EP241: Live Enneagram Typing Session - How Misunderstood the Enneagram 8 Woman can be with Melissa Henault (Enneagram SX 8)

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.

Hello, hello, and welcome back to one of your favorite kinds of episodes on the Leadership Formula. And I'm just gonna warn you right now, it is going to be fiery because we have two eights in the house. My dear friend, Melissa Henault, she is the LinkedIn expert. Like, she's the go to LinkedIn person, y'. All. So before you even do anything else or get comfortable, listen, I want you to find her on Instagram. It is melissahenault. H E N A U L T Because seriously, you're gonna want her, especially when you hear the fire in her soul. You know, you've heard me say this, and I'm not just saying this because I'm an eight, but having an eight in your corner, a healthy eight that is passionate about what they do. Seriously, that's who you want in your life. And for those of you listening, I know you're in business, entrepreneurship, leadership, having a presence on LinkedIn. I need her help, quite honestly. I'm just putting that out there. You're going to want her in your life. She is a boss in all the most beautiful, authentic, real ways. So, you know, I don't bring anybody on at all unless I really believe in them, because I don't want to put anybody in front of you that I don't trust. And the minute I met her, we've kind of been running around in similar circles for quite some time, but we really didn't have the ability to connect until, like, the last few months, which is great. We're both in a business mastermind together, and to be part of that mastermind, you have to be at an income level that is obnoxious, quite honestly. And what most of you really are going after. And when I met her, you know, there was lots of talk about the Enneagram, because that's what I do. And, you know, when you're in a mastermind, you figure out, like, how we can support each other and what we can bring to the table for each other. And I remember, you know, she came up to me and she's like, so what do you think I am? Or, you know, I'm like, well, shit, I don't know you very well yet, but let me ask you a few questions. Energetically, I could already tell, like, I was like, I feel some fire here that's different than the other types. And, you know, I say this a lot. The Enneagram 8 is the most mistyped on the Enneagram because the behaviors are so obvious. But the Enneagram is all about motives and what drives that energy. And I said to her, I think it was the last night of our last Mastermind. I'm like, I think. I think you might be an 8. And so here we are on the podcast, confirming this firecracker is indeed an eight like yours truly. Not only is she an eight like me, but she also has the same subtype. And we'll kind of get into what that is. It's like Enneagram 2.0. It's like the master's level understanding of your Enneagram type. And it's usually the subtype, the instinctual response to life where a lot of the mistyping happens, because it's where nature and nurture kind of collide to bring us to who we are and who we were always designed to be. So, Melissa, welcome to our show today.

Oh, my gosh, Tracy, thank you. I'm excited to be here.

Okay, so there's a lot of people listening right now that are very new to the Enneagram like you are. So what was it? Because I know this happens a lot in the Mastermind. When I show up and people start speaking this Enneagram language, and it's like, I want to drink that Kool Aid. I want know more about it, because it is one of those things that once you understand it, it is the most powerful growth tool I've ever used, aside from my faith. Right. Like, faith is important to me, but, like, you know, pairing it up with the Enneagram is powerful. But what was it for you that had you a little intrigued by it?

Yeah, well, I guess probably just being in kind of the business coaching space and running businesses and mentoring people and. And just hearing other people talk about it, they would guess at me. They'd be like, oh, you must be a such and such. Have you ever heard of that? Yeah, I've had a couple of clients ask about it. So I'D known about it, I just had never taken the time to sit down and actually go through the process of being assessed myself. So I'm actually pretty excited to get the feedback from you. But also, I would say, coming from corporate, I took so many assessments, including strength binders and a number of other things that I felt like, oh, I've had enough assessments, you know, like, yeah.

Well, that's funny, too, because Eights don't like to be controlled. Like, we don't have to be in control of everything, but we will not be controlled. And ironically, when I was presented with the Enneagram, it was by my therapist in rehab, and I was like, no, I don't need an assessment. I'm coming in here with lots of labels. I don't really need another one. And she's like, lady. And she's also an Eight as well. She's like, your best thinking has gotten you here. How about you just open up your mind and allow this to help you out of the box that you've put yourself in? I love that. I love that. What were you on Myers Briggs? Do you remember? I don't remember.

Human Design. I think you told me you're a Manifesting Generator, which I also am. Which they are very passionate. We're generators, but we're also manifestors that we won't do things that we're not passionate about, but once we do, it's like, buckle up.

Yep, totally.

