Bonus Podcast: All About the Enneagram

Podcast-Artwork-RGB-800pxWelcome to a special bonus episode of the Brain Software podcast. It’s all about the Enneagram personality typing system! It’s not a numbered episode of the Brain Software series, but we know you folks have expressed an interest in this topic. Mike and Chris had a chance to sit down with Bettylynn Stoops, an Integral Master Coach who teaches the Enneagram system.

We hope you enjoy this extra episode.
Please leave a rating for the show in iTunes, and send in your questions by emailing questions (at) MikeMandelHypnosis (dot) com.

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Raw Transcript

Mike: Hey everybody, Mike Mandel here. I’m giving you a bonus audio portion today instead of just a podcast because we have some rather interesting information and we’ve had a lot of students who have expressed an interest in that remarkable personality typing system, the enneagram. So this entire brief, very brief pseudopodcast is about the enneagram because I have occasion to interview Betty Lyn Stoops, a friend of mine who is absolutely phenomenal as a teacher, a certified and qualified teacher of the enneagram. Now, realize this personality typing system goes back thousands of years to the deserts in the middle east and is astounding in its not only evaluative but in its predictive capabilities. It can show you what you’re going to do under stress, what you’ll do when everything is going great and it’s a great way of understanding yourself. I think one of the best things you can do in life is self-knowledge. So listen to this short interview and recognize that there is an amazing, incredible enneagram conference coming up in Toronto, Canada in May as we will say during this interview.

Betty Lyn Stoops specializes as a transformation turnaround specialist. She uses the enneagram to create sacred space that is safe for all. She is an executive leader and an integral master coach and she specializes in executive leadership and as an enneagram integration specialist and teacher and her work includes intact teams and leaders within a corporate NGO or government environment or setting. She leads, teaches, and inspires all generations and she knows her stuff. So I’d like you to listen to this carefully. If you’ve never shown an interest or had any interest in the enneagram in the past, this is a great time to come to Toronto at a very reasonable price to get in early and come and study with these incredible teachers from around the world and learn more about yourself and you won’t just learn. You will grow, you will integrate and your life will improve dramatically. So the conference is in Toronto. It’s called leadership liberation and life, so it covers everything. May 15-17, 2015 in Toronto and also please check out, you can also attend something called enneagram intensive 2.0 course. This is really, really cool stuff and it will be lead by the conference keynote speaker and pass CEO of enneagram studies in the narrative tradition, Terry Saracino accompanied by the principal teacher trainer – I hope it isn’t Saracino. If I’m saying it wrong, I’m sorry – the principal teacher trainer, René Rosario and this is immediately following a conference. You can go to this other intensive course and learn so much and you want to find out about it. go to enneagramworldwide.com. Their website and enneagram is e like Edward, nn like November, November, eagramworldwide.com. Check out the website and the conference site which is enneagramconference.ca. Not .com, .ca in this case and its highly recommended. The 2.0 course takes place right after the conference in Toronto part 1 and you have an absolute blast if you’re a speaker, a practitioner, a therapist, a coach and you want to extend and deepen your own personal work and to move energy and to understand how critic and witness voices can guide you. its just phenomenal stuff. I cant say enough about it. the enneagram I’ve studied for 20 years, it is absolutely impacted my life and my family’s life for the better. So check it out. Listen to the interview that’s following now.

Mike: so I’m here with Betty Lyn Stoops, enneagram expert extraordinaire and we’re really, really happy to have you on the podcast. Great to have you here. you know, Chris and I have talked about the enneagram quite a lot. Our listeners over the past few years know I’m an 8 with a 9-wing and Chris is a 9 with an 8-wing and also, I’ve been studying the enneagram on and off for 20 years and I do not know one percent of what our guest knows so we’re going to talk about what the enneagram is, why it’s a very useful tool in self-development and understanding others and Maybe can we say being more forgiving of others as well?

Betty: Absolutely.

Mike: And then we’ll talk about this incredible conference that is coming up in Canada, in Toronto and what people can do to come and attend while there’s still time.

Betty: Absolutely.

Mike: How did you get into the enneagram or what don’t you start by saying what is the enneagram?

