(upbeat music) - Princess Jeff, it's New Year. If our work nurtures your heart, we'd love for you to consider joining aroundthecircle.org as something like a great gym membership. We will have a full 15 video Enneagram college course up starting February 1st. We will have all nine hours of our two-hour deep dives into the nine types with the most informed people that we know, such as the one that we are releasing today with Beth McCord. Those are all gonna be up this spring. As many of you know, the first two-thirds of our book draft is up and ready to read and new announcement. We have collected all of our work on instincts, what some call subtypes, and have placed that in a book format as well, and that will release at aroundthecircle.org by the end of January. You can read it there. So much good for your heart to start the year. Moreover, in January, we will be interviewing Jackie Brewster, Steph Barron Hall, Hunter Mobley, Dr. Billy Shoey, and a handful of other amazing people and the full interviews will only be available at aroundthecircle.org. Take a look, jump in to start your year well, and may all good things be yours. Enneagram is a map of the human personality. It's a tool for navigating relationships. It creates language for what motivates us and helps us look at the way we look at everything else. Most importantly, the Enneagram is a mirror 'cause sometimes she needs help seeing yourself. My name's Jeff Cook, a long-time professor of philosophy in Greeley, Colorado, and with me is T.J. Wilson, Coffee Guru, Lever of Theology, and Enneagram Ninja. Hello. My man. Hey, hey, hey. It's a new year. Happy new year. Long-time listeners will know, I love me some new years. We, I was looking back over our catalog nearly every year for the past four or five years. When it comes to new years, you and I do a special kind of new year's podcast that is just like, okay, we're starting fresh. Where's the Enneagram playing to all of this? Yeah, yeah, it sounds great. I'm not gonna lie, I do not remember doing that every year because I don't have that same kind of like, let's, let's set our intentions thing. I bet you there's a reason and it will come out in this podcast. Hmm, interesting. Friends, we would love to encourage you to grab a journal and some paper, perhaps a quiet space or even a conversation partner at some point. You are welcome to listen through this, this podcast, but this might be one of those that you come back to and use as, as a tool. In fact, we're gonna be talking quite a bit about tools today. So, sometimes TJ, around this time of year, you are visited by three spirits. Right, especially in the 1800s. Especially if you're a really stingy, rich old man. Living in 1800s, London. Yeah. And you've made bad life decisions. Yeah, but there's a reason that Christmas Carol routinely pops up around this time of year. Part of it is, it's a good time to reassess. You know, what else are you doing? You're staying inside 'cause it's so cold, do you? Watching Lord of the Rings, doing that, just hanging out. So, reconsider your life. Waiting for your kids to go back to school. There it is. Saying to yourself, dear God, why did we get two puppies? Yeah. The past visits you, the present visit you, the future visits you. These are actually not always bad. In fact, in the story, this is a great good for, for Scrooge, yeah? Yeah. Get to address some issues. And like, even without thinking about the, the implications of what he's learning, it's still like they're, they're revisiting some hard stuff from his past, but they're also seeing some great stuff from his past. That's true. They're, they're seeing some hard stuff that's going on in the world around him, but they're also seeing some great and beautiful things happening. That Fizziwig party was worth putting in your journal and saying that was amazing. See? Glad we did that. See, he's a great party. If he had just put that in his journal and remembered it, perhaps he would have planned to do a party of that sort the next year. Possibly. Yeah, put that in your calendar. Yeah. Just make that recurring event in your, your apple calendar app. There you go. The Fizziwig Christmas party. Neers is about what has happened. We get to the new year and we were like, this was, this was 2024, you know? Or if you're listening to this down the road, you know? Future years. It's also about what's to come. I, a lot of us in New Year's are like, well, thank God we're done with that year. 2025 is gonna be my year. It's, that's, that's, there's always next year. Yes. Long time Dodgers fans and Cubs fans and Red Sox fans will understand the. Yeah, but just wait till next year. Yep. Sports. I think there's something incredibly healthy about that. Sometimes you just need a, an emotional kick that says, all right, set that aside. Give me a refresh. We're moving forward. Yep. It's a heartbreaking scene in Forrest Gump where he's, there, there's a New Year's celebration. Lieutenant Dan is completely depressed and Forrest is with, there's like two women that he has brought. Our prostitutes. Oh, are they? I assume so. They're actually, I don't think I ever caught that. They probably are prostitutes. Yeah. Where the, the, the woman's probably not hitting on Forrest. Yeah, she's, I mean, she, she's there for a reason. Right. You know, but she looks up at the ball. She says, uh, about New Year's, you know, everybody deserves a second chance. It's just this dripping with melancholy kind of statement. Anyway, resets, love me some resets. Yeah. You do love resets. I do. Just gotta, you just kind of clear the board off. Give me a blank canvas. Where are we gonna paint today? Yeah. That's my wheelhouse. And, and I'm trying to be more open to it, not just because of this podcast episode, but also because like my wife wants it and there's, there's some good things. Like realistically, there's a difference between resetting the board because you want to reset and versus like resetting the board because someone kicked it off the table on their way out the door. You know, like, like the, there's a, there's a big difference between the intentionality of resetting on purpose and resetting because you have to. I suppose that can happen too though. Maybe, maybe somebody kicked your board over here in the past couple of months. Yeah. I can't name anyone who has experienced the world shaking up here recently, but if that's you, we can talk about the future. But what is this year gonna be about? Now here's the thing about the Enneagram that TJ and I have come to love is that it's not just about your motive, but it's about how you process the world around you. And a lot of that is temporal. That is, many of us are really anchored to the past. Many of us are really anchored to the future. Many of us are really focused on the present. That comes out of our Enneagram type. We're gonna talk about that. And we're gonna talk about just being a healthy person. You will know this TJ and I think that balance is the target of the Enneagram. Being a balanced person means really spending some good time in the past, in the future and in the present. These are part of the healthy life. So that's where we're going today. Love it. Wanna talk about the Enneagram in time then, my man? Okay. Each type has tools. You wanna talk about the tools that each of the types got? Tools. I like that you use the word temporal in our notes. Temporal tools. So we're talking about our stance here, right? And the stance of how we engage the world, how we sort of breed out. Part of this is tied to time. And so for fours, fives, nines, the withdrawn types, when we reengage, when we come out and decide what to do, okay, we don't come out. Four fives and nines are the withdrawn types. We step back and think about the past. We're very past focused. We wanna know what we're familiar with. It's this tool of remembrance. It's gotta be a library around here somewhere that I could just sit back, get a big comfy couch, sit in all the things that have happened. And that doesn't necessarily mean like we really love to study history. But as a nine, I really like things that are familiar because I know how to respond. I know what to expect with things that are already familiar. And that comes from my history. - Yep. - Right. I am much more likely to be rewatching shows that I've already watched 100 times than I am to be engaging something new. And so like that, all the fours, fives, and nines are all bringing on these past tools or are trying to remember something in order to engage with the world around them. - I love to build on that two seconds. I love the idea of being comfortable in the past because as we'll see, some of the other types are not so much. That's not at all where they're comfortable nor where they're focusing. And so, fours, fives, and nines are employing the past to ground themselves, to make sense of things, to get what they want, to inform their identity. All of these, you're just pulling from the past, who am I, what ought I to be doing and where the resources that I got? - Comfort. - Comfort. - Comfort. - Comfort. - That's great, you wanna talk about present