Motives, Meaning, and the Enneagram with Jeff Cook

Episode Transcript
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Randy (00:06):
I'm Randy, the pastor half of the podcast, and my
friend Kyle's a philosopher.
This podcast hostsconversations at the
intersection of philosophy,theology, and spirituality.

Kyle (00:15):
We also invite experts to join us, making public a space
that we've often enjoyed off-airaround the proverbial table
with a good drink at the backcorner of a dark pub.

Randy (00:24):
Thanks for joining us, and welcome to A Pastor and a
Philosopher Walking to a Bar.

Kyle (00:36):
So today we have our friend Jeff Cook back on the
show.
Regular listeners will know himfrom our occasional QA's that
we haven't done for a long time.
We should probably get back tosome of those.
But also from a previousconversation we had with him and
his uh podcast co-host TJ aboutthe Enneagram.
So that link to that episode isin the show notes.
If you haven't heard that mightbe a good place to start.

(00:56):
Uh Jeff has several podcaststhat you're going to hear about,
all about the Enneagram, themain one being Around the
Circle.
And he also uh with TJ recentlywrote a book about the
Enneagram called Around theCircle, and that was kind of the
inspiration for thisconversation.
But we take it in a lot ofdifferent directions.

Randy (01:11):
Yeah.
I mean, I think we come at itfrom two different angles.
You come at it from the angleof just like, I'm just not sure
this is real.
Right?
Is that is that a decent way tosum up your sure.
Why not?
Good, good.
Uh and I'm somewhat convincedit's real because of what it's
done in my life.

(01:32):
Yeah.
But also, um, in how Jeffpointed this out correctly, you
could say the same thing aboutChristianity and about many,
many other things.
That there's a lot of peoplewho do a lot of harm to it, that
but that doesn't mean that it'swrong to begin with.
And for me, the Enneagram, I II embrace and love the Enneagram

(01:53):
because of what it's done forme in my in my life, and my um I
think I'm a better personbecause of it.
Yeah.
You know, which is a big deal,uh a big thing to say for me.
Yeah.
So I I'm grateful for peoplelike Jeff who want to elevate
the conversation and who want tomake it a better conversation
and who want to articulate somesome really fresh and um

(02:14):
wonderful ways of thinking aboutit while also listening to you
guys debate about the legitimacyof it or lack thereof.

Kyle (02:22):
Yeah, and it's a it's a testament to Jeff and how much I
love him.
Yes, and would like to know himbetter uh that we did that
again because it's not very highon my list of things to like
want to debate about, to befrank.
Uh, but it's clearly he thinksit's very important and he has
found a lot of life in it andhas seen, presumably, the
evidence of it giving a lot oflife to a lot of other people.

(02:44):
So um I'm interested in havingconversations about things that
uh give other people life.

Randy (02:49):
So yeah, and I'm sure there's I'm sure our listeners,
some of many of them resonatedeeply with me because it's the
Enneagram has impacted theirlives.
And I'm sure there's many whouh resonate deeply with you and
are so glad there's someonewho's willing to say, I'm not
sure about all of that.

Kyle (03:03):
I'll say this that silly article that I wrote about the
Enneagram is still my most read.
Is that right?
Well, I think that shows helppeople.
It definitely is.
People Google Enneagram, good,bad, and they find that thing
that I wrote.
Um, and then presumably go findJeff's podcast.
So this is a good conversation,and it won't be the last.

Randy (03:20):
So yeah, let's talk about the Enneagram.

Kyle (03:39):
Jeff, welcome back.

Jeff (03:41):
It is great to talk to you guys again.

Kyle (03:44):
So, for listeners who may remember, may not remember, Jeff
uh was previously on the showwith his uh friend TJ to talk
about the Enneagram, whichthey're a gurus about.
Uh and they have how manypodcasts at this point about the
Enneagram?

Jeff (03:58):
We are launching a podcast channel.

Kyle (04:01):
They had so many, they had to form a channel.

Jeff (04:03):
It's gonna be eight.
That's not all us, by the way.
Uh we're we're assemblingtalent and and getting uh we're
getting all sorts of folks whotalk about motive and all the
different ways you can talkabout Enneagram.
We're gonna start a channelthat has a bunch of different
podcasts, and I'm really excitedabout that.
That's cool.
We're doing that.

Kyle (04:22):
We'll give you a minute to talk about that at some point.
Super fun.

Randy (04:24):
And in the Around the Circle podcast, it's kind of
like the engine that drives itall.
Is that right?

Jeff (04:29):
That's right.
Yeah, yeah.
It's gonna be the entry pointfor sure.
So we have enough listeners towhere it can be a bounce for
everyone else.
So one of the podcasts, forexample, is done by a woman
who's about 28.
She's gonna be interviewingyoung people about their type.
And this is just somethingthat's that's not really been
recorded yet.
It's like people 20, 25, 30 whoare talking about life

(04:51):
experiences, they're theirexperience of the Enneagram at a
young age, mostly like Gen Zculture.
And I'm really excited for thatfor the sake of other young
people and for the sake ofpeople who just don't understand
Gen Z culture and the realdifference that culture has with
millennials, Xers, and therest.

Randy (05:12):
Yeah.
So you guys wrote a book.

Jeff (05:15):
We did.

Randy (05:16):
Tell us about the book.

Jeff (05:17):
Book's called Around the Circle.
It's the first of five.
So I wanted to do a big study.
There hasn't been a big studyin Enneagram since early 90s.
Um, I wanted to do a500,000-word study.
It probably won't get thatlong, but I wanted to do a new
big book because the first bigbook is a tent pole.
It's been authoritative, butthere's a lot of stuff it's

(05:40):
missing.
And there's been a lot ofdiscoveries in the Enneagram
world that need to get catalogedand systematized and brought to
the forefront.
We need to do some work onlanguage, and to be honest,
there's a there's a lot of uhneed just for some entry points
into the Enneagram for folks whoknow their type and want to

(06:01):
know what's next.
And a lot of our work is ofthat sort, is like the what's
next kind of sort.
And so we wanted to do a robusttreatment of that for folks who
are kind of getting into secondgear, want to get up to fourth
gear, and that's what the thebook series is really designed
to do.

Randy (06:20):
So, were you working on that?
Like what what's yourexpectation for that as far as I
mean, five books is yeah, is nosmall thing as is uh you know
podcast channel.

Kyle (06:29):
Yeah, you you you you do how do you have time for this?
That's what we're asking.

Jeff (06:34):
Uh independently wealthy, and so let's go.
I told you about this before.
I do I do commercial realestate, which means I bought
something and I turn in checksand I have to clean.
And while I clean, I thinkabout Enneagram and I think
about books.

Randy (06:48):
Some real brother Lawrence shit right there.

Jeff (06:50):
So it's it is pretty much I I'm gonna take that.
That's it's clean.
It can make me feel betterabout myself.
Absolutely.
So I it's a I kind ofearmarked.
I want to do a six-yearproject.
This is what I want to do.
I get really jazzed about this.
I really want to go for depth.
Nobody's really tackled thissort of project before.
There's lots of things worthsaying.

(07:12):
And just yeah, just kind of Ihad the bug to say this is what
I want to do between age 45 and52.
And so I'm on it.

Randy (07:22):
Awesome.
So let me just ask real quick,because you know Kyle's kind of
a f you know, uh locally famousskeptic of Enneagram.
And rightly so.
Yeah.
And I I love the Enneagram forwhat it has done for me, but I
also have some uh, I would say,healthy skepticism about it and
some reluctance.
Um one part of my reluctance isthe lack of kind of a cohesive

(07:49):
stream of like a board of, youknow, like there's a board of
doctors, there's a board ofpsychologists, there's a board
of this, and there's standardpractices and kind of best
practices.
You don't see that with theEnneagram.
As a matter of fact, you justsaid there hasn't been a deep,
deep dive study since the early90s.
That makes me more skeptical ofthe Enneagram.

(08:10):
Tell me, tell me what yourperspective is on that, Jeff.

Jeff (08:13):
One, I think you should be, and I'm gonna join you in
being skeptical in those spaces,and I want to push into those
spaces and see if somethingactually has a foundation worth
saying.
Stuff that I've come to seesince we had our conversation is
how much the the any so theEnneagram is specifically about
naming motive, getting thelanguage to motive.

(08:36):
And what Enneagram does that alot of other psychological
theories don't do, is it triesto create the a very large story
about each of the nine typesfrom that primary motive.
Now, most psychological studiesor theories, most you know,
personality typing inventoriesare actually gonna be pretty

(08:57):
thin, pretty, pretty tight.
So if you were to see atherapist, you might uh
experience somebody who studiesum cognitive behavioral theory,
for example.
That divides people intothrees, into their emotions,
into their thinking, and intotheir action.
This is exactly what Enneagramdoes.
CBT has enormous amounts ofliterature behind it, using

(09:20):
different language than theEnneagram, but it's describing
almost identical phenomenon andlife experience.
Enneagram is coming in andsaying, look, we really want to
talk about motive and we want totalk about things like stress
and your how how you deal withstress and how you deal with
being in security.
Um, it wants to talk about howwe connect with other people,

(09:43):
how we solve problems, um, andhow we engage the world.
It's answering a variety ofquestions with one theory.
And as I've begun to discover,that's really not very common in
psychology.
Psychology really would preferto get very, very narrow and

(10:05):
say, look, this is what we canprove.
And so Enneagram's trying to doa lot of heavy lifting.
It can be disconfirmed veryeasily because of that.
We talked about that in ourlast conversation.
But I routinely find that it'sstanding up real well.
And so I'm a philosopher, andthe philosophy comes first when
you start doing a newdiscipline.
You start thinking abouthypotheticals, you start, you

(10:27):
know, creating little picturesof like how should we think of
the language here?
How should we conceive of thisnew topic?
And that is my job.
I'm a systems guy, and I'mtrying to create to help create
systems for that.
Now, that doesn't mean thatthere's not a lot of literature
on this.
There's actually a book behindme that was published by by um

(10:47):
by a Stanford psychologist.
It had been a 20-year study.
And so there there is some somedepthier stuff that is out
there.
Um, but as you were saying, Ithink you're you're right.
Like there's groups and such,but it hasn't been grabbed by
the academic disciplines yet.
And that would be a big win forus, I suppose, or it'd be a big

(11:10):
win for humanity itself.
So get that if it was done.

