The Enneagram: Ancient Yet Modern Personality Typing

Making Sense of Other People's Weirdness, Part 2

Around 1996, I sat and talked with a friend about psychology over a few beers. He asked me, “Have you ever heard of the enneagram?” Then, he pulled out a book by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson entitled, Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self Discovery.

Even though I’d never heard of personality typologies, I was already familiar with styles of thinking. That helped me make sense of why different people engaged in similar situations differently. It strengthened my ability to connect with others and move us forward in a conversation. 

Mapping out human personality through the enneagram was much more complex than the thinking styles I was used to, but I could see immense potential in it. If I could understand better what motivated people deep within to make the decisions they made, I would be able to navigate a human-dominated world so much easier.