56: The Enneagram Types: Leading, Learning, Laughing, and Loving with each type

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Welcome to the Becoming Bulletproof podcast. I am your host, Tracy o'. Malley. I'm a mom to millennials, an author, Enneagram expert and multi million dollar entrepreneur, and master performance and business coach. I've gone from rock bottom to building a bulletproof business and life. If you're looking for the unfiltered transparent truth and ethos, an extra kick in the ass, you will discover that here. Each week I'll be bringing you success stories of high level entrepreneurs as we discover how they became bulletproof and created their empire. You'll learn the story behind the glory along with Enneagram inspired truths so you can ignite your own purpose, profits and build your legacy. It's time for you to become bulletproof. Buckle up. Let's go.

FOREIGN.

Hey hey.

And welcome to another episode of the Becoming Bulletproof podcast. And we are going to be talking about the Enneagram and I am about to do a series where each episode will be individual to each type. So I will do a full episode on just the ones, the twos, the threes, and so on and so on and so on. I've been getting a lot of requests for that, so I am excited to do that. I'm also going to do some videos on it because I think that it's one thing to know your type and I think that is the first step to really understand yourself. And I've said this before, like you can't really lead others, whether it's in your home or in business, if you can't effectively lead yourself. And the best way to effectively lead yourself is to have a level of self awareness that's mastered and it's a continuous process. Just so you know, I am learning more and more about myself every single day. It comes with a willingness and a willingness to be open and honest with yourself, transparent. And it is no easy task, let me tell you, because if you're like me, I can justify all sorts of shit in my head. But this is going to be an episode. I think that kind of breaks it down what you get from the Enneagram and with it being so trendy right now. And I get it, it's fun. I love learning about other people and taking the quizzes and you know, I've always been into horoscopes and anything that like cracks me open a little bit and lets me take a deeper look at myself. I've always been for and I've always had an open mind to all things. I'm not one of those that, you know, I take what I need and leave the rest. So I will encourage you to do the same.

In all my 48 years of unpacking this person that I am, and specifically the last 20, it was about 20 years ago that I started to really dive deep and not just sweep a bunch of crap under the rug and just say, this is just who I am. Deal with was when I was 28 that I got my first taste of. This is a complex human being that I am today. So I knew that in order to be my very best to step into what I, you know, as a little girl, I knew that I was here for. As a little girl, I knew I was here to do some pretty cool shit. And then, you know, life gets a hold of you and it starts altering that and our beliefs change and our confidence and all the things. Right. So what the Enneagram has done for me specifically in the last eight years, out of all the things I've ever done, it is my favorite tool to use. And it's why I'm so passionate about it. It's why I take it into businesses and organizations. It's why I take it into famil and relationships and everything. I use it for every aspect of my life. Is it the end all, be all? No, it's just a tool and a resource that helps you get back on track if you've kind of gone off a little bit. And anytime you can course correct at a higher, faster rate, the less damage control you have to do, the less apologizing, the less shame, guilt, all the things, right? So take it for what you want. There are a lot of people out there that think it's a bunch of shit. And I get that, but whatever. I would ask them, how are things going? Like I said, it's a tool. It is the most effective tool I've used. And I'm one of those that will try all sorts of things. I've got, gosh, almost eight years of recovery under my belt as well. And it has been probably the most pivotal tool in my recovery toolbox as well to maintain that. And I don't mean just abstaining from the addictions and things that, you know, wreaked havoc on my life. But I have a level of emotional wellness and emotional sobriety that in my opinion is unmatched for the most part. I am probably one of the most emotionally stable people that I know. Does it mean that I not challenged from time to time? Oh, let me tell you. But the level of self awareness that I'm able to have with using the tool of the Enneagram has really allowed me to not just have success in business.

But as a parent, as a friend, as a partner, in my health, all of it. So today I wanted to kind of break down what the series will be about. Because it's one thing to just know the type, right? But information doesn't equal transformation. You've heard me say that before. And we have to start with ourselves. A lot of times I'll get people come to me and they're like, can you fix my husband? Can you fix my wife? Can you tell me what's wrong with my kids? And anytime that happens, I'll be like, okay, we can definitely go there. But in order to really have any kind of change and transformation sustainable, you have to turn the mirror on yourself, because quite honestly, that's the only thing that you can control, right? And so really knowing who you are, the ins and outs, it's why it's so important to be typed properly. If you're going to use the tool of the Enneagram, you have to use the tool properly. And you've heard me say this before, if you've listened to any of my previous podcasts, and if you haven't, this is going to be something you really need to understand is when you take those online tests and even the paid ones, and they're all decent, I'm not saying one's better than the others. There's definitely some I have preferences over, but even the paid ones and even my favorite ones are wrong 65 to 70% of the time. Those tests are just the starting point to really open your eyes to maybe some things to look at. And what I will usually tell people, if you take the test.

