Brains, Neuroplasticity, Identity, and the Enneagram with Dr. Jerome Lubbe

Jerome Lubbe: 1:30

safety is actually a neutral space. You're safe to proceed. You're safe to pull back, right? Like one of the things that I've really struggled with in the Enneagram, not only by telling people you are a type which is not neurologically true, um, and so many dif for so many different reasons. You lead with a type, you have a pilot, you have a, you have a c e O, right? And sometimes you have more than one. One of the things that we often have is we assume that we understand this conversation around healthy and unhealthy, but we're not evaluating our confirmation bias. Like if I tell somebody which one is more healthy, a positive confirmation bias or a negative confirmation bias, which one is more healthy? Optimism or pessimism? Which one is more healthy pleasure or pain? And everybody will default to positive confirmation bias, life giving, everything that's positive, everything that is pleasure, and that's not true. None of those are intrinsically healthy. They're just different survival strategies.

Steph Barron Hall: 2:31

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Enneagram in Real Life, a podcast where we explore how to apply our Enneagram knowledge in our daily lives. I'm your host, Steph Barron Hall, and today I'm joined by Dr. Jerome Libba. And this is a really great episode. I'm really excited to share it with you. This episode is all about our brains, how our brains work, neuroplasticity, and using the Enneagram in correlation with those things. So, first I'll introduce you to Dr. Jerome, and then I'll tell you a few things that we're going to talk about in this episode. Dr. Jerome is referred to as the patient doctor because it was on his own quest for neurological well being that led him to specialize in complex, unresolved neurological cases. So, His practice explores how functional neurology, neuroplasticity, and tools like the Enneagram can improve holistic well being. Dr. Jerome created and released the first ever neuroscience based model of the Enneagram in his book, The Brain Based Enneagram, and being a functional neurologist has shown him that the healing we once thought was impossible is actually possible. Neuroplasticity tells us that we are capable of change. If we understand the function of the brain, we can improve our way of life. And this episode is all about some practical ways, to. So, think about how to to change our brains and change our patterns. But also, I gave an example of something really difficult that actually that happened in my life a couple of years ago, and we talked about it in a little bit more depth, talked about, what kind of classifies as trauma from his perspective. And then we also discussed some of the things that, you know, again, from his perspective, people often get wrong about the Enneagram and actually how our brains have a lot more, Changeability, then, Tools like the Enneagram often assume and so there's a lot of really interesting tidbits in here a lot of different perspectives and you may have heard if you haven't heard somebody like Dr. Jerome talk about the Enneagram, but it was a really great episode And I think that if you all are interested, I might actually have him back again to talk even more in depth about his whole identity profile, which he mentions toward the end of the episode. So I hope you really enjoy it and please let me know. if you have any guests that you really want to hear on the podcast, because I would love to share guests that you're interested in, in hearing more about or hearing from, um I'd really love to share them here and I want to talk to them too. So I hope you enjoy the episode and without further ado, Dr. Jerome. Well, Dr. Jerome, welcome to the podcast.

Jerome Lubbe: 5:06

Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

Steph Barron Hall: 5:09

Yeah, I'm so curious and, uh, we were just chatting before we started recording how, initially, a week ago I sent out some questions'cause I have a lot of authors and I like to hear, you know, some, something about your process. Um, but then I, this morning I was like, wait a no, we're going a different direction because I really wanna dig into this concept of neuroscience and the Enneagram.

Jerome Lubbe: 5:31

Yeah. And I love that. I, I think it's one of the things that sometimes I, I think I've done close to 150 podcasts over the last five or seven years, and everybody always like, well, how much prep time do you need? And I go, you gotta understand. I, I went to 11 different schools before I graduated high school. I have an identical twin brother. And my comfort level with having to shift gears is really, really high. So I challenge you the same way I've challenged other people before. If you ask me a question that throws me off, I'll celebrate. It's very hard to do. I'll let you know. So, yeah, so there's nothing that's off limits. If I don't know, I'll just tell you. I don't know. But yeah, we can go in any direction. I love that you had that spontaneity. It brings different energy into the conversation, which is cool.

