Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Our Enneagram Numbers - Inspecting Our True Selves | Ear Biscuits Ep.291

Episode Date: June 7, 2021

Part 1 of our Enneagram episode is finally here! Listen to R&L discuss their Enneagram numbers and the insight they’ve gained into what makes them tick on this episode of Ear Biscuits! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I'm Rhett. And I'm Link. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we're talking about the Enneagram

and we're talking about specifically my number and your number. And if you don't know what the crap we're talking about, well, we'll give you a little bit of primer on that to start out. Yeah, I mean, okay, you know, I'm Mr. Disclaimer. So I'm gonna give you a little bit of primer on that to start out. Yeah, I mean, okay, you know, I'm Mr. Disclaimer, so I'm gonna give you a few disclaimers before we get started.

First of all, Ronstadt, don't forget. The first disclaimer is the third episode of Ronstadt is out, and this is where you get to meet one of Link's characters. Maybe, I mean, I think my favorite character that you play is Gus Twitty, but this is- Oh, really? This is a very- Knee Slapper is my favorite.

It's a very good character as well. Yeah, you get to meet Knee Slapper, episode three of Ronstadt. So wherever you get your podcast, it's scripted. You can catch up at any time. Get on the train. Few disclaimers. The first disclaimer is,

for anybody who knows anything about the Enneagram, you already know that everyone did their Enneagram podcast like four years ago, minimum. And so we're late to the game. And these disclaimers are actually coming through my wife, who is the most knowledgeable person I know about the Enneagram. So just to let you know, this is from Los Angeles,

Jesse Lane Interiors. Oh gosh, I don't. But we're not, that's not the podcast we're doing anyway. This is the bigger disclaimer is what she wanted me to do. She said, don't tell me you're doing an episode on the Enneagram. She said, are you gonna do what everybody does and you're gonna not bring on an expert

to talk about the Enneagram. You're gonna talk out of your ass about the Enneagram and you're gonna misinform and miseducate. I said, no, no, no, no. That is not what we're doing because we are not trying to educate you about the Enneagram and you're gonna misinform and miseducate. I said, no, no, no, no, that is not what we're doing because we are not trying to educate you about the Enneagram. We are talking about our experience with the Enneagram. But just in case you're the kind of person

who wants to be oriented to what the Enneagram is if you're not already in order to then enjoy or appreciate the discussion that we're gonna have. I do encourage you to go to other sources to figure out what the Enneagram is because we're gonna give a very brief explanation, but this is not comprehensive and it's not meant to be authoritative in any way, okay?

Man, you're really hedging. You almost sound like a one, like a perfectionist who's like, if I'm gonna be criticized for this, I don't wanna do it. A self-prez three is the closest to a one of any spot on the Enneagram. Now, but the other thing I'll say along that lines is there's a bunch of great sources.

I'm a little bit biased towards the Enneagram Institute just because it's a website, not a book. So it's really easy to go to and it's free. And you can go over there and you can get a brief description of the different personality types and you can get a brief description of what the Enneagram is in general. And there's a lot of information for free.

You can also take the test, which I do think you have to pay for on the Enneagram Institute anyway. But the thing that we really wanna talk about is just kind of explore our experience in being exposed to the Enneagram and starting to understand what our numbers are and how that has impacted how we think about ourselves,

how we think about each other and other people that we interact with, like our wives. We're thinking we're gonna make this a two-parter because today we're gonna talk about both of our numbers and our experience with that. Right. And the insights we've gained into what makes ourselves tick.

And then probably next time, we'll spend more time talking about how different numbers relate to each other. How the fact that I'm a three and Link's a one, like what that means in our relationship, the way our marriages function with the insights that we've been given by learning about the Enneagram. But let's just start just really quickly,

just saying a couple of things about what it is. Okay, so you hear the word Enneagram, it sounds a little bit like pentagram. It kind of looks like a pentagram. Well, it sounds like kilogram too. Because it is a nine pointed diagram that essentially represents the fact that there are, or the idea, I don't wanna use the term fact

because this is not scientific, this is very observational. A nine pointed symbol, this sounds creepy, man. The idea is that there are nine personality types. Now, just, this is not astrology. If you're into astrology, good for you. I don't believe in it, but astrology is based on the idea that depending on at what time you were born during the year

there are certain things that are true about your personality. Enneagram has nothing to do with that sort of idea that there's some sort of cosmic thing determined about you based on when you were born. I think of it more like the Myers-Briggs personality test, but that kind of sells it short in terms of the history of it.

And I mean, wouldn't you say? Yeah, well, I'm gonna just read to you something from my favorite website, the Enneagram Institute.com. Okay, from one point of view, the Enneagram could be seen as a set of nine distinct personality types, each number on the Enneagram denoting one type.

It's common to find a little of yourself in all nine of the types, although one of them should stand out as being closest to yourself. This is your basic personality type. Everybody emerges from childhood with one of the nine types dominating their personality with inborn temperament and other prenatal factors

being the main determinants of our type. In other words, this is mostly to do with discovering who you are just genetically. This isn't necessarily, I mean, you can argue about how much is nature and how much is nurture, but this is just, based on observation, it seems like there are nine sort of dominant types of personalities

that people can exhibit. And for me, and I think I'm speaking for Link as well. I mean, the main, like, okay, so what's the point? Why, what do you do? Why are you into this? And why has this been impactful or impactful? I mean- You just said the same word twice.

For me, but I emphasize a different syllable. The main benefit is the realization that I am not my personality. That's actually a huge part of this for me, because we tend to get confused and tend to think that we are the way we act and the way we think, right? But my personality and your personality is a protective shell that we have constructed

to protect our inner self, right? This is something I explored in therapy and the way the Enneagram kind of lined up with it was pretty awesome. But in the more that I understand my personality, the more that I understand what the shell is and how the shell was constructed, the more transparent it becomes

and the more I can look through it and see my true inner self. And that's good for me personally, but it's also good for my relationships because I'm able to experience my true self, express my true self, but also let you, as someone in my relationship with me, experience my true self.

My experience is that it's a nice companion knowledge base to therapy. Now I don't actually talk about the Enneagram in therapy. Sometimes I might refer to it, but I access some of the things that I'm learning in those conversations in therapy. And so it can definitely be very insightful or I'll also say heavy, you know,

it can really help you get access into, you know, what's going on inside and then help you understand why you're doing the things that you do and respond to certain situations. And that's a very rewarding process, but it can also be, you know, it's work. It can, and it, sometimes, you know, you can be, it can be painful, you know, to get into it.

But I'll say also, as I was exposed to it through our group of friends that were into it years ago, it was also fun because it just, I felt like all of a sudden some things kind of clicked into place and I understood things and I could, you know, all of the quirks that I have and I got plenty, I didn't feel as alone or as weird. I still love to celebrate my weirdness and my unique-acy,

but there was a bit of validation that like, oh, I'm not alone. I can, as much as I want to, I can apply the labels associated with one and feel not so alone. And it's kind of, I mean, if you're into it, it's fine. And you know- If you're not into it and you have friends

who are into it, it can be a little pretentious and annoying also as well. But I'm into it, so I'm probably just pretentious and annoying, but- And it provided a common language for our friend group to understand each other much more quickly on a deeper level. And to this day, we still refer to those things.

