Welcome to the Enneagram MBA Podcast, a show for aspiring and growing entrepreneurs and unfulfilled employees who know they are capable of playing bigger. If you are wanting to identify your gifts, find your purpose, do work that matters, and create a ripple effect that goes beyond yourself, you're in the right place. Each week you'll get resources, strategies, and support to help you get to know yourself, to get to know and understand others, like your future clients, and help you get known so that you can reach more people with your gifts and purpose. So grab your notebook or open up your notes app, and I will see you in class. All right, we have made it to the end of our Enneagram Wings series where we kicked it off with an understanding of what the heck wings were, misconceptions, a brief description on each of the IT 18 Enneagram types. So if you haven't listened to that, that is um part one of our Enneagram series. And then since then, we have been talking about all the Enneagram types. And today we're gonna get into seven, eight and nine and the wings on each side of that dominant type and strengths that each of those wings have that that type can pull in when needed. So I'm looking forward to this one as a type seven. There's one specifically that I was kind of dreading bringing up with you. Um, so we'll we'll get into that in just a second. But I did mention after this, uh you may or may not even remember that we would get into arrows. And I'm love the idea, the concept of arrows where we go to in stress and where we go to in health and growth. And we absolutely will get into those because I've heard from a lot of people that was the thing that actually helped them understand which Enneagram type was their dominant when they started to dig into their arrows and see, like, oh my gosh, yep, I show up this way in stress. And so this must be my dominant type. So that there's gonna be a lot of um for those of you who are still kind of on the line on the fence with which type you are, that's gonna be a really helpful series. And then if you already are very clear on what your type is, there's gonna be lots of takeaways for how to pull in the qualities and how to use your arrow numbers, but we're gonna have to push it off just a little bit. There are so many um workshops that I have coming up, one of them being my very own that I'm doing tomorrow night if you're listening to this podcast in real time, um, Wednesday, October 13th, called Your CEO Style Workshop. And we're getting into um we're moving past understanding our dominant type. And then we're getting into how to actually use the different parts of the Enneagram when it comes to money mindset, our sales strategy, things to think about when it comes to marketing, how we make decisions and ways that we can grow in all of those areas. So if you haven't signed up, if there's still time and you're gonna get a free guest pass. So you can bring a friend, a team member with you to have somebody to kind of go through that training with and then talk about it afterwards, kind of dissect, reflect whatever you want to do. Um, it's sometimes easier to do that when you kind of verbally process out loud with somebody and can get their insights about you. And so um definitely, definitely um get registered. There's still time if you haven't done that already. I'd love to see you there. I have been following um a woman named Carol Cox who has a brand called Your Story. Let's see, sharing your story. Oh my gosh, I am blinking on her name now. But um she speaking your brand. There we go, speaking your brand. So she teaches um everything from how to create your TEDx talk, how to put that together, how to present it. She helps people practice to how to get paid for speaking, how to put together a workshop. And so one of the things that I've been following with her is how to create a presentation or workshop. And the thing that she recommends is starting with these different colored post-its that mean different things like audience engagement, question. Um, well, that's probably the same thing, audience engagement, key fact, supporting fact. So my wall right now for the CEO style workshop is full of colored post-its that I have started to put into the um Canva presentation that I have. And so I'm really excited about that. And then I have a couple others. So I'll share any takeaways that come up from or lessons learned that come up from presenting these workshops and then any good Enneagram discussions or questions that come up, I'll definitely pass those along to you as well. Um so stay tuned. But because of that, I'm gonna take a break from any getting into another series. And so next week, I don't know what the Enneagram topic will be, but it'll be a good one. So so stay tuned. Um, today though, let's go ahead and jump in. So our type seven is known as the enthusiast, and so their wings are gonna be type six and type eight. And for the type seven, this is my type. So some of these I didn't really love, and I already kind of mentioned that too. So uh we'll get to that in just a second. But I've but I thought, oh my gosh, I I have to share it. I have to share this one. Um, but we'll we'll get to that one in just a second. So when channeling your wing six, sometimes I say, um, I wish I was a a type six because I have several friends that are type sixes, which I love being