Steph Barron Hall: 6:12

Yeah. Well, thanks. I'm, uh, very spontaneous and when my husband edits this, he's gonna be like laughing, like sometimes he wishes I wasn't so spontaneous.

Jerome Lubbe: 6:23

That's

Steph Barron Hall: 6:23

Um, but I think I would love to hear a little bit more about your story. You've alluded to it a bit, but before we kind of get into your book, I'd like to hear about what brought you here. How did you become this version of yourself?

Jerome Lubbe: 6:37

Yeah. Well, it first started when my mom and dad met, you know, I'm kidding. I won't go that far back. Um, but, you know, it's, it's wild. I think the, the common theme for me in a lot of the stuff, stuff is I constantly kept arriving at places where I didn't fit. And also my an, my questions couldn't be answered or. The, the questioning wasn't comfortable for the people that I was asking. Um, so I have a couple of different containers. Um, I don't look the part, um, but I'm an African immigrant refugee kid who moved to the country in the early nineties, and I have a traditionally black name. So when I landed in the States as an immigrant kid with an aans accent from Congo, and my name is Jerome, people in northeast Tennessee and North Georgia really don't know what to do with somebody who looks like me. And then I have an identical twin, and now it's like two for one. So it's just wild. So I didn't really fit as a third culture kid. Uh, then I got raised in very charismatic Pentecostal spaces where it was only a really good service if somebody was doing laps and every chair had footprints on it kind of thing. Um, and I was like, hold on a second. Like, but what if we're not intrinsically broken? What if something's not intrinsically wrong with us? Like, I would like to ask questions like, would all of this change if I thought of God as a healthy parent rather than a terrifying parent? You know, things like that didn't really fit. Questions weren't really. Being answered, then I've moved into the journey of being a patient where I started having, uh, pretty intense migraines at 17. And over the last 23 years, I've averaged 80 to a hundred full blown migraines per calendar year. And those don't count the headaches. Uh, and as a patient, you know, you spend 10 years, a hundred thousand dollars and dozens of providers to get a name for what you deal with, but no resolution. So you can never fit, no one can figure it out, no one can figure you out. You can't figure yourself out. And the answers never really come in a way that clarify what it is that you're trying to do. Uh, and then I got into the clinical world and everybody's like, you don't really fit the mold of what we see as a doctor. And I'm like, yeah, I wanna do health and wholeness and recovery for complex cases. Like who's taking care of people like me? Uh, and nobody really was. So I didn't fit there. And then lastly, I get into the Enneagram conversation having had all of these different containers, and I'm like, yeah. What happens if I'm all nine numbers and everybody's like, no, but you're a type. And I go, yeah, but that's not the way the brain works. And what happens if I, if I wanna speak all nine languages, like when we immigrated to the states, one of the classic things that I tell people is I've lived in five countries, went to 11 different schools before I graduated high school. I've lived in seven states. I have four passports. I was born in South Africa. My parent, my dad's Zimbabwe and mom is British and I'm a US citizen or US resident. Um, where exactly do I tell people I'm from right? I can tell you I'm from planet Earth. I didn't know that much. And I think that all of those things consolidated, like being an immigrant, being a twin, being a student, that didn't fit into the culture of the schools that I was in. My faith-based journey, my patient journey, my clinical journey as a doctor and my Enneagram journey, all of them landed in this place where it was like maybe we could step back and have a healthier, more holistic whole conversation around what it means to be a human being and not default it to, there must be something wrong with you as a person. That's our starting point.

Steph Barron Hall: 9:51

Yeah. Yeah, and I think that makes a lot of sense because a lot of the time in the Enneagram typing conversation, all of these social identifiers that we're talking about are missed. Like, you know, even if it's. You know, even if it's not, you know, necessarily a social identifier, but like a mental health diagnosis or something, um, there's this assumption that like, oh, well this diagnosis precludes me from being this type. And it's like, no, no, no.

Jerome Lubbe: 10:17

Yeah.

