Motives, Meaning, and the Enneagram with Jeff Cook

Our friend Jeff Cook—writer, podcaster, and Enneagram systems thinker—is back with us to discuss his recent book (volume 1 of a series because of course it is): about the Enneagram. Jeff explains how the Enneagram names the “why” beneath our choices, conflicts, faith, and love. Randy shares how the framework has sharpened his self-awareness and softened his edges. And Kyle characteristically pushes back a bit on evidence, parsimony, and the risk of thick theories outrunning data. The result is a lively, generous exploration that treats the Enneagram as a language for motive rather than a box for behavior.

Jeff starts by laying a foundation—head, heart, and body—as an ancient scaffold echoed in philosophy, spirituality, and clinical practice. From there, he maps how core desires show up under stress and security and why the hardest question, “What do you want?”, may be the doorway to identity and change. We pressure-test the model where it matters most: relationships. Randy gets a live read on Eight-with-Six dynamics—strength meeting vigilance, autonomy meeting reassurance—and why "body types" experience control and agency in ways that feel physical, not theoretical. We also tackle the cottage-industry problem, academic standards, and how to treat the Enneagram like a Wittgensteinian ladder: use it when it helps, set it aside when it doesn’t.

If you’ve been burned by rigid labels, you’ll appreciate our insistence on flexibility, nuance, and practical outcomes. If you’re curious about real-life gains, Jeff’s focus on gifts will resonate: name what you uniquely bring—clarity, courage, steadiness, empathy—and aim it outward. Useful, not ultimate. Humble, not hazy.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Framing The Debate
• 3:36 Introducing Jeff Cook And His Projects
• 5:12 Why A New Enneagram Book Series
• 7:31 Skepticism, Standards, And Academic Rigor
• 11:44 Enneagram As A Theory Of Motive
• 16:42 Motive, Theology, And Authorial Intent
• 22:30 The Limits Of Evidence And Parsimony
• 27:00 Head, Heart, Body As Foundational Map
• 31:12 The Hard Question: What Do You Want?
• 36:10 Tool Or Truth? Ladder And Limits
• 39:20 Language, Labels, And Flexibility
• 44:10 Cottage Industry Or Coherent Field
• 47:20 Naming Gifts And Real-Life Value
• 52:20 Live Typing Dynamics: Five Patterns
• 56:52 Predictability, Risk, And Validation
• 1:01:20 Relationship Read: Eight With Six
• 1:07:20 Control, Agency, And Body Types
• 1:12:00 Workshops, Community, And Practice
• 1:16:20 Where To Find The Book And Network
• 1:18:20 Closing Credits And Support Options

Transcript

Randy: 0:06

I'm Randy, the pastor half of the podcast, and my friend Kyle's a philosopher. This podcast hosts conversations at the intersection of philosophy, theology, and spirituality.

Kyle: 0:15

We also invite experts to join us, making public a space that we've often enjoyed off-air around the proverbial table with a good drink at the back corner of a dark pub.

Randy: 0:24

Thanks for joining us, and welcome to A Pastor and a Philosopher Walking to a Bar.

Kyle: 0:36

So today we have our friend Jeff Cook back on the show. Regular listeners will know him from our occasional QA's that we haven't done for a long time. We should probably get back to some of those. But also from a previous conversation we had with him and his uh podcast co-host TJ about the Enneagram. So that link to that episode is in the show notes. If you haven't heard that might be a good place to start. Uh Jeff has several podcasts that you're going to hear about, all about the Enneagram, the main one being Around the Circle. And he also uh with TJ recently wrote a book about the Enneagram called Around the Circle, and that was kind of the inspiration for this conversation. But we take it in a lot of different directions.

Randy: 1:11

Yeah. I mean, I think we come at it from two different angles. You come at it from the angle of just like, I'm just not sure this is real. Right? Is that is that a decent way to sum up your sure. Why not? Good, good. Uh and I'm somewhat convinced it's real because of what it's done in my life. Yeah. But also, um, in how Jeff pointed this out correctly, you could say the same thing about Christianity and about many, many other things. That there's a lot of people who do a lot of harm to it, that but that doesn't mean that it's wrong to begin with. And for me, the Enneagram, I I I embrace and love the Enneagram because of what it's done for me in my in my life, and my um I think I'm a better person because of it. Yeah. You know, which is a big deal, uh a big thing to say for me. Yeah. So I I'm grateful for people like Jeff who want to elevate the conversation and who want to make it a better conversation and who want to articulate some some really fresh and um wonderful ways of thinking about it while also listening to you guys debate about the legitimacy of it or lack thereof.

Kyle: 2:22

Yeah, and it's a it's a testament to Jeff and how much I love him. Yes, and would like to know him better uh that we did that again because it's not very high on my list of things to like want to debate about, to be frank. Uh, but it's clearly he thinks it's very important and he has found a lot of life in it and has seen, presumably, the evidence of it giving a lot of life to a lot of other people. So um I'm interested in having conversations about things that uh give other people life.

Randy: 2:49

So yeah, and I'm sure there's I'm sure our listeners, some of many of them resonate deeply with me because it's the Enneagram has impacted their lives. And I'm sure there's many who uh resonate deeply with you and are so glad there's someone who's willing to say, I'm not sure about all of that.

Kyle: 3:03

I'll say this that silly article that I wrote about the Enneagram is still my most read. Is that right? Well, I think that shows help people. It definitely is. People Google Enneagram, good, bad, and they find that thing that I wrote. Um, and then presumably go find Jeff's podcast. So this is a good conversation, and it won't be the last.

Randy: 3:20

So yeah, let's talk about the Enneagram.

Kyle: 3:39

Jeff, welcome back.

Jeff: 3:41

It is great to talk to you guys again.

Kyle: 3:44

So, for listeners who may remember, may not remember, Jeff uh was previously on the show with his uh friend TJ to talk about the Enneagram, which they're a gurus about. Uh and they have how many podcasts at this point about the Enneagram?

Jeff: 3:58

We are launching a podcast channel.

Kyle: 4:01

They had so many, they had to form a channel.

Jeff: 4:03

It's gonna be eight. That's not all us, by the way. Uh we're we're assembling talent and and getting uh we're getting all sorts of folks who talk about motive and all the different ways you can talk about Enneagram. We're gonna start a channel that has a bunch of different podcasts, and I'm really excited about that. That's cool. We're doing that.

Kyle: 4:22

We'll give you a minute to talk about that at some point. Super fun.

Randy: 4:24

And in the Around the Circle podcast, it's kind of like the engine that drives it all. Is that right?

Jeff: 4:29

That's right. Yeah, yeah. It's gonna be the entry point for sure. So we have enough listeners to where it can be a bounce for everyone else. So one of the podcasts, for example, is done by a woman who's about 28. She's gonna be interviewing young people about their type. And this is just something that's that's not really been recorded yet. It's like people 20, 25, 30 who are talking about life experiences, they're their experience of the Enneagram at a young age, mostly like Gen Z culture. And I'm really excited for that for the sake of other young people and for the sake of people who just don't understand Gen Z culture and the real difference that culture has with millennials, Xers, and the rest.

Randy: 5:12

Yeah. So you guys wrote a book.

Jeff: 5:15

We did.

Randy: 5:16

Tell us about the book.

Jeff: 5:17

Book's called Around the Circle. It's the first of five. So I wanted to do a big study. There hasn't been a big study in Enneagram since early 90s. Um, I wanted to do a 500,000-word study. It probably won't get that long, but I wanted to do a new big book because the first big book is a tent pole. It's been authoritative, but there's a lot of stuff it's missing. And there's been a lot of discoveries in the Enneagram world that need to get cataloged and systematized and brought to the forefront. We need to do some work on language, and to be honest, there's a there's a lot of uh need just for some entry points into the Enneagram for folks who know their type and want to know what's next. And a lot of our work is of that sort, is like the what's next kind of sort. And so we wanted to do a robust treatment of that for folks who are kind of getting into second gear, want to get up to fourth gear, and that's what the the book series is really designed to do.

Randy: 6:20

So, were you working on that? Like what what's your expectation for that as far as I mean, five books is yeah, is no small thing as is uh you know podcast channel.

Kyle: 6:29

Yeah, you you you you do how do you have time for this? That's what we're asking.

Jeff: 6:34

Uh independently wealthy, and so let's go. I told you about this before. I do I do commercial real estate, which means I bought something and I turn in checks and I have to clean. And while I clean, I think about Enneagram and I think about books.

Randy: 6:48

Some real brother Lawrence shit right there.