Kyle (11:14):
Don't don't undersell it.
Yeah, Jesus.
Um so I have a couple couplefollow-ups.
One, just tangential.
Are you like hoping to publishthis with like an academic press
that would actually get theattention of folks like that?

Jeff (11:29):
Or I think I don't have generally academic presses
aren't impressed by me and my inmy background, which is just
fine.

Kyle (11:38):
Don't say that.

Jeff (11:38):
I don't have enough letters.
I'm missing one letter.
Oh uh to really get it.

Kyle (11:43):
Well, you said what, seven years, isn't that what you said
you're playing?
I'm just messing with you.
So you okay, two things.
One is um you described thoseother theories as kind of
thinner and more narrow, and Itook it that you were trying to
sell me on the Enneagram bybeing thicker and less narrow,
but yeah, I was more persuadedin the other direction.

(12:04):
So why do you think that that'san advantage?
Because it seems like the moreyou want to build in to these
types, the faster and fasteryou're gonna outrun the evidence
that you can possibly gather.
But two, um, more basically, Ihaven't heard anybody else
describe the Enneagram in termsof motive except you.
Now I'm not looking hard, okay?
So, but it seems like to methat's your thing.

Randy (12:24):
I have, I've heard that.

Kyle (12:26):
Who else have you heard say that?
Um because I'm wondering ifthey got it from him.

Randy (12:30):
I would say I different people use different words, um,
desire, motive, uh longing.
I mean, I think I do thinkthat's a that's a way that would
you agree, Jeff?
That's not a that's not auniquely you invented thing.

Jeff (12:45):
No, but but we've put a lot of emphasis on it, where you
know, a lot of the people thatare coming before us really are
coming out of spiritualtraditions in which they're
using it as a tool in growth.
And they're not necessarilylooking at in the way that we're
looking at it, which is toreally get a handle on um

(13:05):
something about the nature ofhuman beings, how they
experience the world and how theworld is processed within them,
and then how they engage theworld.
This is an epistemic process,and it's uh in some ways, it's
an uh an ethical process of howdo I know things and how ought I
respond, or how do I respond?

(13:25):
Um I have really keyed in onthe idea of motive, partially
because it seems to me so coreto the human experience, and I
couldn't name another theory ofmotive.
I like who else is talkingabout ways of being in the world

(13:49):
and your how you how like aninventory for the the varieties
of motives that all of us have.
Like, I I don't know that Icould tell any other theories
out there except for this one.
And it seems to me so core thatit's it's obviously I've got
real into it, but it's it's it'scertainly a worthy topic, if
nothing else, for study.

Kyle (14:09):
Yeah, interesting.
So the motivation behind thatquestion, my motive in asking it
was is this gonna like causecontroversy in the Enneagram
world?
Like how do how do other peopleis there like competition for
staking out what it really is orshould be or anything like
that?

Jeff (14:24):
Yeah, when when it's not in the academic field, what ends
up happening is it's I'mselling my take on the story,
you know.
So a lot of folks are havetheir little, here's my my
12-week class that I'm selling,and this is how I get by in the
world.
And that's about ascontroversial as it gets.
It's just, you know, if I wereto look philosophically at it, I

(14:46):
would say, look, some peopleare presupposing something that
might look like more of aBuddhist take on the Enneagram,
some are looking more like a aChristian take.
That is how the nature ofdesire itself, whether or not
desire is good and ought to beelevated and seen as healthy and
a healthy part of the humanexperience, is a big big topic

(15:09):
in the Enneagram world.
Um, because some will say thatdesire itself is a problem, as
some Buddhist traditions will.
Um gender is going to be a hugepart of Enneagram right now, in
terms of how culturalexpectations are put upon us and
how they they hit our motivesand what we want.

(15:29):
Because we may not want X, butthe culture says you need to
desire X because of your gender,and how we wrestle with that in
terms of our motivations, allover how Enneagram type works.
Um, those are two big topicsthat are controversial.
There's probably more.

Kyle (15:50):
All right.
So you sent us a PDF, which Idid not read, and a an audio an
audio version, which I didattempt.
Um, and it was not what Iexpected.
Uh I thought you would like thebeginning at least.
Yeah, it was it's basically apodcast, which makes sense from
some podcasters.
You you turned what you hadwritten into a conversation and

(16:10):
had several long podcasts aboutit.
So thank you for sending that.
Um the little tiny bit of theactual book that I did read
though was the quotes at thebeginning.
And I want to ask you about oneof them because it's an
interesting choice.
And I remember you telling meprior in our last conversation
that you had benefited or atleast read a bunch of

(16:30):
Schopenhauer.
And he features prominently inthat in that first uh page in
this very famous quote fromSchopenhauer, uh, which is
something to the effect ofhere's your version of it.
A man can choose what he wants,but he cannot want what he
wants.
Various translations state itsomewhat differently.
I might argue for a man can dowhat he wants but can't choose

(16:51):
what he wants, whatever.
Why is that important to youand what do you think it means?
And what does it have to dowith the Enneagram?

Jeff (16:56):
It seems to me that you got some hard wiring going on
inside of you, and you that hardwiring is there prior to
experience, and experience hitsyour hardware, and it flows
through you in a certainpattern.
It's almost like you are afunnel, and experience is poured

(17:16):
into that funnel, and it takesa different shape than it takes
with others because they'restructured different.
And it may appear as thoughwe're coming to the same world,
but when that world and ourexperiences are poured into us,
what we bring to the tablematters, and we have a filter.
And a lot of the reason thatAgram is a recent addition to

(17:42):
thinking about ourselves is isis because it's so subjective in
nature at one level.
It's saying you have a uniqueway that you're coming to the
world, and what you want colorsand filters, how you experience
the world.
Um and so that's gonna be thebig claim, I think, up front is

(18:05):
something to the extent of someof us take in the world through
a much more emotional relationalfilter than other people.
That seems empirically obviousto me, that some people are much
more wired initially to careabout their relational
connections and what hashappened to them in the past,

(18:28):
whereas some people are muchmore wired to look at the future
and what might hurt them andwhether or not they have the
resources they need to addressthat future.
And those are two verydifferent ways of interpreting
the world of what has happenedrelationally in the past or what
is perhaps in the future thatmight hurt me.

(18:48):
Um, those are those are in uspre-wired in my view.
It's not something we choose.
And so you can want what youwant.
Um, what was the sorry, I needto remind myself of the quote.

Kyle (19:02):
Well, um Yeah, something along the lines.
You you can do what you want.
Uh all that I think he means bythat is I come with a set of
desires and I can actualize themgiven certain you know
assumptions about my capacities.
But I can't either want what Iwant or choose what I want,
depending on how you translateit.
Like I can't decide what myfundamental desires are.

Jeff (19:22):
Those are those initial desires I think are pretty wired
in us.
And I think that that'sprobably empirical.
I bet I I mean I mean if itseems that you can see that.
So that's at least what I'dwant to argue.

Kyle (19:33):
Yeah, so a couple things.
One, how deep do you take thathardwired thing?
What do you think that meansreally?
How do you catch that?

Jeff (19:40):
Even so the one of the things that kicks me is that
even the desire the desire tochange those initial desires has
to come from somewhere, andit's gonna come from whatever
those initial desires are.
If you want to change, it comesfrom a motive of something
inside of you.
So can you name that somethinginside of you?

(20:02):
What is it that what is itthat's fueling you?
What's spurring you?
What's the big thing that'spushing you into doing anything
at all?
If you can give that a name,that's powerful, you know.
And if you could, if everybodycould give that a name, and then
you begin to create somecategories that are fairly
large, that's even morepowerful.
Because then you're you'restarting to describe humanity at

(20:25):
a very foundational level, inmy view.
I'll tell you where it bleedsfrom philosophy into theology is
when we come to God, what wewant influences what we're
looking for in a deity.
Do you want companionship?
Do you want somebody to protectyou?
Those are two very differentones.
But I bet you some of us cometo God and one of them's core.

(20:50):
Um, or some other, there aresome other ones that we might
name, but but I could name ahandful of like when I look at
the Bible writers, I can tellyou what some of them want at
their core and how it influencesthe way they tell the story,
the way that their ethic comesout, and the way that their
prescriptions come out, or lackof prescriptions come out.

(21:10):
And it's coming from placesthat the Enneagram wants to give
you language for.
So the motive of this writermay be very bent on
self-betterment, on improvement,might be very morally rigid,
might want to say that um thatdoing a lot of self-work is
where the holy life starts.
And then there are other peoplewho say the holy life starts

(21:32):
with us together, with us doingthe communal life.
The real thing that it means tobe a person connected to Christ
and the divine kind of life isfound in fellowship and love.
Those are two very differentanswers to how you connect to
God.

Randy (21:51):
So, what's the answer then?
What's the right answer?

Jeff (21:54):
There isn't one.

Randy (21:55):
Yeah.