Steph Barron Hall: 10:18

Um, it's a layer and that's something that I've had to learn a lot about just over the last five years. I've been doing like typing interviews and coaching, and I'm sure my early typing interviews were not very helpful or accurate, but I still have tons of people who are like, that was so helpful. Of course, I can look back now

Jerome Lubbe: 10:39

And

Steph Barron Hall: 10:39

and I'm like, Ugh. Yeah,

Jerome Lubbe: 10:41

it's the nature, of skill building and evolution, right? I mean, even typing interviews are a skill, you know, it's, it's the basics of we walk more effectively at three than we did at two. We run a little bit more effectively at five than we do three. You know, we, I think we're sometimes hard on ourselves'cause we're adults and we have some sort of intrinsic belief that we're gonna be, uh, automatically good at something. Right. Um, but yeah, I think this, what you're talking about is so important.'cause if you talk to most people who are Enneagram coaches certified especially, and you say How many of your clients that you're working with, do you know what their ACE score is? And people are like, what's an ace? And then I go, do you know what pearls are? And they're like, what's pearls? And I go, look, you're having a conversation with somebody that your identity is a sum total of every good and every bad thing that has ever happened to you and everything in between. And you are going to, and everybody who's good is going to have one of those moments where something gets unlocked and that person gets triggered and you're like, I am wholly unqualified for this. Or I did not anticipate that you cannot do identity work or personality work and not know people are dealing with triggers or navigating real trauma. To be in an Enneagram conversation about people's identity and people's personality and not be taught an adverse childhood experience test or score, or the pearls, which takes into account what happens if I have a person that had a very different experience because they have racialized trauma in their background, or they have a different sexual orientation, or they're a different gender, right? All of these things are going, yeah, maybe my relationship with scarcity and resources as a six is different than my white counterparts or my straight counterparts, and maybe those are things that we should be taking into consideration as we interview people for their type. You

Steph Barron Hall: 12:24

Yeah, absolutely.

Jerome Lubbe: 12:26

and it's hard, but it's important.

Steph Barron Hall: 12:28

Yeah. And I think too just, you know, learning from my own inner work process, learning about like, um, stress responses.

Jerome Lubbe: 12:35

Yeah.

Steph Barron Hall: 12:36

It helps me a lot to be, to work with a, a client to say, you know what? I actually think that this part you're talking about might actually be a fond response and not have to do with your Enneagram type. But I'm a coach, I'm not a therapist, right? So how do I do that delicately in a way where, you know, I'm making sure that I'm taking care to be ethical about it.

Jerome Lubbe: 12:57

Yeah. And you know, I think that's the beautiful thing is you, you can't really eng you can't give somebody what you don't have, right? And if you're trying to walk them through something like that, and you go, I don't know what my own triggers are. I don't know what my own self-awareness is around, what's my fond response? How do I show up when, as based on my, my, my sensor, my, my type, my instinct that I'm gonna have a confirmation bias and going, these are the things that are intrinsically making me navigate this conversation differently. So I think, you know, when you're, when you're in a, a conversation as a coach or you're in a conversation as someone in relationship with another human being, the single greatest thing that we can offer somebody is a healthier version of ourselves. So that we know why we're asking the question in the first place. Why are we. Getting confused as to how to navigate that particular response. It's all our own experience and our own system that's being encountered with another body. So, you know, whether you're a therapist or a clinician or a certified Enneagram coach, knowing yourself better, which is kind of the goal of the Enneagram and the goal of my work to kind of zoom out and go, maybe it's a global experience, not, uh, a single location experience. I think the more that we know about ourselves, uh, and the, the better we're able to ask those questions when they come up.

Steph Barron Hall: 14:13

Absolutely. And I think that kind of brings me to this, this idea that I have. Like, one of the main questions that I had for you is like, it, it made a lot of sense to me hearing that you, you know, grew up a bit, a bit in like a Pentecostal background and you, you mentioned that piece of like, what if we're not broken? And like how early did that concept come online for you? Um, cause I know for me it was not early. It was like, you know, in the last few years,

Jerome Lubbe: 14:45

That's great.

Steph Barron Hall: 14:46

Like moving away from the doctrine of total depravity, all that good stuff. Um, but like you say, we're not innately broken.

