Justin Mulvaney: Enneagram Personality Types and Student Conduct Motivations

Join us as we explore the depths of the Enneagram with Justin Mulvaney, a conscious leadership coach, who shares insights on personality types, motivation, and how understanding ourselves can transform student conduct and personal growth.

Follow up with Justin at https://justinmulvaney.com/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinmulvaney/

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Theme music "Fuzzball Parade" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Hello and welcome to the Ms. Behavior Podcast. My name is Colette.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

And I'm Kurt.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

And we're your hosts for All Things College Student Conduct. And we have a really cool guest today that I've known in a couple different capacities. So Justin Mulvaney, would you like to introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Sure. I am Justin Mulvaney, former student of Colette Shaw. And these days, for professionally, I am a conscious leadership and executive coach. And part of what I do with it under that umbrella is what we'll talk about here today, which is Enneagram coaching.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Justin, I I taught you in the classroom, um, not in my student conduct job. So I don't really know. Like I I got to see the bright and shiny Justin. What were you like in real life as a college student? And did you ever get in trouble?

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Oh, what a question. No, I never got in trouble, and it would have gone against every single iota of my nature to get in trouble, at least in the first part of college. Um I remember uh this will be very interesting as we get into my Enneagram type. When I was graduating high school and going to college, a mantra that I had around that town was um, I'm done fucking around. And I remember going to college and being like, I'm gonna get a 4-0, I'm gonna be a perfect student, I'm gonna do everything I want to do, I'm gonna knock this out of the park. And so for at least probably the first three years of college, that was how I played until some things started to chip and I started to learn some more about myself, and I realized, oh, maybe this is not the path I want my life to be going on. But yeah, I was no, I never got into trouble in college, would have been very against my nature.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Should we jump right into Enneagrams? And and Justin, we on our very first episode when we launched, we talked about Enneagrams right off the bat. So this might sound familiar to people that have been on the Ms. Behavior ride for a while, but can you explain like what are Enneagrams? Where did they come from, and why did it speak to you?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Sure. Um, Enneagram is a psychographic assessment, a personality assessment. So I'm sure in the student contact world, for many people we're familiar with a lot of these. I, by the time I had discovered Enneagram, and we can actually talk about the first time I discovered Enneagram, I wrote it off very harshly. And then it came back to me probably about five years later, and that time it was introduced to me in such a way, and I think I was ready for it in such a way that it rocks my world when it came back to me. Um but Enneagram lives in the same universe as things like Myers Briggs, Disc, Big Five. I had played with all of these beforehand. Um what Enneagram does is it it categorizes people or it puts you into one of nine types. And the types have a number and a descriptor. Um and the idea is all of us have all nine of these types. So it's not that we're just one of them, but there tends to be one that we might say that we lead with. It lives the strongest in us. And Enneagram is both a developmental and a motivational-based tool. And so what I mean by that is um Enneagram lives in kind of the view of psychology that in our upbringing we develop a protective personality structure based on our wounds, based on our our parents, our attachment of our parents. And while that protective personality structure does us great service in feeling safe and adapting in childhood, over time it becomes less of an armor and more of a prison. And what Enneagram's objective in doing is helping you see the prison that you put yourself in for good reason, and hopefully, in starting to come to understand it and get to know it, understand how to begin to step out of the restrictions of that prison. That's probably the two ways that Enneagram really rocked my world were one, it's developmental nature. Most of the other things I'd come from before were, I would say they're like, they were like categorical. It's like, here's your category, go have fun with it. Enneagram said, here's your category, here's the implication, and oh, by the way, here are some things you can start to do to escape it. And then Enneagram is also um a motivational tool. And basically what Enneagram says is we actually think motivation is primary versus behavior, where other tools might be behavioral. We think the same behavior can come from radically different motivations in people. And therefore, if we really want to get to know ourselves and people, we have to go down beneath the iceberg to the layer of the motivation that's driving the tip of the iceberg that's behavior.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Can you give some examples that might play out, especially during um adolescence or at the time that somebody would be coming to college or their first couple of years for traditional students? Um what might be some examples of some of those coping things that we might see one way but might need to read a little differently?