a seven. The more that I learn about myself, the more that I learn about that seven energy, the more I love it. I absolutely love it. And I really wouldn't want to be, um, I really wouldn't want to be any other way. But there are a lot of things I love about the type six energy. And one of them is this ability to dive deep into the data and come up with really insightful takeaways and to make meaning and connect the dots with just, you know, a sheet of data, sheet of facts, bunch of information. They're able to pull it out and really make it digestible when they share it to make it easy to understand and really um for the most part, keep it, you know, keep it. What is it, what do I need to know here? What do I need to know from this big pile of data? What are the things that I need to know and how does it all work together? Whereas sevens tend to be skimmers and maybe get into a lot of different things, but not necessarily go deep on any of those things. Very good at winging it, but sometimes you just can't wing it. Or, you know, maybe it could have been better for yourself, for your customer, for your student, if you took the time to slow down, get into the information, get into the data, pull out those meaningful insights, and then jump into action, right? So that's one tip. Um, and I I I'm using this book called the Enneagram Development Guide by Ginger Lapid Bagda. And so she's the one, um, and I mentioned her before, but in case you're just skipping to your type only, I totally get it. I want to make sure that I give her credit for this. Um, so one of the things that she suggested that a type seven can do to leverage their wing six is to pursue those deep levels of insight. And so really just kind of taking the time, slow down before you jump into action, um, go through the data, go through the information to be able to get a deeper perspective. Um, maybe, you know, get that analysis and um ask yourself questions, get curious, find out, you know, what do your people need? What would be helpful, what sorts of information can you bring them? And there is a place for winging it, right? There is a place for jumping to action. But what the Enneagram is about and ultimately self-awareness and self-growth is to take yourself off the default mode and be more intentional with the actions, the thoughts, the feelings that you have. Um, and so this is an example of that. Yes, you might need to wing it and you can pull that in intentionally more consciously, but there might be other times where you need to go deep and you can do that as well because we have all nine types inside of us. We have all of these characteristics available to us. It's just some might come more natural than others, but they're in there. They're they're in there somewhere. So it's just a matter of going in and getting them and pulling them out when we need them. So the second way that she said that we could use our wing six is to face our fears. And both sevens and sixes are in that head center, the of intelligence where we tend to lead with our mental thinking versus our heart or our gut. And one of the characteristics of the types, so five, six, and sevens, in that center of intelligence is the emotional struggle that they have is fear and anxiety. And so, sixes, on top of that, their core driver and core fear is around safety and security. So ultimately fear as well. So they are very in touch with their fear, they pay attention to it, they're looking at it, they're aware of it, and they're dealing with it. And they're dealing with it, meaning they're looking ahead, they are, you know, what could go wrong, worst case scenario here, and then are making plans to ideally make it the best possible outcome, just kind of preparing for the worst. Whereas sevens tend to put our head in the sand, um, we will distract ourselves, we will, we might feel anxious, we might feel afraid, but we're not gonna sit with that. And so we're all gonna feel all the feelings, we're gonna feel uncomfortable feelings, we're gonna feel unsettled, um, fearful, whatever the uncomfortable feeling is. And at some point, and you know, for sevens, rather than constantly just staying busy for the sake of staying busy so we don't have to sit with our own thoughts. And I have heard from many sevens that say, like, this is one of the hardest, it's almost excruciating things to do is to sit still with our own thoughts. Like that sounds so simple. I get it. Even in the shower, you know, listening to a podcast, going for a walk, listening to a podcast, listening to music, listening to a book, um, constantly, even when there's an opportunity to kind of sit still, we're we're finding something to do, right? To distract ourselves, to stay busy. And so again, that serves a purpose at some point, but there's other times where you know we can learn more, we can actually lessen our anxiety if we just take a few moments to face it and to understand what's really going on here so that we can be like our six and you know, put a plan together to help address it. So, some questions that you might ask yourself, you know, why what am I fearful about? What's what's causing this? What's going on? Is that true? Is that really true? Because a lot of times this fear and anxiety that we have are just things that we're worried about that's going to happen in the future that have not happened. There's