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01/27/21 – Episode 61: Strengthen Your Decision-Making With the Enneagram: Part 2 – With Matt Schlegel

In part 2 of our conversation on the Women & Wealth podcast, Esther Szabo of Gates Pass Advisors and I explore how creativity is expressed in each Enneagram type.  Esther uses creativity with clients to envision possibilities for the future so that she can create a financial plan that will help clients realize desired outcomes.

[Transcript]

Aric Johnson:

Welcome to the Women and Wealth podcast with Esther Szabo. Esther is a respected leader in the field of personal financial advice with over 25 years of experience. After going through her own significant and challenging life-changing events, she overcame fear and self-doubt to launch her own successful advisory firm. Now, Esther is ready to share her practical and personal experiences to help other women clear their hurdles and brave life’s transitions. In this way she inspires women to lead, fulfilling, and confident lives.

Aric Johnson:

Hello, and welcome to Women and Wealth with Esther Szabo from Gates Pass Advisors. I’m excited today’s a part two of a two-part podcast. Esther’s bringing back Matt Schlegel from Schlegel Consulting. Matt is a keynote speaker, a team effectiveness coach, and the author of the book Teamwork 9.0: Successful Workgroup Problem Solving Using the Enneagram. Matt Schlegel is committed to developing highly effective style diverse teams and giving them the tools and strategies to tackle challenges that are seemingly impossible. Esther, how are you today?

Esther Szabo:

I’m doing really well. Thank you, Aric. I’m excited to hear more from Matt.

Aric Johnson:

Me too. I shared with both Matt and Esther after the podcast last time that I’m totally geeking out on this. I’m a nerd for this kind of stuff. I love it. Matt had so much great information. So if you’re joining us right now for the very first time, know that there is a podcast that goes before this one, you can listen to them in any order, but it’s definitely a two-parter and you guys shared so much good information. Can you give us just a brief recap of what that last podcast was about?

Esther Szabo:

Yeah. On the last one, we discussed what the Enneagram is. The area we focused on was problem solving. And decision-making from the lens of the Enneagram. For all of us, when we’re in a situation, especially a transitional situation that’s new to us, we can default to ways that are maybe tunnel vision because it’s new and perhaps there’s some fear there, perhaps there’s a lot of enthusiasm, but we may not be getting the broad overview that we need to make the best decision. And we work on that a lot here with financial decisions. Today, we’re going to add on another layer to the decision-making approach, which is creativity.

Esther Szabo:

So important when we’re looking at choices. The goal for this podcast is to, again, to give that perspective on financial decision-making and apply creativity to expand our perspective, it applies to work teams as well as personal financial decision-making. And Matt, I’m wondering if you could read a quote from page 140 in the digital version. By the way, the digital version of your book includes great color illustrations there in the print as well, just not color. So I really encourage people to get your book either the digital or the paper version, but if you could read that quote for us.

Matt Schlegel:

You bet. Well, thank you Esther, once again, for the opportunity to share the Enneagram with you and your audience, I’m so delighted to be here. The quote is, “Creativity is not merely the generation of an original idea, but the entire process, including the actions that manifest the idea into the world.”

Esther Szabo:

And I love that quote because there is a part of planning, et cetera, that is process, and there’s a whole other part that makes it real and brings it into the world. Tell me more about that, even that sentence from your approach with working with people and the Enneagram.

Matt Schlegel:

As I studied the Enneagram, I realized that there are so many different applications that you can draw out of the system. My book, for instance, generally, was about decision-making and problem solving. But there’s another aspect about the Enneagram that I thought was very compelling and important to decision making and problem solving, which is creativity. And if you look at the Enneagram diagram, you’ll see that within each type, there are two lines connected, and those are sometimes called the paths of integration and disintegration. In other words, they’re describing how the behaviors can change over time, depending on the situation, whether we’re under stress, when we’re stress-free also can speak to levels of maturity.

