Get your HEAD SHRUNK.....................

My Wife happened upon a great book this weakend written by Helen Palmer entitled "Enneagrams" I strongly reccomend you cancel your subscription to whatever Horoscope service you are reading, this is the real thing.

It's a circle that "gram" that has nine (ennea) personality traits in it. Now I've taken the Carnagie sales course that talks about assertive/responsive personalities, but this concept (taken from the Sufi culture) Nails it. When I finally found out what point on the gram represented me, it was like reading my autobiography without the names and dates. It pointed out simple things that I do, that I'm barely aware of, and explains them. The good news is, there is a plethora of information online about the enneagrahm. I reccomend that you go to this site and take the Personality questionarre.

Then go out and buy both of Helen Palmer's books. There's an introductory level book for the lay person called "The Enneagram made Easy" written by Renee Baron. It's sort of a "Enneagram for Dummies" type of book. (Lots of cartoons)

But if people can study the basic personality traits of not only themselves, but there mates or co-workers, you'll be able to establish a much healthier environment.
I paid about 35 bucks for both of Helen Palmer's books at Barnes and Nobles. And it's a bargain. You'll read stuff that you keep locked up in the back of your mind. It's not a feel good/warm and fuzzy self hellp book. It's a cold slap in the face "Look at YOU !!!!!" type of book.

My reccomendation is that you start with Helen Palmer's book "The Enneagram" then read the others. If you do a search for Enneagram in Yahoo and Google, you'll get many helpful and many not so helpful sites. The one I listed above with the questionare is one of the best websites I've come across. But my point being, read various resouces so you can be confident about which point of the enneagram represents you. You may possess behavioral patterns of several, but when you read the background or "etiology" of what makes you "insecure" or "extroverted" etc.... you'll find that you fit into one point snug enough, and may have influence from the "wing" point. (or adjacent point).

Grab this knowledge. You'll thank me big time for it.


Ace