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Yeah. Well, let me um let me take this at the level of like the same behavior, different motivation, and the coping that might be underneath that. So let's say Kirk, Colette, and Justin are all um in college and we all have decided we're like Justin and want to get four O's. Now, Justin, so if you knew me, I lead type three in the Enneagram. And type three's motivation is to outshine others, to be the best. And in fact, when you get to the bottom of type three, what it says is in order for me to be worthy, my uh my worthiness is at question in my center. And in order for me to be worthy, I need to be the best. So I might go, I need a 4-0, but my motivation is I need to be the damn best it can be. Versus Colette, yours might be, and I'll let you decide how much of your Enneagram type you want to share, your motivation might be I need to understand the world. I need to understand the world at such a deep level. And my 4-0, I don't care if I'm better, worse, anything than anyone else. I need to understand the world, and my the 4-0 is the way that I understand the world. And for you, right, that coping mechanism, if my coping mechanism to be the best is underneath it, is I don't know if I'm worthy or not. Yours might be underneath it, the world is overwhelming to me, there's so much going on, and understanding the world is a way that I get a sense of control. And for Kurt, you might go, I need to get a 4-0, but I'm gonna draw from another Enneagram type of this like kind of the type 8 paradigm. That might be for underneath you, the world is a hard place. The world is hard and it is unjust and it it vulnerable people there, and I need to be strong and bright and brilliant, and the way I'm gonna do that is I'm gonna learn and I'm gonna become strong and capable so I can weather the toughness of the world. And underneath that is this I felt vulnerable, I felt unsafe when I was young, and I never want to feel that way again. And therefore, I'm gonna harden up and become hypercompetent to defend myself. So all of us, you could look at us three students and go, look at them, they all are such high achievers, but radically different reasons for why we're pursuing that.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

So I just uh was dealing with students who got there were 30 students that were caught at a party not being like their big crime was that they weren't 21, and it was noisy and disruptive. Um, but I always think every student is their own student, and I don't know why they showed up. You know, was it the friendship aspect? Was it the not wanting to be left out? Was it is that kind of along the lines of what you're saying? And when we treat them all with a cookie cutter, it just feels completely inadequate to have that conversation.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

That's it, that's it. Yeah, all of them are there drinking, but yeah, somebody might be there because they wanted to feel good, some might be there from peer pressure, some might be there because they they're a rebel and they just need to be the rebel, and it's like, I'm actually here because you might tell me I can't be here, and screw you trying to control me. That's why I went. F you is why. And so, yeah, it's like if you really want to understand and work with that person, if you treat those all the same, uh you're uh I just viewed as ineffective at worst and leaving a lot on the table.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Can you say even more about that?

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Yeah, what I imagine that like if we talk about student conduct and what I'm up to in my world, what we're both in some sense in the business of is like transformation is change. And I I think both of our shared objectives, which is why we're having this conversation, is we're not trying to do that through coercion. Uh a firm belief of mine is coercion is actually a tremendous obstruction to change. And while sometimes it works short term, it tends to backfire tremendously. And so one of my beliefs is if you if you want to authentically invite like a person's development and transformation and evolution, you have to do so by understanding them deeply. That is the most profound way to drive sustained change in anybody, is understand how they got there at a very deep level and help them to see that. And in seeing that, my experience is like a plant when it's been given water and sunlight. The change starts to manifest spontaneously. Alignment tends to emerge. And that's why for me, there's nothing more there's no I don't know about you all, you answers for you. There's no way to shut me down faster than assume why I did something and get it wrong. And and be like, no, this is why. There's no way to get a faster screw you, I I'm done with you, than to uh not come with no curiosity and be like, you did this, it was bad, and I know why you.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

And we are really different, Justin, like in our typings, I think.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Very.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

And yet that same like just wanting to be heard, wanting a chance to explain. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Now I feel like I should have looked at mine before I came on here.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

At least Do you want to quickly? Is it something you could google?

SPEAKER_01 10:46

I'll see if I can find it, but the whole topic is fascinating to me because I I was just in um, I was a psychology major, and the very last class I took in my undergrad was a person a personality typing course. And we talked about a lot of them, but Myers Briggs was the one that really jumped out at me, and it was the first time I started to see things about me that were preferences um in a non-derogatory way, like the fact that I was an introvert. It wasn't um a deficiency, it was just how I preferred to experience the world. Um, and I I found myself using it a lot in various forms. I think, Colette, we were using true colors, which I think is just an MBTI. But what I love about this, but I think I hear you saying, is that MBTI is about like how you want to interact with the world, but this is about what motivates you to interact or what motivates behavior, and that is so fascinating to me. And I can see immediately like the utility in not just working with students, but also with professionals. Like the you know, the leadership team I work with, I'm like, wow, this would be a fascinating activity to do with our leadership team and understand the why behind the what.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Yeah, it's I found it that motivational component is so beautiful because like let's use an example. I work with a lot of high achievers. That's in my executive coaching practice. And it would be very easy to project my own motivation, which is I want to be the best, I want to shine brightly onto them, but they have radically different motivations. Some of them are that type 8 challenger that went, yeah, the world wasn't unfair, and I'm trying to build a world that's more fair, and I'm fighting for justice, and that's why I'm striving. Sometimes a neighbor type to me, type twos, are called the the givers or the helpers. Um, their deep motivation is I want to be liked and appreciated, and I want to do that by giving to and helping others. And they can look just like a three, they can shine, but for them, it's not about outshining others. In fact, outshining others to them is like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm trying to make others shine brighter than me, and by that way I get my needs met. And um it's it's very, very fascinating to start to really dive deep in this.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

