EP176: The Anatomy of Your Enneagram Type—Using It to Become the Ultimate Leader in Your Life

Welcome to the Leadership Formula Podcast, where you will learn the secret sauce behind achieving massive success. I'm your host, Tracy o', Malley, multimillion dollar entrepreneur, your Enneagram expert, master performance coach, and mom to millennials. Do you want deep, meaningful relationships? To wake up every day with purpose and make money doing something you love? Well, you've landed in the right place. Every week, I will teach you how to get exactly what you want in life by strengthening your emotional intelligence. Using a combination of the Enneagram framework, live life coaching sessions, and real talk from yours truly. It's time to transform yourself into the ultimate leader of your life. Let's do this thing.

Well, hello and welcome to the Leadership Formula Podcast. I'm your host, Tracy o', Malley, and this series has been a long time coming. You asked for it, you're going to get it. And before the series begins, I wanted to let you know why I'm doing it and the power of it. The Enneagram is awesome. It is. And I know if you're listening to this, you're interested in it because that's probably how you found me. Somebody told you, you know who the best person is to listen to when it comes to the Enneagram is Tracy. And here you are. And so I really wanted to break down all nine types separately on the anatomy of your Enneagram type and why this is gonna be different than probably any other Enneagram podcast you've listened to, or even some of mine. You know, I've done previous episodes last summer breaking down each Enneagram type, and those have been shared over and over and over and over again. And although it's really important to understand your Enneagram type fully, there are so many other components to your Enneagram type. If you don't understand these parts, you're gonna kind of stay stuck in your growth. We are way more than just our core type. It is what we know. It is what we can do in our sleep. It is the subconscious patterns. It is the thing that we do need to know first. But I know if you're listening to this episode, you are into growth and you're raising your hand and saying, hit me with your best shot, Trace. I'm frickin here for it. And although I love the Enneagram and you have to go first in your own self awareness and understanding your type of. I don't want you to miss the boat on the beauty and the components that are connected to your core Enneagram type that allow you to step into the greatest version of you. That allow you to become the ultimate leader in your life. That allow you to really bring in the love, the abundance, the peace, the harmony, all of it into your life. You can't do any of that if you just rely only on your Enneagram type, your core one. And that is kind of the thing that's not talked about enough. I see y' all sharing everybody else's really great shareable Enneagram content. I'm not knocking it because boy, are they great information teachers and boy, are they great shareable content creators. I'm not that person. I suck at creating content. I don't enjoy it. I understand it's important and I'm working on it, y'. All. I'm gonna lean into the other components of my Enneagram type in order to do that. But none of that shit means anything if you don't know how to utilize it, use it, and put it into. And that is why somebody told you to listen to me. I am the master integrator of the Enneagram. Information doesn't equal transformation if you don't know what the hell to do with it. It's just a cool party trick. And honestly, you're missing so much magic. It's why I am passionate about the Enneagram. It's why when I was introduced to it by my therapist at the lowest part of my life, that when I understood the power and beauty of it and the compassion I could have for myself in, I went to work hardcore for the last decade to not only understand it for myself and within my four walls with my family, but I carried it into business and have built several multimillion dollar businesses in using it. And now I take it to other businesses, organizations, families and individuals to teach you how to integrate it in your life. And so this is the kickoff episode of this series called the Anatomy of youf Enneagram Type. So we have our core type. And if you've been listening or understand it all, you recognize or have heard that your Enneagram core type never changes. My favorite scripture in the Bible is in Psalms. It goes like this. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. And even if you're a woman, this applies to you. Steps of a good man or woman are ordered by the Lord. And whether or not you believe in God, if you're listening to me, you believe in something higher than yourself, something divine. I don't care what you call it. You can call it God, you can call it universe. I don't mind what you call it. I used to kind of be fixated on that, but I really don't care. As long as you believe that there is something big and beautiful that is above you and in the, in the world for you, that you believe there's some divine presence, then this will be for you. If you don't, I still love you, but this may not be for you. And I totally get that. So I believe that we were born with some divine wiring, some divine guidance, some divine calling on our life. And I've carried two babies in my belly, and I know it to be true. They were very different in utero. Their temperament and disposition is very much who they are today as 24 and 25 year olds. And that goes very much in alignment with what their core enneagram type is. So I believe we are born with a