tools? - So then we move to ones, twos, and sixes, the reactive stance. These reacting to the things that are happening around them, they are drawing on present focus tools. This is tools that engage and look to earn the things that they actually want. So they are like the descriptions in the name, the reactive types are looking to see what's happening and how do I need to respond to it right now? And even their potential interest in the future or drawing from the past they might do, it has to do with what they are doing now to get the things that they want. - Some folks will call these types compliant, as though they're complying with something in front of them. TJ and I routine, I wanna re-up on this language, which I am more and more sure that this is a better description that reactive or perhaps responsive, Joey gets with responsive, ends up being a great way to understand these types. So much of their energy is about something's happening, I need to engage it presently now, and that's my focus. That's where I'm finding my comfort. If things in front of me are good, then I'll feel good. - And then we move to the last, we move to the last stance here. It's three, sevens and eights, the independent or aggressive or assertive or whatever other word you normally use here. Three, sevens and eights, these are future oriented people. They are moving toward the future that they envision because that's where they're pointed. They're always looking toward that future. These tools are about envisioning what needs to be done, what plans need to be made, and what might be available over there. - Future tools, future problem solvers, these sorts. - Yeah, sure. - The problem that is routinely on the minds of the three, seven and eights is the problem next Friday. It's not the problem in front of them, like the reactor types, it certainly is the problem yesterday, the tools employed are how do I get ahead of this thing that's coming down the road? - I do like that. - And even seeing the ways that they are sort of responding to potentially the past or the present, it is about solving this problem for next time. When reactive types are solving a problem in front of them, they are solving the problem in front of them. When independent types, when these future types are solving a problem in front of them, they're doing it in a way that addresses the next time it might happen. - Yep. - Or something that they know is gonna happen. Like there's a big event, I'm doing things now because I know that a big event is coming. I was, who was it? I was talking to somebody about a different one. Oh, my wife works with a woman, fantastic scholar, and who is doing things last minute and she's a one. And this came up, like Kelly was like, "Why is she waiting for the last minute?" And I was like, "Well, because she's a one "and this is how we function." - She had other stuff going on. - We're always, we're not thinking about two hours from now, we are thinking about right now. - Right. - We have shifted some of our language away from assertive to the description of three, sevens, and eights as independent and then part. The independence comes because when you are thinking about the future, the future isn't realized. It's not here yet. The past is here, it's fixed. The present is here, it's right in front of you. The future is something that has not happened and so you can be separate as it were from the world around you and kind of float above it in a way and envision what's to come and do those things with a certain degree of energy that really moves in a direction that the rest of us have kind of that handicap that we have to deal with reality apparently. (laughing) Now we can get bogged down in the here and now but three, sevens, and eights moving forward. - Yep. So we see that this is a great spot to insert that there are really great things about each of these stances, about looking to the past to draw on what's happened. There's really great things about being engaged with what's in front of you. There's really great things about looking toward a future and working toward it continually but there's also a lot of really unpleasant things that can come from these places. The withdrawn stance people are often struggling with how to move forward because we're not looking to the future. The stance of being present means that you kind of sometimes forget what happened and you don't know how to plan for the future because you're focused on what's in front of you. And it's really easy for people who are only future focused to barrel through other people, to bulldoze, to forget the things that they have already experienced or done or the people that are around them because they're looking toward a certain kind of future. - Yep. - So good and bad, like basically everything. I was gonna spin this positive that New Year's comes and you do listen to a podcast like this and the four spives and nines all say to themselves, I sure hope I get to just kind of think through, you know, what happened this last year? I don't know if all of them do this but at least that would be more of the wheelhouse as it were, you know? And three, sevens and eights. If I were to say, hey, it's New Year's, I know for my wife, it's like, here is the calendar here are the things that I really hope to do in the future. If there's any, you know, and then for myself, of all things, I pull out my calendar and I haven't gotten much past January. I got a little bit ahead of that but so much of the stuff that just of the blank slate has been, okay, next couple of weeks just look like this. And that's about as much as I've been able to envision. - So, well, and I would even put the spin on it that like the ones, twos and sixes are the ones who want to have the conversation. - Yeah, that's right, let's stop for a second. - And so the fours, fives, nines are thinking about the past, the three, sevens and eights are thinking about the future and the ones, twos and sixes are like, so we should probably think about the past in the future, right? - Yes, probably want to ask a lot of questions, get their heads around where they are in life. - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah. - As is our way. You hinted at it and it's worth noting that some of the types don't really have an anchor in the past. Some of the types don't really have an anchor in the future and some don't have an anchor in the present. We're going to bring in more, we've been talking stance but this is also going to bring in our intelligence center and so you want to talk about types that have trouble with the past and why? - Yeah, so we have observed that it seems that sixes and eights really struggle with looking to the past and I say struggle in the sense of this is not in their wheelhouse. Not necessarily that they're battling against it because eights kind of don't care, right? But they're in lies, a big part of the problem that comes with not having this anchor in the past is that eights are not interested and the way that that can affect their life can have a lot to do with how they don't consider other people when they ignore the past, right? So I really hope that my father-in-law doesn't listen to this and I maybe shouldn't say this because it's still an actual sore spot but several years ago, my eight father-in-law decided to throw away the family's Christmas stockings because they were taking up. It was too much work for him to store them all year long and so this way he could just get really cheap ones from Walmart every year and just throw them away. No big deal. Except that those stockings had been like handcrafted for the family and that included the one that my grandmother made for me because I foolishly left my stocking there and like it's still a really sore spot. I know that he did not do this vindictively but he did not consider how the rest of the family would feel about him not caring about the past and the nostalgic attachment to these things. It just wasn't part of his consideration. I think this is a perfect picture of AIDS who are, they take in the world through their intuitions, through their body center, take in the world through their intuitions that makes them resistant to the present and then they solve future problems. And that's exactly what's going on. This is taking up too much space in my present atmosphere. So how am I gonna solve this well? I'll just get rid of it, no more problem and in the future, I'll just buy new stockings each year. These things are cheap, no big deal. Also, and you said this off mic but that was great, is this is one of the reasons AIDS taking in the world through the present, engaging the future, have such a difficult time talking to some of us about what's happened. AIDS don't like talking about past failures and emotions and experiences. We are moving on, aren't we? Yep, those things already happened. And it's, again, it's not vindictive. It's just like they are not interested in dwelling on the past in that way. And a lot of us, that's where we live. Right, if you wanna see why is there such a disconnect sometimes between fours and eights, there it is. This is part of it, is both of them are solving problems emotionally but the fours are living in the past. Eights are solving future problems and it's like you're envisioning different worlds at times. Yep. Sixes, I think sixes are the easiest to see here. Sixes in kind of the reverse are taking in the world through the future and what might happen. And they're responding right now. So this might happen so we need to do something about it. But notice, no anchor in the past. And not only that but because sixes fundamentally don't trust themselves or anything else, they obviously don't trust what has happened in the past to be informative about the present. Because that was a situation that was totally different. It may have looked exactly the same but that was that things don't exactly repeat. 