the enneagram changed my life
‘hey, what are you doing over there?!’
in that moment, the world shifted back into focus. i’d just been called out by our cto in the middle of the most heated meeting i’d attended in years… feelings in the room were extremely tense, and whether or not i knew it, the fallout from that meeting would change my life, forever.
our founding team was in the middle of techstars boulder, a startup accelerator that promised to supercharge our growth - but we had a serious problem. in trying to figure out how to test a subscriber winback campaign, the four of us realized that we were severely misaligned around who our target customer was. like, four very different opinions about one of the core aspects of our business. and it resulted in an argumentative meeting in a conference room.
and that’s when it happened.
over the course of 10 minutes, i had unconsciously rolled my wheely chair away from the table full of anger into the far corner of the room. i hadn’t noticed, but he had.
i was so uncomfortable with the conflict, that my body overruled my brain.
from conflict to coaching
out of that meeting, our managing director (the inimitable natty zola) recommended we seek cofounder coaching - so we did. our coach, sue heilbronner, agreed to meet on one condition: we were all to take a 40-min personality assessment called the enneagram.
it was life-changing.
i tested strongly as an enneagram type nine - the peacemaker. nine’s are, at their core, motivated by a desire to experience peace at all times. and while that has wonderful ‘above the line’ implications, stressed nine’s can be extremely conflict avoidant - checking out from the world around them.
sue looked me dead in the eyes and explained that my aversion to conflict wasn’t helping the team (along with helping the other founding members understand how they showed up in conflict - which shifted the way we held hard conversations from that day forward).
my desire to get out of conflict in a closed room manifested in my unconscious wheely chair incident. i was doing everything i could think of to escape, and in the absence of causing more conflict by simply leaving, i rolled myself physically away.
the next years of studying and understanding the enneagram has brought me innumerable insights into myself and how i move through the world, both emphasizing the positive qualities of my peacemaker and highlighting the ways that when i’m under stress, i can self sabotage and create even more drama for myself (ironic, since that’s the thing i’m so motivated to escape).
non-directional superpowers
see, my superpower is peacefulness. and i can use it for good, or for evil.
on the good side, enneagram nines are experts at reading situations and facilitating inclusive solutions. if i look back, the qualities i’ve always been praised for at work and at home are my abilities to defuse conflict, keep things moving toward a collective answer, and listening with extreme empathy. fun thing is that now i get to do those things as a job - its what makes me an excellent executive coach and facilitator.
but on the bad side, when i’m stressed, i often fall into the hero role on the drama triangle - seeking fast relief so that the conflict can end for me as soon as possible. where this gets me into trouble is a lack of long-term solutioning. in my eagerness to get back to calm, i might miss the bigger picture or true resolution of an issue.
what’s been great though, has been recognizing the red flags when i’m headed towards trouble. if i can catch myself, and see that i have a choice, i can often avoid the snowball of withdrawal from conflict and see that a little pain now can mean way less pain in the future. some of those signs, you ask? well, taken straight from riso and hudson’s great book, the wisdom of the enneagram…
denial of serious health, financial, or personal problems
long-standing resistance to an idea or the concept of getting help
generally being less aware, and less full of life
a sense of general inadequacy and neglectfulness
dependency on others, allowing myself to be exploited
emotional ‘flatness’ and depression (i’m real good at this one!)
feeling lost, confused, or disconnected
life-changing… how?
so how has this actually changed my life? for me, there are countless stories and examples, but in the end it breaks down into two major categories. self awareness and empathy.
self awareness. the enneagram has vastly expanded my knowledge of myself. through the lens of a nine and examining things like my wing, where i shift in integration and disintegration, and some of my subtypes (curious to learn about any of that? reach out and let’s connect.), i can now see how i move through the world sooooo much more clearly. by knowing how my baseline, unconscious self wants to react, i’ve been able to see the choices i get to make. it’s provided me with an incredible sense of agency, and a lot less time thinking about ‘wait, why did i do that?’ fun thing: i get to label all my personas with an enneagram type too - drunk keith is definitely an eight (the challenger)!
empathy. once i started to know the enneagram types of those around me, from coworkers to neighbors to family, i realized i gained so much insight into how they operate. it’s allowed me to approach others with a clearer sense of what might trigger them, how they might naturally show up, and especially where our type combinations can be helpful or hurtful in relationships. the working dynamic between my nine and my ceo’s three was incredibly clear - and we gained a shared language of how to operate best together. knowing that a good friend is an enneagram seven (the enthusiast) allowed us to connect even more deeply over the tension between my slow-moving and cautious nature, which sometimes conflicts with his desire to move fast and have riskier fun.
a decade of change
that meeting, and the wheely chair incident, happened almost ten years ago. incorporating the enneagram into my life has been a huge influence on me - i’ve grown, become more comfortable with myself, and been able to (as a friend always says) ‘make good choices’ more often.
i’ve been able to leverage my nine-ness to create a job and community i love, and when things don’t work out, i have a manual to go back and examine, learning more about myself and my motivations every time.
now, instead of rolling away, i lean in, engage, and try to find the peace through the conflict - not without it.
if you’re interested in hearing more of the story, or leveraging this incredible tool for your own personal or professional development, give me a holler. happy to chat anytime.
interested in learning more about your type? check out my ranking of free and paid enneagram tests.
thanks for being here.
