EP311: Getting the Support You NEED and LOVE Using the Enneagram

Okay, I know you may have heard about the Enneagram or someone told you you need to know all about it. So here you are.

But what the hell do you do with it? Great news. You are in the right place.

Lead with the Enneagram is the show where you will actually learn how to use this incredible growth tool and apply it in all areas of your life, personally and professional. Hi, I'm Tracy, and to be honest with you, I was a skeptic of the Enneagram before I started to actually integrate it into my life. In fact, in true enneagram 8 style, I told my therapist to F off when she wanted me to dive into.

It well over a decade ago.

Now that I have more than a decade of experience using the Enneagram and working on myself in my family with those closest to me, building my own bulletproof leadership sales teams with one on one clients, couples, leading workshops for top Fortune 100 executives, and speaking to large audiences all across the globe about this powerful tool. I've got the proof and deep understanding.

Of how to help you implement this.

Into your life instead of it just.

Being some fun thing you heard about.

The Enneagram can be a complex model. But with me as your guide, I will show you how to first lead yourself in a powerful, effective and compassionate way and then help you lead others that way in your life as well. This podcast will have powerful conversations with guests, live typing sessions, as well as solo episodes of Breaking down dynamics of the Enneagram and how they impact your life, career and relationships. So now let's dive in.

I think that we all would love.