'Cause that's not how time works. In this, I think this puts a, for both eights and sixes, this is putting our thumb on a place of real opportunity for growth. 'Cause if you can get into the past a little or both these types, you're really going to experience a whole world of health and stability and especially for sixes here, the place where you shore up your thinking. And I suppose for the eight, the place that you're gonna shore up a lot of your emotions, these are gonna be, those are your repressed centers for those two types. Right. And it does not mean sixes and eights hear me. People who love sixes and eights tell them this. It does not mean that you are going to be stuck dwelling on things that have already happened. It does not mean that you're only going to focus on the things that went wrong. When you shore up this space, you get to remember the things that went right. You get to think about how you have succeeded. You get to think about not just the emotional space but like what actually connected you to other people. It's not just that there were feelings there. It's that something happened and you were a part of that and you get to remember those things that happened. Right. I'm gonna set ones, fours and sevens aside for a moment. This whole, they're gonna also have a relationship to time but it's gonna be a little bit more complex. Want to move towards those types to have a problem with the future. Yes. Two's and nine's. This would include TJ. Yep. Talk about your experience of why the future is problematic. Well, for, I think for both of us it had, for both twos and nine's, it has a lot to do with not really having that sense of what we want. We're reactive in very different ways. We're waiting for the world to tell us what to do in a sense because we're not planning for a future because we can't really see a future. Nine's are very comfortable in what has happened and whatever's coming. I won't know how to respond to that until it gets here. So I'm not gonna think about the future. And twos being more concerned with how other people are feeling than how they are feeling. They don't have that space to plan for their future. They aren't looking to the future because they're looking to other people to set what they're doing now. Way that I'd phrase this for nines. Again, nines are taking in the world through their body, just like eights, so they're resistant to the present, but they don't have future tools like eights. They have pass tools as we talk about. So they're employing the past to bring stability, bring calm, bring the harmony that they desire into the present. This would be why getting rid of, say, a stocking from your grandmother would be an issue. Yep. That was part of your experience at Christmas. There's so few things that are good that I can hold on to. Your connection to your family, I imagine, is important as a nine that might symbolize. There's so few things that are good. Do you like being disconnected, TJ, it's a nine. It's bad. I don't like being disconnected. Sometimes I want to be left alone, but I don't like being disconnected. You'll see how this works. The blind spot being here, the future, because the nine, just in terms of the rhythm, taking in the world through their body, employing past tools, the future just remains last and unaddressed, and this is commonly where nines live. So too, twos, who do not need to think about future events in their mind and heart because they are taking in the world through their emotional center, which is past-oriented. So twos are bringing in the world through all the relational experiences that they've had and responding to them in the moment, and that's where they're gonna get what they want. Yeah, twos even, we could also bring in that twos being disconnected from their thinking center. They're not using their sort of data, logic, rational, objective center to process, to engage, like that's not where, and that center is tied to what's coming, that center is tied to the future. Yeah. Envisioning all the things is just not where they live. Right, that's, it's not important to getting what their primary mode of this. Right. Hey, by the way, this is chapter four in our book, which is available at aroundthecircle.org. So just in case you're like, you are flying through this, I need to see this on paper. Hey, guess what? (laughing) Aroundthecircle.org, you can pick this up. Lastly, are threes and fives. Threes and fives are? And fives. Threes and fives will have a difficult time getting into the present. Yes. And this is interesting. So you wanna talk about this? Yeah, well, fives who are, okay, so taking in that future space, taking in information with this sort of future filter of like what's coming, what do I need a plan for, but engaging from the past. So we just, just like other withdrawn types, fives have a very comfortable time stepping back to observe and think about what's happened and sort of like put things in order because that's what they're interested in. They're interested in collecting the information and making sense of it from there. It's not about what the information tells you, it's about what the information says, and that makes any sense. Like, so many people, including you, including not including me, but so many people in the world, the information has a purpose to move us forward. Fives are not attached to the results and they're not interested in what we need to do with this. They just wanna, like here's the data, here's what it tells us, that's all. Yep. And I would love to build on this, I heard a great story this morning, and it's just like it's ringing in my heart right now. But the way that I'd phrase this is that fives are taking in the world through their head, so there's gonna be that future fear outlook, but they're responding to future fears with these past tools. So past tools are knowledge, past tools are assets, resources, financial resources and the rest. And that's where you're living. It's like, here's what might happen, here's what's in the past that might respond to what my future fears are. So listening to a long time listeners will know that I really like listening to Warren Buffett, who's this financial guy. Buffett is talking about his wife wanting to buy a house in the early 1950s. His whole business is based on he has, let's just say it's a couple hundred thousand dollars that he has at the time, he needs to invest this in companies so that he can make more money and they can be set for the future. She wants to buy a house. And here's the thing, he's not worried about the present needs. He's worried about future events and his past tools. And so they end up having that conversation. He ends up, she ends up deferring to him, they end up buying a house four years later, but he's not living in the present moment, I need a house for my family, for my kids and my wife, because he's living in the future and he's living in the past and the present doesn't matter. He's answering this question, by the way, in like an annual meeting, which has like thousands of people show up to this thing. And he turns to his partner and he says, when do you think it's the right time to buy a house? 