But I mean, there was a big wave when we were all reading the books and talking about it that now it just kind of comes up occasionally. So, you know, I'll say it can be painful, it can be heavy, but it can also be fun. And I think we're gonna talk about both those things today. And when you learn more about your personality and you kind of learn through this, you know,

the filter of the Enneagram, it's interesting because you're kind of learning what your strengths and weaknesses are at the same time, because the old adage, your greatest strength is usually your greatest weakness. And what makes you a one, what makes me a three, what makes you whatever you are? There are some strengths and weaknesses

that come along with that. And usually, again, the thing that makes you an asset in a relationship or an asset on a team also when it's not healthy can make you a liability. And I think that that's the biggest thing that we've been able to learn because as you kind of understand like when I'm like, okay, that's why I'm, oh, I do this thing and now that I can actually

read about it and I can see like you were saying that, oh, there's a whole lot of other people who have this same struggle or have this same tendency, it suddenly kind of neuters it a little bit. You know what I'm saying? It takes the power out of it and I don't feel as controlled and I actually feel like there's a little bit of hope for dealing with this particular thing that is a problem.

Right, when you separate yourself from your personality then and that you've constructed, then you can start to change your habits and your actions and you can dismantle your unhealthy defense mechanisms. And I'm not great at it. And I've kind of gone away from the Enneagram. I haven't been reading a lot about it in a few years, but it was nice to kind of get a refresher on it.

Let's go quickly through all of the types. Okay. But I mean, cause we're just gonna talk about my type and your type today, but I'm sure people wanna hear. And you know, there's quizzes and you can go to the website and you can start to read these books and type yourself. And it's gonna take a little bit more work

than just the one liner that I'm gonna read right now, but I'll just go in numeric order, not because that puts me first, just because, I mean, I am a one. Type one is called the reformer. Some people might call it the perfectionist. One book that we'll refer to calls the one the machine, which I kind of like that.

The rational idealistic type, principled, purposeful, self-controlled and perfectionistic. Type two, you got the helper. That's the caring interpersonal type, demonstrative, generous, people pleasing, and possessive. Jesse is a type two. This is my wife, which we can talk about next week. Type three, you've got the achiever.

That is you, Rhett. This is me. Do you like any of the other names besides the Achiever? Well, the same book, the Millenniagram, which we will recommend later, calls this the winner. I like that. The success-oriented, pragmatic type, adaptive, excelling, driven, and image conscious. Type four. Can you tell? You've got the individualist,

the sensitive withdrawn type, expressive, dramatic, self-absorbed, and temperamental. Type five, the investigator, the intense cerebral type, perceptive, innovative, secretive, and isolated. Type six, the loyalist. This is my wonderful wife, Christy. The committed security oriented type, engaging, responsible, anxious, and suspicious.

Type seven, the enthusiast, the busy, fun-loving type, spontaneous, versatile, distractible, and scattered. Type eight, the challenger, the powerful dominating type, self-confident, decisive, willful, and confrontational. Type nine, wrapping things up, you've got the peacemaker, the easygoing, self-effacing type, receptive, reassuring, agreeable, and complacent. Now, there's a couple of ways to figure out what you are.

And one way is the test. What I will say about the test is like the, it's actually called the REDI, R-H-E-T-I, it's an acronym for something, from the Enneagram Institute, has been evaluated to be like 72% accurate. So in other words- I don't think I ever took it.

So I took that one and there's some other free ones that you can take online and you might not always score. I usually, like 90% of the time, three will be the thing that pings the highest, right? But another way to sort of figure out what you are in addition to the test, is to read in depth about each one and see which one resonates the most with you.

And I would go as far, I think the way that my wife put it is, the one where it feels like they're reading your mail. You know what I'm saying? Because you're likely- Might start to get a little embarrassed. You're gonna have a little bit of shame and embarrassment, some self-consciousness that is associated

with the negative qualities of each type. And it's really those negative qualities that you begin to feel that, oh, that's me. Oh, you got me. Yep, you call me out. And when I read about three, it's clear as day that that's what I, and I think you feel very strongly

in the same way about the one. Now, some people might not, it might be like, and again, this isn't, it's not science. This is a observational thing that just kind of helps you think about yourself. So don't feel too discouraged if you're like, I can't really figure this out in an afternoon. Maybe it's obvious for you, maybe it's not,

but just be patient with it if this is something that you want to pursue. So let's obvious for you, maybe it's not, but just be patient with it if this is something that you want to pursue. So let's dig into our numbers. Shop Best Buy's ultimate smartphone sale today. Get a Best Buy gift card of up to $200 on select phone activations with major carriers. Visit your nearest Best Buy store today. Terms and conditions apply.

Okay, I mean, since one comes before three, just go ahead and- All right, I'll kick it off, but we'll bounce back and forth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It definitely was obvious that I was a one in my mind very quickly. I mean, even without knowing about the Enneagram,

my perfectionistic tendencies, maybe it's because I'm a one or that I identified with it immediately, or maybe it's just like the concept of being a perfectionist is something that people talk about more often than some of these other types, maybe. I don't know, I can't tell because I'm kind of on the inside of it,

but people tend to think they can spot a perfectionist because it's a familiar term, right? So I kind of always considered myself a perfectionist, very meticulous. So as I started to read about it, I was like, oh yeah, I didn't play with my toys. I posed my toys in the way that I wanted them and I never touched them again.

Right. I look over my family's shoulder when they're loading the dishwasher and I just can't help but reload it once they're done. Basically with any type of procedure, I always think I know the best way to do it and I just can't help myself to get my hands in there and to rearrange it, gotta make things right.

Right. I mean, that's a big part of it. It goes a lot deeper than that, but I mean, that's a big part of it. It goes a lot deeper than that, but I mean, speaking of going deeper, I guess we can talk about the childhood message of it all. Sure, yeah. Is there, so in the complete Enneagram,

it's more of the reference book that we've both read. Well, I think that's- 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge. That's the one that I read. I didn't read the other one. Well, the unconscious childhood message that the one that I just told I didn't read the other one. Well, the unconscious childhood message that the one that I just told you about, I know is in the wisdom of the Enneagram

because that's what I was, it could be also be in the complete Enneagram. Yeah, it says chaos or uncertainty or anxiety in the family motivates the one child to take on the task of providing order and structure for himself. The coping strategy of adhering strongly to sound rules and routines and standards of behavior provides the one

with inner cohesion and security, as well as protection from criticism. So, you know, it's not that my mom, my mom didn't have a lot of rules, actually. Things were pretty loose, but I definitely had this sense that I needed to be a good child and that I needed to follow the rules even,

and I would make them up for myself. So I can definitely see, I mean, some people will assert that you're kind of born with a number and that it just kind of manifests itself through the message that you receive as a child. And it's like the first litmus test of kind of what your number is.

