Scaling Back from Overworking and Finding Purpose as an Enneagram 9 with Stephanie Woodward
Welcome back to Enneagram IRL, the weekly podcast where we go beyond Enneagram theory and dive into practical understanding, new clarity, and fresh insight. We’re talking about how each type is in REAL LIFE so you can remember – you’re more than just a number.
On this week’s episode of Enneagram IRL, we meet with Stephanie Woodward, a whole-life and leadership coach, facilitator, and author of The Big Scale Back: Success and balance by your own design (which was just released this week). She is the founder of Agency to Change, a boutique firm specializing in custom coaching programs to help individuals and teams redefine their relationship with work.
We discuss Stephanie’s journey of reevaluating her approach to work and productivity as a One-to-One Nine. She offers so much insight into team dynamics, Type Nine strengths & shadows, burnout, & more!
Grab a copy of The Big Scale Back right here!
Follow Stephanie on LinkedIn & Instagram: @agencytochange
Or connect with her online:
https://www.agencytochange.com
Here are the key takeaways:
Chronic workaholism as part of the Type Nine defense mechanism, narcotization
Discovering one’s wants and “ruffling feathers” as a Type Nine
The Big Scale Back & Stephanie’s experience with hyper-productivity and unsustainable hours
Underlying issues behind difficult workplace dynamics
Type Nine strength of being the pace setter & Stephanie’s encouragement to fellow Type Nines
Signs of burnout and unfulfillment
How can you connect with Stephanie and her work?
✨🤫A Special Resource Only Available to Listeners of This Episode:
https://stephaniewoodward.com/enneagram-in-real-life/
This Week’s Guest Picks:
As an Amazon affiliate, I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. Affiliate links are a simple (and free to you!) way to support my work 😊
Enneagram Resources for you!
Want to keep the conversation going? Join me on Instagram @ninetypesco to keep learning and chatting about how our types show up in REAL LIFE!
Learn more about subtypes! Download my free subtypes guide here.
Want to keep learning? Join my Enneagram in Real Life course to start applying all this Enneagram knowledge and start GROWING! Check it out here: https://www.enneagramirl.com
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Listen to the Episode
Read the Full, Unabridged Transcript
Hello, and welcome back to Enneagram in Real Life. A podcast that will help you go beyond Enneagram theory into practical understanding so that you can apply the Enneagram in your day-to-day life. I'm your host, Steph Baron Hall, creator of nine types co on Instagram, author of the Enneagram in love, accredited Enneagram professional, and ennea-curious human, just like you. Be sure to check out the show notes for more ways to apply the Enneagram and your daily life. Thanks so much for listening and now onto the show.
Steph Barron Hall: Well, Stephanie, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited you're here and I'm so excited to chat with you about your book and the Enneagram, all those sorts of things.
Stephanie Woodward: I'm so excited to be here, Steph. I can't wait for this conversation. I've been excited about it all week.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, I'm so glad., so we met, let's see, NCP Enneagram,
Stephanie Woodward: Yeah. Yep. Professional or personal?
Steph Barron Hall: This is where I get all my guests,
Steph Barron Hall:Professional.
Stephanie Woodward: It was a professional track.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. And I did a couple of coaching sessions with you, which I really loved and appreciated, and I loved that you bring this groundedness to the way that you coach and the way that you speak about things.
Steph Barron Hall: And so when I saw that you were coming out with your book, I was like, I have to have you on the podcast. It's gonna be so great and so I'm excited to hear more about your book and everything that you're doing now but before we get into all of that tell me about yourself. Tell me a little bit about your story. I'm sure that that is going to walk us right into your book as well.
Stephanie Woodward: Well, whenever I hear this question, the first thing that comes to mind for me is always people oriented or people person that I feel like that could be at the essence of my story from childhood. So I was always very much a people person, very much into relationships and we'll talk Enneagram type nine.
Stephanie Woodward: I am a one to one nine. So for me, that I don't think it would be surprising for anyone who knows the Enneagram today. Those relationships were so important led to me studying psychology in undergrad because I just loved the dynamics of people and how, uh, personalities were formed. That was such a passion area of mine.
Stephanie Woodward: Then did a master's degree in communications. So you bring those two things together and I was all about how do people relate to one another? How do people talk to one another? And that it's no surprise to me that now I find myself in leadership development and leadership coaching, doing work around the Enneagram personality profiling all work life balance and those topics.
Stephanie Woodward: And that is a bit of a spoiler for the book. It's all about work life balance, and that has become a really big passion topic for me right now. And something that I have lived through my journey of kind of chronic workaholism and now really helping. Helped myself and working with my clients to look at whole life fulfillment and what it does look like to be fulfilled and to design a life that you feel fulfilled across every area of your life, professional and personal.
Stephanie Woodward: So that's a little bit about me.
Steph Barron Hall: Okay. I love it and I think you've given us a few different things that I'm excited to dig into a little bit more, but one thing that you mentioned is that chronic workaholism. aspect, and I think a lot of the time we don't associate that with type nine. However, and I'm not sure if this is where it's related for you, but I've definitely seen a lot of nines the defense mechanism of marketization come out in workaholism.
Steph Barron Hall: And so it's just another way of kind of tuning out what's actually happening for you and so I could see how that could happen for a nine but I'm curious for you how do those two things play together? Being a type nine and the workaholism. aspect?
Stephanie Woodward: I think you just said something really fascinating to me to say that the way I would zone out to myself was through hyper productivity and do, do, do, produce, produce, produce. When I was first introduced to the Enneagram, I started, I got my report, I fell in love with it and I started reading everything I could about it.
Stephanie Woodward: And when I read the different types, I really thought maybe they've mistyped me because I see a lot of three in myself, to be honest with you. And everybody I meet says, oh, you must be a three. You must be a three. And so I think that's really interesting that outwardly, my outward behavior might present very stereotypically three, but what's going on inside is exactly what you just talked about. I am zoning out from all everything else, ignoring my own needs, ignoring, um, and not really knowing what they are. I wasn't even deliberately or consciously ignoring them. It was more that they just didn't exist, which is classic self forgetting nine and showing up to please others to take in perspectives of others and produce, produce, produce. So I would say those two are, those two things are very, very connected.
