Ian Morgan Cron, a bestselling author and speaker, offers insights into the Enneagram, a powerful personality typing system. He explains how it can enhance self-awareness and enrich our lives by revealing nine distinct personality types. Ian emphasizes that our worldview isn't the only 'normal' and compares personality to having many rooms in a house, each with its purpose. He also shares practical strategies to foster self-awareness, highlighting its importance for effective leadership and personal growth.
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insights INSIGHT
Enneagram Defined
The Enneagram is an ancient personality typing system with nine basic personality styles.
People adopt one dominant style in childhood to cope and navigate relationships.
insights INSIGHT
Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is the key predictor of success in leadership, according to a Cornell study.
This study focused on high-performing CEOs and their traits.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Success Factors
In Dale Carnegie training, success is linked to human skills, not just technical skills.
Self-awareness, communication, and other soft skills frequently emerged as crucial factors.
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This book uses the Enneagram, an ancient personality typing system, to help readers understand themselves and others better. It combines practical advice with Christian spirituality to foster deeper self-awareness, compassion for others, and a stronger connection with God. The authors provide introductions to each Enneagram type, questions to help identify one's number, and steps to pursue deeper self-awareness, making the Enneagram accessible and applicable in daily life.
Principles
Ray Dalio
In 'Principles: Life and Work', Ray Dalio shares the principles he has developed over his career that have helped him achieve success. The book is divided into three sections: the first section explains how Dalio's principles were formed from his personal and professional experiences; the second section outlines life principles, such as embracing reality, being radically open-minded, and understanding the importance of pain and reflection in personal growth; and the third section focuses on work principles, including the use of radical truth and radical transparency to transform an organization. Dalio advocates for systematizing decision-making into algorithms, learning from failures, and building a culture where it is okay to make mistakes but unacceptable not to learn from them.
Ian Morgan Cron: The Road Back to You
Ian Morgan Cron is a bestselling author, speaker, trained psychotherapist, songwriter, and Episcopal priest, but he may be best known for popularizing the Enneagram. The Enneagram is a personality typing system identifying nine types of people and how they relate to one another and the world. His popular Enneagram book, The Road Back to You* gave fresh language and interest in this assessment.
Ian enjoys sharing about the Enneagram with audiences of all sizes because of its power for igniting personal growth, and how it can enrich our personal and professional lives. His newest book The Story of You* helps people go a step further, using Enneagram wisdom to uncover and rewrite our own false narratives so we can live life more fully.
In this conversation, Ian and I look at the core aspects of the Enneagram model and how it can help us understand ourselves better so we can also support others more effectively. We highlight the nine Enneagram types and their key traits and distinctions. Then, we discuss how the first steps leaders might take in order to start raising their own self-awareness.
Key Points
Too often we believe that how we see the world is “normal” instead of recognizing that there are many normal ways to see the world.
Personality is like the rooms of our home. We have a favorite room but we still use all the other rooms when its appropriate.
The 9 Enneagram Types
The Perfectionist - Ethical, dedicated and reliable, they are motivated by a desire to live the right way, improve the world, and avoid fault and blame.
The Helper - Warm, caring and giving, they are motivated by a need to be loved and needed, and to avoid acknowledging their own needs.
The Performer (or Achiever) - Success-oriented, image-conscious and wired for productivity, they are motivated by a need to be (or appear to be) successful and to avoid failure.
The Romantic (or Individualist) - Creative, sensitive and moody, they are motivated by a need to be understood, experience their oversized feelings and avoid being ordinary.
The Investigator - Analytical, detached and private, they are motivated by a need to gain knowledge, conserve energy and avoid relying on others.
The Loyalist - Committed, practical and witty, they are worst-case-scenario thinkers who are motivated by fear and the need for security.
The Enthusiast - Fun, spontaneous and adventurous, they are motivated by a need to be happy, to plan stimulating experiences and to avoid pain.
The Challenger - Commanding, intense and confrontational, they are motivated by a need to be strong and avoid feeling weak or vulnerable.
The Peacemaker - Pleasant, laid back and accommodating, they are motivated by a need to keep the peace, merge with others and avoid conflict.
Resources Mentioned
The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery* by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile
The Story of You: An Enneagram Journey to Becoming Your True Self* by Ian Morgan Cron
Take the Integrative Enneagram iEQ9
Typology Institute Enneagram courses
Related Episodes
Enhance Your Self-Awareness, with Daniel Goleman (episode 353)
The Way to Be More Self-Aware, with Tasha Eurich (episode 442)
Discover Who You Are, with Hortense le Gentil (episode 459)
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