We have joked a little bit on this show that Kurt and I are like the yin and yang of hosts, that um Kurt tends to be a rule follower, and I tended to be a rule breaker. And I wonder whether there's any any agramic basis for for that, or um I don't know who might be good at student conduct work for different reasons that they bring.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yeah. Well, the the Enneagram stance, like let's again step back and talk about Enneagram, is that one, no type is better or worse than the others. And every type can function at higher or lower levels of integration. And basically what we can say is integration is basically how aware am I of my type? How aware am I of when I'm showing up in what we'll call the high side of my type, which is the beautiful gifts of my type, and how aware of I aware am I when I'm showing up in the low side, which is the dysfunction of when I'm blind to my type. And when we think of the composition of like a team or something organizationally and potentially in student conduct, ideally we say the best team has all nine types operating in an integrated state. That's the best team. Um and Enneagram3, like me, one of my gifts is like I call myself and the people up around me to their best. And that's a beautiful thing. But when I'm in my dysfunction, I might be in my own unworthiness and going, no, I need to make sure I'm one up on everyone else. I need to make sure I'm shining so bright because if I'm not, I'm not okay. And that causes all sorts of chaos. And so in student composition, I or student conduct, what I would imagine would be every type probably has some really beautiful gifts to bring to the field. And every type, when it's blind to itself, can be pretty radically destructive.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

I I think in our office we have a lot of similar types. And like, oh boy, we could do some amazing things, but oh shoot, what are all our blind spots right now?

SPEAKER_01 15:11

I wonder if ChatGPT knows me well enough to know what my Enneagram type is.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Probably ask it to guess. Justin, uh in thinking about young people, I I always tell them, like, I'm so jealous of your neuroplasticity and like your ability to learn right now compared to my brain. And that's a that's sometimes a way I tiptoe in when I we talk about substances that all the good stuff they learn that they also learn addiction, uh learn dependency, um, sometimes for that reason. Um, but does that mean I mean, are young people in having a a talk like this maybe a little bit more able to change and transform than I might be?

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Oh, what a beautiful question. You know, my answer to that is yes and no. Like, I actually don't know. I notice I get really curious. I think young people are clearly like so capable of learning. Yeah, the neuroplasticities through the chart, they just through the roof they have more available. My experience with this type of work, now Enneagram, we can play at very surface level and we can play it deeply spiritual, right? We can look at it behaviorally, motivationally, we can look at it in a deep like what are your wounds? What does it mean to be enough to feel in union with the universe? We can go many layers of depth. But my experience is um to really inhabit and use the Enneagram like in a deeply transformational sense, you have to start to be rubbing against your personality structure in a way where you're going, ouch. Ouch. My need to outshine others and be the best needed to reach a point where I was experiencing a certain dissatisfaction in my life. Because I could never hit my own view of what the best was. Because in being in dogged pursuit of that, it was affecting certain relationships. In my need to be one up with people, there was like a degree of disconnection that started to permeate. And in feeling some of that pain in my life, that became the motivating force to do this work. Because this work is hard work, it's hard to work out of your enneagram type. It is like when you go to the doctor and they hit your knee and your leg automatically kicks, you're trying to learn to have the hammer hit your knee and not kick. And that is a wild thing to attempt to do in your interior. And so, um, yeah, I imagine it would depend to what degree they're rubbing up against that type. Um, it would depend to be what degree they are already curious about themselves and all the layers of themselves. Um what I've heard some mentors of mine, when they do this work with like young kids, like middle elementary through high school kids, at that point they kind of view it as it's not yet ethical for us to type those kids. They're too young. But what we do is we teach them about all the types. And we teach them about all the types and their motivations, and we help them see how there are beautiful gifts and what's some of the limitations, and we're basically just using the whole Enneagram as a big mirror for them to start to explore themselves. And I imagine at that phase, I remember some of the work I did in um this actually wasn't your your course, Colette. It was what I went undecided, and RIT had a very specific course for you to kind of understand yourself if you went undecided. Some of those things that there was a one or two exercises, one in particular that really profoundly illuminated to me the difference between me and a lot of my peers. And it it was really eye-opening. And I think an exploration of Enneagram might help somebody if they were younger. I would almost be like, my advice might be don't worry about all the developmental work, but just use this to start to understand yourself, to differentiate yourself, to go, oh wow, look, a lot of my friends are, you know, types ones, twos, and fours, and I think I'm at an eight over here. How interesting. And so that that might be the lens I would encourage a younger person to approach the Enneagram with. It's just like, ooh, what is there to learn about me here? Honestly, a good lens for an older person to use to.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

I don't know why I do half the things I do. So, you know, this, if this can tell me, I would be very happy. Um I am curious though, like at what age do you feel like people um are kind of baked into Enneagram types?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

And by baked in, you mean like we could type them and we'd be we'd be pretty sure that that's their type.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Yeah, like I imagine that at some point it's still a little bit in flux, like the world around them is shaping them, but at some point it sort of becomes locked in. No?