Also super, super intuitive, which, as Eights, the nature part of who we are, you know, wanting to be strong, not really wanting vulnerability to be expressed or shown on our part, and also being autonomous and independent. Right. And so, you know, bringing in that Manifesting Generator as well. Like, you can see where, like, oh, wow. No wonder you've been able to make things happen. You know, before we hit record, we kind of talked about how you grew up. And this is the beauty of the Enneagram. It is nature and nurture colliding, and it is how it is different from any of those other things. All those other things are great for some awareness on behaviors, right? But you and I both know that a lot of our behaviors are a coping mechanism to kind of hide to use as armor, you know, because you're innate, you probably use anger and some domineering kind of personality traits in order to keep yourself armored. Right? That's what we do as challengers. But what I love about the Enneagram and why I'm so passionate about it today is it really helps me understand the why behind what we do. And you know, at our age. You're 42, right? Yep, 42. At our age, to try and unpack how and why we do what we do. That could take forever. And most of us say fuck it, and that's just too much. And we'll just keep domineering our way through my life, but will burn out eventually. Right? And we can't get away with that in our 40s like we could in our 20s and 30s. So I love that. But let's talk about the nature part of your eightness. And you mentioned that, you know, your dad just recently passed not too long ago, and he was an alcoholic like my father was. And, you know, when you're an eight and you grew up in an environment like that, this need to be strong and autonomous is even more hyperactive growing up in a household like that. So let's kind of touch base on what it was like to grow up as melissa back in 1970 something or 80.

Yeah, 1980 girl. 1980.

Sorry, I'm a 70s girl.

I'm just kidding. My parents got divorced when I was about 4. He was already, you know, out late, not coming home, running around on my mom, and so they got divorced. What's interesting about the story is, you know, I would spend weekends, every other weekend with my dad. And it was always. I mean, he was just always drinking, verbally, violent. He was never like, physically or verbally. Well, he wasn't physically violent with me, but I mean, I witnessed couches get flipped over, a gunshot through the ceiling, like all the things. But my sister also was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when she was 12, and she's 46 now and has been homeless on the streets and an addict for more than two and a half decades. Wow. And so I think that there's two things to the story and having done. I've been doing a lot of self work myself this past year or two to understand my personality, but in general, from a very young age, given that background. And my mom remarried, there was four kids in the household, two from a previous marriage who they had lost their mother to colon cancer six months before my parents married. So there's interesting dynamic there. I learned very quickly just to kind of be quiet and not cause any more chaos, because my sister caused a tremendous amount of chaos. And there was a lot of aggression and a lot of just screaming and just arguing, like between my sister and if I was at my dad's house, it was just drunken, you know, chaos. And the way I learned to be seen or to be loved was to Perform on the field, in sports or in academics. And what I've learned lately, and just kind of retrospect is my mom was severely depressed. She was a young 20 something with all of this. She was a young parent and she managed a lot. And I, as the younger child was almost looking after her and her sense of wellbeing. I was always worried about her. So what could I do to please her? What could I do to help her feel proud? But there was also just a lot of instability and poverty and all the things. So that's a little bit about my childhood.

And you know, I have a similar background. Obviously my parents didn't divorce though. But my mom was, you know, 20 when she had me and, you know, basically recreated what she grew up with, which was dysfunction and, you know, dictatorship basically and just chaos. And you know, one of the things about being an 8, you know, I also got, you know, my sister was a shit show. She really was, still is, quite honestly, and just all over the place and created so much drama. And then of course would have my parents fighting. But being an eight, we love being able to show, put on the superhero cape and be heroes. Right. So you did that for your mom. Clearly. You also were very instinctual and understanding, like, okay, this is causing a lot of shit over here. I'm going to be like the golden child and nobody has to worry about me. That is also like survival. Plus, that's also how we feel empowered as eights, and especially women eights. Women eights are the most misunderstood on the Enneagram because although that helped you survive as a child, you know, when we go out into the world and we start kind of pushing against people because if it's to be, it's up to me. You know, we don't rely on anybody because we couldn't even rely on our own parents.

That's right.

You know, and just because, you know, this is. This happens a lot is I get asked a lot about eights is like, do eights always have a rough childhood? And that's. No, I have some really strong eights in my life that grew up not like you and I did. But when we do grow up, like we do that 8ness really, I mean that. That challenger really takes on a new life. Right. It's kind. That's where the nature and nurture comes in. So although I'm sure you've had to work through the resentment, not just for your dad, the obvious problem. Right. But also mom, who allowed you to play this role of the caretaker. I'm sure. One day you woke up and you're like, well, where the fuck did my childhood go? Even though you love to flex, like your energy is so flexing all the time. And I love it because it's like, I get it. But I know as well as you do that at some point, nobody ever asks us how we are because we have let the world know that we've got everything handled. Anything that comes our way, don't worry about it, it covered. And we're still human beings. And really the eight, especially eight women, we long to be able to trust somebody to actually have our back. So when you said you were doing work over the last few years, usually we don't raise our hand and say, you know what? Today's a good day to be doing the work.

Right.

Usually especially for an 8, because to do the work, it's very vulnerable. So when an 8 finally gets to her knees or his knees and says, like, I need some help, there's usually some kind of crisis that, I mean, we can handle anything as aides. But you recognize that you needed some support. What was going on in your life that you knew? Because you're early 40s, I'm sure that was. My magic number, was 40. What was going on for you? That you're like, shit, I can't outrun some of this stuff. That although it's produced results and I've achieved and raised a family and all that stuff, but there's something going on. What was it?

