Typology

Is motherhood really the hardest job in the world? Is there such a thing as a biological clock? Is motherhood the highest calling? And is it true that you can't truly know love until you're a mother? For Erin Lane, the mythology around motherhood has gotten out of hand. "How did we make motherhood an occupational, performative, identity based measure of worth?" This week, we speak to Erin Lane about these questions, and how being an Enneagram 5 has helped her break out of the scripts our culture gives her for motherhood. --- Erin S. Lane is the author of Someone Other Than a Mother: Flipping the Scripts on a Woman's Purpose and Making Meaning Beyond Motherhood and works as a vocational retreat facilitator. She resides in Raleigh, North Carolina. To learn more about Erin Lane, follow her on Instagram, visit her website, or check out her new book, Someone Other Than a Mother: Flipping the Scripts on a Woman's Purpose and Making Meaning Beyond Motherhood. REGISTER NOW for Dos and Don'ts of the Enneagram with Ian Morgan Cron to get access to the live webinar with Ian on October 26th at 2pm CST.

In addition to breaking ten world records, Colin O'Brady's feats include the world's first solo, unsupported, and fully human-powered crossing of Antarctica, speed records for the Explorers Grand Slam and the Seven Summits, and the first human-powered ocean row across Drake Passage. Would you be surprised to hear he's a three on the Enneagram? But as he grows older, his approach to achieving his goals is changing. "It's not the same burning desire, like deep in my bones," says Colin. Is he losing his "three-ness" or is there something deeper going on here? On this episode of Typology, we explore the ways our approach to goals, and the need to achieve, can evolve over time. — Colin O'Brady is a ten-time world record breaking explorer, speaker, entrepreneur, and expert on mindset. Colin's highly publicized expeditions have been followed by millions and his work has been featured by The New York Times, The Tonight Show, The Joe Rogan Experience, and The Today Show. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller The Impossible First and now The 12-Hour Walk: Invest One Day, Conquer Your Mind, and Unlock Your Best Life (Scribner; August 2nd).

This week, we step bravely into the world of politics, investigating the reasons it feels more divided than ever, and how we can truly listen to one another. Sarah and Beth started discussing these issues from opposite sides of the aisle, and while their positions have changed over time, they still believe in the power of dialoguing with those who disagree. In fact, they see their shifting positions on politics and government as a sign of the value of truly hearing one another out. But listening can be difficult when so many are leading with anger and rage. And those are emotions that signal something deeper beneath the surface than merely strong opinions on policy: "Instead of starting from 'what's wrong with you'," says Sarah, it's better to start with "What happened? How did you get here?" — Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers host Pantsuit Politics podcast, named by Apple Podcasts as one of the Best Shows of 2021. They are also the authors of Now What? How to Move Forward When We're Divided (About Basically Everything) (2022) and I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversation (2019).

When Maud Newton read about the traits of the Enneagram Four, she had to laugh out of pure recognition. "On my mother's side, there was this impulse toward larger than life stories. There wasn't really shame around difficult histories and that sort of thing. The greatest sin was to be boring." Maud's ancestors were anything but boring. In this episode, Maud shares what she's learned about herself through exploring her ancestors' lives, and explains how we're setting ourselves up to repeat our ancestors' trauma and toxic patterns if we aren't able to acknowledge them first. — Maud Newton has written for The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, The New York Times Book Review, and Oxford American. She grew up in Miami and graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in English and law.

Just three weeks shy of their one-year anniversary, the unthinkable happened. Mattie's 28-year-old husband died unexpectedly, leaving her with a massive hole in her life. But being an Enneagram three becomes a double-edged sword in grief: "This compulsion to perform that I have, in whatever I'm doing, was one of my greatest assets in my grief," says Jackson, who adds, "It was also one of the things that I had to be the most careful to keep in check." This week, we hear how she pursued personal growth and balance through her grief, and managed to come out on the other side with hope, ambition, and her love for her former husband intact. Mattie Jackson Selecman is an author, podcaster, speaker, and co-founder NaSHEville, a women's philanthropic apparel brand serving orphans, widows, and victims of human trafficking. To learn more about Mattie, follow her on Instagram, check out her new book, Lemons on Friday, or visit her website.

Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier has experienced abandonment from her mother, put herself in positions where she would inevitably be betrayed, come to terms with the power of her anger, and found herself struggling with addiction and alcoholism. But for Mary, so much of that tumult and life experience came from a sense of internal intensity. "The self-destructive and self-constructive forces inside of me," she says, "are both very, very strong." That conflict often can be too much to bear for many. But for Mary, it was songwriting that gave her the space and opportunity to work it all out. In the end, those six decades were time enough for her story to be reframed, rewritten, and even redeemed. To learn more about Mary, follow her on Instagram, check out her new book, Saved by a Song, or visit her website.

Every creative has a dream project: something they'd love to do if they had infinite time and resources. But what if you got the chance to pull off that dream project, and it didn't succeed? That's what happened to Steve Taylor, who poured himself into directing Blue Like Jazz, only to see a middling response at the theater. To him, that result felt like humiliation. This week, we hear about how his experience creating art for a living has changed his approach to success, risk-taking, and his own personal worth. Filmmaker/writer/producer/recording artist/entrepreneur Steve Taylor earned his "Renaissance Man" stripes (Prism Magazine) from a body of work that's garnered him multiple Grammy, Billboard, Telly, Addy, and Dove awards and nominations. As a recording artist, he's sold over one million albums worldwide, garnered two Grammy nominations for Meltdown (1984) and Squint (1993), and made history as the only artist to twice win Billboard Music Video Awards for self-directed music videos. He also fronted the MCA-signed rock band Chagall Guevara.

This week, we're going deep! With the help of the author of The Enneagram for Spiritual Formation, we discuss the various ways the Enneagram can be used narcissistically, and how to avoid those pitfalls. Then, we discuss spiritual bypassing, or the ways each type can end up evading the essential personal work they need to do to grow as an individual. AJ Sherrill (DMin, Fuller Theological Seminary) has more than twenty years of experience as a pastor, including as lead pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is now lead pastor at St. Peter's Church in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. He is an adjunct professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he teaches popular courses on transformational preaching and the Enneagram. Sherrill leads Enneagram workshops across the country and is the author of The Enneagram for Spiritual Formation and Being with God.

In the span of a few years, Shauna Niequest found herself experiencing a series of changes and heartbreaks that left her feeling like a completely different person. But in the end, she found herself more easily feeling empathy for those who were going through grief themselves. In this episode, Shauna and and I discuss the importance of finding the right geographical place for who you are, the various practices that can help us work through our grief, and how our attempts to outrun grief will always catch up with us. Shauna Niequist is the New York Times bestselling author of Present Over Perfect and I Guess I Haven't Learned That Yet. She is married to Aaron, and they live in New York City with their sons, Henry and Mac. Shauna is a bookworm, a storyteller, and a passionate gatherer of people, especially around the table.

When her husband discovered Julie Solomon's thirty thousand dollars of credit card debt, she became acutely aware of how her narrative about herself had failed her. But that moment also kicked off a mutual journey of growth in her marriage. In this episode, Julie explains how being an Enneagram 3 can be a burden as well as a gift, how growing up in a lower-income household led to a complicated relationship with money, and how being married to an Enneagram 4 taught her not to have all the answers. Julie Solomon is a Speaker, Business Coach, Host of the top rated The Influencer Podcast, and Author of the book, Get What You Want: How to Go From Unseen to Unstoppable (HarperCollins Leadership, June 7, 2022). Get What You Want teaches you how to shake off outdated ideas of what is possible and use your newfound belief to make anything you want happen. Julie has launched several successful online programs including Pitch It Perfect, The Influencer Academy, and SHINE Mastermind, which teach clients how to master the skill sets needed to take a personal brand idea and turn it into a profitable, sustainable. In her weekly podcast, The Influencer Podcast, Julie offers up real-time coaching, straight talk, and conversations to her millions of listeners worldwide.