temperament, disposition, calling, wiring, soul roadmap, you name it. And then we're put into an environment, a family, a school system, a situation where how that soul roadmap gets expressed can shift, right? Trauma, upbringing, environment, birth order, astrology, sign, who knows? Like a lot of different components can come into how that gets expressed at the end of the day. Usually we've experienced something in our growing up that we realize we need to do something in order to gain and have certainty, significance, or safety. Sometimes all three. Usually one dominates, right? And then we learn some coping mechanisms that keep us safe, safe, certain or significant. And usually that alters the expression of our soul roadmap and the calling on our life. And so many of you are in this personal development space knowing that you're made for more. You know, you're fricking playing small. You know you have self sabotage, you know you have a little case of envy and comparisonitis or imposter syndrome, you name it. And so my goal with bringing the Enneagram to you as an individual, your families, your businesses, your organizations, business big, huge, you know, Fortune 500, Fortune 50 companies, is to allow us to all operate in our soul roadmap so that we can really do what we're here to do in this fricking world, right? So really getting us back to the healthiest version of our core enneagram type is amazing. And if you stopped there, you're crushing it. You really, really are. But I'm all about bringing out the ultimate leader in you, in your homes and in your businesses, and in every person you touch. And so there's an anatomy to your core type that you probably aren't even aware of. So we're going to break it down. The following episodes in the weeks that follow will be breaking down each Enneagram type and their anatomy and their growth and all of that by Enneagram type. So you will be able to listen to that. And I want you to listen to all of them, because even if it's not your type, I guarantee you're leading or loving one of those types. And to understand all the framework of where they and how they accelerate and how you can empower them best will be really, really valuable. But you always got to start with yourself. Now we have our core type. Like I said, it does not change. And if you've taken an online assessment, I want you to know Those are inaccurate 65 to 70% of the time. All of them. Even the paid ones. All of them. So you have one of two options, because having the right information is crucial to use the tool of the Enneagram, the wrong information really won't serve you. So, like, if I had had this information, I totally manipulated my answer to get a type that I wanted, and this would have been pointless. In fact, I was mistyped. I was very much mistyped. And thankfully, I identified that and was like, that's inaccurate, and did the deeper work on my own to really nail down what type I am. And it made perfect sense. And I've been able to use this framework for the last decade. So you can see how having the right information is key. But I'm watching so many of you, and there's a lot of people in my life that I. I saw take on the online tests, and they were inaccurate too. So there's nothing wrong with the way you're taking the test. They just can't take a lot of things into consideration. And there's all these other parts that come into play that I don't care how good artificial intelligence is. It's not going to always take into consideration certain things like human psychology all the time, right? And so the other option you have is to book a typing session with me. It is probably the most powerful hour and 15 minutes, hour and a half, you'll ever have in your life. Quite honestly, I wake up excited to do that every single day because I can see the light bulbs go off. And for the first time in a lot of people's life, they feel truly seen, heard, and understood. And that's exciting and also equally kind of scary because, oh, my gosh, you see all of me. But then I give them this information that I'm going to give you the true anatomy of more than just their type. We'll nail that down and we'll get it right. And if that is something you want to nail down, I encourage you right now to hit me up on Instagram @tracyomalley. I can shoot you a link there or go to my website@traceyomalley.com the work with me section. Click on the Kickstart session, and we will take it from there. Because once you have the correct type, you can take that information and run with it, or you can dive deeper with me. Or hearing this series, you'll be able to understand why there's so much more to who you are and your core enneagram type. And it'll explain a lot why you can have two types right next to each other that look completely different. Okay, so what is the anatomy of your enneagram type? Well, where a core type does not change. Now, I know a lot of you have heard about the wings, right? The wings fall on either side of our core enneagram type. And a lot of you have even plugged your stuff into one of those online assessments, which are crap, and it pops out a wing number, and you just assume that's what you are, and that's fine. Most of us do lean a little strong to one wing than the other. Some people don't use any wings. I definitely leaned heavily into one of my wings when I was younger, in my household for sure. And the only time I leaned into my other one was when I was drinking. So you can see I was not using them to their maximum potential. But I will tell you this. The wings are the unsung heroes of the Enneagram. Without your wings, which I like to call them your supporting cast, you can't step into the growth that you're