SPEAKER_00 19:54

I'm curious, Colette, what your answer is to this, because I only feel comfortable speaking from the eye. Because I haven't contemplated this with a great deal with young people. If I look back at me, I'm so somebody skilled at Enneagram could have nailed me at 18. Right at 18, they could have gone, uh, I know exactly what's going on there. And with the right questions, they could have found it. Beforehand, I'm not so sure. It starts to get kind of physician, but around for me, that cusp of exiting, exiting high school, going to college, I felt like I had formed enough where that that thing of like, I really gotta shine, I really gotta shine here, was pretty clearly formed for me then.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

So that that does make me question. I always think about you know, the the work that we do in higher education, it's at its base, in my opinion. It's helping students learn how to manage their own independence. So they come to college with a lot of baggage that they get from their parents and sometimes a lot of opinions that are maybe not their own, and they spend that first year, hopefully, meeting people that are different from them and learning about themselves and about the world around them in a different way. So I do wonder like, is there still some flexibility in there, or is the lens through which they are approaching this already sort of relatively grounded in an Enneagram type?

SPEAKER_00 21:19

I haven't I have some thoughts there, Colette. I'm curious, if you track back based on your experience with Enneagram so far, do you have a sense of when it's like, yeah, it was probably pretty clear that I was type 5 then?

SPEAKER_02 21:30

I remember uh it was hard. Sometimes during the coaching, Justin would be talking about something, and it would send me back. I told a story to him that was mortifying to me about when I didn't get picked for cheerleading in at the end of my eighth grade year, and how that was the moment when my Sister got the phone call and she was walking out. I was like practicing the piano. Like I can still remember these details. And I had this awareness that, like, I don't have to cry. If she delivers bad news to me, I'm just gonna go right back to practicing piano. Like, I don't have a care in the world. And I like that was a moment where that changed my life forever. Um, but there are things I remembered from being like five years old of lessons I learned.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Yeah, and Kurt, I want to come back to your your question, but this is where it gets fascinating for me because it's like sometimes with Enneagram, I go, how much of this is nature and how much of this is nurture? And I've had conversations with my mom where some of the things that I can see contribute to my type. She was, she's just like, you were just a very sensitive child. You were very sensitive to criticism in a way that your sister wasn't. And similarly, I I have a story where um I moved in seventh grade when I was 12 years old. I think I've told I may have told you the story, Colette. And I moved to a school district from about 50 people to one of about 500 people per class size your whole grade. Big shift. And I remember you had we had to go meet a guidance counselor before I had the school year started. And the guidance counselor was trying to do a good thing, and while I was in the room, looked at my mom and was like, Justin did very well at his prior school. Probably he won't do as well here. It's gonna be harder here. Talking to my mom, not talking directly to me, saying my name, and I remember in my body going, Fuck you, I'll show you. Now, somebody else may have taken that a completely different way. They may have gone, I guess I'm just not good enough. And so, how much of that was my personality structure already for me, how much of that was nature and that emerging, I don't know, but it gets very interesting. But anyhooker, coming back to yours, what what my guess would be is like we can learn our Enneagram structure, we can learn and change a lot within the confines of the structure. And so the way I think of it is like um I'm gonna construct an analogy live here. Let's see how it lands. The your Enneagram type is almost like the engine of the car. It's always there. If you've got a diesel engine, your engine's gonna burn dirty. If you've got a cleaner engine, it's gonna burn lighter, right? Like we can work on the engine, but also we can change a lot about the car and keep the engine exactly the same. And so that's of what I kind of imagine is probably a lot of these students, that engine is already formed, but they can change the car radically while still having that core motivation, that core engine inside of it, and how that changes, what that change is happening around and contextualized by stay the same.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

I like that. I did ask ChatGPT, based on two years of conversation, what Enneagram type it thought I was. And it said that I am a probably, most likely, a type 1 with a possible type 3 influence layered in. Or wing? Is that a is a wing a thing?

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Wings are only your neighbor types.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

So uh you might have a high three with a one influence, but um As we're using those numbers, can I, Justin, have you always add the one blank type might be a wing of a three blank type. Because we're gonna have mostly people who have never heard of this stuff before, and I don't want to lose them in the numbers.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Yeah, and I'll add the motivation. We can kind of walk through all the types if we want to. We can talk about the structure if you'd like, but um, Kurt, so it's it's saying that you probably lead type one. Um based on what you and Colette described about you two before, that was my inference off of very little data. So the type What do they call the one? The one is called either the strict perfectionist or the reformer. And what the one's core motivational engine is, is I need to be good and right. And so you you can already imagine into that, okay, there's some beautiful things about a strict perfectionist or reformer. Things, there's a right way to do things, there's a good way to do things, and we're gonna do things the good and right way. The low side of type one is I'm controlling, man. Things need to be done exactly my way. And oh, by the way, I look out to the world and I see all the way things aren't good and right, and that enrages me to my core. I want to burn the world down and reform it. Get out of my head, man. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