really not a big indication that they would happen, but we're worried that they might happen. And so, you know, how can I prepare myself if this happened? So just getting curious about those feelings, taking the time, taking a few quiet moments to do that. And then the last way that we can channel some of our six energy is to, I did not love this one, is to acknowledge authority. And I actually crossed this out in the book and I wrote down some other ideas that I wanted to talk about instead because I was like, there's just no part of me that is going to actually like acknowledge authority. So I'm not going to recommend that other people do it too. So, but I actually read another book that was talking about authority and how sevens tend to engage in this idea of soft rebellion. And it doesn't just happen with a boss at work because I was thinking like this is one of the reasons why I didn't love my last job. Um, because I I didn't want to be, I hate being micromanaged. Um, I didn't want anybody to tell me what to do, right? So I was like, there's no way that I'm gonna like accept authority. But this other book was talking about how authority could even be your partner or a friend, anybody who has expectations of you, that can sometimes cause sevens to feel like, oh my gosh, there's constraints being placed on me. I'm feeling limited. People are trying to take away my freedom, my choices, my options. And that's the kind of, you know, another way to think about that authority. It's not just a boss at work. And so sixes, on the other hand, have tend to have a better relationship with that authority dynamic. Um, they're usually going to be a little, they're gonna be more respectful and accepting of the role of authority fickers. Um, however, they won't at all if that person appears to be abusive at all or just not know, you know, what the heck they're talking about. So that's the alarm's gonna go off for our sixes. And so the work for sevens here is to understand, just again, to get curious. You know, we just talked about getting curious about that fear and anxiety, slowing down to ask yourself questions. And we'll we can do the same thing here is to slow down, ask yourself, what am I feeling limited by? Do are are these perceived limitations, or are somebody actually trying to limit me? Um what is fueling this fear of being limited? What am I afraid is going to happen? Why am I so uncomfortable here? And just, you know, these are just some idea questions, but start just to understand like if you feel this way about any type of authority, anybody placing expectations on you, just to start to ask yourself again, be the observer of your thoughts. So the next one we have our channeling our wing eight. All right, the eight is called the challenger. And we can channel our eight-wing as a seven in three ways: stepping into leadership, grounding our action, and then talking less so that we can influence others more. And I know I spent a little bit more time on the type six wings, so we'll try and get through these. But eights, as I mentioned earlier, are very decisive. They are natural leaders, it comes very easy to them. They tend to be a little bit more authoritative in their leadership style, whereas sevens tend to be more facilitative, like, hey, let's all work together. Again, going back to that like leveling the authority ranking, whether they're below it or above it. They want everybody to kind of be um on the same. And so eights are going to be more comfortable than others, really of any other type, being um that authority figure and having the power. And so, and seven sometimes can just kind of be ambivalent to that and not, you know, not taken step into that. And so the work then is in certain situations, there it is going to require, you know, that powerful presence, stepping into that leadership, stepping into the power. We've heard that, um, being being the authority. And so you can do that by having, you know, more um being more assertive, taking yourself more seriously, believing that you have that inside of you. So channeling, thinking about, you know, what would an eight do in that situation? The other thing that you can do to leverage your wing eight is to ground into action. So sevens can be full of this like electric energy, um, but may need to ground their action so that they don't have some sort of you know unintended explosion or you know, pop off in some way, which I, you know, this feels very resonating with me. Um, whereas eights, on the other hand, are tend to be a little bit more deliberate and intentional with the action they take. And so some questions that you can ask yourself as a seven to channel some of that grounded action is to think before you take any action, stop and think what are the likely intended and unintended consequences of this action? Second question: who are the individuals with power and influence that need to be brought on board before this action can be successful? So this might also be a partner, this might be a friend. Um, you might need to talk to your community. And then the last question to ask yourself is do all of the do all of the resources exist to make this happen? Again, sevens, we love to jump into action. We are action takers, but sometimes don't always stop before we take that action. Um, and to make sure that we have what we need, you know, jump and the the