breath of fresh air. And so we learned how to stand on our heads and do breathing exercises. And throughout the whole 2 semesters was the Enneagram. So that's where I first learned it. I originally thought, oh, well, here's another typology and it's okay. But then it really described me well. I said, oh my God, yeah, that's me. And I liked it because it provided a framework to hang a lot of the other psychological theories that I learned. It gave a place to understand them. So I went on and then got my PhD at Loyola. And by some amazing gift, the faculty there allowed me to do my dissertation on the Enneagram. Nothing had been written about it. They didn't know anything about it, but they said go ahead. And there, at that time, there was nothing written about the Enneagram. It was all oral tradition workshops. So I thought, well, how about instead of, you know, books in the bibliography and articles, how about if I just put phone numbers and you can call these people and talk to them? And they didn't think that was funny at all, so I had to come up with some kind of articles. These days, if you go on the internet, it is just filled with websites and books and articles and trainings. It's amazing how popular the Enneagram has become. So it's held up.

Well, yeah, because we're talking 40-something years later. Yeah. And you can't—

right.

And there's— whether it's from people who are trained in it, people maybe just read books. But I know from my experience, when we first talked on the phone a few weeks ago about this was I saw it through a Jewish Kabbalistic lens, right?

Yeah.

Rabbi Jason Wasser was the one, and years ago, where I first saw this and heard about it. And then I know that it's very, very involved in the Christian community, that a lot of people are using that in their pastoral counseling and their coaching and stuff like that. But it hasn't really— I've never seen it really show up as a licensed therapist. And I know you're psychologist, it hasn't really, from my perspective, at least in South Florida, taken a foothold in the clinical community as much as it potentially could be.

Yeah.

So at what point did you start seeing it, right? You wrote this dissertation, and your dissertation turned into what became your, your assessment scale, correct?

Correct.

So what happened from there? What were you doing, right? So what did you find creating this scale? What was— what were you looking for? What were you coming up with? What were— when you were working with people, obviously, you had it, right? I'm assuming you had a practice this on clients, what was showing up for you? What were you noticing? What were you seeing? What consistencies were there with people?

Well, a good question. I mean, I used— my test that I have now is about the 7th version. So it originally was sentences and then I got it down to words and phrases. So it's a little bit more like a Rorschach test. You know, well, what is this? This is word or phrase, if it you. Um, what I did, so I, I gave Enneagram workshops, and in the course of those workshops, when you listen to people talk about themselves or get in groups of type alike styles, it is amazing how much they sound alike. Uh, you know, if you get in the right group, you can almost complete a sentence that somebody is saying. So, oh I know just what you're talking about. If you're in a different group, it's not your style, you might find yourself saying, "Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Well, I'm not sure what you mean by that." So there really were commonalities among these 9 different types. And so I tried to find a way to help people kind of figure out, assess what types they are. My test is, it's good enough to get published by a major psychological test company. I would say it's accurate 80% of the time for your top score, 90% if you take your top 2 scores, and maybe 90, 95% if you take the top 3 scores. So no personality test is 100% accurate. We really like them to be, but Basically what it does is, let's eliminate 7 or 8 styles and say, well, you're probably one of these 2, see which one fits. Or here, here's where you came out. Does the description of this type fit you? You know, so I've used it for research, other people have used it for research. I think that's what the Enneagram needs to get in the mainstream. It— there's only one Enneagram article that's been published by a journaled— a juried Enneagram psychological journal. So we really need to get more hardcore research. Experientially, people say, yeah, this really works. This is really useful. Experimentally, we just need more data. Yeah, you know, the psychology community is saying, show me the data. And we still, we got to do that yet. It's popular all around the mainstream, but not yet in the mainstream, at least of psychology. Right.

And that makes sense. And I just went through that experience in a different community with the neuro-emotional technique community where it's been around for 35 years.

Yeah.