'Cause that was the question. When's the right time to buy a house? - Okay, sure. So Warren Buffett in answering the question, when is the right time to buy a house? He told a story about how he bought a house. - Yes, his partner. When should you buy a house? And his partner goes, when you need one. - Yup, perfect, yes, yes. - So sorry that that was all rabbit trail-y, but the past and future, it just makes a lot of sense to me there. Three's opposite side, taking in the world through their heart center, which is their emotional core, which is past oriented and responding again with future tools. You wanna talk about threes on this front? - Yeah, I think threes and eights, that future focus is most noticeable, but there's something special about threes because they're always working on next week. They're always working on a problem in order to get ahead of it. And they're always doing something that is about something happening in the future. And the engagement with the presence, like if you ever like see threes really succeed at something and then immediately afterward, they're onto the next thing. Like they did celebrate by winning. Like that present moment is like, the present is for doing the things that will get you to the future success. Like that's what now is for is getting to the future. And that's just, that's how they operate. - I've had a lot of threes who have denied what I'm gonna say. And one of our Patreon listeners actually affirmed it as a three and it made my heart so glad because I was like, I think this is actually a lesson threes need to hear and have difficulty internalizing. So I'm gonna say that just as a preface. Threes are emotional. They do take in the world through that past emotional center. And so much of your motive is about looking at the past and there are failures there. You may have reframed those failures, but you know that there are experiences that hurt you and that you never want to happen again. And that's the energy for a lot of threes is I've experienced what it's like to not be prepared, to look bad, to lose, to not put forth the image that I want to. And it won't happen next Friday. - Yep. And I wanna add, I don't know that I've ever said this and I'm kind of upset if that's true, but it's also like it's not just about what I have experienced. It's also about what I have seen other people experience. I saw that person show up for that presentation and they were not prepared. - Yeah. - And they looked like a fool. - Yeah. - And I will not be looking like a fool like that. - Exactly right. That heart center is not just about what I felt, but it's also about what other people felt in the past. - Yep. - When I experienced something, when I saw that room full of people watch that live event on television, when I saw threes are not just experiencing their own emotions. They're actually often not experiencing their own emotions. They're experiencing what the room feels when they see something happen. - Yep. - And that can be when they're on stage, but it's often when they're not on stage. They still see success and failure even when it's someone else. - That's a good call. It is the case and this one, things I really cherish about my wife is she actually is able to see the successes of the past and even color them in a little bit. And so when it comes to New Year's, what happened this year? She's all about this is what happened in February and this is what happened in April and this is what happened in June because it is in the past now, she is taking the world in through the past and able to recall it in some pretty vibrant colors which I find, which I can't remember the past. So, I need that. (both laughing) - Bang, let's talk about ones, fours and sevens. - Great. What's the skinny on these types? - Darned idealists. We have issues when it comes to time. - Okay, all of us have issues when it comes to time but yeah, the ones fours and sevens have a special kind of issue and that's fun. So, this is one of the places where you and I may not necessarily agree fully on what kinds of issues but because these types are idealists, they are actually doubling down on their orientation to time. - I think that's a great phrasing. - Yeah. So, ones who are oriented to the present, they are a little extra oriented to the present. And fours who are oriented to the past are a little extra oriented to the past because that heart center combined with that withdrawn stance means there's a lot of past going on for fours. And then you have sevens who are in that head center and the independent stance. They are really doubling down on the future on what's over there, on what could be. - Yep. - So, we are exactly on the same page on those fronts. And yeah, just to say it a different way, the fours and if you're a four you'll know this or if you are somebody that loves a four you'll know this, so much of reality is the past and it's not just this is what happened five weeks ago but responding to what happened five weeks ago is itself using past tools to think through the events of the past. And so, fours can live in that space of romanticism. You know, perhaps as a positive spent on this or just living in what has happened can be a place that fours dwell for both good and for ill. So, sometimes for those of us who love fours, we're like, man, you need to get out of that relationship. You know, you guys broke up three years ago. (laughing) And that can be quite difficult. On the flip side, however, fours can bring out so many of the beauties of the past for the rest of us in terms of their artwork, their expressions, their don't you remember all these things that have happened and people who communicate those. And even seeing like that relationship that ended three years ago, part of why they are comfortable being in that space is because there's still something to be remembered there. There's still something there that is, I think the relate, sorry, threes and eights and sevens but eights in particular, like the relationships that you have in the past still inform who you are now because they're a part of you. And fours know that, fours get that, fours live that. So here are things that are beautiful and true and ought to move you emotionally. Those are, and some of those things may be bad things but they still are part of you. Yeah, there you go. Sevens on the flip side, here's taking the world through their head and so focus on the future, responding to what's ahead with future tools. Yeah, that's, it's all about trying to get to the next thing and trying to stay open to what might be available. There's this excitement about what could be coming. And so it's, man, there's a lot of not just planning but really it's imagining. It's imagining what could be over there, what's keeping yourself open to the possibilities of something coming in that you're not expecting. Like there's an openness to the future that sevens get to carry with them and have all the time. And man, that's part of what draws us to a lot of sevens, right? Is that they are not necessarily, I wouldn't use the word optimistic but there is a very clear, like sevens are open to possibilities. And that is all about the future. Laced in that is the need to know that you have your stuff provided for, your resources for five, sixes and sevens will be a huge issue, five, sixes and sevens. All wanna know that their stuff is taking care of sevens and focusing on the future are often bouncing for the sake of provision. Right, so part of what I think about these types that I don't know that you'll agree with me but maybe I'll try to convince you someday is that I think that even though these types do double down on their orientation, I think they also do align with a sort of rejection, a struggle. I think one struggle more with the past than they do anything else. I think four struggle with the future more than anything else and I think seven struggle with the present more than anything else. I would agree with this in the guy's theory about it. Go ahead. I think it's, a lot of it is tied to their orientation plus the idealism, okay? So one's oriented to the present moment but also sort of resistant to the present moment. This is where you get a sense of them wanting things to be better, wanting things to be improved. That points them toward the future. - Yep, I love that. - And the past is the thing that it's not part of that equation, but whatever they get from the past is something that needs to be improved. - Yeah, that's exactly it. If you're improving something, apparently this needs to be made better. The past is sub-bar. - Yep. And so fours, a similar problem with idealism is that they are idealizing a romantic experience, a connection, a something has happened to them to give them a sense of beauty or wonder or whatever feeling they are really wanting is something that they remember happening and they're not pointing to the future that way. It's not about what could happen. It's about seeing the beauty in what has happened. For good or ill, like they're bad things that have happened are part of who we have become. And it's just so much harder to look toward any kind of future when you're really happy thinking about the past. Or let me say comfortable, not necessarily happy. - Romantic. - Yeah, yeah. - It was so much better back then. - Yeah, or it was so much more real or it not even necessarily like that nostalgic kind of approach, but it's a divorce from the future because being in the past is not something they're trying to reject. - Sure, yeah. - And then sevens, because the future is always over there, struggle with really engaging with the present. So, and part of that is because they're running from their past, like the past is something that they can reinvent everything that's happened to them. They can reimagine, they can reframe and like sevens often have different versions in their minds of things that have happened than other people who experience those same things. Like they remember the fun stuff about Thanksgiving. They don't remember when Uncle Steve cursed out grandma. Or they do remember that because it was so funny. They don't remember how grandma cried, you know. That's not a real example, that just, anyway. So like this look toward the future, it also means that like the present doesn't matter as much. So I am at this party because