April 26, 2010 • 24 mins
The Enneagram Personality Test evaluates a person's character based on nine different personality types and a geometric figure called an enneagram. Molly, Cristen and a special guest take a closer look at the enneagram and the nine types in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump mom never told you?
From House to works dot com. Hey, welcome to podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristen. Kristen. I've got something
(00:21):
to it to share that might be a bit embarrassing.
Sometimes when I am killing time, when I'm just bored
and I you know, just can't muster the energy to
even read a book or try on the television, I
go to the internet and I take personality quizzes. Oh
that's embarrassing, Molly. Well, I've taken some embarrassing ones in
my time, like what you know, what designer shoes are you?
(00:43):
I mean like and things like that, Yeah, like what's
your perfect city to live in? And you know, sometimes
they seem right, and sometimes they seem like a ten
year old wrote them. But it's always a good time.
It's fun to learn things about yourself that you can
only learn by aunts in questions. Yeah, and I love
clicking clicking clicking on the internet. Yeah, it's a good workout. Well, Molly,
(01:07):
this podcast was just tailor made for you. Then it
was I had a good time this week learning all
about myself. Yes, because Molly and I both explored something
called the Aniogram personality test, and I've never heard of
this test before, But essentially, you answer some questions. You
can take a free sample tests of this on the
internet and there are nine possible results that you can get,
(01:30):
and your result will tell you about your personality, both
its strong points and its weaknesses. Right, It's supposed to
describe more the why we do what we do based
on our personality rather than how exactly we behave And
aniogram is represented visually by a circle, and then there's
(01:50):
a triangle in the middle and all of these other
points spanning out from it in a symbol called an
ani agone. Right, It would be helpful to have a
visual for this, because it's kind of part really describing
it well at all. When you go online to take
your sample test, you'll see the circle on the nine
points and the and the shapes right, and those all
the all the different shapes and are divided into three
(02:11):
groups or three triads that are kind of broken down
by I guess what sort of rules your behavior, such
as your heart or your mind or your intuition. So
now this this might take a while, But why don't
we just go ahead and go through and give a
brief description of all the possible personality types. Okay, well,
the first personality type is UH labeled as instinctive or perfectionist,
(02:35):
and this person's core motivation is to be right, good, correct,
and justify themselves. Um. But on the flip side of that,
they also have a background emotion of anger manifested as
criticality and compulsive, and a compulsive need to improve the
things around them. So you can kind of see, just
with that example, how there's good things with all of
these and they are bad things alright. The second type
(02:58):
is the caregiver, very helpful person, wants to be loved,
wants to be close to others, very warm, attentive to others,
needs just a great friend to have. But when they
don't get what they want, they become very aggressive resentful. Um,
you know, they just kind of act how they want
and you know they want something back for all that
sacrifice they've done. And the next step we've got number three,
(03:21):
which is the high achiever image focus who is really
into pleasing others, um, being successful, just really going forward
and trying to be the best at the same time.
They have an underlying lack of self recognition and a
problem with generating true self esteem. They're almost so driven
towards their goals that they lose sight of other things
around them, all right. Type four is the individualists. This
(03:43):
person is very introspective UM. Wants to express their emotions
usually through art. Their very into artistic expression. They like
to think about their feelings. Uh. They emphasize, you know,
their uniqueness, but they're also very withdrawn from their emotions
and maybe shot self conscious. They struggle with low self
image UM, and they might just sort of be you know,
(04:05):
alienated and in their own world, not not very good
with relationships. And then we've got number five, who are
more of the detached type, and they like to observe
and understand because become an expert in a certain uh
subject area, and they really want to comprehend the world
by understanding it and kind of making it feel safe
for themselves. At the same time, they're sort of relationship
(04:28):
avoidance there. They just pull into themselves all right. Personally,
Type number six, their core motivation is to have security.
They respond very well to authority. They can anticipate problems,
you know, they want to fit in their friendly practical
very much interdependence um. But when they have unhealthy manifestations
(04:49):
of type six, then they become fearful and secure. They're
scared of punishment. They can get paranoid. Um, you know,
they don't like nonconformists. And then we've got verse seven,
which is uh, the adventurous type, and that really kind
of says it all about their positive attributes. And then
their unhealthy functioning is not surprisingly um, low impulse control,
(05:11):
strong appetites. Um. There, I guess maybe you can beat food.