net will appear. I do believe that um in some in some ways, but there are some other things that we can do to set ourselves up for success to make it easier um to jump so that you know we've kind of heard about that in different ways from both the six and the eight wing here. And then the last one, the last way though a seven can channel their eight wing is to talk less so that you actually influence more. And you know, some of these are kind of hard to hear, and I'm thinking, gosh, I don't know if I love this one either. But sevens can talk a lot about whatever they're thinking, about all kinds of topics in like this rapid succession. And I'm sure you've noticed it probably on this podcast at some point. You know, I'm it I and if I have to slow down and think about it, um, reflect on conversations, I definitely see myself getting better. I definitely see myself um sitting with silence and pausing, and really a lot of that started to happen when I got into sales. And one of the techniques is to ask a question and then shut up. And that was really hard for me because I wanted to keep explaining, I wanted to keep sharing my ideas. Um, so that that kind of has that has helped. And then since then, you know, coaching others, teaching others, uh, you know, I can't be the one talking all the time. So that that's really helped. Um, but I I do like what they're saying here because um others may not this this can be kind of um, even though for the for the seven, it feels fun to share all these ideas. It feels exciting and it's energizing you, but for others, whether it's a client in front of you or a team that you have or a partner, all these ideas can kind of be overwhelming. And there may they may not be sure, you know, which ones are the most important, which should be be prioritizing or acting on. And I've heard from a seven who described um him himself in a leadership position where um his team, his morale was actually going down. And he was like, I'm so excited. We have all these fun ideas in the you know, cooking up. And but when you when he started talking with his team, they were just feeling overwhelmed because they felt like, gosh, we can't finish anything because there's always something new to start, or there's so many things to work on. Um, it's just hard to see like what's the priority, where are we going here? Whereas eights will typically be a little bit more thoughtful and weigh what they're going to say next and determine when they're gonna say it and consider the best timing for when they're gonna say it, so that they can really maximize their influence by what they're about to say. So when sevens can learn to do this, they will also increase their ability to influence others. Now, for our type eights, who are called the challenger, their wings are gonna be the type seven and their type nine. And so, three ways that eights can channel their seven wings, some of that seven energy. Three ways. One, lighten up, two, free yourself. And we're gonna get into what exactly that means in just a second. And then three, enjoy your creativity. And so the first one, and if you're a type eight, these might all you might initially think, nope, don't want to do it, not for me. Um, what do you like? Forget about it, but just just hear me out here, here, here, hear me out. Okay, so eights come at work and at life with this huge intensity. They are known for having the greatest energy of all the types on the Enneagram. Um, they come at at life at work um and put these ideas into action and make things happen. They are very good at making things happen. Sevens, on the other hand, tend to lighten intense into it situations with humor and have this ability to reframe difficult situations. So when an A is trying to channel some of that seven energy, a question they might ask is what is happening in the situation that is positive? What can I notice that is interesting or amusing? And again, like all of these are just taking ourselves off the default mode, taking ourselves away from the go-to response and just pausing for a moment to see if there's another way that might be more useful in a particular situation to come at, to come at that situation. And so for AIDS and the situation, you know, yes, definitely there are times, a lot of times, that require that intensity, that require things to get done and to have that, to have that energy, but you know, that's probably not sustainable at all times. And there might be times, there probably is times when, you know, some humor might go a long way with your team or with a partner or even with yourself when you might need to infuse something amusing or interesting. So just stopping when you feel that intensity and you feel like that, that just drive, that push, push, push, take a moment. And that's not always easy. And that's why all of this is a practice, but see if you can notice, take yourself out of, you know, you're not the thinker of your thoughts, you're the watcher of your thoughts, and think, you know, how could I look at this in a different way? Is there a different way to approach this? And so the second thing that sevens do really well is um this idea of freeing yourself, which for for the context of eights, freeing ourselves of intensity, of drive and purpose and action that compel the eights. Absolutely, you need this. Absolutely. And I think if we're not an eight, if