And the One Research Foundation, which is their nonprofit research arm, and it's connected to Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia, released a full and published in the Journal of Cancer Survivorship. They were accepted into the Journal of Cancer Survivorship about using Neuromotional Technique for post-traumatic stress. And they did the study around cancer survivors. So we know as clinicians and practitioners that this modality is working because there's thousands of certified practitioners all over the world. People are using this left and right, whether they're chiropractors, body docs, or mind docs, right, the therapy side. And you have to be a licensed practitioner to be able to use this technique. But we know for years and years and years, and I've been doing this, you know, I got certified in 2015. So I've been doing that since around 2013, 2014. I've known for the last many years that this works, and it works with pretty much every single client I'm working with. Yeah, but they didn't have any clinical validation. And once they did, and then it got published in a major cancer journal, then all of a sudden now No one can really hold it up to say, well, this isn't real. This is some hokey hippie dippy. Muscle testing isn't clinically validated. You can't— emotions aren't somatic, right? Even though there's all the trauma and emotion people that are coming out of this world, you know, well, now they're publishing stuff. But we— I can definitely relate to that as an NET practitioner and a clinical therapist, that the feedback or the kickback I got from my colleagues or my professors, like, How is that therapy? How is that helping? Is that even real? That's not what we trained you in. So I can imagine for people out there to have to fight, whether it be you, whether it be me, whether people who are listening to this episode, that there's maybe something in their life that they're fighting against that they know is real and valid and useful, and people around them are pushing them down or saying, no, you can't do that.

Yeah, yeah.

So let's get a little bit deeper. So we've been using this word Enneagram a lot.

Yeah.

We've been talking about it when it's that it's a spiritual thing, it's a psychological thing. So what actually is the Enneagram?

Well, it's both. I mean, it has both spiritual and psychological dimensions. So it appeals to, you know, both kind of a spiritual crowd and also psychological-minded folks. I don't see a conflict between the two. And I throw science in there. I think science and spirituality, science and psychology can go together. It's a typology. So it describes 9 ways of being in the world, 9 ways of kind of seeing things and processing things and responding to things. I use the term paradigm, which usually, you know, people then run for the door, uh, but I'll try it with your audience. So a paradigm is a, is a worldview. It's a, it's a schema, set of schemas, and your paradigm tells you what to look for and what to look out for, you know. So the paradigm in psychoanalysis is look for conflicts. Paradigm in ego psychology, look for the ego strengths. Paradigm in self-psychology, look for the quality of the self. Is it, is it robust? Is it fragile? You know, is it lively, deadened? So different therapy approaches tell you what to look for. In the Enneagram, each 9 types are looking for certain things. I tend to start out by saying, well, what motivates each type? What's the value? And you could ask yourself questions like, well, at the beginning of the day, what gets me out of bed? You know, what's kind of drawing me? What's exciting for me? And at the end of the day, if you look back over the day, you might ask yourself, well, what made this a good day? Well, this was a good day. So my type, the 5, I would just automatically say, I learned something today. Aha. 3 might say, I got things done today. I accomplished what I set out to do. A 1 might say, I fixed things. I did it right. A 2 would probably say, I was able to help somebody today. 4 would say, I had a deep, meaningful conversation. The 5 might say, I avoided deep, meaningful conversation. That made it a good day. 6s might say, I survived the day. I didn't get hurt. Or I was able to be loyal, be faithful, you know, to keep my word. Sevens might say, oh, I had a new experience today. I had fun today. Eights would say, what made this a good day? Oh, I defended the downtrodden. I righted a wrong. You know, so justice is important. A 9 might say, I avoided conflict today, or I had a kind of a harmonious, agreeable connection with somebody. So, you know, so what do you value? And then if you value a certain thing, what are you here for? What's your vocation? What's your mission? What's your purpose? If you have these certain values, then you want to be looking for things. So if your job as a 1 is to fix things, make them better, then you want to look for what needs to be improved. And you're going to see flaws, you're going to see things that can be made better, maybe before other people see them, or even other people may not see it at all, but you're looking for it. You might have an intuitive edge in that area. It looks like, wow, you're a genius, but actually you just spend most of your life looking for it. If you sell carpets, you're spending a lot of time looking at carpets, looking at the floor. Somebody might say, what do you think of the ceiling tile? And you say, oh, I don't know, I never noticed. On the other hand, if you're putting in, you know, ceiling fans, you might say, oh, this will go well with this ceiling. If you're a 2 and love is important, it's important, we're here to love one another. So you're going to look for people who need help, who have needs. I use the line, you know, as you're feeling thirsty, the 2 is handing you a drink of water. Wow, how'd you know I was thirsty? Well, I just picked it up. If you're a 3, you want to be successful, you want to get things done, so you're going to be looking for people you can network with. You're going to look for, uh, what's the goal, how can we get to that goal in the least, uh, onerous way, how can we do this most efficiently. You're good at that, you're looking for those things. 4s want to be special, but they also want to be authentic, so they're going to be looking for What's an authentic expression of myself? Or they're looking— beauty is important. How can I make this environment more beautiful? So that when I— there's a plaque, I'm from Cincinnati, there's a plaque in the conservatory there that says, here's, you know, here's a plaque in honor of Maudie Flecker, whatever her name was. 'Wherever she was, there was beauty.' It's a great memorial for a 4. Man also want to think about what would you like on your tombstone? That might capture it. All right, so 5s, we want to, we want to see the big picture. So we're looking for how do things fit together? Oh, how's the Enneagram go with the Myers-Briggs? How does it go with the DSM-5? How does it go with Malan's 8 styles, you know, how does it go with different kinds of toothpaste? You know, a lot of times different types see what they're looking for. You know, you say it doesn't have a damn thing to do with toothpaste. Yes, it does. You just have to look for it. So sometimes we see things that aren't there. Sixes might be looking for danger. They want to make the world safe and secure And so they see danger where the rest of us don't. We did an exercise once, and this is what puts the Enneagram on the fringe. Break up into groups and design a bathroom. What? So Twos had, you know, like a big sauna so all their friends could come join them, and the Fives, their bathroom had a big sign, Do not enter, do not disturb. Um, um, I don't know, 7s had balloons in their bathroom. It was, you know, just outrageous. No one even thought of this. The 6s made sure that there was slip-proof mats on the floor. They made sure that the electrical wiring was up to code because it might get wet. They had the safest bathroom of anybody in the room. It was great. So Sevens are looking for new experiences, you know, what does the world have to offer. So it's not a dangerous place for, like it is for the Sixes. It's a world of opportunities, you know. So they're looking for fun-filled adventures. Eights Uh, want to be strong. They value autonomy, being their own person, standing on their own two feet. Here's something that we didn't plan for.

