SPEAKER_01: 0:01

Yeah, so basically what this is about, this is about awareness, awareness of myself and others. And it's so powerful that it's crazy for people to not find out what this is. Like, if you have something that makes you absolutely indispensable, magnificent, powerful. Do you really want to go for decades and decades and not know what that is? You know, it's like, okay, you'd be you know be less fulfilled than not quickly full potential. Or you can know what that is.

SPEAKER_03: 0:31

Hi, I'm Becky. Welcome to Short Story Long. In this podcast, we discuss ways you can integrate who you are into how you lead. Today's guest is Ingrid Stabb, a person who has spent her life paying attention to how people work together and why it's so hard sometimes and easier others. She's deeply curious about what makes us us, how our strengths show up in relationships, and how collaboration can become a source of meaning rather than friction. Over the years, she's brought that curiosity into the world through her work with teams and leaders. She's co-authored a book on the Enneagram, The Career Within You, and more recently solo authored the book Nine Points of Potential. Her work is helping organizations rethink how people connect and collaborate. At her core, she's about building lives, teams, and organizations that feel more human and more life-giving. Ingrid, it's so great to welcome you to the podcast. And I know today we get to talk about an inflection point in your life and that how that's contributing to your work today. So welcome to the mic. Thank you, Becky. So good to talk to you. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, like the way that I like to start these conversations is really just to get to the heart of that inflection point. Do you mind sharing a little bit about just kind of the high-level version of what was this moment in your life? What did that look like? And then we can dig in a little bit more deeply.

SPEAKER_01: 2:04

Sure. So I had a book club with my friends, and it was, you were all women, professional women. And we had a really lively discussion of the book club, but we all left the book club session just really down and discouraged because it was talking, the book was about all the things that people in this age group are challenged with in terms of trying to balance our job, you know, trying to find a partner, start a family, potentially taking care of elder parents, trying to still, you know, make big moves in our careers, not to mention just self-care, you know, just trying to like manage our weight, our health, you know, trying to get to the gym.

SPEAKER_03: 2:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 2:44

I mean, it was a great, it really got a lively conversation going, but we started to realize we were just feeling really screwed with like, how are we gonna become moms? We're gonna have kids, we're gonna do all this stuff, and it just something's gotta give, and there's just literally not enough time in the day. And so I it was one of those times I've felt that many times in my life, but I remember specifically at this book club meeting, it was just like this is gonna suck. We're gonna have to either step back in our careers, or some of us are maybe not gonna be able to have a family, or you know, there's some of these major trade-offs that are gonna be very disappointing and it's not gonna be very fulfilling next 10 years ahead of us. So that's sort of where the mindset I was in.

SPEAKER_03: 3:26

Yeah, absolutely. And as you say, right, there are so many different times when you start to look around and you think, I I can't, I can't handle all of these things. There are all of these moments where I just I don't know which thing I'm going to let go of so that I can feel better and feel like I'm going to have enough to be able to get everything going. People talk a lot about I'm not enough. And I I often think what they really mean is I don't feel like I have enough time.

SPEAKER_01: 3:58

Yeah. And so, I mean, I I think I've been plagued with this sort of time scarcity idea that, oh, there's not enough time. I'm just trying to pack more and more in. You know, maybe if I work harder, faster, you know, that that's something is going to get better. Find all the tools. Right, right. All the productivity tools. Late at night, it came, it was something that was just random that happened, but it changed my life. And that is that I actually did belong to the International Enneagram Association. It's a professional association. For folks that don't know the Enneagram, it's kind of like Strengths Finder or Myers Briggs. Um, are you familiar with those? Uh but a little, yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_03: 4:38

Absolutely, but a little bit, yeah. Though the Enneagram is a little bit that on steroids in some respects, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 4:46

So I was already a member of this association. I had already done trainings and was certified in Ennegram on the sides. My see, here's an example. That was my passion, but I had a full-time job as a Silicon Valley NBA type. Like, how am I gonna squeeze in my passion on the side, you know, in addition to everything else? So late at night, I'm just clicking around, and lo and behold, my hero, author, who wrote the Enneagram Made Easy that I read back in like 1993, um come to find out, she lives in my own hometown. She could have been anywhere in the world, as far as I knew. And I got so excited, I shot off an email to her right away. Um, turns out later one of my tops, one of my top strengths is networking. Some people hate networking for me. I just naturally shot off an email. Hey, I love your work. Would you like to meet me at the at the French Hotel, which is a cafe in Berkeley? I have all your books, I'd love to meet you. And so I met her for she's like, sure, I guess, I guess fans don't contact her that often.