Support, even those of us that have a hard time asking for help or admitting that we need help. And we all do, by the way. Even you, my fellow Enneagram Eights, we all do need deserve support. But if we don't know exactly what we need or how to ask for what we need, my Enneagram Twos, who are the first to raise their hand and say, I'm going to help everyone, but are afraid to use their own voice sometimes because it might feel needy. So I want to talk today about how to get the right support for you. This comes up every single time I do workshops and I've done gosh 4 already in 2023. It's crazy. It's awesome. It's awesome to see how many of you want to develop strong teams or enhance the teams that you have, or hire somebody for your team that can make you more effective, more efficient. And it comes up every single time I do teamwork is how do we hire the right people? How do we know what types work together best with who? If I need this position, what type do I need to hire? And I will say this first, any healthy enneagram type is easier to be in a relationship. Any healthy enneagram type definitely can step up to the plate and do what you need them to do. However, that being said, certain tasks and things come a lot easier for certain enneagram types, and especially depending on what type you are. If you're the visionary, the leader in charge or support staff to a leader or a visionary, knowing what your strengths are and knowing what you don't like to do and the gaps that need to be filled, and then hire accordingly. So often a lot of you will hire contractors, support integrators in your businesses or in your homes, people you like. And I get it. Like you want to. If you're going to be spending time with this person, you want to like them, and I get that. Or somebody that just gets you. And although that is really great in the beginning, over time you probably have found yourself in the situation where you both are great at the same things, or when you're triggered, the same things happen for both of you and then you have a problem because nobody can fill the gap, right? So I often do a lot of consulting. Especially if you are a solopreneur or an entrepreneur that has one or two people, you gotta make sure those one or two people are the right people. Especially if you know your budget to bring on more help and more staff or people, people in your home even. You know, I've done, I'm. I'm. A lot of times the final interview for people, even if they have a few good candidates and they have their mind set on one. A lot of times people have brought me into their homes, like the home manager, the house manager, the nannies, the integrators in businesses, because I can see things that maybe you cannot. That's the beauty and the gift of 10 years of Enneagram integration. And especially knowing somebody like you. I know what you actually need. Right. I know where you lack or where you aren't as strong or things that you can't stand doing. You want to bring in somebody that is very strong in those areas and isn't triggered the same way that you are. You know, as an enneagram 8 myself, you know, Enneagram eights usually like to kind of be the lone wolf. We don't like to necessarily control everything, but we won't be controlled. And so it's hard for us to work together with somebody sometimes. I'll give you a funny example is yesterday my son and I, we are on this spring cleaning kick. You know, I, I mean, I'm on my hands and knees scrubbing baseboards. Seriously, like every square foot of my home is getting the scour. And my son, who has a very strong enneagram one wing, I love it. And he's got a strong three wing. He's an enneagram too, and he's got two very strong wings. So it's like, what's the goal? You know, his three, let's hit the goal. And his enneagram one wing is so meticulous and high standards and attention to detail. Hallelujah. Thank God. He's the best, best partner to get shit done. And we do it fast and beautifully. But yesterday we had this little hiccup in our program and believe it or not, my garage, it is like my nemesis. I have this huge probably a thousand pound garage door. It's beautiful, it's like wood and all of that. But I seriously have broken probably every spring on that thing in the last seven years I've lived here. I've had to fix it over and over. It's. It's seriously the death of me here. But yesterday it broke again. And thankfully we didn't have anywhere to be since we were home kind of doing this deep cleaning. And I have like a four car garage that's got like this extra door. It's a one car garage door though. And if you didn't know, I drive a big ass lifted pickup truck. The main garage door could not open even with taking it off the, you know, you pull the little thingy and you're supposed to be able to manually lift it. The thing that broke is the thing that keeps you from doing that. So no matter what we would have done with the main garage door, there's no way we were getting out of it. So we have this one little window, this one side single car garage door that we have to get two cars out of. And we have to maneuver and there's very little room to do this. Thankfully, my son used to have a truck like mine and we sold it and he got a Honda Accord. Thank God, because this would not have been possible. But the moral of the story is this. So my son gets in his little Honda and we were able to maneuver that out. I was directing traffic basically like back up forward, cut left, you know, the, all the things. And we got his car out the side garage door and then out the gate. And then we had the task of getting my massive truck with very little room, three point turning it to try and get this thing out. And when we were doing his car, he was behind the wheel and I was directing traffic. But when we got in to do my truck, I got behind the wheel. Cause I just figured, you know, I'm used to driving this big ass truck, you know, all the things. And he was trying to direct traffic and I was not receptive to it. I had a hard time trusting. I was frustrating him, he was frustrating me. I was like, use your voice. I'm like. And I wasn't yelling, but I was thinking this. And it was not going well. And I could see our dynamic shifting because he's so badly trying to help me and I'm so resistant, resistant to letting him help me. And so thankfully, like, you know, we know each other very, very well and we both had the same goal. He's like, you know what? How about I get behind the wheel? You're really good at directing and I can follow your lead. And so he got behind the wheel of my big ass truck and it went so much smoother. And we were laughing at ourselves where, I mean, we've been in this situation before where I'm resistant to certain kind of leadership, sometimes even the best. And he, I trust him completely. But I was resisting it and I was frustrated, obviously at the door. And like, seriously, I'm like, why does this keep happening? And in the past, I've let my frustration get the best of me and so has he. And this was a beautiful moment where he knew my strengths and he knew his and we switched roles and we, we were laughing about worked so much better. And it was a beautiful thing. And so often I use that as an example for you because thankfully we know where each other are strong. Even though we kind of started it off a little wonky with me behind the wheel and. And him kind of directing because we know each other so well, we know each other's strengths and weaknesses and where we can excel and where we can't. We were able to pivot, not get frustrated too much with each other, where it's like a whole thing and we got the job done. And thankfully it happened on a day where it wasn't like we. We had to go somewhere or anything. But it was a beautiful example of why having the right people to support you, whether it's friends, hired people, you know, whatever in your life, like asking the right people for support will be key. Now having an Enneagram to son is so great. It is. It is so great. And he does it with kindness and compassion most of the time, you know, because he's human. And we work really, really well together today, right? Seriously, we. We laugh at each other. We've done a few projects around the house since the beginning of the year. Like when we took down the Christmas. All the Christmas, like outside, inside, boxed up, put away, stored, everything. We did that job in two hours, fully. And we laugh. We're like, oh, my gosh. We