All good. That's right, life, life keeps happening no matter what.

I'm not a 3 because an efficient person would have thought about that ahead of time. Well, actually, I thought about it, then forgot to do anything about it. The problem—

this is how it shows up, right? This is, this is how life shows up in a specific way for specific types of people. And I'm going to let you finish going through the rest of those types in this thing. But I want people out there to hear that, like, in a way, this is not that we have like this pre-programming, but we're kind of in a way predisposed to experiencing life through a very specific and particular lens. And when life doesn't show up in that particular way, we're going to either advance or enhance ourselves, or we're going to decrease or run away from it or have anxiety or stressors because of it. So that's why I love having this conversation with you, and I definitely want you to finish the rest of the styles on this specific topic. But yeah, but I would just want people out there to listen, like, this is what happens.

Yeah.

A very practical application that if a phone rings, how would a different person handle that scenario? Right, right, right. And this type of scenario— so go on.

Curse the phone. So the 8 is looking for autonomy and justice. So they might be looking for injustice, you know, where is somebody being taken advantage of, or where is somebody taking advantage of them. And then you, you know, might want to get even. If that's the downside of the 8. The 9 is looking for harmony. They're looking for Inclusion, how can everybody belong, how can everybody be heard, fit in. So they're looking for the unity under, I think, underneath the diversity. And they're good at seeing that. It's a very inclusive space. So we got a paradigm. We're free, you know, this is George Kelly, who's a cognitive theorist. He talks about constructs. We're free to create these constructs, but then once you create them, you're kind of stuck in them. You can create a new one, but once you get into the 1 World, the 2 World, the 3 Paradigm, the 4 Paradigm, then you need to play along with the laws of that paradigm. So 1s allow themselves to be responsible, but they may not allow themselves to have a lot of fun and goof around. 7s would say life is short, Eat dessert first. You know, first do what you want to do, then do what you have to do. It's a different paradigm. And each paradigm allows some types to do certain things that other types can't do. So the 8 paradigm allows them to be assertive, to say what they want, what they don't want, and to say no. The 2's paradigm allows them and encourages them to say yeah, but not so much to say no. 'cause that's selfish. So the trick is if you can get yourself inside the paradigm of another style, that broadens your way of looking at things, the way you're responding to things, things you're able to feel. So it's helpful to learn all the 9 ways of being in the world because that broadens your perspective. So I use the, the, the image of a team. So we got 9 players on our outer team, 9 players on our inner team. We tend to play certain parts of ourselves, the players that we know best, we put them out in the game most. But there might be some players who are, you know, might, might be of some use to us if we get comfortable with them, get to know them. Then we got all 9 players. So use, you know, we've got access to all those 9 ways of being in the world.