Steph Barron Hall: Wow. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. So how did you come across the Enneagram then and get into understanding your type?
Stephanie Woodward: So it was with a group of leadership consultants. We would always form kind of a mastermind group and we were constantly seeking out different experts, different specialties, and we would do these professional development days and somebody said, hey, I know someone who comes in and talks about the Enneagram.
Stephanie Woodward: So in they came, I'd never heard of this before, and this was many years ago, and said, hey, do you wanna do this? Absolutely. So I did it and when I saw, and I'm someone again from my background, psychology, personality profiling, always loved that. But there was something different when I got that Enneagram report and I read it, I honestly thought someone had been videotaping me secretly had access, had maybe been rummaging through the garbage and found some old journals or something because it felt very different from any other report I'd had, and it just captured some of those blind spots that I had not seen in myself until I was confronted with it on the page. So that's once I saw that, because I'd had exposure to so many other reports and personality profiles. I was like, this is, I need to learn everything about it.
Stephanie Woodward: So in classic me style, I read every book and then got certified through two different Enneagram programs and integrated it into my coaching practice. And so here I am today a big fan and a big believer in the Enneagram method.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. So when people say from the outside, oh, you seem like a three. You must be a three, what do you know about yourself that other people aren't seeing?
Stephanie Woodward: Hmm. Uh, this is a great question. What are other people not seeing in me? I think the complete lack of knowing myself back in the day, now that I've done a lot of this work, now that I've done a lot of personal development, I know myself at such a deeper level, and a lot of that is thanks to the Enneagram and also work I had done prior to that, but people probably thought, Oh, Stephanie wants to achieve that goal.Stephanie has chosen. That goal and is now, uh, really successfully chasing after it. She's striving, climbing, chasing in service of something that is very well thought through and something she chose. And quite the opposite. I was like, well, if this important person has put this in front of me, I'm not gonna check in with myself.
Stephanie Woodward: This is the thing I'm supposed to do, so I'm just gonna do it. And I found myself again, climbing, producing, achieving. Someone else's dream, someone else's goals. So to me, that was the real difference. It wasn't me saying that's what I want, and that's until now, but I'm talking 10, 15 years ago, I wasn't able to say, that's what I want and I'm gonna, and I'm gonna go after it.The goals were all other people's, and so I was again, fully asleep to myself, but nobody would've known that. They would've looked at me and thought, that's a very reasonable goal. Other people would've wanted what I was achieving. So it seemed reasonable to them, and it seemed like, yeah, she's got a realistic goal ahead of her.
Steph Barron Hall: Right. And also when you are that asleep to yourself, you don't even know it. You don't even know that you're chasing somebody else's goal. You're like, I'm just, everyone's just floating through life like this right?
Stephanie Woodward: That's right, until you suddenly get a rude awakening. And for me, and that's a big part of what the book was all about, it took me really having some big, uh, adrenal crashes in my life. So some big health issues to suddenly and I laughed cause I'm like, oh, I actually did kind of fall asleep. I ended up semi-conscious, really unwell at one point in my life because I had completely gone to sleep to those needs and was working at a very unsustainable pace.
Stephanie Woodward: And it was that it took that for me to really say, you know what? I don't think this is working for me. I think maybe, I think I might be out of alignment and may need to check in with myself to see what it is I really want. But that's what it took for me to get a big wake up call many, many, many years ago.
Steph Barron Hall: So, Okay. I'm, I'm, I really wanna dig more into that because, you know, you, you moved through that, how did you move through that? You had the wake up call, you had the moment, and then it's like, now what? What did that look like?
Stephanie Woodward: Yeah. Well, I will tell you first of all, that's chapters like seven through nine of working through it. So I won't give it all away because folks will have fun reading that in the book. But what I will say is it wasn't easy and it's part of why I wrote the book the way I did. It's part framework for how to move through and get to know yourself and know what you need and what you want and how to define success for yourself but it also shows memoir. So I'm bringing in, here's the journey, and I did that not because I think, hey, look at what I did, You do it too, or you'll make the same decisions as me. I did that because I think one of the things that's always bothered me with some professional and personal development books, they're these very nice laid out frameworks, and then you go to put it into practice and suddenly it is not as neat and orderly.
Stephanie Woodward: It's a very human experience, and I will say this, it was not just a nice little linear path. Oh, I got sick. I realized I needed to change things. Snap, boom. Wake up tomorrow morning. Here I am, a different person. I had to do a lot of soul searching. I had to wade through a lot of muck, unpack a lot of beliefs that I had about myself, about my relationship with work to set up an entirely new path.
Stephanie Woodward: And I'll tell you this, it freaked some people out. It upset some people. It ruffled a heck of a lot of feathers and it raised a lot of questions, so it wasn't easy. So I think that's my bottom line too, to really unpack your personality patterns to really unpack your beliefs. It's pretty scary and it's really disruptive but, uh, by the end I was like this is really worth it. And you come out the other side feeling like I've landed in a place of fulfillment.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, that feels so resonant to me, and I think to so many people, and I, it also feels a little familiar,not just in the sense of I've been there, but also in the sense of, I've heard this story before, right? And I am really excited to read your book, especially because you have that framework written throughout, but also because every story is individual.
Steph Barron Hall: So I'm not saying let's not read it. It's, we've heard this story before, but what I am saying is, what the hell? Why are we doing this to ourselves? What is it about our standards in the way that we approach things like we're constantly going into these places of having to numb ourselves from our actual lives and what do you think is happening there? Cause I know that you've been a coach for a long time and so you have seen so many people work through this and walk through this?