Other people may say different things, but for me, I think there was this perceived insecurity and that some of it was, it was up to me to make sure that we were good. You know, it was like, it was me and my mom, I remember things like it just being, okay, my mom's getting a divorce, now it's just me and my mom in like late grade school

and just kind of internalizing the fact that I need to do my part to walk the line. I don't wanna cause any trouble. I don't wanna be the one to create any sort of split here. Nothing was to the point where like, I mean, I'm certainly continuing to explore those things from my childhood in therapy and in my own work, but I wouldn't say that it was traumatic to the point.

I mean, I just think that that's how I responded to it. Right. I can order my zone, I can stay in my room can be my place. And if anybody has expectations of me, I need to do everything I can to follow those. So it does resonate in that way. I think the childhood message is,

it's not okay to make mistakes. Right. And again, I think that was not anything that was, I didn't have a drill sergeant of family members that were saying, you know, and I never experienced a lot of punishment. It was all something that I put on myself and that I definitely believed

as a defense mechanism of things going wrong. If anything goes wrong, it can't be because I didn't do something right if I knew it, if I'm culpable. And just to give people an idea of how personal, how much you take it upon yourself, it's not just the feeling that you can't make mistakes. I mean, like the basic fear of a one, according to the Enneagram Institute

is of being evil or defective. You know what I'm saying? So it's not just about like, if I make a mistake, it's gonna screw things up. It's about you. But the core of my being is- If I do something wrong, I'm bad. I am, yeah, it's not just I did something wrong,

I am wrong. And you know, in the evangelical environment that we grew up in, that is a tenant of the faith is that you're born into sin. So you're born guilty and in need of punishment. You deserve punishment, just by virtue of being born and existing. And I never questioned that, I accepted that, maybe it resonated with me and I internalized that. Right.

And so that was a defining belief and a defining part of my experience as well. Well, it's all, you know, the different environments that you find yourself in will, might exacerbate it, right? And I think, interestingly, I mean, one of the things we didn't say at the top is there is a, definitely a spiritual aspect to the roots of the Enneagram. And so it actually, the Enneagram is talked about

quite a bit in Christian circles, right? Both evangelical circles, but also sort of post-Christian or liberal Christian, progressive Christian circles. You don't have to have any sort of spiritual identity or that doesn't have to be a part of your background in order to appreciate like Link's talking about the practical side of things. But when you're in that environment where

you're being told that you're bad and that is your ultimate problem, I think that that probably speaks to a lot of the ways that we processed our whole spiritual experience so differently. You know what I'm saying? Which we'll get into how a three navigates the spiritual space.

We'll talk about me in a second. Yeah, for me it was, okay, my, everything that I learned in church growing up was, okay, a set of rules and a set of beliefs and an entire worldview that's completely organized that I was like, okay, it gave me a sense of comfort that that existed. All I had to do was live up to it.

And, you know, follow through with the actions. Oh yeah, and that's not, you know, that's not ultimately the point of it, but that was certainly what I fixated on. Right. You know, it wasn't a connection or a relationship with God. And if you replay my spiritual deconstruction episodes

through this lens of being a one, it definitely makes sense and it's helped me process it. Another part of it is, like I said, protection from criticism, like trying to do everything you can so that someone else can't point out your fault. You know, I think about when I was dating Christy and I was just, I was reading all these books.

I wanted to do it right. You know, my dad, I never lived with my dad. You know, he left when I was two. And then, you know, my mom got remarried. There was a, and then there was a divorce. I don't think I ever blamed myself for either one of those things, but how I internalized it is a different question.

And I could definitely see when I was dating Christy, I was like, I don't, I wanna make sure I do it right. I wanna read all the books so that no stone is left unturned with this decision I'm gonna make. Should I ask her to marry me? And I remember this summer where you're trying to figure this out and you were like asking all these questions and you were like asking all these questions

and you were like weighing all these things, you were meeting with other people. There was like pro con list that I would make and it was as if someone was looking over my shoulder, analyzing my choice so that if they said, why are you doing this? I would have all the reasons. Yeah and not having any, I mean,

we weren't very in touch with who we were at all in college, but I just interpreted it as, Link's being weird about this decision. It was as simple as that. Cause I specifically remember just telling you, I was just like, do you want to marry her? Right. If the answer is yes, then just ask her to marry you.

It was, for me, it was, I tried to simplify it to that level. And then you were like, no, no, no, no, no. It's not that. How could you just make a decision based on what you want? My mom always tells the story of when I, we went out to dinner and I was like, mom, I looked her in the eye, I was like, mom,

I think I love her. And she was like, mom, I looked her in the eye, I was like, mom, I think I love her. And she was like, you think? It's, you know, it's, of course you do. You know, it's like, finally you're figuring this out. And poor Christy, it's like, she had to wait for me to like justify the fact that I loved her to some, and it wasn't to God, it was to like any outside criticism. So that, again, I just didn't wanna make any mistakes.

And as a one, you don't want to, having to defend, having to say, yeah, I didn't do this right. I didn't look at all the information. I didn't do this right. I didn't look at all the information. I didn't do everything I could have. I was kind of trapped and I robbed myself of a lot of the experience of experiencing falling in love with Christy and being in love.

And I would apologetically explain love as something that wasn't a concrete reason. You were trying to break it down to something that was even more pragmatic than it can be. I mean, what's the childhood message for the three? Or start wherever you want to. I don't have the perfect episode in my mind that I want you to adhere to.

You're really resisting. You're really resisting. What was the last thing that filled you with wonder that took you away from your desk or your car in traffic? Well, for us, and I'm going to guess for some of you, that thing is... Anime! Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President.

And welcome to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect. It's a weekly news show. With the best celebrity guests. And hot takes galore. So join us every Friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. Here's one way that I knew I was a three. here's one way that I knew I was a three. The day that Jessie told me about the Enneagram and she said, there are nine personality numbers.

And I was like, which one's the best one? I was joking, but honestly, that's how a three approaches every single situation is how can I be the best in this environment, with this challenge, right? So again, little description of the threes, again, the achiever, the performer, the winner. Threes are self-assured, attractive.

Now, the reason that it says attractive is not because you're naturally good looking, it's that you're image conscious, so no matter how ugly you actually are, even if you don't have a chin, right? You can grow a beard over that chin and be like, that guy's not bad looking. Don't shave.

You see what I'm saying? That's what a three can do. Charming, ambitious, competent, energetic. They can also be status conscious and highly driven for advancement. They're diplomatic and poised, but can also be overly concerned with their image and what others think of them.

They typically have problems with workaholism and competitiveness. Who's that? What? At their best, self-accepting, authentic, everything they seem to be, role models who inspire others. So the childhood message, and this is interesting, right? So on the surface, it's something that I think many of you can relate to, and that is most parents,

and I'm one of them, make the mistake of sort of giving praise and rewards and love to your children make the mistake of sort of giving praise and rewards and love to your children when they do things well. They make good grades, they perform well in sports. And some kids, kids who are threes, internalize that message to this hyperdrive level where they actually begin to attach their own self-worth

to having pleased their parents. So this doesn't mean that my parents did something wrong in telling me that it was good to make good grades or that being good at basketball was something they were into. It's that the three takes that and builds an identity that is based on what someone else wants. So they call the three the chameleon in a lot of ways

because what they can do is you put us into a situation, put us on a basketball team. We're gonna figure out how to be the best player on the basketball team. Put us into a classroom. We're gonna figure out how to be the smartest person in the classroom and if we can't be the smartest, we're gonna be the best person who's giving a speech.