Jeff: 6:50

So it's it is pretty much I I'm gonna take that. That's it's clean. It can make me feel better about myself. Absolutely. So I it's a I kind of earmarked. I want to do a six-year project. This is what I want to do. I get really jazzed about this. I really want to go for depth. Nobody's really tackled this sort of project before. There's lots of things worth saying. And just yeah, just kind of I had the bug to say this is what I want to do between age 45 and 52. And so I'm on it.

Randy: 7:22

Awesome. So let me just ask real quick, because you know Kyle's kind of a f you know, uh locally famous skeptic of Enneagram. And rightly so. Yeah. And I I love the Enneagram for what it has done for me, but I also have some uh, I would say, healthy skepticism about it and some reluctance. Um one part of my reluctance is the lack of kind of a cohesive stream of like a board of, you know, like there's a board of doctors, there's a board of psychologists, there's a board of this, and there's standard practices and kind of best practices. You don't see that with the Enneagram. As a matter of fact, you just said there hasn't been a deep, deep dive study since the early 90s. That makes me more skeptical of the Enneagram. Tell me, tell me what your perspective is on that, Jeff.

Jeff: 8:13

One, I think you should be, and I'm gonna join you in being skeptical in those spaces, and I want to push into those spaces and see if something actually has a foundation worth saying. Stuff that I've come to see since we had our conversation is how much the the any so the Enneagram is specifically about naming motive, getting the language to motive. And what Enneagram does that a lot of other psychological theories don't do, is it tries to create the a very large story about each of the nine types from that primary motive. Now, most psychological studies or theories, most you know, personality typing inventories are actually gonna be pretty thin, pretty, pretty tight. So if you were to see a therapist, you might uh experience somebody who studies um cognitive behavioral theory, for example. That divides people into threes, into their emotions, into their thinking, and into their action. This is exactly what Enneagram does. CBT has enormous amounts of literature behind it, using different language than the Enneagram, but it's describing almost identical phenomenon and life experience. Enneagram is coming in and saying, look, we really want to talk about motive and we want to talk about things like stress and your how how you deal with stress and how you deal with being in security. Um, it wants to talk about how we connect with other people, how we solve problems, um, and how we engage the world. It's answering a variety of questions with one theory. And as I've begun to discover, that's really not very common in psychology. Psychology really would prefer to get very, very narrow and say, look, this is what we can prove. And so Enneagram's trying to do a lot of heavy lifting. It can be disconfirmed very easily because of that. We talked about that in our last conversation. But I routinely find that it's standing up real well. And so I'm a philosopher, and the philosophy comes first when you start doing a new discipline. You start thinking about hypotheticals, you start, you know, creating little pictures of like how should we think of the language here? How should we conceive of this new topic? And that is my job. I'm a systems guy, and I'm trying to create to help create systems for that. Now, that doesn't mean that there's not a lot of literature on this. There's actually a book behind me that was published by by um by a Stanford psychologist. It had been a 20-year study. And so there there is some some depthier stuff that is out there. Um, but as you were saying, I think you're you're right. Like there's groups and such, but it hasn't been grabbed by the academic disciplines yet. And that would be a big win for us, I suppose, or it'd be a big win for humanity itself. So get that if it was done.

Kyle: 11:14

Don't don't undersell it. Yeah, Jesus. Um so I have a couple couple follow-ups. One, just tangential. Are you like hoping to publish this with like an academic press that would actually get the attention of folks like that?

Jeff: 11:29

Or I think I don't have generally academic presses aren't impressed by me and my in my background, which is just fine.

Kyle: 11:38

Don't say that.

Jeff: 11:38

I don't have enough letters. I'm missing one letter. Oh uh to really get it.

Kyle: 11:43

Well, you said what, seven years, isn't that what you said you're playing? I'm just messing with you. So you okay, two things. One is um you described those other theories as kind of thinner and more narrow, and I took it that you were trying to sell me on the Enneagram by being thicker and less narrow, but yeah, I was more persuaded in the other direction. So why do you think that that's an advantage? Because it seems like the more you want to build in to these types, the faster and faster you're gonna outrun the evidence that you can possibly gather. But two, um, more basically, I haven't heard anybody else describe the Enneagram in terms of motive except you. Now I'm not looking hard, okay? So, but it seems like to me that's your thing.

Randy: 12:24

I have, I've heard that.

Kyle: 12:26

Who else have you heard say that? Um because I'm wondering if they got it from him.

Randy: 12:30

I would say I different people use different words, um, desire, motive, uh longing. I mean, I think I do think that's a that's a way that would you agree, Jeff? That's not a that's not a uniquely you invented thing.

Jeff: 12:45

No, but but we've put a lot of emphasis on it, where you know, a lot of the people that are coming before us really are coming out of spiritual traditions in which they're using it as a tool in growth. And they're not necessarily looking at in the way that we're looking at it, which is to really get a handle on um something about the nature of human beings, how they experience the world and how the world is processed within them, and then how they engage the world. This is an epistemic process, and it's uh in some ways, it's an uh an ethical process of how do I know things and how ought I respond, or how do I respond? Um I have really keyed in on the idea of motive, partially because it seems to me so core to the human experience, and I couldn't name another theory of motive. I like who else is talking about ways of being in the world and your how you how like an inventory for the the varieties of motives that all of us have. Like, I I don't know that I could tell any other theories out there except for this one. And it seems to me so core that it's it's obviously I've got real into it, but it's it's it's certainly a worthy topic, if nothing else, for study.

Kyle: 14:09

Yeah, interesting. So the motivation behind that question, my motive in asking it was is this gonna like cause controversy in the Enneagram world? Like how do how do other people is there like competition for staking out what it really is or should be or anything like that?

Jeff: 14:24

Yeah, when when it's not in the academic field, what ends up happening is it's I'm selling my take on the story, you know. So a lot of folks are have their little, here's my my 12-week class that I'm selling, and this is how I get by in the world. And that's about as controversial as it gets. It's just, you know, if I were to look philosophically at it, I would say, look, some people are presupposing something that might look like more of a Buddhist take on the Enneagram, some are looking more like a a Christian take. That is how the nature of desire itself, whether or not desire is good and ought to be elevated and seen as healthy and a healthy part of the human experience, is a big big topic in the Enneagram world. Um, because some will say that desire itself is a problem, as some Buddhist traditions will. Um gender is going to be a huge part of Enneagram right now, in terms of how cultural expectations are put upon us and how they they hit our motives and what we want. Because we may not want X, but the culture says you need to desire X because of your gender, and how we wrestle with that in terms of our motivations, all over how Enneagram type works. Um, those are two big topics that are controversial. There's probably more.

Kyle: 15:50

All right. So you sent us a PDF, which I did not read, and a an audio an audio version, which I did attempt. Um, and it was not what I expected. Uh I thought you would like the beginning at least. Yeah, it was it's basically a podcast, which makes sense from some podcasters. You you turned what you had written into a conversation and had several long podcasts about it. So thank you for sending that. Um the little tiny bit of the actual book that I did read though was the quotes at the beginning. And I want to ask you about one of them because it's an interesting choice. And I remember you telling me prior in our last conversation that you had benefited or at least read a bunch of Schopenhauer. And he features prominently in that in that first uh page in this very famous quote from Schopenhauer, uh, which is something to the effect of here's your version of it. A man can choose what he wants, but he cannot want what he wants. Various translations state it somewhat differently. I might argue for a man can do what he wants but can't choose what he wants, whatever. Why is that important to you and what do you think it means? And what does it have to do with the Enneagram?

Jeff: 16:56

It seems to me that you got some hard wiring going on inside of you, and you that hard wiring is there prior to experience, and experience hits your hardware, and it flows through you in a certain pattern. It's almost like you are a funnel, and experience is poured into that funnel, and it takes a different shape than it takes with others because they're structured different. And it may appear as though we're coming to the same world, but when that world and our experiences are poured into us, what we bring to the table matters, and we have a filter. And a lot of the reason that Agram is a recent addition to thinking about ourselves is is is because it's so subjective in nature at one level. It's saying you have a unique way that you're coming to the world, and what you want colors and filters, how you experience the world. Um and so that's gonna be the big claim, I think, up front is something to the extent of some of us take in the world through a much more emotional relational filter than other people. That seems empirically obvious to me, that some people are much more wired initially to care about their relational connections and what has happened to them in the past, whereas some people are much more wired to look at the future and what might hurt them and whether or not they have the resources they need to address that future. And those are two very different ways of interpreting the world of what has happened relationally in the past or what is perhaps in the future that might hurt me. Um, those are those are in us pre-wired in my view. It's not something we choose. And so you can want what you want. Um, what was the sorry, I need to remind myself of the quote.