Matt Schlegel:

So maturity versus immaturity, our behaviors do change over time and the Enneagram actually speaks to this. Well, another thing that occurred to me with those lines and this struck me by the saying necessity is the mother of invention. Well, what’s necessity? Necessity is you’re being put into some kind of stressful situation that is compelling you in certain ways to be creative. I thought, “Okay, well, the Enneagram has these lines. So maybe there’s something there.” And that’s what I focus on in this chapter of my book is how going back and forth between integration, disintegration, stress, stress-free can serve as an engine of creativity for each of the Enneagram types, and each type has a distinct creative style.

Esther Szabo:

And it’s interesting that you say go back and forth, back and forth because you talk about this visual of the creativity seesaw. Can you tell us about that?

Matt Schlegel:

Right. So I wanted to have some way to visualize that motion between essentially the two sides of going from stress full to stress free and how in each one of those types, one tends more towards inspiration or ideation, creating ideas and then the other towards action, acting on those ideas, implementing a solution. And you get that back and forth motion between ideation and action as you work through the creative process.

Esther Szabo:

So how does somebody go about this on their own? What’s some steps? Because I love the visual of we do go back and forth, we might go, “Oh, I’d love to do this. And then something says, “Oh no, what makes you think you can do that?”

Matt Schlegel:

Right.

Esther Szabo:

How does someone say yeah, with the different types?

Matt Schlegel:

There’s another saying, and this is a Thomas Edison saying, “The genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” So I think he was speaking to this duality in creativity between getting ideas and acting on those ideas. One of the first things that we need to do is just appreciate that creativity is not just having an idea. The verb to create is a very active thing of creating something based on an idea that you have. Putting that into your thinking about both of those both ideation and action is an important part for anybody when they’re thinking about how do I express my creativity?

Esther Szabo:

If we’re thinking about going back to some of the types we talked about in the first podcast, type one has that default around perfection, how can that impede their creativity and how to get them past that from the stressful to the stress free?

Matt Schlegel:

Right. Right. Yes. Each type is going to have a distinct creative flare and for type one you’ll remember that they’re the type that wants to get things right. Their ideation comes out of looking at something and they can see what’s wrong with it. They can see the thing that’s missing, that the type one is connected to type four, which is the type that is most associated with pining, for the things that are missing. And so you can see in that path of disintegration, the one moving towards being able to just so clearly see what’s missing. And then as they get that idea and they start to move towards action, that is moving towards that seven, where you get that enthusiasm towards solving the problem and type sevens are the most associated with positivity and positive outcomes. I would characterize it that way. And so you have this motion between pining seeing what’s missing and then wanting to go in and create a positive outcome. And that’s that back and forth motion on the seesaw of the type one with the underlying motivation of getting things right.

Esther Szabo:

So let’s stick with this idea of these lines between these two and three, because my understanding, I think was too linear that the type one will stay in a type one space. But what you’re talking about is, as for example, using creativity, they’re connected with another type that is pining for the idea that they want and then the seven, which really wants to implement it. And then that seesaw goes back and forth. Am I getting that?

Matt Schlegel:

That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. So that is the concept that I’m trying to illustrate is that motion back and forth, you’re still the type one, but as the type one moves in to more stressful situations starts to take on the behaviors of the type four. And when they move towards a stress free situation, then they take on the behaviors of the type seven. So it’s that motion back and forth between those two types that can serve as that engine of creativity for the type one. And then each one of the Enneagram types will have their own distinct creative Seesaw.

Esther Szabo:

And I know that in your book… Again, the illustrations are fabulous. You depict this really clearly what lies between each type. I love hearing about this because it allows people who might otherwise not think too creatively, if you will, about their finances and again, by financial creativity, I don’t mean things that are illegal or anything like that, but it’s more like, what are the possibilities for our lives for our day to day to become something that is either more fulfilling or to maintain if it is fulfilling enough already what your illustrating here are just how it’s not like flipping on a light switch. We all go through a process of that.

Matt Schlegel:

Right. And the other thing about this creative dynamic is that there is a distinct motivating force associated with each Enneagram type. I put that as the fulcrum of the seesaw. It’s, it’s the thing that’s holding up the seesaw is that motivating force. And then you are oscillating back and forth on the Seesaw between the stress full and the stress free. When you’re encouraging your clients to think creatively about how they want to manage their money and manage outcomes in their lives then it’s always good to understand that starting point for each of your clients. So are they starting from the point of, I want to get it right? That’s that motivating force for the one. Or we talked about the five, I want to make sure that I don’t make any mistakes. That’s important to the five. And so you need to understand what that underlying motivating force is because that’s going to be the engine that drives the creative process for that type.