We're gonna find something that we can do. And if we can't do it, if we start thinking, well, I actually can't cut it here, we bail. And we go to all the other things that we can do and we learn how to navigate and be good at it. I see this pattern repeated so many times in my life, academically, with sports, with our career, you know, they're the ultimate fake it till you make it.

Right? Threes will go into a situation knowing that they do not know how to execute or be good at something, but with this belief, I'll figure it out. I'll get into the situation. I will adapt, I will learn, and I will come out on top. And there's just this pathological belief

that that's how you can approach everything. Now- Bullshit artist. The interest, well, we can be very deceptive and we can be, a lot of politicians, a lot of politicians are threes. Bill Clinton. I got a list here, yeah. But, but, but.

Michael Jordan. Now. Is he a politician? I mean, a lot of people who have succeeded in a, like Tiger Woods is a three. A lot of people who have succeeded sort of exceptionally in a particular field to a maniacal level happen to be threes. Oprah.

Oprah, but what are we running from? Why? Why are we like this? Why am I like this? So, you know, I think this is the thing that has been so impactful in the beginning of transformative as it comes to like my therapy and exploring these ideas

is that actually our basic fear is of being worthless. The unconscious childhood message that we received was, not that we received, but that we latched onto again. I wanna make sure that this isn't coming across as like- Blaming your parents. Did something. This is what we latched onto because of our disposition.

The message that I received and believed was, it's not okay to have your own feelings and identity. Now there's a lot of reasons why that might be the case, but what you end up doing is, to not have your own identity. What that means is that threes have a really difficult time figuring out what they want, because what they're really good at

is figuring out what you want, what the environment that they want. You know, think about campus ministry, right? I have had a tendency throughout my entire life, when you put me into an environment, I find a way to navigate to the top of it, right? So what did I do in campus ministry? We went to one Campus Crusade event

and I saw that there was a guy out there talking. Every week, he was introducing people, he was making jokes, he was in videos, and it just clicked. And it wasn't a conscious process. It was like, I'm going to be that person. Because I can't navigate a space in any other way. And so the next year I was that person, right?

And so, but what are we running from? We believe that the moment that we stop asserting ourselves and the moment that we stop being this thing that other people have found value in, that we don't have any value, that we are worthless. So it's actually this tricky thing where it's not this thing, we don't actually think that we're great. We actually think that we're not great.

We think that we are ultimately worthless unless we can do something for you. Unless we can perform in a way that you're like, good job, great job. And if we don't get that, we begin to disappear. I mean, the worst fear that I have is like being incapacitated. Like literally, like, oh, what if I'm in an accident

and I can't do what I do anymore? Like that is what a three is scared of. Because the moment that people have to, and this is, and we also tend to be incredibly independent. I don't want you doing something for me. Don't help me with something. Because that means that I can't do it and I might be worthless. So receiving things from people, receiving help from people,

we're not good at that because we want to do it, again, not because we think, it comes across as arrogance. I'm very aware of that. It comes across like, oh, you're arrogant, you're prideful, you think you're the shit. That's sort of the external impression that we can give. The soft underbelly of that is we actually are afraid that we're not those things.

We're afraid that we're worthless. We're afraid that if we cannot perform for you, then we will fade away into non-existence. That's, yeah, and that's kind of sad, but it's nice to get in touch with that so you can start to say, okay, how am I gonna grow? How am I gonna integrate these insights? Because for me, it's, yeah, it's, if I'm not,

you know, I guess I'm afraid of there not being an answer or there not being a perfect way. It's like if there's not an answer, what am I supposed to do? But again, one step below that, if my ultimate fear is of being worthless, your ultimate fear is of being bad. Yeah, of being, yeah.

Corrupted. Of being fundamentally flawed as opposed to being fundamentally good, nailing it. Nailing it. And you know what? We'll get into this in a second. There's subtypes, right? And so there's wings and there's subtypes,

we'll talk about that. But the specific subtypes that we are actually makes us similar in some really interesting ways. We'll talk about that. But the thing about like this desire to be, to not make a mistake, to be good, that the one has, and then this desire to accomplish. And I'm not saying that, there have been some situations

and I can't, I wish I could think of one where we have to make a decision about something. And it's a much easier decision for me because I'm just like, do we want to do this? Or would this be a good look? And then you'll kind of get caught up on, yeah, but is this the right thing to do? Yeah.

And I actually think it's a really good balance because sort of the one-two punch of that decision-making process is it can be very powerful. But there are a few times where I'm just like, oh, Link is really, Link is really spending a lot of time thinking about the merit of, like the moral merit of this, and I'm spending a lot of time thinking about

what it will do for us. I'm not talking about like, oh, I'm gonna bend the rules. Now, threes will do that. Threes will bend the rules. Threes will break the law. Threes will lie in order to take advantage of you. A healthy three doesn't do that. I consider myself a three that is moving towards health

and is at times healthy so that being deceptive is not, I'm not a liar, you know, that's not a problem. I'm not gonna lie to you to try to get something past you. I guess there may have been times in my life that I would have done that, but thankfully that hasn't been one of the things that I've had to deal with. One of the things, I guess, to bounce back to the one,

like one of the hallmarks of oneness is an incessant inner critic. Now, a lot of people, and I guess of many different numbers can describe having an inner critic. Now, a lot of people and I guess of many different numbers can describe having an inner critic, an inner voice that is analyzing and assessing your performance, your actions, whatever the case may be, measuring you against a standard. But the inner critic of a one is a constant thing.

Again, to quote the textbook, "'One's internalize a parental voice that functions, "'therefore, as an internal critic or coach, "'this coping strategy of proactively criticizing oneself "'and trying to do things correctly "'prior to coming under parental scrutiny scrutiny can avoid outside criticism and punishment. And it can be crushing because it's so constant. Like I remember when I had my lawn mowing job,

when I was like 14, 15 and on into 17, around my Nana and Papa's house. Like they got me this gig. And first of all, Nana was the one who was like, I remember she would always say, don't half-ass it. If you're gonna do anything, go all the way, do it right. I mean, she was the closest to like the concrete voice of find the right way to do it

and do it. Right. Or don't do it at all. Chew your food 30 times. Right, you take that to heart. Chew your food a lot. It was probably, and she might've never said 30 times. She might've just thrown that out there

as like a ballpark figure, which is really high. But to me, that was like, okay, now I know I'm gonna count 30 times every time. And when I'm done with this podcast, I'm going to go to the dentist and get fitted for a mouth guard so that I don't chew my mouth to shreds while I'm sleeping. You're chewing it at night. You're practicing chewing while you're sleeping.

As a 43 year old. But I remember I would cut grass and I usually didn't have my cassette Walkman because I didn't want to get it dusty. And I would, and definitely not a CD player because it would skip too much. So I would just be there alone with my thoughts. And my thoughts were my inner critic in the form of a,

it was like a sports commentator or like a couple of them talking to each other. And it was constant chatter about how well I was mowing the grass. So if you listened in on my thoughts at any point for the hours and hours that I was mowing all those lawns, like I wasn't daydreaming at least half the time. It wasn't daydreaming or like, you know, just zoning out.