SPEAKER_03: 5:55

So well, and you know, a hometown girl, right? Yeah, writes in a 30-ish year-old girl, but still.

SPEAKER_01: 6:02

Yeah. Yeah. So I met her at this cafe. She's my hero. I can't believe that I'm meeting with her. She signs all my books. I bring like, you know, six of her books. She signs them all. I'm just delighted. To me, I'm just winning, you know, meeting like a huge Hollywood star or something. I talked to her, I said, I've always thought about writing a book about careers in the Enneagram. And she said, actually, my um my editor kind of wanted me to write a book on careers, but she wasn't really a career um expert. She she had studied music, she was a mother of four kids, she was an author, and she wasn't a business person. She was an illustrator, cartoonist. And so I met with her again. I thought it'd be a quick meeting. I was there for hours. I came home and told my fiance, I said, Oh my god, John, we are doing a book together. I am doing a book with my hero, Elizabeth Wagley. And it was mind-blowing. And then um, fast work, I ended up quitting my job because my co-author said, we're not going to get anywhere at this pace. This was actually a time thing.

SPEAKER_03: 7:09

Okay. And yeah, well, and it kind of comes back to, I want to just reflect for a moment on the fact that you you're in this book club, right? You're sitting there, you're recognizing, oh my gosh, right? Like all of these different competing things that I have going on or I want to add in my future, then you find out she's, you know, your hometown person. And all of a sudden it becomes, oh, I guess I have time to write a book now. I mean, I understand later, right? Like it might have been my time was a little bit compressed. But I want to go back to that pain point because I I mean, you asked me about this, but I think that there are a lot of people who can very much connect with, I don't know how I can get all of these things done. And it doesn't even necessarily require like this big dramatic like home life with all of these different factors and the work life with all of these factors. Sometimes it's just what we assign to ourselves that makes us feel like we just don't have enough time. And I'm wondering, you know, when you think about that conversation that you were having with those, you know, MBA uh grads and business folks and everything. I mean, a lot of times people will think, oh, well, you get an MBA and you've got it all figured out. And I think you and I both know that that's epically untrue. But it's also just the question of like, what were the kinds of things that people were really concerned about in terms, and you in particular, about I just won't have time or I don't have the capacity to do X, Y, and Z. What what was the list?

SPEAKER_01: 8:47

Yeah. Well, of course, in this group, because we're women in our 30s, um, a big theme was about finding our partners, starting families. So that was something we were wondering, like, how in the heck are we gonna do this? We could not imagine, given the type of hours we were working and the big goals we had for ourselves, you know. So that was a big one. And I just couldn't fathom how I was gonna do that.

SPEAKER_03: 9:11

Um, but then there was Do you remember how many hours a week you were working back in those days? Because I I remember my life back in my early to mid-30s.

SPEAKER_01: 9:19

And yeah, how many hours? How many hours a week were you? Why don't you say first and then I'll say me too, or whatever? How many hours did you say?

SPEAKER_03: 9:26

There was there was a period of my time um where I was also traveling and I was already married at the time, but I was actually counting hours home as opposed to days traveling. And so I was really hundred hours a week, easy. Oh, and then adding in going and it was it was domestic travel, but it was still constant. And I wasn't home, I wasn't with my husband, and I was busy, busy, busy with things that I believe to be critical and time urgent.

SPEAKER_01: 10:02

Yeah, yeah. Okay, you were one of my buddies in that book club, exactly. Yeah, and so and I don't I don't think I was working that many hours, but some of my friends were, you know, like one friend, she was actually a doctor and she had crazy hours. It was almost like hazing to see who could work the most hours, which scares me. Like, how do they take care of patients, you know, when they're like they're they can't even think straight. But um, so but I'll mention not only the thing about like family, but we are worried about at that time in our lives, but also um how are we gonna work in our passions, you know, like what we really want to do when we we all have like these day jobs that we're it may not be our passion. Like for me, you know, the Enigram was my passion, but how's it what does it have to do with the fact that I was building an active trading platform for a financial services company? I love that work too, but I couldn't see how it connected, where I'm gonna squeeze it in.