Jeff (21:56):
So the right answer is that the the writers are
motivated, and theirprescriptions in the scriptures
come out of that motivation, andit's worth naming.
It's worth naming because thatinforms your hermeneutic, that
informs your reading of thetext, it informs like what are
we going to take away from thisperson who really thinks that
relationships are where it's at,um, because of how they are in

(22:20):
the world.
And then, like, I mean, ethics,ethics is gonna be a a bigger
topic, but but but understandingwhat the scripture is, in my
view, understanding author'sintent, their background, their
story, their history, and whatdrives them, uh, that's gonna
matter a little bit in terms ofreally understanding what's

(22:43):
going on in the text.
Ennegram has a lot to say aboutthat.

Kyle (22:47):
Yeah, so this gets back to my uh earlier question about
what is the advantage ofbuilding out the theory beyond
what we can demonstrate.
Um beyond what those other moreempirical, narrow theories are
doing.
Yeah, so I guess I just getpretty skeptical when we start

(23:11):
building in a lot of detailabout something we can't
possibly know, like what's goingon in the heads of the biblical
authors, for example.
And then like I have all theseum prior objections to the
evangelical project ofdiscovering authorial intent,
which is maybe a separateconversation.
But like what in general, whatwhat what is gained by building

(23:33):
in all this theory?
Because in your book, you go togreat detail about these
numbers and the distinct thedistinctions between them and
how these people behave incertain circumstances, and you
give very, very detaileddescriptions uh of them.
I have another question tofollow about that, but like as
gently as I can say, what is thepoint?

Jeff (23:55):
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I would love topush into the question itself
and try and identify some of theyou know the presumptions that
it seem underlie a lot of thequestion.
So it is the it's the case thatfor you to have a satisfying
answer, it's gonna have to meetsome criteria.
And I bet you're used to havingthat kind of criteria.

(24:17):
And I bet you it's the casethat that sort of criteria has
served you well in the past, andyou're motivated for that kind
of criteria.
And I bet a lot of your studyactually revolves around you
feeling comfortable in the worldwith a certain kind of answer
to the questions that you thinkare are most important.

(24:37):
Now, that in and of itself isabout your motive and about what
satisfies it.
And can you put a name to that?
Would be where the realquestion would begin.
Because it can jump down theroad of saying, well, let's see
if this can can you know scratchwhere you itch.
And I think it probably couldat some levels.

(25:00):
But more interesting to me isis how you're framing the
dialogue that we're having atall and what you want to gain
out of it and what's mostinteresting to you, because
that's coming out of yourmotive.
You know what I'm saying there?

Kyle (25:14):
I think so.
Yeah.
I get maybe I have a a higherconfidence that that sort of
thing can be bracketed forcertain kinds of conversations.
Um, I'm I'm not the kind ofperson who thinks that um you
can float free of all that andjust do philosophy in this
objective god's eye view of theworld, whatever that that kind
of rationalist project was wasdoomed from the start.

(25:35):
So if if that's part of whatyou're saying right there with
you, there's a whole world ofepistemology that's been focused
on figuring out, you know, allthe ways that the the old way of
doing it were mistaken and thatwe are in fact bringing lots of
things with us when we do thiskind of theorizing on board with
that.

(25:55):
Um nonetheless, I do think itis a fair question that for
someone who has taken on theproject of giving very detailed
descriptions that they think areexhaustive of all possible
human types, that there shouldbe some response to a good faith

(26:15):
uh questioner, which is what Itake myself to be, asking why
are we doing this?
Um and I'm open to a variety ofanswer types.

Jeff (26:24):
On on just the why are we doing this?

Kyle (26:26):
Yeah, yeah.
Why why are we doing this andhow is it better than limiting
ourselves to a certain kind ofevidence under certain kinds of
conditions, which is like whatwe do with CBT or whatever those
other ones are.

Jeff (26:39):
Yeah.
Um my my view is likeEnneagram, as I kind of
pictured, is is this kind ofrobust theory, and it takes on
almost it's not this level, butit's almost paradigmatic at one
one level in terms of like onceyou see it, if it begins to
color your epistemology, it'sit's gonna be fairly sizable at

(27:02):
that level.
So it's not like just saying,let me look at the data for
whether or not this this groupof 50 reported doing behavior X.
It it is the case that sometheories do include all human
beings and say true things aboutall human beings.
And so it might be the casethat this one works that way.

Kyle (27:24):
So um, but those theories, the ones that we trust, were
based on loads and loads ofempirical data.

Jeff (27:32):
That and that's entirely fair.

Kyle (27:33):
And and we just let me earn their trust beyond that
empirical data by first beinggross.
So here's an example.
Um, I remember takingevolutionary uh biology in
college and talking about of alot of evolutionary
psychological theories that atthe time struck me as um some
silly is condescending, but someof them get like so detailed in

(27:54):
their explanations of why traitX, contemporary trait, mental
trait X, can be exhaustivelyexplained by this thing that
happened in our evolutionaryhistory that we have zero
evidence of, but like it's akind of just so story that makes
sense of the whole thing.
The problem is you canconstruct an infinite number of
them, many of which areincompatible with one another,

(28:15):
and the evidence doesn't tellyou which way to go on any of
them.
Um sometimes like a moredetailed explanation, I take
this to be kind of part andparcel of the scientific method,
is not the preferable one.
And there isn't a a atheoretical advantage, but also
a practical advantage tolimiting ourselves in the um the

(28:36):
power of our explanations.
Yeah.
So I'm I'm just curious whymore is better.

Randy (28:43):
I remember you saying that to T Nguyen in a different
form.
And he kind of pushed back onyou a little bit that like I
don't think that's a good ruleto say that the simplest
explanation is always the best.

Kyle (28:54):
No, no, no.
That would be a mistake.
That's that's fair.
That would be a mistake.
It's not the simplest onethat's the best, it's the one
that accords uh best with theevidence that we possess.
And so parsimony is thetechnical term for it rather
than simplicity.
So this is like the old umOccam's razor thing that
everybody gets wrong.
It's not the explanation thatis simplest or clearest, it's

(29:15):
the one that assumes the leastnumber of unnecessary things.
Um and so if I have twotheories and they both equally
accord well with the evidence,the one that doesn't require me
to commit myself to a bunch ofstuff I can't be sure of is the
one to be preferred.
And sometimes there's still abunch that compete and they're
all on the same level.
Maybe the Enneagram is one ofthose.

(29:36):
I don't know.
Motivation is complicated.
But you do seem to want to givea whole lot of detailed story
for each of these numbers that Ijust struggle to see what it's
grounded in.
And maybe your books are gonnatell me what it's grounded in.

Jeff (29:54):
I would start with I feel like there's layers being built,
foundation, first floor,second.
Second floor, third floor, kindof stuff.
So let's just go withfoundation real quick.
Foundation, the Nineagram lays,is almost universally accepted.
And that is when you think whena human being thinks of
themselves, they are able tothink of themselves in their

(30:16):
emotions, their physicality, andtheir mental life, and they're
able to separate them.
If I were to say, I am feelinglike this, I'm naming my
emotions, but my emotions, insome sense, are me as well.
I can say I'm thinking this,but my thinking also, in some

(30:37):
real way, is me.
And I could say, you know, mybody is doing this.
And my body is, you know, kindof separate in that language,
but it's also very much me.
So I can think of myself as amind, heart, and body.
You see that in the language ofJesus, you see it in the
language of Freud, you see it inthe language of Plato, you see
it in the language of Buddha,and you see it in cognitive

(30:59):
behavioral theory, among othersin contemporary sciences.
There's a very few ideas thattranscend culture, time, and
geography, like that one ideathat I just pitched.

Kyle (31:13):
Yeah.

Jeff (31:13):
That's a great foundation for something, especially if I'm
able to tie motive to it.
And that would be the nextstep.

Kyle (31:22):
Yeah, so maybe the foundation thing is the thing
that's tripping me up.
I don't want this wholeconversation to be critical.
I really don't.
Um so I think that's a greatmetaphor.
And and even a lot of the folkswho I mean, I'm not a
psychologist, but I take it thatthe little bit of philosophy of

(31:42):
psychology that I have read, alot of those folks would see
that as therapeutically usefuldistinctions that are much more
difficult to groundmetaphysically or
scientifically.
I'm not saying like that kindof psychology is not scientific.
It is.
Sure, sure, sure.
It's just not doingmetaphysics.
It's doing something differentfrom what other like physics is

(32:03):
a different kind of science.
When it makes pronouncements,when it makes distinctions, it
means those distinctions totrack to the physical world,
right?
What we would most of us wouldcall reality.
When um sorry psychologists,particularly like um clinical
psychologists or psychoanalysts,or I'm not gonna get in so much
trouble after you're gonnabutcher all this, but like when

(32:25):
they make distinctions, they'redoing something a little bit
different.
And in particular, because CBTis a very widely accepted theory
and it's one among manytherapeutic paradigms, but um I
don't take its practitioners tobe making metaphysical claims or
even assumptions.
And there are plenty of veryinformed psychologists who are
materialists all the way down,like myself.

(32:48):
Sure, sure.
But even more extreme thanmyself, who think that
ultimately, really though,that's all just complicated,
actually not complicated enough,descriptions of neuronal
states.
Sure.
Um, and so to say that we allsee ourselves in those three
ways and we can all distinguishourselves in those three ways,
while true and maybetherapeutically useful, doesn't

(33:09):
tell us anything interestingabout the world that we couldn't
learn from an fMRI machine.