Stephanie Woodward: Yeah, and usually I. Our beliefs, so our limiting beliefs and how, So that can be anything that's a massive umbrella of a topic to throw out there. And when you said, Hey, I've heard this story before, that's what I found funny. It made me both happy and a little bit sad cause everybody reads the back of the book and says, Oh my God, I feel that that's my, that's my story like that, I've done that.
Stephanie Woodward: So we're all, like you said, we're all experiencing this. I think for those of us that do identify as being ambitious or who identify as being achievement oriented or, I mean, there's such an upside to that, right? To say, I wanna make a contribution. I wanna make a difference. I think where things go sideways is you, we can take that desire to make a difference, that desire to be successful, that desire to be ambitious. And then suddenly there's all these beliefs that have been put on top of us from society, from our families, from our cultures, from how we've experienced the world that says, this is the right path to take or this is the path that's gonna get rewarded.
Stephanie Woodward: And I don't think really any of us are encouraged to really sit back and reflect and say what is it that I am here to do? I, we all have, we all have gifts and talents. We all have skills. I truly believe we're all here to do something personally and professionally that feels meaningful to us. But there's so many outside forces that keep us unconscious to that, that we end up on autopilot chasing after again, dreams that have been set upon us. Maybe you had parents that said, This is what I want you to do, or really encouraged you to do that, or, This is a good career and this is a bad career. This is what, you know, family life looks like. This is what you know, it doesn't look like. And we take all of that in as kids and, when are we ever encouraged to unpack those?
Stephanie Woodward: Unless you really decide to go into a therapy a deep therapy, uh, set of sessions or something like that. It's very rare for us to sit back and actually think consciously about what it is we really want and to make the changes that go against all of those external voices. That's where the muckiness comes in.Yeah, I know what I want, and I know that's going against what others and society are telling me is perhaps the right thing, but I'm gonna walk that path anyway.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, because that thing that you mentioned of like, it ruffled a lot of feathers people were not prepared. I've heard that, especially from a lot of nines. I think that happens no matter who you are, when you decide to be like actually no, I'm gonna go this other direction. But especially from nines, because the people around you are used to hearing oh, whatever. I'm easy. This is fine.Things are great. Whatever will be will be. That entire thought process feels so easy and comfortable. And then to actually say, actually I am going to do the healthiest thing I could possibly do right now, which is to work in service of my own desires and my own wants and needs and dreams. Then you ruffle feathers.So that's a whole limiting belief in and of itself. It's okay to ruffle feathers.
Stephanie Woodward: Oh my gosh. I'm laughing, I know our listeners can't hear my laugh, but I'm laughing and smiling on the other side here because that's exactly it, and I obviously for a one to one nine fusion. Is a big issue and I, as a kid, I was so fused with my parents and I could fuse with just a best friend or a teacher or a subject matter at school.
Stephanie Woodward: I could fuse with anything and suddenly that became the thing that I was fused with and completely obliterated any chance of me having my own thought about what it was that I wanted and that ruffling feathers, I mean, that's still the difference for me now is that I'm conscious of it. So I feel myself resisting it.
Stephanie Woodward: I do not wanna ruffle these feathers, but because I'm conscious of it, I can say, and yet I must ruffle these feathers to get to where I know, uh, will make me more fulfilled. So it hasn't changed the grip or the fear. I still feel it every time I go about ruffling feathers or upsetting people. I still don't like it, uh, but I now have a bigger, it's in service of something bigger now that I'm very clear on.
Steph Barron Hall: And I also just think about the way that hearing the concept of your book, the big scale back and how it's like what does that mean for you? Cause I have a thought that's very much connected with the ruffling feathers aspect. But I'm curious a little bit about where that title came from.
Stephanie Woodward: Yeah, it's so funny. So as I mentioned, part of the story is me just using my own personal journey as an example of the concepts. And so I lived, I lived this story many, many years ago, and so it felt very dramatic at the time to be making a shift in the amount of hours I was working like I was completely fused with my bosses in the workplace. So I was working 80 to 100 hours a week, depending on what was going on massively burning out. So for me, it felt very dramatic to scale back from that. So scale back is really looking. I used it for myself and I encourage others to say, it's really looking at what isn't working for me.
Stephanie Woodward: And what do, what belief do I need to scale back from, uh, what is it that I, what is my own personal scale back? For me, it happened to be hyper productivity and just unsustainable hours. Uh, that was, that was the thing that I really needed to scale back from. But it's this idea of what, what is what isn't serving you in your life and how can you, how can you lessen that a little bit?
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. And I also, what it makes me think of is what did you start to see? What did you start to experience and feel that was like, you're like, oh, wow, that's uncomfortable. I was trying to ignore that by working 80 hours a week.
Stephanie Woodward: All of it. So I remember being assigned once to, uh, sit in the quiet and just let my thoughts come to me. And, uh, I was told, hey, do that for an hour. Five minutes was painful because at that point when you have been climbing and striving and not in service of your own goals and not in service of what you want, when you actually stop doing all of that, that was taking up literally all of your time.All of my time was taken up doing that. I found myself single. I hadn't had a good relationship and I couldn't even remember how long , when I was suddenly sitting in this quiet. I was in a role that other people coveted and wanted, and I was so unbearably unfulfilled and unhappy in that role that it really felt like a big rock bottom and listening to those voices in the quiet of, what is it that I want?
Stephanie Woodward: I didn't know. And that was a typical nine. So it was very scary to sit there and say that All I knew was I don't want this, I don't want this anymore. I want almost the opposite of everything I'm feeling here. So that's where I was at.
Steph Barron Hall: How,from that point, how do you expand that? Because I think the reason I'm thinking about this question is I'm just remembering the first times that I meditated
Stephanie Woodward: Hmm.
Steph Barron Hall: And I was like, what is this? So you know, then I started using the Headspace app or the Calm app or whatever.And it's so different now but it's been years and how do you keep at something like that when it feels so incredibly painful?