Adventurous as well and sort of racing ahead. They're mentally
just raising a head without taking all the necessary steps
to to reach their goals. Type eight is very much
the alpha type personality. They're strong, they want to maintain
dominance x their power. They're very protective and confident aggressive um,
(05:35):
but they like to wheel control over their environment so
that you know, can get them into some trouble. And
they also see the world as doggy dogs, so they
might get very combative. It may um you know, step
on other people to get what they want. And then
to round things up, we have number nine and they
are the calm ones. Their core motivation is to feel
(05:55):
peaceful and tranquility, undisturbed, connected to other other individuals. But
on the flips side, they really don't exert themselves to
relate to their environment in a meaningful way. They're almost
just so peaceful that they just kind of fade out, say,
into the background. Yeah. When you read them like this,
(06:16):
both the positive and the negative, you're probably thinking, none
of these describe me. I don't want to be any
of these personality types. But rest assured that these were
just very brief overviews, and um, when you actually read
the more extended versions, which you can easily find on
the internet, you might be able to pick out better
exactly which one applies to you. Or you can take
an online quiz. As I've mentioned, I love these, so
(06:38):
as soon as Kristin sent me some links, I was
taking quizzes just all all the livelong day. And do
you want to guess? I told Kristin. I can't make
a guess. I am a four slash five, which means
I love my little fantasy world. I'm constantly seeking knowledge
an artistic expression, which I guess makes sense if you're
a writer for how stuff works, because you take and
(07:00):
all the knowledge and you put it back out into
an article or a podcast. Um, but you know, I'm
a very relationship appointed and not good with me. You
know my self image, and you guys are just learning
a lot about me obviously just through knowing my number.
I feel like we should be sitting on a comfy
couch and and lowsen lighting right now. Really good? Um, I,
(07:20):
Molly am personality type three. I'm the high achiever image focus,
also high anxiety type who is so focused on really
taking over the world that I might lie my way
to get there. You're very success story, which I think
you know. As your podcast partner, I can only hope
(07:41):
you'll take us all the way at the top. Yes, yes, Molly, Now, Molly, Well,
it's very interesting to find out this stuff about ourselves,
which we'll get into more in depth later in the podcast.
I thought one of the most interesting things about this
whole angiogram personality test was sort of the history behind it, right.
I think it's interesting to know where this test came from,
(08:02):
so that we might give it a bit more weight,
a bit more consideration than we would to just you know,
an okay Cupid quiz. Um. So, now, the actual symbol
of the neogram is very old UM dates back to
ancient times Pythagoras Uh. The concept of the nine personality
types comes from very old teachings from the fourth century
the Kabbalah, which began the twelfth century UM ancient Sufi teachings.
(08:27):
But the tests as we know it today is actually
not that old. No, this this test was more developed
in the nineteen sixties. It was basically the symbol itself
of the adiagon was brought to the West around nineteen
hundred and then from there it's sort of been uh
developed by UM a group of people over the years
(08:49):
into this personality test. In fact, when the names you
might see associate with a lot is a guy named
Don Riso and so his size where we got a
lot of our information, and but we also have the
chance to get a lot of information from someone who
knows a lot about this. Her name is Lisa Oz.
She is the wife of doctor amment Oz and says
she's been on his show a lot. She hosts the
(09:11):
Doctors Show on the Oprah radio channel. She's written books,
and she's very much into spiritual teaching. So she was
the perfect person to talk to you about this. So
let's get let's get some information from her about this, right,
because Molly, the first thing that that Lisa is going
to talk about is the fact that while you and
I love taking these quizzes, you really don't even have
to go online to take a quiz to find out
(09:32):
your neogram type at all. And you know you don't
have to take the test if you read the nine
different personality types fairly quickly, even though you at first
you'll see yourself in all of them, and then you
review them and you'll say, well, I'm definitely not a
one and nine or a seven, and you can start
narrowing them down. Um, usually you'll get to like two
(09:53):
or three, and if you just sit with them for
a day or two, suddenly one will hit you. It's
usually when you have that dread feeling like, oh my gosh,
I'm of whatever. It is. Like my brother in law
for examples of four, and he's very artistic, he's a director,
and he always liked to see himself as very unique.
When he saw himself on papers completely mapped out, it
(10:15):
was he was overcome with this feeling of dread. But
he was a cliche and the worst thing you could
be as a four, as a cliche, So it will you.
You don't need to take the test, you can you
kind of have an instinctive knowledge and self awareness. The
other thing is there are a lot of books out
there now. There didn't used to be, but more and
more every day you'll see books being published. Um. Again,
(10:36):
my favorite is Richard Rore's book on the Instagram because
it does have the spiritual dimension and is not just
I'm this number and leave it at that. It really
is about um, a path and growth and becoming more
fully who you actually are. All right, Christen, So we
have determined you know that we are. You know you
are a three. I am the three, I am a
(10:58):
four slash five depending on the day. Um, But actually
you really do. According to these teachers, you are sort
of one all the time. It's your home base. You
may see a little bit of yourself and all of them,
but there's one that's sort of your core base. So
for for lack of a better because I just can't
pick well, Sam a five, what do we do with
this information? Like? Is it just good to know you
(11:20):
know a number you can throw around? Is it a
good pickup line? Like hey baby, I'm five. See I
don't know that I would want to go out. I
don't think that saying hey, I'm the three would really
be that that great of a pickup one. But really, well,
the point of the niogram personality tests also is not
to to date, to find to find someone, uh to
(11:40):
cuddle up with on cold evenings. It's really learning to
cuddle up with yourself and making yourself a better person
to cuttle up with. Yeah, because the thing about the
uniogram that at least the really emphasized was the fact
that it's it represents your greatest strengths and also your
greatest weaknesses combined and understanding how all to uh to
(12:01):
to kind of deal with both of those on your
path towards personal development, because for instance, can we can
we talk a little bit about me? Well, of course,
because actually when Lisa explained your number to you, it
really made a lot of sense. Well, as you said,
any door you need to worry about being not being
a liar. It's good to know things about you. But no,
she said, no, She pointed out that yes, you do
(12:24):
have really high goals for yourself. You want to be successful,
You want to, as she put it, take over the world.