SPEAKER_03: 11:02

Yeah, how do I make these choices between these two things? Yes. Because I can't give my all, I can't give my 100% to both. And so how do then we start to believe that we need to make those choices, right? And and thank you for sharing that because I I think that yes, we can focus on the I'm building my life, I'm trying to take care of myself. It's also the career ambitions that we have, and there's nothing wrong with having those career ambitions. So you're sitting at her house, you're hanging out, hanging out with your author hero, and you're having this conversation. What was it that clicked in your mind that made you go, yes, we need other than, of course, I get to write with my hero? Totally get that. But just in terms of, you know, this is what I I see us writing about. What was it that clicked for you that made you say, I can overcome some of these time issues that I've been brewing on in my head by really leaning into co-authoring this book?

SPEAKER_01: 12:07

What happened was the two of us really complimented each other. Now, but we didn't, this wasn't by design, it was by luck. Like two bodies collide in the universe and come together and create some other some awesome chemical reaction. So she and I were very different, but it turns out we each had what the other didn't have. And we we needed each other to create this thing together. And so what I've later learned is um this is was all about collaboration. I didn't, it wasn't intentional, but looking back on it, we formed this incredible collaboration and we were different generations. Like she was more like my mother's generation, so like older, younger, in Enneagram language, she was a type five observer, I was a seven enthusiast. She was more of an artist, um, you know, illustrator type. I was like a you know, business person and very focused on career. And so the collaboration came together without us realizing that was going to happen. And we just knew once we got together, you know, it was sort of a lucky thing. But um since then, I've learned that it's not I've made a huge shift from thinking I have to optimize everything, plan everything, strategize, figure out how to make it work. But no, it's more about relaxing, stepping back, being in a receptive mode, allowing, and these things will come forward without me forcing it. Um, and it almost feels miraculous or like magic or something, but that's really how life works.

SPEAKER_03: 13:45

It's yeah, it makes me think of that moment where and I talk to so many people, and I'm curious your thoughts on this, where I give up. Like I I will say I I had this with my husband when I met him. I was like, I just I I'm not going to meet anyone right now. I'm just going to focus on work, forget it, right? And all of a sudden he showed up in in a really like esoteric, non-Becky, non-Scott sort of way. And I I think that that's one of those things that and and whether it's, you know, that job opportunity, that spouse, that friendship, that, you know, kind of book deal kind of scenario, it's it's almost when we say, Yeah, you know what? I I I feel like I've been crushing it, trying to get this to come to me, and I can't do it. But what you're describing is distinctly the opposite, which is when we step back, is when we give space for things to come to us. Talk to me a little bit more about what you discovered is behind that.

SPEAKER_01: 14:48

Yeah, because you know, what I realized now, like when I said I'm late at night, I'm searching on the internet, I wasn't doing it in a way where I was, you know, trying to optimize and study and get my plan together. It was a very relaxed kind of the day's over, just kind of playing around. And so I was in a very receptive mode at the time. And that's when I was able to see something that I had never seen before. You know, she had been in my hometown the whole time. But I was in a very but I was in a receptive, kind of relaxed state. And what I realized, like, I used to try to optimize everything. So for example, when I was um at that time I was working at e-trade and I was a product manager, I thought, okay, I'm noticing it's like mostly men at this company where I'm in the active trading department, and but I want to have a kid one day. Like, how am I gonna be a mom in this environment? So I try, I thought, oh, I have to opt, I have to find a company that's like family friendly and like have more women in the office, which turns out it isn't true. I was just trying, I was just imagining like, oh, I've got to, you know, search around, research what kind of company to go to and try to find that place. Fast forward many years later, I realized no, this is not about trying to optimize everything and control everything. It's the dead opposite. It's about um yes, lean into our strength. So there's something we do well, lean into that. But there was something where there's something lacking or missing, and we don't have that. It's not about working harder and trying to find the perfect company versus setting and like find the guy to marry and force him to have a kid or whatever. I say that because my poor fiance, I would at each try to remember he was more of like an artist type. And I was a business type, and I remember like walking around the parking lot um on my cell phone during breaks, like peppering him with these questions, like how are we gonna get this stuff done? And you know, the poor guy, you know, like looking back at this was really silly.

