Harnessing the Enneagram for Personal Growth and Home Business Triumphs

Unlock the secrets of the Enneagram with the wisdom of Dr. Liora Elias as we traverse the landscape of subconscious patterns and personal growth barriers. Boundaries shape our experiences, and in our vibrant discussion, Dr. Elias, adept in the Enneagram's profound effects, shines a spotlight on this transformative tool. Discover how boundary setting can be a struggle for Type Twos or an uncharted territory for Type Nines, and how these insights forge paths to increased self-awareness and enriched relationships. Whether you're navigating business dynamics or personal connections, this episode is your guide to harnessing the power of the Enneagram for a more authentic and fulfilling life.

Step into the world of home business success where Dr. Elias and I reveal how independence and prosperity are just around the corner. As we share our tales of creating thriving home businesses, we invite you to join us in celebrating the victories and learning from the challenges. Each Wednesday, we bring you a dose of motivation and practical advice, tailored to empower you along every step of your entrepreneurial journey. If you're seeking to elevate your home business or just need a weekly boost of inspiration, this episode will leave you equipped and eager for the road ahead.

Website:  www.theenneagramdr.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theenneagramdr/
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lioraelias/

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Transcript

Hank: 0:40

Welcome to the Home Business Success Show. Join us as we speak to home business entrepreneurs for tips, tricks, do's and even don'ts for running a successful home business. Welcome everyone, I'm Hank Eater, also known as Hank the PR Guy, host of the Home Business Success Show, and you're listening to bizradious all entrepreneurs all the time. I'll introduce my guest right after my two cents marketing minute. What if there were a way to recognize certain traits in your clients that would make it easier to conduct business with them? There's a model known as Enneagram that does just that. Wikipedia defines the Enneagram as a system of typology that classifies human personality into nine basic types. Each person develops one of nine predominant personality strategies or types by adulthood, which helps them cope with the external environment. The corresponding fears and desires related to each type are examined to understand the underlying motivation behind someone's behavior. Interesting and useful right.

Hank: 1:58

Today's guest, Dr Leora Elias, is known as the Enneagram Doctor. They are a university professor and a certified Enneagram coach and speaker based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For the past 12 years, they have taught in the Communication Studies Department of the University of Minnesota, earning their doctorate in 2015. Their approach to the Enneagram utilizes their experience in communication. Sexuality in human development. As a member of the LGBTQ plus population, they bring a unique lens to Enneagram work that taps into the differentiated, rational and community needs of the LGBTQ plus population. They specialize in helping clients and audiences raise their consciousness levels, discover and honor their boundaries and learn more about their instinctual motivations. They have been featured on podcasts such as Life Uninhibited, the Enneagram Six Podcast, Enneagram MBA Enneagram and Love and now the Home Business Success Show. Welcome to the show, Dr Elias. Thanks, Hayden, Happy to be here. All right, If you would please tell us what your work is all about with the Enneagram.

Dr. Elias: 3:31

Yeah, so I use the Enneagram system to help people find where they fall on the Enneagram map. So, like you were saying, there are nine core types and we have all of those types in them, but one of them is kind of our home base and from that home base we can do a lot of work in the area of finding our boundaries and recognizing our boundaries and taking action steps to make our boundaries known. A lot of work comes out of learning what our subconscious is doing, and I work with therapists and individuals, particularly in the LGBTQ plus population, and my most recent client is actually a reality television star from a Netflix show called the Ultimatum Queer Love. It's very cool.

Hank: 4:32

Yeah Well, you mentioned boundaries a few moments ago. Do the different Enneagrams, the different types, have different needs for different kinds of boundaries? Could you give me, maybe some kind of a wrap my brain around, example of that?

Dr. Elias: 4:50

Oh yeah, absolutely so. For example, those who identify in the two space of the Enneagram before their health comes online and while they're kind of struggling when they're more so struggling twos have no ideas about boundaries whatsoever and in fact they push against them so hard and relationally it can be very destructive for their relationships because almost the two really wants to merge with their partner and they're not the only type that does that, but they twos particularly bristle against other people's boundaries so that can be a real challenge for folks in relationship with them. Nines, for example, also do need to do develop in boundary work because they have a hard time even realizing that they have needs and that their needs matter and it's difficult for them to vocalize that to necessary others, whether it's personal or professional. So nines need to do a lot of work also to recognize what their boundaries are and to speak to them.

Hank: 6:19

You know, what you just said about the twos in the nine reminds me of a line from an old Paul Simon song. I knew a man. He came from my hometown. He wore his passion for his woman like a thorny crown. He said, dolores, I live in fear. My love for you is so overpowering, I'm afraid that I will disappear. Does that sound like maybe one of those two enneagrams?