Jerome Lubbe: 14:53

no, no. And I think, you know, there's, there's a couple of different perspectives. I'll, I'll tell you when it came online to answer that specific question and then thread in a couple things for you. Um, I think one, knowing what I know about myself now, there's a huge amount of awareness about the fact that I don't really have very many memories before 13. My brain doesn't really have them, which is a classic, it is a classic trauma response to go. A lot was happening in my system, uh, before 13, and I had a very different experience with cataloging memory, a very different experience with even having photos of us as a family, right? There wasn't a lot of documenting either internally or externally. But one of the things that I have a general awareness with is that I don't remember, and I think this is important to name,'cause sometimes we forget that you don't have to have a negative experience in order to have a negative bias. You sometimes have to have a lack of positive experiences, which also intrinsically create a negative bias. And mine is that I have specific memories in high school of being clearly communicated that there was something just, uh, quintessentially wrong with me, right? In terms of the ethos of the, of the faith-based background that we're in. But what I generally remember is I don't really have a felt sense outside of the performative side of the faith-based space that I was in, that there were fireworks displays. I don't really have a lot of memories and experiences of people saying, you're just naturally good. There's something naturally holy about you. There's something beautiful about you. It's like every once in a while we're remind, we're, we'll remind you that in the midst of the Dirty Rags conversation and, and the constant. Being, you know, brow beaten by everything that Paul wanted to say, even though he was a severely bipolar and self-deprecating human being that may or may not have had a practical example of d i d, which is Disassociate Identity Disorder. Uh, maybe Paul's not the best person to communicate to me how I feel about myself.'cause he's working through a lot. Um, so I think there's just part of that, that my first experience, uh, is not necessarily that I know someone told me I was broken. It's just, it was never a conversation about being whole. And then it was reinforced by how many conversations there were that there's just something wrong with you and you gotta do your best to be less broken, not more whole. Right. So, and I think that's some of what I meant, and I think it's important just as a caveat, a lot of people in the Enneagram world don't necessarily fully understand traditions and heritage and all of the things that got us to where we're at. They, they have a, a, a cursory knowledge or a superficial knowledge of the Enneagram because of the last three to eight years. The reality is that the Enneagram really blew up when the Evangelical Church got a hold of it, and the Evangelical Church got a hold of it because Richard Ro shared it with a lot of people. And Richard Rohr shared it with a lot of people because he had it from a lot of people. And the reality is when the Enneagram became a really common conversation, it was quintessentially being held by people who have a theology that there's something wrong with you. Substitutionary atonement, you know, retributive justice, this idea of being broken. So if you see the tipping point of the Enneagram being connected to an entire culture that thinks that there's something wrong with you, and now they're writing the books on what it means to understand your type, you have an entire cultural background that's saying, Hey, F y I, you're probably gonna know your type when you feel absolutely ashamed of yourself. And I can tell you as somebody who is a functional neurologist and works with clinic in a clinical setting with patients all day, if you introduce somebody, if you hold up a mirror to somebody of a broken. Version of themselves or something that they would be ashamed of. It doesn't increase the likelihood that you're gonna approach that and try to work on it. In fact, it'll cause you to reflexively distance yourself from yourself.'cause you're like, oh God, there's something wrong with me. I know you're gonna spend the next 10 years trying to fix yourself, but you're afraid of yourself.'cause the first time you learned about yourself, somebody told you something's wrong with you and you'll know your type when you're ashamed of your type. And I was like, oh man, what a hard way to start the conversation about being healthier. That's kind of hard.

Steph Barron Hall: 19:00

it is. And I think, um, my mind really started to shift, which by the way, now that I'm, I just wanna mention, I have not heard penal substitutionary atonement. So many years

Jerome Lubbe: 19:12

Yeah.

Steph Barron Hall: 19:13

that took me right back.

Jerome Lubbe: 19:15

There's, there's, there's attachments, there's, there's old language, right?

Steph Barron Hall: 19:19

I had this pastor who always say, said, you're wicked depraved and deserving of death, you know, straight out of Paul. You know, like,

Jerome Lubbe: 19:26

Yeah.

Steph Barron Hall: 19:27

and um, even, you know, in my Enneagram training, all of it has been about like, your essence is good.

Jerome Lubbe: 19:35

100%. 100%.

Steph Barron Hall: 19:39

a few years ago, I think I would've had such a hard time grasping that. Right.