Take your top four scores, and because I'm so skilled in this for the last eight years, I can look at the top four scores and have a good idea about what's happening. It's why I'm able to type people very, very quickly. And not only just type them, but give them lots of nuggets to make changes, to step into their gifts, to let them see some blind spots. And so if that's something you want to do, if you want to bypass trying to figure this out on your own, I highly recommend booking a session with me you can do at my website, Tracey O' Malley.com under the Work with me session. I do typing sessions every day, pretty much, and I love them. There's so many aha moments. I know when I was typed properly all of a sudden, and I was 40 when I did this, by the way. All of a sudden, everything about my life started to make a lot more sense. And it didn't have the emotional charge that I had been driving at all the things that were holding me back. It made a lot sense. So if that is something you want to do, I highly recommend booking a session with me. And if you want to, you know, take this journey on your own, I definitely just be willing to take time with it, because you may not get your answer right away. There's a lot of complexities to the Enneagram. There's things like wings and subtypes and growth points and stress points and all of that that can alter the way that your type is expressed. You know, I, for the most part, if you looked at me, you wouldn't necessarily think I'm an eight. But there's some complexities that, when we break it down, will really reveal that. So definitely, I think that getting typed properly is the first, first step in your journey with the Enneagram. And not just for yourself, but the people that you lead, love, parent, work with, whatever that looks like for you. So the series is going to be about leading, loving, laughing, and learning with the Enneagram. And like I said, I'm going to do it based on each type in separate episodes. But I wanted to kind of give you an overview of what this will look like, leading with the Enneagram. You know, if you've been listening to me for any length of time, you know, it's been eight years. My journey with understanding and integrating the Enneagram in my business and leading people. I've always been a strong leader. Even when I was super unhealthy, I had some leadership capabilities. That's also definitely some eight.

Traits for sure, the challenger traits. But when you are not only understanding yourself and how you as a leader may impact other types, other people, you are able to adjust accordingly. And most of my life, I was like, this is who I am. Freaking deal with it, right? And although I could get results, it wasn't always effective. And quite honestly, I didn't love the fact that I could get people to move because they were afraid of me. There was a time in my life I kind of got off on that, and my ego really liked it. But to be an effective leader, that's not really a great place to operate from, right? You want people to feel empowered, not afraid.

Because that's how it's sustainable, and that's how you won't have turnover. That is how you'll have high productivity and High passion and good culture and higher profits. So, you know, understanding yourself and how you as a leader can impact the other eight types is really important. And then once you really understand yourself and maybe where you aren't as strong as a leader, like I am a great leader as far as leading by example, walking my talk, as far as a tactical teacher, systematic teacher, I suck. I really do. It is not my strength. It's like torture. You tell me to make a spreadsheet or a PDF, I pretty much want to vomit. And so knowing that about myself as a leader, surrounding myself with people and other types that have those strengths, definitely makes me step into who I am as a leader better because I'm not having to do the shit that I suck at. Those people are getting empowered because that is the strengths. And then they learn from me as well. Like, we can all learn from each other, but you have to know who you are and who you're leading. So when I break down the individual types on how to effectively lead that type and how to be led by that type, and maybe if you have a leader that's that type, how to communicate best with them, that is how you bring out the best in everyone. And if you're talking business and, and money and doing amazing things in the world and contribution and all of that, bringing out the best in each other is going to be so damn important.

Now. Loving with the enneagram and I'm not just talking, you know, romantic love. I'm talking about parenting. I'm talking about friendships and even business partners. I love so many of the people that I've been able to partner with in business along the last decade. And, you know, it comes down to do I want to be right or do I want to be effective? I always want to be more effective than I am. Right? And that's something new this last decade, right? And I think when we want to be right, we feel like we're coming from a place of insecurity. And there's no room for that in love. There really, really isn't. And I know that even as an 8, I can be very intense. I have a hard time with vulnerability, especially when it's romantic love. I have a hard time breaking down the walls because holy crap, you can get hu.