SPEAKER_03: 16:50

And yet it seemed so important at the time. At the time, right? And that's that's actually what I hear you even talking about is you know, when I want this, I feel like I have to kind of push. Right. And the fact is that the that push is actually almost, at least the way that I'm hearing you describe it, is pushing it away. Yes. Instead of allowing you to have the time and the room to let it resolve, you're trying to force a square peg into a round hole, and that's just not going to be an easy path. Precisely. And so you're recognizing now that I didn't necessarily have to be doing those laps around the parking lot talking to him about those things because it was it was going to be what it was. Right. Right. And and there's only so much I could control.

SPEAKER_01: 17:37

Yeah. And in in our case, everything worked out great. We did eventually get married. We did have a kid, move to the suburbs and you know, and have a beautiful life with we have a beautiful daughter. That whole thing worked out. Um, I did get help, you know, support from like the book club friends who had kids, had daughters before I did, so they kind of coached me through all that. But um what I'm talking about in terms of allowing collaboration um works really well in a work setting with a team. So instead of like if you have one person on your team and you're expecting them to get something done, instead of pressuring the pressure or whatever to show up in a certain way, you know, to complete the report in a certain way or to complete the project a certain way, that person, they're gonna have their strengths and weaknesses. So you encourage this is all about strengths-based collaboration, strengths-based leadership, strengths-based teams. You allow them to, they're gonna lean in on what their magnificence is, what is what they do great. And you don't try to change their uh weaknesses. Some other resource can come forward to fill that gap. Um, maybe I I could try to clean an example, but I'm guessing that you believe in strengths-based leadership and strengths-based careers as well. Does this fit in the world? You're a huge advocate.

SPEAKER_03: 18:57

Yeah, it I'm a huge advocate of it, actually. And I think that there's a a place where you can recognize that someone has a strength in something. And and something that I think I I know you wrote about this in in Nine Points of Potential, where it was really about, you know, it it isn't about hammering on someone's weaknesses, right? Or even like and but the really key thing that that I picked up in that was this whole idea of, you know, they're so easy for us, those strengths, that we don't even notice how much of a strength it is because, well, if I can do this so easily, then everyone must be able to do it. So we start to look at each other. So that's part of my way of working with clients, is just that recognition of, right, no, you're a genius at this, which means that other people who might even be really good are still never going to get really close to what you can do in five minutes is still going to take them an hour. Yeah. So you can't put your timelines and expectations on them because there are other things they can do at magic, and it takes them five minutes, and it would take you an hour.

SPEAKER_01: 20:09

Yes. Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you gave that example. And there's two sides to this. So, on the one hand, I think somehow most of us expect someone else to do something the way that we do it, just because just take it for granted, right? And it's not realistic. And on the flip side, most people take for granted what makes them great, what makes them indispensable, what makes them magnificent. They just do it naturally. And so they undersell themselves in that department. They don't put that front and center and say, this is what I do really well, and this is what's amazing about me. Because most people just I they it's like a soft skill or something that they they just do. They don't realize that how significant that is as a contribution to the team or to the organization.

SPEAKER_03: 21:00

Even when it's technical. So the soft skills in terms of how we interact with people, how we talk to people, all of those elements, yes, absolutely. What also surprises me on the regular is when people have a technical acuity and they're really good at whatever it might be. And they they just are like, but that that's easy. And my favorite line, honestly, is well, it's obvious. And my common refrain is, it's only obvious once you know. And so Yeah. And if you don't know, it's clearly not obvious. And and so therefore it needs to be explained and expressed. And that's where the communication piece of this really comes into play as well. When you see teams trying to collaborate and trying to work together with all of these things that you've done these interviews, you've had these conversations, you've lived The experience yourself. I guess I'm curious. You know, people are like, I don't want to collaborate with that person because I don't trust them. I can't count on them. What is it that you do to kind of help bridge that gap between between and among the people who are on that team?

