Invitation to Workshop: “Finding Our Way Home” February 9

Dear Reader,

If you or someone you know would like to start the year exploring how we Love and how we engage with Others and with Life itself…

if you are looking for an adventure…

or healing…

this workshop in Chicago based on my newest book may be for you and/or your friends…

I’d like to invite you to:

Finding Our Way Home

 

Co-presented by Ruthie Landis and

guest author, artist, and musician Elizabeth Wagele

Saturday, February 9, 2013

9:30 a.m.- 4:30 p.m.

 

Our tango with Loss, Grief, and Dying offers us a

poignant opportunity to know our True Self more fully,

explore how we Love, and how we engage with Others and with Life itself.


Come join us for a “happening”; a safe, playful, and provocative day of learning and connecting with others, while we find ways of looking at that which we fear and avoid, our own mortality.  As the centerpiece of the day, prolific author, artist, and pianist, Elizabeth Wagele will offer her latest book, The Enneagram of Death, as well as her live music and comic perspective to the facilitated workshop experience. Coming together, actors and dancers, people of all ages and backgrounds, with curiosity and open hearts, will share an unforgettable and truly enlivening day as we each continue to

Find Our Way Home.

 

at The Ethical Humanist Society, 7574 N. Lincoln Ave. Skokie, Illinois

Pre-registration-$75———Register after January 25- $85

(includes signed book and light lunch)

To register email ruthienergy@ruthlandis.com  or PayPal at ruthlandis.com

 

Yours truly,

Elizabeth Wagele

http://www.wagele.com for information on The Enneagram of Death and other books and essays.

“Questioners” (Type 6) as Children

From "The Enneagram of Parenting" by E. Wagele

Now read about all the nine Enneagram types as children on this WordPress blog under the category “Enneagram Books and Children.”   

Personality typology explains why we frustrate each other. It’s not always because we don’t think straight or don’t have common sense, it’s often because we’re born with different ways of looking at the world. This produces different values. When we try to walk in others’ shoes (when we learn the Enneagram), our frustration eases and dealing with our family members, students, teachers, or fellow students becomes easier.

The Enneagram personality system had been around for about twenty years. At first it was kept a secret. Its leaders thought the world couldn’t handle it. Then the positive ones among them exerted more influence. They wanted to share their newfound prize and tell the world about it. Classes and books about the Enneagram sprang up starting mainly in 1987.

In 1997, I wrote the first book for using the Enneagram with children in families and schools, The Enneagram of Parenting. Each type has a different learning style, for example, and different paces, outlooks on life, and needs to nurture and be nurtured. In 2007, I wrote the first book for young children to learn the Enneagram by reading it themselves or having it read to them, Finding the Birthday Cake. Both books are full of cartoons and are easily accessible.

Questioner children have busy, alert minds, are suspicious of flattery, and are always on the lookout for danger. They can be quick-tempered, brave, and anti-authoritarian. Some are assertive, others are timid. Stevie Six is a character from Finding the Birthday Cake:

Here is a test from Finding the Birthday Cake:

See my list of Famous People’s Enneagram and MBTI types.

More Famous People are on my Psychology Today blog and my WordPress blog.

See my Happy Introvert and Creative Enneagram on You Tube.

Buy The Enneagram of Parenting

Kindle edition

Buy Finding the Birthday Cake

How Young Were You When You Chose Your Career?

Jack London, Adventure Enneagram type

Were you forced to take over the family business? Did you know you wanted to do anything but what your parents did? Did you want to join a circus when you grew up? What did you learn by good or reverse example from your family career-wise?

This may sound strange to some of you and logical to others: my psyche picked out my passion in life, which turned into my first career, by the time I was four years old. It informed me, without my knowing it, by means of a dream. I tell the dream in my upcoming book on death and dying so I won’t tell it here. Suffice it to say that the dream drove me into my inner world in waking life and to actively pursue my love for music. My second career of writing came much later. I’m an Observer in the Enneagram.