Yeah, what a great question. I really. It's been an evolving process over probably the last two years, but I think that it all started when I. About three years ago when I hired a coach to work one on one. And one of the first things she made me do was read 21 Days to Heal Yourself by Louise Hay. Is that her name?

Louise Hay is the best mirror work. Yeah.

When it got to the section of where you basically had to talk to, like, the child version of yourself and like, I could cry. Like, I will never forget going up into the attic because I told you to do everything my coach tells me to do. I paid a lot of money for and I'm looking for results, right. I'm like, this is dumb, but I'm going to do it anyway. I remember when I hired her, I thought I was just going to get straight to business. Had no idea the work that was going to go on between my years and went upstairs. I'll never forget getting into the attic and pulling out these childhood photos because it was part of the activity and I didn't have any anywhere else in the house. And I'll never forget just looking at this picture of myself as probably like a five or six year old. And I just started bawling and I just all like. I've done a really great job of like stuffing and packing away so much of what happened in my childhood and just like bulldozed forward with like a different future. And that was the first moment I realized, like, energetically, there was a lot inside of me that I hadn't made space to like, feel or let out or uncover. And then moving forward, I was going. I did some really intense breath work again, thought, this is bullshit. Why are we doing this? I just want to grow my business. And two and a half, three hours in, having some really profound downloads about some of the things that happened in my childhood that I hadn't even spoken to anyone about. And the. I just remember how like tense my hands, my mouth and my whole body were. And ultimately it felt like an exorcism. And post that event, slept like a baby for the first time and probably for like three months straight. It was. Energetically, something was being released out of me energetically. There was something that had just been packed down so significantly that I wasn't addressing that I needed to tap into my subconscious to like, get out. And I'll say the third piece to this. Like I said, it's been unfolding over time is. Is being a parent and realizing, like, generationally, like wanting to be a better version of myself for my kids, realizing I've just been this tremendous workhorse, even in my relationship with my spouse. I mean, one of the things you talk about is like, I've done such a good job over the last 12 years of like, taking care of myself and not needing anything that sometimes I turn around and I'm like. But it would be kind of nice on occasion, like in my relationship with my spouse that, you know, there was this dynamic of me needing him. Right. Like, I started studying the whole feminine and masculine energy and how corporate had really made me flex into my masculine.

Reinforced it even more. Yeah, reinforced it for sure.

It was survival mode to be in that masculine state and then come home and not be able to pull out of it. Plus, I was just kind of always taking care of myself from, you know, this big. Anyway, so that was more than you wanted in my answer. But it's been an evolution for sure. And then recently reading the book do the Work.

Yeah.

How to do the Work.

The doctor, Nicole. Yes, she's great.

It's made me realize how much more work I still need to do.

Oh, honey, it does not end till you're dead. So just so you know, like, trust me, as an eight woman who's fired up like you, I've kind of like signed up for it. It's like, well, the work doesn't end until we're dead. So new levels bring new devils. And as you continue to elevate, not just professionally, but also personally as a mom and as a spouse, you know, these. These things are going to be revealed to you. Like, more will always be revealed. And the beauty in that is, like, you've worked with great coaches. You have me in your life that I can help you, like, use the tools that are at your fingertips to move through and process. And since eights like to move very aggressively and fast through things, my best friend says you're like, you take vitamins aggressively is what I'm told. I make a bed aggressively. I pack aggressively. Like, that's just what we do. But I applaud you for doing that because as an eight and especially eight women, this not needing anybody. And I was married for a long, long time and I'm in a current relationship now. I have to be very mindful that beautiful independence that we have is very attractive to a lot of people. Right. But it can also be very emasculating in the way that we experience, express it. Right. And being able to receive is as. Is super vulnerable for us, especially as aids, because if we receive, we let our guard down. If we let our guard down, it's a vulnerability. If we're vulnerable, we can be betrayed or violated, which is our worst case scenario, right? So it's just easier to not want anybody. And ironically, sister, this is the picture I keep at my desk. It is me as a four year old, you know, because part of, you know, the tour of the Enneagram and your framework is really getting back to who we were always designed to be. And the Enneagram is just like the soul roadmap. Back to that before life kind of kicked us in the teeth and allows us to use the very things that make us who we are and use them for a superpower rather than the kryptonite that sometimes we do in our lives, right? So I love that the vice of the enneagram 8 is lust. And I don't mean sexually, but we talked about this before. We hit record that we operate best in intensity. We eat intensity for breakfast. And so that lust and that, that need for to feel alive and things to Be extreme. Although, yes, we do operate best that way. And you can blindside an 8 and we'll handle shit. Like, if you need to bury a body, you usually would call an 8, because we'll just handle it. We handle shit. We just do. However, that that vice of a need for lust and need for intensity can have us manufacture some chaos in our life. Where do you find that that has come up for you? Where, like, you talked about, you're kind of in the Zen place and you're, like, looking around like, what am I missing? Right, right.