Kyle: 19:02

Well, um Yeah, something along the lines. You you can do what you want. Uh all that I think he means by that is I come with a set of desires and I can actualize them given certain you know assumptions about my capacities. But I can't either want what I want or choose what I want, depending on how you translate it. Like I can't decide what my fundamental desires are.

Jeff: 19:22

Those are those initial desires I think are pretty wired in us. And I think that that's probably empirical. I bet I I mean I mean if it seems that you can see that. So that's at least what I'd want to argue.

Kyle: 19:33

Yeah, so a couple things. One, how deep do you take that hardwired thing? What do you think that means really? How do you catch that?

Jeff: 19:40

Even so the one of the things that kicks me is that even the desire the desire to change those initial desires has to come from somewhere, and it's gonna come from whatever those initial desires are. If you want to change, it comes from a motive of something inside of you. So can you name that something inside of you? What is it that what is it that's fueling you? What's spurring you? What's the big thing that's pushing you into doing anything at all? If you can give that a name, that's powerful, you know. And if you could, if everybody could give that a name, and then you begin to create some categories that are fairly large, that's even more powerful. Because then you're you're starting to describe humanity at a very foundational level, in my view. I'll tell you where it bleeds from philosophy into theology is when we come to God, what we want influences what we're looking for in a deity. Do you want companionship? Do you want somebody to protect you? Those are two very different ones. But I bet you some of us come to God and one of them's core. Um, or some other, there are some other ones that we might name, but but I could name a handful of like when I look at the Bible writers, I can tell you what some of them want at their core and how it influences the way they tell the story, the way that their ethic comes out, and the way that their prescriptions come out, or lack of prescriptions come out. And it's coming from places that the Enneagram wants to give you language for. So the motive of this writer may be very bent on self-betterment, on improvement, might be very morally rigid, might want to say that um that doing a lot of self-work is where the holy life starts. And then there are other people who say the holy life starts with us together, with us doing the communal life. The real thing that it means to be a person connected to Christ and the divine kind of life is found in fellowship and love. Those are two very different answers to how you connect to God.

Randy: 21:51

So, what's the answer then? What's the right answer?

Jeff: 21:54

There isn't one.

Randy: 21:55

Yeah.

Jeff: 21:56

So the right answer is that the the writers are motivated, and their prescriptions in the scriptures come out of that motivation, and it's worth naming. It's worth naming because that informs your hermeneutic, that informs your reading of the text, it informs like what are we going to take away from this person who really thinks that relationships are where it's at, um, because of how they are in the world. And then, like, I mean, ethics, ethics is gonna be a a bigger topic, but but but understanding what the scripture is, in my view, understanding author's intent, their background, their story, their history, and what drives them, uh, that's gonna matter a little bit in terms of really understanding what's going on in the text. Ennegram has a lot to say about that.

Kyle: 22:47

Yeah, so this gets back to my uh earlier question about what is the advantage of building out the theory beyond what we can demonstrate. Um beyond what those other more empirical, narrow theories are doing. Yeah, so I guess I just get pretty skeptical when we start building in a lot of detail about something we can't possibly know, like what's going on in the heads of the biblical authors, for example. And then like I have all these um prior objections to the evangelical project of discovering authorial intent, which is maybe a separate conversation. But like what in general, what what what is gained by building in all this theory? Because in your book, you go to great detail about these numbers and the distinct the distinctions between them and how these people behave in certain circumstances, and you give very, very detailed descriptions uh of them. I have another question to follow about that, but like as gently as I can say, what is the point?

Jeff: 23:55

Yeah. Well, I mean, I would love to push into the question itself and try and identify some of the you know the presumptions that it seem underlie a lot of the question. So it is the it's the case that for you to have a satisfying answer, it's gonna have to meet some criteria. And I bet you're used to having that kind of criteria. And I bet you it's the case that that sort of criteria has served you well in the past, and you're motivated for that kind of criteria. And I bet a lot of your study actually revolves around you feeling comfortable in the world with a certain kind of answer to the questions that you think are are most important. Now, that in and of itself is about your motive and about what satisfies it. And can you put a name to that? Would be where the real question would begin. Because it can jump down the road of saying, well, let's see if this can can you know scratch where you itch. And I think it probably could at some levels. But more interesting to me is is how you're framing the dialogue that we're having at all and what you want to gain out of it and what's most interesting to you, because that's coming out of your motive. You know what I'm saying there?

Kyle: 25:14

I think so. Yeah. I get maybe I have a a higher confidence that that sort of thing can be bracketed for certain kinds of conversations. Um, I'm I'm not the kind of person who thinks that um you can float free of all that and just do philosophy in this objective god's eye view of the world, whatever that that kind of rationalist project was was doomed from the start. So if if that's part of what you're saying right there with you, there's a whole world of epistemology that's been focused on figuring out, you know, all the ways that the the old way of doing it were mistaken and that we are in fact bringing lots of things with us when we do this kind of theorizing on board with that. Um nonetheless, I do think it is a fair question that for someone who has taken on the project of giving very detailed descriptions that they think are exhaustive of all possible human types, that there should be some response to a good faith uh questioner, which is what I take myself to be, asking why are we doing this? Um and I'm open to a variety of answer types.

Jeff: 26:24

On on just the why are we doing this?

Kyle: 26:26

Yeah, yeah. Why why are we doing this and how is it better than limiting ourselves to a certain kind of evidence under certain kinds of conditions, which is like what we do with CBT or whatever those other ones are.

Jeff: 26:39

Yeah. Um my my view is like Enneagram, as I kind of pictured, is is this kind of robust theory, and it takes on almost it's not this level, but it's almost paradigmatic at one one level in terms of like once you see it, if it begins to color your epistemology, it's it's gonna be fairly sizable at that level. So it's not like just saying, let me look at the data for whether or not this this group of 50 reported doing behavior X. It it is the case that some theories do include all human beings and say true things about all human beings. And so it might be the case that this one works that way.

Kyle: 27:24

So um, but those theories, the ones that we trust, were based on loads and loads of empirical data.

Jeff: 27:32

That and that's entirely fair.

Kyle: 27:33

And and we just let me earn their trust beyond that empirical data by first being gross. So here's an example. Um, I remember taking evolutionary uh biology in college and talking about of a lot of evolutionary psychological theories that at the time struck me as um some silly is condescending, but some of them get like so detailed in their explanations of why trait X, contemporary trait, mental trait X, can be exhaustively explained by this thing that happened in our evolutionary history that we have zero evidence of, but like it's a kind of just so story that makes sense of the whole thing. The problem is you can construct an infinite number of them, many of which are incompatible with one another, and the evidence doesn't tell you which way to go on any of them. Um sometimes like a more detailed explanation, I take this to be kind of part and parcel of the scientific method, is not the preferable one. And there isn't a a a theoretical advantage, but also a practical advantage to limiting ourselves in the um the power of our explanations. Yeah. So I'm I'm just curious why more is better.

Randy: 28:43

I remember you saying that to T Nguyen in a different form. And he kind of pushed back on you a little bit that like I don't think that's a good rule to say that the simplest explanation is always the best.

Kyle: 28:54

No, no, no. That would be a mistake. That's that's fair. That would be a mistake. It's not the simplest one that's the best, it's the one that accords uh best with the evidence that we possess. And so parsimony is the technical term for it rather than simplicity. So this is like the old um Occam's razor thing that everybody gets wrong. It's not the explanation that is simplest or clearest, it's the one that assumes the least number of unnecessary things. Um and so if I have two theories and they both equally accord well with the evidence, the one that doesn't require me to commit myself to a bunch of stuff I can't be sure of is the one to be preferred. And sometimes there's still a bunch that compete and they're all on the same level. Maybe the Enneagram is one of those. I don't know. Motivation is complicated. But you do seem to want to give a whole lot of detailed story for each of these numbers that I just struggle to see what it's grounded in. And maybe your books are gonna tell me what it's grounded in.

Jeff: 29:54

I would start with I feel like there's layers being built, foundation, first floor, second. Second floor, third floor, kind of stuff. So let's just go with foundation real quick. Foundation, the Nineagram lays, is almost universally accepted. And that is when you think when a human being thinks of themselves, they are able to think of themselves in their emotions, their physicality, and their mental life, and they're able to separate them. If I were to say, I am feeling like this, I'm naming my emotions, but my emotions, in some sense, are me as well. I can say I'm thinking this, but my thinking also, in some real way, is me. And I could say, you know, my body is doing this. And my body is, you know, kind of separate in that language, but it's also very much me. So I can think of myself as a mind, heart, and body. You see that in the language of Jesus, you see it in the language of Freud, you see it in the language of Plato, you see it in the language of Buddha, and you see it in cognitive behavioral theory, among others in contemporary sciences. There's a very few ideas that transcend culture, time, and geography, like that one idea that I just pitched.