A lot of you know, famous people have gotten to
their places of power by being threes. I'm sure. Um. Yes.
In fact, my my celebrity three threes partners are Tom
Cruise and Demi Moore and Arnold Schwartzenega. I don't really
(12:47):
never really identified with that trio before, but now you know,
But now I know. But yeah, I mean supposedly I
have this need to be charming and seductive and drawing
attention to myself in my quest for greatness. But by
being charming and seductive, I might also be uh completely deceitful, right,
I mean, you know, you might go and to any
(13:08):
extent to get what you want, but just knowing that
about yourself, yes, gives you the way to change that
perhaps unconscious factor that you may be struggling with. And
now we know that when you are trying to take
over the world that you have to try and be
very you have to just just blay the utmost in integrity. Yes, now, Molly,
(13:29):
enough about me, let's talk about you. Talk. Well, what
I've learned, Kristen is that I can sometimes avoid Really
this sounds awful. I mean, this is the thing. It
can make you really uncomfortable when you see things about
yourself Kristen is really worried about being so anxiously image conscious.
But I I was troubled to find out just the
(13:49):
extent to which I will pull away from other people,
stay in my fantasy world and be melancholy and moody. Well,
you know you are among good company, though, Molly with
with other fives including Brad Einstein and Shad O'Connor and
Marilyn Manson no comment, But yes, I mean that's you.
(14:10):
Let's let's go out to Einstein instead of Marilyn Manson.
You can have the tendency I think if you are
trying to explain the world to yourself through knowledging facts,
to only hang onto those. And what I have to
learn how to do is to let other people take
the place of my cold hard facts. Well when people
let me down and facts never do well. Well, now
(14:34):
that we we know a little bit, we're just at
the beginning of this journey with the neogram. But Lisa
oz Is really kind of used her number two improve herself.
Could we say, yeah, I think we can say that.
So let's just hear from her about what how she
has used her number Well, the way that I've found
(14:56):
the anygram to be really helpful is in noting the
ways that I behave in a habitual manner um, you know,
just totally reflexively, unconsciously, without any awareness. The one thing
the anagram does is lets you see very clearly that
(15:16):
you are not as unique and um special as you
thought you were. And when you first see your numbers, like,
oh my gosh, this is me exactly how can I
be like a million other people? Um? But it let's
by seeing that though, it also gives you a better
understanding of yourself and allows you to forgive yourself for
some of the stuff that you do and let go
(15:39):
of your attachment to it and move on. So I
I've found it very personally liberating. Um. Also seeing that
within the anagram numbers, your greatest strength is also your
downfall and vice versa, that thing which you struggle with
mostly as you work through it becomes your greatest strength.
(15:59):
Searching about these personality tests, Molly and Um, the first
thing that popped up in my mind when I started
researching this was how is this personality test any different
or any more valuable than other tests such as Myers
Briggs Because you and I have actually taken the Myers
Briggs here how stuff works. We did a career development yes,
very HR friendly career development day where we all everybody
(16:22):
got together in a room thought out a MIAs Briggs
type and one of the things actually you and I
talked about that day, Kristen, was how our personality types
kind of work together and putting together this podcast. But
we found out from Lisa was that, you know, the
Myers Briggs can be very helpful, but the angiogram personality
tests is really a different animal. The difference between this
and the Myers Briggs UM and I have taken Myers
(16:44):
Briggs test, but I haven't really studied what goes into it. UM.
The difference with this is it's really something that you
want to use to transcend your most habitual behavior. UM.
With Myers Briggs, I think it's more of just a
labeling UM. I think a lot of spiritual directors use
(17:05):
the angiogram so that the people they work with can
get a better idea of where they are and then
use that as a tool to move forward. I don't
know that that the Myers Briggs has ever used in
that way, nor is like zodiac typing. You know, you
can be a libra, but you never moved beyond being
a libra. So now thinking about Kristen, you know, I
(17:26):
found out from Lisa that, you know, the aniogram is
more of a path forward, whereas the Myers Briggs just
sort of labels you. You know, you have to kind
of deal with the fact that that's who you are,
that you're an introvert or an extrovert, feeling, thinking, judgmental, etcetera,
all those things. But one cool thing when we took
that tests, we were able to sit down together and say,
how do our two personality types work together? Myers Briggs
(17:48):
personalities and uh I thought it was pretty illuminating. It
it shows sort of how we work together and put
together the podcast. And that was one of my questions
for Lates when we talked to her, is if I
am a five and Kristen is a three, are we
gonna be more successful? Are we gonna be doomed to clash?