Yeah. So you want an example of where I've.

Where I've, like, maybe manufactured it.

Yeah. Okay. Well, we were talking a little bit about this earlier. Well, let's talk about two scenarios. One isn't recent, but I think it was profound in, like, forward in relationships. When I was towards the tail end of my master's or my doctorate in pharmacy. I've been dating a guy for, like, four or five years. He was like two years older than me, and he was very, like, verbally, like, aggressive. Never physically aggressive to me, but just there was really big peaks and valleys in, like, our relationship. That was just. It was like. I mean, I remember throwing probably great.

And like, intense sex and then, like, fighting, like, you're going to come throwing.

My calculators at him, you know, like, literally across the room. And I'll never forget coming home for the holidays and seeing my aunt and uncle, like, thinking no one was watching. They've been married for, like 20 years, and here they are, he's like, grabbing her ass and kissing her. And, like, it's just very obvious, though, the really, like, wholesome, amazing relationship they had. And that was like, imprint number one of, like, okay, there are really healthy relationships out there that last a lifetime. I just haven't been pretty.

I don't know how to do it. Yeah.

Yeah. And then number two was when we had a falling out. And I realized I can't tell anyone in my close net circle of friends about this because they would think I'm fucking crazy for staying with him.

Right.

And that was the moment that I was like, you are reliving the past by being with this guy. Yeah.

You're recreating it.

If you. And I'd already toured medical schools with, like, medical schools with him or fellow fellowship programs. He was getting ready to finish medical school. I was, like, about to uproot and move with him and apply for programs wherever he was. And that was just a very profound aha for me. Is that, like, you are self sabotaging by like recreating the shit you lived through. And you've got to get out of this. So that was like number one. And then number two would be recently you and I talked about this a little bit. But I had launched my coaching business and the same month I had a quarter of a million dollars in sales. I also sabotaged the other business I was in. Things were going so well, I decided that I was going to leave one e Comm business and do another one and created the most drama inflicting, like year long. It was really. I ended up having to hire an attorney who had to deal with the legal aspects of one company and the legal aspects of the other. And you talk about being an A, like, I will take you home. I hired the best attorney there was, gave her a massive retainer fee, and we battled this company that I joined literally for a year until they ultimately I proved I was right and they were wrong and they changed their policy at corporate to meet what I had pushed back on that was wrong. And then I ultimately left. So it was like I had to win before I would leave and be like, I don't need you. But I just wanted to prove that you guys were effing wrong. And that all finally, you know, calmed down. January of this year. And I'm like, okay, it's been way too calm for the last three months. There's too much calmness here. So, yeah. And so I'm constantly working on, like, let's not just go poke the bear because you're used to operating off of survival adrenaline. Win and just be okay with being okay.

Like, it's okay. It's very vulnerable for an eight. Very. Because we're like, what are we missing? Who's gonna like, sneak in and like poke this bear, Meaning you or me? Now, the virtue of the eight, you know, and the story you just told about hiring the legal team, it goes very much into the virtue of the eight, which is innocence. And because for so many eights, innocence is lost so early on because we have to be so challenging and the grown up very much so early. Early on is even though we'll put ourselves in a situation like you did with the guy that you were with. I did that. My last relationship was. I recreated my childhood too, Even though I knew it was freaking dysfunctional. There's something about the eights also. The virtue of innocence. We will protect the innocent, the vulnerable, the underdog. And that is why, like, you knew, like, you didn't do anything wrong.

Right?

Right. So you were protecting that innocence. Not just for you, because you already knew, like, fuck them, I'm out.

Right.

But you also knew what you were about to do would create a movement that now protects the innocent. Come after you.

Right? Absolutely. And that was my final goodbye to them. When they, they, they like reached out to me. They're related to share with me. They changed the policy. They were basically telling me I couldn't coach and bill people and be a part of their network marketing company. And they're also telling me that I had to have two different social media channels. And I went head to head with them. It's against all Facebook doesn't want you to have two channels. Number two, you don't own me. And my final message to them was, you know, my whole purpose in this whole journey with you guys was to allow freedom for these women. Because the whole reason your company is successful is because these women are phenomenal leaders and they need the autonomy to see leverage those skill sets to launch other businesses too.

Yeah, like why don't you just w2 these people then? Because that's what you want them to be.

That was the argument.