My Helper type mother was interested in art but didn’t have a career other than homemaker. One of her brothers, possibly a Perfectionist, worked for Lockheed Airplane Company. He knew he wanted to be an electrical engineer from the age of six. The other brother, a Peace Seeker, sold iron or steel. Their father started out as a clerk in a bank in Cripple Creek, CO. He was most enthusiastic about selling real estate, but wasn’t very successful.

My father, an Observer with a Questioner wing, was a metallurgist, figuring out how to extract minerals from ores by means of chemistry and physics. He worked for the Bureau of Mines. Then the University of California hired him as a professor and he consulted on the side for the Union Pacific Railroad. He knew from an early age that he wanted to be a scientist.

His brother-in-law, an Asserter, ran a successful business that manufactured flowerpots. He was protective of and kind to his employees. His wife, my father’s sister, was an Adventurer. She didn’t have a job. She did something naughty. She told us she played bridge a lot, but she was really going to casinos to gamble. My father’s other sister, a Questioner, was one of the first women to be an executive in a large clothing company, Lerner’s. This was in the 1930’s and 40’s and later. In fact, she’s my only aunt or grandmother who had a career. My father’s brother, a Peace Seeker, was an attorney for the Pentagon. He negotiated contracts with outside companies.

My father’s father, an immigrant from Odessa, Russia, started out selling junk in Omaha Nebraska. He moved his family to Salt Lake City around 1909, opened a bar with gambling in the back, and invested in mines. He made a lot of money and lost most of it in the crash of 1930.

When he was a little boy, my husband, Gus, didn’t want to work when he grew up as a reaction to his parents’ pressuring him to be successful. He ended up working hard, however. An Observer, he majored in art at Cal and loved to paint. He became a high school teacher of Educationally Handicapped students, preferring that to history, which he had started out teaching.

His father, a Perfectionist, started out as a teller during the Depression. Someone advised him to go to college, which he did, and he eventually rose to bank vice president. One of Gus’ grandfathers sold pianos. The other, a German immigrant, was a self-taught baker. When he had a bakery in Oakland, young Jack London delivered bread for him.

For more famous types, see my list on wagele.com, my Psychology Today blog, and my WordPress blog.

Also, check out my videos on You Tube: The Happy Introvert and The Creative Enneagram

Richard Branson, Enneagram Adventurer, OWS Backer

Richard Branson

Sir Richard Branson (born 1950 in England), is the multi-billionaire, risk-taking entrepreneur of the Virgin Group (including Virgin Records, Virgin Airlines, and hundreds of other ventures). He’s an Adventurer in the Enneagram personality system: “My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.”

Adventurers are often idealists. Branson protested the Sudanese government expulsion of aid groups from the Darfur region. He joined the project Soldiers of Peace, a movie against all wars and for global peace. He’s a signatory of Global Zero, a non-profit international initiative to eliminate all nuclear weapons worldwide.

Branson pledged to invest the profits of Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Trains (about $3 billion) in research for environmentally friendly fuels.

Though he belongs to the wealthy 1%, he says he identifies with the 99%. He said, “A few greedy people in the banking community nearly brought down the world, and that’s made people angry. I think not just the banking community, but the whole of the business community needs to make sure that capitalism puts on a genuinely positive face and gets out there and helps change the world to an extent that the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators can feel they’ve done their jobs and go home. It’s up to every single person who works in business to play their part, even in a small way, to rectify the damage that’s been done. What they’re campaigning for is for businesses to become forces of good. If businesses can become forces of good and can grow hearts and get out there and not just be money-making machines, then, you know, I think that will be all for the better.”

Hmmm. That statement sounds a bit naïve to me. Adventurers are known for their optimism and sometimes their over-optimism. Given how entrenched the corporations and banks are with the government and the rest of the powerful, a superficial change of face isn’t relevant. As of now, capitalism has failed. A genuine change must take place deep down in the country’s gut. That’s one of the reasons we need a prolonged period of turning inward to percolate new solutions. They may include many of Branson’s ideals: non-violence, empathy, ecology; but a new way of managing our money is needed. I’m not going to hold MY breath waiting for businesses to turn kind so the demonstrators can go home satisfied. We need patience and time to think. We need to use our introversion: contemplation, planning, thinking things through. We need to do research and use our logic. We need to be in the streets talking and demonstrating, and at home (if we’re lucky enough to have a home) writing about these things. We’ll make our lists and demands and act on them later.