Jerome Lubbe: 19:43

Yeah.

Steph Barron Hall: 19:44

But when I was in grad school, I, I read, uh, Richard Boyatzis, he has this intentional change theory. I'm sure you're familiar.

Jerome Lubbe: 19:51

I am.

Steph Barron Hall: 19:51

Um, and he talks a little bit about, you know, Starting out with like, what are your strengths? Like what are the things that you're already, where you're already proficient with this, this skill or whatever you're trying to build. And I love that because, and, and of course it aligns with, uh, the neuroscience that you're talking about, where it's like, no, we have to be able to see that, um, we have to have self-compassion, self-efficacy, right, in order to grow, in order to build from there. Um, why, why are we so resistant, do you think?

Jerome Lubbe: 20:27

It's a good question. Uh, well, I think, you know, a lot of it comes down to 100% of what your brain is doing on a default basis is trying to survive. And if there's not an active threat, it's trying to feel safer. And if it feels safe, it's trying to pursue comfort. And there are hundreds of ways to do that. But when you have something as strong as a language around what might be wrong with you, every human being on the planet, even the ones that are like a sexual three that are like, oh man, everything about life and a and a sexual seven, that everything about life is, is consumption. Everything is. Is worth doing right and engaging. I don't care who you are as a human, human being, you have an intrinsic capacity to know if there's something wrong with you. Like we all, that's innate to know if we feel safe, if we feel like we're doing something right or wrong. Not even from an existential space, just from practically like that works, that doesn't work. We're constantly iterating our lives all the time. And when you encounter something like the Enneagram and it automatically starts to include language and it's very, very good at this, it's very good at including language that when you feel healthy, you'll go here. When you feel unhealthy, you'll go here. It allows us to go, oh wow, on, on my worst days, I've definitely done that on my best days. Maybe I've accessed that. And all of a sudden now we're getting reinforcement around these things that we're trying to avoid and these things we're trying to pursue. And then boom, you get a, an entire onslaught of every lived experience that you have that frames out whether or not you can reproduce. Safety and you can avoid, uh, uh, some degree of, of threat or damage. You know, it's like there's this huge opportunity to do big reframes about whether or not we're truly in danger or whether or not we're truly safe, right? Because the brain assumes that we're unsafe, but it's built off of a lifetime and a, and a particular snapshot that we didn't have air conditioning and we didn't have the gig economy and, and DoorDash to deliver food in 15 minutes. You know, it's like our brain is processing the world with different threats that are not present, but we see them all day at a much higher level and different resources and the ability to find safety at a level we've never had before. So we're having this really massively disorienting space where we can make ourselves feel better almost immediately, and we can also feel absolutely terrified by a threat that's not even present almost immediately. Right. And, and now we're trying to frame out. What line is the integration line and what line is the disintegration line and, and what exactly is the difference between a passion and a ver? It's like there's a lot happening in us, and it's a chance to step back and go, can I process this from a place of safety rather than a place of fear? And my brain will accept the conversation in a completely different way if it knows that I'm not in danger. But the Enneagram sometimes creates the space where you're like, what if I am doing things wrong, and how do I do them better? You know?

Steph Barron Hall: 23:24

Yeah. Yeah, I do know.'cause I'm like, this is one of the, the real challenges think, um, with the Enneagram is one thing I always tell my, my clients and my like, course students, is it made sense? Like it all makes sense in context and the reason that you've had to do that made sense'cause you survived and you got here, right.

Jerome Lubbe: 23:47

100%. Yeah, you can. You can literally take 100% of what people do and ask one question, and you will find an answer eventually. And the single question is, what about that made you feel safer? I don't care what your reaction was. I don't care what your response was 100% of the time. It is a survival strategy. Whatever you did doesn't have to include logic. It doesn't have to include understanding. It doesn't have to include relational depth and integrity. You can say, what about that made me feel safer? And there is an answer in it somehow. And then it isn't about changing your behavior, it's about changing your relationship with safety and therefore changing the reactions that you have.'cause the reactions are good. Like one of the things I tell my patients all the time is, 100% of what your body does is supportive. It just might not be sustainable. Right. And those are two different things. It is intrinsically supportive and intrinsically survival based. It just may not be a good idea to continue reproducing it. If you want to be the healthiest version of yourself, you'll be alive. That doesn't mean you'll be healthy.

