Welcome to This Organized Life.

If you're a mom, wife, or coffee lover seeking advice on how to reduce clutter and reclaim time, look no further than your host, Louri Palau, Founder Simply Be Organized and author of Hot Mess, a practical guide to getting organized.

For a lot of people, clutter is their dirty little secret, but it doesn't have to be.

Each week, we will.

Share practical tips, chat with experts.

And provide strategies on how to keep you organized.

I hope that by sharing our stories you feel a little less alone and more empowered to tackle the areas that are holding you back.

So let's get started.

And Hi everybody, and welcome to today's episode of This Organized Life podcast.

I am your host, Lori Palau, and if you've been listening to us for a while, you know that we are kicking off a new summer series that I am very, very excited about.

So, as many of you know who have been longtime listeners, I've been focusing a lot of my work in the past couple of years about the enneagram.

We talk about it a lot, will reference it and how it relates to people's relationship with clutter, clutter, and organization.

On all different levels.

And about two years ago and I was just kind of getting into this.

I had done a series back then and it was wildly popular.

I got lots of emails and dms and people saying, this is so great, so fast thing, we want to have more of this.

So I felt now is the time.

I thought, summer's a good time for us to really be unpacking this.

And I know I kind of weave it in here and there, but I thought, why don't we go through each of the enneagram types, have guests on that can speak to their experience as that type, use their own language to give some insight and perspective into the characteristics of that particular type and how they relate, respond react to clutter and organization.

So I am very very excited for my anagram.

One guest so joining me today is Andrew Lang.

And Andrew is an aneagram.

He's like an anagram expert.

He for any of you who are familiar with the anagram.

He learned and studied under Richard Rohre, who is like the holy Grail of the anagram.

So I mean, just talk about like two degrees of separation from Richard Wore, which is kind of a big deal.

And Andrew is also an author, as new book is going to be coming out.

We're going to talk about that.

And he's an anagram one which identifies as the perfectionist or the improver, and we're going to let him.

Talk about that.

And when I mentioned that I was going to be doing this series, he said, I would love to come on and talk about this, and I thought it would be great to hear not only from somebody that comes from the anagram world, not so much the clutter and organization world, but also a guy.

I love having other perspectives other than a lot of my women, because I think that sometimes it's nice to be able to learn from other people in other walks of life.

And so I'm very, very excited to welcome my new friend Andrew to the show.

So welcome Andrew.

It's so good to be here.

I'm like so happy and excited for the good conversation.

Yes, this is great, and I did say to you, and for anybody that's listening, I apologize in advance.

Hopefully I will not call.

I woke up with some allergies, thought it might be COVID, but it wasn't, so I just have.

A little bit of a I don't know congestion or whatnot, so hopefully something.

So I'm gonna let you do most of the heavy lifting and talking today.

Welcome to the show.

Very excited to have you here.

Gave our listeners a real top line overview, but just in your own work, tell them a little bit about who you are, and then we can talk about you know, the Enneagram.

Yeah, So, my name's Andrew Lang.

I am a trained high school teacher and educator.

I'm now working in the nonprofit world, but I've been a teacher for most of the last seven years, and then on my on my days off or in the evenings, I run workshops and facilitate classes, really focusing on inner work.

A lot of the stuff I consider shadow work, but it's really in line with the enneagram questions of who am I really?

How can I unpeel the layers of my personality to understand what really makes me to what are the parts of me that are are deep in there that maybe I cover up.

So I do a lot of work with folks around that, and then I am an enneagram one.

So part of that is just looking out into the world and seeing all the things that need to be fixed and trying to hold myself back.

I was gonna say, I just try to like you're talking to be like, I'm not going to do that.

So how did you get into How did you get into the anagram?

Look, give us your kind of story, walk us through that, and then we'll get into your Enneagram type.

I'm just curious what your story is.

Yeah, I got into the Enneagram through books.

I've been thinking about this.

I'm kind of in the lead up to today.

I believe that I was handed a Richard Rohrer Enneagram book years and years ago.

This is probably twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, and I was handed the book and I basically did nothing with it.

It sat on my bookshelf for a year or two, and then I was listening to one of his classes online or one of his videos online, and he mentioned it three, four or five times, and I thought, well, what the heck is this thing?