In 2006, Branson formed Virgin Comics and Virgin Animation, an entertainment company focused on creating new stories and characters for a global audience. The company was founded with author Deepak Chopra and others. Branson launched the Virgin Health Bank in 2007, offering parents-to-be the opportunity to store their baby’s umbilical cord blood stem cells in private and public stem cell banks.

In 2007, Branson also announced a new Global science and technology prize—The Virgin Earth Challenge—to encourage technological advancements for the good of mankind. It will award $25 million to the individual or group who can demonstrate a commercially viable design resulting in the net removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases each year for ten years or more without harmful effects, contributing to the stability of the Earth’s climate. Branson will be joined in the adjudication of the Prize by Al Gore and others.

Adventurers are sometimes called Epicureans: Branson and the Natirar Resort development in New Jersey opened in 2009 with the Ninety Acres Culinary Center. It includes a restaurant run by chef David Felton, cooking school, wine school, working farm, luxury resort and spa.

Adventurers love fun and excitement: In 2010 Branson became patron of the UK’s Gordon Bennett  gas balloon race, which has 16 hydrogen balloons flying across Europe.In January 1991, he crossed the Pacific from Japan to Arctic Canada, 6,700 miles, in a balloon, breaking the record, with a speed of 245 miles per hour. In 2004, Branson set a record by travelling from Dover to Calais in a Gibbs Aquada in 1 hour, 40 minutes and 6 seconds, the fastest crossing of the English Channel in an amphibious vehicle. In 2010 he tried for the world record of putting a round of golf in the dark at the Black Light Mini Golf in The Docklands, Melbourne, Australia. scored 41 on the par 45 course.

Richard Branson lives the life of a 1 per center but he says he’s with the 99%. He’s contributing to make the world a better place on many levels. He’s a good example to other super wealthy people, who often think they’re above concerning themselves with the problems of the world.

See my website, Wagele.com and my blog on Psychology Today for more famous Enneagram types.

An Otherworldly “Observer” Named Einstein

Drawing by Elizabeth Wagele

Albert Einstein was an Observer in the Enneagram system. “My passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility,” he wrote, “has always stood in curious contrast to a marked lack of desire for direct association with men and women. I am a horse for single harness, not cut out for tandem or teamwork. I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my own family. These ties have always been accompanied by a vague aloofness, and the wish to withdraw into myself increases with the years.

Such isolation is sometimes bitter, but I do not regret being cut off from the understanding and sympathy of other men. I lose something by it, to be sure, but I am compensated for it in being rendered independent of the customs, opinions and prejudices of others, and am not tempted to rest my peace of mind upon such shiftless foundations.”

Born at Ulm, Wuerttemberg, Germany, in 1879 he died in 1955. His boyhood was spent in Munich and away at a school in Switzerland. He attended lectures while supporting himself by teaching mathematics and physics at the Polytechnic School at Zurich until 1900. After a year as tutor, he was appointed examiner at the Patent Office at Bern where he became a Swiss citizen and obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Zurich.

 In 1909 he was appointed Extraordinary Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Zurich. In 1911 he accepted the Chair of Physics at Prague and returned to his own Polytechnic School at Zurich as full professor the next year. In 1913 he became director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute in Berlin. He was elected a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, which enabled him to devote all his time to research.

 In the 1920s he was elected to the Royal Society, made a member of the Amsterdam and Copenhagen Academies, and received honorary degrees from the Universities of Geneva, Manchester, Rostock and Princeton. He received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in recognition of his theory of relativity, and a Nobel Price in 1921.