Stephanie Woodward: With this, I really, while I didn't know what I did want, there was something in me that felt some form of relief in just acknowledging the fact that it wasn't working. So there I can only describe it if there was some glimmer of hope, some glimmer. This, something about this feels, but even though this is really uncomfortable, there is some relief in acknowledging this.And I really trust, I had a good support group in terms of a wonderful therapist. I had a wonderful coach at the time, and I had really, really great friends. So having that support network where I think. I could see the concern on everybody else's faces and I could tell that they wanted me to see, to experience a change.
Stephanie Woodward: And so, again, that nine of like, oh, other people think that this, you know, some other important others in my life think this is an important thing. There were times when I did want to please my therapist. There were times when I did wanna please some of those other people in my life that actually probably served me in that moment to keep me on that path.
Stephanie Woodward: But I did feel that glimmer of, there's something here. There was something in me that knew I just need to stick with this. And also going back to the way things, the way things were, was very unbearable. And I often find that with my clients, if you are not feeling a cost to the way, it's with any habit, if there isn't a cost associated with what you're doing, there is not an impetus to change the habit.
Stephanie Woodward: It's hard. It is so hard to change our habits and change our patterns that unless you're feeling a cost to the status quo, you're not gonna change. So I was feeling such an unbearable feeling with that status quo, that that was a huge impetus for change and stick with itness.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. And I'm curious if the way that you work now, you do a lot of executive coaching and leadership coaching and how often do you see this in these leaders? I'm curious because I don't necessarily do executive coaching per se, but I go into a lot of organizations and I work with the management team.
Steph Barron Hall: I'll sit down and, and they could be actually executives, you know and I'm doing Enneagram work with them not necessarily one on one, but more so in the group and I think back to when I worked at that type of an organization and everyone was like, oh, well, when you're at that level, you've made it.
Steph Barron Hall: Nobody has imposter syndrome, et cetera. We imagine that a title will just get rid of the imposter syndrome, but it doesn't. And so I go into those environments sometimes and I'm like, wow, you don't know what you're doing either.Nobody knows, right? Nobody knows. We all walk, acting like we know and I'm curious how much you see your story repeated in your clients. And I guess my question is why again, why?
Stephanie Woodward: All the time is the short answer. I see this all the time. It used to come to me whispered in sessions just to be. There's some other part of my life that isn't working. Can I talk to you about that? So people would come in, cuz it's leadership coaching, it's executive coaching. They'd come in with all kinds of topics related to managing their teams.
Stephanie Woodward: You know, how do we make the culture here better? So I would get all of those typical themes coming in. But what would really show up in the conversation was, yeah, I think I've now got this under control, but my marriage is in shambles, or I never see my kids anymore. Or why am I, I'm about to be offered this promotion and I don't, I don't even wanna take it, but I can't possibly say no who says no to a promotion, but I'm just concerned about the impact and the havoc it's gonna wreak on my life so that it shows up in so many different ways.
Stephanie Woodward: And again, why does it happen to a lot of people? What will people think if I say no? People will jokingly, when they see the title of the book, the big scale back, they'll say, Steph, I trust you. I'm gonna buy, I wanna buy your book for my whole team. But you're not gonna turn them into slackers, right? You're not, you're not. Nobody's gonna get lazy, are they? And I said, No, you know me. This isn't about and so that, there's that stigma, there's that judgment. This idea we glamorize workaholism. We glamorize hours. We glamorize time at a desk and that's a real hook for anybody who identifies as ambitious, high achieving, which are all, which, none of those things are negative.
Stephanie Woodward: It's how those get hooked into unhealthy patterns in the workplace. But when, when you are then rewarded for that, and you get addicted to that reward, and you're hooked into an identity that says, I am a successful, ambitious person, then those hooks are really working their magic on you, and they're gonna keep you in that loop.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, and you also mentioned that the world needs leaders that are deeply self-aware and people minded. And that is essential. You know? It is true. And I think as you were just saying, it matters because of teams. It matters because of marriages. It matters because we're not machines. So you can't compartmentalize those things that are hooked into us, like the ambition and all those sorts of things. We can't actually compartmentalize that as we would like to think we can and it impacts everything.
Stephanie Woodward: And it's all, everything you said. Yes, yes, yes. Check, check, check, and to any skeptics out there, I would also say it's very practical, so the amount of hours productive hours that are lost in a workday because of unnecessary conflicts, unnecessary reactivity in the workplace personality patterns, running a muck cuz people are unconscious of their blind spots.
Stephanie Woodward: That takes up so much time that if we are able to minimize that, if people can be a bit more self-aware, lessen their reactivity, they're not reacting on autopilot. They're aware of their patterns, they're aware of their dynamics with other people. You're no longer wasting time and conflict or miscommunications or anything else, and you can spend that time actually getting the work done that needs to get done, and that shortens your work day.
Stephanie Woodward: You're actually getting hours back when you start to minimize conflict, minimize miscommunication. So it's very practical. In addition to also remembering that we're not robots, it's also the nice thing to do as well, and the human thing to do.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's really challenging. I think that there's a lot that's changing with regard to that, but even still sometimes getting like sending out a proposal and hearing back what's the ROI on this? How do you answer that question?
Stephanie Woodward:For specific for coaching and for leadership development?
Steph Barron Hall: Mmh.
Stephanie Woodward: I will always, always find out what problem or issue we're addressing, and it's always gonna be tied back to that because usually depending on what the topic is, it, there's either we're working in silos or so, and so, and so and so don't get along very well.So really you're coming in to address these two people. Everyone else is fine, but there's this dynamic that's going on. So usually understanding the issue of the problem. For the work that I do, it's, it's looking at what's the, what's the pattern that's going on underneath that, what's the relationship dynamic?
Stephanie Woodward: And then speaking to the ROI from that perspective. If you're able to manage this again, you're gonna get way more productivity. I don't always love to use that word productivity, cuz it does speak into that hustle culture mentality but that's what resonates with a lot of people who are looking for those ROI stats.
