74: Leading, Learning. Laughing, and Loving with an Enneagram Type Eight

The Enneagram Type Eight: The Challenger

It’s EnneaTalk Tuesday and another episode in our series of Learning, Leading, Loving, Laughing, with the Enneagram types. This week it is all about the 8, The Challenger, and if you have been listening to this podcast for a while now, you’ll know that this is my type. I discuss all the things that make an eight challenging and beautiful, how to step into the fire and bring out the best in us, and how to lead, laugh, learn, and love with us.

Listen to this episode to understand all the ways to communicate with an eight, what it means when we are vulnerable with you, how to hold your own with us, and how we are truly worth the work if you have an eight in your life.

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Unleashing everything and not holding back

The eights are the most misunderstood and also the most intense energy on the entire Enneagram. What we desire the most is connection, intimacy, and intensity, but it is also the very thing we put our walls up against when we are unhealthy. When we are healthy, we are fiercely loyal, amazing friends, great leaders, go the distance, and don’t make excuses.

Bringing out the best in each other

I discuss the impact the eight has on everyone around them, how it can be strongly negative or positive, what makes them annoyed or not respect you, and why I am so passionate about helping other eights understand their own impact on other people. If you love or lead an eight, I share the ways to communicate and show your appreciation for us, how to speak our language, and discuss why it takes so long for us to trust you.

I discuss how to bring out the tender side of an eight, that although we are part of the body triad and driven by anger, there is a loving soft side underneath that we protect at all costs. If you love, lead, or parent an eight, give them all you’ve got, and let them truly know that you have their back. Remember, our impact is immeasurable—we can be the greatest destroyers, but also the greatest creators.

Quotes:
1:48
The Challenger (Enneagram 8) is the most intense energy on all the Enneagram.

8:07
We are very strategic, intelligent, courageous and we have this stamina to go the distance.

14:11
Unhealthy 8’s, and I have been here, are preoccupied with the idea that they are going to be betrayed.

17:51
Unhealthy 8’s believe they can change reality, so they make their own rules. We are rule breakers, um we don’t think rules apply to us sometimes, when we are unhealthy.


21:12
When Enneagram 8’s walk in into a room you feel their presence before you see them. Their larger than life energy does not fill a space, we own it.


26.59
Enneagram 8’s don’t have dimmer switches at all—we are on or off, all in or all out, go big or go home.

33:02
Whether you love them or lead them, 8’s are ‘don’t complain or don’t explain’ people, they don’t make excuses at all, they just handle sh*t.

36:56
Eights in business know how to empower and bring out the best in others especially if they are healthy.

41:04
A healthy balanced female 8 can change the world for sure, because we are able to let people see the vulnerable parts of us. It’s the unhealthy female 8’s that really are the most misunderstood and mistreated.

43:22
If you’re loving or leading or parenting an 8, be competent and be able to work independently we don’t like to micromanage at all.