Really, this can be looked at as, on the most macro sense, how do I help myself? Or the listener could be thinking, I can use this tool to help me understand what my purpose and my potential is if I utilize these strengths and I enhance or understand or acknowledge these perhaps weaknesses. Or I know the term that sometimes is being used is the shadow. Right, the shadow self, right? And to use that. So I, my, my mission statement in my private practice is to minimize stressors and maximize potential. And I want to find all the different ways I can help each one of my clients to do that. And one of the ways that perhaps, you know, you, the listener out there, can do is by understanding and using this as a lens in order to understand what you personally are going through, what life struggle, and you can probably reorient your whole entire life to being like, wow, that really makes sense why I was good at that, why I went through this way, why I reacted to this, this scenario, why this relationship didn't work out. And maybe because now what you're saying, at least what I understand you saying, is that not only can you look at yourself, but you can now start interacting with the world a little bit differently. So if you're in a relationship and one person is a specific number and another person is a different number, you can then learn to respond or interact with them in the way that they need through their Enneagram number.

Yes.

Right. As opposed to just doing it through yours. And it's very familiar and very similar to the Five Love Languages.

Yes.

And right where there's the Five Love Languages and you usually give out what your own is to the world and you expect everybody to give that back to you. Right. But there's types, right? So, so in a sense, is that very similar that one can really go on a really deep level, not on their interpersonal, but also their intrapersonal?

That's right. Yeah, I think you're right.

Yeah.

Um, and you, you know, you— one of the nice things that when I learned the Enneagram, I had two semesters, you know, like September to May. So we had a chance to talk to all the other people in the class, and we were all learning at the same time. So, you know, you could, you could go for a walk with a 4 and say, what does this mean? What is that like? You know, or talk to a 9 and say, you know, so what is the problem with conflict? You know, or what does this mean that you, you know, you kind of put things off to avoid the conflict? So it's— you can ask another person, how do you do that?

So it makes someone a lot more compassionate.

Yes.

As a whole, because what you're really trying to do is understand their worldview from their perspective, truly get into their shoes, right? And obviously, the deeper you go into personal development and self-growth, right? What I, what I find frustrating as a therapist and as a coach is that people do this personal development thing, and it's about making them better.

Yeah.

So they can get— they can move up in the world in some way, shape, or form, as opposed to what can I do to learn How to integrate better and to understand other people's needs better at their level, at what they need, not the way I want it and how I want it to be.

Yes. So how— it's right. How can you be more compassionate, more empathic? I think one way of doing that in the trainings that I do is asking people, where did this style gets started. So you've got a high side and a low side to the style. The high side is kind of our given self, our gifted self, true self, authentic self, whatever you want to call it, real self. If, if our parents loved us as we are, then we wouldn't need to be other than who we are. But religion, culture, parents, siblings, they were not so hot the way we are, and so they want to condition us to be a certain way, how we should be. So we get this idealized self-image Karen Horney talks about, how, how I think I should present myself so you'll love me and accept me and won't hurt me. Um, but you can think of the personality also as a, as a defense. So we were hurt some way when we were little, a big one, or maybe just a lot of little hurts, And we decided, whoa, I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen to me again. So if you can understand where did this strategy get started, what— that's— that helps you be much more empathic towards the other person. It's not like you're just being stubborn, you're being obnoxious. You were hurt and you don't want to be hurt that way again. You know, an example I use, I know someone who was a 1. She's in the 1st grade. The teacher said, "Okay, now class, draw a picture of a person, whoever you want, and draw them your favorite color." So she drew a little girl, colored her orange because that was her favorite color, handed it in, and the teacher is now going through everybody's drawing, you know, and she says, "Oh, I hope the teacher likes mine, maybe even shows it to the class. So sure enough, the teacher held up her picture and said to the class, "Now class, here's someone who colored someone orange. Has anyone ever seen an orange person? Why would anyone color someone orange?" And put it down. Was a new teacher who was let go at the end of the year, but damage is done. If you were a 2, you would probably say, "Teacher's having a bad day, I'll stay after class, maybe do the, the wash the board for her, make her feel better, she won't be so crabby." If you're a little 6, you might call your lawyer, sur, for what she did. If you were an 8, You might call Uncle Louie and say, "Louie, I got a problem here. Take care of it for me." This was a little one, so she said, "Ouch, I'm gonna make sure I don't get embarrassed, humiliated like that again. And so as a little one, I'm gonna make sure whatever I do is as perfect as I can make it. I'm gonna ask you, what color did you have in mind?" What are the requirements of this job? What do I have to do to get an A? What's expected of me? And I'll do it, and then you better give me an A. Or I'm gonna critique myself 100% more than you ever could. So I'm gonna beat myself up way before you beat me up. So that's the one way of trying not to be hurt that way. So you say, well, you're very perfectionistic, you're very critical, you're very judgmental. Why? It's to protect me.