But yes, all of that. And Claire, I I was thinking immediately of I have two things as points of reference. One was when I was four years old, but the other was actually when I put together um RA training one time and presented it to the hall directors, and they're like, no, this isn't gonna work, and I was like, and you know, I that was the first time I was like, okay, I can't take a fully bake I fully baked idea to a group of people and expect them to buy in, especially when some of them are like me and are just gonna poke holes in it. And the other one, my mom told me that when I was uh when I was like three and four years old, whenever there would be news on about protesters, I would go up to the TV and like pound on it and just start crying because there was like civil unrest. I don't remember this at all, but she said it was the first time she thought it was a fluke, and then it happened like three or four more times, so she just thought, okay, this is something that does not like the world being upside down does not sit well with him. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

And now here you are as like a top-level college administrator who also runs like a nonprofit foundation for fun.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

In my spare time, yes.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

Changing the world.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

No, this is this is fascinating. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Yeah, now what I want to say something is, Kurt, you and I, ones and threes look a lot alike. In fact, I so desperately wanted to be a one. One of the hallmarks that I found with Enneagram is when you get your type, there's usually a little part of you that goes, Don't be me, don't be me, don't be me, not me. That that get out of my head you had, like, whoa, get out of here with that, is usually a hallmark of the type. I tell people if if you received your Enneagram type and you went, oh yay, you probably didn't get your type. Because normally there's an experience of like, oh damn it.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

So I've got a question for you, one and three. But Justin, sorry, I'll let you finish your thought.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

I look, you and I probably are gonna look a lot alike in practice, right? Um we're probably both gonna be really detail-oriented, we're probably gonna put together really high-quality work output, we're really gonna care about doing good and doing great. But when we look at our internal mechanics and the things that are also the ways and what's gonna get us kind of triggered and reactive, yours is very internally referenced. You're going, I have a set of ideals, I know what I believe is good and what I believe is bad, and I am living from those set of idea ideals, and I'm gonna get reactive around like the good stuff isn't happening. And your work is gonna be okay, can we be okay with things not being perfect? My drive to do that is going to be I need others to see me as being amazing. And I'm not gonna get reactive because a set of ideals aren't being met. I'm gonna be getting reactive because I'm going, people are going to think I'm not the best. They're going to think I'm not good. And my work is gonna be am I okay with letting people have their thoughts about me? Whatever those thoughts are. And while that might look very similar, you can also sense that that's profoundly different. You're gonna be sitting over there going, I don't give a damn what people think about me. Things need to be good. And I'm gonna be sitting here going, things need to be good because what will people think? And that's a very different, it's very close to the core. It seems small, but it's a real it's really big in the difference between intervention. You could probably imagine that even in student conduct, how the intervention looks very different there.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

I would love some tips because for me, my people are, and maybe you could give them some numbers and descriptors, the rule breakers, the risk takers. Like, I get them. Um, but the ones that I really would love some advice on are you two. Um, this the student that comes in and I'm ready to warm them up and show them how much I care about them. And like, oh Kurt, tell me about you. How did you end up at this school? And they they just like, can we just get to the report? Or um maybe the three, and I I I can be stereotyping, but the student that will pull out their little uh religious iconic images, like a little necklace, or um, to show me what a good person they are, they've either never gotten in trouble, or they really just that being a good kid is really important to their identity, and it's hard to crack that, like, oh, this is a great learning opportunity when their identity is on the line.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

I would say the only time I remember risking getting in trouble was because I disagreed with the fundamental premise of the policy. So if you were gonna win me over, I think just asking, well, why did how did this happen or how did you come to be here is probably a good starting point. Because they I don't I don't remember if I told this, they had closed all of the study rooms um during finals week at the school where I did my undergrad, uh, because one person had vandalized one study room in one residence hall in a campus of, you know, a hundred and some residence halls. So the solution was to shut down the lock all the doors to the study lounges. And my uh my friend and I went around and jimmy the locks and unlocked them all in our building, and he got caught unlocking one, and I was on the other side and narrowly escaped. But if I had landed in that seat, I would have raised hell about the policy because it didn't make sense to me. It was a dumb policy.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

That would have been a fascinating conversation for me.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

It would have been a fascinating conversation with my parents, too.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