I mean, I wanted to know really if if this
was gonna work out. And the comforting thing I think
(18:09):
about the Aniogram test is that there really isn't a
lot of information on you know, well, if you're a five,
then you need a nine, kind of like if you're
a sagittarius and you need your aries or whatever it is.
I just made that up, so astrology experts don't. Don't
get mad at me. Um. But the thing about the
aniogram is that it's more just um working on yourself
(18:31):
so that you can be better towards everyone. As Lesa
will say much more eloquently right now, it's really for me.
Knowing what other people's numbers are is only useful and
that it can generate more compassion because you see that
everybody's working from It's the the foundation of your Instagram
(18:52):
number is some childhood situation, some trauma that was developed
in childhood. Every single action is based ultimately on some
fear of not being adequate. So it's just the way
that you respond to that. Whether it's through being overly helpful,
or being um combative or being artistic. We all are
(19:15):
trying to find meaning and purpose and significance on these
different paths. So understanding that someone who drives you crazy
because they happen to be, you know, a certain number,
say a seven, and are way too cheerful when they
drive you nuts, when you understand that it's just their
way of responding to the same fears that you're responding
to in another way, it allows you to be a
(19:35):
little bit more compassionate with him. Well, what a great
note to end on more compassion for other people. I
think even if you don't buy into personality tests or
the anogram or anything any of this, I think that
it is helpful to remember that everyone's got something that
they're working on. Let's be compassionate, let's not judge. Yeah,
and I think that we can all agree that certain
aspects of our personality cause us to interact and react
(19:59):
to other people in certain ways and certain patterns that
can probably be improved. So whether your path to improvement
is the Inniogram personality test or just finding out what
kind of cocktail you are and going from there, you know,
we're all for that here, moms stuff. Yeah, we're all
about exploring, exploring in her mind. And if you do,
go take your angiogram personality test, frees, let me hear
(20:22):
from you, vibes, if you can bear to leave your
interior thought world is because threes we need to get
together in a collective unit to uh take over the world. Vibes,
We're just gonna kind of stay with their own thoughts
speaking of thoughts, we shall now read the thoughts of
our listeners who have already wittness in the email addresses
(20:42):
mom stuff at has stuff works dot com. I shall
start with an email from Isabel and Isabel and I
share the same birthday, by the way, and she wrote
a little story about how her birthday came to be
and it relates to our can You Get Pregnant on
Your Period? Podcast? We talked about how even when women
(21:03):
get pregnant, sometimes they have spotting a week or so
afterwards and under the and they're under the impressions there menstruating,
they think they're in the clear pregnancy wise. It made
me think of when my mom got pregnant with me.
She and my father been trying for a while to
get pregnant and they finally got a positive at home test.
A week or so later, my mom got her period
during work, so she called my dad. That night, she
was out with her friends and they were drinking and
(21:23):
since she wasn't preggers, she did shots with them. It
was for that reason as well that later in the
week she cleaned the apartment with some for lack of
a better term, anti pregnant women stuff that would cause
birth defects always good for a few more weeks, but
my mom still felt weird. She got a test done
at the hospital and she was indeed pregnant. She was
tested in tracked for the first six months of her
pregnancy with me and didn't tell anyone, even her mom
(21:45):
she was expecting, just in case the test showed up
that something was wrong with me. Well, there wasn't anything wrong.
I'm fifteen now, and so even if things go wrong
in the first few weeks of her pregnancy, you can
still turn out just fine and have a perfectly wonderful birthday. Excellent. Well,
I've got one here from Nick and this is in
response to our podcasts on body language, and he wanted
(22:06):
to describe the way he first met his now girlfriend,
who he is madly in love with. Um And here's
the story. He says. We were in the same couch
with her legs facing away from me, with her torso
in a neutral facing position. The eye contact was not constant,
and the arms were mostly busied and or crossed throughout
our initial conversation. Laughs and smiles on her behalf are
(22:27):
minimal and professional as well. It was very much a
situation where all signs were pointed to mediocrity in terms
of body language. What did give her away was the
slight anxiety I could sense in her general behavior. She's
a strong woman, and that was clearly a sign of
her being at least very concerned and how she was
presenting herself to me. I instinctively read her tell and
(22:48):
persisted to display my inviting body language along with pleasant
conversation to open her up. In the end, I was right.
We were both very attracted to one another on many
levels initially, but her body language strongly masked this. If
I hadn't continued with my agenda, we would have never
gone further to fall deeply in love. So number one,
Nick couldos to your insight and uh, number two congrats
(23:11):
on your being in love. So that's precious in its springtime.
But you know he does have a lesson you can
there are more than one. There's more than one tell yes,
and it's not just the head can't So guys, if
the ladies not canting doesn't mean you can't win, hereeverny.
(23:31):
Al Right, guys, that's what all we got today again.
Our email addresses mom stuff at how stuff works dot com.
And if you'd like to read an article about the
neogram personality test, I don't. Never to our website, it's
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff works dot com.