He became a member of the Institute de France and received honorary degrees from Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Zurich, Yeshiva, Harvard, London and Brussels. In 1935 he was awarded the American Franklin Institute Medal.

In 1932 Dr. Einstein became Professor of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics and served as the Head of the Mathematics Department at the Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, N.J. In 1940 he became a U.S. citizen.

In 1905 he published four important papers: one explained a method for determining molecular dimensions; one explained the photo-electric effect, the basis of electronics, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1921; one presented a molecular kinetic theory of heat; and one was the first of his Special Relativity Theory, “Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.”

Dr. Phillipp Frank, Dr. Einstein’s biographer, in 1947 wrote that Einstein was saintly, noble, lovable and radiated humor, warmth and kindliness. He loved jokes and laughed easily.

Outward appearance meant nothing to him. He was described as a stranger, a close neighbor, yet at the same time a visitor from another world. As he grew older his otherworldiness became more pronounced, yet he was still warm. Princetonians got used to the long-haired figure in pullover sweater and unpressed slacks wandering in their midst, a knitted stocking cap covering his head in winter.

Ingrid Stabb and I  feature Einstein as one of our Famous People Observer examples in The Career Within You on page 132.

This blog is largely based on his NY Times obituary.

For more Famous People see my Psychology Today blogs and my web site.

Gandhi the Perfectionist

Drawing by Elizabeth Wagele

In the Sunday Book Review of March 27, 2011, Hari Kunzru reviewed Joseph Lelyveld’s book about Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India. Kunzru’s review is called Appreciating Gandhi Through His Human Side. Lelyveld, a New York Times executive editor, was a former correspondent in India and South Africa. Ingrid Stabb and I list Gandhi as a Perfectionist in our book The Career Within You (page 17) because of his strong adherence to his principles. The rest of this  blog consists of parts of Kunzru’s article.

Gandhi (1869-1948) came from a conservative merchant caste, became part politician and part saint and renewed the tradition of Hindu asceticism in the hope not just of political independence, but also of a social and spiritual transformation. 

Gandhi was attracted to Theosophy, a mixture of Hinduism and Western Spiritualism. In 1894 Gandhi identified himself in a newspaper advertisement for a series of self-published tracts as “Agent for the Esoteric Christian Union and the London Vegetarian Society.” When he discovered Tolstoy, his creed of universal brotherhood and radical nonviolence affected him profoundly.

Gandhi became a spokesman for the Indian business elite of Natal Province in South Africa, lobbying against a system of discriminatory legislation, which was rapidly evolving toward full-blown apartheid. Despite his later claims, Gandhi did not immediately champion the rights of indentured laborers, the underclass of mainly low-caste South Indians who had been transported to labor in mines and on plantations in conditions of semi-slavery. He was also yet to become the staunch anti-imperialist of later years. Hoping to gain concessions from the British colonial authorities, he organized an Indian stretcher battalion to serve in the Boer War, and in an ignoble episode in 1906 assisted (also as the leader of a corps of stretcher-bearers) in the brutal suppression of a Zulu uprising.

Throughout Gandhi’s time in South Africa there is no sign of any attempt to make common cause with the black majority. Imprisoned with Zulu convicts, he reported un-self-consciously that “Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized—the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals.”

There has been controversy about Gandhi’s political rivalries and his shortcomings as a husband and father. Mr. Lelyveld’s frank discussion of Gandhi’s erotically charged friendship with the German-Jewish architect and bodybuilder Hermann Kallenbach is likely to ruffle feathers, especially in a country where homosexual activity was a criminal offense until 2009. Gandhi left his wife to live at Kallenbach’s house in Johannesburg for a period, and Kallenbach donated to Gandhi the 1,100 acres that became their communal Tolstoy Farm in 1910. As Mr. Lelyveld notes, “in an age when the concept of Platonic love gains little credence,” the romantic tone of their letters (including pet names) is likely to be read as indication of a straightforward homosexual intimacy. Yet it is also clear in Mr. Lelyveld’s account that Gandhi’s celibacy was a profound and deeply felt position.