But I I that would light me up like, yeah, that sounds like a really unfair policy. How could we work together to change it instead of just breaking it? Justin, what about you, like the student that needs me to know what a good person they are? When I already assume they're a good person.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Well, Claude, this is what I love about you is you're you you are this is even back when you were with me, you're such a gifted seer. Like you're very good at like seeing what's going on with a student. Oh, you really want me to think you're a good person. Oh, you're you're you're experiencing some real discomfort. Like you're not able to just sit here and talk to me. You're experiencing some real discomfort at the fact that you're here, presumably because you've done something bad. And for a type three, let me just speak for myself, how I would intervene with that is I would just welcome that aspect of their experience because, especially for type threes, the thing about a type three, part of a type three, this is actually types two, three, and four, are in what's called the heart triad of the Enneagram. Enneagram has three triads, and all of the triads, the types in that triad have some things in common. The two is called the considerate helper or the giver. Three again is competitive achiever or the performer, four is called the intense creative or the individualist. All three of those types are uh get preoccupied with managing an image. They want to manage how you think about them. And one thing that probably all of them are gonna try and do is I don't want you to know that I'm uncomfortable about this. Because it's not good for me to be uncomfortable. I want to show you that I'm standing this face up, I'm here, I'm ready. Colette, might we get to the report, please? I'm eager to get to it. Meanwhile, what's actually underneath that tip of the iceberg is whoa, I'm scared shitless, I hate that I'm here, I'm radically discomforted. Can you just tell me the thing so I know what I need to do to like get to the other side of this? And for type threes especially, ones are this way too, slowing them way down is the move. Going, oh hey, I notice you're here, you're really like antsy and eager to get to the report. Like, what's going on there? And a type three who's really, you know, might be like, well, I just want to know what's in there. I want to understand what we're here to talk about. And then you might go, oh, you know, when I imagine I'm you, I think I would be a little uncomfortable. And then a type three, if you do that with care and compassion, they might go, Well, yeah, I guess I'm a little uncomfortable. And you might go, tell me more about that. Tell me more about your discomfort here right now. And they might go, well, I'm not this type of person. This doesn't feel congruent with who I am, and suddenly you're right in there.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

I have another question, and I think it's about the three, is I feel like that discomfort can make that student disproportionately likely to lie, and not even just lie for themselves, but to implicate others. Um we uh will allow a student to bring a support person with them, and depending on who it is, I I have a terrible feeling sometimes when I'm sitting with a student, like, oh, they lied to that person too, and now they are really uncomfortable because I am tempting them to tell the truth, but that's gonna mean that there's another you know, sin or what you know, whatever guilt they're feeling. And um oh, it's just it's like it just compounds itself, and I my heart is breaking sometimes for those students because I'm like they just want to they just wanna be good. I don't know if you can unpack that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Let's talk a little bit about like some of the constructs of the Enneagram. There's there's a whole bunch of things we can talk about. We can talk about the worldview and motivation, and again, this whole story is when you're young, when you're a young child, and I have a six and a half month old right now, so I'm very attuned to this. What Enneagram would say, and a lot of psychological things would say, is you're you're what we would call just unobstructed essence. Which means you're very deeply attuned to your wants, your needs, your feelings, your qualities of self, and you very freely express them. You don't have much obstructions. You don't have even cognition to regulate good, bad, right, wrong. You just let it fly. My little boy, when he gets mad, stomps his feet and screams. He hasn't had any relationship with anger that's like, is anger good? Is anger bad? Should I throw my anger? Should I swallow my anger? He just stomps his feet and screams. And Enneagram says over time, from attachment wounds with our caregivers, from our uptaking, we realize there are ways we should be and ways we shouldn't be. And the whole personality structure emerges from that. And there are two things that are kind of the ta tippy toppiest tips of the iceberg that are the things that we can really start working with at Enneagram. It's very hard to immediately start working with reforming the motivation. That's a really challenging thing to do. But Enneagram has two notions. One's called the fixation, which is my attentive habit that's part of my type. It's where does my attention go to? And one is called the vice, which is the behavioral habit. What do I enact from my type? The fixation of the type three, the competitive achiever, is vanity. I am fixated on managing an image. And I am not only fixated with managing that image with you, I'm very fixated on managing that image with me. It's very important that I believe that I'm that image. And therefore, it's very important that I don't let myself believe that I'm not that image. The top tip-toppy uh piece of that for an Enneagram 3, the vice is deceit, which is I deceive others, but most importantly, myself about the truth of myself. And so for an Enneagram 3 in that situation, it might be I really need to believe that I'm a good person who doesn't do these types of things, despite the fact that there's a part of me that doesn't care about being good and just wanted to go out and get drunk with my friends. And from a developmental standpoint, what my work with that person is like, can you actually see that that part of you you're trying so hard not to be also has some really beautiful things in it? And sure And it's normal.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

It's normal developmentally, it's normal.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

