Typology

What happens when a Three stops performing and starts telling the truth — even to herself?
Anthony and I sat down with Steph Baron Hall, author of Enneagram in Real Life and host of the Enneagram in Real Life podcast, for a conversation that starts with instinctual stacking and ends up somewhere much deeper. Steph — a sexual (or "spark") dominant Three — unpacks how the sexual instinct differs from the social Three most people picture, why she was so often mistaken for a Four, and how she's learned to notice the exact moment she starts performing instead of being present.
We move through the difference between achieving your identity and receiving it, the religious trauma that shaped Steph's relationship to spirituality, and why she's going back to school in her late thirties to become a therapist. Along the way, I offer a memorable image for the false self — the "pinched self" — and the three of us talk honestly about what it actually costs to tell yourself the truth, not just other people.
Steph is the author of Enneagram in Real Life, available wherever books are sold. Find her at ninetypes.co and on her own podcast, Enneagram in Real Life.
 
ABOUT STEPHANIE BARRON HALL
Stephanie Barron Hall (M.A. Organizational Communication & Leadership) is an Accredited Enneagram Practitioner, author of The Enneagram in Love (2020) and Enneagram in Real Life (2025), creator of @NineTypesCo, and host of the Enneagram in Real Life podcast. Stephanie has been facilitating personality-centric team development for years as an outside consultant for organizations ranging from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies. Stephanie's approach to the Enneagram is grounded in communication theory and emphasizes deep personal work through application, curiosity, and self-awareness.

Dr. Alison Cook, bestselling author of Boundaries for Your Soul, returns to Typology to talk about her new book, The Secure Soul: Finding Inner Strength and Connection When Trust Doesn't Come Easy. Alison is candid about her own lifelong wrestle with insecurity as an Enneagram Three, and we dig into two of her book's central characters: the controller, the part of us trying to earn love by managing how we're perceived, and the shadow, the part left holding everything we couldn't afford to feel. Drawing on Internal Family Systems, attachment theory, and contemplative Christian tradition, Alison offers a different way to think about the soul — not as a machine to fix, but as a mountain to explore, one shadowy valley at a time. Along the way: Gabor Maté's idea that children are forced to choose between attachment and authenticity, why "I am loved even here" might be the whole gospel in five words, and the real difference between fixing yourself and healing.
 
About Dr. Alison Cook: 
Dr. Alison Cook is a psychologist of religion, licensed therapist, and host of the top-ranked The Best of You Podcast. She is the author of several bestselling books, including Boundaries for Your Soul. Known for her work at the intersection of faith, psychology, and spiritual formation, she helps people cultivate a secure inner life– healing past wounds, strengthening a grounded sense of self, building healthy relationships, and experiencing God as a steady and loving presence in their lives. She and her husband, Joe, are the parents of two adult children and call the mountains of Wyoming home.
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What happens when the type you've claimed for years turns out to be wrong? Today, I sit down with returning guest Beatrice Chestnut — Enneagram teacher, author, and co-founder of the Chestnut Paes Enneagram Academy — for a wide-ranging conversation on one of the most common (and most human) struggles in Enneagram work: mistyping.
We dig into why mistyping happens, how to hold a hypothesis about someone's type without imposing it, and the subtype distinctions that resolve the Enneagram's trickiest lookalikes — especially Twos vs. Nines and the three very different faces of Type Four and Type Six. Beatrice also opens up about her own evolving growth path, and I share a personal story about the moment a single sentence in one of Beatrice's books changed how I understood myself.
IN THIS EPISODE
Why mistyping is a normal part of the self-discovery journey — not a system failure
How to gently raise a hypothesis about someone's type without playing "Enneagram police"
The key differences between Twos and Nines (emotional expression, image-consciousness, who initiates)
Self-preservation, social, and sexual subtypes of Type Four — the "glad," "sad," and "mad" Fours
Why Sixes so often don't recognize their own fear-based motivation until they find the Enneagram
Beatrice's personal reflection on growing from a Four toward Eight-like strength
What it actually feels like when your type finally "lands"
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Beatrice Chestnut, PhD, is the co-founder of the Chestnut Paes Enneagram Academy and author of The Complete Enneagram (new edition available next month) and The 9 Types of Leadership. Learn more at beatricechestnut.com.

True spiritual transformation often begins at the exact moment our old answers stop working.
This week, I'm sharing Chapter One of my newly revised novel, Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim's Tale. We follow Chase Falson, a megachurch pastor whose public confession of lost faith triggers an unexpected journey of the heart. While Chase's story is fictional, his hunger for something authentic mirrors my own season of wrestling with sterile religion. By sending Chase to Assisi to walk in the footsteps of St. Francis, I discovered that losing an inherited belief system isn't the end of faith—it's often the doorway into a far deeper, living encounter with God.
Whether you haven't set foot in a church in a decade or you're sitting in a pew this Sunday, this episode is for anyone who's ever quietly wondered if there's something more.
 
Resources & Links: 
Book: Pick up your copy of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim's Tale
Audio: Listen on Audible or wherever you listen to audiobooks
Connect: Follow the show and connect with Ian on social at @ianmorgancron

Most Enneagram teaching is very good at describing what's wrong with you. This episode is about what's right.
Every Enneagram type has a Passion — the chief emotional distortion the ego runs when it's disconnected from its truest self. Anger for the One. Pride for the Two. Deceit for the Three. Each of the nine types has one, and most of us have spent a lot of energy trying to manage ours without quite knowing what it is.
But every type also has a Virtue. Not a moral achievement you add on top — a quality that naturally arises in the heart when the Passion loosens its grip. Serenity. Humility. Authenticity. Equanimity. Non-Attachment. Courage. Sobriety. Innocence. Right Action. These aren't things you build. They're things that emerge when you stop being in the way of yourself.
In this final episode of the Enneagram Essentials series, Anthony and I walk through all nine Passions and their corresponding Virtues. I share what Equanimity feels like in my own life as a Four — when I manage to access it — and we close with two honest answers to the question of how any of this actually becomes real: contemplative practice, and a particular kind of willingness to stop running from pain.
This is a hopeful episode. Everything in the series has been building toward this. The Enneagram has always been pointing here.
 
This is Episode 5 of 5 in the Enneagram Essentials series. All five episodes are available now wherever you listen to Typology.
 
RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE: 
The Road Back to You by Ian Morgan Cron 
The Story of You by Ian Morgan Cron
Enneagram Assessment | Find Your Type
Ian's speaking and organizational work
 
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