Betty: Okay so the enneagram is kind of a roadmap. There’s nine basic personality types in the world regardless of culture. We all fit in to more or less one. It’s really representation of the different behaviors and characteristics of how we live and how we show up in the world. So with that, it’s really interesting because there’s both the spiritual dimension, the psychological dimension and the schematic dimension.

Mike: And whn you’re saying the schematic, you’re talking about the physical body?

Betty: Yeah, the body.

Mike: Right, right.

Betty: Both the physical body and the energy body.

Mike: And the energy body as well which a lot of our listeners are familiar with all the talk we do about bisetrifast and EFT and a lot of the energy modalities as well and the chvong and all these different things. So, how did you get into studying this remarkable field?

Betty: Helen palmer put out a book in the early 90s that was talking about the enneagram and really she was the first female author that had put anything out. Enneagram’s been around since the desert fathers so more than my lifetime for sure and then I read it and saw some of the types. I thought wow, this really helps to explain a lot of things. We all have a compulsion in life and its kind of second nature to us and I looked for something that would help me to live as my best self, not just my second best self. So I got into that and also as a coach and ive been a manager in organizations for large groups fpr a hundred years and it really helps to understand different points of view and different communication styles.

Mike: Absolutely and when you said about the compulsion, you know I hear it discussed in different ways running your enneagram program, running your unconscious trance and as an 8, I know that me at my worst, it’s too late, too loud, too much. Its just out of control.

Betty: Ready, fire, aim.

Mike: Ready, fire, aim. I love it. now what would be the program that the 9 would be running? Someone like Chris.

Chris: Which is me. The rapport builder.

Betty: Yeah, yeah. That 9 wants to merge with other people so its like would you like fries with that? how can I serve you so that you will include me and if they ask what is it that youd like to do. Well Maybe you’ve got some ideas but if you really want to be with that person, you’re going to ask them first and then you’re going to say id go along with that because I really want to belong. I really want to be part of that group.

Mike: It sucks to be you.

Chris: I would talk to Mike about this when I’m let’s say in a social environment and let’s say I’m talking to Mike. Mike and I are talking and Paul comes in. Paul’s our friend or Maybe Paul’s my friend and he doesn’t know mike. How do I include Paul in the conversation without interrupting the flow of the conversation I’m already having with mike. It’s quite hilarious. I’ve finally figured out how to solve that in my life but that kind of thing as a 9 I tend to do.

Mike: So we have this thing… Go ahead, yeah?

Betty: The thing that it does though, it also stops you from listening. You’re not paying attention now. you’ve been distracted.

Chris: Exactly.

Betty: And if you’re not really grounded in your body, whoop up goes into your head. You know, western culture where it’s supposed to be in our head, that’s where we make our bread and butter right? but anyone who lives in a fear culture like three of the types do and anyone who’s living in an anger culture, if you’re not grounded in your body and that’s when you hold those emotions and you’re kind of like a really storm tossed really quick.

Mike: okay this is extremely enlightening and let me tell you why.  A number of years ago, you probably hear me clear my throat now because I didn’t drink enough water today but a number of years ago, I lost my voice because of an event that was badly set up with very bad sound and Chris knows about this. I went up going to an ear, nose, and throat specialist and I went to a voice coach, Jane Miller, Toronto voice coach. He’s fantastic. And one of the key things he did was get me grounded again back in my body and my voice started to come back.

Chris: But he’s got an entire exercise of it. Fantastic stuff.

Betty: Well I’m also an NLP master plot. I do some tai chi. I do some yoga and as an 8 type myself with a 9-wing so we’re pretty represented with the body types here. even though we’re body types, it doesn’t mean, we’re in a body. That’s really important. People make that assumption because you’re a body type automatically. Yes you have control of your body but no you don’t. your body is two things. One is that physical case and then there’s your energetic body. If you don’t listen to it, you’re running on autopilot. Those synapses and neurons are still running in the same path. The ruts get pretty deep.

Mike: We tend to replicate old patterns don’t we?

Betty: Exactly. And then we say well that’s just me. and you can hide behind your type but when you can move compulsion to a compassion, ah…

Mike: That’s a nice one.

Betty: Then we have something much different.

