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The Work of You
This is a podcast about the leadership that matters most — the kind that starts from within.
Hosted by certified behavioral coach and Enneagram expert Jen Ostrich, The Work of You is for high-achieving humans ready to stop repeating patterns and start leading themselves differently.
Through insights from coaching, the Enneagram, and her own personal inner overhaul, Jen brings honesty, humor, and sharp emotional clarity to the table. With real talk, self-awareness tools, and a healthy dose of tough love, she helps you uncover what’s driving you, shift what’s no longer serving you, and ultimately do the work of you — one honest episode at a time.
This isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about finally understanding yourself — so your choices, relationships, and leadership can actually align with who you truly are.
The Work of You
Understanding Your Enneagram Subtype [S2 Ep30]
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You already know your Enneagram type. But do you know why two people with the same type can look nothing alike? The answer is your instinct — the unconscious force running beneath your type that decides what you protect, what you prioritize, and how you show up when things fall apart.
This week Jen unpacks the three instincts — self-preservation, social, and sexual (or one-on-one) — and how each one colors your Enneagram type in a completely different shade. She walks through all nine types under each instinct, calling out the "countertypes" where the instinct actually pulls a type's behavior in an unexpected direction. Jen also gets personal, sharing her own subtype and what it's taught her about a lifelong pattern she's still working to understand. This episode builds the foundation for everything that comes next in the August Enneagram series, including a future deep dive into all 27 subtypes.
In this episode, we explore:
- The three instincts: What self-preservation, social, and sexual instincts each protect and prioritize, and why they operate like an animalistic survival drive.
- Counter types: How certain types behave opposite to what you'd expect once a specific instinct takes the lead — like a self-preservation Four who looks upbeat instead of moody.
- Your instinctual stack: Why understanding your dominant, secondary, and repressed instinct matters, and how overusing one keeps you from your growth edge.
- Jen's own subtype: What it's been like living as a Type 2 with a dominant sexual instinct, and the personal pattern it's taken her years to understand.
The Work of You - Reflective Prompts:
1. Which instinct feels most like home to you?
2. For the next week, try going without one of your comforts/routines or try focusing on someone else's needs or desires over your own and see what that's like.
3. Which of the three instincts perhaps sounds the least like you?
Resources | Links:
Enneagram Type Deep Dive Mini Course- Promo Code: POD2026 (valid through the end of 2026)
Download this Free Resource: Discover Your Hidden Layer of Leadership