Jeff (33:13):
Totally.
You know to quote Lewis, youcan look at the ocean and say
it's only so many trillions ofgallons of cold salt water.
Yeah, but ocean really works asan idea.
And sometimes uh, you know, Iuh as I am a trained
philosopher, I don't really diveinto the metaphysics of this

(33:37):
very often.
If that's where you itch, I Iactually would love to see more
work on this.
I'm not trained to do itnecessarily in the physical
sciences in terms of how brainchemistry works, in terms of how
the parts of the brain interactwith producing motive.
I would want to say that I'mreal good at patterns and

(33:58):
systems, and it's literally it'svery, very seldom the case that
folks who really invest in myexperience in Ennegram don't
find themselves on the map, andthe map doesn't give them a jolt
and actually exposes somethingthat they feel and they say, Oh,

(34:22):
that's me.
That happened.
I misheard you.

Kyle (34:25):
So you a lot of people have the experience of finding
themselves that gives them ajolt.
Is that what you said?

Jeff (34:30):
That that's a common experience in my mind.

Kyle (34:32):
Yeah, okay.
That's interesting because Ihave exactly the opposite
experience with the Enneagram.
And one of my questions to youwas, How common is this?
Because I experienced this whenI took the inventory itself.
I did the WEPS, is that whatit's called?
The WEPS.
And then um, I think we talkedabout that before, but then in
reading your book again andhearing the very detailed

(34:52):
descriptions you have of thesetypes, I had the same
experience, more powerfully, thesecond time, actually, where
not only could I see some ofmyself in all of the numbers
that you described, I found Iwhat I would take to be core
aspects of myself in literallymaybe with one or two
exceptions, almost all of thenumbers.

(35:14):
That's fair.
And I I would normally be veryobviously categorized as a five,
and there's absolutelysomething central to me in that
description, and I think youcash it out fine in your
descriptions.
But you did such a good job ofdescribing all the others that I
also found something in thosethat I took to be core to some
aspect of me, my personality,however, you want to cash it
out, the way I relate to people,what I do when I'm threatened,

(35:36):
um, what I think is probablyreally going on in a lot of the
things that I care about, whicharen't always obviously aligned
with the five, you know, thing.
Um and it not only is that myexperience of it, I have a hard
time conceiving of itdifferently, like how anyone
else could experience itdifferently.
I believe you that they do,because I haven't heard

(35:58):
everybody else say this whenthey talk about the Enneagram.
All of those numbers areobviously me, but that is my
experience, and also I then havethe follow-on uh feeling, I
guess, that all of those numbersare also everyone else, too,
because I'm not that interestingor much more complex than
anyone else.
Um, so I could pick a numberand zero in on it and get a lot

(36:19):
of insight about that part ofmyself, but I think they're all
equally true about me, and Ithink I'm a typical human in a
lot of ways, and so they'reprobably all my assumption is
they're probably all equallytrue about everybody, in which
case, what again, what are wedoing?
What are we doing making thesedistinctions?

Jeff (36:36):
Do you think that you and your spouse are different in
terms of what you want?

Kyle (36:40):
I mean, yes and no, in some ways, yes, in some ways no.

Jeff (36:43):
Yeah.
Could you put language to it?

Kyle (36:45):
Yeah, if I had permission, I could.

Jeff (36:49):
I think so.
Oftentimes we're cu we connectromantically with people who are
complimentary to us.
And it's worth naming where weare different with language that
describes our motive.
The thing I I suppose I can'tspeak to five in a second.
Speak to the difference.
Let me let me take my myselfand my spouse for a second, and

(37:09):
then I could tell you like thedynamics between my kids.
I mean, just everything, theway the places that we are going
to struggle is absolutelypredictable if I know our
numbers.
And I could if I knew yournumbers and your spouse's
number, I'll tell you exactlywhere you fight.

Kyle (37:25):
I wish I could test this now, maybe offline.
I should have sent you likesome some stuff because I don't
know what hers would be, butyeah.

Jeff (37:32):
So my my spouse and I solve problems with action and
thought.
It's probably the way that yousolve action uh problems as
well.
That um emotions actually getin the way often of effective um
solutions to the problems thatwe really have.
Now you may have a value ofemotions, but generally I bet

(37:54):
you're really suspicious ofpeople being overly emotional
when they're trying to solveproblems.
And I bet you that's gonna bedifferent for you than a lot of
other people in the world whoabsolutely use emotion to solve
problems and actually lean intoit.
And that would be a place whereyou're different than others,
yeah.

Kyle (38:12):
Yeah, one of those like yes and no things again.
I don't know.
I mean, it's it all depends oncontext.
There's a part of me, I thinkwe may have talked about this
before, um, that they're I I Iwon't say I'm a situationist, I
wouldn't use that term, butthere's a part of that critique
of character that I findcompelling, which is that a

(38:32):
whole lot of what humans do,including a lot of stuff that
they don't realize that they do,and a lot of stuff that they
wouldn't necessarily want tobelieve about themselves, uh, is
really more dependent on thesituation they find themselves
in than it is on any kind ofstable um character.

Randy (38:47):
What does this say about Kyle that when you ask him a
personal question, he refers tobooks and quotes.
I think that's called provingthe point.

Jeff (38:54):
Yeah, I think so.

Kyle (38:55):
Oh no, no, it is not.
Uh no, no, no.

Jeff (38:59):
Um what I heard there is that is Well, go ahead.

Kyle (39:04):
Sorry.
Well, the reason I bring thatup is because it really does
depend.
I mean, there are situations,for example, most of the ones
that happen at my job, where acertain amount of emotion in the
midst of trying to solve aparticular kind of problem would
be unwelcome.
Um and on on the other hand,there are other situations in
which I think a great deal ofemotion of various kinds is the

(39:28):
what the only way to approachcertain kinds of problems.
And if you try to limit it,you're making a huge mistake.
And also, emotion can becontrolled and uncontrolled, and
there can be a whole variety ofdifferent kinds of emotions
that are pertinent to some umsituations, not others.
Very Aristotelian about thisthing.
Like the route amount ofemotion is what we should be
aiming for, depending onwhatever the the need is.

(39:49):
Um but even he didn't think wecould carve up people into like
discrete groups based on howthey've you know stewarded their
emotions or whatever.
Like there's a mean, and thatmean can be almost anything
depending on context.
And so it's the thing I keepcoming back to, Jeff, is why do
we need to make this so strict?

(40:10):
Humans are complicated.
This is too simple.

Jeff (40:14):
Well, anytime, I mean, twofold.
One, anytime you you you loseyou use language, you're
creating categories that bytheir nature are are either you
know strict at one level orloose at one level.
You know, language in order tohave power is gonna have to have
some kind of body to it thatdoes some stuff.

(40:35):
That's pretty much whatEnneagram's doing.
It's a language for yourmotives.
And like I hear you in terms oflike just kind of the the
pushback of understanding thatyou obviously are a unique
person with your own history,values, place in the world, um
and context.

(40:56):
And that who you are in theworld uh I want to say is
exclusively poured through thosethree channels in terms of

(41:19):
unveiling yourself.
And especially when you takethe world in through those
channels, they produce emotions.
And so when we talk aboutdepthier emotions like anger and
fear and shame, and this isanother place there's a lot of
study on, and Enneagram overlapsreally cleanly with it, those

(41:41):
being very depthy underlyingfeelings for human beings, it
produces language and itproduces predictability in terms
of how we experience certainlevels of of anger, fear, and
shame given our type.
Um and and that can make itreally helpful for those of us
who struggle with one of those.

Kyle (42:04):
So at one point in your book you say, What do you want?
in quotes.
Yeah.
This is the home of our truestself.
It seems to me like that hassome connections with what we've
been talking about for the lastseveral minutes.
Explain what you mean by that.
What is a truest self?
Because that's a a thing,frankly, that I don't
experience.

Jeff (42:22):
Um you don't experience like being able to answer the
question, what do you want?

Kyle (42:27):
Uh no, I just meant I don't experience having a truest
self.
Um I'm a little skeptical ofwhether there is such a thing as
a self, but that's a separatething.
But like um to the other point,though, that's a fair question.
Uh that is often quitedifficult to answer in a in a
general sense.
What they do talk about what doyou want?

Randy (42:45):
What you said that's kind of difficult to answer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It is.

Kyle (42:49):
And I find a lot of people have that problems answering
that.

Jeff (42:52):
Um I'm likewise incredibly skeptical of language like
truest self.
And unfortunately, it you'reprobably right, it probably is
in the book.
The the metaphysical side ofthat being, all right, let's
let's point to this.
You know, let's give this somebody and name it and and has
this actually function in theworld, I get that.
Um, there is something aboutyou and your personal identity

(43:15):
that I think is inextractablefrom the question, what do you
want?
Um, I think that what do youwant is the most vulnerable
question you can ask.
If you were actually bluntlyhonest about what you want with
the closest people in your life,if you're like me, it would

(43:36):
make you very uncomfortable.

Kyle (43:38):
Yeah.

Jeff (43:39):
Because it's held tight.

Kyle (43:42):
So tight that maybe it's unconscious.
So this is the entire historyof um, well, until you know the
empirical stuff took over.
This is the history ofpsychology in the West, is
Freud's um proposal of theunconscious, which won the
argument, like that is a thingnow that everybody takes for

(44:04):
granted, including the empiricalpeople and whole um forms of
therapy are rooted in it.
Um what does the Enneagram dowith that?
Like the it might be the casethat the reason I find it hard
to answer that question if I dois because it's unavailable to
me and it would take certainkinds of very difficult
long-term work to uncover it.

(44:26):
So is the does the Enneagramtake itself to be doing part of
that?

Jeff (44:31):
I I think I think you're putting your your thumb on on
where the Enneagram comes in.
It's like at that point intime, if you value the question
and the inquiry, then theEnneagram is one set of tools
through which you can begin todo business with that question.
That question may be biggerthan any, you know, than the
Enneagram.