this sounded like the most fun and then I get a call from my friend who is throwing another party across town and I'm gonna go to that, right? And the fact that I'm abandoning my partner who had this party in my house because I'm just not thinking about the present, that is how sevens are sort of disconnected from the present. - Yep, I love all that. My shorthand would be something like sevens when they have their stress move, low and behold, they end up in one space, which is entirely about the present. Ones, when they move into their stress space, they're moving to four space, which is entirely about the past. I think ones and sevens both want to avoid stress. They don't like stress all that much. Might have an aversion to those spaces. And then fours, you will notice this, this may be a little bit more complicated, but fours don't have a line to any numbers that there are future referenced. They don't have a line to three, seven or eight in their security move or in their stress move or in their center. And so it's like the future is just not there. So we've talked to Joey quite a bit about that, about how fours just have no anchor in that independent sphere, but. - Right. - I love that. I love your thoughts there. - Cool. - Well, that brings us to doing some work. - Oh, there's work to do. So we are in preparation to a bunch of the interviews that we're going to be doing here in the next few months. I was listening to an interview with Jackie Burster, who is a seven who does a bunch of any of your groundwork has, has, I'm really excited to talk to her, informed great takes on any of your issues. And at one point in one of the interviews I was listening to, she talked about how one of the types that she was commenting on just needed to do their work. And I had not thought about how the Enneagram isn't just descriptive. It's obviously prescriptive. I love prescriptions, by the way. But there are some times where you just like, you're like, okay, given my type, here's what I need to do, you know, to get healthy, to be a better person, to actually use the material and just saying, you need to do your work was really good for my heart to hear. And so fortunately or not, the rest of this podcast is going to be about doing your work. And it's going to revolve around this sort of stuff. Many of us, when we come to New Year's, I mentioned this earlier, but we come to New Year's and, you know, for the fours, fives and nines, what happened this year? That might be your wheelhouse of just saying, I loved thinking about, you know, this last year, or three, sevens and eights, is what we're going to do in the new year. It's the other stuff, the time orientation that you don't really have an anchor in, that you really should pause and you really should do the work. - And this is one of the places where, like without the balance of those three things, past, present and future, that the work being done may end up being fruitless. - Yeah. - If you come to a New Year with a future goal of getting in shape and you don't think about the past or the present, then you might be spending money on a gym membership that you won't be using in six weeks. - Yeah. - Right. - You're going in the next thing or go in the next thing? - Yeah. Or do you don't remember that you already have tried this tactic and it just plain not going to work? Or you don't recognize that like you have too much to do to actually use a gym membership for the next year? So like maybe you need to come up with a different plan other than this thing that you didn't really think that hard about. Gotta be back. - It's terrible, right? There is, I suppose, in a different way, we can live in excess in these temporal categories. We can be overly drawn to the past. We can be overly drawn to the future, overly drawn to the past. And that is living in excess and in excess in your number is, well, it's the opposite of what we think the integrams for. It's for boundaries. And so if you live in excess, that's you in an unhealthy spot. So here it is. Gotta do your work. Start with then, with those of us, for all of us, we should reflect on the past. You were visited by three spirits. Apparently this is where you start. Start with the ghost of Christmas past. - Naturally. - But it is a new year. Worth looking backwards and just honoring what has happened. Kind of getting your bearings. You know, where have you been this year? This doesn't necessarily come naturally for me, especially I have a hard time remembering all the specifics of what's happened, especially my successes. 'Cause I'm on to the next thing to get improved. And it's hard for me to just pause and say, you know, what did I accomplish this last year? And so I want to talk about how you engage your past. Like if I were to say, hey, you know, it's New Year's. What happened in 2024? How do you come to the past? - So in a natural space that I am intending to become more intentional and more balanced, but I am not anywhere near there yet. Part of how I, as a nine, as someone who has a terrible memory, as stressed out and like I'm looking for the path of least resistance, right? So part of how I remember the last year is because all of the crap that I've acquired over the last year that has that points to a memory or something is in my house somewhere, right? I have stuff all over the place that helps me remember or that when I pick up that thing, when I look at that thing, I remember this is something that happened to me. Like it is a very intuitive sense of remembering myself because I've naturally placed these things all over. Someone call it hoarding, others would call it something different, but like there's stuff, there's reminders, there's cha-chikis, there's bills, there's stuff that I sometimes have to look at, sometimes have to pick up, sometimes have to go through and this is one of the ways that I sort of live in that past, is that all of these things that I have remind me of something else. Now bringing some intentionality into that, what I'm hoping is that I'm going to organize that stuff a little bit better to be a little bit more intentional about going through it and saying, oh, this is where we have been, this is where, and also bringing in other people, other sources to help me remember, where have I been this year and what was good about that thing? Not just that it happened, but what was good about it, what was bad about it, what was hard, what was easy, what, why did it work or not work? And like they analyzing that past in a way that's not just like sitting in it so that I can feel more comfortable but actually getting some knowledge, getting some feeling, getting something out of that so that there are next steps. - I'll let that end there. There is something about engaging the past that's gonna open you up to emotions and that conformed, that obviously that's an eogram to its core in terms of you're taking in the world even the past, it's your emotional center that's engaging that. In doing so through these items, it's helpful. For me, I gotta do the work. So the work for me in terms of engaging the past, especially this time of year, my wife and I both have to intentionally sit down and we have our journals, which for me is kind of like a calendar thing, but it's a mismatch, but I have like all the things that are important to me are kind of in there, but journals, calendars, but especially recently with some technology, just having photos and having some apps, obviously we'll give you kind of a slideshow of your year and just being able to sit down and look at these things and emotionally allow them to wash over you. I'm actually kind of resistant to that 'cause I don't always like to not be in control of my emotions, but it's worked for me to take in both the sad things, but also the happy things. The happy things can also be taking me to places that I don't necessarily, that I don't have control over. But that's doing the work because you can name a whole host of things. It seems to me that engaging the past, and this would be the exercise in my mind, engaging the past through items as you were saying, through photos, through your calendar, through your journal, through bills, through the stuff that's still on your table that you haven't dealt with. But being able to say this, what were the places that you are thankful for here? Is a great place to go, you know. But as we said with, the past is real, and you also need to say, what were the hard things that happened this last year? What did the good things teach you? What did the hard things teach you? That seems to me a great place to be at this time in life. If I'm gonna do past work around New Year's, it's gonna look like that, where the good things that happen, bad things that happen, what is it that they teach me moving forward here? - Yeah. - Any other thoughts there? - No. - Supposed to two other questions, and these idealists say, am I supposed to just kind of jump for me, end up being something like, not just what was the best part of last year, but what does it say about your life? What does the past communicate to you? - Yeah. - So often, life can just fly past us