SPEAKER_01: 22:18

Yeah, well, I've developed a strengths diagnostic and where I identify five critical strengths. Um, I mentioned one of them too earlier. I said networking, because I do for me, networking is easy, and some people it's just really hard. So that's example. And I'll tell people like, just get on the phone and just network. And you're like, no, no, it's not that easy. You know, like, come on, just do it. I can't even pick up the phone. Yeah. But um, you were asking, how do you what if there's somebody who's really difficult to get along with?

SPEAKER_03: 22:49

So well, or even just like the dynamics of the team are that they're not able to see the value that they bring to the team. They're not able to see the value that other people are bringing to the team, so they don't really understand how to bring it together, so it clicks into place.

SPEAKER_01: 23:06

Yes. So um what I've found is that there's certain strengths that people have that are just kind of below the surface that people may not see it in themselves and they don't see it in each other, so they don't know it's there. And as soon as we can bring that and make that apparent to others, it's just so exciting. Like so many um amazing collaborations happen. So, for example, there is this team that I worked with at Google, these guys were in the search quality um department, and people valued uh this would be true for a lot of organizations, people value certain strengths or personality tendencies typically of the of the founders. So without me even knowing what the personality types are the founders of Google, I could tell what what it was because in this group of like nine people, everybody was trying to appear like what you call in the Enneagram um a type uh five observer or type six problem solver or type nine harmonizer. So everybody was trying to jam themselves into those boxes to be to be considered like a good Googler. And actually, one of the guys was a type 1 improver. In other words, he's naturally very good at organizing things and bringing structure to them and improving them through um yeah, through organization. And then another guy was a type two helper, which is very expressive, emotive kind of a person who's all about attending to others' needs. Yeah, and so my colleague and I, we first met with people individually one-on-one before we brought people together as a brute. And each person, when we talked to them privately and helped them uncover their greatest strengths, they felt so seen, and it was just like such a breath of fresh air, like, oh my god, yes. So the um the guy who was a type two, for example, who's all about meeting needs, which doesn't fit into the box of like, oh, I'm an observer and I do comp you know, um, which is all about like complex problem solving. But when we saw him for what he was, it was so beautiful. Like this guy, he literally came to tears of like he could relax, like that he was see like I don't think he saw himself that way until we like pointed it out. And so what his greatest greatest strength was resourcefulness and meeting needs as a two helper. Okay. So then when people it was later when we we got the team together and we did an exercise that people would guess each other's types and figure identity strength. When people realized that guy was a helper and he was very resourceful, they realized, my god, yes, he's always helping us. He was an incredible resource to the team. And also he happened to be in charge of the um of the site that was localized for Korea and the Korean language. It was like Google for Korea. Okay, and so he was really good at meeting the needs of the Korean market, which was slightly different than like the English speaking market.

SPEAKER_03: 26:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 26:25

And so this was his magnificent, this was his brilliance. It was like everybody got much more relaxed. Like, let's let this guy help us. This is what he does, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 26:36

And by the way, he's going to be really good at it because it's a natural extension of just who he is. And it's this opportunity for him. And I talk about it all the time as lead as you, right? If you try to lead as someone else, it's always you're only going to be second best. You can't lead better as someone else. Right. And so that performative piece that you're talking about, where it's, oh my gosh, I'm supposed to be an observer because that's what the environment requires of me. No, we don't want clones. That's actually not the goal here. Right. Because what we really want are all of the different factors of people to come together so that we can have this success. And I love that recognition. And I guess I'm curious, you know, as you notice people relaxing into who they really are and understanding those strengths, knowing those weaknesses, acknowledging and doing their appreciation of those weaknesses as well. I guess I'm I'm curious, what do you notice about stress levels and anxiety at work and that clinging to the time structure?

SPEAKER_01: 27:46

Yeah. Um well, one of the fun things with the Enneagram is that we have a type and then we have a stress point. Stress is not necessarily a bad thing. Um, we say there's kind of like a high side and a low side of everything. So like we have our core type, so my core type is the seven enthusiast. So when I'm relaxed and I can just be myself, I'm like fun and you know, talk about the possibilities and keep things playful. For me, and anyone who's listening who's also a type seven like me, our stress point is the type one, the perfectionist, who's like very detail-oriented, very meticulous, very um into organ getting things organized and much more restrictive. So when I'm under stress at work, I go to that place. There's a high side and a low side to it. In some ways, it's wonderful. Because we can't just be in seven mode, enthusiastic, and like partying and having fun all the time, you know?