here to do. So what happens is our core type has one core motivation, one core motivation. If you do the six degrees of separation around why you do what you do, you will always come to the same core motivation, even if it's, you know, blanketed by some other behaviors. That's why these assessments are inaccurate a lot of time, because most of the time, we talk about behaviors and not the core motive. Some of you have been through so much in your life, you don't even fucking know what the motive is. That's where I can really, really help you. But anyway, our core motive also comes with a core fear. And our core fear will really try to protect the thing behind the motive, right? And so if we're left to our own types ways, we will go to the ends of the earth to protect that at all costs. Right. The thing we're most afraid of, it really does lie in our motive a lot of the time. And so without using the wings, it will be very challenging for us to step outside of ourself fully and move into our growth number, which you've heard me talk about before. So how do we use our wings? And why do we usually use one more than the other? And why is using both of them the holy grail? Right. I want you to think of, like the main character in a movie. Just having a movie with one character, although it could be pretty good. You think about, what was it the one with Tom Hanks where he has the volleyball. Like, I think he was the only person in that whole movie. Like, he could carry it, but most people can't. Like, in life, we are not meant to do anything by ourselves. Right. And if we're just left with our own kind of core type, it can get kind of boring, monotonous, frustrating. And so we need a supporting cast. And usually, like at the Oscars, I enjoy the winners of the supporting cast role more than I enjoy, like, the main character ones. Because without the supporting cast in a movie or in your enneagram type, it's really hard for the main character to shine. And if you think about the Oscars and anybody who's ever won best actor or best Actress, usually they have a freaking powerful supporting cast. And in your enneagram type, and this is no different, so I'll use myself as an example. So I'm an enneagram8, if you didn't know that. And quite honestly, my eightness is powerful and amazing even at its best. It isn't always the right tool for the job or the right role for the movie or the life. Right. My eightness is very intense. BDE Big deal energy. Right. Big dick energy, for sure. And that can kind of be a little overpowering even for the best people. Right. And so I kind of have. I've learned over the last decade of really integrating the enneagram in my life when the time and place is for my full eight to come out, and very rarely is it ever my 8 can come out with a little bit of the supporting roles of my seven wing and my nine wing. Right. When I was a kid, in my household, I only used my nine wing in the most dysfunctional way. I grew up in an alcoholic home. It was very uncertain. It was not good in a lot of ways. And in other ways, it was beautiful. Like, don't get me wrong. But to lean into that Peacemaker role in my household was necessary for survival and for some certainty and honestly, my codependent significance, quite honestly, very rarely did I use my 7 wing unless I was throwing back the whiskey shot, right? So you can see how I wasn't always using them in the most beautiful, elegant way. As I have grown and really worked hard on it, I realized I have this entourage. I like to call them in the wings of a powerful supporting cast, and I wanted to use their gifts wisely. So if I'm left to just my eightness, I'm barreling through life. I'm a bulldozer, I'm intimidating, I am domineering, I'm decisive. And that kind of rocks the boat for a lot of people. And although it can and has proven to be effective from time to time, quite often it doesn't do what I want to do as effectively and elegantly as I want. And so now, whenever I feel the eight in me, we kind of check in with the supporting cast of the winx. Okay, seven, what's the vision here? You know, that enthusiastic visionary, like, what's the bigger picture here? And of course, there's no stupid idea for a 7, and anything's possible, but the 8 in me is like always scanning for vulnerabilities and betrayal and violation. So you can see where I would very rarely lean into. Anything's possible, right? But I'm growing, so I check in with my seven wing. Okay, what's possible, what's the beautiful things that can happen? But the 7 can kind of get off track a little bit. And so then we kind of check in with the nine wing. All right, nine peacemaker in the healthiest of ways, Yoda wisdom, what is the best way? How do we execute this in a way that's for the greatest good and that is inclusive and allows people to feel seen, heard, understood, non judged, accepted. And so a lot of times what you guys see in the real world with me is my 8 kind of intensity checked in with the 7 wing and run through the filter of the 9 wing before I execute anything out of my mouth. So by the time I am delivering whatever message I have, it doesn't always lead with the 8 intensity. It's there, it's not going anywhere, but it's kind of got the supporting cast of like, hey, seven, hey, nine. We need to soften this up so people can receive it. Because I want to be effective. I don't necessarily want to be right. And it isn't changing who I am at all, but it is changing the Expression of who I am in a way that people can receive the message, the gift, the wisdom, the love, anything. I use this in my parenting all the time. If I did not run it through my wings, my filters, my supporting roles, my