It was listening to these commentators that I was manufacturing talking about, oh, that corner, you know, he kind of missed a little grass. He's gonna have to go back for that one on the second round. And then, oh, the grass is a little long this day. What's his strategy gonna be? And then ultimately, how long did it take him to cut Ms. Bethune's grass and get paid

while listening to her talk about her ceramics? Be nice, but not stay too long that he's gonna get home before dark. You know, it was, and I just thought it was, it was motivating for me. Like I listened to these voices and I got really good at mowing grass, but it wasn't this, it wasn't an outlet.

It was just, it was a barrage of assessment. Well, it's- It was constantly there. It's striking how similar the inner thoughts, inner dialogue of a three is to a one, to hear you say that. So for me, it's, here's a standard of perfection. Are you, I'll say, I'll use the word achieve. Are you achieving it or not?

But I guess your inner critic is saying achieve something different. No, no. So, well, it's so similar and that's why, and first of all, people, and there are people that I'm close to that are not into the Enneagram and I don't know if they're a three or a one,

which you may be like, what? It seems so different. Okay, here's why it's not different. Because the net effect of you having this inner critic that won't shut up, that's in the form of these two, you know, announcers, is that you're constantly focusing on your performance. You may be doing it because you don't wanna make a mistake.

Now, shift the analogy a little bit and just say I'm mowing the grass. Well, what am I thinking about? I'm not thinking about the two commentators. I'm thinking about the crowd that is watching. I'm thinking about the audience. So I don't have an internal critic. I have an inner audience that I am performing for constantly.

I told my therapist about this. And a lot of times, frankly, it's my parents and my brother. It's my family. It's my immediate family. Like I'll be doing something, as a 43 year old man, I'll be doing something stupid,

like cleaning a window or painting something or changing a tire on my kid's bicycle. And I picture them watching me and saying, he's doing a pretty good job with that bicycle tire. I mean, now of course it manifests itself in things like, oh, well he's on the tonight show, or he just won an award for that show that he makes on the internet.

But it is these inner audience that I'm performing for. When you talk about that in set, they're always there. The cloud of witnesses, they're always there. They're always watching and I hope they're always impressed, right? And if I'm by myself, if I'm, I mean, one of the things I struggle with when I meditate is the moment that I begin to focus on my breath

in a way that's actually not encumbered by my thoughts, which is very difficult for me to do. The moment that I focus on my breath, the audience is like, he's doing it, he's focusing on his breath. It's like, and it goes right back to having to perform. And it's the most difficult thing to shed and to let go. But again, if you're just watching somebody on the outside,

you just see two guys doing a really damn good job cutting grass. One guy, Link, the one, is competing against this inner standard that he's established for himself. And the other guy who's doing a really good job as well is thinking about the guy across the street with a mower and how he's better than him, how he's doing a better job than all the other people who might be mowing.

And he's obsessed with not just beating his own standard, but beating the standard. What's the standard for mowing in Lillington? Whatever that is, I'm going to the top. Yeah. And it's, again, a lot of these inner struggles, like when you think, when you talk about any, you might feel exhausted when you hear about

the inner dialogue of a one and a three. I think that's probably the case for most any, the way that I talked to Jesse. I mean, the inner dialogue of a one and a three. I think that's probably the case for most any, the way that I talked to Jessie. I mean, the inner dialogue of a two, it's like, oh, that is, I feel so sorry for you. That is exhausting because this is the thing that you're constantly running from. I can't take a vacation, right?

I'm a workaholic, right? So I go on vacation, like here's a perfect example. Couple years ago, we were getting ready for our tour. The Rhett and Link sing song tour, whatever we call it. That was not what we called it. Yeah, and I had told everybody that I was gonna learn how to play the piano and for this tour, right?

So of course, now that I did that, I had to do it. And I'm sitting on vacation in Cabo San Lucas next to a pool, relaxing. Now my wife is doing, she can relax, she can do it. Day one of a vacation, she's poolside, she's got a book that's like fiction, like a fiction book, you know? And she's just enjoying herself.

One of the reasons I have trouble reading fiction is I feel like I'm not fixing anything. I'm not learning anything. It's just a story that's gonna go in one ear and out the other. But I remember sitting poolside and I was like, boy, you know what this is the perfect opportunity for? This is the perfect opportunity to write a song

because I gotta write a song for this. I gotta play the piano. I to write a song. Because I gotta write a song for this. I gotta play the piano. I gotta write a song. And I wrote, that's why I travel. And that's why it's about being at a Mexican resort because I was at a Mexican resort at the time. And it was like, and again. You have to be doing something.

And if I don't do that. You have to be achieving something. If I choose to be like, you know what? Today I'm not writing a song. I'm not thinking about, I'm not contemplating a project. I'm not trying to be doing something. And if I don't do that. You have to be achieving something. If I choose to be like, you know what, today I'm not writing a song, I'm not thinking about, I'm not contemplating a project, I'm not trying to be a better me, I'm just being, again, that's the ultimate thing for three is, stop doing and start being, learn how to be, not do. Very difficult for me to do.

Because the moment that I don't do anything, I get this, it feels like the world is caving in. Even this past weekend, I spent like an afternoon, I watched a movie and then I kind of just napped on Saturday. And it was like a four hour window where it was like, there was a movie and then a nap. And at the end of that, I was like, I feel horrible. Like what else could I have done in that four hours?

I could have figured something out creatively. Well, this is what I did this weekend. Were you done with your thought though? Yeah, well, I wanna come back to the wings in a second, but I wanna hear what you got to say. Yeah, for me this weekend, it was, Yeah, for me this weekend, it was, I was vacuuming the vents. Yeah, the vents, they get dirty.

Because you look up there and you can start to see, to boy, they're dirty, and I would take them down and I realized there was so much more I could do to vacuum inside of the vent. Yeah, you can go all the way up in there. When I was done with all that, I realized that the vacuum cleaner was really dirty. So I had, I disassembled the vacuum cleaner

and cleaned all of it. And the thing about ones is we can relax if we can manage to put things in just the right order. We can have this sense of wellbeing when things are put in their place. Yeah. Like, oh, I've cleaned and the thing that I cleaned with is now totally clean. So now I can relax.

But if I just cleaned the vents and I made my vacuum cleaner dirty, well, I've created a problem and that's not made right yet. So I couldn't chill out. Now this is a trap, of course, but I do know that sometimes when I'm cleaning or organizing those things make me feel better because they give me that sense of control,

which is associated with achieving perfection in my own mind. Control is really for me like nailing perfection. Yeah, yeah. So it's not about whether it's out of my control or in my control, it's like, it's whether I can achieve a result with control. And there's plenty of things that I will not, I get very sensitive to signing up for things

if I don't know what, if I don't know what, if I don't know how to get to the end goal of perfection. Like if it's open-ended or if I feel like it's a big commitment and I'm not gonna be able to, if I get 80% or 70%, even if it's a friendship, remember that story I told about the guy who was just like, he was just a friend who wanted to continue to be a friend

and I broke up with him because I didn't feel like I could be a good enough friend to him? So I like preemptively just broke up with the guy. I mean, that's what was behind it. Well, and this is another area where the threes and the ones are so alike. In fact, the three one combo, which we'll talk more about next week,

there's actually a nickname for the three one combo. Oh, don't tell. I don't know what it is. It's but basically, it's the combo of numbers that will accomplish the most if you put them together. Oh. Because they're both ultimately super committed to results.