And each one will show up in a very different way. Exactly. For self-preservation. So really, we can take every single thing that we're experiencing in this world, whether it's about money, whether it's about relationships, whether it's about health, whether it's about self-care, whether it's about allowing people to help us in some levels, whether it's about how you think you're perceived or how you are allowing others to perceive you. All of those things can be viewed and, and, and actualized through the Enneagram lenses.

Yeah, yeah, powerful. It's a very useful system. Um, I like— I can never think of his name, the philosopher of science. Uh, it's, it's not Kuhn. Anyway, uh, he, he would— he talks about all theories as being useful fictions, you know. And he said, you know, all theories are false, some are more useful than others. Someone else has said all theories are incomplete, some are more useful than others. I like that one a little bit better. So the Enneagram is a useful theory. If you like it, use it. You know, if it doesn't help, try another one. It's a lot of other things.

I'm a big fan of having people put on different lenses to experience things. In the world. And I actually do this with some of my clients. I get to play different parts to them.

Yeah.

In practice, where I'll sit, right, normally I'll sit in my, my, my standard chair, although I don't care if a client comes in and sits there the first session, I'm not gonna make a big, like, that's my chair. I don't really care about that. So which probably makes me more of like, you know, what can I do for you before you need, right, that too type of thing. But I wonder, like, when I am doing this, where I would say, Well, I'm going to play a different role. I'm now going to be— if Dr. Phil was in this office, so I'm going to move and move into a different— you know, I know Dr. Phil's not a therapist, right? But like, if I was going to be a Dr. Phil personality, I get up from that chair and I move to the couch that they're not sitting on. And I talk to them in that personality style. And then I'm like, okay, and if I was Oprah, here's what I would say to you as Oprah. And if I was Tony Robbins, here's what I would say. And I move around the room into different chairs so they can hear it from different vantage points and different perspectives. Which one clicks with them the most.

Yeah.

And which one will help them take a different perspective or more action. And then I can start understanding what's their style of like, what do they need to hear to maybe, you know, as an intervention, you know, to be heard and to be motivated to do something differently. Which ones do they respond really negatively to? Like, which one they say, go fuck yourself, right back to me. So it's very interesting that we can do this in maybe a much simpler way from the get-go and say, Hey, people out there, right? If you're a therapist out there, or if you're a coach out there, whatever you're doing, or even any teacher to understand your students through the perspective, you don't necessarily have to take a quiz, right, to do this. You can kind of guess and maybe, you know, social experiment with it a little bit in a very simple and non-harmful way. But for people out there who really, like, they're interested about this, they're like, this is kind of cool. What type of people show up, come to your trainings, come to your workshops, and what What's the goal from it? And then what happens once they finish it?