superheroes here, I really can crush my kids if I'm not careful. And for those of you that are parents, this is why this is so powerful. Okay, so we've got the wings. We also have our growth number as an eight. My growth number is a two. There's no way I am going to the helper without the supporting cast. Again, I check in with the seven, the nine. Okay, seven. What do I need? What's the bigger vision here? What's fun? What's light? What's enthusiastic? Right. My eight won't naturally do that. Then the nine. Okay, what's for the greatest good? What's, like, how do we deliver this message in a way that can be received? And when I partner those two up with my core type, I am a lot easier able to flow into my growth number, which is the two. And for each enneagram type, there's a different growth number. But as you understand the enneagram and the framework of it, everybody's growth number is like a huge, huge stretch. It's hard. It is not a natural move. Not even a little bit. So you do need help. My eightness will never go to the two on its own, ever. And because you've raised your hand and said, I'm here for it, then you're going to really need to understand this and understanding the power of the wings. And the real goal is to be able to toggle between the two and not just be one dominant, quite honestly. But you need to know how to do that. I talked about our growth number. It's where we go. And it usually looks like a different, softer version in a good way of yourself or more empowered version of you. It is why most people today are kind of. I mean, I have the energy of an 8, too, but I don't lead like anybody that knows the Enneagram and knows I'm an eight. They're like, wow, you really are able to show a softer version of the eight that all the stereotypes, all the memes, all the things don't show. And that is because of a lot of work and utilizing the wings to help me into my growth number. Now, the other number we have in your anatomy and framework of your enneagram type is a stress number. So we have the levels of health within our type. And you can see, like, you Know a healthy version of your type versus a non healthy version of your type. I like to use this example. I've used it before in this podcast. Mother Teresa is an enneagram 8 and Donald Trump is an enneagram 8. And regardless of what we think politically, you can see the difference in their expression of their eightness, right? Mother Teresa is often mistyped as a 2. And if you know the enneagram, that is her growth number, right? Donald Trump, regardless of what we think of him, as far as the expression of his eightness, it isn't always the healthy way and he is not even when he has something great to say, regardless of what you think, the ability for people to receive it is almost next to nothing because of the delivery of it. Donald Trump needs me in his life. Seriously. I could help him articulate his powerful God given leadership skills, regardless of what you think of him. Just by kind of taming that ego a little bit and kind of using this framework, he could be a lot more effective. But you know, I could have been a lot more effective too, but I wasn't because my ego was robust. It wasn't until I humbled myself enough that I could really lean into this. And then like, you can see that's like an unhealthier expression of the eight. Mother Teresa is the healthiest version of an eight. But then there's this next level kind of stress for each enneagram type, and for everyone, it's different. And I'll go through all of those over the next few weeks. But my stress number looks very, very different than my domineering, aggressive, explosive kind of temperament and disposition when I'm under stress. When we are in next level stress, we take on another number that usually looks pretty different than our core type. For some of us, the more outspoken explosive types, all of a sudden they are introverted and mia. And for some of the more quiet disposition types, all of a sudden they become more passive aggressive and expressive and maybe resentful outwardly. And so like I said, for every enneagram type, this is different. And most people won't see the stress number, or you might, depending on the type. But using this as a compass and using our stress number as warning lights will allow you to not stay stuck in that when I am stuck or in the stress number in the past, boy, did I go through and pull out the shame stick on myself. And like, oh my gosh. I mean, it can almost feel, you know, not disrespecting anybody. But you'll get the metaphor here. It can feel very bipolar, like you're two completely different people. And, you know, one moment you're like, whoo. And the next moment you're like, you know, quiet. And sometimes between our core type and our stress number, it can look very much like that. But knowing what to look for in your enneagram type and depending on your type and your framework, this has been a saving grace. And it has allowed me to have so much damn compassion for myself. Because when I'm in that stress number, I'm on high, high alert. That fear, that core fear of an enneagram 8 gets so exposed. And I understand that something has happened in order for me to feel that way. And instead of going down the rabbit hole or laying horizontal for weeks on end watching crime scene documentaries or crime documentaries, I can kind of ask myself, okay, what's really happen? It also keeps me and all of you from projecting onto other people or blaming. When you don't take radical responsibility, nothing changes. The other thing that is a part of the anatomy of your enneagram type is something called subtypes. And this is probably next to