Steph Barron Hall: 24:55

Yeah. I'm curious if you can expand on what you mean by safety. Um, like how does that feel?

Jerome Lubbe: 25:03

Well, that's, uh, how much time you got? Um, you know, I think the, the basics with. Safety is, I use a, I use a three, a three tier process with folks that starts with comfort, safety, and then survival. And safety is not the, the presence of comfort per se. It can be, it's both the presence of comfort of things that you feel give you life. It's also the absence of something that's threatening or dangerous. So you'll, you think of it on a spectrum, right? That on one end you're saying, okay, how comfortable am I, I'm not unsafe, but do I have the things I want? Am I avoiding the things that I don't want? It's not that I feel better, it's that I don't feel as bad anymore. That's a conversation around comfort. Survival is, is there an active threat or perceived threat? Am I being triggered even by an old memory that feels like it's present all over again? Uh, and in the middle of that is safety. So you're in this space where you go, look, as soon as I'm uncomfortable, my brain is gonna ask, am I unsafe? As soon as I start asking, am I unsafe, my brain is gonna ask, am I in danger? And until somebody steps in and say, says, no, there's no active threat, you just feel uncomfortable, but you're processing it as a lack of safety, we will default into this place. Neurologically we're like, I have to survive. And all it is is sending an email to our boss about asking for a meeting. Or it's the person in front of you that decided today's the day that they want to pay for their groceries with a check and they've never used a check before. Or you're in the fast lane as maybe a sexual three and somebody decides that they wanna pull into the fast lane and go 60. And you're like, I'm trying to decide if this person's life needs to end today. Right?

Steph Barron Hall: 26:47

I'm gonna murder you.

Jerome Lubbe: 26:48

Yeah. I'm gonna murder you. Right? And you know, so when we're talking about safety, safety is this middle ground space that you have enough to help you feel comfortable, or a lack of discomfort to know that you're on the side of a conversation around comfort. A lack of danger or threat that's not pulling you into a space where you feel triggered or traumatized. And safety is that middle point on the seesaw of is it a life-giving space or is it a life-threatening space? And if you see the seesaw even out where it's not life-threatening or life-giving, that's the essence of safety. Then when you're in that place, you get to go, do I wanna move towards something life giving? Am I avoiding something that's life threatening? It just depends on where you fit on that spectrum.

Steph Barron Hall: 27:33

So it's really more the space of neutrality, not necessarily like a positive.

Jerome Lubbe: 27:37

Correct. And this is the thing, like safety is actually a neutral space. You're safe to proceed. You're safe to pull back, right? Like one of the things that I've really struggled with in the Enneagram, not only by telling people you are a type which is not neurologically true, um, and so many dif for so many different reasons. You lead with a type, you have a pilot, you have a, you have a c e O, right? And sometimes you have more than one. One of the things that we often have is we assume that we understand this conversation around healthy and unhealthy, but we're not evaluating our confirmation bias. Like if I tell somebody which one is more healthy, a positive confirmation bias or a negative confirmation bias, which one is more healthy? Optimism or pessimism? Which one is more healthy pleasure or pain? And everybody will default to positive confirmation bias, life giving, everything that's positive, everything that is pleasure, and that's not true. None of those are intrinsically healthy. They're just different survival strategies. So if I take a self pres five, who stays alive by withholding resources and staying inside a castle, and everybody's like, oh, well, you just respond from a pessimistic place. What we've intrinsically done is told that person that's something wrong with them. And to be more extroverted means that there's something right with you. Neither of those are at all true. It's looking at and going, what you are doing is producing the most viable way for you to stay alive. In that container, is it producing the version of you that you consider to be the healthiest version of yourself? But don't start by assuming that, uh, you know, a healthy person is a positive confirmation bias and you need to pursue pleasure and avoid pain in order to have a profoundly healthy space. Uh, some of those questions around our, our biases around confirmation bias need to be challenged so that we're not constantly navigating the Enneagram asking questions about healthy and unhealthy when we haven't even defined what health is.