Kyle: 31:13

Yeah.

Jeff: 31:13

That's a great foundation for something, especially if I'm able to tie motive to it. And that would be the next step.

Kyle: 31:22

Yeah, so maybe the foundation thing is the thing that's tripping me up. I don't want this whole conversation to be critical. I really don't. Um so I think that's a great metaphor. And and even a lot of the folks who I mean, I'm not a psychologist, but I take it that the little bit of philosophy of psychology that I have read, a lot of those folks would see that as therapeutically useful distinctions that are much more difficult to ground metaphysically or scientifically. I'm not saying like that kind of psychology is not scientific. It is. Sure, sure, sure. It's just not doing metaphysics. It's doing something different from what other like physics is a different kind of science. When it makes pronouncements, when it makes distinctions, it means those distinctions to track to the physical world, right? What we would most of us would call reality. When um sorry psychologists, particularly like um clinical psychologists or psychoanalysts, or I'm not gonna get in so much trouble after you're gonna butcher all this, but like when they make distinctions, they're doing something a little bit different. And in particular, because CBT is a very widely accepted theory and it's one among many therapeutic paradigms, but um I don't take its practitioners to be making metaphysical claims or even assumptions. And there are plenty of very informed psychologists who are materialists all the way down, like myself. Sure, sure. But even more extreme than myself, who think that ultimately, really though, that's all just complicated, actually not complicated enough, descriptions of neuronal states. Sure. Um, and so to say that we all see ourselves in those three ways and we can all distinguish ourselves in those three ways, while true and maybe therapeutically useful, doesn't tell us anything interesting about the world that we couldn't learn from an fMRI machine.

Jeff: 33:13

Totally. You know to quote Lewis, you can look at the ocean and say it's only so many trillions of gallons of cold salt water. Yeah, but ocean really works as an idea. And sometimes uh, you know, I uh as I am a trained philosopher, I don't really dive into the metaphysics of this very often. If that's where you itch, I I actually would love to see more work on this. I'm not trained to do it necessarily in the physical sciences in terms of how brain chemistry works, in terms of how the parts of the brain interact with producing motive. I would want to say that I'm real good at patterns and systems, and it's literally it's very, very seldom the case that folks who really invest in my experience in Ennegram don't find themselves on the map, and the map doesn't give them a jolt and actually exposes something that they feel and they say, Oh, that's me. That happened. I misheard you.

Kyle: 34:25

So you a lot of people have the experience of finding themselves that gives them a jolt. Is that what you said?

Jeff: 34:30

That that's a common experience in my mind.

Kyle: 34:32

Yeah, okay. That's interesting because I have exactly the opposite experience with the Enneagram. And one of my questions to you was, How common is this? Because I experienced this when I took the inventory itself. I did the WEPS, is that what it's called? The WEPS. And then um, I think we talked about that before, but then in reading your book again and hearing the very detailed descriptions you have of these types, I had the same experience, more powerfully, the second time, actually, where not only could I see some of myself in all of the numbers that you described, I found I what I would take to be core aspects of myself in literally maybe with one or two exceptions, almost all of the numbers. That's fair. And I I would normally be very obviously categorized as a five, and there's absolutely something central to me in that description, and I think you cash it out fine in your descriptions. But you did such a good job of describing all the others that I also found something in those that I took to be core to some aspect of me, my personality, however, you want to cash it out, the way I relate to people, what I do when I'm threatened, um, what I think is probably really going on in a lot of the things that I care about, which aren't always obviously aligned with the five, you know, thing. Um and it not only is that my experience of it, I have a hard time conceiving of it differently, like how anyone else could experience it differently. I believe you that they do, because I haven't heard everybody else say this when they talk about the Enneagram. All of those numbers are obviously me, but that is my experience, and also I then have the follow-on uh feeling, I guess, that all of those numbers are also everyone else, too, because I'm not that interesting or much more complex than anyone else. Um, so I could pick a number and zero in on it and get a lot of insight about that part of myself, but I think they're all equally true about me, and I think I'm a typical human in a lot of ways, and so they're probably all my assumption is they're probably all equally true about everybody, in which case, what again, what are we doing? What are we doing making these distinctions?

Jeff: 36:36

Do you think that you and your spouse are different in terms of what you want?

Kyle: 36:40

I mean, yes and no, in some ways, yes, in some ways no.

Jeff: 36:43

Yeah. Could you put language to it?

Kyle: 36:45

Yeah, if I had permission, I could.

Jeff: 36:49

I think so. Oftentimes we're cu we connect romantically with people who are complimentary to us. And it's worth naming where we are different with language that describes our motive. The thing I I suppose I can't speak to five in a second. Speak to the difference. Let me let me take my myself and my spouse for a second, and then I could tell you like the dynamics between my kids. I mean, just everything, the way the places that we are going to struggle is absolutely predictable if I know our numbers. And I could if I knew your numbers and your spouse's number, I'll tell you exactly where you fight.

Kyle: 37:25

I wish I could test this now, maybe offline. I should have sent you like some some stuff because I don't know what hers would be, but yeah.

Jeff: 37:32

So my my spouse and I solve problems with action and thought. It's probably the way that you solve action uh problems as well. That um emotions actually get in the way often of effective um solutions to the problems that we really have. Now you may have a value of emotions, but generally I bet you're really suspicious of people being overly emotional when they're trying to solve problems. And I bet you that's gonna be different for you than a lot of other people in the world who absolutely use emotion to solve problems and actually lean into it. And that would be a place where you're different than others, yeah.

Kyle: 38:12

Yeah, one of those like yes and no things again. I don't know. I mean, it's it all depends on context. There's a part of me, I think we may have talked about this before, um, that they're I I I won't say I'm a situationist, I wouldn't use that term, but there's a part of that critique of character that I find compelling, which is that a whole lot of what humans do, including a lot of stuff that they don't realize that they do, and a lot of stuff that they wouldn't necessarily want to believe about themselves, uh, is really more dependent on the situation they find themselves in than it is on any kind of stable um character.

Randy: 38:47

What does this say about Kyle that when you ask him a personal question, he refers to books and quotes. I think that's called proving the point.

Jeff: 38:54

Yeah, I think so.

Kyle: 38:55

Oh no, no, it is not. Uh no, no, no.

Jeff: 38:59

Um what I heard there is that is Well, go ahead.

Kyle: 39:04

Sorry. Well, the reason I bring that up is because it really does depend. I mean, there are situations, for example, most of the ones that happen at my job, where a certain amount of emotion in the midst of trying to solve a particular kind of problem would be unwelcome. Um and on on the other hand, there are other situations in which I think a great deal of emotion of various kinds is the what the only way to approach certain kinds of problems. And if you try to limit it, you're making a huge mistake. And also, emotion can be controlled and uncontrolled, and there can be a whole variety of different kinds of emotions that are pertinent to some um situations, not others. Very Aristotelian about this thing. Like the route amount of emotion is what we should be aiming for, depending on whatever the the need is. Um but even he didn't think we could carve up people into like discrete groups based on how they've you know stewarded their emotions or whatever. Like there's a mean, and that mean can be almost anything depending on context. And so it's the thing I keep coming back to, Jeff, is why do we need to make this so strict? Humans are complicated. This is too simple.

Jeff: 40:14

Well, anytime, I mean, twofold. One, anytime you you you lose you use language, you're creating categories that by their nature are are either you know strict at one level or loose at one level. You know, language in order to have power is gonna have to have some kind of body to it that does some stuff. That's pretty much what Enneagram's doing. It's a language for your motives. And like I hear you in terms of like just kind of the the pushback of understanding that you obviously are a unique person with your own history, values, place in the world, um and context. And that who you are in the world uh I want to say is exclusively poured through those three channels in terms of unveiling yourself. And especially when you take the world in through those channels, they produce emotions. And so when we talk about depthier emotions like anger and fear and shame, and this is another place there's a lot of study on, and Enneagram overlaps really cleanly with it, those being very depthy underlying feelings for human beings, it produces language and it produces predictability in terms of how we experience certain levels of of anger, fear, and shame given our type. Um and and that can make it really helpful for those of us who struggle with one of those.

Kyle: 42:04

So at one point in your book you say, What do you want? in quotes. Yeah. This is the home of our truest self. It seems to me like that has some connections with what we've been talking about for the last several minutes. Explain what you mean by that. What is a truest self? Because that's a a thing, frankly, that I don't experience.

Jeff: 42:22

Um you don't experience like being able to answer the question, what do you want?