Gandhi returned to India in 1914 and threw himself into the struggle for self-rule. Repeatedly imprisoned by the British, he led a campaign of civil disobedience, culminating in the Salt March movement of 1930, which, as Mr. Lelyveld writes, “shook the pillars of the Raj” and resulted in 90,000 arrests after Gandhi defied a British tax by the simple act of going to the seashore and harvesting salt.

Mr. Lelyveld portrays Gandhi as a disciplined religious ascetic. Where he ate, what he ate, who cooked it—all were properly political questions for a leader trying to maintain shaky unity between Hindus and Muslims, while engaged in a battle against the caste system, which was one of the foundations of Hindu belief. By voluntarily performing actions considered polluting or degrading, like collecting human waste and living with untouchables, Gandhi earned the right to offer new definitions of what was uplifting and purifying—definitions that were both spiritual and political. Mr. Lelyveld has restored human depth to the Mahatma, the plaster saint, allowing his flawed human readers to feel a little closer to his lofty ideals of nonviolence and universal brotherhood.

Steve Jobs and My New FAMOUS PEOPLE Series

Drawing by Elizabeth Wagele

Sometimes people ask us Enneagram authors about the types of famous people. We have to guess and we sometimes disagree with each other. I think of this as a good-natured game. Famous People often only tell us what they want us to know. Their whole personalities may not be communicated to us. Still, their possible types can be fun to discuss and it is a way to learn about differences.

This marks the beginning of a series of FAMOUS PEOPLE and their Enneagram types. See a list of famous people and Enneagram types and MBTI_R types on my web site, too. Some characters in movies are included. This series will be published every Tuesday either in WordPress or Psychology Today.

In The Career Within You, Ingrid Stabb and I listed Steve Jobs as an Adventurer type. Since then, we met someone who knew him and is familiar enough with his personality and the Enneagram to believe he is a Perfectionist. She saw him micromanage and saw him insist that his employees persevere almost to a punishing degree. And she saw his angry outbursts when they made mistakes.

The Perfectionist’s arrows (the two types connected to the Perfectionist by lines in the Enneagram figure) support this classification: Jobs has been a visionary in his field, always looking for something new and better, supporting his Adventurer arrow. His insistence on elegant aesthetics in his products supports his Romantic arrow. The aesthetics are from the inside out, including the engineering designs of the products.

The Enneagram Figure

This is based on the brief description in The Career Within You, page 191: “Steve Job’s’ (born 1954) innovations range from the first type fonts used on Macintosh computers, to the award-winning interface of music iPods, to iPads. With Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, Jobs created one of the first commercially successful personal computers. Among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse–driven graphical user interface, Jobs also later served as CEO of Pixar Animation Studios. He also essentially got rid of the mouse! And he did away with the floppy disk. He is one of the individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who understood the importance of design and the crucial role aesthetics play in public appeal. His products are both functional and elegant.”

David Carr of the NY Times thinks the iTunes and App stores are his most remarkable creations. I was impressed to learn that he bought Pixar from George Lucas for $5 million, invested $5 million more, and sold it to Disney in a deal valued at $7.4 billion. I’m one of those happy non-technical people who have never had a computer that wasn’t an Apple.

Jobs quotes that reflect his personality type:

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” Perfectionists often strive to be honest and efficient.

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” Perfectionists often live by the principle that there are more important things than money.

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”

“I was worth over $1,000,000 when I was 23, and over $10,000,000 when I was 24, and over $100,000,000 when I was 25, and it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money.” Again, Jobs feels it’s important to let people know that money doesn’t drive him.

“The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into their products.”  Jobs seems to think creating the best possible world is helped, not hurt, by a competitive attitude.

The Career Within You

What 3 Elements Do “Questioners” Look for in Jobs?

Drawing by Elizabeth Wagele

Some Questioners like a job where they can fight for a cause. Some like a job where they can use their gifts of loyalty and compassion. Others want to use their intellect. Still others care mostly about things like safety, security, and having a boss they can trust.