And again, like, okay, so the one, like what you're saying is you're hesitant to enter into a situation if you don't feel like you're gonna be able to do it and you're gonna be able to control it. A three will gladly, they will sign up, we will get right in. We have no idea, we haven't been educated in this area,

we've never done it before, doesn't matter, we're jumping in. The moment that we begin to believe that we will not achieve, that's when we bail. Most threes- And for me, I cannot bail. So it's like, if I sign up for it, I feel like I have to do it. So it's like- So I sign up for it, I feel like I have to do it. So it's like-

So I think that again, this the three one combo is that I will convince you to jump into something. And then I've got this pathological confidence that we will be able to figure it out and do it. And then once you set your mind to it, now we're a team. You know, and so it ends then once you set your mind to it, now we're a team. You know, and so it ends up like, again,

we kind of talked, before we understood the Enneagram, we talked about it with like the analogy of like, you got one guy who gets the ball rolling and you got the other guy who keeps the ball rolling. A starter and a finisher. And that is how it manifests itself a lot as 321s. Now, interestingly, as this relates to, I wanna talk about the wings a finisher. And that is how it manifests itself a lot as three to ones. Now, interestingly, as this relates to, I wanna talk about the wings a little bit.

So an aspect of the Enneagram is that you can be a number with a wing and the wing is the number that is immediately adjacent to each side of you. So I could be a three with a two wing or a three with a four wing. And you can also be a three with a two wing or a three with a four wing. And you can also be a three without a wing, right? But as the more I read about three,

I'm definitely not a two. First of all, let me just say right now, two, which is what my wife is, which is a helper. And again, I think that's kind of a demeaning name to give to the two. There are better names for it in other books. It makes it seem like I'm just here to help. It just basically means that they kind of give themselves

to people in ways that are just monumental. I'm not that, in fact, I score the lowest on two. Like if you look at my scores, like two is like barely ticking, but four, which is the individualist, I actually scored pretty high on and a three with a four wing, this isn't, let me, I'm gonna read,

this is from Millennium Gram. So a three with a four wing means that I'm most concerned with what I produce and put out into the world. So that's where I find my value. It's not just necessarily like, hey, now again, it is like, hey, we're doing this thing where we're throwing darts at a board. Well, I'm gonna do the damnedest job

I can possibly do in this game. That's why I'm so competitive in GMM in a lot of ways, right? Because you just put a challenge in front of me and I'm just like, well, how do you win this? But really it manifests itself in, I am trying to find my worth in the things that I produce, right? And so what that ends up doing is the net effect of that is

every single thing that we produce, every single thing that we put out into the world, my self-worth is attached to it. Now that's kind of true, you might say that's true for all creative people. I believe that it is true in a lot of ways, but it is like fundamental to my core that I have been in this long adulthood battle

to detach my self-worth from the success of what we do. But that's my tendency. My tendency, and I think that's one of the reasons that when I'm not healthy, I get so defensive. So we talked last week or a couple of weeks ago about- Failed projects? GMM 22, the multi-episode version of GMM, when it failed, and when it was in the midst of failing,

when it was in the midst of getting this incredibly negative reaction from fans, we decided that we were gonna do a podcast and talk about it. Now, we made the mistake of just being like, we're just gonna be real and raw and just process this live. I made an ass of myself in a lot of ways, right? I was super defensive.

I insulted people who were disappointed in us. I was like a cornered dog, you know, and I attacked and I lashed out. What I have come to understand is that I was defending my own worth. Not saying it was healthy, it was unhealthy because I had so attached,

I had identified my self-worth with the success of the show. When people were rejecting the show, they weren't just rejecting me, they were telling me that kind of worthless, like you took this time, you hired all these people, you put all this thought and effort into this thing. And you know what? It's shit, man.

That's what it is. It's the shittiest thing you guys have ever done. And so what I hear is you're shit. You're worthless. Yeah, I may have told you that too, sorry. And so when I'm in the bad head space, well, first of all, I should have never made that podcast. I don't think, maybe we learned something from it.

But if I had to go back, I think there was a way to process that rejection in a healthy way, but that wasn't what I did because I tie as a three with a four wing, it's about the things that I bring to you. I'm like, here's something else, here's something else. Here's a book, here's a concert, here's a song. You know what I'm saying?

I'm constantly bringing you things and I'm like, am I more something now? Is it okay? Am I enough saying? I'm constantly bringing you things and I'm like, am I worth something now? Is it okay? Am I enough now? Can I stop? That's the process that's going on. And you know, they talk about the emotional passion associated with each one.

What is that for a three? The emotional passion? Yeah. For a one, it is anger. Oh yeah, for a three is deceit. Okay, so does that, I don't know how that plays into this because to me it feels like,

the thing that I access is that, okay, ones most often feel resentment, which is a kind of a low level background tamp down anger that things aren't as they should be. So I try to remember, I don't remember what I said in that podcast and how I was processing that. But I think that something that had to be going on was just this frustration that it didn't work.

And that I mean, my mind definitely goes back to the things that we foresaw that we needed to work in terms of the tool. Like I start to blame how YouTube worked. And we talked a lot about that, and I fixated on that because I felt like we had a plan and there's things that we needed that didn't exist. It didn't work in a way to give the audience

the experience that I wanted. The perfect experience wasn't possible. And when it became impossible and it didn't pan out and didn't meet my standard, I just got very resentful and frustrated because there was no way forward. It failed because it wasn't gonna come together. You know, so for me, that's where the anger comes.

That's how I experience this anger, this like seething frustration that things aren't right. And I do think that it's like, well, I knew, I knew what it would take, and, but that part was out of our control. And when we asked for it, we didn't get it. And now I'm just mad because it feels like, it feels like I'm wrong and I'm bad, but it wasn't me.

It wasn't my fault. And this on a, like a smaller level than the GMM 22 thing, and we talk about this openly, we'll be in the middle of say a production of some kind that's getting, I begin to feel this is a little much, like this is taking a lot of time, there's a whole lot going on here. And then it'll be like Wednesday in the middle of the week and I'll be like,

Link seems angry today, right? And I think it's because there's so many things going on and maybe, or you tell me, maybe it's like, I feel like I'm losing my sense of understanding and control. I feel like I'm on a roller coaster that is suddenly like one of the wheels may have just come off. I always have an idea of how things should be going. And when it's not, it's happening,

then it just, yeah, it's very frustrating. It's very frustrating. But you don't- Because I've seen it. But it's- I've seen it happen in my mind. But it's not a passive, like there might be some types, like I think a nine tends to sort of retreat a little bit. A one doesn't retreat.