SPEAKER_03: 28:45

Right. Things need to get done and they need to be organized in order to do that. Sure. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01: 28:50

Yeah, so it's okay for me to go to that place and show up in that way at work. But there's a low side or a dark side to it too. There's a dark side to everything, there's a dark side to being like the fun one too. But so when I get into my like perfectionistic mode, I can be extremely critical of other people. I can be like harsh on people, make people feel not affirmed, you know, and it's not intentional, it's just that I'm I'm stressed, I'm kind of in that mode because the perfectionists can be perfectionistic and like a little bit too hard on people around them.

SPEAKER_03: 29:23

Yeah, when we're we're kind of more aligned with them. Yeah, when we're and I I feel like you did speak to that, right? Where what I'm hearing you say is that when we're under stress, we might default into some of these behaviors that may work for us, may work against us. And it's it's almost like a almost like a moderation of it, that we don't want to overinvest in that stress reaction. But when we're under stress, sometimes that's the reaction or that's the response that is the most appropriate for that moment. Maybe I've been having fun and I haven't really been watching the clock, and now all of a sudden, right now I have to buckle in because I need to get the task across the finish line. That can be a positive piece. But if I start verbally, you know, being cruel to myself inside or outside my head, right? Or to others, then maybe I'm overinvesting into that default behavior, and that might not be the ideal. And, you know, I do energy leadership, which is a a different angle. Um, but we also do this is your normal living in a world, and then this is your stress response. And the stress response, as we know, is always going to reside in, and I know there are a lot of flavors of this out there right now, but the original was the fight or flight. You know, there's freeze and all the others now. But, you know, there's there's a component of that, right? Where what I like about what you're talking about is that there's a behavioral piece that you can actually identify and say, this is that thing that I do when I'm under stress. So I need to monitor how well I'm actually engaging with this. I guess when you think about the structure of these things, and I know you've been familiar with the Enneagram and really worked with this for a long time, and this is sort of second kind of language for you in a sense. I guess one of the things that I I wonder about is this knowledge. How does it change you as a leader and as a person who contributes within organizations now to have this knowledge?

SPEAKER_01: 31:35

Yeah. So basically, what this is about, this is about awareness, the awareness of myself and others. And it's so powerful that it's crazy for people to not find out what these like if you have something that makes you absolutely indispensable, magnificent, powerful, do you really want to go for decades and decades and not know what that is? You know, it's like okay, you can be you know be less fulfilled and not fulfill your full potential, or you can know what that is. And so, um, and like in my case as a type seven, it's about exploring possibilities. So I'm helping others explore their possibilities. I'm I'm a product developer, I create new products. That's one example. So um that can guide my career. Um I would suspect one of your areas of greatness is identifying with others, being able to observe and identify and connect with people and then help them solve problems, which is I'm I'm guessing you're a type six questioner or the skeptic, since you are the introverted science. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 32:41

Yes. And and definitely, you know, and part of it that's interesting is kind of looking at younger years, right? And recognizing because that's where some of these things start to bubble up. It's even if we look at things like attachment styles and and things like that, it's very interesting to see where, as we're children, the things that we're interested in, the things that we do in order to get attention, whether it's positive or negative attention, and all of those kind of indicators, I guess I would call them, of what's really happening inside us. I I'm not necessarily of the kind of fixed personality mindset. I actually think that there's a little bit more fluidity in that, but I do think that there are a lot of really strong signals from our childhood. And I just know I was always very alert, and some of it was my environment, but I was always very alert to what was happening around so that I could kind of gauge the mood and respond to that mood. And it's interesting how we build some of these strengths and some of these capabilities. And again, some of that is nature, how we're born, some of it is nurture in terms of how it is that we have developed certain strengths. Because I forget with the which methodology it was, but they were talking about look, you keep on trying different methodologies, but if you're not good at them, or if they don't work for you, then you stop. And so that's where it's really interesting when you're talking about, look, this I'm the seven, right? And I have this opportunity to really kind of find the fun, find the possibility, keep that energy moving up, and telling people how exciting it is so that that message gets pushed out into the world. There's just such a powerful opportunity for people to see themselves. And that's a gift that you're bringing that if you didn't know that that was out there, then it would be muzzled. And who would want that? For you personally, when you think about, because you described this as a life-changing moment when you had that opportunity, recognized you had a chance to meet her. What is it that you think is really different about where you are right now because you had this moment? Like, what's the leap forward for you that that created?