Kyle: 42:27

Uh no, I just meant I don't experience having a truest self. Um I'm a little skeptical of whether there is such a thing as a self, but that's a separate thing. But like um to the other point, though, that's a fair question. Uh that is often quite difficult to answer in a in a general sense. What they do talk about what do you want?

Randy: 42:45

What you said that's kind of difficult to answer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is.

Kyle: 42:49

And I find a lot of people have that problems answering that.

Jeff: 42:52

Um I'm likewise incredibly skeptical of language like truest self. And unfortunately, it you're probably right, it probably is in the book. The the metaphysical side of that being, all right, let's let's point to this. You know, let's give this some body and name it and and has this actually function in the world, I get that. Um, there is something about you and your personal identity that I think is inextractable from the question, what do you want? Um, I think that what do you want is the most vulnerable question you can ask. If you were actually bluntly honest about what you want with the closest people in your life, if you're like me, it would make you very uncomfortable.

Kyle: 43:38

Yeah.

Jeff: 43:39

Because it's held tight.

Kyle: 43:42

So tight that maybe it's unconscious. So this is the entire history of um, well, until you know the empirical stuff took over. This is the history of psychology in the West, is Freud's um proposal of the unconscious, which won the argument, like that is a thing now that everybody takes for granted, including the empirical people and whole um forms of therapy are rooted in it. Um what does the Enneagram do with that? Like the it might be the case that the reason I find it hard to answer that question if I do is because it's unavailable to me and it would take certain kinds of very difficult long-term work to uncover it. So is the does the Enneagram take itself to be doing part of that?

Jeff: 44:31

I I think I think you're putting your your thumb on on where the Enneagram comes in. It's like at that point in time, if you value the question and the inquiry, then the Enneagram is one set of tools through which you can begin to do business with that question. That question may be bigger than any, you know, than the Enneagram. Enneagram, again, is just it's just a lens for looking at your motive, giving you some language for it. And it may be the case that it's a victim stinian ladder. You get to push away once you get up it a little bit.

Kyle: 45:03

Oh, interesting. So, okay. But I think I might be okay with that, Jeff, but that is not that is not the tone of your book or previous conversations we've had. I didn't get the impression that you took the left.

Jeff: 45:16

Which in which I gotta wrap this sucker up, which I might hit that. Um there there's something about I mean, I don't know what it looks like to get to the end of this sucker, but let's just stick with what I think you're exactly right about saying is like if I really ask you what do you want, and you say, as you rightly should, I may need to take some time with that. That shows that you understand the weight of the question and the weight of what it would mean for you as a human being to actually engage that question. Funny enough, it is a question that Jesus asks people and it elicits responses that are interesting. And so it's in in some sense, it's it's one of those you know, windows in into your heart, into into your so that's where when I want to say, you know, your truest self, it's like I mean, there's whatever we're gonna call you, it is it's married to that question, or to the answer to that question, at least, in my view.

Randy: 46:26

Well, just for the record, I'm in for the a lot of that language of the Enneagram, your truest self, your false self, your shadow side, whatever. I'm in. I think that's great. And super fun, helpful ways of understanding ourselves. Which is also to say, Jeff, I'm I'm in on the Enneagram. I I think I think it's a really useful tool. Here's what I what I should say. It's been a really useful tool for me. Um now it annoyed the piss out of me for a long time because I and that's this is I'm gonna bring up some issues that I have with Enneagram, but they're much more from a simpleton with um way less complex words and ideas. But here's just one thing. As I was getting acquainted with the Enneagram, one thing that turned me off, this is years ago, um, kind of similar to Kyle's, is the the concrete categories it brought me to tell me about myself. And um this there's a language of certainty within the Enneagram that makes me uncomfortable, that kind of um makes it seem like I have to work to fit myself into this type or one of these nine types. And um, if if I have if I don't fit perfectly into one of them, I'm kind of not doing my self-analyzation correctly or something. So, and I picked that up even a little bit in your in your early chapters when you guys even started talking through the types. And you would say things like, sixes are this type of person, or eights show up in this kind of way, or ones are, you know, and it seemed to me like there wasn't a whole lot of flexibility and a lot of kind of just um if you're talking about a person, if I'm if I'm listening and trying to hear for myself who who I am and where I resonate most most deeply and what I can learn from this, I have a hard time with those concrete kind of categories because I'm a unique person. So that's that's something that just makes me a little bit reluctant is do you have to use this the language of certainty so much around the Enneagram? Do you know what I mean when I ask that question?

Jeff: 48:30

I do, yeah. And that may be a failure on on the communicator's part, on my part in this situation, and perhaps not about the theory.

Randy: 48:40

A lot of th I don't think so personally. Like I it's nothing that I heard uniquely from you. I think this is kind of an Enneagram, the way I hear it at least.

Jeff: 48:51

I mean, we we're fine with inflexible language and categories about reality. If I were to describe general relativity to you, it's like you know, it's very strict in its picture of how things work. The difference between general relativity and in a psychological theory is it's not about you. Like when I make the Enneagram claims, it's about you and you're gonna feel it, you know. And there's something you're like, we are making it personal at some level, not intentionally, you know, but if it if it you know, if the theory holds, then and if the theory is real and true to to our experience, if the if the language really does work in describing something worth talking about, then you know it's more the you have a perhaps a problem with reality as opposed to us. It's kind of like saying, you know, you're a you're a theologian, you know, you may have a a very uh worked out eschatology, as it were. And somebody's gonna get pissed off about who gets in or who doesn't get in. And I bet you got strong opinions about that.

Randy: 49:57

Yeah, yeah. I appreciate your your generosity. I'm not a theologian, but I think theologically right. Um, I think it's and I hear it a little bit in what Kyle's bringing. For me, it's just I remember the feeling of just thinking, I don't resonate 100% with any of these numbers that these people are talking about, but they're talking as if I need to. Um do you know what I'm talking about? I absolutely do. And that that'll that'll turn me off. Um, is that a problem with language or is that a problem with the Enneagram?

Jeff: 50:27

Uh like I think you'll you'll understand it when I say it. Sometimes people aren't ready for Jesus. And you tell them about Jesus, and yeah, I heard I heard the story. That's that sounds great. I'm glad that you found that. And there's just no buzz. There's some people you say it to, and they they say this is what I've been looking through for my whole life. And to unfortunately bring that in because it's gonna make Enneagram sound like a cult, um, but that that commonly is kind of what I see is like people people like really get hit by it, or or they don't. And and I mean, I can't control anything about that. What I can do is say that this is this is kind of where I have really experienced the map and the tool doing some some really profound work in my life and lives of people around me. I really hope that you know it hits you. If it doesn't, that's that doesn't make you a bad person. Doesn't you know I'm not judging anybody for not getting into to Enneagram. Um, but but I can only offer what what I kind of see in the most gracious language that I can pitch it.

Kyle: 51:35

Yeah, yeah.

Jeff: 51:36

But I can tell you that I would gladly cut my left arm off to keep it in terms of the value that it's brought to my family and the places that we really have struggled in the last ten years. It it was the thing that that kept us together, sane, really exposed places where we were able to communicate and you know, uh created soil where where we really have a a foundation that that is desirable and it was what I needed.

Randy: 52:12

So yeah, no, and I mean while that sounds like a lot to me, to be honest, you know, like whoa, that's you know, the Enneagram is holding Jeff's family together, you know. Um but at the same time, like I've experienced uh I see myself differently because of the Enneagram, um, I would say, because of my work in the Enneagram. And when I say that, I just mean what my spiritual director has brought me, because I'm not as skeptical as Kyle is, but um I I'm not comfortable with this, like the reality, and we'll get into it a little bit, but that everyone has their different takes on the the Enneagram. And if you talk or if you talk to a different person, hear a different podcast, read a different book, it's going to sound substantially different. Um, and sometimes that erodes my confidence in the Enneagram. But what I can tell you go ahead.

Jeff: 53:03

Does it if I the same critique could be made about philosophy, the same critique could be made about theology. That's fair. It's like we're telling we're it's again the case, we're not messing with thin data. Like this isn't chemicals in a test tube. Like we're talking about big things here.

Kyle: 53:21

So that article that I wrote that you we talked about before. Yeah, I don't want to rehash it. But one of the points I tried to make is that the Enneagram seems to be, depends on who you read. Okay, fair enough. But for some of its practitioners, such as the ones who used to publish a journal about it, um, it seems to be exploring questions for which there are established methods. And that's the bit that bothers me, because if if all it took itself to be doing was a kind of pop philosophy, I wouldn't have anything to say about it. If you want to enter the arena of philosophy, make your argument, go for it. Good luck getting attention. Um, or if it was doing some kind of theology, there are lots of theological methods, just like there are lots of philosophical methods. Feel free to invent a new one, bring it, you know, bring it in the conversation, see how many people you can convince it's a worthwhile conversation to have. Fine. But science has different kinds of methods, different kinds of boundaries, and psychology is a science. Um and epistemology, by the way, I think you see its own kinds of methods. Oh, I would never say it that condescendingly. I've heard it once out of your mouth. Not intentionally, not intentionally.