as it works. I woke up this morning actually thinking, I'm gonna turn 50 soon. And that's a thing for me. - Yeah, I'm hitting 40 this year. - Rrrr, I know it. We have an elaborate kidnapping. Take you to some more fun plan in the works. - I probably will forget you said that. - Quite, quite devilish. - I have no idea what we're doing right now. I was waiting for an invitation. - Months away, it's fine. (laughing) - No anchor in the future. Might as well be too sad later. - Later is not a point in time, Nines. - Learning from the fives, the other question that I had listed was, what investment in yourself or in other people brought you the most joy? And I just like that frame of, there are things that you actually did pour into others. There was stuff that you poured into yourself that actually had results. And again, it's worth naming. It's worth naming. I'm so glad that I did this. Because look at what I get to experience now. - And I think there are a lot of types and a lot of individuals within different types. I think it is okay to remember the things that you did pour. Like what investments did you make in yourself that maybe you can let go of? - Yeah. - Because they didn't work. And that's not a judgment. It's a statement of fact. - It's exactly right. - Like I've been thinking an awful lot lately. I don't know why. Maybe it's just 'cause that's part of what I used to sleep. But like when Pam quits art school in the office, like that's a thing. Like they built up to this for years. And then she just like, she quits at the last minute. And part of it is 'cause she knew this was not the future that she was going to have. She was not going to become a professional graphic artist. That's just not where she wanted to go. And she especially hates computers, right? So sometimes you spend a lot of time and energy and emotional energy and physical energy pouring into something that ends up being a fruitless investment. - Yeah. - And sometimes it's okay to let those go. - It's true. - Yeah. - As was said, I'm turning 50. I've got rid of two careers here in the last five years and I'm just now trying to figure out, okay, with that all mean. (both laughing) And it's not necessarily the case that it's all fruitless. - Right. - Love that. - Hey, did I mention that all of these questions and others are on a worksheet? - You did not specifically mention a worksheet. - I'm gonna be putting this on our website. This will be at aroundthecircle.org and it will be free for everybody. So when I post this, you are welcome to go to aroundthecircle.org. All the questions and exercises and more will be there. So if you wanna grab that, print it off, be something, if some of us just need something in our hands to see and to mark up and that's what I got. So that's engaging our past. Let's talk about the future. We'll land on the present moment. But imagining crafting your ideal trajectory is also work. Like it actually, it is work to say, where do I want to be a year from now? That can fill a lot of us with terror. It can fill a lot of those things. - Like immediately I'm like, do we have to say a whole year? Should we go back and say like four months, six months, one month? Where do you wanna be in one month? - This is why three, seven, seven, or eight are assertive. We need to take an assertive posture toward our dreams and where we wanna be. And that's our wheelhouse. And for some of us, we're like, "Ugh, I just need to survive today." - Yeah. - Right? - Yeah. And then three, sevens, and eights are like, okay, cool, well I'm going over there. You get through today, I'm going over there. Join me when you can. - I do love when I can get there. And this is work, but it pushes me into security a little bit. The question of where do I want to land? If I could name three things that are true about me in one year, what are the three things I would name? And then you just backwards engineer your year, you know? So I have, as has been said, I got two books. I really want to release this year. There's a handful of stuff I wanna do, and your grandmas, there's puppies to be raised. I got two kids to launch into college. Got some businesses that TJ and I do in our real jobs that need addressing where do I want to land in a year, name in it, and then just kind of outlining what are the steps to get me there. That is work for me, but it's very gratifying when I can get there. - Yeah. And I think that there's something important to be said for those of us who may struggle with some kind of future outlook, part of what you may be experiencing, maybe a lack of perspective. And this is super vague because I think it's different for a lot of types, but if I didn't do this with you, I would have no future plan for around the circle. - Sure. - And I don't know that I can make that up, but we can do that together, right? There's some intentional things that should probably be changing about my life with my family. And if I did not do that with them, it wouldn't happen. And I think that there's a lot of types that like, not necessarily you have to include the other people, but if you're only thinking about your career, then you're not thinking about who you want to be. If you're only thinking about your investments, then you're not thinking about how your behavior might affect other people. Like there's so much more about our engagement with the world that sort of folds and overlaps and involves other things outside of our control, that we have to be doing this with a broader perspective about what that future is. Even those who are good at thinking about the future, you're probably bad at some part of thinking about the future. - I think that's exactly right. And I think you're right to say, this is one of the things that's great about having other people in your life. We are complementary toward one another, part of surviving as a species, part of the joy of being alive. It's other human beings who have different focuses, folk eye and are able to shore up our weaknesses and help us on those fronts. - The thing I was thinking, and I think you're exactly right, is just how much my list of future things revolves around my center, my processing center. Here's what I want to do. I bet you one series and eights are all gonna be, here's what I want to do. And I imagine that twos, fours and sixes may be much more inclined to say, here are the relationships I really wanna invest in. These are the people I wanna spend more time with. These are the things I wanna do with some of these human beings. Or even, this is how I want to feel. There you go, yeah. I mean, you wanna talk about five, sevens and nines on that? - Well, so there's the logic and rational objective component of all of that, the thinking space. And so, this is especially tricky for me as a nine, but also with some type of chronic pain disease, is like, I can't plan for the future because I don't know what I'm gonna be physically capable of in the future. But all of that has to do with the plan, the what's practical about what might be coming. And it does not include progression. Like, you talk a lot about check markable things. And I am learning that part of my struggle about looking toward the future is that I don't know how to set check marks because I don't see landing spots in that way. So the future doesn't make sense. - That would be doing the work then, yeah. - Yeah. - So I imagine just talking about complimentary people, I bet your wife knows exactly what she wants and you know, or what is ahead if things go very badly that need to be altered now. And I bet she let you know. - Well, and even making a plan about what things we need to change. - Yeah. - For me, if we change all of those things, I don't know if it's going to produce results. For her, it doesn't matter if it produces results. These are the things that we need to change. - Yeah, yeah. - I suppose, so I don't know if there's a right or wrong here. My, if in coming to the future in the spaces where I have, so my, I have a knee that needs to get replaced, that is check-markable. And I have absolutely no slowing down in my purview. - That's a word. - Yeah. - But now it's, it may be a different problem, but I don't envision things getting worse. I envision, here's what I'm going to do to address the present problems that I got such that things are up and you know, that our things are moving. Granted, yeah, I don't know, there's the optimum, the, I don't want to say just optimistic, pessimistic, 'cause that's not necessarily what's going on here. - Well, there's a, there's a, a level of rationality that is involved in planning for the future that eliminates subjective possibilities. I don't know, as a, as someone who processes rationally, I can't predict these kinds of, these certain things, because I have no idea how it's going to go. Therefore, I don't plan at all. - Right. - I need, I need a little bit, I mean, I need a little bit more generous thinking to come out of this. I need to be open to the future. Five, sevens and nines need a little bit more generosity in their thinking and, and for very different reasons, but like the, it has so much to do with engagement