Esther Szabo:

And we didn’t talk about this actually in the first one, how do people determine what is there Enneagram type?

Matt Schlegel:

That’s a great question. There’s a number of quizzes that are available, which is a good starting point. You can take a quiz and it will usually let you know, maybe two, maybe three types that will score highly. And then what you really need to do is to think about each one of those types and understand your underlying motivating force. So for instance, type two and type seven they’re commonly confused. So somebody who’s taking the quiz, they’ll score high on both type two and type seven. And so, when I’m talking to somebody about that scores high on those two, I’ll say, “Okay, imagine going for a walk out in the hills with a friend. Now your friend asks you, let’s go for a walk and you say, sure, I’ll go for a walk. Now, why are you going for a walk?” Okay?

Matt Schlegel:

So if you’re a two it’s, my friend asked me and I want to help my friend. So I said, “Yes, because I want to go and help my friend.” The seven says, “Oh, I think it would be fun to go for a walk. So I’m going to go for a walk with my friend on the hills. That sounds great.” Right? So the underlying motivation for the seven was I want to go out and have fun with my friend, the underlying motivation for the two was I’m going to help my friend. And so the behaviors look similar, but the underlying motivation was different. So then I’ll ask the person well, let’s say that your friend is going through a really tough time and you know that the conversation is going to be pretty heavy.

Matt Schlegel:

And that for the two it’s like, “Oh yeah, no problem. I’ll be able to help my friend more through this difficult situation.” Where the seven is starting to think, “Oh, do I really want to do that? I want to have fun.” And so that’s when you start to see the differences between the two, because one is really just wanting to go have some fun with a friend. And the other one is, regardless of whether it’s going to be fun or not, they just want to go help. Does that make sense?

Esther Szabo:

Yeah. I think that’s a really great distinction to be able to continue to parse. It’s not like, I’m just this number. It’s like, what are my motivations? How do I get motivated to move forward and make a decision? If we go forward, you talk about the creative process is including three steps. The first being motivation, what we’ve been talking about to really get clear on what is the motivation as my fulcrum, your next step is around ideation or inspiration. And it’s interesting because one could also say, what’s the difference between motivation and inspiration? Can you talk about that?

Matt Schlegel:

Right. So motivation will inform both your ideas and your actions. So that’s why I put it at the fulcrum of this model, because it’s really informing both. If you visualize a seesaw and you see that stand in the middle, you can say, “Well, the higher that stand is the more emotion there is going to be between the two sides.” And it’s the same way, that the higher your motivation is then the bigger your swings are going to be between inspiration, ideation between stressful. And stress-free. Just to give you an example I worked in startups early in my career. When you’re working in a startup, it is such an invigorating situation, but the highs and lows are dramatic because you’re just so motivated to do and create this thing that you’re working on. So you can look at creativity in that same way you tap into your underlying motivation depending on your type. And then that will drive that motion between the two sides that is your creative engine.

Esther Szabo:

Yeah, that’s really interesting. So I’m thinking, reflecting on that same thing around motivation when there are those that come to us and say, “I was referred, I understand the clients really love what you’re doing for them, both in their lives and on their portfolio.” But that’s great. And then we do have to look at motivation. Are you as motivated as those clients to engage and discuss and consider options because it’s not carbon copy for everybody. So I really appreciate looking at that motivation. What is motivating someone? How willing are they to engage, to create something we talked about in that quote, to manifest the ideas into the world. When you’re talking about ideation, ideation then is about different ideas, is that the root of that word?

Matt Schlegel:

That’s exactly right. So I use ideation as that idea that you get that you’ll want to act on in order to achieve some goal, meet some need. Let’s go back to the one, right? So you have that motivation to get things right. And the one will see the situation and they will perceive that thing, that is missing, that isn’t right, that they can now plug in to make it right. And so it’s that dynamic that is that inspiration that they can then act on to make it right. For the five, it’s a different dynamic. Each type has a different dynamic. The five is connected to type seven and type eight and a type seven when the five moves to type seven, that’s generally in stress.