A one turns up the volume. I can fix this. The aggressiveness. It's not too late to fix this. We talk about that sometimes and I'm like, you're being a little aggressive. Right. You're being a little aggressive right now.

Because you're like, well if I could turn up the volume on this and we could just get through this. If I can dig my claws into it deeper and start to steer it or mold it, then maybe it's not too late. Now, the whole deceit, I'm glad you asked that question. So you might be like, what do you mean, what does that mean that the three's sort of passion

is deceit? Wouldn't it be pride? No, actually the two's passion is pride. Talk to my wife about that. Again, just to remind you, we don't actually think that we're great. We just want to seem like we're great, right? Again, I use, this is a funny analogy,

but I just, I use the example of, I'm not trying to make you feel sorry for me. I grow a beard because I do not like the way my face looks without it, right? I am actively deceiving you, except for those of you who are able to find that picture that's all over the damn place on the internet. Oh, it's easy to find.

And it's the worst, I don't actually look that bad without a beard. That picture that you took, something about my hair, my expression, I was a little bit overweight in the chin area. It's the worst picture on the internet and it's like a meme now. Yeah. Can you tell that I'm upset about it

because I can't control my image like a three wants to? But again, what I wanna do is I want to deceive you. So I don't want to- So you're talking like Snapchat filters, but across your whole life. Well, I, again, I wanna be very clear and I don't wanna mischaracterize threes or mischaracterize myself because again, I'm not a liar.

I don't like get into a situation. I don't cheat on my taxes. I don't have an offshore account. I'm not that kind of person. I'm sure there are many threes who are, but that active sort of deception is not what it is. It's a very, it's much more subtle and it's much more sneaky because I am lying to myself.

I'm trying to present myself to myself in a way that is acceptable. So we might be in GMM 22, GMM 22's falling apart and I'm trying to find a way to reposition the argument so that I'm still okay. And so then I say things like, you guys don't even understand how you're supposed to understand this thing.

You know, I don't remember what kind of stuff I said. But again, I don't actually believe that. I know if my inner self knows this is failing, it isn't good, but I can't deal with it not being good. So I'm gonna start lying to myself and I'm gonna start lying to you, not some big giant lie, but I'm gonna start- Spin. Spinning it a little bit.

That's why we make great politicians because you can ask us about, well, why did you say this in 1998? Now you're saying this now. It's like, well, let me tell you why. You're wrong, I'm right. It was never a change. It was the same thing.

It was just a slightly different emphasis. We're masters at that kind of deception. But again, we're lying to ourselves as much as we're lying to you. I mean, I can definitely see that even for me, I might try to change the rules in order to then, like my measurement of perfection, look at it in a different way.

I think one of the challenges for me is just judging. You know, I'm constantly judging myself, but then I'm judging everything or assessing everything to then know what that standard is. Like I'm always searching for the standard. Matter of fact, like when I was choosing which type of engineering I wanted to go into, I gravitated towards industrial engineering.

One of the reasons was because it was all about taking something that, you know, it wasn't about making something. It was about how you make it, how you go about it, the way you do it. It was such a focus on procedure and systems that it really resonated with me. I was like, okay, just like any math problem,

there's steps to then get to a solution. There's a best way to do something and there's always a way to improve something to get closer and closer to perfection. You know, I think that, I know that perfection is an illusion, but I have this drive to get as close as I can to start, you know, to dial the fine tuning as much as possible. So like very detail oriented,

it's like any little thing to get everything in order. So that's why I even went into engineering, industrial engineering specifically was for that reason. And again, my threeness gives a very clear explanation as to how I navigated my engineering situation, right? So, okay, so I went into engineering because originally I wanted to be an architect,

like growing up, I wanted to be an architect and I would like do house plans and stuff like that. And then someone told me that design school was like really, really difficult and it was a lot of time. And so I was like, that doesn't sound fun. That sounds too hard maybe. But you know what, structural engineering is like the engineering side of design school.

So I can still kind of be involved in architecture and my friends like Link are going into engineering. I've been told that I'm good at math. Okay, I'll do that. And so then halfway through my freshman year, or maybe it was my, I can't remember. I'm taking a structural engineering class. I'm like, this is the hardest thing

I've ever taken in my life. Like, I don't know if I understand what's going on. Like I admit, I'm like, I've been able to sort of fake it and make A's. There's no real place to hide. But like, I think this guy's gonna give me a C. I've never gotten a C in my life. And at that moment, when I started to see

that I didn't know if I could succeed, I was like, well, oh, there's also this concentration in civil engineering called hydrology, which is just like dealing with water. How hard is that? Okay. Right? And so I switched over to like straight up civil engineering with a concentration in hydrology and it was easier

and I had more fun, right? But again, it was the three in me. It was the three facing an obstacle that he thought he couldn't actually, again, I got myself into it. I went into engineering, but once I was like, oh, you actually can't succeed in this lane, I shifted. I think another thing for me is like now,

everything we do has a post-mortem. Well, this has always been the case creatively. Whenever we make anything, and I'm talking about like at every stage of the process. So if we shoot an episode of Good Mythical Morning, well, we go back to the dressing room and we're like, you know, getting on with our day. I am thinking and talking about everything

that just happened to assess what could have been better because it's never come back and like, well, that was good, man. Like I very rarely shoot an episode and be like, that was good. It's always like, you know what? I can always find something. And I hate these meetings, by the way.

Yeah, and we institutionalize this thing where, there's always a lesson to be learned in order to make something incrementally better. And the increments get smaller and smaller and smaller, but my tenacity to find it, it gets more intense and more intense. I'm like, we have to have something because I know it's not perfect

because I know that's an illusion, but we can always get closer. And what I always tell you in those meetings, and again, I think that I'm glad we do the meetings. I'm not saying we shouldn't do the meetings, but a lot of times you'll see me frame things like, you know, you may be right that we can learn this little lesson

and we can make this improvement. In the grand scheme of things, do you think it'll make a substantially better product? Now, maybe it will, but I always kind of try to talk myself into like, yeah, but what else can we be doing with our time? Like, let's find something. What else could we achieve?

Let's find something else to achieve. There's this idea that I got from Millenia Graham where it talks about threes actually are addicted to achieving and competing with ourselves. Always aiming for another level of success that is just out of reach, is tantalizingly out of reach. So, you know, we talked about all the other stuff that we try to do and we're like, you know,

we're trying to do something in a traditional space. We're trying to get a TV show on the air. We're trying to make a movie. We're trying to do these things. It feels like it's this next level of success. Now I understand that like there's more kids, in fact, Mr. Beast did a survey on Twitter that showed that more people wanna be YouTubers than actors

or more people wanna be successful on YouTube than in the traditional space. I get that, I understand that, but I ain't a kid. And I've been successful in the YouTube space. Yeah, you've done it. I've done it. And so it's like, all right, what else can I do, right? And so, and I actually gravitate towards things

that feel like they probably won't be able to happen. They feel like they're out of reach because I'm addicted to reaching for something that's just out of reach and then possibly getting it. I wanna talk about- And it drives me crazy, because I'm like, oh, he's gonna, what's the next thing he's gonna sign me up for

that I have to perfect? Right. And I feel like I have a limited capacity to continue to drill into things because everything that we've added is still in my mind on my plate. Has to be perfected. You know, I've actually shed some things from my plate

and shed some of this desire to round the edges and perfect every little thing, but it is a tendency. And at those moments where it's like, we're jumping into this next thing, let's make it happen. I'm like, what is he signing me up for? Right. Even when you go back to all the layers, like this is a conversation we had in an early podcast where you're like,

it's that next thing that you wanna experience. And you did talk about it in terms of experience, but I have to think there's like an achievement. I can now pilot an ultralight. I can now do this, I'm guessing. But for me, it's like, okay, am I going to get into this genre of music because then I need to know,

I need to collect everything in that genre or- It's not always, like if you use surfing as an example, like, you know, I also tend to sign up for things that, okay, I'm six foot seven and I'm in my mid forties. Like being, I'm never going to be a good surfer. I'm never going to be the kind of person that like, I'm not trying to be, I was never trying to be like a real surfer or professional surfer for God's sake.