No matter what your Enneagram type, however, according to Ingrid Stabb in The Career Within You, if you’re looking for a new career or assessing your present career, it’s likely that one of the following career needs will outweigh the others:

• the opportunity to work on your interests or passions
• the income it will provide, or
• successful affiliation with other people. Here’s a Questioner example of each:

Affiliating and fighting for causes

Ouklemedao worked to foster developing governments in Ethiopia and Palau after graduating from law school. Then he joined a nonprofit called the Consumers Union, where he discovered a discrepancy between what the group sought to accomplish as a civil rights organization and how it was treating its own lower-level employees. The group’s terminology was an example of the problem. There were “the professional staff” (the lawyers) and “the nonprofessional staff” (the workers, who were all women of color). The professional staff acted surprised when a nonprofessional came up with a good idea. Even though he was seen as a troublemaker stirring things up, Ouklemedao pushed for and held a series of meetings to help employees resolve problems such as this in the workplace.

Working for money and gaining knowledge

Hailey joined a start-up after college, learned accounting on the fly with her college textbooks, and got an accounting degree in her off hours. Three years later her company had millions in revenue and employed over a hundred people, and she was fulfilling the role of company comptroller. Accounting wasn’t stimulating enough, however, and her hard work wasn’t yielding the rewards she expected. She then got an MBA and chose a traditional path at the Clorox Company in order to best obtain classical brand management experience. At such a large corporation she didn’t like having to go through seven layers of bosses to get decisions made. She realized start-ups were better environments for her to use her strong problem-solving skills. Once Hailey moved to a product marketing position at a more entrepreneurial online photo company, she was pleased with her career choices.

Following her passion and expressing loyalty

Arlette’s career path didn’t look like it would end up where it has. After college, she studied in France on a Fulbright scholarship, then came back to New York to pursue acting and get a graduate degree in French literature. After getting married and having two children, she became interested in social welfare and worked one-on-one with kids with extremely serious emotional problems. She student taught in East Harlem and got a special education credential. When she substituted in high schools and in difficult fourth to sixth grades classes, a principal heard about how well she worked with difficult children. Children respond to her enthusiastically because of her humor, compassion, and loyalty to them.

(This is the 6th in series of career motivations.

See my Psychology Today blog of 5/17/11 for Perfectionists:             http://www.psychologytoday.com/

my WordPress blog of 6-14-11 for Helpers: http://ewagele.wordpress.com/

my Psychology Today blog of 6-21-11 for Achievers,

my WordPress blog of 6-28-11 for Romantics,

and my Psychology Today blog of 7-5-11 for Observers.)

 

Buy the The Career Within You,

Career Within You e-book

Are You Motivated by Achievement, Power, or Affiliation?

What motivates you?

I heard about a survey questioning what motivates people: achievement, power, or affiliation. (In a future blog I’m going to talk about the three motivations we talk about in “The Career Within You”: affiliation, passion, and income.)

What motivates me? As an Observer type, I like power over my life and my individual projects but I’m only interested in controlling other people to the extent of keeping them from bothering me. Luckily, nobody is bothering me these days. Affiliation is a bit of an issue for me. I often wonder if my social life is what it should be. It’s quite good right now. I love my friends and make new ones from time to time. Enjoying coffee and company at the local cafe. Am I motivated by achievement? Not by making lots of money or having fancy possessions but by doing things that interest me. Achievement to me means having a daily life that’s satisfying: trying to have a good marriage, learning to play the piano, working on my books and drawings.

Enneagram Perfectionist, as all types, vary somewhat according to whether they’re introverts or extraverts. All Perfectionists have a habit of striving to improve, achieving in one way or another. Power means the degree to which they reach perfection or control over their lives. Affiliation would apply more to a social subtype than a self-preservation subtype, though we all need a healthy amount of it.

Enneagram Helpers want to achieve making other people as happy as they can. They feel powerful from doing that and from giving good advice to people. And of course they’re succeeding at affiliation.