Stephanie Woodward: So as soon as you get a question like that they are looking to hear that their people are gonna be more efficient, their people are gonna be more productive. I, the, and the way I deliver that work, I'm always gonna promise more efficiency and better outcomes. But the way I approach that work is also gonna make the workplace better for all of the employees and hopefully, uh, reduce some of the stress and tension that's in that workplace.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, it's almost productivity is like the Trojan horse, but what you're actually trying to deliver is a better workplace and better team culture for the organization overall.
Stephanie Woodward: And this is what's funny because we've put them into a binary. It's either results or relationships. It's either profits or people and they're not. It's just replace it with an and take the aura and put it, it's relationships and results. You are gonna get better results if there are better relationship dynamics in your workplace.
Stephanie Woodward: You are gonna get better profits if your people are treated well. All of the research speaks to this. And so it's really all of us unhooking from this pattern of productivity is glamorous and overwork is glamorous and working 60, 80 hour weeks is glamorous. If we can unhook as a society from that it's an and it's not an or.You get both.
Steph Barron Hall: And I mean, I'm sure you have referenced things like this before, but I remember reading a study about how people reported such a significant decrease in intent to turn over if they felt seen and understood by their manager. And I think that, I feel this is a thing that's becoming very much more commonplace I'd say. Still in certain sectors it's probably not, but it is becoming more commonplace, which I'm grateful for as long as we're doing the actual work, right? As long as we're, we're not just doing lip service to, we're a family or whatever else.
Stephanie Woodward: Yes, and I think that was something before I had language to say, I'm a type nine and this is a gift of mine I think throughout my entire leadership career that seen, heard and respected, I naturally cared what everybody on my team thought I was, I was genuinely interested. And so people would say, Gee, Steph, how are you getting such good leadership results?
Stephanie Woodward: This environment is pretty toxic and yet your team always seems to be pretty happy and you don't have a lot of turnover. And I, at the time, I was like, well, I just, I'd lead the way. I lead. And as I've researched it and now, you know, 15, 20 years later, I can kind of see the secret behind that. I would congratulate people on doing a good job in a meeting for literally 15 seconds when we came out, I'd say, hey, you asked a really great question in there.
Stephanie Woodward: Thanks for really preparing well for that meeting. Do you know how their faces would light up? If something as simple as that and it takes five seconds and we just don't do it. So many we're rushing between meetings. Again, this hyper productivity, when you're rushing from one meeting to the next, you miss out on those opportunities to just catch someone doing something good and to actually say the very human response.
Stephanie Woodward: Thank you. You did a great job in there oh, can I, can we talk about that? I want a little more detail in what you were talking about and connect and understand what's going on for that person. We've lost a lot of that and I'd like to see a lot of that come back, but I think that came naturally to me as a nine to build that relationship and to understand where other people were coming from.
Stephanie Woodward: And it was a real strength as a leader, I now know that, but I thought everybody just led and thought that way.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. Yeah. And I think sometimes when I go into organizations and I talk about type nine, or I talk about type two and I talk about the relational aspect, people are like, I'm kind of sad. I don't have something more important to contribute. And I'm like, if you've ever worked on a team without a two or a nine or like that person who plays that role of being the glue of making sure people are there, like recently I did a, this analogy where I talked about the gas, the downshift and the clutch.
Steph Barron Hall: And talked about how twos and nines kind of smooth the transition between hitting the gas and shifting gears and without that aspect of having that relational ability there, it's awful. It's like shifting a car without a clutch. It's not, it's not good. Nobody likes it.
Stephanie Woodward: Okay. I love that analogy because I had written down, I wanted to get your opinion. Cause what I had noticed as a nine leader I called myself the pace setter. I was the pace setter and I had jotted that down. Like, I wanna talk to Steph about that. And so what I found until I had the confidence around that pace setting, now I see it as a gift.
Stephanie Woodward: So exactly what you say, it was the glue and being able to downshift, I don't know Standard vehicles very well downshift and clutch to be. So tell me if I'm doing the wrong terminology, to be able to do that in certain organizations at certain times, uh, the criticism would be moving too slow, pick up the pace, speed it up.
Stephanie Woodward: And when I was early in my career, obviously you think, oh, I'm doing something wrong. It was only later in my career when I'm like, that's actually what I do. Right? So I'm gonna go ahead and do the pace setting and do that. But I think, uh, for other nines out there, you might experience that because I heard that all the time.
Stephanie Woodward: Uh, because I'd be saying, we, we can't move that quickly on this. It's gonna have people impacts. So I wanna gather a little bit more information. I'm not talking weeks here, talking a couple of days to gather some extra information, talk to some people and understand the impact that it's gonna have on our people.
Stephanie Woodward: And when I got confident in that, again, it was transformational for teams, it was learning that discernment of when to pick up the pace and when it was okay to maybe move faster through that gathering of opinions and understand is this just my mindness that really wants to make everybody happy and get real consensus and when is the time to speed up? And so as I started calibrating and, and building my ability to discern those times, the more effective I was as a time nine as a type nine leader, I think.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, absolutely. I do think it's really crucial and I think and I say that as a three, right? Like I say that as somebody who is would rather just move faster. And I've just seen how detrimental that can be. And I've seen not only how people get left behind, but how treating myself and my, you know, the people who are working with me as robots, and expecting a level of efficiency that is literally not possible from anyone.
Steph Barron Hall: Like how that expectation is making everything worse for everyone. And how sure, maybe the organization might get the results, but it's not sustainable. And so in the end, you're not moving at a pace that works. So I love that pace setting comment too yeah, I just think it's so, so crucial. And so I always, whenever people say that though, when they say, Oh, I wish I had something more concrete or tangible, I just laugh because I'm like, oh, it's just because you're so natural at it that you don't realize the value because it's we just need it.