you're not a type eight, you can channel some of this eight energy, whether it's your wing or not. The tricky part is that eights can turn that on all the time and become workaholics and drive themselves to complete big tasks and projects at the expense of their physical well-being and sometimes even their personal and home lives. And so, where eights can channel some of that seven energy is to pull is to pull that that seven wing in, where sevens will tend to, in the middle of a big project, they're going to be more okay with taking a break to hit up the gym, maybe just take a mental um break and walk around a museum, have a meal with an interesting or fun person. And then they can go back to work with this refreshed outlook. And so, for an eight to be able to channel some of that, again, asking yourself the question, what can I do that I would enjoy or find relaxing? So maybe I know for eights with all this energy, it's hard just to sit still and just relax. You know, the typical relaxing activities are probably not gonna work for you. But could you take a walk? Could you go to the gym? Could you go for a run? Um, you know, you know what that's gonna be for you. It's probably gonna be something physical and active, painting, a hobby, you know, whatever it might be. And make sure that you're incorporating that into your day. You're giving yourself a chance to take those active, relaxing breaks so that you can come back to the work, you can come back to the project more refreshed, maybe even come at it in a in a more productive way because you've had that time. And a lot of times too, when eights are able to put less pressure on themselves, that's going to spill over and will then usually allow them not to put as much pressure on others, which you know, if your leader is an eight, there there can be a lot of pressure. Um, so you're also benefiting your team when you can take time to relax and do some something that you enjoy. And then the last one here for channeling your seven energy is to enjoy your creativity. So eights are all about being in control. That is very important to them. They will use their strength and their power to ensure that they are in control. So nobody is gonna take advantage of them. However, being creative a lot of times means letting go of control and allowing yourself just to perceive things in a new way. So sevens are gonna be able to do this pretty easily because they are very comfortable with experimenting with new ideas and are very open to trying new things. Eights, on the other hand, tend to be more self-controlled and controlling of situations. Both that can interfere with the creative process. I'm sure you can kind of see how that could damper the creativeness. So for eights, the work here is to find something you've always wanted to do. Maybe it's some sort of class, like an art class or an improv class. Maybe it's writing something, a book, an article, um, a blog. Maybe it's traveling somewhere that you've always wanted to go, just uh taking the taking a quick weekend trip, a long weekend trip or a long one, whatever it might be. And then go into it with the curiosity and letting just the creative emerge as spontaneously from those experiences, whatever it might be. And then who knows, you know, what can come from that creativity. Um, if there's a different spin that you can put on a message that you're sharing at work, if there's something new or fun that you can do with your team, something inventive that you can offer with your clients, but that's hard to do when you're just constantly wanting to have control over every thought, uh, over every circumstance to allow the that creativity and new ideas to flow in. Now, the eights also um have access to their wing nine. And sometimes I think of this as um both eights and nines, ironically, not ironically, but are in the same um center of intelligence, both in their body. Nines are not as in touch um with some of that as the eights are going to be with their intuition. Um, however, that they are both in there. And so that's kind of an interesting overlap there. And then um, sometimes though, you might think that peacemaker and challenger are almost opposites. So this is a really interesting pairing, either the nine wing eight or the eight-wing nine. Um, so let's hear how the eights can channel some of that nine peacemaker energy. One thing that they can do is listen to multiple points of view. One of the superpowers of a nine is the ability to be very inclusive, is to live in the gray. They're comfortable not having an exact answer. There, they can see the possibilities how something could be both right and wrong, black and white, good or bad. Um, and they're open to hearing lots of other people, not lots of other people's, but they're open to hearing other people's opinions. Whereas eights um are very decisive and they can come, they can come to form very firm conclusions quickly after a rapid process of deliberation that happens um internally and almost instantaneously. Whereas nines take some more time to process. But what that slower processing, and neither is right or wrong, neither is better than one or the other, but what that slowdown processing can also do is to allow you to ask for um other opinions and not just expert opinions, um, but your team or your peer and um be okay with opposing viewpoints, hold space