Dr. Elias: 6:43

Sure, that totally could be a line from a two or a nine. Absolutely, there you go.

Hank: 6:50

Everything reminds me of a song, especially Paul Simon, because he was sort of one of my muses back in the day. Would you describe well how did you discover the enneagram and start working with it?

Dr. Elias: 7:05

So I discovered a friend of mine put me on to it and I got really interested in it personally and I did some. I've been doing personal enneagram development work but then recently I went and joined a certification program called Enneagram University. That's really fabulous and it focuses particularly on mental health. So the teacher of the enneagram university program is a therapist, trained therapist, who now is a enneagram coach. So the focus is very much on mental health and how the enneagram can be really helpful, a really helpful system, particularly for therapists who want to work with the enneagram with their clients, but also want to do personal work for themselves as well.

Hank: 7:58

So, when it comes to personal work, would you say that if we all come to understand and recognize our own enneagram, then we would be more effective at doing our own personal work?

Dr. Elias: 8:10

Yeah, absolutely so. When we learn our enneagram, much information is revealed from that about our coping strategies, and largely the enneagram shows us how we've been showing up in ways that have been getting in our own way without us realizing it. And when you realize something you can do something differently. But if it's in your subconscious, you're in the dark to it. There's really not going to be any access to working with it, to acknowledging what's going on and working with it. So the enneagram helps people in a personal level get off the repetitive patterns and habits that keep us from getting what we want in life.

Hank: 9:01

So in that sense, there can be underlying issues that are stopping someone from moving forward, but until they learn about them and shine a light on them, they're just going to remain buried and not come forth, not come forth.

Dr. Elias: 9:16

Exactly, and people often most people are walking around with their subconscious running the show, and enneagram work is about bringing all of what happens in the subconscious to light, like you said, and it's like you don't know what you don't know and we can't work with what we don't know. So it is a self-discovery process. This gives a lot of self-realizations and it is a very rich, depth-filled system that has many different component parts to dig into and explore.

Hank: 10:03

Pretty cool. Well, that brings me to the notion of once you zero in on a client's enneagram, how do you help them use that in a positive way as part of their growth? That's both personally and even for their business.

Dr. Elias: 10:19

Yeah. So what we do when we learn our, when I learn a client's type, then from there we haven't identified what are the strengths of the type that can be highlighted and worked with, and then also what are the struggles of the type that can be brought to the surface and realized. So, for example, like a seven, I have a client who identifies in the seven space and what? One thing that is kind of a challenge for them is that they don't Um, he liked to go from thing to thing. So sticking with like the same work environment might be a challenge for a seven, because the sevens um programming is telling them to look for variety or to try to do something new, and they get excited by new things, which which is great. We all love new things and sometimes it's worthwhile to recognize that it's um, it can be sort of an addictive move to move on to a new thing before you've really closed that chapter.

Hank: 11:52

So it's like the notion of chasing shiny objects.

Dr. Elias: 11:55

Would you say that?

Hank: 11:57

would you say that the seven, maybe, is the type that might be interpreted by some as being ADHD?

Dr. Elias: 12:05

Um yeah, I mean there's some similarities in a if you look at it from a big picture perspective. But um yeah, in the sense that the seven likes to go from thing to thing and is looking for new things, those then that those are commonalities with what some folks experience when they are ADHD.

Hank: 12:31

Right Now in business. I would think that, for example, if someone is really looking to be in a leadership position not necessarily a management position, but a leadership position and I draw that distinction because the world is full of managers but true leaders are a little bit harder to find Is there a certain type of anyogram that maybe fits better into the um, inspirational leadership type?

Dr. Elias: 12:59

You know that's an interesting question, though I would say that any type on the enneagram has access to being a very effective and strong leader. The difference is between a strong leader is and a not. Strong leader is somebody who knows themselves really, really well. And also, I believe leaders are people who are forward in their capacity to give self compassion and in their capacity to give out compassion to others. And all of that can be more easily accessed when you sort of see yourself in your wholeness, which is what the enneagram can offer.

Hank: 13:52

Right, that's very cool. Then that means that it doesn't. A person doesn't need to be of any specific enneagram. They just have to come into the realization of who and what they are and then let that blossom to its fullest and then they can work on the um, dealing with the self, compassion and compassion for others that being a true leader really, really entails.

Dr. Elias: 14:17

Exactly.