I know I have that book, and so I went back to it and it was just resonance the second I started reading, which I know is the story a lot of people have where they read about their type and for the first time they see an author or they hear someone saying words that they themselves could have said totally.

So that was my big introduction.

It was just I heard about it, I started reading it, and then I think I had a choice to make, and that is that the enneagram is often used kind of as like that party trick, you know, take this test what type are you?

And the choice I had to make was do I want to use it as that or do I want to start using it as a tool to really examine my life?

And so I took the second path, and that's that's pretty much what's led me down the lane of leading workshops and classes all that.

Yeah, I love it, and I often say the same thing.

I mean, I think it's great conversation starters, like it's fun to say, oh, this is what you know, this is my type, or this is I used to do it with Myers Briggs, right, So I was.

But I didn't do anything with it.

It was like I knew it, but then what do I do with that?

How do I apply it?

And what I love about the aneagram, especially in the work that we do here, is how can we use our strengths, How can we use the areas where we're struggling to be a healthier version of ourselves, specifically in the areas that hold us back with clutter, organization, and all of the other you know, ripple effects that come with that.

Because understanding it, so much of what we do has to do with motivation, and obviously that's that's.

Exactly that's it, and I think that's That's another aspect of why the Enneagram connected with me so quickly is that I know, so as a one, I'm known as like reformer, perfectionist.

You know, there's all these different labels.

Yeah, so I was gonna say, why you tell our listeners for that aren't familiar, give us an overview of what you are or a description of what the Enneagram one is.

Yeah, so the one is known as the reformer, the perfectionist, and those are labels for it.

I prefer to think of the Enneagram one through a couple kind of key elements of what makes my brain work the way it does, and that is one is the around motivation.

And my motivation is largely built around wanting to prove myself as good enough, and that is a core element of Enneagram one.

So for those of you that you know, that is a core part of who you are trying to strive, try to trying to figure out a way to show that you're good enough, or trying to run away from the feeling of not being good enough.

That is a one through and through.

We have another core element of the enneagram one is this idea of.

Like, we have this inner critic that's constant.

Talk about your inner critic, my giranlfriend, what does your inner critic have a name?

No, it doesn't.

I've thought about naming it, but I have actively maybe I don't need to do that today.

Okay, my friend has she And I asked her.

Because I'm in the process of writing my book on Enneagram, Maclutter, And I said, can I use your name?

But she's like, I can use my name?

And I said, did you ever name her?

She goes yeah, I go, what's your name?

She's like Medusa.

Oh my god, of course that's so good that I have a friend who has named hers.

But she's named her her inner critic, just the inner snark.

And so whenever we're talking and that critic kind of raises its head in her, she goes, oh, my inner snark is talking again.

And explain to people how the inner critic present stuff because I think it's really it's it's a really key part and it's very important.

And I again, especially as we connect the dots with the stuff that we're doing, I see it come up time and time again when I know somebody's an anagram one, and how the approach might differ with an anagram one, that it will with a different type one, you know, So just talk speak into that.

A little bit.

Yeah.

So, for someone's the inner critic has a name, it has a distinct voice, and for someone's it doesn't.

For me, there's a reason I haven't named mind.

It doesn't have a distinct voice.

It's more of a feeling.

But for both of these what the inner critic really shows up as is when we go through our day to day life, the inner critic shows up as a should monster.

You know, this voice in us that you should do this, you should do that, this is the right way to do it, this is the wrong way, And if you step out out of line, that inner critic gets louder and louder and says, no, dang it, why did you do that?

Look at what's going to happen?

Or for me, I first really noticed my inner critic I was going through some rough stuff in my personal life, and I would go on these long walks and I would find after, you know, walking four or five six blocks, I wouldn't remember any of the any of the things I'd walked past because my inner critic had just been having a conversation the whole time, and it would be like going through what you what I could have done differently, So I'd be replaying parts of you know, what have been happening in my life just go and go and going, Or I'd be thinking towards the future.

You know, when I go to work and I deal with this boss, I don't love?

What are the things I should do?

It's just brutal?

Just yeah, I know I feel I feel badly now.

I also want to make a distinction for people.

So this need to improve and please correct me if I'm wrong, right, because you obviously know way better than I do.

This I need to improve is very much self inflicted.

It's not it's like your responsibility.

Not I'm trying to improve other people.

I I'm just trying to hold myself.

I'm holding myself to this unachievable standard.

