Category Archives: Type 1

Songs for the Road: Doing Center

There was a great little piece in the Enneagram Monthly some 15 years ago called “Enneagram Voicemail Codes,” by Lahar Goldberg. It was short, succinct, laugh-out-loud funny—and painfully accurate. As Sheldon said when he explained a joke on the TV show The Big Bang Theory: “It’s funny because it’s true.”

Enneagram Voicemail Codes

If you know exactly what you want…press 1
If you want to help, press…2
If you have a great idea that could make us a lot of money…press 3
If you’re feeling abandoned…press 4
If you don’t want to talk to anyone…press 5
If you don’t know what you want…press 6
For a good time…press 7
If you want to tell us what to do and how to do it…press 8
If you feel irritated, but you need to take a nap…press 9

So I thought it would be amusing and maybe even somewhat illuminating to compile, with a little help from my friends, a list of traveling songs for each type.

Because there are three Centers of Intelligence within the Enneagram and three types within each center, I’ve decided to focus first on the three Doing center types and cover the Feeling center types and Thinking center types in subsequent posts.

Road Songs for Doing Center Types

Maybe it’s because I’m a Doing type, but nine points or nine lenses or even nine types all seem entirely too static—thus the name for the blog, Nine Paths. I think the Enneagram describes the different approaches we take to life and the different ways in which we move through it. Type influences the paths we take, as well as how we proceed along them and what we see on the way. So as we travel our respective paths, let’s queue up some type-appropriate road songs. [As a Type 8 with a strong 7 wing, my own impulse is to keep moving, but to enjoy the ride as much as possible.] Continue reading

Don, Don, He’s a 1!

Don and I have been critiquing each other’s writing for about five years. Shortly after we met, he completed an Enneagram test that figured him to be a 9. I didn’t know him very well then, so a 9 he was. Although every once in a while I wondered about that, we never talked about the Enneagram until I decided to start this blog, at which time he completed my Stance Keyword Comparison Checklist. The results indicated he was a Compliant type, and we soon determined he’s a 1w9—a profile that fits him much better and explains quite a lot.

So, in one corner of the critique ring, wearing the white trunks, we have:

Do It the Right Way (Don)

and over in the other corner, wearing the black trunks:

Do It My Way (me)

Thank goodness for the moderating influence of our wings, his 9 and my 7. Sure, we’ve had a couple of minor skirmishes. One time when we were meeting as part of a critique group in a bookstore café, I took the lid off my cup of coffee, and the person to my right backed away from the table, assuming I intended to toss the contents at Don. But no knockout punches have been delivered to date and no liquid refreshments have been tossed. Continue reading