(44:51):
Enneagram, again, is just it'sjust a lens for looking at your
motive, giving you some languagefor it.
And it may be the case thatit's a victim stinian ladder.
You get to push away once youget up it a little bit.

Kyle (45:03):
Oh, interesting.
So, okay.
But I think I might be okaywith that, Jeff, but that is not
that is not the tone of yourbook or previous conversations
we've had.
I didn't get the impressionthat you took the left.

Jeff (45:16):
Which in which I gotta wrap this sucker up, which I
might hit that.
Um there there's somethingabout I mean, I don't know what
it looks like to get to the endof this sucker, but let's just
stick with what I think you'reexactly right about saying is
like if I really ask you what doyou want, and you say, as you

(45:37):
rightly should, I may need totake some time with that.
That shows that you understandthe weight of the question and
the weight of what it would meanfor you as a human being to
actually engage that question.
Funny enough, it is a questionthat Jesus asks people and it

(46:00):
elicits responses that areinteresting.
And so it's in in some sense,it's it's one of those you know,
windows in into your heart,into into your so that's where
when I want to say, you know,your truest self, it's like I
mean, there's whatever we'regonna call you, it is it's
married to that question, or tothe answer to that question, at

(46:23):
least, in my view.

Randy (46:26):
Well, just for the record, I'm in for the a lot of
that language of the Enneagram,your truest self, your false
self, your shadow side,whatever.
I'm in.
I think that's great.
And super fun, helpful ways ofunderstanding ourselves.
Which is also to say, Jeff, I'mI'm in on the Enneagram.
I I think I think it's a reallyuseful tool.
Here's what I what I shouldsay.

(46:46):
It's been a really useful toolfor me.
Um now it annoyed the piss outof me for a long time because I
and that's this is I'm gonnabring up some issues that I have
with Enneagram, but they'remuch more from a simpleton with
um way less complex words andideas.
But here's just one thing.
As I was getting acquaintedwith the Enneagram, one thing

(47:08):
that turned me off, this isyears ago, um, kind of similar
to Kyle's, is the the concretecategories it brought me to tell
me about myself.
And um this there's a languageof certainty within the
Enneagram that makes meuncomfortable, that kind of um

(47:29):
makes it seem like I have towork to fit myself into this
type or one of these nine types.
And um, if if I have if I don'tfit perfectly into one of them,
I'm kind of not doing myself-analyzation correctly or
something.
So, and I picked that up even alittle bit in your in your
early chapters when you guyseven started talking through the
types.
And you would say things like,sixes are this type of person,

(47:54):
or eights show up in this kindof way, or ones are, you know,
and it seemed to me like therewasn't a whole lot of
flexibility and a lot of kind ofjust um if you're talking about
a person, if I'm if I'mlistening and trying to hear for
myself who who I am and where Iresonate most most deeply and

(48:15):
what I can learn from this, Ihave a hard time with those
concrete kind of categoriesbecause I'm a unique person.
So that's that's something thatjust makes me a little bit
reluctant is do you have to usethis the language of certainty
so much around the Enneagram?
Do you know what I mean when Iask that question?

Jeff (48:30):
I do, yeah.
And that may be a failure on onthe communicator's part, on my
part in this situation, andperhaps not about the theory.

Randy (48:40):
A lot of th I don't think so personally.
Like I it's nothing that Iheard uniquely from you.
I think this is kind of anEnneagram, the way I hear it at
least.

Jeff (48:51):
I mean, we we're fine with inflexible language and
categories about reality.
If I were to describe generalrelativity to you, it's like you
know, it's very strict in itspicture of how things work.
The difference between generalrelativity and in a
psychological theory is it's notabout you.
Like when I make the Enneagramclaims, it's about you and

(49:13):
you're gonna feel it, you know.
And there's something you'relike, we are making it personal
at some level, notintentionally, you know, but if
it if it you know, if the theoryholds, then and if the theory
is real and true to to ourexperience, if the if the
language really does work indescribing something worth

(49:34):
talking about, then you knowit's more the you have a perhaps
a problem with reality asopposed to us.
It's kind of like saying, youknow, you're a you're a
theologian, you know, you mayhave a a very uh worked out
eschatology, as it were.
And somebody's gonna get pissedoff about who gets in or who
doesn't get in.

(49:55):
And I bet you got strongopinions about that.

Randy (49:57):
Yeah, yeah.
I appreciate your yourgenerosity.
I'm not a theologian, but Ithink theologically right.
Um, I think it's and I hear ita little bit in what Kyle's
bringing.
For me, it's just I rememberthe feeling of just thinking, I
don't resonate 100% with any ofthese numbers that these people
are talking about, but they'retalking as if I need to.

(50:17):
Um do you know what I'm talkingabout?
I absolutely do.
And that that'll that'll turnme off.
Um, is that a problem withlanguage or is that a problem
with the Enneagram?

Jeff (50:27):
Uh like I think you'll you'll understand it when I say
it.
Sometimes people aren't readyfor Jesus.
And you tell them about Jesus,and yeah, I heard I heard the
story.
That's that sounds great.
I'm glad that you found that.
And there's just no buzz.
There's some people you say itto, and they they say this is
what I've been looking throughfor my whole life.

(50:48):
And to unfortunately bring thatin because it's gonna make
Enneagram sound like a cult, um,but that that commonly is kind
of what I see is like peoplepeople like really get hit by
it, or or they don't.
And and I mean, I can't controlanything about that.
What I can do is say that thisis this is kind of where I have

(51:11):
really experienced the map andthe tool doing some some really
profound work in my life andlives of people around me.
I really hope that you know ithits you.
If it doesn't, that's thatdoesn't make you a bad person.
Doesn't you know I'm notjudging anybody for not getting
into to Enneagram.
Um, but but I can only offerwhat what I kind of see in the

(51:32):
most gracious language that Ican pitch it.

Kyle (51:35):
Yeah, yeah.

Jeff (51:36):
But I can tell you that I would gladly cut my left arm off
to keep it in terms of thevalue that it's brought to my
family and the places that wereally have struggled in the
last ten years.
It it was the thing that thatkept us together, sane, really

(51:58):
exposed places where we wereable to communicate and you
know, uh created soil wherewhere we really have a a
foundation that that isdesirable and it was what I
needed.

Randy (52:12):
So yeah, no, and I mean while that sounds like a lot to
me, to be honest, you know, likewhoa, that's you know, the
Enneagram is holding Jeff'sfamily together, you know.
Um but at the same time, likeI've experienced uh I see myself
differently because of theEnneagram, um, I would say,

(52:34):
because of my work in theEnneagram.
And when I say that, I justmean what my spiritual director
has brought me, because I'm notas skeptical as Kyle is, but um
I I'm not comfortable with this,like the reality, and we'll get
into it a little bit, but thateveryone has their different
takes on the the Enneagram.
And if you talk or if you talkto a different person, hear a
different podcast, read adifferent book, it's going to

(52:56):
sound substantially different.
Um, and sometimes that erodesmy confidence in the Enneagram.
But what I can tell you goahead.

Jeff (53:03):
Does it if I the same critique could be made about
philosophy, the same critiquecould be made about theology.
That's fair.
It's like we're telling we'reit's again the case, we're not
messing with thin data.
Like this isn't chemicals in atest tube.
Like we're talking about bigthings here.

Kyle (53:21):
So that article that I wrote that you we talked about
before.
Yeah, I don't want to rehashit.
But one of the points I triedto make is that the Enneagram
seems to be, depends on who youread.
Okay, fair enough.
But for some of itspractitioners, such as the ones
who used to publish a journalabout it, um, it seems to be
exploring questions for whichthere are established methods.

(53:42):
And that's the bit that bothersme, because if if all it took
itself to be doing was a kind ofpop philosophy, I wouldn't have
anything to say about it.
If you want to enter the arenaof philosophy, make your
argument, go for it.
Good luck getting attention.
Um, or if it was doing somekind of theology, there are lots
of theological methods, justlike there are lots of
philosophical methods.
Feel free to invent a new one,bring it, you know, bring it in

(54:06):
the conversation, see how manypeople you can convince it's a
worthwhile conversation to have.
Fine.
But science has different kindsof methods, different kinds of
boundaries, and psychology is ascience.
Um and epistemology, by theway, I think you see its own
kinds of methods.
Oh, I would never say it thatcondescendingly.
I've heard it once out of yourmouth.

(54:26):
Not intentionally, notintentionally.

Randy (54:28):
You're not condescending at all, Kyle.

Kyle (54:31):
No, no, I've lots of respect for the psychologists
who do things I couldn't do.
Um, but like it seems in somecircles to take itself to be
doing more than what um what itwould be doing if it was a
species of philosophy or aspecies of some kind of

(54:52):
theology.
Those are different kinds ofmethodologies.

Jeff (54:55):
I mean, that's fair.
There's there's there's lots oflunatics out there saying stuff
about theology.
It doesn't discount good peopledoing good work in theology.
There's lots of people and knowthat you've seen them who talk
philosophy, have no clue whatthey're doing.
Um, so I can tell you, I canspeak for how I'm coming to the

(55:16):
topic, and I feel like it's gota robust foundation that we've
already talked about.
Motive matters.
If you're gonna talk aboutmotive, let's talk about motive
in in a robust way.
I'm really not interested inelectrochemical processes
describing everything about, youknow, from why I choose things

(55:38):
to who I love to why I believein God.
I find that is describing thehuman person as so many
thousands of gallons of coldsalt water.
And I think we're more thanthat.
That's me.
You and I have had thematerialist uh debate in the
past, and so we can cue thetape.
But when I come to motive, whenwhen I come to motive, like I

(56:01):
want something beautiful becauseI experience beauty here, and I
want something real that thatpings for me at a at a level
where I'm like, this is part ofhow reality functions, and
that's just what I what I gain.
And I'm I'm and I'm not youknow, I'm not a slouch when I

(56:21):
come to these things, and Iargue with other Enneagram
people all the time.
We don't have universitypositions yet, and that's fine.
So uh again, I feel like thisis very, very new, and so I
shouldn't expect that.
Sometimes new things pop up andthey need to be debated in a in
a context that eventually makesits way into the academy.