Stephanie Woodward: Absolutely. And from what you just shared too, I think being imagine like a conscious three leader and a conscious nine leader coming together in an organization, how great that can be with a conscious nine. That's saying I am going to drive a little bit forward, uh, but I'm in great relationship with my colleague over there, that type nine.
Stephanie Woodward: So you can speed, the three can speed that nine along as appropriate. And the nine, when you have that good relationship with the three can say, actually I think we need to, I need, I think we need to pull back a little bit. So I think again, it's this idea of being really self-aware leaders that you can leverage the gifts of one another and work so well together and leverage the strength of all nine types when you're really aware of them and you've done that work as a team and as an individual.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. And that actually is one of the reasons why a lot of the time I love working with leaders who are willing to invest in the Enneagram who are like maybe one of the more assertive types, because when that happens, I'm like, You get it. I know that you get it. You know? Cause it's like, I can tell an eight who's just moved fast and breaks things, like is not going to bring in something like the Enneagram or something like coaching.But once they're willing to do that, it just changes everything for their team.
Stephanie Woodward: Absolutely.
Steph Barron Hall: I'm curious, as you know, you've had, you've talked a little bit about these different things that you've had to overcome as a leader and a type nine,how can other nine’s kind of approach those roadblocks too? Like what are the things that they need to recognize or understand about themselves?
Stephanie Woodward: I think sometimes as we know, nines can find it hard to, it's not just to know their opinions so it's not that you're sitting there thinking how do I feel about this? It's more that you're, you're sometimes, at least for me, I won't even be aware that I'm not formulating my own opinion. I won't even be aware that I'm taking in all the other opinions around the table and then forming kind of a mixed glob of an opinion.
Stephanie Woodward: Again, that was me 10 or 15 years ago, just taking it in. So I think being really mindful, what do I think about this? And since then and once I started working with the Enneagram, I really, I would do that exercise for myself every day to say, what do I think about this? And when I was really trying to hone that assertiveness piece and insert myself in a room, I'm like, I'm very good at listening to others.
Stephanie Woodward: What I need to work on is putting myself and my voice into the room more. So I would do, I would think about what do I have coming up in the day? And really, what do I think about that?. What is my before I go in, I'm gonna be open. I trust myself. My natural tendency is to be open to other opinions, so I know I don't need to be worried about going in and kind of bowling over other people.
Stephanie Woodward: So why don't I go in with some kind of, uh, pre-thought opinion on this. I don't recommend this for all types or for all people, but for a nine, if we're talking nines, this can be really helpful just to say, I'm gonna go into this already with a sense of kind of what I think who I am going into this. So that's really helpful, number one.
Stephanie Woodward: Number two, uh, the conflict avoidance. So one of the big blind spots for me, uh, and what the report really eliminated for me when I first got it, I didn't realize how many times people were surprised when I finally blew up about something or finally said I'd had enough. I went from zero to a hundred. So I was fine.fine, fine. smile, smile, smile. Everything's fine. Until I wasn't, and then I was like, I'm done. I'm, I'm outta here or this is over. And just how ridiculous that was when I started noticing it in myself and was really conscious about it, I was quite embarrassed about that, where I thought, Wow, that's really passive aggressive.
Stephanie Woodward: And, uh, other nines might relate to that, may not. That for me was something, again, I really wanted to develop and grow in myself was an ability to sit in conflict. So I love eights. I love being around really healthy eights that have done some good growth and development work because again, that being my wing it used to be a very underdeveloped wing.
Stephanie Woodward: Being able to hold relationship and be direct and assertive is something I've always really admired and so I encourage, especially for nines at work and nines in leadership roles, really trying to get in touch with that, with that eight wing. And, uh, what I was saying before, trying to really get, uh, in touch with how you think about things and what you think about things as you prepare for your day.
Steph Barron Hall: Sorry, thinking for a second, Yeah, I feel like that's really clear, in just like a really great example. And also it really makes me think of this thing I think about with nines a lot, which is they like, if you imagine holding a really heavy weight, like maybe you're doing, you know, bicep curls with a really heavy dumbbell and then you switch to a lighter one cuz you're like, oh, I'm no longer gonna hold myself back from conflict.
Steph Barron Hall: And then you whack yourself in the face with it because it's so much lighter. And it's like when you're not used to doing something in a certain way or you're not used to having that inhibition of avoiding conflict and then you go straight into the conflict really intensely and overdo it. I feel like I see that alot with nines, when they're on that growth path. And I'm curious if you have any little bits of encouragement for nine who are experiencing that because I think I've definitely seen nines say, Oh my gosh, I'm just gonna abandon this cuz I can't keep doing that. But it's a process to learn how to do it really.
Stephanie Woodward: Yeah, so start with little things, is where I started. Start with things that are not high risk or high impact. So when I was first starting to do this, you know, having a massive conversation about something that it you're really sensitive about or that has a really big impact on the organization or in your personal life, maybe in a personal relationship, maybe don't start with that.
Stephanie Woodward: If you're on a growth path around conflict, start with, hey, where are we gonna go for dinner? I'm really gonna speak and say, I don't wanna go to that place. So start with something small, uh, so that if you get hit in the head with the weight, at least it's, you end up going to, I don't know, some restaurant. You end up going for Italian instead of sushi or something like that.
Stephanie Woodward: Or the fight, or the argument ends up being about something really light. Same in organizations. You know, don't, don't start oh, I mean, you could, but try not to start with the big project that's on deadline for next week, and now you're. You're gonna test out your new conflict skills in that situation.Start with something a little, a little lighter can be a great place to just step in and test it out.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. And I loved earlier what you said about, so that concept of reactivity of like when we're going around it's, it's almost like a walking live wire where it's like anything it touches, it's gonna react to and I think that's true for any of us when we're in that really unconscious state we do respond from reactivity even if we're not a super reactive type of person, like we react in our own way.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. Scanning my questions cuz you already read some or already answered some of them. Okay. What else do we need to know about your book? Because I'm really excited to read it, like I said but I would love to hear if there are any stories that really stand out for you or that you're just like, oh, I think everyone needs to hear this part of the story. Or this aspect.of it.