Exactly. Exactly. So here's the thing that I love about the Enneagram too is like, you know your eight inside and out. Even before you knew what the Enneagram was like, you operated in that. And so often in Enneagram land, once we discover our type, we just hyper focus on our type. And although that's fine, that's not going to help us using this tool for growth. And there's four other Enneagram types actually connected to the eight. Because let's be real, like, having the right tool for the job makes things a lot easier. And because the eight in us is very aggressive, it isn't always the right tool for the job. And so we have to know when to lean out of that intensity a little bit. It's always going to be there. That's not going anywhere, thank goodness. But we can use some of these other tools in our Enneagram framework that will allow that intensity to be more effective. Come from a place of compassion, empathy, service, grace, all the right reasons instead of this protective state. Right. And so we have these things called wings on the Enneagram. And I know you're newer to the Enneagram and if you're listening, this is super helpful. So wherever your type falls on the diagram of the Enneagram, it's a big circle as an 8. You have a 7 on one side and a 9 on the other. And those Are like tools in your tool belt. Right. You know, like, the screwdriver is the 8. We know how to use a screwdriver. We don't need a YouTube tutorial. We don't need a guide to show us how to use a screwdriver. We know how to do that same thing with your eightness. You already know that one. But sometimes you need a drill, and sometimes you need a chainsaw. And if you don't know how to use or when to use either of those, you could really wreak some havoc in your life. Or you'll just say it, throw those aside and try to make the screwdriver work, which is what most of us do. Right?

Right.

So the wings on the enneagram are like your drill and your chainsaw and knowing how to use them. So the eight in you will always immediately be motivated by, how can I flex to show how strong I am? How can I flex in a way that avoids vulnerability and leaves me autonomous and independent? That will always be your natural instinct. Always. Whether it's in marriage, as a mother, as a business owner, as a coach. You will automatically go there. Friendships, all of it. Now, that can put walls up, and that will block intimacy, that will block this, even energy exchange. This will block connection, true connection with the people that we crave to have in our life. Right? So on one side, you have the seven, which is called the enthusiastic visionary. So you've already really exercised that a lot in branching out and building this business and thinking bigger. And anything's possible, because that 8 is always kind of in, like, scanning for betrayal and violation. Sometimes we can miss the miracles with our visionary spirit. So having that seven on one side of you, kind of once the eight is, like, assessed, like, okay, I want to do something, but the 8 is going to kind of protect. Leaning over to the sevens, like, all right, seven, what would you do? Right now, they're like, we will do anything. Anything's possible. Our friend Keisha in our mastermind, she is the epitome of a seven. Seven.

Yeah. Yes.

Fuck it, let's do it. I'm raising a seven. I was like, I don't know how you all function, quite honestly, but, you know, if you think about the anything's possible spirit in a seven, that is innocence, which is the virtue that, as an eight, we really need in our life to have that childlike wonder, that childlike, like, before the world said we can't or we need to be a certain way. Us having and tapping into that visionary spirit will be really beautiful. Now, how I used it in dysfunction and you kind of touched on it earlier, before we hit record is the only time I would be able to tap into that is when I was drinking. It was the only time I let the pressure relief release valve go off. And you know, I've been sober almost 10 years now because I was like, that's not the proper way to be a visionary. And so now using it in a more healthy way. Now that being said, both the 7 and 8 are very intense, right? They're very assertive, aggressive, take action, zero fucks, all the things. And that's great. But not everybody in our world or the people that we lead or love operate that way. And so on the other side of you is the beautiful, adaptive peacemaker. There's a big difference between making peace and keeping peace. Keeping peace is codependency and dysfunction, right? But making peace is like what would be best for the greatest good. How can I communicate this in a way where people can receive this intensity and this passion that I have in a way that doesn't feel scary to them? Or they're on board of it, not on board with it. Not because they're afraid of us, but because they're like, fuck yes. It's a big fuck yes. And so you can see where your eightness is like, let's freaking go and like bulldoze anybody. But that's not as a mom, as a wife, as a business owner, as a coach, as a friend. That's not always effective. Right, right, right. So using that visionary spirit of what's possible in this relationship, in this businesses, with these children, whatever, and then using the filter of the nine on how to communicate it, that's where the magic happens. 4 and 8. Now that being said, we also have a growth number, which I'm going to encourage you and anybody listening, like knowing your growth number is the bigger target to hit. Like the healthiest version of an 8 is somebody like Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King. Those were some powerful eights in our life. And the reason they were powerful was not so much of them being the healthiest eight, but really leaning into their growth number. Okay? So the eight at its best is a world class leader, change maker, which clearly you did that in the legal system at that company. We're protectors, you know, we will go to bat for the innocent and that's beautiful. But the eight at the holy grail of who we are takes on the beautiful, beautiful enneagram2, which is the compassionate helper, which is the opposite instinctually of what we are. Because if you think about it, if we are compassionate and empathetic, we have the opportunity to be violated. So it is still never a natural go to for me and you to be compassionate and helpful in that way. We'll be helpful as long as we can flex and show how strong we are. But usually we'll tell people to suck it up. Don't worry about it. What are you crying about? It's not that bad. That's not really compassion. Right?

