There is a common phenomenon that happens just right after attending our Enneagram Course that is frequently reported by our participants:
You are very excited with your new-found knowledge of the Enneagram, you speak about your experience at the course and then someone asks:
“After talking to me, what is my type?” or the more dangerous version,
“Since we have been friends for so long, what is my type?”
It’s a trick! Don’t be tempted to ‘perform’ the Enneagram for someone else!
From my experience, those who ask these questions usually are looking to piggy-back on your experience and not dive into the Enneagram for themselves. Ultimately, they are looking for a shortcut but those who have attended our course know this very basic truth:
You need to physically experience the course within the safe environment we have created for you.
You need to see, feel, hear the Enneagram in its entirety to fully savor how powerful this tool is in person. You need to hear the stories to fully appreciate how life-changing and liberating the Enneagram can be for a person.
So, even if you are the greatest showman or teacher in the world, you would not ever be able to replicate the openness and the rawness of a person’s sharing in our course. Especially, when the person you are sharing to has no context and clue on how to process what you are telling them.
Here are the three main reasons why I do not think that you should perform the Enneagram on demand for people who ask you to type them.
Firstly, they may not be serious in wanting to know their type. It could be a matter of them going, “Gotcha! See the Enneagram does not work!”, “I see myself being a few Types,” or “I can relate to this and that Type.” You have just opened a can of worms and you know going deeper at this point isn’t going to help anybody. Sometimes even when they know that what you have said about them is true, they may not be want to admit it. You may then see a shift in the dynamics of the friendship after this and that’s definitely not beneficial to anyone.
Secondly, like I have mentioned above, you will not be able to replicate the whole sensory experience of the Enneagram, even if you made it your best performance.
Lastly, as mentioned in our last post on why you should not type a person, you may mistype a person and cause more confusion for them regarding who they are and how the Enneagram can help them. Not to mention, how do you think that would make you look?
So, what if the pressure from friends to perform still continues to build despite your best attempts to deflect?
Simply tell them this:
If I can tell what type you are straightaway, you belong to the low mastery level version of that type. Then gently add on, “… because the low mastery of any type tends to be annoyingly ‘in your face’ and it is very obvious.”
Then watch them squirm and back off because no one likes to be told that they are the ones who belong to the low mastery version of their Type.
So, don’t give into the pressure of being an Enneagram performing monkey! Get them to come and EXPERIENCE the Enneagram for themselves!
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Has this inspired you to want to know how the Enneagram can set you free from yourself? Contact us today to find out more. You can use your SkillsFuture credits to offset the course fees, so what are you waiting for?!