Stephanie Woodward: I think what I have noticed is really resonating with others and what, and part of the reason I wrote the book was that feeling, I wanted to write it for those who identify as ambitious who identify as, who identify with their work, basically. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it's lovely the way the world changes, the way we bring wonderful new things into the world is through our work. And so when that goes sideways, when you identify with work, but it's going sideways, the environment you're in is toxic or it's completely out of alignment with your values when it starts wreaking havoc.
Stephanie Woodward: That's when the unfulfillment kicks in. And so for anybody out there who feels like they've been climbing, they've been striving, they've been comparing themselves to others, and they're waking up and they're just like, there's gotta be a better way. I feel so unfulfilled. That's the big story in this book to say, I feel like I'm off path.
Stephanie Woodward: I feel like I'm off center. I feel like I'm living out of alignment with what I'm here to do and who I'm meant to be. So, big, big questions uh, that to me is really at the heart of the book, is finding your own. And again, like I said, it's a framework that is, I think, uh, universally applicable. I share my journey only to help illustrate those things. Because I think everyone can find fulfillment across every area of their life, and they're gonna find it in their own way. And fulfillment is gonna be different for everyone. There could be people out there that are working 80 hour weeks as a Bay Street lawyer. Uh, that's a Toronto reference. Uh, I'm in Canada.
Stephanie Woodward: Uh, it would be, uh, a big Manhattan law firm would be the equivalent in the US. They might be very satisfied. As long as you're doing that consciously, as long as you have made a conscious lot to say, I love doing this. This is an alignment with my values and I'm going home fulfilled every day. Great.
Stephanie Woodward: So key emphasis here. This is not about scaling back and giving up on dreams or giving up on ambition, which sometimes people can read the title and misinterpret it. It's about, I said earlier, scaling back on what isn't working so that you can put in place the things that are, and that will lead to your true fulfillment coming from Internal, your internal voice rather than external voices.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. Cause I'm also just thinking about people I know who maybe work 40 hours or even 20 hours a week who are just not feeling fulfilled in the work that they're doing. I could see how it would impact that person too. Because it's not always about how much you're working, it's about how you feel about the work that you're doing.
Steph Barron Hall: And like it or not, our work, whatever we're doing, takes up well, maybe this is just showing my threeness again but takes up like 90% of our thought life. It's difficult to not, well, especially if you're self-employed, I think, but it can be difficult to not always have that going in the back of your mind, at least during the work week.
Steph Barron Hall: So I could imagine how, even if you're not “overworking” by our standards, You might be overdoing it in a different way or overlying yourself to something that's just not for you.
Stephanie Woodward: Exactly. If it's out of alignment and unfulfilling, it's a sign. It's a sign that something, it's a sign that something can be calibrated for you in your life.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. I'm really curious because you've mentioned a couple times like this hitting a wall basically, and having that sense of burnout. And I'm curious if there were any signs?
Stephanie Woodward: Oh yeah,
Steph Barron Hall: Before that.
Stephanie Woodward: Lots of signs. Lots of signs. So I had a point, and this is a very minor spoiler in the book, you'll get to the point where I could only eat mashed potatoes. I wasn't tolerating any other food, but mashed potatoes. So my body was clearly sending me messages to be like, this, the way you're living, what you're doing is not working.
Stephanie Woodward: There were probably signs before that that I, I just don't necessarily remember. I have people reading the book now, and so even if they read my stories, they were probably like on page, you know, 20, wow, Steph, I'm already worried about, I'm already worried about the way you're working,
Steph Barron Hall: you're like, Wait, we've got a few more chapters,
Stephanie Woodward: And so I think again, that just shows what can happen with certain types and certain vices.We can just end up on that, on this path. And I don't think, and this is why, so obviously as a nine my personal stories reflect a nine journey. I've worked through this content with each of the types, uh, and it's just different vices, but the same, but leading to the same unfulfillment. So I do think while my journey as a nine was kind of ignoring signs and self forgetting and that really kept me hooked into that kind of unconscious productivity loop for others,it's the same output. We're still chasing after things or living in a way that feels out of alignment. Uh, but the vices are just different.
Steph Barron Hall: Hmm. Do you have any examples you wanna share for a different type?
Stephanie Woodward: Oh, let me think.Threes come to mind very obviously. Twos are also very, uh, similar to me, so I'm trying to run through my mind. Let's go with a seven, let's go with sevens. So for sevens, some of the seven clients that I see again that desire for new, that desire for novelty. I have some clients that are starting up four or five different businesses.
Stephanie Woodward: And so for them it's so exciting and thrilling to be thinking to themselves, Yeah, I wanna start this up. I wanna get this going. I wanna get this going. And again then they get into comparison. How does this stack up to others who are doing the same thing? Oh, I need something new. Okay, now I'm kind of through the exciting part of this.
Stephanie Woodward: Now I'm gonna move on to that next thing. What ends up happening is, you know, in this particular case, you can end up with multiple companies doing multiple different things, stretched very, very thin. So again, I'll have a client that showing up in a call, really unfulfilled. I've not seen my family. I'm just not having that personal satisfaction. But I can't let everyone down because I've started up these other things. But again, what was driving that was very different. The drive there was, I want all the new things. I don't wanna miss out on this opportunity. This is brand new com. This is my chance to do this again.It was that kind of fomo quality of it that was driving it, but led to the same outcomes that I've experienced as a nine.
Steph Barron Hall: Mm. Yeah. And I can imagine that as well. I, and I think now that you're saying that, I'm like, Yeah, I've heard stories like this from all nine types. It happens like, we just, we just get so carried away with like what we believe we need to do and the strategies that we need to do to get there. Yeah, I could see that out working for all nine types.
Stephanie Woodward: Yeah.