Right.

So when you can really lean into the healthy, beautiful qualities of that too, that's the holy grail. That's why Mother Teresa, most people thought she was a 2, but she actually was an 8. But into that growth number. Now the only way you're ever going to get to the 2 is by using the 7 and 9 wing. Because the 8 will override compassion and empathy every time. Say fuck that, we are not doing that. Right. So in order to get to that growth, you're going to need those two tools to really help. Now the last thing I'll kind of touch on in this framework is our stressor number. So when our domineering ways, our aggressive ways, our anger, because we're explosive, you know, that's kind of what we're known for, being very explosive. When that doesn't work anymore or we're feeling extra vulnerable, we go to the Enneagram 5, which is the quiet investigator, the quiet specialist, where they are unemotional, they're very tactical, they're very analytical. And so what an 8 does in a 5 cave is we become very introverted and we start building cases.

Sometimes against other people and places and things like you have done and shown so beautifully and a lot of times against ourself of why we shouldn't do this or why who are we to believe this, or you know, maybe I'm a bit too much for other people. But the, the beauty in this is we don't have to just use the 5 for stress management in an unhealthy way. Right. We can use that 5 like you did building a case of why the fuck you are here to do this. Like when you cut ties with those two companies, those two e commerce companies, that was a very five calculated move. Like, you know what? This feels very vulnerable as an eight. You felt that. But the analytical smart part of you is like, you know what's possible on the other side? I have no restrictions.

Took a lot of work for me to get there.

Yes. Because very rarely do we use the five in a healthy way. But I want you to know like it's fucking possible. And when you do, you are able to make big boss ass moves that generate, you know, you probably went from, you know, six figures to almost seven in that making that bold decision. Right?

Oh yeah, my wife is. My life has been, well, just creating a clear path without the distraction and the noise.

Right.

I'm just so used to the noise. But now I can really focus on what matters.

It's so cool. It is so cool. The other part of you that you and I are also alike are what I call the subtypes. And this is like the instinctual response to life. And this is where the environment has a place in the enneagram. Right. And like I said, this is a lot of you. Why you're mistyped because all the online assessments don't take this into consideration. You know, artificial intelligence is great, but it really isn't like who you are. And so you are a one on one eight, which is what I am. There's also self preservation or there's the social subtypes, like Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King were more the social subtypes. So if you're a self preservation type, whether you're an eight or not, when life happens, you immediately go into, what's going to happen to me? That's not you. That's not you. The one on one instinctively goes, what's going to happen to us? Like my close inner circle, hearing how you grew up, the nature of your mother, like you did the same thing I did, you're like, I need to protect my mother. I had to do that too. I had to protect my sister, I had to protect the dog, I had to protect my father. Right. My inner circle. But anybody outside of my very close inner circle had no idea what was going on. Right, right, right. That one on one eight is the most rebellious eight too. So as that eight woman, one on one, we are the biggest energy and the most misunderstood and the most rebellious. And especially as women, you know, if a man's like that, they're like, congratulations, you got big dick energy. But when a girl does it, you know, we're just bitches.

Yes, right.

But you know what? You and I have very, very beautiful big dick energy. And I'm here for it. So we can stand out as rule breakers. Rebellious, we're, you know, trailblazers for sure. And you're proof of that. Our impulsiveness and desire for intensity can sometimes have us mistyped as fours, which I'm dating a four, which is why it's very passionate. And you know, thank God I'm healthy, otherwise we'd be in jail. But this is, this is where this is rooted in this unapologetic drive to create change, which again, that legal thing willing to provoke and disrupt others and a whole fucking system to not only accumulate power, but also have an influence in a healthy way and make impact. When we have a desire to serve a worthy cause, we prefer to do it from a central or leadership position rather than like a Martin Luther King or a Mother Teresa who is looking out for the entire we, the collective, so the social subtype, rather, whether it's an 8 or any other type of. When life happens, things happen. What's going to happen to we as a collective, where you and I prefer to operate in the U.S. we like the compound effect. We like that compound effect of working with a small few and watching that explode rather than stand on a big stage and never feel that intensity of a transformation. Right, right, right, yeah. So how does that ring true for you? Do you see that in yourself? I can see it in your energy and just.

Yes. Yeah.

Love you.

Oh, I love you. I love you.

Oh my gosh, I love that. Other than your mom and dad, where else do you see that intensity in experience with the people that are close to you, whether it's professionally or personally?

Intensity and experience.

Like, do you pick fights with your husband?

I've gotten better about that.

I used to do that all the time.