Kyle (56:42):
Yeah, okay.
Well, I'm one of those wordmaterialists that finds it
really beautiful um and findsthat the Enneagram is similarly
limiting to the way that youdescribe the neurochemical
processes.
So let a thousand flowersbloom, man.
We just see it uh differently,I think.
Yeah.

Jeff (56:59):
And I bet you we could tell stories about why.
And that's actually what theEnneagram is trying to do.

Kyle (57:04):
Yeah.

Randy (57:06):
There you go.
Um, another simpleton, like,help me out here with the
Enneagram, Jeff.
Because again, I'm gonna juststress the Enneagram and the
work that I've done with myspiritual director has really
helped me um, I think become abetter person and become a
better person to be around.
And it's helped me know myselfum in ways that have shocked me,

(57:29):
to be honest with you, in waysthat I wouldn't have seen
coming.
But as soon as the Enneagramkind of exposed my inner self to
the light, it made perfectsense and changed the way I
inhabit the world.
So I'll just say like it's it'sit's been a profound um
transformative tool in my life.
Um and yet it annoys the shitout of me in some ways, you

(57:52):
know?
And mostly that is Jeff becauseof what the people that I've
experienced who love any theEnneagram have done to it.
And and a lot of that is thisis a really crude uh metaphor,
but I think it kind of for me itfits.
Is sometimes I experience thethe Enneagram and the way people

(58:13):
talk about it is kind of likealmost um it reminds me of like
the culture of the anti-vaxxerssometimes.
Um and by that I mean um everyperson you talk to, not every,
but many people you talk to whoare super into the Enneagram
have their different knowledgelevels of it and they have their

(58:35):
different gurus that theyconsult, they have their
different kind of um reasons andkind of I don't want to say
types because that's anEnneagram, but you hear what I'm
saying.
You hear what I'm saying.
And it seems like they kind ofclaim authoritative kind of
knowledge on it, and it seemslike they they speak very

(58:56):
confidently about the Enneagramin ways that make me really
skeptical of the whole thing,certainly of what they're
saying, but certain, but also ofthe whole thing.
And it it worries me that thereisn't an actual, like we
started out this conversationsaying there isn't an actual
thing that a a group of peoplewho I can trust to say these are
good people who steward theEnneagram well, who think about

(59:18):
it well, who um when they speakabout it, I'm gonna listen.
I'd like that if there werethat, instead of a bunch of
blogs and you know, I I don'tknow how to how to words that
aren't condescending and aregonna hurt somebody, but I think
you can hear what I'm talkingabout.
It seems like there's a it's acottage industry of a bunch of
opinions and kind of I'm gonnastop talking because I think I

(59:42):
think I'm like fully insultingmany, many people here.

Jeff (59:45):
I don't think you're insulting at all.
I think you're putting forth areally valid critique.
Everything you said I could sayabout Christians.

Randy (59:52):
Yes.

Jeff (59:52):
Every single word out of your mouth I could say about
Christians.

Randy (59:55):
100%.

Jeff (59:55):
Does that somehow invalidate Christianity?
I think that's a good idea.

Randy (59:58):
No, but it sure does turn off a lot of people.
People to Christianity.

Jeff (01:00:01):
So, so there's uh that would be a more of a pragmatic
question.
How do you sell the sucker?
How do you get people toactually see its beauty and
reliability?
I suppose I would love to againsay, I really like it.
I would really like, I'm gonnastart an Ennegram channel with
eight podcasts and and publish abig ass book and really hope

(01:00:23):
that it takes a place as beingsomething like a stable sound,
not hokey um place on theplaying field where we're
talking about the topic in a waythat has some body, some depth,
and some intellectual rigor.
But I can't control otherpeople.
I sure as hell can't controlthe Enneagram people.

(01:00:45):
It's kind of like saying to thehead of the Republican Party,
have you noticed your folksrecently?
Or to the Democratic Party.
Yeah, have you noticed yourfolks recently?
You're just not sellingyourself very well anymore, are
you?
Yep.
Of course, you are describingscrewed-up humanity and how they
take in something reallyimportant to themselves and

(01:01:07):
become lunatics at some levels.
And there are some people, youknow, at the top of our, you
know, the the thought leaderssaying, I get it.
Look, I'm trying to do my bestof of putting down some some
some worthwhile thoughts here.
And I I hope I do a good job.

Randy (01:01:23):
That's and for what it's worth when you guys were talking
about the eight, the the typeeight type, I was resonating
with almost everything.
I was like, yeah, perfect.
Yep, nailed it.
Um, I don't have thatexperience for everyone I hear
from or talk to about theEnneagram or even about my being
an eight.
And that is what kind of makesme lose my equilibrium when I

(01:01:45):
think when I have someconfidence in the Enneagram,
right?

Jeff (01:01:48):
Yeah.
Let me pitch a different kindof thing that I think actually
is may go to hitting where bothof you itch.
And it's actually the lastchapter in the book, and it's
about gifts.
It's very seldom the place thatin a culture like ours where we
actually name the things thatwe bring to the table that
nobody else does, where we say,This is my wheelhouse, and this

(01:02:10):
is why I do better than anyoneelse.
And when I'm in a relationship,this is the thing that I can do
that elevates others in a waythat has almost a magical power
to it.
Um, story I tell all the time.
There was a player in the NFLabout uh 13 years ago for um for

(01:02:30):
you, Kyle.
The NFL is sportsball.

Kyle (01:02:33):
Thank you for not making me ask.
Shut up.

Jeff (01:02:37):
There's this guy who was the least athletic man in the
NFL.
He was certainly the oldest,had the lowest vertical,
couldn't run very fast, um,could not tackle people, um, was
brittle to the point of he wasan offensive player, and when he
had the ball, he commonly wouldthrow himself to the ground so

(01:02:58):
he wouldn't get tackled.
And in the year 2015, he wasnot only the MVP of the league,
but he was arguably had the bestseason ever.
And his name was PeytonManning.
And Peyton Manning did just twothings exceptionally well.
He could read a defense and hecould throw an accurate
football, and that's all hedoes.

(01:03:20):
And he dominated a league ofthe m of the most um talented
athletes on the planet, himselfnot being a very talented
athlete.
Who you aren't and what youcan't do isn't interesting.
And if he had spent a lot oftime working on his bench press
or working on speeding up alittle bit, making sure that he

(01:03:43):
was working on those tacklingdrills, he actually would have
done damage to himself, his bestplay in the world.
He wouldn't have served his umfellow teammates, and he would
have actually become a worsefootball player.
And a lot of times we thinkwe're supposed to be somebody
else, and we haven't done thework to actually name who are
you?
What do you want?
What does it say about yourgifting in the world and the

(01:04:05):
value that you bring to otherpeople?
I would love tools that wouldelevate that.
I would love to have tools toelevate that in a way that's
beautiful, that resonate withme, and that remind me, you are
wired, kid, to do some amazingstuff.
And if you can't name thatamazing stuff, you are robbing
everyone else.

(01:04:26):
And I want it done with passionand power and then something
that gets me hungry for serviceand making the world better.
And Enneagram does that for meat a level that nothing else
has.
And so if I was trying to sellit, that might be where I would
start.
It's gonna name your gifts andit's gonna point out what you

(01:04:47):
bring to everybody else, andmaybe that's a place to start as
opposed to the metaphysics ofit.

Kyle (01:04:52):
Yeah, don't start with the metaphysics.
That is a doomed path.
Sorry I brought it up.

Jeff (01:04:59):
But I think it's it's right.
It's so it this comes out ofmotive, though.
Like what your criteria is forjudging something comes out of
what you care about.
And I know exactly why you'redoing this because I know your
number.
And I I could tell you aboutwhat not only data means for
you.
I could tell you not only whydata matters to you, but we

(01:05:21):
could go much, much deeper intoit.

Kyle (01:05:23):
You couldn't tell me about why any of the other stuff
matters to me, because thoseother things are in those other
numbers, and I'm not supposed tofeel those things.
And yet I do just as deeply asthat thing tell me about.

Jeff (01:05:34):
It's not just because you're not another number
doesn't mean you share profoundthings with them.
I already named some.
One, threes, and fives allsolve problems with a lot of
action and thought.
That's something that we share.
Fives, eights, and twos allexpect rejection in
relationships and actually havea very small circle of trust and
end up giving gifts out of aspace where they feel confident

(01:05:57):
as almost a radar, and that'show they connect with others is
are you gonna receive theknowledge and wisdom I have?
If you can see the knowledgeand wisdom I have, then we can
be friends because this is whatI'm offering, and I'm testing
you when I get do it.
So too eights who offer theirstrength to others, and so too
twos who offer their help.
And that method of connectingis real common for those types.

(01:06:18):
Fives are gonna share theiranalytic qualities with sixes
and sevens.
They're gonna take the world inthrough their head, which means
that they're they're on theoutlook for future threats, and
they're very aware of theresources that they have at hand
for meeting them.
Those resources might berelational in nature, but they
also are partially what I knowand what I possess in terms of

(01:06:42):
my assets.
And the last thing that fivesare, and you'll relate to this,
is they're withdrawn.
They're gonna take a big stepback in order to get what they
want.
They're gonna assess the worldthat's out there, but they're
gonna do so from an inwardvantage point.
And that's very similar tofours and nines.
The things that we share withothers, uh trend, I by the way,
I named how fives connect withall the other numbers.