Steph Barron Hall: 29:34

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that is like one of the frustrations that I have, even just with some of the work that I've done where people are like, oh, well healthy eights don't do that. And I'm like,

Jerome Lubbe: 29:47

on what

Steph Barron Hall: 29:48

based on what? Yeah, exactly.

Jerome Lubbe: 29:50

based on what.

Steph Barron Hall: 29:51

Um, but also with what you're saying makes sense because, um, like, Hmm, should I turn this into a personal, uh, session?

Jerome Lubbe: 30:08

I am not saying no, but that's up to you. Will it make you feel safer? Is it gonna hurt you? Right. Because this is the thing, it's your brain's asking, not only from a permission place is one of the phrases we use with clinics is if it's hard, it's helpful. If it's painful. I'm sorry, I just, that's the first time. I think in 10 years I've said it backwards.'cause I just processed two different thoughts at the same time. See, human, it happens. If it's hard, it's helpful. If it's harmful, it's not. So one of the times you're like, well, I don't know exactly. I'm uncomfortable thinking about it. I'm not necessarily unsafe. Okay. Am I in danger? No. You can consciously say, I'm not in danger. It's not gonna hurt me, then you're welcome to proceed, but your brain's not sure yet if you're not sure yet. So you gotta define it, you know? Is it hard or is it harmful?

Steph Barron Hall: 30:59

I think it's hard because I am a little bit uncomfortable with taking up space and talking about my shit,

Jerome Lubbe: 31:10

Yeah. Welcome to your two wing.

Steph Barron Hall: 31:13

Yeah, Yeah. Um,

Jerome Lubbe: 31:16

Yeah.

Steph Barron Hall: 31:16

So a few years ago, like, let's see, so I've been on Instagram posting and writing a lot, like five years-ish. So over that time I've gotten a ton of feedback. Like it's really unhealthy to get so much feedback, I think on your work, right? Constantly. Um, but it's been a, a tool for growth and there have been times when it's like outside the window of tolerance, right? So in particular what I've learned is that the initial comments and responses are from my people, like my followers, like we have that relationship. It's normally like I'll say something that they don't agree with about their type and they shoot back. That's fine. Like that's a different conversation. Um, but sometimes what will happen is if something like gains a lot of traction, the algorithm is like, here we go. Let's serve this to everyone. Then the pile on happens.

Jerome Lubbe: 32:13

yeah,

Steph Barron Hall: 32:14

So I had an experience, uh, in spring of 2021 where, um, basically somebody said like, I wish you were dead,

Jerome Lubbe: 32:28

yeah,

Steph Barron Hall: 32:29

or if you were like right there in front of me dying, I hope nobody would help you.

Jerome Lubbe: 32:33

yeah,

Steph Barron Hall: 32:34

Um, and along with some other just random comments like that were insults, like they were personal insults. They had nothing to do with the content. Um, and what did I do? Classic leading with type three. I just said, do, do, do moving on up, right? Because anyone around me that I checked in with about that was like, just ignore it.

Jerome Lubbe: 33:00

Yeah.

Steph Barron Hall: 33:02

Um, but that's not how brains work, right?

Jerome Lubbe: 33:05

that's not how brains work. Um, it's a, I think it's a great point that you're making and it's a, it's an important piece, uh, and I think the first thing to do is to acknowledge it, right? What we just talked about with hard and harmful. That's not a hard thing to digest. That's a harmful thing to digest. And when we talk about trauma, one of the basic equations that I tell people with traumas, anything that hurts for less than hurts for 30 days or less is not trauma, period. Anything that hurts for 30 days or less, and you're able to fully metabolize it, is not trauma because the way that the brain works, if I get a cut, it's a couple of days. If I get a bruise, it's a couple of days. If I get a sprain or a strain, it's a couple of weeks. You can injure yourself, but an injury is not the same thing as a trauma. If you recover. If you're hurting for 30 days or more, it's the degree of trauma that you're working through. If it takes three months to process, it was a mild trauma. If it takes three years to process, it's a severe trauma. If it takes three decades to process, it's an extreme trauma. Right. I know exactly what a sternum breaking, I say'cause it's like I bring up the example logically, but my body automatically knows it. Right. I know exactly what a, the sound of a sternum breaking is like.'cause when my dad, my mom found, my dad passed away when I was 14. She's a tiny little woman and my dad was my size. She grabs him by his ankles, pulls him off of the recliner and first hit, she broke his sternum trying to give him c p r. And it's like that still hurts 27 years later because it's extreme trauma. It's something that you still remember that far out. Right. So it's one of those things that your brain is constantly going and this is also when somebody says, ah, I don't worry about it. Let it go. Um, that is helpful. Not productive, right?