Oh my God, I've gotten better about that. And again, it goes back to a lot of the self work over the past two or three, even the past year or two, like over the past year I've been like, wow, I was a real ball buster. Like, to my husband, I thought, I think about how, you know, first of all, my childhood, right. And just only depending on myself. And I'm sure that was really sexy. When my husband first, like we got married, it was like, this woman is taking care of herself. Like, I was the primary breadwinner. I was. Ain't nothing to worry about, right? But then I went off to work and I was one of, one of the only females and like a very masculine space where I had to make executive decisions all the time and then come home and just like raw. Even when I, I mean, I was up for the rest of the family on Saturdays and Sundays and had the agenda like planned out for the day and what we were going to do and where we were going to go and just complete control, like, control. And so that is still something that I'm constantly working on, right. Like, constantly working on, but just became well aware of it this past year and trying to create more of a balance of, like, bringing in more feminine energy into my business, but also in my relationship with my spouse and like, removing kind of that demas, you know, basically. Demasculated them. Is that a word, like, for emas?

Yeah, we emasculate them, like, innocently. Like, we don't doing it, but it's very sneaky, especially as eight women. And, you know, I've entered a new relationship the last few years, and I have to constantly be aware because, you know, men generally, you know, if. Do you have a son?

I do. I've got two.

Right. So you remember them when they were younger. Every little boy I've ever known at some point wanted to be a superhero. Right? And they grew up to be men, Men, grown men. And they. There's still a part of them that wants to be the superhero in the life of their spouse. Whether it's same sex or opposite sex, whatever. They want to be a superhero in some way. And us innocently, as independent, strong eight women, we kind of pull off their cape and say, I don't need your fucking cape.

Right?

And every woman kind of wants to have a superhero take care of them, but because of our experiences or like, I don't want to rely on a superhero. And what I can say to you, and I will say I've never felt more powerful in a relationship in my life, and I actually am always leaning into letting him be a superhero in some way in my life. And I've never felt more powerful because there's that intimacy when we allow the man to be the man who he's designed to be without trying to control it. And we can lean into that beautiful feminine energy. We don't have to work as hard, right? And we can shine in a way, and it creates connection and intimacy and trust in ways that I never thought possible, honestly, until about three years ago.

Aww.

So I am going to encourage you to keep doing that. Now. I know all of you guys listening. I've told you all the time, when you want shit to happen, you need an eight in your life, whether it's me kind of guiding you through your personality and professionally and personally. But this girl right here, Melissa, is the queen of LinkedIn. And I want you working with her. Seriously, if you've dabbled in LinkedIn, I need her in my life desperately. I'm terrible, terrible. On. On. I'm the worst self promoter of all time, so I need her in my life. So I'm going to be joining you guys. She's doing a masterclass. Why don't you tell them about what that is? And it's free. Are you. When you hear how long and how extensive this free freaking masterclass is, you seriously are insane and stupid if you don't do it.

Sorry.

Yeah, so we're, we're hosting a free masterclass for eight solid days, for an hour, every single day.

Eight days. That's crazy.

Yep.

Love it.

So we, we teach people how to generate organic leads on LinkedIn. It is the most underutilized platform. It's where I scaled my first multiple six figure business and was able to retire from corporate. I've since used it to scale multiple six and seven figure businesses. And, and we've worked with over 400 clients as of today to help generate and grow and scale their businesses to six and seven figures and beyond. So in that eight days, we really like, we're sharing with you all the goods. We have a lot of people who walk away from that and execute immediately. The goal is you can execute on LinkedIn immediately while you're in the workshop with us. We even audit. Somebody's going to get their profile completely audited by me in the middle of the workshop. So they'll get to see the work they've done. But yeah, what I want a couple things I'll say just about LinkedIn, if you don't mind, please. I think a lot of people don't realize is that it is the most underutilized platform with the largest visibility. So the average. I would challenge your listeners to think about, you know, who is their ideal client and where are they hanging out in their mindset. So a couple of quick things. Number one is the average age on Instagram and Facebook, the average age is about 21 and the average income is about 23,000. Okay. The average age on LinkedIn is 35 and the average income average is over 100,000. So if you're someone who has more high ticket services, you've got agencies, you're doing work with entrepreneurs who have. If you're looking for people who have the discretionary funds and the money mindset to invest, you have a tight, more tight knit audience over there on LinkedIn than this like real broad audience over on Facebook and Instagram. Does that make sense?

Oh my God, yes. So that is like, that's, that's like the real entrepreneurs. And I know you listening right now, you know, Instagram's great and does its thing and I've built millions of Dollars on Instagram. I get it. But you want to work smarter, not harder. You need to be effectively showing up on LinkedIn and this is your girl.