Matt Schlegel:

But one of the characteristics about type seven is that they are masterful at collecting ideas. I kind of look at them as the honeybee of ideas because they go around, they network with so many different people and they collect so much information and so many ideas from other people. Well, that’s kind of what the five does too, when they’re collecting that information. And then as they get confident in their mastery of the information, then they can move towards the type eight, which is the confident action taker. And so you can see that dynamic between information collecting and then being able to confidently act on the information that dynamic is right in the model of the type five.

Esther Szabo:

It’s so interesting because I imagine there are people listening who are like, “Oh, that would never be me.” Or, “Oh, that’s exactly me.” And that’s the kind of thing that I’m curious about. That’s my enjoyment of sharing this with everyone who’s listening, because it’s all applicable back to… What you do in the world Matt is very different than what I do in the world, but this is very applicable to the people that we work with to then move it into action, which you described as the perspiration stage. Can you talk a bit about that before we close out for today?

Matt Schlegel:

Right. So one of the interesting things about the Enneagram in general is that it’s describing humans and human processes, no matter what aspect of our life that we’re in, whether we’re talking about finances or work. We’re still humans and we’re still coming at it from that point of being of human. And so you’ll see the Enneagram reflected in almost anything that we do. The other side of this then is the perspiration side of actually acting on your idea. And again, it’s going to depend on that, that underlying motivation and how big that motivation is, and you’ll get that idea and then you’ll want to take it to action, act on the idea to essentially address whatever need caused that idea to come up in the first place.

Matt Schlegel:

We talked about the one and the five and this time I’ll use the nine as an example because it’s really a fascinating example. So the nine, you remember that underlying motivation, they wanted to avoid conflict. When a lot of conflict comes up in the environment, then that’s when they move towards type six like behaviors and the type six can be kind of this anxious style. And they become just highly alert to everything that is going on in the environment. So they become just really focused and alert to everything that is happening. But in that state of high alertness, they will be seeing opportunities as well. And as they see those opportunities, then they’re going to start to act on it when the nine moves to the stress-free or secure side, the integrated side that’s towards type three.

Matt Schlegel:

And one of the things I say about type three is that probably of all the types, they are the hardest working type. They just are never ending, just working on things. My mother-in-law, she is a type three and she exacerbates my wife because she’s just always creating masks or creating new Christmas cards or preparing these big meals for everybody in the church. It’s just endless how much energy and productivity. The nine has access to that. My conversations with nines, I ask them, what is it that brings you into that state of being the three in that highly productive state? And they’ll say that they are acting on what is right. So they just have this internal sense, like this is the right thing to do. And I am going to courageously act on that and make things right. So that’s what I’ve noticed in that back and forth of the nine with that underlying motivator of making sure that there’s minimal conflict in the environment, and then thinking creatively about how to make sure that happens.

Esther Szabo:

It’s so fascinating, Matt. And I just have a big smile on my face, thinking about your mother-in-law and the cards and the meals and creating all of these things.

Matt Schlegel:

And my wife’s exasperation.

Esther Szabo:

Yes, exactly. Going, “Oh my God, it doesn’t stop.” But one of the things I want to ask as we close this, is just the COVID. Obviously, we’re in the middle of a really challenging time for our country, perhaps within families being able to connect with families and friends, how might you suggest, or have you seen ways because that really help support one another through this time. I know you can’t go through all nine of types.

Matt Schlegel:

Right, right.

Esther Szabo:

But do you have some closing thoughts around that? Because I just don’t want to ignore that is what’s going on in the world right now.

Matt Schlegel:

Right. So let me start off by saying that creativity, often arises, emerges from these very stressful situations. There’s a story by a fellow who was attending school at Oxford in the year 1666, there was an outbreak of the black plague in that year. They had to send everybody home for shelter in place. And that year is now called the year of wonders because the student was Isaac Newton and he invented the law of gravity, optics and calculus. It just makes me think what is going to come out of our year of wonders when people are put into these extraordinary circumstances and how we are going to respond very creatively to these circumstances.