Yeah. Okay. Let me just piggyback on to what you said. I really— I like that idea of kind of going around the room. And so it's like acting as if you were that type or fake it till you make it. George Kelly, the cognitive theorist, he also was a drama teacher. So he said, you know, write a description of this character. And then spend a week acting as if you were that character, you know. Or someone else said— she does this with business, just amazing— a magic cape. So you, you know, you see, well, here's how a 7 would do this, here's how a 6 would do it, here's how an 8 would do it. So now you put on this cape and suddenly you are that type. And, uh, we did an exercise once and it turned out different than what I thought. We had people draw a name, a number out of a hat, and say, okay, now you're this type, you're a 4, you're a 7, you're this, you're that. Here's a situation, how would you respond to it? So in a similar kind of thing, pretend like you are this type, thinking, oh well, you'll get a great insight. But what people said was, wow, I really like this because I can do things as that type that I would never allow myself to do as my own type. Great. Just gives you more freedom. So anyway, you said, who comes to these trainings? And may I shamelessly say, we've got a training coming up in Orlando, and I think it'll help Mickey and Minnie in their relationship. I think they'll get along a lot better after this. It's gonna be March, I'm looking at the dates here, March 23rd to 27th. There's room available. It's gonna be at the Mystic Dunes Resort. It's a great price. If you play golf, don't do it during the training, but after, afterward. Anyway, people who come, so we offer CEUs to social workers, psychologists, so I get, that ilk, like myself, coaches, business coaches, ministers, spiritual directors, teachers, people who just come because they wanted personal development, personal growth. It's like they're not going to work, use this one-on-one with anybody. They're not going to work on teams. They're not going to present it in workshops. They just want to grow, know themselves better. We've gotten couples come, parents and children come, usually older children. So just a whole wide variety of people come. And then they might use it for their own growth and understanding for their own relationships. They might use it to work with teams as coaches. They might use it in their parish for their, you know, pastoral team or with the parishioners. Wherever there are people, there are uses for the Enneagram.

And even if they don't proactively use it, they're probably going to walk out just understanding their world that they're walking back into a little bit differently.

I hope so. Yeah. So they'll have a little better knowledge of themselves and knowledge of, well, maybe other ways of being in the world. Yeah.

Tell me, tell me a story about like some surprise, big, like earth-shattering, mind-blowing experience from one of these trainings or a client or a consultation where It was just, they walked in one way and they walked out another way. And it was just such a game-changing experience for one, for you to witness and be part of, and two, for that person to go through. Was there anything like that that you can—

Yeah, there's a recent one. Well, you won't know who it was. It's a client and EAP, so there's a limited number of sessions he could have and a lot going on. And I thought, well, we don't have a whole lot of time. You sound to me, I'm thinking, you sound to me like you're this type on the, on the Enneagram. Why don't you take my test? Out of the kindness of my heart, I'll give you a free test code. Normally it's a mere $10. Cheap for what you get. Anyway, he took it, came back, and said, wow, this is me. This is— this makes a sense about what I'm doing. This kind of changes everything. And he wasn't the type I thought he was. He was the type right next to it. Um, but it really gave him some clarity about what was going on with him. And luckily it came towards the end of the allotted sessions he had, so we were able to stop. He said, yeah, I, I can. And he did himself a lot of reading on the internet. He did an amazing amount of research into it. And so that would be a recent example. Usually it's not quite that dramatic. It's kind of a gradual understanding yourself and, and And I don't know about you, but change comes slowly to me and painfully. I gotta think about it for a couple of years and then, you know, maybe put my foot in the water. So usually I see not dramatic conversions, but kind of a slow dawning, aha, I get it.

Yeah, well, I heard once from one of my coaches, Rick Sappio, that he goes, people don't make the same mistake once or twice, they make the same mistake 100 times.

Yes, that's right.

Right? So, and this is why I love having all of these different resources available to the listeners is that there's again, right, all these different lenses, but one of these is going to hit with somebody.

Yes.

And I hope that if they take just one thing away from every episode and they build it up and we're already, you know, at this point of release before this will go out, but as of this week, I'm already at episode 29. So episode 30 will will be released this coming week. I'm hoping that for— there's 30 different nuggets that someone has gotten by being part of this community that I'm trying to create. Yeah. And if 30, right, and then it's momentum, like you said, it's the long, right, little bit by little bit by little bit. And each show is a little bit different. Some are on psychology, some are on spirituality, some are on natural and alternative wellness, some are on entrepreneurship. And what I love about this specifically is that this lens of the lenses of the Enneagram will help you with all of those, right? It'll help you with your psychology and your mindset. It'll help you in your relationships. It'll help you in your financials. It'll help you in your business. It'll help you be a better employee. It'll help you be a better employer, right? If you're a manager, right, and you're overseeing certain people, then, and you understand what it is, this is a really good practical tool to do on your next staff meeting. And to then have, you know, either learn enough about it yourself or bring in someone like, right, us to do this, whether it's via phone, via Zoom, via, right, some type of teleconferencing or in person, where you can have game-changing transformations happening in the culture of your community, of your company, of your family, of your business, relationships, of your spiritual group, just by committing to doing something different and learning something a little bit outside of the box.