Yes. Well, and the other thing I'll talk about is mindset and then we can talk about a little bit of like what's going on in the economy right now, why LinkedIn is so busy. But the reality is most of the users on LinkedIn have an Instagram and a Facebook account too. Okay, but there's two things I want you guys thinking about is like mindset and device. Okay, so the average, the average user of Facebook and Instagram, the number one device used when they're on it is their phone. So what is that telling us? They're multitasking. Their, their attention is divided. What are they doing? They're usually numbing out, looking for that dopamine hit. Being Snoopy, right? Like trying to kill time. The number one device for LinkedIn is the computer. So their fannies are sitting at their desk. Okay. Their peak hours of using it are work time on Mondays and Tuesdays, actually like between nine and lunchtime. But people go to LinkedIn. LinkedIn is not the platform it was a decade ago. People aren't there just to post their resumes and look for jobs. These are movers and shakers in business wanting to be in business. But most importantly, they're there for personal growth and they're there for professional growth. It's the number one trusted social media platform voted five years in a row. Five years in a row by social media users, especially post Covid with all the political stuff that's gone down. There's been a mass surge in the use of LinkedIn now. Now what's really cool for all of your listeners is a couple of things. Some people think, well, LinkedIn's just B2B, like business to business. And I'm not a business. Like maybe you're a C, you're a customer. Like you do B2C, you've got a client base, service based business. Well, the reality is there's been a mass surgeons of activity on LinkedIn. No matter what your end product or service is, you can be visible over there. You're a large fish in a small pond versus competing with the visibility of all the noise on LinkedIn. In February of 2019, we had the lowest unemployment rate and the lowest unemployment rate, but the highest dissatisfaction in career. So people were all employed, but they hated their jobs. And then the pandemic hit and what happened? Everyone's well aware of the great resignation. The Great shuffle, right? And so what's happened is people are questioning everything to this day and it's created this surge in the use of the LinkedIn platform. And so your visibility over there is massive. Only 4% of users post content on LinkedIn. So what I want you to think about for your listeners is if you can learn how to be consistent with your branding and your messaging on LinkedIn and build authority. The gains, the gains in leads and conversation and sales are through the roof because of the lack of competitors versus that what we call the red ocean over on Instagram and Facebook, which is everybody competing, one upping, trying to stand out, when you could just jump into a different market on LinkedIn, where we are and fucking crush it.

You guys, I'm going to see you all in this masterclass, you know, coming up very soon. Where can they get information and sign up for the masterclass? Or if you guys want to just bypass that altogether and get into her Academy, a six month academy, and really overhaul your LinkedIn so that you don't have to work as hard, you can work smarter. Where do they find out all this information?

Yeah, they can always just go jump onto my website. Burnouttoallout Co. So burnouttoolout Co. And they can just click on the option for the academy and enroll today and then obviously let us know that Tracy referred you in the little referral section if you do that. But we also have our masterclass coming up. You can find the registration on that website as well. You can just click up top and opt in for our masterclass that starts on May 16th. And you can always just slide into my DMs over on Instagram or LinkedIn and we'll make sure we get you registered on all my social media profiles. You can find my website and go click and check it out.

Get registered, sister. You are magnificent, you guys, you know, like, I only put the best in front of you and you know, she's an eight, so she makes shit happen and she'll make shit happen for you in your life too. What are your final thoughts on this new awareness of being an enneagram 8 woman?

Final thoughts. I think that this conversation has been really good for me to. It's like another, another clear indicator of the continued journey of my own personal development. And it's not like, it's not that I'm trying to like change myself because I'm broken or I'm bad, but it's like, how can I continue to optimize the personality traits I've been blessed to have but also be more sensitive in the places that aren't so natural for me. So I think this has just helped me become even more aware. Continue to be aware. I think things top of mind for me right now are my spouse and my kids. Right. Like I just have such that tough love and it's trying to continue to embrace a little bit more of let people in a little bit more, be a little bit more vulnerable, show a little bit more vulnerability and be a little bit softer.

Yeah. You're amazing girl. I'm so glad we had this conversation. You inspire the shit out of me, that's for sure. I need you in my life in more ways than just LinkedIn. I think you're just magnificent and just a beautiful reflection because you know as an eight woman it can get very lonely because let's just be real. A lot of people, especially friendships and girlfriends, can't really. This intensity is a lot and it's not going anywhere. And even when we are able to harness it and leverage it in a beautiful feminine way, it's still a lot for a lot of people. So knowing I have another eight sister here that I respect, admire that I appreciate and know that's doing the work. Such an honor and privilege to have you in my life.

Aww Tracy. So much fun to just. I'm, I'm so enjoying getting to know you and your journey too.

Yeah, we're going to have some fun together. I see us doing some cool shit. You guys go find Melissa on Instagram, which is hilarious because she's on LinkedIn. Go find her on LinkedIn actually. But if you do kind of follow her on the gram, she's Melissah Underscore Hanault, we would love to hear what you loved and learned about this episode and please share this with somebody that you know needs to hear it. As always, I'm here to help you become the ultimate leader in your life so that you can do what you were called and designed to do all along. Thanks Melissa.

Thank you Tracy.

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 @traceomalley. You can also find additional resources on my website@traceomalley.com I'm excited to lead you into the next level of your life.

Sam.