Matt Schlegel:

And I know you’ve probably already seen incidences of that and I’m seeing it too. It’s going to be remarkable. That said, it is stressful. What I encourage people to do whenever they’re in stress or they see their friends, family, and colleague in stress is just take a deep breath and just exercise a generous amount of patience. That really is the one thing that we could all use at this point is to just be patient with ourselves and patient with others, and know that this too shall pass and we just need to get through it the best we can.

Esther Szabo:

Thank you, Matt so much for that. You have so much optimism. And then also just this calming assurance. And then with this knowledge, that is so relatable to helping during this time, helping in times of decisions, helping with financial decisions. So thank you so much.

Matt Schlegel:

It’s my pleasure, Esther. Thank you so much for having me come on your show and having these conversations, you can tell I’m really passionate about this, and I just really appreciate the opportunity to share this with you.

Esther Szabo:

I encourage everyone to purchase your book, which is, as Aric said at the beginning, it’s Teamwork 9.0. It’s Successful Workgroup Problem Solving Using the Enneagram. But as you can see, it’s very relatable information. And most of us, maybe we’re in a work group, but where a lot of us are in groups, we may be serving on boards. We may be volunteering. Our families. This is really applicable information. And Matt, if somebody wants to talk about this with you more, how do they reach you?

Matt Schlegel:

Yes. The best way to reach me is through my website, which is evolutionaryteams.com. And on that website, you’ll be able to contact me. You can also see the services that I offer. We do a number of different workshops on teamwork and the Enneagram, and all of those workshops are now made virtual so that we can conduct those even in the Zoom world. For those people who are interested in taking an Enneagram quiz, there is a free quiz available on my website. And so you can take that quiz and start down that path, that journey towards understanding your own Enneagram type.

Esther Szabo:

Thanks again, Matt so much. If somebody wants to connect with me, I’m at gatespassadvisors.com and just hit the contact button. Again, thank you so much, Matt. I know this will come out probably in February, so I will wish you happy holidays, whether that’s the end of your holidays or Valentine’s Day. So thanks so much.

Matt Schlegel:

Thank you. Thank you, Esther and happy holidays to you and your audience. I really appreciate again, the opportunity to speak with you.

Aric Johnson:

Wow. This was fantastic. And I got to say, I am so glad I was muted for part of that, because when you started talking about the type three Matt, I literally snored it. I snorted as I laughed because I know we’re all working from home in a lot of different capacities. My wife is upstairs making masks right now, literally making masks as we speak, and she spent the last two nights making 14 dozen tamales. I think she’s a type three.

Matt Schlegel:

Yes, that sounds like it.

Aric Johnson:

And you talked about your wife being exacerbated.

Matt Schlegel:

Yes.

Aric Johnson:

Me too. Don’t tell my wife, but she’s like an Energizer bunny with extra batteries. So either way.

Matt Schlegel:

Exactly.

Aric Johnson:

Good gravy. All right. Well, this is very enlightening and I know that the audience got a lot out of this as well. Matt, thank you so much again for being on. Esther, of course thank you for bringing Matt on the show and the last thank you goes to your listening audience. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to the Women and Wealth podcast with Esther Szabo. If you have not subscribed to the podcast yet, please click the subscribe now button below. [inaudible 00:33:19] when Esther comes out with a new podcast, it’ll show up directly on your listening device. It makes it much easier to share these podcasts with your friends and family and what a fun pair of podcasts to share. Start this conversation, find out what your numbers are and just have some fun with it. It’ll be very, very interesting. Again, thank you so much for listening today. For everyone at Gates Pass Advisors, this is Aric Johnson reminding you to live your best day every day, and we’ll see you next time.

Aric Johnson:

Thank you for listening to the Women and Wealth podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you receive notifications of new podcasts as they become available. Check out the website at www.gatespassadvisors.com for more information. This content is developed from sources believed to be providing accurate information. The information in this material is not intended as tax or legal advice. Please consult legal or tax professionals for specific information regarding your individual situation. The opinions expressed and material provided are for general information and should not be considered a solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security.