039: Part 1, May the Fours Be with You: A Panel of Enneagram Fours
For those who are new to the Enneagram or to what life is like as an Enneagram Four, let me just give a 50,000-foot fly-by of the Enneagram Four. Fours, called the Individualists, sometimes called the Romantics or the Tragic Romantics, these are folks who have a sense that they carry within themselves some deficiency--some irredeemable deficiency--a missing piece in their essential makeup that they can't quite name. It actually elicits or brings up in them this kind of inconsolable longing for the un-nameable missing piece that they're trying to find and recover so that they can feel a part of the world. They feel as though they're disqualified from belonging because they're different from other people. And so, this launches them on a lifelong quest, usually early on with the struggling low self-esteem, I've never met a Four who told me that that was not an issue for them.
And their passion, or their deadly sin, is Envy. So, what is it that Fours? Fours envy the normalcy, the happiness, and the apparent ease with which other people seem to move in the world. We just look at other people and think they just haven't suffered as much as we have. We just have this perception that other people have had an easier time of it in this life. And that can sometimes give us a little bit of superiority, almost, because we also become addicted to our suffering if we're not careful. It becomes the core of our identity--the tragic story of the past that we don't know how to divorce ourselves from, and even if we could who would we be without it, without that tragic story? God, we'd be ordinary, which of course points to the underlying motivation of the Four which is a compulsive need to be unique and special as a strategy to compensate for what we perceive to be this irredeemable deficiency.
To best illustrate the ways that Fours are unique, even from each other, I brought in a panel of Fours for this week’s show. The thing I love about panels is it's so much better for people to learn about these different types, these archetypes of the Enneagram, straight from the mouths of those who live in the shoes of those different styles of being in the world. Fours are the most misunderstood number on the Enneagram in general. So, tune in as Sandra McCracken, Megan Miller, Matthew Perryman Jones, and Don Chaffer join us in studio to talk about all things Four.
Megan Miller is the Chief Operating Officer for Michael Hyatt and Company and the co-host (with her dad, Michael Hyatt) of the Lead to Win podcast. Megan is passionate about creating beautiful, transformational products and in-person experiences for her clients and customers that enable them to win at work, succeed at life, and lead with confidence. She has been married to her husband Joel for nine years (an Enneagram 5), and together they have four children, including two teenagers and two younger boys adopted from Uganda in 2011. Find out more about Megan at https://www.michaelhyatt.com/team.
Sandra McCracken’s prolific contributions as a songwriter, modern-day hymn writer, and record producer has brought grace and clarity to her soulful, folk-gospel sound. Whether in a theater or in a chapel, she is a dynamic performer who blurs the lines of what church music sounds like, captivating and inviting audiences to sing along. While many of her songs like “We Will Feast In The House of Zion” and “Thy Mercy My God” have settled into regular rotation in Christian worship services internationally, she has also had songs recorded by All Sons and Daughters, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, Audrey Assad, A Rocha Compilation, Bifrost Arts, Caedmon’s Call and others. She is further a founding member of Indelible Grace Music and Rain For Roots (children’s music) and has been a guests writer for Art House America, She Reads Truth, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, RELEVANT Magazine and more. Learn more about Sandra at http://www.sandramccracken.com.
Matthew Perryman Jones is a gifted songwriter. With each entry in his discography, his musical and moral compass points toward an artistic horizon he has yet to explore. Sometimes, he turns his gaze to examine his own inner world. Other times, he looks to the inspirations found in the letters Vincent Van Gogh penned to his brother Theo, in the idea of duende as proffered by Federico García Lorca, and in the poetic verses of Sufi poets Hafiz and Rumi.
Originally from Pennsylvania, Matthew grew up in Georgia and cut his artistic teeth in the Atlanta music scene before heading north to Nashville. His debut release, Nowhere Else But Here, dropped in 2000, followed by three subsequent albums — Throwing Punches in the Dark (2006), Swallow the Sea (2008), and Land of the Living (2012) — three additional EPs and a handful of singles. Songs from across his catalog have been featured in dozens of film and TV placements, and tours have taken him across the U.S. and abroad to share stages with legends like Shawn Colvin and Patty Griffin, as well as the Ten Out of Tenn songwriter collective of which he is a part. Learn more about Matthew at http://www.mpjmusic.com.
Don Chaffer has been making music for a long time. He’s part of the Nashville-based duo, Waterdeep with Lori Chaffer. Don and Lori have over 15 full-length albums under their belt, and they continue to write and record music.
Waterdeep spent their early years as a renowned mid-western jam band but became nationally known upon signing to Squint Entertainment (Sixpence None the Richer, Chevelle) in 1999, after selling over 150,000 albums independently. They relocated to Nashville 10 years ago, and honed their songwriting skills, finding that writing unforgettable hooks was their undeniable strength. Some of their songs, as well as collaborations with Katie Herzig, Matthew Perryman Jones, Trent Dabbs, and others have had multiple placements.
Don, a record producer in Nashville, is also a jack-of-all-trades, dabbling in lino-printing, poetry, videography, musical theatre writing/arranging/ directing, songwriting, and making a spreadsheet faster than you can say "excel."
“I just do the doom loop. The more I start to recognize it as a pattern—that success feels like a threat potentially to authenticity—I just have to be really aware of that.”