Steph Barron Hall: Okay. Now I'm really excited. Is there an audiobook?
Stephanie Woodward: There will be. It's not out yet. Again, I was trying to manage my own, uh, productivity, so it was a very difficult, it was very difficult for me to say, you know what, I'm gonna release the kind, the Kindle version and the paperback version first, and then I'm gonna go and record the audio book.So it will be out in the new year, but it's not out yet, But it will be.
Steph Barron Hall: Okay. Okay, great. I love it. Yeah, I was gonna say, I'm gonna have to discipline myself to just sit down and read it , but maybe I will, uh, read it in the new year. Okay. One last question before I jump into the final two how is it going, launching your book as a nine? Like, it can feel very like promotion, like, look at me, like look at this book.How is that going for you?.
Stephanie Woodward: So it's so funny because what got me going. has been putting myself out there. I have been obviously doing the promotion, the marketing, but it always comes back to relationship for me. So I truly believe that this book and this framework will help people. And so when I go to talk, and that's how I wrote it.
Stephanie Woodward: I wrote it picturing specific people, specific clients. I was feeling that connection with people as I was writing it and people who have told me, they're like, oh, it feels like I'm sitting down for a chat by a fire with you when I read the book. And that's just my style. So I think I had that one to one relationship. It felt like I was writing to one person.
Stephanie Woodward:So then promotion, it's the same way. I mean, in my business now, I don't think of it as sales or marketing or promotion. For me, it's always about connection. It's always about relationship. And so that makes it easier for me when I picture the people I'm talking to and who it's gonna help. It doesn't feel like promotion anymore, so it’s never feels scary.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. Well, and it's also something that sounds so aligned in accordance with their values that it's easy to talk about it cuz it's like, who wouldn't need this? You know.
Stephanie Woodward: This I want us all creating lives by our own design. I want us all listening to our inner voice rather than the external factors. I so want this conversation to happen for people and for them to be thinking about this for themselves, and it just makes me so happy to think of people creating a life by their own design and their own choosing and for their own values and fulfillment.
Stephanie Woodward: Makes me really excited.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, Yeah. Ugh. I can't wait for everyone to read it. So where can we find it?.
Stephanie Woodward: It is on Amazon, so right now it's Amazon, it will be Barnes and Noble. And I don't think you have Chapters Indigo in the US, but for any Canadian folks listening, it'll be on Chapters Indigo, our equivalent of Barnes and Noble, but both within the next four weeks. But right now it's on amazon.ca, amazon.com, and amazon.co.uk.
Steph Barron Hall: Perfect. Gonna put that in the show notes, and I have my final two questions. So, I mean, you can say your book if you want to for this of course. Uh, but tell me about a book that has helped you, refreshed you or shaped you in the last year.
Stephanie Woodward: I'm not gonna say my own book. I'm gonna have to cheat. I wasn't gonna, I was gonna try to answer your question and answer with one, but I'm gonna cheat and say two of them. Atlas of the Heart, Brene Brown, and Fierce Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff. So those two have been massively eye opening and transformational for me over the last year,
Steph Barron Hall: What do you think it is about those, especially Atlas of the Heart? Like what did that highlight for you?
Stephanie Woodward: The specificity around emotion, so the number of times the word ‘overwhelm’ that's the one that sticks out most in my mind for me. The number of times people in my circles use the word ‘overwhelm’. And when Brene started to talk about this, the word you use impacts your body at a biological level. So using a word like overwhelm can overdramatize and have you end up going into a very strong stress response.
Stephanie Woodward: Instead of saying, I actually feel stressed, or I feel time crunched something else, rather than using these words. So choose the language influences how it gets expressed. That to me was mind blowing,
Steph Barron Hall: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie Woodward: RIght? So I choose my emotions very carefully. Now when I describe them,
Steph Barron Hall: Oh
Stephanie Woodward: Yeah, as a result.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. We have the same-ish background in terms of education. I love thinking about that psychology with the communication layer in there.
Stephanie Woodward: Oh yeah, a good combo.
Steph Barron Hall: Okay. And finally, what is a piece of advice that has really stuck with you?
Stephanie Woodward: So I believe that, I think it's Maya Angelou, and this always comes to mind for me. People will forget what you said, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. That is something that I think about almost every single day. And I do watch what I say. So I'm not running, I don't say anything, but I really am very mindful always about, or I try to be about the impact I'm having on other people.
Stephanie Woodward: And how have I left them feeling? So even if I feel rushed and I have to deliver this message to someone, how can I deliver this in a way that honors that other person and leaves them feeling respected and seen? So that has always, when I first read that by the wonderful Maya Angelou, it has stood with me. It has stuck with me ever since.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, it's such good advice and I think, I love the simplicity of it too, because it's like you don't have to climb mountains to make a big impact. It's just how you make people feel in the little moments.
Stephanie Woodward: Just be kind and it doesn't mean you're going soft or you can't deliver a tough message, or you can't disagree on something, but you're talking to another human How are you gonna leave them feeling at the end of the conversation?
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. Such a good reminder. Okay, I think that's all the questions I have. I'm so glad we were able to do this. I'm so excited about your book coming out. So exciting and yeah, I hope that everyone gets to listen, gets to read it, everything.
Stephanie Woodward: Thanks Steph. This is great. I feel like we could talk for another hour.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. Thank you.
Thanks so much for listening to Enneagram IRL. If you love the show, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating and review. This is the easiest way to make sure new people find the show. And it's so helpful for a new podcast like this one, if you want to stay connected sign up for my email list in the show notes or message me on instagram at Nine Types Co to tell me your one big takeaway from today's show I'd love to hear from you.
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The Enneagram and real life podcast is a production of Nine Types Co LLC. It's created and produced by Stephanie Barron Hall. With editing support from Brandon Hall. And additional support from Critz Collaborations. Thanks to Dr Dream Chip for our amazing theme song and you can also check out all of their music on Spotify.