Randy: 54:28

You're not condescending at all, Kyle.

Kyle: 54:31

No, no, I've lots of respect for the psychologists who do things I couldn't do. Um, but like it seems in some circles to take itself to be doing more than what um what it would be doing if it was a species of philosophy or a species of some kind of theology. Those are different kinds of methodologies.

Jeff: 54:55

I mean, that's fair. There's there's there's lots of lunatics out there saying stuff about theology. It doesn't discount good people doing good work in theology. There's lots of people and know that you've seen them who talk philosophy, have no clue what they're doing. Um, so I can tell you, I can speak for how I'm coming to the topic, and I feel like it's got a robust foundation that we've already talked about. Motive matters. If you're gonna talk about motive, let's talk about motive in in a robust way. I'm really not interested in electrochemical processes describing everything about, you know, from why I choose things to who I love to why I believe in God. I find that is describing the human person as so many thousands of gallons of cold salt water. And I think we're more than that. That's me. You and I have had the materialist uh debate in the past, and so we can cue the tape. But when I come to motive, when when I come to motive, like I want something beautiful because I experience beauty here, and I want something real that that pings for me at a at a level where I'm like, this is part of how reality functions, and that's just what I what I gain. And I'm I'm and I'm not you know, I'm not a slouch when I come to these things, and I argue with other Enneagram people all the time. We don't have university positions yet, and that's fine. So uh again, I feel like this is very, very new, and so I shouldn't expect that. Sometimes new things pop up and they need to be debated in a in a context that eventually makes its way into the academy.

Kyle: 56:42

Yeah, okay. Well, I'm one of those word materialists that finds it really beautiful um and finds that the Enneagram is similarly limiting to the way that you describe the neurochemical processes. So let a thousand flowers bloom, man. We just see it uh differently, I think. Yeah.

Jeff: 56:59

And I bet you we could tell stories about why. And that's actually what the Enneagram is trying to do.

Kyle: 57:04

Yeah.

Randy: 57:06

There you go. Um, another simpleton, like, help me out here with the Enneagram, Jeff. Because again, I'm gonna just stress the Enneagram and the work that I've done with my spiritual director has really helped me um, I think become a better person and become a better person to be around. And it's helped me know myself um in ways that have shocked me, to be honest with you, in ways that I wouldn't have seen coming. But as soon as the Enneagram kind of exposed my inner self to the light, it made perfect sense and changed the way I inhabit the world. So I'll just say like it's it's it's been a profound um transformative tool in my life. Um and yet it annoys the shit out of me in some ways, you know? And mostly that is Jeff because of what the people that I've experienced who love any the Enneagram have done to it. And and a lot of that is this is a really crude uh metaphor, but I think it kind of for me it fits. Is sometimes I experience the the Enneagram and the way people talk about it is kind of like almost um it reminds me of like the culture of the anti-vaxxers sometimes. Um and by that I mean um every person you talk to, not every, but many people you talk to who are super into the Enneagram have their different knowledge levels of it and they have their different gurus that they consult, they have their different kind of um reasons and kind of I don't want to say types because that's an Enneagram, but you hear what I'm saying. You hear what I'm saying. And it seems like they kind of claim authoritative kind of knowledge on it, and it seems like they they speak very confidently about the Enneagram in ways that make me really skeptical of the whole thing, certainly of what they're saying, but certain, but also of the whole thing. And it it worries me that there isn't an actual, like we started out this conversation saying there isn't an actual thing that a a group of people who I can trust to say these are good people who steward the Enneagram well, who think about it well, who um when they speak about it, I'm gonna listen. I'd like that if there were that, instead of a bunch of blogs and you know, I I don't know how to how to words that aren't condescending and are gonna hurt somebody, but I think you can hear what I'm talking about. It seems like there's a it's a cottage industry of a bunch of opinions and kind of I'm gonna stop talking because I think I think I'm like fully insulting many, many people here.

Jeff: 59:45

I don't think you're insulting at all. I think you're putting forth a really valid critique. Everything you said I could say about Christians.

Randy: 59:52

Yes.

Jeff: 59:52

Every single word out of your mouth I could say about Christians.

Randy: 59:55

100%.

Jeff: 59:55

Does that somehow invalidate Christianity? I think that's a good idea.

Randy: 59:58

No, but it sure does turn off a lot of people. People to Christianity.

Jeff: 1:00:01

So, so there's uh that would be a more of a pragmatic question. How do you sell the sucker? How do you get people to actually see its beauty and reliability? I suppose I would love to again say, I really like it. I would really like, I'm gonna start an Ennegram channel with eight podcasts and and publish a big ass book and really hope that it takes a place as being something like a stable sound, not hokey um place on the playing field where we're talking about the topic in a way that has some body, some depth, and some intellectual rigor. But I can't control other people. I sure as hell can't control the Enneagram people. It's kind of like saying to the head of the Republican Party, have you noticed your folks recently? Or to the Democratic Party. Yeah, have you noticed your folks recently? You're just not selling yourself very well anymore, are you? Yep. Of course, you are describing screwed-up humanity and how they take in something really important to themselves and become lunatics at some levels. And there are some people, you know, at the top of our, you know, the the thought leaders saying, I get it. Look, I'm trying to do my best of of putting down some some some worthwhile thoughts here. And I I hope I do a good job.

Randy: 1:01:23

That's and for what it's worth when you guys were talking about the eight, the the type eight type, I was resonating with almost everything. I was like, yeah, perfect. Yep, nailed it. Um, I don't have that experience for everyone I hear from or talk to about the Enneagram or even about my being an eight. And that is what kind of makes me lose my equilibrium when I think when I have some confidence in the Enneagram, right?

Jeff: 1:01:48

Yeah. Let me pitch a different kind of thing that I think actually is may go to hitting where both of you itch. And it's actually the last chapter in the book, and it's about gifts. It's very seldom the place that in a culture like ours where we actually name the things that we bring to the table that nobody else does, where we say, This is my wheelhouse, and this is why I do better than anyone else. And when I'm in a relationship, this is the thing that I can do that elevates others in a way that has almost a magical power to it. Um, story I tell all the time. There was a player in the NFL about uh 13 years ago for um for you, Kyle. The NFL is sportsball.

Kyle: 1:02:33

Thank you for not making me ask. Shut up.

Jeff: 1:02:37

There's this guy who was the least athletic man in the NFL. He was certainly the oldest, had the lowest vertical, couldn't run very fast, um, could not tackle people, um, was brittle to the point of he was an offensive player, and when he had the ball, he commonly would throw himself to the ground so he wouldn't get tackled. And in the year 2015, he was not only the MVP of the league, but he was arguably had the best season ever. And his name was Peyton Manning. And Peyton Manning did just two things exceptionally well. He could read a defense and he could throw an accurate football, and that's all he does. And he dominated a league of the m of the most um talented athletes on the planet, himself not being a very talented athlete. Who you aren't and what you can't do isn't interesting. And if he had spent a lot of time working on his bench press or working on speeding up a little bit, making sure that he was working on those tackling drills, he actually would have done damage to himself, his best play in the world. He wouldn't have served his um fellow teammates, and he would have actually become a worse football player. And a lot of times we think we're supposed to be somebody else, and we haven't done the work to actually name who are you? What do you want? What does it say about your gifting in the world and the value that you bring to other people? I would love tools that would elevate that. I would love to have tools to elevate that in a way that's beautiful, that resonate with me, and that remind me, you are wired, kid, to do some amazing stuff. And if you can't name that amazing stuff, you are robbing everyone else. And I want it done with passion and power and then something that gets me hungry for service and making the world better. And Enneagram does that for me at a level that nothing else has. And so if I was trying to sell it, that might be where I would start. It's gonna name your gifts and it's gonna point out what you bring to everybody else, and maybe that's a place to start as opposed to the metaphysics of it.

Kyle: 1:04:52

Yeah, don't start with the metaphysics. That is a doomed path. Sorry I brought it up.

Jeff: 1:04:59

But I think it's it's right. It's so it this comes out of motive, though. Like what your criteria is for judging something comes out of what you care about. And I know exactly why you're doing this because I know your number. And I I could tell you about what not only data means for you. I could tell you not only why data matters to you, but we could go much, much deeper into it.