for all of it. And yes, eventually as the leader, you will need to make a decision, but that way everybody feels heard, everybody feels value valued. Um, you know, some specific questions might be an eight could ask the team, what do you think are the critical issues involved in the situation? And then what would you suggest that we do about it? So, what's important here to focus on, and then what do we need to do about it? And just getting that input from the teen. This could work great with a partner or a friend as well. The second way that nines or eights can channel their nine wing is to practice the art of being calm. So eights tend to be very intense and energetic and quick to respond, where nines, we just talked about are a little bit slower of processors, they ponder ideas, they will reflect on what they heard, and generally generally, oh my gosh, generally, they're gonna do it in a calm and relaxed manner. So that calmness, though, starts on the inside. And by both of these types being in the body center, one of the ways to get in touch with that calmness is to use your body and specifically the breaths, the breaths, um, your lungs to breathe deeply and to calm yourself. There's all kinds of research behind how literally just taking, you know, five or six deep breaths can automatically change the state that you're in. Bring that temperature down if you're feeling hot with anger, bring that calmness in. Um, another thing that might help is just when you're feeling that anger about to erupt, breathe and then visualize a calm place, whether that's for you on a beach, in the middle of a forest, climbing a mountain, you know, eating ice cream, going for a run over the along the water, whatever it might be. But hang on to that feeling of calmness as you go about your day, and specifically before you react to a situation that you normally might, you know, approach with some intense anger, which again, there are some advantages to that. Anger has a lot of energy behind it, it has motivation behind it. Um, but again, we're pulling these tools out with intention. And so if that tends to be your go-to, is there another tool that you can use with more intention in certain situations? And then the last one here for our type eights is to learn to be receptive. So nines usually are very receptive to people, experiences, and ideas and will take time to react. Eights, on the other hand, will almost make instantaneous judgments and assessments and respond immediately. So before you go into that and make a judgment, make a reaction immediately, ask yourself, you know, just because I have a certain reaction doesn't mean that I know all I need to know right now. Let me put my reactions aside, not share them just yet, and then fully listen to what other people are trying to tell me about the situation could be a way to go about that. And then for our type nines, known as the peacemaker, their wings are going to be the type eight and then the type one, all or not all, but both in the body type of center of intelligence. And the one way that they can use, well, the three ways that they can use their wings are to make friends with their anger, take quick action, and then step into their personal power. And right away, you know, I'm looking at these and thinking, gosh, it's so interesting how this is the exact opposite advice of what we've been talking about, taking quick action. We've actually been talking about slowing down, we've actually been talking about tempering the anger a little bit. And here we're saying, make friends with it, do it more, take quicker action. And so it really is just such a reminder of how once you understand your personality, regardless, you know, if you're using the Enneagram or what tool you're using, um, you can really get on a path of growth that is meant specifically for you. So making friends with our anger. So anger can be an ally and it can be a source of energy. Eights are much more aware of their anger and are very comfortable using it, while nines, even though they're in that body center where the emotional strong struggle is anger and rage, nines will tend to dull it down, specifically to themselves. Um, the anger, they call it the anger that went to sleep. And so nines can allow themselves to feel anger, um, but it's not as common for them to allow themselves to express it directly. So they end up coming off very passive, aggressive. And so the benefit of waking up to this anger as a type nine is that it allows for the feelings of all the feelings, the feeling of all the feelings, and allows nines to express themselves more clearly and to be able to take that that action, that quicker action. Um, Brene Brown has that that quote that's like basically it says this if you if you're not able to feel you know hard emotions, you're also dulling out the good ones. And so this comes up a lot for type sevens who don't ever want to feel uncomfortable emotions. And so they will distract and run away from their emotions too. And nines do this sometimes too, especially when it comes to anger, but by dolling their anger, they end up dulling all of their feelings and emotions. So, how can nines make friends with better friends with anger? Um, one tip is to pay attention to your body's cues when you feel angry or upset in any way. So this might be um a feeling in your stomach, you might feel you something