Even as a parent for a long, long time. It's hard for me to say this, but it was really hard for me to be super vulnerable. And it was just, you know, just what I knew. But I know that the love that's in my heart, whether it's for the love of my life, for my children, for business partners, for friends, for humanity. I want nothing more than what's in my heart to be translated into the ears, into the heart of the person I'm communicating. And so when I understand not only myself and how that can be received sometimes, but who I'm talking to, it changes everything. My children were the main reason why I wanted to learn the Enneagram. Specifically my daughter.

Almost 10 years ago.

I've told this story and her and I have talked a lot about it when she was four years old. So I was 28 when she was four. And this is when my personal development journey started 20 years ago, when I realized I could not just strong will my way through what I grew up with. Nature versus nurture is a real thing. There is a lot of truth to all of that. And when I looked into the eyes of my own four year old daughter, who very eerily looked very, very, very much like I did as a 4 year old, I was filled with anger at her. And obviously I knew none of that was about her. And it scared the shit out of me because I was either gonna spend a lifetime taking out the unfairness that I grew up with on her, or I was gonna learn a new way. And so that's where this all started 20 years ago was with my daughter, who is my greatest teacher and my greatest gift. And you know, the 12 years after that, it wasn't great. And there's been a lot of things that, you know, I've said as a parent and as a mother to her that we' worked on healing and you know, she's still my greatest teacher. We're very, very close. There's nothing that we don't talk about but today. And she's an Enneagram 7, which is very different than an Enneagram 8 and learning how to speak what's in my heart to the person I'm talking to. Like I know how to speak a language where that beautiful daughter of mine who is a 23 year old free spirited.

Enneagram 7 butterfly in this world. I know that every time I open my mouth and speak to her, for the most part, she's able to receive the love that's in my heart. And that is something that is so important to me. Same thing with my son who's an enneagram 2. As an enneagram 8, I had to learn very, very much that my tone, my body language, the pace in which I spoke, how much that impacted him. When it comes to matters of My own heart. I definitely, you know, looking back on the history of my romantic partnerships, oh my gosh, it has been so eye opening, especially the last few months as I open myself up to this thing that is love. And really coming to terms with the fact that in 48 years, not once in my life when it came to a romantic partnership ever said, this is what I need, this is what hurts me. This is how I feel loved and supported. And you know, when I look at the traits of an enneagram 8 the challenger, it's not surprising. Based on the history that I've had as a kid and beyond, it's not surprising. Had I not done as much work as I have, I probably would have gone too deep dark caves of shame around that thinking I've wasted 48 years of that.

But thankfully, because I know what I know and because I'm willing to continuously do the work and not have that emotional charge with was very eye opening on how I want to show up differently. And I am. And it's scary and hard. And also when I'm speaking to somebody that I care about, I want them to know that, hey, when I go kind of radio silent, this is what it's about. It's not about scared and I'm nervous and this is new to me. And being able to articulate that, holy shit, it's scary and it's freeing at the same time. I know that when you love people and you have such love in your heart, so often you know it's lost in translation, whether it's via text or on the phone or in person or even with a look or body language. And when you can understand yourself and the, the people that you love, there is a lot less.

Complexities and apologizing. Like, it's so beautiful to know that what is on my heart is being received the way that I intended it. And that's with all different types. And if I look at my inner circle, this is pretty powerful. This is how beautiful my life is and this is how important it is. Because if I was surrounded by a bunch of eights, that would be a shit show for me. That's really intense and I don't have that. My dad was an eight and he's pretty much the only one in my life that was an eight. And you know, he passed away before I even had any knowledge of this. But he was a very unhealthy 8.

But my inner circle, so my closest friends are a six, a three, a two. I'm raising a two and a seven. My Heart is feeling lots of things for a four. And like, that wide range of.