Enneagram Achievers want power, which is more likely to translate into a job where they earn money so the can buy a house and car that shows they’ve earned money. They like to affiliate with a good team and employer, and they have friends; they’re usually extraverts.

Enneagram Romantics tend to be introverts. Romantics rarely rise to the most powerful position in a company, but of course we all want our share of power. We all want to affiliate with the group that matches us, perhaps in this case one that’s unusual—or artistic. Their Achievements will depend on their interests, probably of an artistic or humanistic nature.

Enneagram Questioners want power to handle their safety concerns. They want to achieve security and have less to fear. Affiliation? There’s often safety in numbers. So yes.

Enneagram Adventurers want power over their lives in the having fun department. If they didn’t have enough freedom and choices they’d go mad. Achievement means attaining their goals of travel, interesting things to do, including jobs and entertainment. Affiliation for most of them is important, too.

Enneagram Asserters would put power first. Affiliation will vary; many are independent, but being with others often makes work and play more interesting. Achievement, such as promotions, is usually important… most Asserters like money, which contributes to their power, so they like to earn a big salary.

Enneagram Peace Seekers would be attracted to Affiliation first. They usually like other people. Power isn’t high on their list except for the power to stay peaceful and to keep conflict away. Achievement is especially important in the area of staying comfortable. A cozy environment would be a worthwhile achievement, including a good job and a satisfactory life.

Click here to Purchase The Enneagram Made Easy

Cal Student Votes for Enneagram! (Guest author Theresa Hoang)

The Enneagram ("Any-a-gram")

A Vote for the Enneagram!

To start off, this is not a blog entry to bash on people who do not believe in the use of enneagram. My goal is not to change your mind (whether or not you believe in the enneagram) or anything; this is just to express my feelings and opinions about it.

As a college student, I have, and still, many times wondered and stressed about what I would major in (and even worse, what I want to do for the rest of my life). There are so many choices out there! Of course, there are the subjects I know I definitely do not want to major in. Like computer science (Where’s that “print” button?! I just saw it a moment ago…) and art (What do you mean that’s a cool abstract painting? That’s my self portrait!).

Then there are the subjects I think might want to major in, but am not sure. Like sociology, music, integrative biology… and of course, psychology. I mean, who hasn’t considered psychology as a major? Psychology is the most popular major in my university. Whenever I talk to people about psychology, I always hear “No way! We’re twinsies! I’m doing it too!” and “Dude … do it! It’s interesting!” But it’s not always positive comments I hear. I have heard comments that psychology, and more specifically, the enneagram, is not all it is hyped up to be. That all it does is try to “label” you and put you in a box. That it is just common sense and shouldn’t even be called science. However, I disagree.

The enneagram isn’t trying to put you in a box. The purpose of the enneagram is to help you find more about yourself. I mean, if you deciding which of the 9 types of people you are means putting yourself in a box, then other numerous things that many people think about in everyday life are also restricting. For example, labeling yourself as a “morning person” or a “night person” would be putting yourself in a box. It’s just human nature to distinguish certain characteristics and how to best use those to your advantage. Just as a “night person” would rather stay up into the wee hours into the night to be creative or to do work, an “Adventurer” would rather be up and doing something interesting [active] instead of, say, watching paint dry.

It also isn’t telling you what to do nor is it restricting at all. The enneagram doesn’t say “According to these bullet points, you are a Helper. So now go help people 24/7.” It is just showing that there are many other people like you out there, and based on some of your characteristics, you seem to be like a Helper (or any of the other 8 personalities) and you might benefit from the suggestions specifically made for people like you.

So this is just my opinion of the enneagram. I love to hear all these contrasting opinions on topics and subjects. It gives me a more well-rounded and less biased view on it and it makes me think about what I really think of certain subjects. And apparently, despite all the statements that disagree with certain points of psychology, including the enneagram, psychology is still definitely on my extensive list of “maybe” majors.

And continuing on, there is the subject that I know I will major in. Now on to figure out what that is…