(23:52):
Want more house stuff Works, check out our blogs on
the house stuff works dot com home page. Yeah, brought
to you by the reinvented two thousand and twelve Camry.
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump mom never told you?
From House to works dot com. Hey, welcome to podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristen. Kristen. I've got something
(00:21):
to it to share that might be a bit embarrassing.
Sometimes when I am killing time, when I'm just bored
and I you know, just can't muster the energy to
even read a book or try on the television, I
go to the internet and I take personality quizzes. Oh
that's embarrassing, Molly. Well, I've taken some embarrassing ones in
my time, like what you know, what designer shoes are you?
(00:43):
I mean like and things like that, Yeah, like what's
your perfect city to live in? And you know, sometimes
they seem right, and sometimes they seem like a ten
year old wrote them. But it's always a good time.
It's fun to learn things about yourself that you can
only learn by aunts in questions. Yeah, and I love
clicking clicking clicking on the internet. Yeah, it's a good workout. Well, Molly,
(01:07):
this podcast was just tailor made for you. Then it
was I had a good time this week learning all
about myself. Yes, because Molly and I both explored something
called the Aniogram personality test, and I've never heard of
this test before, But essentially, you answer some questions. You
can take a free sample tests of this on the
internet and there are nine possible results that you can get,
(01:30):
and your result will tell you about your personality, both
its strong points and its weaknesses. Right, It's supposed to
describe more the why we do what we do based
on our personality rather than how exactly we behave And
aniogram is represented visually by a circle, and then there's
(01:50):
a triangle in the middle and all of these other
points spanning out from it in a symbol called an
ani agone. Right, It would be helpful to have a
visual for this, because it's kind of part really describing
it well at all. When you go online to take
your sample test, you'll see the circle on the nine
points and the and the shapes right, and those all
the all the different shapes and are divided into three
(02:11):
groups or three triads that are kind of broken down
by I guess what sort of rules your behavior, such
as your heart or your mind or your intuition. So
now this this might take a while, But why don't
we just go ahead and go through and give a
brief description of all the possible personality types. Okay, well,
the first personality type is UH labeled as instinctive or perfectionist,
(02:35):
and this person's core motivation is to be right, good, correct,
and justify themselves. Um. But on the flip side of that,
they also have a background emotion of anger manifested as
criticality and compulsive, and a compulsive need to improve the
things around them. So you can kind of see, just
with that example, how there's good things with all of
these and they are bad things alright. The second type
(02:58):
is the caregiver, very helpful person, wants to be loved,
wants to be close to others, very warm, attentive to others,
needs just a great friend to have. But when they
don't get what they want, they become very aggressive resentful. Um,
you know, they just kind of act how they want
and you know they want something back for all that
sacrifice they've done. And the next step we've got number three,
(03:21):
which is the high achiever image focus who is really
into pleasing others, um, being successful, just really going forward
and trying to be the best at the same time.
They have an underlying lack of self recognition and a
problem with generating true self esteem. They're almost so driven
towards their goals that they lose sight of other things
around them, all right. Type four is the individualists. This
(03:43):
person is very introspective UM. Wants to express their emotions
usually through art. Their very into artistic expression. They like
to think about their feelings. Uh. They emphasize, you know,
their uniqueness, but they're also very withdrawn from their emotions
and maybe shot self conscious. They struggle with low self
image UM, and they might just sort of be you know,
(04:05):
alienated and in their own world, not not very good
with relationships. And then we've got number five, who are
more of the detached type, and they like to observe
and understand because become an expert in a certain uh
subject area, and they really want to comprehend the world
by understanding it and kind of making it feel safe
for themselves. At the same time, they're sort of relationship
(04:28):
avoidance there. They just pull into themselves all right. Personally,
Type number six, their core motivation is to have security.
They respond very well to authority. They can anticipate problems,
you know, they want to fit in their friendly practical
very much interdependence um. But when they have unhealthy manifestations
(04:49):
of type six, then they become fearful and secure. They're
scared of punishment. They can get paranoid. Um, you know,
they don't like nonconformists. And then we've got verse seven,
which is uh, the adventurous type, and that really kind
of says it all about their positive attributes. And then
their unhealthy functioning is not surprisingly um, low impulse control,
(05:11):
strong appetites. Um. There, I guess maybe you can beat food.