Yeah. That's right. Yeah, I know someone who's working with a top-level team in business and kind of so the team can know each other better. Other people do coaching for CEOs, you know, here's how to be a better leader. There's a wonderful book, Michael Goldberg, Nine Ways of Working. He better give me credit for my books, but talks about 9 different, 9 different kinds of bosses. It's really a very good book. Anyway, there's some other fine books too. Ginger Labet-Baghdan, Mario Sikora, Do the Enneagram in Business. Um, so, so yeah, it really has caught on there also. I think it started with as a spiritual tool Then as a psychological tool, and now the business world is saying, hmm, we can use this too.

Yeah. So in comparison to, let's say, like a Myers-Briggs or any other type of assessments, where does the pros and cons come in? I mean, obviously, like you said before, there's lenses, right? And everything is incomplete, but it's a good start, right? What do you think someone can learn differently in this type of assessment that they might not learn in a different type of assessment? I'm not saying one is better or worse or whatever, but what would be a different— just a different lens or a different angle or a different perspective that they might find here versus somewhere else?

Well, I just find it more comprehensive. I mean, you're asking the wrong person because I— any theory I immediately like. So I think they're all good. And, and it's— your lens is a good image. Each one kind of looks at the person from a little different angle, so they, they contribute something that other theories don't. Enneagram I find kind of comprehensive, and there's a depth to it. I, I like the Myers-Briggs. I did my dissertation comparing Myers-Briggs types with Enneagram types. The conclusion was they complement each other. You can't predict one from the other, but they add, you know, nuances to each other. So I, I just go back to the Enneagram as being a good framework to hang all these different theories on. And in some ways It gives a quick, comprehensive picture of the person. So if you take the Enneagram test, preferably mine, you get kind of a snapshot of the personality which you can then expand. So it contains a lot of information, um, in, in that theory. The downside is Businesses would like— they got a request once, "Well, can you teach us the Enneagram in an hour? Oh, and by the way, we'll be having lunch at the same time." Uh-huh. Uh, no. But what are you having for lunch? Right.

Yeah. That's a more important question.

That's right. Maybe I can. There's a lot to it, so— Oh man, you know, 3 hours or a day, it's hard to get everything in. You can do it, but then you kind of say, how about inviting me back? Because there's a lot more to it. Let this digest a little bit, assimilate it, then let's talk some more. So because it is so comprehensive and there's a lot of depth to it, it takes a while to learn it, to learn all the different parts.

So would your first suggestion be for someone who's interested in this to take your quiz?

I certainly would.

Okay, and then from there—

Because I need to pay for my daughter's wedding, which just happened in October. So yes, please.

Congratulations. And then from there, right, they would go to, right, so you have the two books. You have "The Nine Lenses on the World" and you have the "Enneagram Spectrum of Personality Styles." That's the introduction. You would start with that one, with the introductory, and then—

Yeah, I would. Yeah. So the Enneagram Spectrum is kind of an introductory text. Nine Lenses is everything I ever thought about the Enneagram, then I threw out about half of it. So it's, there's just, it's a more in-depth approach. So you do one and then do the other. In a way I'm doing a, it would just change the training format a little bit. It's a 5-day training. The first one, one in Orlando, is based on the Enneagram Spectrum book, a nice comprehensive introduction. Part 2, based on the Nine Lenses book, which goes deeper into all the different aspects of the types, brings in some new material. But even there, you almost need 2 trainings to get the whole picture.

Yeah, so it's a lot more complex than people think.

It is, yeah. So if you want to take my test, again, shamelessly, it's Wagner Enneagram Personality Style Scales, weps.com. You can just take it online and you get the results back right away.

And then from there, where would they have to go to learn a little bit more? Would they have the book or they can just—

Yeah, the book, or there's just a lot of Enneagram sites on the internet now with a lot of material. There are videos of the different types which is a great way to learn, hear it from the horse's mouth. So I can tell you about 8 types from hearsay. I can tell you about one type because I live in that type. So there, yeah, there's just a lot of material on the internet, but again, buyer beware. Not everything is accurate and exact, but if it, you know, Listen to a lot of it and you get a balanced viewpoint.

Yeah, so what would, what would you say is one thing as you've done this journey for yourself, right? Going from a clinical, right, clinical psychology to more of this integrative and broader worldview. What's one thing that you've learned about yourself from this journey that has helped you more than what you thought would just come out of a regular clinical psychology degree? By using the Enneagram lens?

Now you're asking a 5 to disclose parts of myself, which—

Ah, and not only to me, but to everybody who's going to be ever listening to this episode.