Chris: That is a nice line. Moving from compulsion – so that’s autopilot and we need to react or act with compassion.

Betty: Yes so what happens is you can actually go from saying that’s just me to whoa where’s that other persona actually coming from. You know a lot of our energy goes out and we want to be understood before we’re going to understand someone else right? if you’re speaking a foreign language and you’re not good at it and the other person looks at you and says well, what are you saying? what do we do? and you hope that [unclear 9:34].

Mike: Right sort of like my keynotes. You know comprehension increases with volume. If they don’t understand, just shout until they do.

Chris: [laughs] I love that line.

Mike: That’s really interesting. And the whole thing about understanding our pattern, recognizing when we are running it and then it gives us that ability to grow and this is what drew me to the enneagram betty when initially was the fact that it is not only descriptive something like Myers Brigg or whatever but it gives us the tools to begin to identify when we’re running our daily trance and how to wake up from it. how did we become enlightened and Chris and I have talked about this a lot. We say in our podcast there’s only two kinds of people in the world. There’s those who become more integrated as time goes on and there are those who don’t have to because the world is going to change for them and they’re special and I said if this annoys, you’re respectfully special but the enneagram is a remarkable tool for personal growth and it’s a never-ending one isn’t it?

Betty: It never ends. There’s something new all the time and whats really interesting about what you just said is that the person who’s waiting for life to conform around them can have a very small life and then there are certain conditions that people have to meet if you really want to get to know that person. I feel sad for those people you know because they’re such self-limiting behavior and that fear of well if I change, what will happen? like that’s kind of fearful for them.

Mike: Absolutely.

Chris: let me jump into a quick question for either of you and you think of an example in your life where knowing this enneagram personality type and model has helped you deal with someone in a more effective way.

Betty: Absolutely. I do corporate interventions as well so when I get called in, its usually because someone’s tried a nice self approach rather than a direct approach so I can go in and listen.

Mike: Send in the 8.

Betty: can you come and help us here? which is really overt and covert conflict. So when I go in and I talk to them, I tell them upfront here’s how you’re seen as a management team. Here’s what my experience is. I can give offer you some things. I cannot make you do anything but the changes you make in your life are not about the office. They’re about you. So I’m going to set the office politics and the rest of that aside. How do you want to show up in your life?

Mike: Whoa what a term. Show up in your life. Beautiful.

Betty: Yeah because once you actually commit to that and you make those changes, they affect eveyr relationship you have.

Chris: Absolutely.

Betty: In the office and out of the office but its not about the office. Its about how you feel in any certain environment.

Chris: It comes back to this executive programming where we’re running isn’t it?

Mike: Yes Chris. It absolutely does. In which state is in the executive and then you give the…

Chris: How are you going to show up to this job? how are you going to show up to all of the aspects of your life? What’s going to be running in the executive?

Mike: The interesting thing is it’s a bit of side note but I’ve run into it many times and heather and I have discussed this but we know a couple of people who are public school teachers, kindergarten teachers in fact and in both of their cases, the problems in their life develop because that is the state that is in the executive and they’re dealing with adults. They talk to you like you’re freaking kindergarten kids but you can mention how well it goes up with me. That’s…

Chris: [laughs]

Betty: So one of the other things that’s that important, I just want to make sure that this is in here is that change does not happen cognitively.

Mike: So the cognition is probably the end result of it.

Betty: We can say yes I understand that but it doesn’t mean that you’re actually going to integrate change into your behavior.

Mike: We say agreement doesn’t mean action.

Betty: Exactly. So you have that. You know you’ve got three centers right? We’ve got your head or your mind as the center and in there, you’ve got these little ego and this little critic that sometimes talks to you. I don’t know about you, still talks to me.

Chris: Inner voice yeah.

Betty: Inner voice. And then you’ve got your heart and many of us can do what I call the heart bypass where we go from our head and then we go into the body, those gut emotions come up move really out but if you don’t engage all three centers, you’re not aligned. You’re not running on all of the cylinders that are available to you.

Chris: the first one is the…

Betty: The mind, yeah.

Chris: The second one is the heart and what’s the third one?

Mike:          The gut.

Betty: Okay.