It's not that I'm walking into a room and I'm saying you should do this, and you should do that, and you.

Should do that.

Yeah, it's it's a bit of both.

But here's how it shows itself as a little bit of both.

Okay, ninety percent of it is internal.

It's me shoulding myself.

It's me saying all the ways that I need to be better.

But if I'm not aware of that, you know what happens when I walk into a space.

I project that outward outworking right when I walk into a space.

So I'll give an example when I walk into a school building.

One of the things that I think is just uniquely mine is I care a lot about physical space.

And so when I walk into a school building that doesn't have good signage or good lighting, or it doesn't feel, you know, just safe and wonderful, I immediately start thinking this needs to change.

This needs to change, this needs to change.

And so I do have that component, yes, that that is really manifesting as just some of my inner work that I haven't done yet.

Gotcha, No, And I think, and I think to a degree, to a healthy degree, it's okay to be able to walk and say this things could be improved, Like there's nothing.

Wrong with that.

But it's again, it's it's when do you cross the line to to be a judgment where it takes over.

I think that's the that's the that's the key.

And now I was going to ask you so as an educator, because I do obviously I want to talk about how your Enneagram one motivations and your behaviors play out when it comes to your physical space, when it comes to you know, I know my my one friend like she does like clutter as she gets like prickly, you know, it does not you know, I'd say, some people are you know, really sensitive to clutter, and other people are like clutter blind, you know, where they could just walk past that sinkful of dirty dishes and toys on the floor and whatnot.

I haven't found that to be the case with ones.

I've seen ones being very hyper sensitive to that.

And I'm wondering what your experience is if you could talk about.

That, I mean, yeah, all of that.

I'll give a very real example for me right now.

Two three days ago, my tire blew out while I was driving to work, and so I had to empty out pretty much everything in my trunk to get to the spare tire and then I loaded all back in, but when I got home, I emptied it all out again, and so currently in my living room I can see it from where I'm sitting right now.

There's just a giant pile of like a golf bag, tennis balls, tanks, right and I haven't had enough time in the last two days to like clean it up.

But this morning, when I walked out and I saw it, I just immediately went ooh, yeah, this aggression will not stand to do something here.

So probably the second we get done with this, I will put all of that stuff back into my trunk.

That is so funny, now, would you like that as a child too?

Was this something that you feel you can look back now and did you have an organized physical space?

There was definitely a right way and the wrong way to do things when I was a child, I think, and this is an aspect that I think has been uncovered more and more.

When I was a happy kid, you.

Know, I was a happy kid, and when ones are healthy and happy, a lot of that need for control, need for everything to be the right way, it goes into the background.

So I'm like, when I am super happy, you will just see someone laughing and humming and singing.

And I think that's how I really was as a kid.

Where it started showing up was in high school and into college, when I started having those questions of who am I?

My my faith and my religion had broken a part at that point.

So a lot of these like systems and belief systems that I had flux, And that's when you started seeing me identifying no, things need to be this way.

I need I need to make a spreadsheet for this.

Yes, love me a good spreadsheet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it's I think it is when we look at when we feel out of control in other areas of our lives.

We try to control what we can, and a lot of times that manifests in your physical stuff.

It manifests in.

You know, your space, whether that's loading the dishwasher a certain way, making the beds, doing you know, your regular day to day household chores.

Oh, the towels need to be folded this way versus it's not just good.

Enough that they're folded.

They have to be folded and set.

And again, I'm very much stereotyping people, I think, but I'm just trying to give some broadstroke like images or where when you're not healthy, it can manifest in these types of behaviors.

Now I'm curious, so you're as a teacher as it not I know you're not currently teaching as an educator, how does that play out with your students because you don't have kids of your own?

Correct?

Yeah, no, I do not.

Okay, I was going to say, so, I can't speak to the parent, you know that the parent relationship, but as an educator, and you were teaching high school, which you kind of look like a high school teacher you have, you had that like warm inviting high.

School teacher luck to you.

I was like, yeah, ex how did that?

How did that help you with your students?

And where do you feel like it maybe was a little bit stressful?

You know, I'll say the first thing is what all my my co teachers always laughed about.

I am the first one on campus always, And part of that was get to school an hour early because there will be chaos, so be prepared for it.

And I think that was part of a that was a defense mechanism that I know a lot of ones.

Have just how do we be overly prepared?