(01:07:04):
You share these things with allthe other numbers, but they are
truths about about at least thefives um that talk boldly about
fives and and at least the bestthat we can do in terms of
language and in terms of gainingsome categories there.
But if any of that kind ofresonated with you, that might
be just a place to start.
I would want to talk aboutanxiety with fives.

(01:07:25):
I would want to talk about howyou think about um what you are
giving.
I would want to talk about likethe the tendency of like how do
you deal with your own socialenergy and how it's played in
the world.
Um, these are some topics thatI think are real interesting to
talk about with fives and interms of like in a pulse for

(01:07:46):
where they're at.
How do you see your ownemotional life real valuable?
Um, those might be some placesto go.
But if any of that kind ofpinged for you at a at a deeper
kind of level, that would be theI don't like we know each
other, but I don't know you.
But that would be the systemkind of saying some stuff.

Kyle (01:08:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So do you agree though that ifyou think someone is a number,
you're disposed to certainunderstandings of their
behaviors, their desires, theirchoices?

Jeff (01:08:19):
Well, it's trying to name motive.
Behavior is going to bedifferent.

Kyle (01:08:23):
So you can have uh whatever the enneagram is
supposed to be doing, because westill haven't gotten a clear
answer.

Jeff (01:08:28):
I mean it's it's getting clarified somewhat in this.
If I can if we can if you ifyou can name your motive, then
you can name your motive.
And anything that can be namedeffectively can be categorized.
That's really all we're doing.
I'm just I'm just I'm justtrying to to categorize motives.

Kyle (01:08:44):
Yeah.

Jeff (01:08:44):
If if if human beings are are such fantastically
dissimilar snowflakes on the intheir inner life and
motivations, snowflakes in theunique sense, not in the wrong
sense.
You can't describe anythingbecause you're so vastly
amazingly complicated in yourmotive, well, then you're
unique.
And maybe that's in and ofitself a the desire for

(01:09:06):
uniqueness is something thatcould be named.
But and like I don't think thatpeople are like that.
I mean, for the most part, theythey generally have some
motives that when you really putpush into that, what do you
want?
You probably could get somesimilar language.

Kyle (01:09:21):
Yeah.
And I'm fine with that being.
I just think if there's there'sgoing to be a framework that's
going to dispose us, predisposeus towards certain types of
explanations and away fromcertain other types, then it
needs to be very well validated,needs to be grounded on lots of
evidence, needs to have earnedour trust because of the risks
involved in doing that, which isthat you can miss some real

(01:09:43):
important stuff.
So we do this in medicine,right?
Ever I don't because I'm not adoctor, but like physicians uh
simply don't have the time orthe ability or the possibility
of gaining the expertiserequired to accurately diagnose
every single little thing, andso they have uh frameworks
within which they work and theymake diagnoses based on what
it's most likely to be, andsometimes they get it wrong and
they know that, and we're allokay with that.

(01:10:05):
We pay them lots and lots ofmoney to become expert at doing
that.
Why are we okay with that?
Knowing they will get it wrong.
It's because of the extremelywell-validated foundation on
which their science is builtthat enables their guesses to be
quite good and their missus tobe the tiny minority, and they
have expensive insurance to dealwith those situations.
Um the Enneagram ain't anythinglike that.

(01:10:26):
But if you're saying that, hey,I'm trying, guys, I'm trying to
make it like that, then fine,good luck.

Jeff (01:10:34):
On one front, I fully affirm everything you said.
One and two, you said thecritique of Enneagram from the
five value judgment perspective,as well as anyone could.
And it was predictable whatyour problem with the Enneagram
would be.
And that shows that it has somemeasurements, or it's just a

(01:10:57):
fair point to make that anybody,regardless of their number.
The thing is, is a lot of otherpeople aren't making the
critique.
They're pointing out that it'sgot a satanic symbol, they're
pointing out that they'refeeling judged, they're pointing
out that it screwed up some oftheir relationships at church
and they're never going to touchit again.
That wasn't your critique.
Your critique was verymeasured, thoughtful, precise,

(01:11:20):
and desirous of proof and data.

Kyle (01:11:25):
Yeah, but it's a critique that could have come from a nine
or a four or whatever Randyuser.

Jeff (01:11:30):
They could have, but that's where your values and
motive are because you valuedata.
And there's a reason you valuedata, and it points to your
motivations.

Randy (01:11:39):
You're pushing at something super tasty here,
Jeff.
Keep going, please.

Jeff (01:11:42):
Your point, it points towards my least favorite thing
he said.
It points to the fact that ifyou wanted to do business with
the Enneagram, I want I wouldwant to invite you to talk about
your anxiety.
And I would want to talk to youabout how your mental insights
are used to overcome youranxiety, because that's gonna be

(01:12:03):
a sweet spot for the five.
And it's gonna be a place thatneeds some work.
And your healthiest self isgonna come out of there, but
also your unhealthiest self isgonna come out of there, and
it's predictable where yourunhealthiest self is gonna come
from that spot.
And I could tell you where yourrelationships probably break
down, and I could tell you aboutwhat it looks like for you to
be excessive and to push toohard and to be very

(01:12:26):
self-absorbed on these frontsand how it's gonna materialize.
All of that's predictable, andI don't know you that well, but
I could tell you exactly withreal specificity what you look
like at your worst self.

Kyle (01:12:41):
I I don't doubt that you could, and some of it would
sound accurate to me, and thereare psychological explanations
for why that might be.
But I think if I were tooverhear a conversation of you
doing the same thing with any ofthe other numbers, not knowing
I was listening, I would alsofeel like to some extent I was
having my mail read.
That's the point I started thiswhole thing off with.

Jeff (01:13:01):
Like, do you do you find so you and I are gonna be very
different on this front?
I'm prescriptive to a fault.
I will tell people what theyought to do.
I'm very judgmental of therightness and wrongness of their
behavior.
I'm very judgmental of um interms of justice issues.

(01:13:22):
Um, and I bet you you have moreof an inclination to be
descriptive of human beings andtheir problems.
And I bet you you don'tnecessarily push and use your
energy to get involved inchanging that knucklehead over
there, because that guy's aknucklehead.
But I do.
That knucklehead is my job.

(01:13:43):
He's the knucklehead, he'sgoing to destroy the world.
And I need to say something onmy Facebook immediately about
it.

Randy (01:13:49):
You're a you're a three, Jeff.

Jeff (01:13:51):
And I'm a one.

Randy (01:13:52):
You're a one.
Okay.
That's funny.
Interesting.

Jeff (01:13:55):
And I bet you you have a I bet you you have a much better,
wiser use of your personalenergies than I do.

Kyle (01:14:01):
I didn't always.
I must used to be much morelike that.
I was trained out of me.
Yeah.

Randy (01:14:07):
So can can we have a little fun?
You you tease Kyle about likepredicting his arguments with
his with his wife, and he kindof sidestepped it.
Yeah, yeah.
Bring it on me.
Um, I'm an eight.
My wife's a six.
Perfect.

Jeff (01:14:21):
Tell me how we let me let me say that you know that for
sure.
Because we've we've talkedabout this.

Randy (01:14:26):
You've quibbled about my aid-ness.
I'm pretty positive I'm aneight.
I talked to my spiritualdirector about it.
I talked to my wife.
As soon as she heard you sayingthat, she was like, No, no, no,
you're an eight.
I'm sorry.
You we gotta hang out with you.
And you and I have to hang outfor you to see that, I think,
maybe.

Jeff (01:14:40):
And good news, you only you, you and you alone can type
yourself.
That's just how it works.
So um, handy dandy in the backof the book, there's a mistyping
chart.
It works for mistyping, but italso works for relationships.
So if I were gonna say, look,here are the places that you and
your wife are most different,and bringing some language to it
is probably gonna do a lot ofbenefit for your hearts and

(01:15:02):
relationships.
She obviously wants to feelsafe.
Eights primarily want to feelstrong.
Sixes are gonna questionauthority, eights are going to
assert authority.
Sixes are gonna plan to preventdangers, whereas eights are
going to act in order toeliminate perceived dangers,
specifically to keep themselvesnot vulnerable.

(01:15:24):
Um, sixes are gonna react withdoubt and want other people to
to validate their concerns.
Eights are gonna react with alot of force, they're gonna move
decisively.
Um, sixes are gonna seekreassurance, eights are
projecting confidence.
Um, fear being abandoned,eights are gonna resist being

(01:15:48):
controlled, sixes are gonnacrave support, eights are gonna
crave autonomy, sixes are gonnafeel secure with structure,
eights are gonna feel secure intheir own personal agency.
We could keep going, yeah, butdoes that hit the dynamic in
your relationship?

Randy (01:16:08):
Certainly many of them, yeah.

Jeff (01:16:10):
Many of them is that's sort of where that's actually
what should be noted here.
It's like it's it's flexible.

Randy (01:16:19):
But yeah, I mean Sarah's a you know, I know other sixes
and she's different from them.
I but it's similar in somereally core ways.
I know other I've I've yes, Iknow other eights and I've very
different than them as well, butalso very similar in some ways.
Um let's just for fun, you'vegot that handy-dandy guide in

(01:16:39):
the back, uh tool to kind oftalk about how to relate.
What w what should I be lookingfor, or how could I actually be
more helpful in myconversations and engagement
with my wife who's a six andthat me as an eight?