SPEAKER_01: 35:18

Yes. I mean, now I know that there is enough time and everything is in perfect timing. And I don't have to worry, like, oh my god, how am I gonna get this thing done? Like, um, but I know that when I need help, I need to ask for help. Maybe it's maybe it's not specif. I don't know who to ask for help yet, because oftentimes it comes from very unexpected places. So it's more yeah, like that's so true.

SPEAKER_03: 35:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 35:50

I mean, that's um the what happened, like I really wanted to get the strengths diagnostic out to the world. And how am I gonna do this as a person of one? You know, how am I gonna have the um the platform to get it out there? But I needed help. And so then, like, in comes Penguin Random House, you know, that wasn't my plan. I wasn't planning necessarily to write another book, but they needed somebody to bring the Enneagram forth in a certain way if it was at the right time. And great, so here we are, now we have this book. These are just, I mean, this has happened to me like a hundred times in different ways. So I keep giving book examples, but there are other examples.

SPEAKER_03: 36:29

Well, and I think what really resonates around that, right, is this idea that there are there are paths forward that we can't see. And when we're under stress is when we're the least likely to see them. And I I mean that kind of that lower resonating kind of stress, right? Not the kind that lifts us up so that we can think creatively, but really the stuff that's heavy that drags us down. And so when I talk with my clients about it, I'm like, well, think about those moments when you're angry. How creative were you when you were being angry, right? No, your brain shuts down, it goes full ego, it's all about me right now and how much I don't like you, right? And and it becomes very fixated in some respects. And what I'm hearing you talk about is when I know who I am, when I can relax into my own way of being, I can trust that other people who are my compliments on this particular thing will show up, right? And I need to stay vigilant and watch for them. It's not like, you know, they just show up and throw gifts into my lap necessarily. But if I'm looking for certain characteristics, it's likely that I will see them as I need them and be able to connect them into what I need to accomplish. And that's so powerful.

SPEAKER_01: 37:51

Yeah, something like that happened to me recently. So um I was reporting to a manager who was fabulous, but I don't she and I somehow were not necessarily working for each other. Like I don't think my style and how I was doing my work was what she had in mind. The way she was communicating with me wasn't keeping me motivated. And honestly, I thought and so I felt angry, I felt stressed, I felt, you know, fearful, all those emotions that are not gonna help me be creative or communicate well. So, you know, I did my best to through the whole process of several few months, you know, trying to stay open, trying to relax. So I you know, try to do the best I could for communication so forth. But um anyway, this manager sent me a meeting request for Monday, and I could tell I thought, okay, great, she is going to wait, just rip me a new A dot dot dot. And then also sent me a meeting request for Tuesday with her and the head of the department. So I'm like, uh oh, okay, she's gonna rip me a new one on Monday, and then Tuesday they're gonna fire me, you know what I'm saying, right? But we don't know what's gonna come around the corner, and so I, you know, just tried to take each day with the best um that I could. There's a lot of mindfulness practice to the Enneagram, and haven't gotten into that, but um, you know, with a as much mindfulness as possible, I got in on Monday, yes, she like you know, criticized all these things about how I did, you know. So I tried to like listen, stay open, hear what she was saying. Get into Tuesday. And the first thing they said is like, okay, Ingrid, you're now no longer reporting to this person, you're now reporting to the head of the whole thing. Like, I thought I was gonna get fired. It's that I got a promotion. And I did not see that coming. But I feel like that's what you're trying to say when you're working with a client who's like really angry and they're not being creative. Like, if you whatever, what would you how would you help that person? I'm curious. Like, how do you help that person that's like really angry and they're not creative?

SPEAKER_00: 40:05

So that they're open so that maybe they'll gonna get actually a promotion, not fired, or you know.