Hank: 14:19

Okay. Well, how does your work with the enneagram assist you in your work in the LGBTQ plus community?

Dr. Elias: 14:30

Well, what I've been doing with the enneagram and bringing the LGBTQ plus community is involving them because, largely, the enneagram has been historically used by people in the mainstream. It's more popular in white spaces and it's more popular in church going spaces. It's more popular Um, it just hasn't gotten. The news of the world of the Enneagram hasn't really reached much of populations who are on the margins, and the LGBTQ is one of those populations on the margins. So what I've been doing is trying to raise my visibility and raise the visibility of the Enneagram to bring it to populations that very much can benefit from having engaging with it.

Hank: 15:31

It sounds to me like everybody could benefit from engaging with, knowing and discovering their own Enneagram.

Dr. Elias: 15:38

Yeah, absolutely.

Hank: 15:40

And it doesn't surprise me that there are populations that have been underserved as far as discovering not only the Enneagram but in discovering self-discovery, because some of these populations are I guess the word I'm looking for is is there. A lot of them are in survival mode and they're looking to get from day to day and live with themselves and live with others, so that maybe they haven't had a lot of time for self-reflection and self-discovery and self-actualization. So it's very inspiring to me to think about bringing these things into these underserved populations.

Dr. Elias: 16:26

Yeah, exactly, there's a lot of folks, like you said, when folks are in survival mode, they need a therapist, not an Enneagram expert, right but when there's plenty of folks that identify as LGBTQ plus, who are in those mid-range or more healthy levels, and those are the folks who really, really can benefit from engaging with Enneagram work.

Hank: 16:55

One of the things I think that brings people from any population, be it LGBTQ or be it ethnic or racial minorities, is the notion of being able to kind of see past whatever their limitations, that have been placed on them through their experiences and through the perceptions of others that they've allowed to influence them, and then, as they can work through that, they start to move into other levels of consciousness and other levels of success, and I suppose at that point they're more open to embracing new ideas, because if you're just trying to survive, you're not embracing new ideas.

Dr. Elias: 17:42

Oh yeah, if you're in survival mode, you're thinking about what's the next meal and where's the next paycheck going to come from, and it's not usually there's no room for personal development work from that space typically.

Hank: 18:01

What's a good resource for listeners who want to understand where they might stand in the Enneagram.

Dr. Elias: 18:08

Yeah. So a really good resource is this website that is called theenneagraminstitutecom and that one I refer folks out to. It has a lot of type description, language and summaries that folks can look at, and it also has typical relationship patterns. So if you get to a place where you realize, oh, I'm a two and I'm a long term married to a seven, then there's a lot of information on that website too about typical relationship dynamics between those two groupings.

Hank: 18:47

That's very cool. So then not only can people find out on this site about themselves, but they might find some things out about their partner in ways that that might make their relationship work more smoothly.

Dr. Elias: 19:00

Right, both personally and if you're, for example, if you're in a workplace and you realize, oh, I'm a two and I have a five co-worker. There's a lot of information there, too, to work with how to best be a teammate with different numbers.

Hank: 19:19

Well, if there were one bit of advice you'd give to an entrepreneur about working with their own Enneagram type, what might that be?

Dr. Elias: 19:27

We get in our own way and we don't really have to, so choose that option.

Hank: 19:34

I'm not sure I quite understand what that means. But so, in other words, it's going to come to you one way or the other and as you start to grasp it, put it to work for yourself.

Dr. Elias: 19:46

Yeah, exactly.

Hank: 19:47

Okay, very cool. What's the best way for our listeners to reach out to you for more information or to work with you as an Enneagram coach?

Dr. Elias: 20:00

Yeah, so the first place to start would be to book a 20-minute consult with me, and that I'm bookable on my website, which is theenneagramdoctorcom that is theenneagram with a drdoctorcom, and 20-minute consult would be the starting place.

Hank: 20:22

And they'll discover they're Enneagram on that consult.

Dr. Elias: 20:26

No, usually that consult is just information gathering. What are you looking for? What do you need? How can I best help you? And then we move on to discovery of type next.

Hank: 20:40

Very cool. It sounds to me like everyone can benefit from learning about their Enneagrams and how they work with the other Enneagrams, so that 20-minute consultation sounds like a great place to start. Well, thanks for being here with us today, dr Elias, and to our listeners, tune in every Wednesday for the Home Business Success Show here on bizradious. Remember you can achieve success, freedom and independence in your own home business. I've done it, dr Elias has done it, and you can do it. See you again next week. This is Hank Eater, wishing all of you a fabulous day of home business success.