Kyle: 1:05:23

You couldn't tell me about why any of the other stuff matters to me, because those other things are in those other numbers, and I'm not supposed to feel those things. And yet I do just as deeply as that thing tell me about.

Jeff: 1:05:34

It's not just because you're not another number doesn't mean you share profound things with them. I already named some. One, threes, and fives all solve problems with a lot of action and thought. That's something that we share. Fives, eights, and twos all expect rejection in relationships and actually have a very small circle of trust and end up giving gifts out of a space where they feel confident as almost a radar, and that's how they connect with others is are you gonna receive the knowledge and wisdom I have? If you can see the knowledge and wisdom I have, then we can be friends because this is what I'm offering, and I'm testing you when I get do it. So too eights who offer their strength to others, and so too twos who offer their help. And that method of connecting is real common for those types. Fives are gonna share their analytic qualities with sixes and sevens. They're gonna take the world in through their head, which means that they're they're on the outlook for future threats, and they're very aware of the resources that they have at hand for meeting them. Those resources might be relational in nature, but they also are partially what I know and what I possess in terms of my assets. And the last thing that fives are, and you'll relate to this, is they're withdrawn. They're gonna take a big step back in order to get what they want. They're gonna assess the world that's out there, but they're gonna do so from an inward vantage point. And that's very similar to fours and nines. The things that we share with others, uh trend, I by the way, I named how fives connect with all the other numbers. You share these things with all the other numbers, but they are truths about about at least the fives um that talk boldly about fives and and at least the best that we can do in terms of language and in terms of gaining some categories there. But if any of that kind of resonated with you, that might be just a place to start. I would want to talk about anxiety with fives. I would want to talk about how you think about um what you are giving. I would want to talk about like the the tendency of like how do you deal with your own social energy and how it's played in the world. Um, these are some topics that I think are real interesting to talk about with fives and in terms of like in a pulse for where they're at. How do you see your own emotional life real valuable? Um, those might be some places to go. But if any of that kind of pinged for you at a at a deeper kind of level, that would be the I don't like we know each other, but I don't know you. But that would be the system kind of saying some stuff.

Kyle: 1:08:04

Yeah. Yeah. So do you agree though that if you think someone is a number, you're disposed to certain understandings of their behaviors, their desires, their choices?

Jeff: 1:08:19

Well, it's trying to name motive. Behavior is going to be different.

Kyle: 1:08:23

So you can have uh whatever the enneagram is supposed to be doing, because we still haven't gotten a clear answer.

Jeff: 1:08:28

I mean it's it's getting clarified somewhat in this. If I can if we can if you if you can name your motive, then you can name your motive. And anything that can be named effectively can be categorized. That's really all we're doing. I'm just I'm just I'm just trying to to categorize motives.

Kyle: 1:08:44

Yeah.

Jeff: 1:08:44

If if if human beings are are such fantastically dissimilar snowflakes on the in their inner life and motivations, snowflakes in the unique sense, not in the wrong sense. You can't describe anything because you're so vastly amazingly complicated in your motive, well, then you're unique. And maybe that's in and of itself a the desire for uniqueness is something that could be named. But and like I don't think that people are like that. I mean, for the most part, they they generally have some motives that when you really put push into that, what do you want? You probably could get some similar language.

Kyle: 1:09:21

Yeah. And I'm fine with that being. I just think if there's there's going to be a framework that's going to dispose us, predispose us towards certain types of explanations and away from certain other types, then it needs to be very well validated, needs to be grounded on lots of evidence, needs to have earned our trust because of the risks involved in doing that, which is that you can miss some real important stuff. So we do this in medicine, right? Ever I don't because I'm not a doctor, but like physicians uh simply don't have the time or the ability or the possibility of gaining the expertise required to accurately diagnose every single little thing, and so they have uh frameworks within which they work and they make diagnoses based on what it's most likely to be, and sometimes they get it wrong and they know that, and we're all okay with that. We pay them lots and lots of money to become expert at doing that. Why are we okay with that? Knowing they will get it wrong. It's because of the extremely well-validated foundation on which their science is built that enables their guesses to be quite good and their missus to be the tiny minority, and they have expensive insurance to deal with those situations. Um the Enneagram ain't anything like that. But if you're saying that, hey, I'm trying, guys, I'm trying to make it like that, then fine, good luck.

Jeff: 1:10:34

On one front, I fully affirm everything you said. One and two, you said the critique of Enneagram from the five value judgment perspective, as well as anyone could. And it was predictable what your problem with the Enneagram would be. And that shows that it has some measurements, or it's just a fair point to make that anybody, regardless of their number. The thing is, is a lot of other people aren't making the critique. They're pointing out that it's got a satanic symbol, they're pointing out that they're feeling judged, they're pointing out that it screwed up some of their relationships at church and they're never going to touch it again. That wasn't your critique. Your critique was very measured, thoughtful, precise, and desirous of proof and data.

Kyle: 1:11:25

Yeah, but it's a critique that could have come from a nine or a four or whatever Randy user.

Jeff: 1:11:30

They could have, but that's where your values and motive are because you value data. And there's a reason you value data, and it points to your motivations.

Randy: 1:11:39

You're pushing at something super tasty here, Jeff. Keep going, please.

Jeff: 1:11:42

Your point, it points towards my least favorite thing he said. It points to the fact that if you wanted to do business with the Enneagram, I want I would want to invite you to talk about your anxiety. And I would want to talk to you about how your mental insights are used to overcome your anxiety, because that's gonna be a sweet spot for the five. And it's gonna be a place that needs some work. And your healthiest self is gonna come out of there, but also your unhealthiest self is gonna come out of there, and it's predictable where your unhealthiest self is gonna come from that spot. And I could tell you where your relationships probably break down, and I could tell you about what it looks like for you to be excessive and to push too hard and to be very self-absorbed on these fronts and how it's gonna materialize. All of that's predictable, and I don't know you that well, but I could tell you exactly with real specificity what you look like at your worst self.

Kyle: 1:12:41

I I don't doubt that you could, and some of it would sound accurate to me, and there are psychological explanations for why that might be. But I think if I were to overhear a conversation of you doing the same thing with any of the other numbers, not knowing I was listening, I would also feel like to some extent I was having my mail read. That's the point I started this whole thing off with.

Jeff: 1:13:01

Like, do you do you find so you and I are gonna be very different on this front? I'm prescriptive to a fault. I will tell people what they ought to do. I'm very judgmental of the rightness and wrongness of their behavior. I'm very judgmental of um in terms of justice issues. Um, and I bet you you have more of an inclination to be descriptive of human beings and their problems. And I bet you you don't necessarily push and use your energy to get involved in changing that knucklehead over there, because that guy's a knucklehead. But I do. That knucklehead is my job. He's the knucklehead, he's going to destroy the world. And I need to say something on my Facebook immediately about it.

Randy: 1:13:49

You're a you're a three, Jeff.

Jeff: 1:13:51

And I'm a one.

Randy: 1:13:52

You're a one. Okay. That's funny. Interesting.

Jeff: 1:13:55

And I bet you you have a I bet you you have a much better, wiser use of your personal energies than I do.

Kyle: 1:14:01

I didn't always. I must used to be much more like that. I was trained out of me. Yeah.

Randy: 1:14:07

So can can we have a little fun? You you tease Kyle about like predicting his arguments with his with his wife, and he kind of sidestepped it. Yeah, yeah. Bring it on me. Um, I'm an eight. My wife's a six. Perfect.

Jeff: 1:14:21

Tell me how we let me let me say that you know that for sure. Because we've we've talked about this.

Randy: 1:14:26

You've quibbled about my aid-ness. I'm pretty positive I'm an eight. I talked to my spiritual director about it. I talked to my wife. As soon as she heard you saying that, she was like, No, no, no, you're an eight. I'm sorry. You we gotta hang out with you. And you and I have to hang out for you to see that, I think, maybe.

Jeff: 1:14:40

And good news, you only you, you and you alone can type yourself. That's just how it works. So um, handy dandy in the back of the book, there's a mistyping chart. It works for mistyping, but it also works for relationships. So if I were gonna say, look, here are the places that you and your wife are most different, and bringing some language to it is probably gonna do a lot of benefit for your hearts and relationships. She obviously wants to feel safe. Eights primarily want to feel strong. Sixes are gonna question authority, eights are going to assert authority. Sixes are gonna plan to prevent dangers, whereas eights are going to act in order to eliminate perceived dangers, specifically to keep themselves not vulnerable. Um, sixes are gonna react with doubt and want other people to to validate their concerns. Eights are gonna react with a lot of force, they're gonna move decisively. Um, sixes are gonna seek reassurance, eights are projecting confidence. Um, fear being abandoned, eights are gonna resist being controlled, sixes are gonna crave support, eights are gonna crave autonomy, sixes are gonna feel secure with structure, eights are gonna feel secure in their own personal agency. We could keep going, yeah, but does that hit the dynamic in your relationship?