Adventurous as well and sort of racing ahead. They're mentally
just raising a head without taking all the necessary steps
to to reach their goals. Type eight is very much
the alpha type personality. They're strong, they want to maintain
dominance x their power. They're very protective and confident aggressive um,
(05:35):
but they like to wheel control over their environment so
that you know, can get them into some trouble. And
they also see the world as doggy dogs, so they
might get very combative. It may um you know, step
on other people to get what they want. And then
to round things up, we have number nine and they
are the calm ones. Their core motivation is to feel
(05:55):
peaceful and tranquility, undisturbed, connected to other other individuals. But
on the flips side, they really don't exert themselves to
relate to their environment in a meaningful way. They're almost
just so peaceful that they just kind of fade out, say,
into the background. Yeah. When you read them like this,
(06:16):
both the positive and the negative, you're probably thinking, none
of these describe me. I don't want to be any
of these personality types. But rest assured that these were
just very brief overviews, and um, when you actually read
the more extended versions, which you can easily find on
the internet, you might be able to pick out better
exactly which one applies to you. Or you can take
an online quiz. As I've mentioned, I love these, so
(06:38):
as soon as Kristin sent me some links, I was
taking quizzes just all all the livelong day. And do
you want to guess? I told Kristin. I can't make
a guess. I am a four slash five, which means
I love my little fantasy world. I'm constantly seeking knowledge
an artistic expression, which I guess makes sense if you're
a writer for how stuff works, because you take and
(07:00):
all the knowledge and you put it back out into
an article or a podcast. Um, but you know, I'm
a very relationship appointed and not good with me. You
know my self image, and you guys are just learning
a lot about me obviously just through knowing my number.
I feel like we should be sitting on a comfy
couch and and lowsen lighting right now. Really good? Um, I,
(07:20):
Molly am personality type three. I'm the high achiever image focus,
also high anxiety type who is so focused on really
taking over the world that I might lie my way
to get there. You're very success story, which I think
you know. As your podcast partner, I can only hope
(07:41):
you'll take us all the way at the top. Yes, yes, Molly, Now, Molly, Well,
it's very interesting to find out this stuff about ourselves,
which we'll get into more in depth later in the podcast.
I thought one of the most interesting things about this
whole angiogram personality test was sort of the history behind it, right.
I think it's interesting to know where this test came from,
(08:02):
so that we might give it a bit more weight,
a bit more consideration than we would to just you know,
an okay Cupid quiz. Um. So, now, the actual symbol
of the neogram is very old UM dates back to
ancient times Pythagoras Uh. The concept of the nine personality
types comes from very old teachings from the fourth century
the Kabbalah, which began the twelfth century UM ancient Sufi teachings.
(08:27):
But the tests as we know it today is actually
not that old. No, this this test was more developed
in the nineteen sixties. It was basically the symbol itself
of the adiagon was brought to the West around nineteen
hundred and then from there it's sort of been uh
developed by UM a group of people over the years
(08:49):
into this personality test. In fact, when the names you
might see associate with a lot is a guy named
Don Riso and so his size where we got a
lot of our information, and but we also have the
chance to get a lot of information from someone who
knows a lot about this. Her name is Lisa Oz.
She is the wife of doctor amment Oz and says
she's been on his show a lot. She hosts the
(09:11):
Doctors Show on the Oprah radio channel. She's written books,
and she's very much into spiritual teaching. So she was
the perfect person to talk to you about this. So
let's get let's get some information from her about this, right,
because Molly, the first thing that that Lisa is going
to talk about is the fact that while you and
I love taking these quizzes, you really don't even have
to go online to take a quiz to find out
(09:32):
your neogram type at all. And you know you don't
have to take the test if you read the nine
different personality types fairly quickly, even though you at first
you'll see yourself in all of them, and then you
review them and you'll say, well, I'm definitely not a
one and nine or a seven, and you can start
narrowing them down. Um, usually you'll get to like two
(09:53):
or three, and if you just sit with them for
a day or two, suddenly one will hit you. It's
usually when you have that dread feeling like, oh my gosh,
I'm of whatever. It is. Like my brother in law
for examples of four, and he's very artistic, he's a director,
and he always liked to see himself as very unique.
When he saw himself on papers completely mapped out, it
(10:15):
was he was overcome with this feeling of dread. But
he was a cliche and the worst thing you could
be as a four, as a cliche, So it will you.
You don't need to take the test, you can you
kind of have an instinctive knowledge and self awareness. The
other thing is there are a lot of books out
there now. There didn't used to be, but more and
more every day you'll see books being published. Um. Again,
(10:36):
my favorite is Richard Rore's book on the Instagram because
it does have the spiritual dimension and is not just
I'm this number and leave it at that. It really
is about um, a path and growth and becoming more
fully who you actually are. All right, Christen, So we
have determined you know that we are. You know you
are a three. I am the three, I am a
(10:58):
four slash five depending on the day. Um, But actually
you really do. According to these teachers, you are sort
of one all the time. It's your home base. You
may see a little bit of yourself and all of them,
but there's one that's sort of your core base. So
for for lack of a better because I just can't
pick well, Sam a five, what do we do with
this information? Like? Is it just good to know you
(11:20):
know a number you can throw around? Is it a
good pickup line? Like hey baby, I'm five. See I
don't know that I would want to go out. I
don't think that saying hey, I'm the three would really
be that that great of a pickup one. But really, well,
the point of the niogram personality tests also is not
to to date, to find to find someone, uh to
(11:40):
cuddle up with on cold evenings. It's really learning to
cuddle up with yourself and making yourself a better person
to cuttle up with. Yeah, because the thing about the
uniogram that at least the really emphasized was the fact
that it's it represents your greatest strengths and also your
greatest weaknesses combined and understanding how all to uh to
(12:01):
to kind of deal with both of those on your
path towards personal development, because for instance, can we can
we talk a little bit about me? Well, of course,
because actually when Lisa explained your number to you, it
really made a lot of sense. Well, as you said,
any door you need to worry about being not being
a liar. It's good to know things about you. But no,
she said, no, She pointed out that yes, you do
(12:24):
have really high goals for yourself. You want to be successful,
You want to, as she put it, take over the world.