know each other so well at this point that it's not that we're rushing it, we're just really, really in sync with each other. And that is a skill when you're getting support, that will take time. And that's why bringing in somebody like me to help you pick the right people, it's so, so important. Especially if budget is concerned or you're like, your kids are involved. You want to make sure you have the right person, that when things get a little to. That you've got the right person for the job. It's really easy when things are easy. But you guys know as well as I do, having the right person when things get stressful will be key. So some of the things that you have to think about is what do you actually need? What do you actually need? And that can be things that you really suck at or things that you can't stand doing, or like, if you're bringing in a house manager, like, be very clear on the things that you want this person to do. I think a lot of times when we're bringing people on and the people that are coming on kind of give you their highlight reel too. It's like, yeah, I can do anything, no problem. You know, if. Especially if they want the. The position or the task at hand or they want to be the one to help you. Right? And then we get into the real thick of it, and it's like, oh, we may have just been over zealous in what we could promise. Or maybe if you're the one looking for somebody, you're making this sound like it's. It's very laid back and easygoing. I've done that before. Right. And then I'm thoroughly disappointed when they can't read my mind. Right? So one of the things that I like to advise you to do, especially when we're hiring, and there's no, like, definite this has to be it, but it's definitely something that I notice. I have done and I've helped people, whatever your core Enneagram type is sometimes having like, your growth number as a support staff is really, really helpful. Also, like wings. Wings are really helpful, but usually that. That growth number is almost the opposite of what you are, you know. So if, like, you're an enneagram 7, your growth numbers in enneagram 5, right? Very different skill sets, very different things that are important to them, even though they're both kind of motivated by a need for certainty, it looks really, really different. And. And for each Enneagram type that can look very, very different. But I kind of like, start there, start there again. It is not like you have to go out and say, I need an enneagram1 to do this job. I do, because I know them so well. But I don't want you to, you know, definitely cut somebody off because they're not a certain Enneagram type. This is not. This is just a tool, remember? It's just a tool. And this can help really zone in the kind of skill set. So let's say you want somebody that is high, attention to detail, meticulous, high integrity, high standards, rule follower, black and white thinking, then obviously you're going to want somebody like an Enneagram one, possibly even an Enneagram six, right? I'm not that person. I'm a rule breaker. I am like, okay, I'm aggressive. I don't always slow down, right? So I need people like that in my life. And maybe you are more like that. Maybe you are a meticulous perfectionist, high standards, and you need somebody that's more of a visionary and a bigger picture thinker to support you. You're going to. This goes with relationships and partnerships, right? But definitely something to consider. But don't necessarily surround yourself with people that you just enjoy. I mean, that's a benefit if they have skill sets that you don't have as easily and you enjoy being around them. That's like the sweet spot that we try to go for. But if I was filled, and there was a lot of time where I was surrounded by people, and this went for friendships as well. I'm talking about any support, not just hired support, but like support in your life. There was a time when my closest people were all wired like me. And although that was very exciting and intense, it was also a shit show sometimes, right? Too many cooks in the kitchen, right? When things got hairy, it was like Fight Club. Not necessarily effective. Right. And today it's interesting. You know, my. My closest friends, my four closest friends, when I'm thinking about them, three of them are Enneagram sevens, ironically, and one is an Enneagram nine. And seven and nine happens to be my wings as an eight. Is that helpful? Absolutely. And I bring something to the table for them because I am their wings as well. Again, not saying this is like the rule you gotta follow in order to have support, but it is super helpful. The good news is you have access to these internally for yourself, right? You can't. I can access my 7 Wing to be more visionary. I can access my 9 Wing to be a more holistic, harmonious, effective communicator. I can go to my growth numbers too, and be compassionate and empathetic. I can use even my stressor number of the five to be black and white thinking without all the intense emotions. I can do all that I can. It's not necessarily where I am easiest, all of those, although I can access it, it does take a little bit of output. Right. And I want to manage my energy. Right. So having those people in my life actually makes it not only more helpful, but also they're a beautiful model of what that looks like. I get to see that strength in action. And because I have access to it according to my framework, I can like learn from all of them and all of you can do the same thing. It's pretty cool. When not only you understand your core Enneagram type, which if you've been around me or done a power session with me, or been part of a workshop I've done, I'll often say I don't want you learning about your core Enneagram type because you do that by default. Like you do that in your sleep. You don't even try and you're kind of in your. Your core Enneagram type. It's important to understand where you go, so you can kind of use it as a compass. But the real magic happens when you know how to use the rest of your framework wings, your growth, your stress, and even your tri type, which, if you do a power session with me or workshop, we go deep into your tri type. But it is awesome when you can have those things in real human form in your support system. It's awesome. If you want more information on how to use this in your life, you can book a 90 minute power session with me. If you are a leader and have a team or you're part of a team, talk to your leader, you know, have them kind of check me out and, and bring me into your group so that I can help you all have the right people in place doing the right jobs and being more effective for each other. There's nothing better than being able to be in my zone of genius most of the time because I have the right support around me and I want the same for you. You can go to Tracy O' Malley.com to find out on doing a 90 minute power session. We get a lot done in 90 minutes. It's basically like 10 years of really fast paced work. It really, really is. It's amazing. I do have a couple spots open for our private one on one coaching where we have three months together daily access. We do all kinds of strategy personally, professionally, we do all the Enneagram work. Everything. Having me in your back pocket can be super helpful, especially while you're learning how to build this emotional intelligence muscle using the tool of the Enneagram. But most importantly, if you are using the the tool of the Enneagram for yourself, having the right information is going to be key for you. So getting your Enneagram blueprint my assessment is 95% accurate and once you do my assessment I review it and then I send out a custom 75 plus page blueprint. It's like your handbook to your core Enneagram type with all the componen, your wings, your growth number, your stress numbers, your subtype as well your instinctual response to life that can help you make more sense of this as you are building this muscle. If you love this episode, please share it with somebody that may need more information on the Enneagram. I know there's a lot of Ennea fans out there and as this beautiful tool is becoming more mainstream, especially in leadership, I would love to be your go to Integration specialist when it comes to the Enneagram. I love you. I appreciate you. I'm wishing you so much love and transformation in your life and we'll see you next time.

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