Jeff (01:16:54):
So just like just like Kyle and I share a same a
similar problem solving style.
You and what's her name, sorry?
Sarah.
Sarah.
You and Sarah are gonna sitshare a same problem solving
style, and it's going to be onein which you actually, when
problem solving, are gonna shutdown um let me think about this

(01:17:15):
for two seconds.
You're gonna shut down thinkingand you actually just want the
people in front of you to seeyou, validate you, validate
where you're angry, validateyour fears for Sarah.
Want to you want people to beon your team and she wants to to
know that people see the thingsthat she is saying fill her

(01:17:40):
with anxiety.
Um she wants other people whoare going to protect her um
moving forward because shedoesn't trust herself.
And one of the great thingsabout AIDS, and this one of the
places you're gonna reallyoverlap, is that AIDS naturally
want to be protective andexercise their strength on
behalf of others.
And so six-eight pairings arevery, very common because of

(01:18:03):
that.
Um's are body types, and so youare going to experience in the
same way that she experiences avery palatable anxiety and fear
in her language, eights aregoing to experience a very
palatable external anger thatpushes against others,
establishes boundaries, and thereason that's going outwards is

(01:18:24):
because you feel vulnerable, andanger protects you, and you
know that you're vulnerable, andthings can feel like an
eggshell at times, and thatanger goes outward and it hits
things that get a little tooclose.
Um, and so both of you aregonna feel, you know, the the
you know, things out there maynot be trustworthy, and so both

(01:18:47):
of you are gonna line up on thatfront.
Um eights are gonna be uhindependent in their
orientation, um, in how theythey get what they want in the
world.
And that means that thefeelings of others, and even
your own feelings, don't reallymatter as much as other things.
You think about what you'regonna do.

(01:19:07):
Feelings come last.
It's not how she functions.
For her, thinking comes last.
For her, she's gonna she'sgonna act on her feelings very
cleanly and quickly.
And so thinking's gonna comelast for her.
Um, and especially in terms ofthinking about where she's been
successful, where she's beenstrong.

(01:19:27):
Um, what's what's happened inthe past that she can say, I
have these aptitudes andabilities and can really do well
in the world.
And um, those would be thingsthat are different, was the last
thing.
And the last thing would be, Isaid earlier, you're gonna
expect rejection inrelationships, and you probably
only have a few really closefriends that are in your circle

(01:19:50):
of trust.
She is going to have a widercircle and it's gonna process
her own happiness relationally,and is probably going to um
she's gonna create spaces whereshe feels safe and other people
feel safe, and and having arobust kind of crew is gonna be
a big deal.
And so how you the relationaldynamics between the two of you

(01:20:14):
is probably gonna function alongthose lines.
Did I read your palm correctly?
Did much of that resonate withyou?

Randy (01:20:21):
Yes, yes.
Uh some of it not much, but alot of it did a quite a bit.
And I find there's certainwords that you use in in and I
find this commonly with peoplethat I that that seem to have a
really good handle on theEnneagram, is that there's
certain words that just likethey really just stick to the

(01:20:43):
wall.
Control is one of those latelyfor me, um, as an eight, where
particularly in my relationshipwith my kids, a lot of times
when I find myself losing my anlosing myself in my anger and
going to that, like just givingmyself over to it, is when I
don't feel in control or when Ifeel like they're manipulating
me in some way, shape, or form.
Can you tell me about eightsand control a little bit?

Jeff (01:21:06):
Body types like myself, eights, nines and ones all want
agency, and that's primary.
So, in the same way that five,sixes, and sevens want something
like security or safety, uh,eights, nines and ones are very
present in how they're taking inthe world.
They're taking in the world ina very present way.
What is it that is seeking toexert its will upon me?

(01:21:29):
We know it, we feel itintuitively.
That's not a relationalfeeling, that's a very physical
feeling.
You feel your clothes.
Um, you you understand when youwalk into a crowded room, you
choose a place to sit where youare going to have maximum
agency.
And that's done because youunderstand power dynamics and

(01:21:52):
you don't want to be controlled.
Um, for me, what that lookslike is a very self-critical eye
inward.
I want if if I feel good in theworld when I have total control
of my diet, my workout regimen,and what I'm gonna do for the
next two hours.
And that's agency for for me.
So control, agency, these areabout not exerting my will over

(01:22:17):
others, but not having othersexert their will over me.
That's primary for eights,nines, and ones.
Thank you.
That's fun.
Does that resonate with you interms of how you are in the
world?

Randy (01:22:28):
Yes, it does.
I'm just gonna say that.
Yeah, no.
Um, again, I find that kind ofstuff super helpful.
Um, even if not all of itresonates with me perfectly,
even if my experience as aknight is different than the the
precise way that you'redescribing it.
And again, that's kind of whereI get turned off is when you
say you are gonna, and you'rethis'll be your thing.

(01:22:50):
You know, that's a littlestrong for me.
But man, I love talking aboutwhy I sit why I choose to sit in
certain places in a room, or Ilove talking about why
relationally, when this happens,all of a sudden I react in a
very predictive sort of way thatmost people are aware of except
for me.
I like because I like justgrowing in that awareness.
And so I appreciate this bookand I appreciate your work in

(01:23:12):
the Enneagram, Jeff.
To be able to just introduceourselves to ourselves in many
ways, and to be able to grow inmaturity and grow in being a
better person and bro grow inshowing up in the world in a in
a more beautiful, good, uhbetter way.
Um, I appreciate those efforts,and I think the world needs
more of it.

(01:23:32):
So thank you for this book.
Thank you for your work for allthe million podcasts you have
that we're trying to keep upwith.
Yeah, quick.
Yeah, that's it.
That's it.

Jeff (01:23:40):
Way too many to listen to now.
Okay.

Kyle (01:23:42):
Yeah.
Quickly, pitch, where canpeople find the book and also um
tell us more about this podcastnetwork thing?

Jeff (01:23:47):
Best place to find the book is on on Amazon.
It's just around the circle,it's an Enneagram book.
Um, if if you want to go toaround the circle.org, first
couple chapters are on there onaudio.
You can take a sample of it andyou can see the rest of our
work and and kind of what we'redoing.
Um our our our life online isvery communal, and you know,

(01:24:08):
we're we're trying to justconnect people around this
language and and the things thatthat fire us up and get us
moving and and challenge us.
So cool.

Randy (01:24:18):
And what is your com just just a little bit of a taste
for people who are might like,oh maybe this sounds a little
interesting.
Yeah.
That communal experience.
If I'm jumping in as aEnneagram aide and I want to
learn more about myself, will Iwill I intersect with other
people in my type and we canhave a conversation?
Like, what does that look like,Jeff?

Jeff (01:24:36):
Yeah.
So we do monthly workshops.
Um, so the last two in in 2025are free for for those who are
free members of our Patreon.
Um, but you would you would goto a an hour and a half Zoom
with maybe 40 or 50 otherpeople.
And one of the best thingsabout Enneagram is you're

(01:24:56):
talking about your motive, andeverybody else has different
motives, but sometimes beingable to see other people talk
about their motives allows youto see your own motive with a
lot more clarity and power.
And so what we're gonna end uptalking about is our type in
excess.
So, what does it look like whenyour motive really becomes um
more self-centered and andoverly um developed?

(01:25:20):
So for me, I can become veryperfectionistic.
Um, I can become veryjudgmental, I can I can be in
the world at a level where thatsort of perfectionism and
judgmentalism really affects myrelationships and does damage.
And being able to name thatthis is a tendency I have.
It's like this is how I getwhat I want is to feel good.

(01:25:42):
What I want is to have personalcontrol and oversight that
makes me feel like I'mcomfortable and it feels, you
know, and and there is a road tosomething like happiness for me
down that path worth naming.
By the way, happiness is thegoal of the Enneagram, and
that's why you study it for Kylein terms of a question from
where way back.
But like naming how I come tohappiness and how I conceive of

(01:26:06):
happiness and how I experiencehappiness, it's gonna name some
of that stuff.
But my particular type can pushinto trying to get happiness a
certain way that is damaging,and it's worth naming that for
all of the types.
And so that's kind of whatwe're talking about.
And it just becomes again, themore you hear it from other

(01:26:27):
people, the more it kind ofreveals who you are.
And that's that's at least beenmy experience.

Randy (01:26:33):
Brilliant.
Well, we'll put those links inthe show notes, perhaps.
Yep.
And uh look forward to the nexttime you and Kyle can go around
the circle of your arguments,right?
Um, I didn't even try to dothat.
Good lord.

Jeff (01:26:46):
Um, all valid critiques is what I heard from Kyle.

Randy (01:26:49):
Yes, yes.
Uh the book and the podcast isaround the circle.
Jeff Cook, thanks so much forjoining us again.

Jeff (01:26:54):
I love you.
You guys are my brothers.
I really appreciate you and allthe hard work that you do.

Kyle (01:26:59):
Cheers.

Randy (01:27:09):
Thanks for listening to a pastor and a philosopher walk
into a bar.
We hope you're enjoying theseconversations.
Help us continue to createcompelling content and reach a
wider audience by supporting usat patreon.com slash a pastor
and a philosopher, where you canget bonus content, extra perks,
and a general feeling of beinga good person.

Kyle (01:27:26):
Also, please rate and review the show in Apple,
Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Please help new people discoverthe show and we may even read
your review in a future episode.

Randy (01:27:34):
If anything we said pissed you off, or if you just
have a question you'd like us toanswer, send us an email at
pastor and philosopher atgmail.com.

Kyle (01:27:42):
Find us on social media at PPW Podcast, and find
transcripts and links to all ofour episodes at Pastor and
Philosopher.buzzprout.com.
See you next time.
Cheers

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