A lot of you know, famous people have gotten to
their places of power by being threes. I'm sure. Um. Yes.
In fact, my my celebrity three threes partners are Tom
Cruise and Demi Moore and Arnold Schwartzenega. I don't really
(12:47):
never really identified with that trio before, but now you know,
But now I know. But yeah, I mean supposedly I
have this need to be charming and seductive and drawing
attention to myself in my quest for greatness. But by
being charming and seductive, I might also be uh completely deceitful, right,
I mean, you know, you might go and to any
(13:08):
extent to get what you want, but just knowing that
about yourself, yes, gives you the way to change that
perhaps unconscious factor that you may be struggling with. And
now we know that when you are trying to take
over the world that you have to try and be
very you have to just just blay the utmost in integrity. Yes, now, Molly,
(13:29):
enough about me, let's talk about you. Talk. Well, what
I've learned, Kristen is that I can sometimes avoid Really
this sounds awful. I mean, this is the thing. It
can make you really uncomfortable when you see things about
yourself Kristen is really worried about being so anxiously image conscious.
But I I was troubled to find out just the
(13:49):
extent to which I will pull away from other people,
stay in my fantasy world and be melancholy and moody. Well,
you know you are among good company, though, Molly with
with other fives including Brad Einstein and Shad O'Connor and
Marilyn Manson no comment, But yes, I mean that's you.
(14:10):
Let's let's go out to Einstein instead of Marilyn Manson.
You can have the tendency I think if you are
trying to explain the world to yourself through knowledging facts,
to only hang onto those. And what I have to
learn how to do is to let other people take
the place of my cold hard facts. Well when people
let me down and facts never do well. Well, now
(14:34):
that we we know a little bit, we're just at
the beginning of this journey with the neogram. But Lisa
oz Is really kind of used her number two improve herself.
Could we say, yeah, I think we can say that.
So let's just hear from her about what how she
has used her number Well, the way that I've found
(14:56):
the anygram to be really helpful is in noting the
ways that I behave in a habitual manner um, you know,
just totally reflexively, unconsciously, without any awareness. The one thing
the anagram does is lets you see very clearly that
(15:16):
you are not as unique and um special as you
thought you were. And when you first see your numbers, like,
oh my gosh, this is me exactly how can I
be like a million other people? Um? But it let's
by seeing that though, it also gives you a better
understanding of yourself and allows you to forgive yourself for
some of the stuff that you do and let go
(15:39):
of your attachment to it and move on. So I
I've found it very personally liberating. Um. Also seeing that
within the anagram numbers, your greatest strength is also your
downfall and vice versa, that thing which you struggle with
mostly as you work through it becomes your greatest strength.
(15:59):
Searching about these personality tests, Molly and Um, the first
thing that popped up in my mind when I started
researching this was how is this personality test any different
or any more valuable than other tests such as Myers
Briggs Because you and I have actually taken the Myers
Briggs here how stuff works. We did a career development yes,
very HR friendly career development day where we all everybody
(16:22):
got together in a room thought out a MIAs Briggs
type and one of the things actually you and I
talked about that day, Kristen, was how our personality types
kind of work together and putting together this podcast. But
we found out from Lisa was that, you know, the
Myers Briggs can be very helpful, but the angiogram personality
tests is really a different animal. The difference between this
and the Myers Briggs UM and I have taken Myers
(16:44):
Briggs test, but I haven't really studied what goes into it. UM.
The difference with this is it's really something that you
want to use to transcend your most habitual behavior. UM.
With Myers Briggs, I think it's more of just a
labeling UM. I think a lot of spiritual directors use
(17:05):
the angiogram so that the people they work with can
get a better idea of where they are and then
use that as a tool to move forward. I don't
know that that the Myers Briggs has ever used in
that way, nor is like zodiac typing. You know, you
can be a libra, but you never moved beyond being
a libra. So now thinking about Kristen, you know, I
(17:26):
found out from Lisa that, you know, the aniogram is
more of a path forward, whereas the Myers Briggs just
sort of labels you. You know, you have to kind
of deal with the fact that that's who you are,
that you're an introvert or an extrovert, feeling, thinking, judgmental, etcetera,
all those things. But one cool thing when we took
that tests, we were able to sit down together and say,
how do our two personality types work together? Myers Briggs
(17:48):
personalities and uh I thought it was pretty illuminating. It
it shows sort of how we work together and put
together the podcast. And that was one of my questions
for Lates when we talked to her, is if I
am a five and Kristen is a three, are we
gonna be more successful? Are we gonna be doomed to clash?