happening in your throat, you might feel your chest getting constricted, wherever, however, that anger, like whenever you feel upset, specifically with that anger emotion, start to pay attention. You don't have to express it just yet, but where do you feel it in your body and make a note of that? And then pay attention to that sensation when it comes up in the future. And that's going to really help you understand more about your anger. And so you, you know, you don't have to question, am I angry right now? Am I feeling angry? Now that you know what anger feels like in your body, when you feel that sensation, you'll know, okay, I'm angry, and then be able to make a decision on how you want to express that and let that out. Another way to understand how you show up with anger is just to ask others, like, how do you know when I'm angry? Um, how do you know that I'm up? How do you know that I'm upset? So you might get some answers that that surprise you, but will also be helpful with you making friends with that anger. Taking quick action is another way that nines can channel some of that eight energy. Eights like to move things forward, so they will take clear action and do it very quickly. Nines, on the other hand, tend to be a little bit more deliberate and will think about various alternative perspectives before they take action. Um, and sometimes this can lead to secondary action versus taking immediate action. And what I mean by this is maybe you were going to go work on an email sequence that you were gonna write, or you were gonna plan your content out, or you were gonna start creating the outline for a course or whatever it is that you were gonna do for work, but instead you found yourself working in the garden, which for most of us and most situations, that is a great way to connect with an out, you know, an activity outside of work to connect with ourselves, to give ourselves some quiet time, maybe a creativity, connect with our creativity out there. Um, but for nine, sometimes they will use things like this to actually avoid facing that primary action. So gardening, um, doing the dishes, watching TV, getting into a habit. And actually, if you listen to the episode with Anne Gadd when she was um on Sex in the Enneagram, she talked about this. She used an example that came to mind when I was writing the notes for this. And she said, you know, she would be on her way to the bedroom to get, you know, be with her husband. And then on the way, she would notice, oh, the cat bowl needs to be refilled, oh, the dishes need to be put away. Oh, I need to rearrange this plant over here, put away the books on the counter or whatever. So she had all these little things talking about these secondary actions and kind of lost focus of that immediate action that happened. And so a question that nines can ask themselves is before you jump in to one of those things like your hobby or outside gardening, ask yourself, okay, wait just a second here. What task or maybe what work project am I avoiding by doing this activity? And so when you allow yourself to come back to that priority, take the needed action to complete it. So notice I'm distracting myself, come back to it and then just do the action that you need to do to knock it off your list because it's obviously important, it's on there for a reason. And then the third thing that our nines can do to tap into some of that eight energy is to step into your personal power. So nines have this willingness to step in and influence others, they can be very self-confident. Um, typically, they'll be fully present in the situation. Eights tend to be a little bit more attuned to the power and influence in a room and can leverage their presence to be felt in needed situations. And you know, you know what I'm talking about. Like you've been in those situations with those people where they don't maybe say a lot, but they just exude this powerful presence. So nines have that in them as well. We all do. Specifically, nines. So nines, though, tend to be more comfortable with behind the scenes or taking a back seat role, um, listening to others, medit meet not meditating, mediating between individuals and group groups rather than stepping into the front of the room, taking on that, you know, that power, that authority, leading from in front. So part of this starts with knowing what you are good at doing and believing that you have a right to influence other people. So um make a list of strengths of yours right now. If you're a type nine, what are you good at? What could you step into your power with? There's there's things that you have, and if you're having trouble, ask a couple other people, ask five other people what are those strengths that they see that you have. And then the next time that you interact with others, try keeping your attention on yourself versus you know, other people, the issue being discussed. And while you're doing that, keeping the attention um and that list of strengths in mind when you have that attention on yourself. So you're talking about a topic, you're doing a Facebook Live, you're this could even be while you're sitting down and writing, that energy will be channeled in the email that you write, the blog that you write. Um, before you hit play or record on a podcast episode, you know, remembering what are my strengths, focusing on yourself and using