trauma, the number one reason why many of you are mistyped. Our subtype is our instinctual response to life. There's self preservation, there's one on one, and there's social. I am a one on one typically enneagram 8. Mother Teresa is a more social enneagram 8. And even though we're both very healthy versions of the Enneagram 8, we still present to the world very differently because of our subtypes. Right. Self preservation is more like if something happens, you immediately go into, okay, what about me? Like, whether it's safety, security, resources, you immediately think like, okay, what's it for me? The one on one is like, okay, okay, the us Intimate, intense relationships. And then the social is what's the greatest good for the collective? The we. Right. And our instincts. Sometimes we go like, you think about the firefighters that ran back up into the buildings at 9 11. They were definitely the social subtype of whatever type they were. They. They didn't think about themselves. They didn't even think about their inner circle. They just went for the greatest good of all. And they're all really important. And the healthier you get, the ability you are able to toggle between the three instincts. And I am, I am one of those. I definitely lean heavy in the one on one. And the self preservation, the social one is more of my blind spot. But the healthier I've gotten, the more able I am to navigate the subtypes those can change and how they get stacked can change and those can alter based on a compartment of your life. But your core type never changes. And having all this understanding and understanding how to integrate this information into my life has been life changing. It allows me to be the best version of who I am today. I like to say, like most of us, it feels whether you're a man or a woman, a mom or a dad, a business owner or not, whatever, whoever you are in your life, sometimes it feels like we trade hats all day long. And when we rip off a hat to put on another to take that one off to put on another, it's why most of you are energetically and emotionally bankrupt. Because it's freaking exhausting. The goal in understanding the anatomy of your core enneagram type and really understanding, I swear to you, you really only have to wear one hat in this life. 1. But how you wear it can change. And once you understand that just changing how you wear the one hat will conserve your resources, will allow you to be energized, will allow you to feel most authentic to who you are, it gets so much easier. You will find harmony. There's no such thing as balance, y'. All. But you can find harmony in all the things that show up in your life. As a business owner, as a leader, as a parent, as a lover, as a friend, and as somebody that is there for you in your honoring of your soul's calling. It will be really important for you to navigate that. And life is not getting any slower paced. It seems no matter if you are kind of like in flow or not, life's going to happen around us, but it doesn't have to take you out. The energy of it doesn't have to take you out. And so understanding where you go and how to effectively use all the tools in your enneagram types toolbox will allow you to do all of it. You can be the best parent you want to be, you can be the best business owner, entrepreneur you want to be. You can be the best partner, lover, spouse you want to be all at the same time. But it will take you really managing your resources and so learning how to wear one hat. But just changing how you wear it all through this life will really allow you to become bulletproof. I promise you. It really will also allow you to be the ultimate leader in your life. It will allow you to communicate with anyone and especially those that aren't wired like you. It will allow you to bring out the best in yourself and everyone else. So over the Next few weeks I will be breaking this down by each Enneagram type. Each episode will be dedicated to individual Enneagram types so that it can help you again. I highly recommend you listening to all of them because there is a guarantee I am sure that you either love lead or both. One person of each Enneagram type in your life and really learning my language first, then the language of my two kids which are different than mine and different from each other and then every person I've led over the last decade has proven so powerful and now bringing it into teams, organizations, businesses, families and individuals just like you is why I wake up up every single day fired the hell up to bring you this information. I would love it if you are like holy shit. I had no idea. This Enneagram thing is not complicated but it is complex and when you know how to use all the complexities of it, you become the ultimate leader in your life. If you have loved this episode and had some like holy shit aha moments, I would be so thankful if you shared it. You can find me at traceeomalley. Tag me in it. Let me know what you didn't know or what you did know but you didn't know how to use. Share this episode with somebody you love or lead or somebody that you know needs to hear it. Let me know what you're thinking, but stay tuned for the weeks that follow because it's time for you to become the ultimate leader in your life.

I'm so happy you enjoyed the Leadership Formula Podcast. Please help us spread the word about this show by sharing it with a friend and leaving a written Apple Podcast review. If you have any follow up questions to this episode, you can DM me directly on Instagram tracyomalley. You can also find additional resources on my website@traceeomalley.com I'm excited to lead you into the next level of your your life.