I mean, I wanted to know really if if this
was gonna work out. And the comforting thing I think
(18:09):
about the Aniogram test is that there really isn't a
lot of information on you know, well, if you're a five,
then you need a nine, kind of like if you're
a sagittarius and you need your aries or whatever it is.
I just made that up, so astrology experts don't. Don't
get mad at me. Um. But the thing about the
aniogram is that it's more just um working on yourself
(18:31):
so that you can be better towards everyone. As Lesa
will say much more eloquently right now, it's really for me.
Knowing what other people's numbers are is only useful and
that it can generate more compassion because you see that
everybody's working from It's the the foundation of your Instagram
(18:52):
number is some childhood situation, some trauma that was developed
in childhood. Every single action is based ultimately on some
fear of not being adequate. So it's just the way
that you respond to that. Whether it's through being overly helpful,
or being um combative or being artistic. We all are
(19:15):
trying to find meaning and purpose and significance on these
different paths. So understanding that someone who drives you crazy
because they happen to be, you know, a certain number,
say a seven, and are way too cheerful when they
drive you nuts, when you understand that it's just their
way of responding to the same fears that you're responding
to in another way, it allows you to be a
(19:35):
little bit more compassionate with him. Well, what a great
note to end on more compassion for other people. I
think even if you don't buy into personality tests or
the anogram or anything any of this, I think that
it is helpful to remember that everyone's got something that
they're working on. Let's be compassionate, let's not judge. Yeah,
and I think that we can all agree that certain
aspects of our personality cause us to interact and react
(19:59):
to other people in certain ways and certain patterns that
can probably be improved. So whether your path to improvement
is the Inniogram personality test or just finding out what
kind of cocktail you are and going from there, you know,
we're all for that here, moms stuff. Yeah, we're all
about exploring, exploring in her mind. And if you do,
go take your angiogram personality test, frees, let me hear
(20:22):
from you, vibes, if you can bear to leave your
interior thought world is because threes we need to get
together in a collective unit to uh take over the world. Vibes,
We're just gonna kind of stay with their own thoughts
speaking of thoughts, we shall now read the thoughts of
our listeners who have already wittness in the email addresses
(20:42):
mom stuff at has stuff works dot com. I shall
start with an email from Isabel and Isabel and I
share the same birthday, by the way, and she wrote
a little story about how her birthday came to be
and it relates to our can You Get Pregnant on
Your Period? Podcast? We talked about how even when women
(21:03):
get pregnant, sometimes they have spotting a week or so
afterwards and under the and they're under the impressions there menstruating,
they think they're in the clear pregnancy wise. It made
me think of when my mom got pregnant with me.
She and my father been trying for a while to
get pregnant and they finally got a positive at home test.
A week or so later, my mom got her period
during work, so she called my dad. That night, she
was out with her friends and they were drinking and
(21:23):
since she wasn't preggers, she did shots with them. It
was for that reason as well that later in the
week she cleaned the apartment with some for lack of
a better term, anti pregnant women stuff that would cause
birth defects always good for a few more weeks, but
my mom still felt weird. She got a test done
at the hospital and she was indeed pregnant. She was
tested in tracked for the first six months of her
pregnancy with me and didn't tell anyone, even her mom
(21:45):
she was expecting, just in case the test showed up
that something was wrong with me. Well, there wasn't anything wrong.
I'm fifteen now, and so even if things go wrong
in the first few weeks of her pregnancy, you can
still turn out just fine and have a perfectly wonderful birthday. Excellent. Well,
I've got one here from Nick and this is in
response to our podcasts on body language, and he wanted
(22:06):
to describe the way he first met his now girlfriend,
who he is madly in love with. Um And here's
the story. He says. We were in the same couch
with her legs facing away from me, with her torso
in a neutral facing position. The eye contact was not constant,
and the arms were mostly busied and or crossed throughout
our initial conversation. Laughs and smiles on her behalf are
(22:27):
minimal and professional as well. It was very much a
situation where all signs were pointed to mediocrity in terms
of body language. What did give her away was the
slight anxiety I could sense in her general behavior. She's
a strong woman, and that was clearly a sign of
her being at least very concerned and how she was
presenting herself to me. I instinctively read her tell and
(22:48):
persisted to display my inviting body language along with pleasant
conversation to open her up. In the end, I was right.
We were both very attracted to one another on many
levels initially, but her body language strongly masked this. If
I hadn't continued with my agenda, we would have never
gone further to fall deeply in love. So number one,
Nick couldos to your insight and uh, number two congrats
(23:11):
on your being in love. So that's precious in its springtime.
But you know he does have a lesson you can
there are more than one. There's more than one tell yes,
and it's not just the head can't So guys, if
the ladies not canting doesn't mean you can't win, hereeverny.
(23:31):
Al Right, guys, that's what all we got today again.
Our email addresses mom stuff at how stuff works dot com.
And if you'd like to read an article about the
neogram personality test, I don't. Never to our website, it's
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff works dot com.
(23:52):
Want more house stuff Works, check out our blogs on
the house stuff works dot com home page. Yeah, brought
to you by the reinvented two thousand and twelve Camry.
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