I think with my students, a lot of it was man, it has so much to do with inner work.

I came into teaching right as I really began therapy and began focusing on how do I become a healthier me?

And so one of the things I had to face most days in the classroom was this desire for things to be right or wrong, and then recognizing and swearing that with the fact that actually in spaces where high school kids are that there is so much more nuance yes, and there is so much more chaos and it's messy.

And so part of my work as showing up as a one, showing up as who I am, was to recognize what are my internal narratives that are healthy in a specific instance, and what are the ones I need to let go of.

And here's an example.

I had a student a few years ago who had a pregnancy scare, and she comes to me because I'm like the one teacher on campus who I'm always open to talk about pretty much anything.

She's just like, mister langyel, what am I gonna do right now?

Like what is this?

And we sat down and we were just chatting, and I felt my inner narrative start going around.

These are the things I was taught about teenage pregnancy.

These are the things I was taught and recognizing that moment, they're like, that's my stuff, that's not my students stuff.

What I can do here is set aside those that inner critic, that inner monologue, those inner narratives, and just give myself to listening and just give myself to being with this student in her moment of crisis and fear.

And so I think as a one stepping into spaces with students and spaces with young people, it's really a lot of setting down the inner narratives that are going on so that you can experience or try to experience more of what they are experiencing, and just listening, because I think that's where good advice comes from.

It's not from a space of trying to fix or advise, really, it's from a place of listening and mirroring probably the answer that that person already knows already.

Yeah, I love it, I love it.

I think it's a perfect place for us to take our quick break and then we're going to come.

Back and continue our conversation with Andrews.

So sit tight, Hey, friends, I hope you're enjoying our anagram and clutter summer series.

If you'd like to take it a step further, I'd love for you to check out our Anagram and Clutter courses.

We have a complete course that includes all nine types, or we have nine mini courses that are specifically geared to each individual Anagram type.

Each course has six modules, includes simple digestible content, video, audio, and printable downloads.

Not to mention journal prompts after each section that can help you with discussion and self discovery.

Whether you are an anagram.

Scholar or brand new the anagram, this is a great way for you to understand a little bit more about who you are and your relationship with clutter.

To learn more, visit Simply Be Organized again that simply the letter be like boy Organized dot com and click on the courses tab and click on any Graham and Clutter.

Now back to.

Our show, So Andrew in our space and I think this again, this will be interesting just because of the work that you were doing as a teacher and looking at clutter and organization as more than just the physical stuff.

It is also has.

To do with what I call emotional clutter, which is like guilt and fear, but it's also what I call calendar clutter, which has to do with organizing your time, not overscheduling yourself, not over committing.

And you know, I.

Think everybody, every Anyagraham type has the capacity the ability to get sucked into any three of those, any configuration of physical, emotional, or calendar clutter.

But I think there are certain types that lend itself.

Towards you know, one is more dominant than another.

And I'm just curious in your experience as an anagram one which one of those three types of clutter resonates with you most.

I mean, need me to explain them a little bit more I can.

But no, I think that's good.

Okay.

I want to say time.

And the reason I want to say time is that for me, there's never enough and I know that's true for lots of people, know there's never enough time.

But what's unique I think about ones is that it's not just that there's not enough time.

Is that there's not enough time to prove myself worthy or there's not enough time to be the good person that I want to be, And so a lot of it is is mixed up, not just in there's not enough time to you know, cook dinner, but there's not enough time to cook dinner and therefore I have failed.

And there's this like added piece to it.

And so I think time.

But I'd also say guilt.

Those two things I think go hand in hand for me.

Is you know, I I care deeply about honoring other people's times time and honoring my own time.

And when that doesn't happen, or when I don't rise to the bar that I've randomly set for myself, I will should myself.

I will get guilt myself for not doing enough, not being enough.

And I think that's where the work for me really comes in, is letting myself.

I think two parts.

There's the survival mechanism for me.

If I know that about myself, how can I provide myself more time to do things right right?

So, like I think of for me, A lot of my friends laugh about the fact that I use a project management tool for my normal day to day life, like the thing that they use at Microsoft.

And all the tech companies.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, it's too real.

But without it it works.

It allows but it helps you set boundaries.

It probably helps you with setting boundaries and saying this is I assigned this about of this block of time for this task or this project or whatever, and then now I can release myself that without having to revise improve.

Yes, one hundred percent.