Personalities around me really grow me as a human being. It makes me better. I learn more about myself based on their types and how they show up in the world and their gifts and their motives. It also allows me to have a lot more compassion for all of humanity because I'm surrounded by such diversity in their types. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. The other thing that this series is gonna show you is that we're gonna laugh about the fun stereotypical shit around each type. You know, I am a meme fan. I think they're great. I can go down the meme scroll hole from time to time because I find them so funny. It is not unusual to find me sitting by myself all of a sudden, busting out, laughing at memes, especially enneagra. So we will share like laughter about the stereotypical fun stuff because, you know, part of really understanding ourselves, you know, it doesn't have to be so serious all the time. You know, we don't have to psychoanalyze all the shit all the time. We gotta have fun with ourselves. And I laugh at the eightness about me. And it's funny cause my kids, like, they couldn't be more opposite than me. And you know, when I'm kind of in a zone of eightness, they're like, mom, can you chill your aid out a little bit? You know, being able to laugh at yourself and not take things so seriously all the time is part of like the human spirit. And it's part of leadership too. Like, I certainly can be a shit show from time to time still, even with all this information. So we're going to touch on the fun parts of each type. We're going to laugh at each other in good fun and you know, not with pointed fingers at each other, but it's fun. It's fun when we can.

With love, make fun of each other. I think sarcasm is one of my greatest love languages. Anybody that can, well, that's an enneagram8 thing too. Like anybody that can go toe to toe to me, toe to toe with me with sarcasm just ups on the list of things that make them attractive to me. And the last part of this series that I will touch on with each type is what you can learn from each type. Like I said, my inner circle is filled with a 2, a 3, a, a 7, a 2, and a 4. Like these are the people that I talk to on the daily. And the things I learned from each of those types is huge, huge it helps me in how I show up here on the podcast. It helps me how I show up in leadership and business. It helps me in how I show up as a mom, as a friend, as a partner, as a lover, all the things. And so with each episode on each type, I'm going to let you know what you can learn not just from them, but about them. So you can have more love and compassion and maybe a deeper understanding, especially if you are in partnership or in love or parenting one of these or leading one of these types. It's really, really important.

To have an open mind with that. And my daughter and I were sitting around the other day by the pool and we were talking and you know, her and I have very different views on certain things in the world. And we always get in the most beautiful conversations, even though we disagree on some things. But the thing that she keeps saying to me all the time, you know, especially with the emotional charge that's in the world today, you know, we're at halftime in 2020 and it's been quite a shit show for the first part of the year, but there's also been a lot of beautiful things that have come out of this. And the thing that she said to me is, I love that I can have a conversation with you. And even though we disagree, we can have an open minded conversation to see the bigger picture and just take in information.

And have a good, honest conversation about things. And when you can approach the Enneagram types and the people that you're leading and not like, say, ugh, I don't like this type, and ugh, I don't like that type. And I'm not going to lie, when I first started learning the Enneagram, there was a certain type that was going to challenge me the most.

And sure enough, it's in my inner circle now, which is hilarious. But that means it's an opportunity to really learn about myself and stretch myself. Right? And so when you have an open mind to each type and really what you can learn from each type, each beautiful type has a gift. And there is not one type that is better than the other. We each have our individual gifts and our individual motives and when we can harness those in the people we care about, the people we lead, the people we love, the people we parent, it just makes your life flow with an elegance and a grace and an ease that makes you able to really enjoy every single day. That is a gift. I don't want to waste one more minute. You know, when I looked back at the previous 48 years and realized how I've showed up in love and I don't blame any of my previous love interests at all. You know, when we know better, we got to do better and they played a part and they were part of my story. And when I looked at the last 48 years and how I've showed up and where I can take responsibility and how I can move forward better, I know that whatever life has in store for me in that kind of regard, I will be a great partner and I will be a very open minded and open hearted partner. And as a parent I know that there is nothing my kids can't come to me with. They're never afraid to talk to me about anything, which is a gift. My friendships have an intimacy level that is unmatched and I know as a business partner and a business leader and a performance coach and somebody who goes into businesses and organizations, because of my willingness to learn from each type over the last decade, I am able to bring that into organizations and move the needle for the greatest good for all.

This series will bring all of that to you. It's going to be amazing. I will obviously start with the ones which are the reformers in and then we will move through each enneagram type. If you are wanting to know something specific please please please you know screenshot this. Send me a DM on Instagram traceyomalley. You can go to my website and email me there@tracyomalley.com I want to bring you what you want to know and I think when we can learn how to lead, love, laugh and learn from type, it makes everything that much easier. So stay tuned for more to come. And in the meantime, here's to Becoming Bulletproof.

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