SPEAKER_03: 40:12

Well, one of the things that I know I've done several times with different clients is that what I heard you creating there was this story in your head about I'm going to get fired. This is what the end result is going to be, right? It's that future, that fortune telling that we do. And so I I say, okay, let's hold off on the fortune telling. But if you're insistent upon doing the fortune telling, then you have to give yourself at least three different versions of the story. So, right. So, yes, you're I'm going to be fired. It's going to be the worst thing in my life. I'll, I'll never see money again, and the world is going to collapse around me. Okay. So there's your, you know, your worst case scenario. And then, you know, I like to go to the other extreme, which is the best case scenario. They're going to tell me how awesome I am, that I didn't even realize all of the beautiful things about who I am as a person and how I perform in my job. I mean, we're making up the story. We might as well make up the best story we can. Yeah, might as well. And so it goes along that line. And then I encourage the middle story. What if what's the story that's possible between those two things? Yep, they're going to say a couple of things that are critical of me, but you know, potentially this could also go forward. Now, remember, when we're telling these stories, we don't, we don't know anything that's true. And so one of the things that I talk to my clients about is yep, prepare for the worst case scenario, right? Like if I'm going to be fired, what is my first day thing that I'm going to do, right? Like lay it out. Plan for that. That's great. And also prepare yourself for the best case scenario, right? If they're going to say something kind to you, then be ready to accept that. Because if you're so prepared to get fired and then they say nice things to you, you're kind of in this state of shock and your words get completely lost. You have no ability to even find the phrase thank you. And it's important to be able to recognize that whatever story you made up is exactly that. It hasn't happened yet. And this is a lesson that I had to learn like 50 times over and probably still learn it on the regular is, oh my gosh, this is what's going to happen, and then this and then this and then this, and kind of seeing that future go forward until, oh, wait a second, right? Like even the first thing hasn't happened out of that whole nightmare of a story that I've just created. So let's hold it centered and let's wait for that day to come. And I'm a big advocate of plan for day one. You know, your worst case scenario, what what is it that you're going to do? And have at least, you know, two or three things that you're thinking that this is what my reaction will be. I don't know how many times I thought I was going to get fired or I thought that my husband was going to get laid off. He's in the auto industry, right? Like things go up and down. And so the the point of that is you plan for day one, and then you and then it never happens, maybe. And but you always have that plan. And then you can relax to what you were talking about, where it's just settled in and being able to really understand those constructs a little bit more. And, you know, I'm just thinking, you know, Ingrid, I'm I'm really appreciating the the knowledge of this that you're bringing in and how much so many of these things are tied to some of these moments that we don't even connect to our professional lives. You know, you're sitting at a book club hanging out with your friends, you're not necessarily thinking about, oh my goodness, right? Like this is going to be the catalyst to something that could potentially change my life. And yet there it is. And I think that there's a power in that that when we realize that even you Know those small moments can be those pivotal things that help us appreciate how much time we we really have to be able to pursue the dreams that we have. So, Ingrid, I know that we've had this great discussion really about Enneagram and really kind of how it interjects and interconnects with um coaching just in general. And I I know you're not a coach, and yet you are in this place of positioning people to understand themselves and to understand other people. And that's such a powerful gift that that you're able to present and and share. And, you know, I I did read through, you know, your more recent book, and I just really want to recognize the value of the nine points of potential, where it's just this opportunity to do that evaluation sort of in real time and to be able to do those things. And I know you've had a chance to ask me a couple of questions here, but I'm just curious if there's anything else that you wanted to make sure that you shared or you had any other questions that you had for me that we could discuss.

SPEAKER_01: 45:06

Yeah, well, I definitely want to encourage folks to find out what is their what makes them indispensable, because I would hate for someone to listen to this podcast and then go another decade and not know what their thing is.

SPEAKER_03: 45:19

Absolutely. And and I know I could keep on talking to you for a really long time about this. So just thank you, Ingrid, for coming onto the show. I appreciate you so very much, and I'm very grateful for the things that you're bringing us.

SPEAKER_01: 45:33

So grateful for you, thank you.

SPEAKER_03: 45:35

If you have interest in connecting and learning more about today's guest, check out the show notes for ways to connect and follow up. Thanks for listening. If you found this episode helpful, share it with someone who could benefit from it. Until next time, I'm Becky Fraser, reminding you to integrate who you are with how you lead. Okay, bye.