But here's the thing that you really have to work with is an Enneagram 3, and Enneagram 4s are this way too. An Ennegram 3 doesn't want to be normal. I want to be better than normal. And oh my god, I did a normal thing. Those kids that get they have a 2.3 GPA and aren't that smart and aren't that special, they got drunk at that party too. And I was just like them. God damn it. Oh man. And so for some types, normalization, the type rejects it. Type goes, God, that hurts even more. You're making me normal. For a type one, that same thing about Kurt, right? Like, let's look at a type Kurt, your example. The type one goes, I was I was being good by opening all of those doors for everyone. I was being good by doing that. But in some sense, there's a wraparound there where you get caught in the knot of like, well, kinda not really, because you were kind of being bad because you didn't align with everybody and making that happen. And it's like, ooh, well, the the the type one where the structure where people start to get really defended and like you said triggered is when the type one has to grasp with, oh, I was good and bad in that moment. What do I do with that? What do I do with the fact that actually in the same exact moment I was good and bad? The type three of like, oh, I was being authentic, but I wasn't being this image I wanted to present to the world. What do I do with that? What do I do with the fact that my authenticity is now causing a collision against this im uh in contrast with this image I'm trying to uphold? It is what you're you're attuning to, Colette, is it can be a very psychologically precarious place to arrive to, especially for a young person. And I especially imagine probably a lot of these student conduct cases are freshmen, a young person amidst a sea of change who is already in a psychologically precarious position. And so, of course, it's a type three I go, not only do I have to lie to student conduct and my friend, like I'm actually doing this because it's really important I uphold this lie with me. Otherwise, where am I?

SPEAKER_02 41:48

Layers of their friends, the angry parent that called our office earlier that day. How dare we? It is it is tough to get to that ability to have that conversation.

SPEAKER_03 42:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:04

And when you were talking about how um you really have to establish like a deep understanding to have those conversations, and in a great meeting, it could be 30 minutes, 60 if you're really going crazy. Um, but what are some of those little things that you might advise to establish that trust or ability to have the reflection when you are meeting a stranger, you're scared? Um, what are some things we could do to set that up better?

SPEAKER_00 42:44

Yeah, I notice I'm coming at it from a coaching context, like from my context. The thing that I make sure is clear with all my clients, and I really have to check myself because if I say this to you and it's not true in my heart of hearts, it will backfire harder than anything else. But the thing that I say to my coaching clients is I am here for you. Entirely in service of you. I am here to support you, I am here to stand for you, I'm here to love and support you first and foremost. In the moments where I challenge you, my aim is to always be doing that in service of you and your growth and development. So just so you know, the reason why I'm here is for you right now. If I say that with truth from my heart of hearts, there's nothing faster that will disarm somebody. Sometimes people who are skeptical of authority, it'll put them in a really weird, that same weird bind where they'll be like, whoa, this person feels really honest, but I don't trust them, and I'm not totally sure what to do with that. And then I uh again I might point to that and go, like, hey, I I know I imagine that you might not be totally sure about this, and actually that's okay. I'm totally okay with that being how you you feel about it. But in my experiences, if you say that, but most importantly, inhabit that place, people are open to receiving a lot. I I joke that like I say things to some of my Executive coaching clients that if other people said it to them, they would slap them across the face. And they look at me and they go, Oh wow, huh. Thanks. And it's because they know I'm on their side. Um, but that's the most important. But again, if you say that and you're not being genuine, that will blow up in your face. There's nothing, there's nothing more. I know for me, anybody who's attuned, there's nothing more when somebody says, I'm here, I'm on your side, and you just can feel they're not. That's not what they're there for.

SPEAKER_02 44:29

I have one more question before we let you go. I loved it that you sometimes used salty language when we worked together. I don't know what it was, if it was my ego, it's like, oh, Justin feels like I'm a grown-up. Or um occasionally with a student, I will just say, like, we both know this is bullshit. I've wondered, like, when's the day gonna come that somebody complains about that or reports this? And it and the answer has been zero. But I wonder how you make those decisions, if it's intuitive, if you have certain things that you just know, like it just it works better when we use grown-up language.

SPEAKER_00 45:11

I'm gonna bring this back to Enneagram because this is this kind of comes back to Enneagram and in my training, which is one of my jobs as coach is to help somebody re-establish contact with the essence that is behind or underneath that whole defended personality structure. Right? It's not that that unobstructed essence ever went away, it's that the structure has established itself as a fortress around it. And we're tempted to deconstruct some of that fortress and make our way back to the essence, especially the essence that the fortress doesn't want to let leak out. I have a lot of tools and methodologies to do that. But actually, the most effective way to do that for me is for me to live it. Is for me to walk my essence into the conversation and allow my essence to be an invitation to your essence to come forward and beat me. This is a thing that my I did a whole year-long training with a conscious leadership group, and they really they hold this. They say in coaching, you need to be the being that can hold the field for transformation. And what that means is I bring my entire self and a big field of self-acceptance and love for myself there. And if the essence of me that wants to curse is uninvited into the room, that will show up in a subtle energetic field that says cursing isn't okay, and therefore this part of your essence also is not okay. And so for me, there is very much like a in my training, we would call this like what I attempt to inhabit is what's called a through me state of consciousness. Which is I just open myself into contact with my essence and I let whatever essence wants to come through through as much as possible. I don't know the next thing I'm gonna say even right now. It's just coming out from that essence. I can't can't tell you the next words that are coming out. And what I find is in inhabiting that, again, that's the most profound thing that I can do for somebody else, is just hold that field and be an invitation for their essence to come through too. And so cursing is one of the ways I do that. Probably especially because, too, I find for a lot of the folks I work with, and probably in our culture, we have very malformed relationships with our anchor, like with the heat of anger and clarity in relationship. And like really what I want to signal is like, yeah, this is a really safe space to be pissed together. And if you need to curse and if you need to like let that heat out so we can learn to establish contact with it and work with it and learn its wisdom, I really want that to be in the space. And so that's where that comes through for me. Is just okay, when essence wants to say fuck, I let it come through and say it.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