And I think it it pairs nicely with you know, I usually over a lot myself time chunks to get things done.

And it's because of a quote I heard years ago, and I don't know who said it originally, but it's every expectation is a resentment waiting to happen.

Oh my gosh.

So so it's just and it hit me like a ton of bricks the moment I heard it, because I thought about my time and how much when I expect you know, I've got thirty minutes to get this done, and if that doesn't happen, I will instantly usually not you know, I won't know I'm doing it, but I will start building resentment for whatever or whoever got in the way of that task getting done, because it's not about the task, it's about me.

It's about my goodness, right, because you're worth in your mind is to to.

That.

Yeah, And I think and I think that's so fascinating.

So when I talk to people a lot of times when it comes to the clutter organization piece, there a lot of.

Times ones will.

A lot of the ones that I've talked to will say I feel like I just need to do it all till they hit the breaking point.

I am.

I am doing this.

I will I'll make dinner, and I will do all the laundry, and I will run to carpool and I will do all these things and have this checklist and they'll put it in asana and they'll have it all checked off, and then all of a sudden you hit this wall and you're like done, and then it and then it's just everyone has their breaking point, and so as opposed to being able to say it's okay, I can delegate this to somebody else, I can relinquish control.

I don't have to do that.

So how what are some strategies that you have used that you can maybe share, because I'm sure there's people that are listening to just going, oh my gosh, that is so now, how can we help these people?

Obviously the work has to come from within yourself, but what are some things that you've done to.

Set those healthy boundaries.

I'll share two tools that have really really helped for me, and these are both tools that I teach in my classes.

So the first is there's a growing field of work, especially in therapy, called somatics, and it's this idea that our body is connected to our emotions, it's are connected to our brain, and so our body is not just a vehicle for a brain to move around.

And so the first.

Tool that has really helped me is whenever I feel stressed or I start thinking like, oh I'm getting out of control a little bit, I check in with my body what am I feeling right now?

Or I ask myself the question of where am I tense?

And almost every time my shoulders have ten stuff or for me, I grind my teeth quite a bit, and.

So my teeth.

I'm not an anagram one, but I am a teeth grinder.

Oh yeah, I mean it's definitely like yeah, so it's definitely a thing.

Yeah.

So I think the first one is body check ins.

Whenever you feel stressed or out of control, check in with yourself what is your body doing right now?

Because the body is always just giving you flags.

The body is a good thing for you.

It's just giving you flags you know, what what are you feeling?

And then the second tool kind of goes hand in hand with it, and it's a It's a phrase I heard a long time ago, and it goes like this, it is what it is, and how can I be present with it in a loving way?

And I like that?

Yeah, and that has What's great about it is that it can work internally and externally.

So whenever you notice an emotion come up, or whenever I notice you know something in the world, an injustice that I see, I start with saying, all right, it is what it is.

Let's get a let's get a good idea of what are the actual things that are happening and that people are experiencing or that I'm experiencing.

And then not how can I fix it or save it or correct it, but how can I be with that experience, with the people who are in that or with myself with that emotion in a loving way that's healing not harming.

So I think those are those are two tools that I use pretty regularly.

I love it.

I think that's great, and I do want to just Also, I'm curious about something because that you said earlier, and I wanted to come back to it when you were talking about showing up like an hour early for school or being the first person there.

I've also found punctuality to be very very important to anagram ones.

Yeah, for themselves and for other people, as you know, like it's and it's funny.

My husband's in any my husband's at any gram three and he is, but punctual and punctuality is a really big thing for him.

And my daughter, who's a four, has no concept of time.

Yeah not I don't know.

If it's a four thing or that just a her thing, but it is like a and punctuality is just something that And I don't know for me because I value punctuality and time and I'd always attributed it just to the fact of what I do for a living, and like I just have all these organizing practices, not even really factoring in the anywhere a part of it.

But I'm wondering if you see some.

Connection point between that responsibility and respect for other people's time and your enneagram type.

Oh yeah, so when I am late, I start spinning.

I refer to it as my tornado.

If I am late to an event or late to something, I will immediately start going down this just like you know, why did you do that?

Why didn't you plan more?

Why didn't you you know a lot of shoods, right, And so I think punctuality has a direct connection there, and I want to I want to name that.