and intentionality that, that puts us into the present. - Right. Suppose, so watched a Superman the other day, which would be the Christopher Reeves documentary. It was super slash man, about him breaking his neck and being in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. The, he's in a, a dire spot, but it's setting some, some fairly ambitious goals for himself. Like what is it, what would it look like for me to stand again and doing the things required to get to that spot? Be curious if, like, if, if, if opening those spaces up into our imagination is part of doing the work here. We can clearly say, you know what, like, I need to prepare for the worst. I, like, I'm burying parents recently. I know that I myself am gonna die. I probably need to plan for that. And, and, like, how things will work with, with my children and the rest, this is unavoidable. So it's, there are negatives here. But, to, like, what, what would be the best possible way of thinking through this? Or, you know, I don't know if there's any openness for optimism on, in terms of your own health of saying, look, if things went, went, like, if I said, these are the three things I would really like for my body to do in a year, what would it require to get there? I don't, I don't, and, again, I don't understand, like, how all the things work, but... - Sure. Well, but even, even that, like, I think part of what, like, me personally, what I am experiencing right now is that, instead of rejecting the future entirely, because I can't actually plan for it, I need a better perspective to be able to, to be open to other things that I'm looking for in the future. - Sure, yeah. - So, so I can't, I can't plan how my body is gonna be, but I can plan things that will be good for me, regardless of how my body is. - Right. - And I don't do that currently. - Yeah, I don't want this to be all about nine, 'cause I think that my personal situation is a little bit unique, but I think five, sevens, and nines, like, being, processing with that objective space, it's a lot harder to allow in the, all the subjective possibilities. - Right, I actually think we're putting our thumb on something that probably is wider. A lot of us experience life situations that look kinda bleak, and I suppose my default, and granted, this comes entirely on my oneness, I have just such a can-do spirit on a handful of these friends. Sometimes you have to fold the hand and just say, look, this is never getting better, but energy-wise, I have a difficult time living in that space, so it's, you know, what can you control? Where are you going? And I suppose you were, in fact, saying that, and dreaming about the future ends up being a challenge for us on these friends. - Yep. - Set a different way, and this may be an easier place to get to for some of us in terms of the future, is if you could try one thing or do one thing without any fear of failure, what would it be? That might be another way of getting into the future, or, you know, if you can envision where you wanna be in a year, what's one small consistent step you can take this year toward getting to that dream? Putting on habits is the hard, hard work of life, but, you know, if you truly have a dream, a vision of the future that produces energy and passion, you know, you'll get up and do something about it, and I'm watching this with my kid right now, in terms of really shut down post-COVID, but now has a vision for themselves of being independent, going to college and being successful in those environments, and that passion has emerged in the last seven or eight months, and is now informing practice. - Yeah. - Dreams are places of real energy, and again, I suppose three, sevens and eights who have those future tools, you can see, that's probably why they got so much energy. You got a lot of drive coming out there, so any thoughts on that? - Nothing to add. I suppose a different way of hitting that, 'cause the daily consistent tasks are so difficult to talk about, it's perhaps framed a different way. If you could have a fully developed habit, six months from now, what would you name? Like, I have for like the last two years really tried to step back away from the amount of alcohol that I consume. I really, I think I would say something like that. I enjoy alcohol so much, so I don't necessarily want to say, I would give up alcohol. That would be true. 'Cause we don't want to get so mad at it. - Sounds silly to me. - I mean, I'm pointing to me on myself. - I understand it's a real thing, yep. It's a real thing, I get it. - But I could see myself saying, yeah, that would probably be a better place to land, or certain exercise habits or certain mental habits. These are all things worth putting on paper and doing the work about the future. - Even if the thing that you want is in a year you want to be able to have said, I've done some work, like that's a thing. - Yeah, yeah. Looking backwards, one of the habits I did put into practice was writing intentionally again. And it took setting up a room a certain way, and my rhythm's a certain way, and I've sacrificed mornings with my spouse to do it, and said our relational time is gonna be a different space because this is a priority, but that has become very ingrained in a rhythm where I'm up and I've set up a walking station where I'm just editing while I walk, and that works, and now it's just its second nature, how habits work, it's a good thing. Well, lastly, bringing us to the present. You gotta execute. The present is about execution, grounding yourself in the present moment. I just started thinking of jokes about the word execute. So, there's a reason that something's gonna happen. (laughing) Heads will roll. Wait, you can, so I am presently probably 15, 16 pounds heavier than I want to be. You cannot lose 15 pounds in a day. I can't just decide, you know what I really like to have 15 pounds gone. Right. Unless you do the Shakespearean thing and, you know, pound of flesh and the rest, but. Right, yeah. You could cut off your forearm, and there you go, done. There's no way to lose 15 pounds in a healthy way. There you go, yep, that's true, correct. Let's talk about the present. Some of the things that I think are helpful are just taking an inventory of where you're at. For example, writing down 10 words that just describe where you are right now. Right now, can be helpful. You're not looking at the past, you're looking at today. Where are you right now? What are 10 words that would describe that? And for a lot of us, we need to have already done the past work to understand where we are right now. Absolutely. I think the presence, as our podcast will display, should be the last thing. As far as I hear is the past, here's the future. All right, let's talk about right now. My favorite question on our list is, who are the five people that bring you the most joy? That's a present focused question for me. It has some implications, because if you can name these are the people in my life right now that really bring me a lot of joy, those are the relationships that really matter, and ones that you should probably cultivate. And dare we say, those are the relationships you probably should invest time in. Yeah, pulling away from that space of what has happened to me and what do I want for my future. There is a real truth about needing to acknowledge and possibly address what things are going on now and might need to be changed. And so if one of your goals is to start drinking less, but your second closest friend is a barfly, that has real implications, right? And like a lot of sevens experience this thing where when they try to start changing the people around them get upset because they're not the dancing monkey anymore. There are a lot of things in our life that are going to be affected when we start to do real growth work. And if the five people that you're closest to are not on board with your growth work, you're gonna have some problems. That ends up being, yeah, the relationships have such an influence, such a big influence on who we're becoming. It may not just be who's bringing you the most joy, but who are the people that you want to be around who influence you becoming the sort of person that you wanna become? It's like I'm desperately thankful that I have the spouse that I have because she inspires me and as a partner and me wanting to become the sort of person I wanna become. And that can be real difficult. If the people that are closest to you aren't that way. I suppose this is the challenge for me is, is the flip side, is can you name five people who drain you, who actually are negative influences on you? And how can you minimize or even eliminate interactions? - And it's also possible that this exercise is about getting this into awareness. - Yeah, absolutely. - Which is a present moment focus thing. And maybe the case that you are not aware of how much energy your child is stealing from you because you think you're not supposed to be aware of that. - Children, I think that's why we should bring that up. Like obviously children are draining. - Yeah. - You probably can't minimize your interactions with your