Randy: 1:16:08

Certainly many of them, yeah.

Jeff: 1:16:10

Many of them is that's sort of where that's actually what should be noted here. It's like it's it's flexible.

Randy: 1:16:19

But yeah, I mean Sarah's a you know, I know other sixes and she's different from them. I but it's similar in some really core ways. I know other I've I've yes, I know other eights and I've very different than them as well, but also very similar in some ways. Um let's just for fun, you've got that handy-dandy guide in the back, uh tool to kind of talk about how to relate. What w what should I be looking for, or how could I actually be more helpful in my conversations and engagement with my wife who's a six and that me as an eight?

Jeff: 1:16:54

So just like just like Kyle and I share a same a similar problem solving style. You and what's her name, sorry? Sarah. Sarah. You and Sarah are gonna sit share a same problem solving style, and it's going to be one in which you actually, when problem solving, are gonna shut down um let me think about this for two seconds. You're gonna shut down thinking and you actually just want the people in front of you to see you, validate you, validate where you're angry, validate your fears for Sarah. Want to you want people to be on your team and she wants to to know that people see the things that she is saying fill her with anxiety. Um she wants other people who are going to protect her um moving forward because she doesn't trust herself. And one of the great things about AIDS, and this one of the places you're gonna really overlap, is that AIDS naturally want to be protective and exercise their strength on behalf of others. And so six-eight pairings are very, very common because of that. Um's are body types, and so you are going to experience in the same way that she experiences a very palatable anxiety and fear in her language, eights are going to experience a very palatable external anger that pushes against others, establishes boundaries, and the reason that's going outwards is because you feel vulnerable, and anger protects you, and you know that you're vulnerable, and things can feel like an eggshell at times, and that anger goes outward and it hits things that get a little too close. Um, and so both of you are gonna feel, you know, the the you know, things out there may not be trustworthy, and so both of you are gonna line up on that front. Um eights are gonna be uh independent in their orientation, um, in how they they get what they want in the world. And that means that the feelings of others, and even your own feelings, don't really matter as much as other things. You think about what you're gonna do. Feelings come last. It's not how she functions. For her, thinking comes last. For her, she's gonna she's gonna act on her feelings very cleanly and quickly. And so thinking's gonna come last for her. Um, and especially in terms of thinking about where she's been successful, where she's been strong. Um, what's what's happened in the past that she can say, I have these aptitudes and abilities and can really do well in the world. And um, those would be things that are different, was the last thing. And the last thing would be, I said earlier, you're gonna expect rejection in relationships, and you probably only have a few really close friends that are in your circle of trust. She is going to have a wider circle and it's gonna process her own happiness relationally, and is probably going to um she's gonna create spaces where she feels safe and other people feel safe, and and having a robust kind of crew is gonna be a big deal. And so how you the relational dynamics between the two of you is probably gonna function along those lines. Did I read your palm correctly? Did much of that resonate with you?

Randy: 1:20:21

Yes, yes. Uh some of it not much, but a lot of it did a quite a bit. And I find there's certain words that you use in in and I find this commonly with people that I that that seem to have a really good handle on the Enneagram, is that there's certain words that just like they really just stick to the wall. Control is one of those lately for me, um, as an eight, where particularly in my relationship with my kids, a lot of times when I find myself losing my an losing myself in my anger and going to that, like just giving myself over to it, is when I don't feel in control or when I feel like they're manipulating me in some way, shape, or form. Can you tell me about eights and control a little bit?

Jeff: 1:21:06

Body types like myself, eights, nines and ones all want agency, and that's primary. So, in the same way that five, sixes, and sevens want something like security or safety, uh, eights, nines and ones are very present in how they're taking in the world. They're taking in the world in a very present way. What is it that is seeking to exert its will upon me? We know it, we feel it intuitively. That's not a relational feeling, that's a very physical feeling. You feel your clothes. Um, you you understand when you walk into a crowded room, you choose a place to sit where you are going to have maximum agency. And that's done because you understand power dynamics and you don't want to be controlled. Um, for me, what that looks like is a very self-critical eye inward. I want if if I feel good in the world when I have total control of my diet, my workout regimen, and what I'm gonna do for the next two hours. And that's agency for for me. So control, agency, these are about not exerting my will over others, but not having others exert their will over me. That's primary for eights, nines, and ones. Thank you. That's fun. Does that resonate with you in terms of how you are in the world?

Randy: 1:22:28

Yes, it does. I'm just gonna say that. Yeah, no. Um, again, I find that kind of stuff super helpful. Um, even if not all of it resonates with me perfectly, even if my experience as a knight is different than the the precise way that you're describing it. And again, that's kind of where I get turned off is when you say you are gonna, and you're this'll be your thing. You know, that's a little strong for me. But man, I love talking about why I sit why I choose to sit in certain places in a room, or I love talking about why relationally, when this happens, all of a sudden I react in a very predictive sort of way that most people are aware of except for me. I like because I like just growing in that awareness. And so I appreciate this book and I appreciate your work in the Enneagram, Jeff. To be able to just introduce ourselves to ourselves in many ways, and to be able to grow in maturity and grow in being a better person and bro grow in showing up in the world in a in a more beautiful, good, uh better way. Um, I appreciate those efforts, and I think the world needs more of it. So thank you for this book. Thank you for your work for all the million podcasts you have that we're trying to keep up with. Yeah, quick. Yeah, that's it. That's it.

Jeff: 1:23:40

Way too many to listen to now. Okay.

Kyle: 1:23:42

Yeah. Quickly, pitch, where can people find the book and also um tell us more about this podcast network thing?

Jeff: 1:23:47

Best place to find the book is on on Amazon. It's just around the circle, it's an Enneagram book. Um, if if you want to go to around the circle.org, first couple chapters are on there on audio. You can take a sample of it and you can see the rest of our work and and kind of what we're doing. Um our our our life online is very communal, and you know, we're we're trying to just connect people around this language and and the things that that fire us up and get us moving and and challenge us. So cool.

Randy: 1:24:18

And what is your com just just a little bit of a taste for people who are might like, oh maybe this sounds a little interesting. Yeah. That communal experience. If I'm jumping in as a Enneagram aide and I want to learn more about myself, will I will I intersect with other people in my type and we can have a conversation? Like, what does that look like, Jeff?

Jeff: 1:24:36

Yeah. So we do monthly workshops. Um, so the last two in in 2025 are free for for those who are free members of our Patreon. Um, but you would you would go to a an hour and a half Zoom with maybe 40 or 50 other people. And one of the best things about Enneagram is you're talking about your motive, and everybody else has different motives, but sometimes being able to see other people talk about their motives allows you to see your own motive with a lot more clarity and power. And so what we're gonna end up talking about is our type in excess. So, what does it look like when your motive really becomes um more self-centered and and overly um developed? So for me, I can become very perfectionistic. Um, I can become very judgmental, I can I can be in the world at a level where that sort of perfectionism and judgmentalism really affects my relationships and does damage. And being able to name that this is a tendency I have. It's like this is how I get what I want is to feel good. What I want is to have personal control and oversight that makes me feel like I'm comfortable and it feels, you know, and and there is a road to something like happiness for me down that path worth naming. By the way, happiness is the goal of the Enneagram, and that's why you study it for Kyle in terms of a question from where way back. But like naming how I come to happiness and how I conceive of happiness and how I experience happiness, it's gonna name some of that stuff. But my particular type can push into trying to get happiness a certain way that is damaging, and it's worth naming that for all of the types. And so that's kind of what we're talking about. And it just becomes again, the more you hear it from other people, the more it kind of reveals who you are. And that's that's at least been my experience.

Randy: 1:26:33

Brilliant. Well, we'll put those links in the show notes, perhaps. Yep. And uh look forward to the next time you and Kyle can go around the circle of your arguments, right? Um, I didn't even try to do that. Good lord.

Jeff: 1:26:46

Um, all valid critiques is what I heard from Kyle.

Randy: 1:26:49

Yes, yes. Uh the book and the podcast is around the circle. Jeff Cook, thanks so much for joining us again.

Jeff: 1:26:54

I love you. You guys are my brothers. I really appreciate you and all the hard work that you do.

Kyle: 1:26:59

Cheers.

Randy: 1:27:09

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Kyle: 1:27:26

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Randy: 1:27:34

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Kyle: 1:27:42

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