I feel like my essence says that at least ten times a day, so this is very refreshing. Apparently, my voice is anger though, according to ChatGPT, so uh interesting.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

Yeah, and Kurt, just to jump over to you. That's the type one anger that goes, I'm angry at how the world is wrong and bad. The world is supposed to be right and good, and the world is wrong and bad, and that enrages me. And while the the gifts of the reformer are to be able to create goodness and rightness, what happens is that fixation with the wrongness and badness, one, it pisses them off to no end, and two, it actually shortcuts their ability to bring about the goodness and rightness they seek. Not to mention welcome in the wisdom of their so-called bad parts, to welcome in the wisdom of the rebel who wants to kick open those doors and be bad in service of the other people. Fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 48:40

Justin, where are some places if somebody wanted to get in touch with you or at a good starting place, what would what would that be?

SPEAKER_00 48:49

If you want to get in touch with me, my website, Justinmulvaney.com. Um, you can also find me on LinkedIn, which is LinkedIn.com forward slash Justin Mulvaney. Um, Enneagram probably like there's a few really beautiful ones. One of the most robust sources for Enneagram, if you're interested in diving deeper on the web, is um narrative Enneagram. They're very well respected. They have a lot of different documentation on the type. If you're interested in getting typed, my recommendation is work with a professional and either have an assessment done or have them you them type you. And there's two reasons why. One, most of the free online assessments are so so. They can help you dial in, but they're not gonna nail it. And two, Enneagram types are very slippery and very easy to lie to yourself about. And it can do a disservice to your growth. Like for me, I really wanted to be type one. I wanted to tell you I was type one, and that would have shortcut a lot of growth versus making contact with my type three that's like, oh, I want to be a type one because I think it's better to be a type one. Which is very Enneagram three of me. Because I want my I want my image to be, I care so much because I'm standing for something good, not because I need you to see me as being excellent. But seeing that that was really at the core of that was much more growth-inducing for me. And so I really advise if you want to do this, partner with somebody. Get somebody who's a professional and narrative has people. There's another group called the Enneagram group, Enneagram.is, that's very good at this, and I also can help people with this.

SPEAKER_02 50:21

I think it would be fun to do a presentation at a professional conference together. I think that would be a real blast. How to use this stuff. Um, Justin, thank you. And uh, I think we all have some homework to do now. I wanted to tell you a story too, because I've been thinking about you practicing the drums and playing in a concert on Saturday, and it's been 20 years. And I remember when you joined the drum team at RIT, and then you quit because they were not up to your standards, and now I'm like, I am seeing oh, I totally get it now. And I was devastated that you did because you were really good and they really needed you, but I can see why that wouldn't have spoken to you.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

Yeah. Yeah, and like the thing is if I speak very personally of this uh on this journey, is like um I'm always in an exploration of what right relationship with that part of me looks like. Because sometimes it's actually really wise of going, yeah, this isn't up to my standards, and it's not in service of me to stay around here. And I actually think it's right to move on and to do the work to call in people, relationships, and partners who are gonna meet my standards. And sometimes it's going, hmm, I think I really want to be connected with these people, and in this circumstance, and in order for me to be fully present and genuinely enjoy this, I'm gonna need to let go of the part of me that needs for everything to be the best. And so, really, like it's a very fine line and a really hard thing to tune in, honestly. And the more and more I do this, the more I can tell in my body of like I can tell when there's a tightness in my body because something genuinely doesn't feel right, versus when there's a tightness but like an ease that's like, oh, I want to be here, but I'm scared that this this isn't the best that it can be right now. And that's an indicator that I need to go and massage and relax my structure versus leave. But it's a very fine line, and I'm I'm constantly in exploration of this with myself.

SPEAKER_02 52:27

But you made some brave choices when you were young, that that choice to transfer. Gutted. I'm sure I was not the only one that felt that way, but um wow, a lot of wisdom and trusting yourself at that time. Justin, thank you. Thanks, Colette. Ms. Behavior is written and produced by Colette Shaw and Kurt Doan. Theme music was written and performed by Kevin McLeod from Incompotech.com. You can contact Ms. Behavior at Ms. BehaviorCollege at gmail.com. That's MSBhavior College at gmail.com.