That's right, to 20 people who will be listening to this, and it's none of your business. But let me think now. But one of the things is, you know, it might be okay to disclose yourself and to reveal yourself, terrible things might not happen.

So then I'm asking you the perfect question, aren't I?

You certainly are. You, yes, you, that's right. Thank you very much for helping me stretch.

My pleasure.

Yes, that's right. You know, it's helped me to see there's an upside and a downside. So it helps me to see how how I screen things through my maladaptive lenses. So, you know, somebody might call me up and I say, "Oh God, here's another intrusion. Here's something now I got to go out to the movie with this person or go out to dinner." I could reframe that maybe and say, "That's not an intrusion, that's an invitation. Here's a chance to connect with somebody, to relate, to actually leave my cave." And you know, oh, there's a world out there. So I've learned to do that. I've learned to stretch, take risks, which is not the most fun thing for 5s. You know, maybe just as I'm getting older, I don't have to know everything. You know, there for a while it's like, oh well, you're supposed to be the expert. And as a 5, you know, you don't want to look foolish. That's still there some, but I'm a little bit more open to saying I got a lot to learn yet. That's okay. What else? I still have trouble expressing anger, although you keep asking me questions like this, it might come out.

Push and poke in the bear.

That's right.

I wouldn't be doing my job if I wasn't doing that. Well, you know, get another job.

I think I realized that relationships are where it's at. It's not book learning. It's not being in your head. It's just having good relationships. My wife died 4 years ago now from brain cancer. Wow, I really value our relationship. It doesn't do her any good, but much more now that I miss her than, you know, when I was with her. And the friends who have stuck around, I just value that now. And so I think it's kind of realizing what everybody else knows— relationships are really important. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that's the beauty of what you and I are doing, one, for our clients, but two, the space that I'm trying to create through this, through this podcast, is having people connect to things that they never would have heard before and to people that they may not have been introduced to, and then somehow create a relationship in that regard. I just heard someone that I met through social media, I connected to through social social media, through listening to my podcast, reached out to a guest that I had on an early podcast.

Yeah.

And is doing a really cool coaching program with them on something very specific for their business.

Yeah.

And those never— they're in two very different worlds and they never would have heard about each other if it wasn't for me making this virtual introduction.

Yeah.

And it's very cool to see, right, that you were talking about, about having people in relationships, but that you're creating community. And I may not even know it because I know there's people when we're talking about listeners, there's people when I look at where the listeners are, they're all over the world, which is kind of crazy that I have people, yes, all over the United States, but random countries. And I have, you know, I don't know how many listens to in Israel or wherever it may be. But it's kind of like, wow, this is really cool that people are taking value and finding value in each guest in their own different way.

Yeah.

And how it relates to them. So, so one, thank you so much for, for being vulnerable.

Yes.

For that last little—

Yeah, get it over with.

Yeah, get it right. You're done. You're off the hot seat right now. But I also want to thank you for, for the years of contribution to helping other people out there. You know, the name of the podcast is You Winning Life. And, and I do believe that psychology, spirituality, natural and alternative wellness and entrepreneurship are the four pillars to a successful, healthy life. And you've been really doing that through what you've been doing. So I want to thank you for that contribution to that. And if anybody out there wants to connect with you, I know that you're pretty easy to find, right? Your website is enneagramspectrum.com. And I know that you have your books and they can be found on Amazon and other places. I'm going to leave all of these contacts for you in the show notes. And are you still seeing active clients now?

I am. I have, as I like to say, I have a small private practice. It's very private. I'm one of the few people who know about it. But people oftentimes seek me out because they've learned about the Enneagram and they say, well, you therapist and you know the Enneagram, so let's work on my Enneagram style. So that's a nice combination. Yeah. Yeah.

Awesome. So good. So for everybody out there, please make sure you check out his website and check out the books if you had any interest in this or if you know someone else who would. And as we always say, if you found any value in this episode, please go online specifically to iTunes and leave us a 5-star written rating that helps us get out to more people out there so more people can hear all the value that the guests are bringing each episode. And if you want to reach out to me directly, you can hit me up on Instagram @JasonWasserLMFT. And again, Dr. Jerry Wagner, thank you so much for hanging out with us today.

You're welcome. Well, thank you for inviting me down there to the nice warm state from cold Chicago.

Looking forward to that.

Yeah. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️