kids. - That's true. But kids are a great example of, yeah, your kid is stealing all of your joy because they're so hard. And maybe this year is about rethinking how you approach that person. - Yeah, that's just-- - Maybe something you need to change so that you don't experience soul sucking from the child. But maybe you can start to understand them or engage with them in a way that brings joy instead of steals it. - There are duties that we have, that supersede just joy as it were. But that doesn't mean that we can't find joy in them. - Breaks. - I was the parent of a two-year-old and a four-year-old working three jobs and one of my kids is autistic. And I was trying to make that happen. - Yeah, and my wife also had two jobs. - And all the rest of us were like, - Why? Why? Why did you do so much other stuff? You had enough on your plate. - Just trying to pay the bills. But part of that is also, I can set aside some ambitions for a while. And that part of the art of, you know, recognizing where are you in the present moment needs to, you know, be engaged so that you can make wise decisions. Yeah, so obviously we survive that season and sometimes even being able to name this as a season, looking at a time and saying this is a season you're in a season prior to your child, you know, going to kindergarten and first grade and the rest where like all of a sudden you're gonna get all sorts of new time available to you. - Right, and at this sort of third step of this time focus, like part of good health and balance is holding these like, Suzanne Sabiel loves to quote, is it David White who says maturity is holding all three things in balance at the same time. I'm plagiarizing, I'm definitely not getting this exactly right, but the idea that we have these, we have a foot in the past, the present and the future when we are thinking about what's happening when we're doing these assessments of where I am right now. It's actually really good for me to remember where I was six months ago before my child started preschool for three hours every day. Where I am now, which is like, oh my gosh, I cannot wait for winter break to be over and for her to go back to just three hours. It's only three hours and it makes such a big difference. And also in like seven months, she's gonna start going to school all day. And like I am currently in and in between place, but I'm also right now and holding all three of those things together is like, remember what it was like then, makes now a little easier and looking toward that future makes now matter more. The like, I need to start making some plans about what I can do, what, how I want to start engaging with her in a different way when I'm not gonna see her for eight hours every day. Yeah, et cetera, et cetera. There's all kinds of things about looking at where I am right now that draws on the past and also includes a plan for the future. Right. Yeah, it may feel like the future, hey, you're gonna get all these hours, but you were exactly right. You're also no longer gonna have that constant connection with your daughter, which has, you know, you gain something, you lose something. Living in the present, I think that's a great expression of what is it look like to be present focus is here are the real hard things that right now, but here are the good things right now and I need to cherish them in this time. I would give a thousand bucks immediately for one day with my two-year-old, the four-year-old, you know, and those were the hardest days of my life as well, so. And those dummies are downstairs right now. They are, it's, well, they are and they aren't. It is what it is. Yeah. Both of them hate it when, you know, you kind of bring up. So yeah, good things, bad things, cherishing those things, like even the worst days of, you know, my mom was sick for 10 years before she died. It's the same sort of story, like I'm like, where I'm thinking, God, I just won't want this to be over. Yeah. But, but of course, I don't know my mom anymore. So, right. Like fine, you got to navigate the present moment. This is valuable. Do your work. Yeah. And part of what you are coming into a place of balance that looks a little bit more like reflecting on a past that you have experienced. Part of my coming into a place of balance now is about making those lists, is about figuring out where I want to go and what I need to actually do to get there. Right. Like, we are all going to have a different kind of experience with these exercises. Yeah. But there's still like coming to the end of it. There's something good here for all of us about bringing these things in balance. It's a good word. Hey, I mentioned that we'll post a worksheet of this word around the circle.org. You did. I think it could be said again. Why don't we say this again? There's all sorts of stuff, in fact, around the circle.org. This, starting in January, we're going to start releasing videos where we dive into the triads in kind of a college-style lecture. We have all of our full episodes from all the interviews that we've been doing in the past couple of months. That's going to continue. So, I mean, by the end of this year, envisioning the year to come. By the end of this year, we're going to have just a fantastic library of interviews with the most informed people that we know on Enneagram, on their types, on other types. And I'm really excited for all the places that we're going and all that's going to be posting. Me too. And, as has been said, nearly our full book, a little lower half of our book is up. It's drafted. And if you want to get into this material, orientation and time, and your type, that's part of our book. And you can see TJ's and I's thoughts about your type and dive into that. So that's what we got going on there. And the last stars and review that we got was from 2023, I think. Wow. This needs updated. It's a whole year. I never-- More than a year. I took a year off of asking for stars and reviews. So to start the new year, if you really enjoyed this podcast, take two seconds. It's on your phone right now. Just put five stars. Bang. Jeff feels me. Like, OK, somebody out there is listening. Yep. That's the thing. Tell everybody else to make stars and reviews, yeah. That's my outro. You got anything else? That's great. Anything else in your world we're talking about? I'm excited about our monthly groups. I'm really excited about coming interviews, because so much of interviews is-- I'm really excited about how different our interviews are going to be, are and are going to be. The thing that you and I are going to do-- I don't see anyone else really doing all that much, except for Tyler Zack, who's a friend of ours, is interviewing other Enneagram people. Like, yeah. Enneagram people kind of have their own little homes that they make. And even when a lot of these people show up on other people's podcasts, it's to talk about the one thing. When threes show up, they often talk about being a three. And while that is part of what we're going to be doing, we're also going to, like, our thing is going around the circle. We pick a topic and we go around the circle. And when we are interviewing other people who are well-knowledgeed, well-researched, we may be talking about their focus, but we are going to be talking about the Enneagram, not their type. Right. So that's great. So that's exciting, too. Lots of good things to come. So lots of things for us to celebrate in terms of what we did last year. Dang, you got anything else? Go see Wicked, it's amazing. I have not yet. Of all things, I don't even know what the story is. It's funny. Apparently there's two witches, yeah. You won't care about it. It's fine. Your wife will love it. She's already seen it. Oh, good. I mean, she's gone to, like, the light production. But I haven't seen Wicked. It's OK. It's great. It's so great. And I'm really mad that I have to wait. 11 months for something. They didn't say this is a part one. That's a huge bait and switch. Oh, yeah. But everyone who is paying attention knew that you couldn't do it in one show. No, we saw the news when they announced that it would be two separate movies. Oh, I didn't see that. Yeah. I mean, you weren't following this one the same way that you would follow a Star Wars show or something like that. I knew it was. I know they're doing trilogies with these other properties. Yeah, it's this movie is not going to be a trilogie, unless they screw it up in the next 11 months. Let's do the Hobbit with it. They want people to burn it down. You probably could do a Dorothy origin story, you know, sign it, kind of slide it in. Just have a Dorothy origin story. It's called The Wizard of Oz. You don't hear about how she and Toto met. I mean, they're just already together. There's no story there. That is shit. This was-- This she lives on a farm in Kansas. That's it. That's the whole story. It's the point. She lives on a farm in Kansas. Well, you got anything else? I got nothing. You see J Wilson. He's officially awesome. And someday he will find himself crying uncontrollably about his four-year-old. That's true. Love Jeff Cook. And who you aren't? This isn't interesting.