Chris: I think a lot of people might assume the heart and the gut are the same. How are they different tin the model that you’re thinking?

Betty: What happens is that the heart when you look at the heart, it actually has 5,000 times…

Mike: The number of neurons.

Betty: Than in your head.

Chris: Oh wow.

Betty: But your gut has got a million more neurons than whats in your spinal cord.

Chris: Oh wow so you really mean physical differences.

Betty: Yeah but those synapses are mostly asleep right? well its just like your skeletal system, your circulatory system, your respiratory system. They’re not limited to certain parts of your body. this is a system.

Mike: And there’s a unity to it and any system that we get working as a unity makes our life better. Let me give you on a side that you might want to look into. The way symphonies are written. They are designed so the first movement is the intellectually stimulating one. Its for the head. The second movement is the emotional one for the heart. The third movement is actually the pelvis. Its often a minuet which is a dance to get the hips moving but it’s really interesting so I guess the people who will be refed at the heart center so listen to more second movement symphonies.

Betty: And the thing is we all have it but we don’t necessarily activate it.

Mike: So what we’re seeing here – sorry to interrupt you but what we’re seeing here is the same as you and I know as NLP people. We all use representational systems but we’re going to default to a particular one until we learn to gain the skill in all the rep systems as well.

Betty: So in the heart system you know when we’re talking about he 2, 3 and 4 for example. So we’re talking about the giver, the helper and we’re talking about the…

Chris: The  2 is the giver, the helper.

Betty: The 3 is the achiever and the 4 is the individually romantic. If they are only real or not only but primarily coming from that source of emotion, what kind of reaction do you get. It’s not grounded. It’s not necessarily thoughtful. Its just out there. It comes at you and there’s a lot of mechanics that go with it for each type which we don’t have to talk about today but really when you look at it, the preoccupation is that nervous energy, that skepticism, and that worry that plays in your head and when you can clear that and you can actually go to that space then what have you got? you’ve got a quiet mind, you’ve got an impartial listening but passive and that’s really important but if you’re always spinning and you’re worried and everything that comes out you know has 6.

Mike: The 6 catastrophous. What if, what if what if.

Betty: What if, what if and its always looking at the worst case scenario. We don’t hear much so that’s where that communication breaks them. We have people that are very verbosant and want to talk and they will take a long time to get to the punch line.

Mike: Ken Sweatman story.

Betty: So for an 8, what do we do? get me to the [unclear16;38] on the line.

Chris: Not very interesting.

Betty: Yeah, yeah let’s move on.

Chris: Speaking of 6s. 6 tend to be the worriers, the worst case scenario planners. My wife and your wife mike are both 6s. What is a great strategy for someone dealing with a 6 in their life?

Betty: Well you really have to get them to overcome their fears and take some risk. So they have to build up, they have to move form fear and have that 11 seconds that’ll take them the courage and faith.

Mike: Why do you say 11 seconds? that’s interesting.

Betty: Well the 11 seconds in the neurobiology, they talk about 11 seconds are all that you need. [unclear 17:12] have talked about that. 11 seconds is all you need to be abkle to hold that space to make that change.

Mike: Interesting.

Betty: Well I say only two seconds longer than you normally do and maybe work your way up to 20 seconds so you can kind of relax into that. Its like no one’s here to hurt you. I have to understand that people are usually coming with their best intent even if they insult or hurt you from their perspective, usually people are coming with that honest intention and I think that’s super important to realize that.

Chris: So if you can take a 6 and convince them to go through a situation and come out the other side, realize nothing bad happened, now they have this experience of a positive outcome which in time hopefully will start to overshadow the fear that they used to feel the next time that something happens.

Betty: You shift it. you never lose it but that doubt will be there but the hesitation will last…

Mike: It’s not going to be in the foreground all the time.

Chris: You’re building resources of new or positive experiences.

Mike: And you’re getting the 6s to realize. Remember before I said sometimes it’s only a cigar. 6s have to realize sometimes it is only the mailman and not a psycho killer.

Betty: And you know what when you’re in your body more, there’s a fear type right? So if they can relax into their body, they’re more grounded and who doesn’t want to be more grounded if you have that doubt or fear go on?