The thing that really opened the enneagram up for me instead of seeing all these different numbers and types as you know boxes, right, is that all of us have all this stuff in us, right, We're whole people.

It's it's just these types are what we for one reason or another.

And there's lots of lots of theory on how this has happened.

These types are just, for one reason or another, what we lean into through and led more in our life because of our childhood experiences, our wounds, stuff that happened to us, you know, middle school age, right.

And so I think for me, when I think about time and punctuality, a lot of that just comes down to I'm still just trying to prove myself.

I'm still just trying trying to prove to other people that you know that I'm worth being in the room.

Yes, yeah, I love that.

That is so good.

What would be And again, I know you're not a parent, but.

You were an educator and so working with kids and watching and observ being their development.

What's an advice or strategies that you can suggest to people because for me, I didn't learn the anagram until my kids were grown, so I had already screwed them up beyond repair, Like there's.

Just them, and you know, I'm like, oh god, if I could have like, now that I know the anagram, I'm like, oh, I probably said I could not have said a worse thing to you as an anagram nine.

Then you know, stand up for yourself, like what so.

But if there are parents out there that are listening, that still have the opportunity to learn this as a tool for themselves and how to.

Relate with other people, and maybe they suspect their kid is a one, what can you offer to them of how to help nurture them to be a healthy version of themselves.

Yeah, what comes to mind immediately is one, don't try to type your kid when they're like three years old.

Oh my gosh, yes, so true.

So there's so much danger in going around and this goes for not just kids, but anyway going around and like force typing people is so damaging.

So don't do that.

I think the biggest.

Thing for parents when they are working with the enneagram as a relationship tool, right, trying to figure out how can I support or nourish my child?

I think, honestly, the biggest thing is to do the inner work for your type.

The biggest thing you can do to help your kid is to show up as the best you that you can.

And I think that goes hand in hand with and listen, yeah, I'll name for my I have a couple of friends who are parents and are Enneagram ones and what they often experience, and this is not unique to ones, what they often experience is this feeling of you know, the child does something ridiculous and the parent immediately thinks they shouldn't do that, or that's wrong or that's you know, and so there's this jump to correct and I think one from the educational lens and child development lens, we know like that can be really damaging when a parent steps in and start saying this is right and this is wrong to basic childhood behavior of exploring their bodies and exploring the world.

I think from an enneagram one perspective, when you see something that maybe goes against what you're trying to, you know, teach your child, have the conversation and open the conversation with a question, you know, what are you thinking when.

You do this.

Why do you do this?

Because if we can learn one thing from community development folks who are community organizers, there's a saying says questions are more important than answers, and with kids, that is everything because by questioning, by asking a question, you're honoring their voice, you're honoring their experience.

So I would say to parents, so good, start with the experience of your child with asking a question, and just hold off on your own inner stuff.

You know, hold that part of you back until you've worked with it and you know what a healing and positive response might look like.

I love it.

Oh my gosh, so so good.

I love this.

Tell us about your book, where can they find you?

I want you to plug that away because we didn't talk about that.

So talk.

Let's talk for a couple of minutes about your book.

We didn't give a chance to that, and then we'll go to our last break, So talk away.

Yeah.

So my book is coming out in November of this year, so twenty twenty two.

It's titled Unmasking the Inner Critic Lessons for Living an Unconstricted Life.

So it's basically this conversation.

I was like, could this not be more perfect?

I can't wait to read it.

Yeah, it's so rooted in my experience with the enneagram, but also my experience with was just going through the world and what are the spiritual teachings that help people move through their fears?

And that's what the book is really about.

It it's looking at nine of the core fears that humans experience.

So I'm not good enough, I'm not in control, lovable, and what different spiritual teachers from different traditions have taught to move through those fears.

And I think the one piece that's really unique for me and important for me is that a lot of people approach these things and an intellectual level, and the intellectual level is not ultimately transformative.

Often it's about embodiment.

So throughout the book there are body practices that will help you move through some of those fears.

There are journaling questions and prompts to help you process.

And really it's a book I've been telling people.

When I first started writing it and I realized it was going to be a book, I had this thought that for the first time of my life, I'm writing something very much for me, from me, and then realizing, oh, and this, this will be good for others.

Too, exactly.

I love it.

That's amazing.

I think it's so good.

And again, what I love what you said because I say this all the time.

The aneagram just like any of the there are so many other things that the enneagram is a great tool to use.