But like just the idea of like being someone who doesn't look awkward and embarrassing if you happen to be watching them. And lots of people are watching me, because I'm so damn big. That's why you don't want to do stand up paddle board. Well, there's multiple reasons why I don't want to do stand up paddle board.

Yeah, I don't like drawing attention to myself doing something poorly. And being on a stand up paddle board, you're already sort of an outcast. There's also beaches that you can't go to, whatever. But yeah, I struggle with it. But in health, I am able to be like, I can just experience this.

I can just experience the ocean. I can just experience in these projects that we're doing that may never come to the light of day, may never see the light of day, the process, being. Not being, I am doing and I'm not gonna stop doing. The answer is not to stop doing, but the answer is to be able to be in the midst of doing, right?

But I wanna talk a little bit about feelings. Yeah, let's talk about that. And I do think that, cause what we were about to get into, be good thing to talk about next episode is what we're doing with all of this information in terms of growth and integration, as well as our interactions.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm just gonna set up one additional sort of- So I just controlled the, I just produced the episode a little bit. I'm used to it. I just wanna set up like one, yeah, and we can talk how and how I'm dealing with this next time and also talk about like the three in one relationship,

the two, three relationship in my relationship, the two, three relationship in my marriage, the one, six relationship in your marriage, maybe even some parenting things. This has impacted our parenting. But this is gonna surprise you if you don't know anything about the Enneagram, but there are different triads, right? There's nine total numbers. And so there's three, three and three.

And there's a triad called the feeling triad. This is called the heart center. These are the people who are most in their heart and have the most feelings. And three is right in the middle of the feeling triad. You're like, what? What, that doesn't make any sense. You don't seem like you are, you don't feel that much.

You don't seem very sensitive. Well, threes are not known as feeling people, rather they are people of action and achievement. We've actually put our feelings in a box so that we can get ahead with whatever we want to achieve. We believe that emotions get in the way of our performance. So we substitute thinking and practical action for feelings. But let me tell you, we have a lot of feelings.

And this is why I am in therapy, okay? Because I am naturally very sensitive and feeling things deeply all the time. I am naturally very sensitive and feeling things deeply all the time, but those feelings seem so impractical. They seem, they're not pragmatic at all. How is a feeling going to help me do something? And so we become masters at putting a dam up between us and our feelings.

And let me tell you, that dam cracks. And that dam can burst and it can make things happen weird in your body. And it can give you lower back pain and it can give you almost a detached retina or whatever it was that happened to me. I know it wasn't that, it was something else. It can manifest itself in health problems,

which I've had a lot of them, skin conditions. And because you can become an expert at being like, I can have this really strong feeling and I can, I'm an expert at transmuting a feeling into an action. Like it just bypasses right past me. It's like having a strong feeling, boom, what's the plan? Like if I have a conversation with my wife and she's dealing with something

where what she needs is comfort, what she needs is a listening ear, what she needs is someone to actually get into the trench with her. I want to show you the way out. I want to immediately give you a solution and let's begin to do it right now. Let's not sit in this discomfort.

So we're not good at comforting people. I'm not good at going and seeing somebody in a hospital bed. I'm not good at knowing what to say at a funeral. I'm the worst, and threes might be the worst because we stay so far away from feelings, but inside there's this giant water wheel turning with the power of all these feelings

and it makes us need therapy. If you're a three, everybody needs therapy, but if you're a three and you wanna be healthy, you especially need it because- Well, you're saying that because you're a three. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But- Everybody needs therapy is my opinion.

But because the threes are- My opinion is I know I need it and I'm gonna stay out of their business. No, what I'm saying is that a three is feeling the most and suppressing the most. And I never understood that. Like Jessie would tell me all the time, she's like, I would be like, I'm just not that sensitive.

I'm really independent. I'm not that sensitive. I don't care what people say to me. I don't care. Like you don't have to give me birthday gifts. I'm never an inconvenience for people. I'm super stable and reliable. Like I pride myself on all these things.

I don't really have that many feelings, but I was having giant waves of feelings that I was able to divert. This is a revelation to yourself. And in therapy, I have been able to, I mean, I'm in like my third year of therapy, peel back those layers and be like, oh no, there is a feeling and that feeling

does not need to be transformed into action. That feeling needs to be felt. And we'll keep going with that next week. I think, you know, as a one, I think I'm in the gut triad. Honestly, I don't know what that means. Also find it interesting that like in this episode, as we wrap up, it felt like you took the opportunity to like

help people understand some misconceptions about you. Because I'm into image management. And I think, I don't know what my drive is. I don't know, I'll think about that. But for next week, I think, yeah, because there's lots of good stuff in terms of like, okay, where do we go from here? That like, it'll be fun to process in the next one. So I say, let's leave it at that.

But you need to give a rec. Yeah, so there's a bunch of good books that we have read. And really, I would be lying to you if I told you that I had read all through all of these. My wife has. Well, that's the good thing is that you only have to read like the parts about your number at first. So it's like a big book.

You can have a sense of achievement or that you didn't quit. So I'll say that if you wanna go a little bit deeper, the complete Enneagram or the wisdom of the Enneagram are great. But if you are like most people these days and you don't wanna go deeper because it takes a lot of time

and you wanna read something that is a little bit more approachable, a little bit more irreverent, I think that Millennia Gram- I'd say it's a lot more irreverent. You gotta like F bombs, but it's a really fun book. Millennia Gram by Hannah Pasch. This is definitely, I mean, first of all, it's great.

And like a lot of the stuff that I talked about today, it came directly from the insights in this book, but it doesn't go as deep into like the background of how this whole thing came about and it doesn't feel as technical. And I'm saying that for most people, that's a good thing. It's approachable, it's digestible, millenniagram. It's pretty too, look at that.

It's got a bunch of colors on the front. Yeah, I like it, lots of fun. All right, we'll keep this going next week, but hey, go ahead, hashtag Ear Biscuits. Let us know about your experience. If you're a one or a three, what's resonating? Or just as you've been exposed to this, what's your experience with the Enneagram?

And maybe over the next week, now that you've heard this episode, you can actually begin to explore this for yourself. Maybe when you listen to next week's episode, you'll already know or begin to be knowing what you are.