those, remembering those as you bring that powerful presence to the front and center. And then lastly, our wing one for the type nines, the three ways that they can channel that is to stay on top of your tasks, trust your gut, and express your reactions to people, ideas, and events. So ones are very good at checking things off their to-do list, very task-oriented. Nines might tend to push tasks off to a later date, um, where ones are going to get that task done as quickly as possible. They make to-do lists mentally, they make to-do lists in writing, and they have a lot of pride and pleasure and knowing when things get checked off from that list. So nines can step into this energy by making their own to-do list and checking them off as they go. Sometimes a trick to getting this done is to start with the smallest tasks first to gain momentum and get instant satisf satisfaction. So, a very practical way to start doing this is you know, your to do list for today or make a to do list for tomorrow and making sure that the things that you write and you know, don't overwhelm yourself, make it manageable. It doesn't need to be 20 things. What are the top three to five things that You need to get done. The second one is trust your gut. Again, nines and ones are both in that body center where they have that access to their instincts more so than their heart or their heads. But sometimes nines tend to be a little bit more repressed in this area. Um, whereas ones tend to trust their instincts much more. Um, nines won't always pay as much of attention to it because it can be uncomfortable if a feeling or emotion comes up where if they expressed it, it could sever the harmony with others that they value so much. So they might have an instinct, a reaction, initial, um, yeah, initial reaction that comes up, but they might they tend to repress it because they don't want to express it and upset anybody. Whereas ones are gonna be more comfortable doing that. So to become more gut trusting, um, start to ask yourself if you're a nine, what does my gut tell me about this? What does my gut say about this? What does it have to say? And experiment even just like once a day with expressing yourself and taking action based on that information. So we're typically going to have that feeling. We're typically gonna know what the answer is. And now the work for the nine is going to be practice expressing that opinion, even if it's something like you don't want to go to the restaurant that the rest of the group is suggesting, speak up. Your body is saying, nah, I don't want to go there. Speak up, express that opinion. Um, so that's just a that can be very uncomfortable. I'm not minimizing that at all. If that's something that you don't regularly do, even something like that could be very, could be kind of difficult to start off with. But things like that could be a great place to start expressing your opinion. And I think what you'll find is that people actually love hearing your opinion. They want to know what you're thinking, they want to know what where you really want to go, what you really want to do, and they'll actually appreciate it. And then the last thing to channel your type one wing is to express your actions to people, ideas, and events. So this is kind of piggybacking off a little bit about what we just chatted about trusting your gut. Ones tend to have a lot of opinions, and they will express quite a few of them. Nines have opinions, but they just don't express them as often. And similar to what we just talked about before this, um, the the work here is to practice once a day expressing an opinion to a new person, any opinion, and the more you practice, the more comfortable you'll get at expressing your reaction. So I kind of got ahead of myself and overlapped those, but that is it. We have covered all nine types, um, really all 18 types. Um, if you're talking about, you know, type seven, wing six, that being that type, but we talked about all the nine types and how they can use each of their wings. Um, you know, these are very practical ways to start to use the Enneagram for growth, to step into the person that you want to be, to have the confidence to get things accomplished or to take some time off and to relax, right? We've had very interesting um advice or recommendations for how to grow. And some of them are in exact opposite of one another, just depending on what type you are is going to determine like what you really need. You know, for a nine, it doesn't really make sense to tell somebody who typically is pretty good with relaxing just to relax. You know, that might be better advice for a type eight, but it doesn't make sense to say, you know, get in touch with your anger if you already have, if you're already in touch with your anger as an eight. So it really does benefit you tremendously to continue the work to find your dominant type if you have not found it yet, because there's going to be more and more that will unfold for you specifically, a specific path once you understand what your dominant type is. And then the advice, the guidance, the recommendations will make much more sense and be much more helpful to you when that happens. So thanks for hanging out during this Enneagram wing series. I loved having you here. I loved getting to talk about this and looking forward to our next Enneagram classroom topic next week.