And when you're talking about relationships, whether it's interpersonal relationships, whether it's relationships at work, whether it's relationships with clutter and organization and how that manifests itself, having that understanding and having language to be able to apply is so helpful because a lot of times we just don't have the language and we know we feel a certain way, or we think a certain way, we're acting a certain way, but we don't have we don't know how to articulate that.

So for me, what I love about the enneagram is it's given me language and it's given me context to be able.

And then people are like, yes, that's it.

And then once you can understand that, and you can then temper your approach to lean into that person and really maximize their straths.

So much I immediately think, before we go to break this, this is my final thing.

What I really hear there?

What I hear there?

And I think it's so vital is when you have a word to describe an experience, all of a sudden, you can notice that experience more right.

You're like, oh, that's my inner critic, and so I think that's also part of the work.

If nothing else, start naming the experiences you have so that you can recognize them more.

So good, Yes, I love it, it's so good.

Absolutely all right.

Now we are going to take a break.

We'll be right back, and we're going to just put you in the hot seat for our wrap up.

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Our SBO Partner program.

It's a community of professional organizers from all over the globe who are running their own independent companies but looking for community and some business strategies on how to grow and scale their business.

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All right, this has been such a insightful conversation.

I love it.

I could talk about the anagram all day long, but I want to ask you the questions that we ask all of our guests at the end of our episodes.

So obviously you've inspired us.

And I know that there's a lot of work that you've read that has been inspirational in your life.

What book and it could be lighthearted, it could be serious.

Whatever.

Is there a book that is one that you go back.

To or that if somebody were to say, what's been transformational in my life?

What is that book?

Oh?

I was actually thinking about a different one, but then you said that you go back to, and so I'll name the book that I go back to the most and it has been really deeply transformational for me.

Is It's a book called Wild Mercy by Mirabi Star And the book really looks at I can't remember the subtitle from my head, but it's all about what feminine manifestations of divinity there have been in lots of different cultures, lots of different spirituality.

I think that I think the subtitle is living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the women mystics.

Wow that you remember that off the top of your head.

We're going to link up to it.

Don't worry, but we're going to link.

Up to all the things.

So it's so good.

Though I cannot recommend that book enough.

It just touched my heart in anyways, Oh, I love it.

I love it, okay, And I always I selfishly ask that question because I was in a book, so I'm.

Like, oh, yeah, of course.

And then in this particular season of your life, because there are some areas where we are thriving and feeling really organized, and there are other times where we feel like a little bit.

Of a hot mess.

And maybe your hot mess moment is the pile of golf club sitting to your left.

I don't know, but where do you feel like you're really.

Thriving right now in the world of like organization, and where do you feel like you need a little TLC?

The TLC is I'll start with that one.

It's definitely in my physical space right now.

It's the golf clubs.

It's the fact that I haven't mopped the floor in a couple of weeks.

It like I just I've been on the move, so I've I've got some physical space that.

Today is going to be a clean up day.

I think I'm feeling really amazing.

Though.

In my professional life, I once again this is very viniagram one, but my project board is full of accomplishable tasks, easy things.

Maybe not easy, but like things that I know I can do in a timely manner.

And so when I look out into the next week two weeks, I actually just I feel really good right now.

I'm feeling organized.

I'm feeling ready to go.

That's awesome.

I love that.

I love that so well.

Thank you, and just so I know, we'll put in the showes.

But give everyone your website too, because I'm not sure if you mentioned that, So just give them your website, rightyway, that's listening.

Y'all can reach me at Andrewglang dot com and then also on Instagram at my handle is Andrew g Lang as well.

You got it all right, And of course we'll have all all things Andrew Lang in our show notes podcast page wherever, on YouTube, and in all.

Your podcasts apps.

So, Andrew, thank you so much, thank you for kicking off this series.

I'm super excited, thank you to have you here.

I think it's gonna be great.

We're going to have lots of people coming from different perspectives and different walks of life talking about their experiences with understanding the enneagram.

So I hope you tune in next week when we talk two.

We actually have a two to three combo coming to us, so make sure you tune in for that, And if this is your first time tuning into our show, make sure you click the subscribe button or follow whatever they're calling it these days so that you never miss an episode.

Follow us on social media and shoot us a note if there's an episode that you would like to hear topic.

We always want to hear from you, So until next week, I'm Lord Bloud.

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