Mike: Absolutely.

Betty: It helps you have a broader perspective react and see more.

Mike: This is amazing. Let’s talk about this conference you have coming up and what people can expect.

Chris: How can they sign up for it and what they will learn there?

Betty: Okay so the theme of the conference this year we’re really excited. It’s a first time in Toronto and it’s leadership, liberation and life.

Chris: Well it covers it all doesn’t it?

Betty: It covers it all. So liberation from your fears, your phobias and things that you can do without. All action, strategies, and its not just kind of talking heads. The leadership, how do you actually deal as a leader. The session I’m doing is on how you deal with your emotions and your emotional energy. We’re saying energy management for leaders and life as we all approach it differently. So there’s a host of – so we have 45 speakers that are coming.

Mike: Wow amazing.

Betty: From the States, there’s some people that are coming from Australia, Chicago as coming with singing bulls. They’re going to have a presentation with that.

Mike: Oh yeah beautiful.

Betty: And then there’s a one man show that’s going to do a theater art piece and actually teach you.

Chris: All the types, isn’t it? so you’ll be educated and entertained.

Betty: And entertained, that’s right.

Chris: Hey when is this taking place?

Betty: It’s going to be May 15th to the 17th.

Chris: May 15 to 17, that’s three days.

Betty: Yup at St. Mike’s College at UoT.

Chris: That’s where we teach our Architecture of Hypnosis class.

Betty: And its really a great spot to get to, easy access.

Mike: May is a beautiful time of the year to be in Toronto folks.

Betty: They can get it on the site. It’s enneagramconference.ca.

Mike: Okay that’s great. Enneagramconference.ca. that’s enneagramconference.ca. make sure you check that out and if you’re just hearing this while you’re jogging or something, you miss all that, send Chris or me an email at our website. We’ll make sure you get all the information. We really want this to be well attended. Toronto has been rightfully positioned as the world’s hypnotic epicenter and it should be the world enneagram epicenter as well and you’ve got some world-class teachers coming here. I’m sitting next to one of them right now and we want you to show up to the… there’s a special rate of people signed up early too.

Betty: There is. Its 275 Canadian for three days of workshops. Full Friday, full Saturday, full Sunday, Friday night entertainments, Saturday night entertainment, and it’ll be that rate until the 28th of April and it goes to three..

Chris: We better get this up quickly.

Mike: We better get p there quickly. I think you’re going to find that those of you who attend. My wife is attending this. she wont miss it to the world. I cant, got some other stuff to do but you will take home a lot of really useful stuff like betty Lyn said, tis not just head stuff. You’re not just going to be in agreement but you will experience some useful powerful personal change here and you’ll find that it’ll make the quality of your life go a heck of a lot better that certainly  be my experience with this. remarkable for anybody.

Betty: We actually have a special discount rate. There’s a four nights online right now for anyone whom we consider youth which is 30 and under.

Mike: Nice.

Chris: I don’t fit that category anymore. [laughs]

Mike: Childish is a different thing

Betty: And there’s a special rate for students as well. full time students.

Mike: Amazing so what were those dates again?

Betty: Yes we can. 15th to the 17th of May.

Chris: Enneagramconference.com  or .ca?

Betty: .ca. we’re in Canada.

Mike: And this is 2015.

Chris: I love it.

Mike: Betty Lyn thank you so much for being on our podcast. I know what you’re doing is extremely valuable. I’ve heard you teach a couple of times and I put my personal weight behind this, you guys have got to come check this out. It’s going to be an awesome conference. Fill it up.

Betty: Can I say one more thing?

Mike: Yes you can.

Betty: This conference on the enneagram is designed for those who seek a different way and to have a better life that no matter what modality you’re involved in, this is not about what differentiates you, this is about what unites you in your walk towards a new developmental path. Super important.

Mike: Yeah find some wholeness and you’ll meet some really cool people and when you discover your own enneagram number if you don’t know it, you’ll meet some people there who have the same number as you and you feel like you met yourself.

Betty: And we’re running two beginner sessions with every timeslot.

Mike and Chris: Excellent.

Mike: Thanks Betty Lyn.

Chris: Thanks very much.

Betty: Thank you.