Steph Barron Hall: 34:56

Mm-hmm.

Jerome Lubbe: 34:57

not supportive. So I would say first and foremost, you know when somebody sends you a message like that, if we were in real life, right? To quote, uh, bluey in real life for real. Um, if somebody says that to you in front of you, face to face, I would love if you were dead right? Now, we process that as a legitimate threat. We process that as a legitimate consequence to our safety. And if you're still processing it three to five to six months later, your body has been traumatized in a way words do carry that much weight.'cause your brain can't tell the difference between perception and reality. So I think when you talk about that kind of example, especially as a three, the first thing that came to mind for you, for what it's worth, uh, is everything in the brain is both pursuit and avoidance strategies. And when you have a number that is an assertive stance, I call every assertive energy a gas pedal. If it's a sexual instinct, if it's 3, 7, 8 or it's a heart center, they're all gas pedals. Especially if

Steph Barron Hall: 35:56

Fun.

Jerome Lubbe: 35:57

yeah, especially if you start to compound the energy, you start to square and triple and quadruple and now you got compound interest. You got a sexual three. It's a different energy than a self three. You got a sexual three that's also got high seven, high eight, and they live in a heart center. Oh, wow. Look at that

Steph Barron Hall: 36:14

Did you find My Ready Scores online?

Jerome Lubbe: 36:16

I may or may not have, I didn't, I didn't. But you know, the reality is it's the same thing that gives you the gift of being able to build a following on Instagram gives you the ability to hit the gas pedal and run away from something faster. So one of the things that we misunderstand a lot of times about assertive energies is we think that they're pursuit based, but we don't realize that's a survival strategy for avoiding things faster. So when you end up in a place where you're like, oh, I don't really have the tools to metabolize that kind of trauma, and the people around me are not inviting me into a place with compassion, which allows me to sit inside of that grief and that suffering, I got an idea. Let me hit the gas and build new things.'cause that's a strategy for me, avoiding these hard things. And then I introduced myself to this thing called burnout. And I'm like, how did that happen? I was pursuing such good things. Oh, there's another side to this coin that as I pursue, I have to, to an equal and opposite measure, avoid. And in that, the reflection for you would be in that, that experience and in that space, what were you avoiding? And with that information, how would you move through a similar space? Should it ever happen again differently.

Steph Barron Hall: 37:29

Yeah, that's a good question. I think, um, I have to think more about the avoidance aside from just like the feeling of like avoiding feelings, right? But also, um, the, uh, avoiding the admission that other people could impact my state of mind or my emotionality, right?

Jerome Lubbe: 37:53

Yeah,

Steph Barron Hall: 37:54

Um, and it, it literally was like maybe December, January of this year, you know, so December, 2022 or January this year where I was like, Ooh, I think I'm, I, I think I'm sputtering here. And

Jerome Lubbe: 38:08

yeah,

Steph Barron Hall: 38:09

then it's just like, crash and burn. And I, you know, it took several months of healing of not doing like anything and feeling like a total failure and then being like, let's look at this in context. We're not a failure. I. We're healing.

Jerome Lubbe: 38:23

All good things for high three energy to do, right?

Steph Barron Hall: 38:26

Yeah, we're getting back online. it's okay though.

Jerome Lubbe: 38:30

That's the thing. I mean, accidents happen. You can't account for weather and you can't account for other drivers. You can only be responsible for the way that you drive your vehicle, which is yourself. Right? And this is one of the things that I, I kind of found as I was leaning into this, this approach that I have called the whole identity process of the whole identity profile is going, I oftentimes, especially as a clinician, especially as a patient, especially as a person who is a recovering charismatic, um, it's like, what if there are more ways to do this? What if there are more safe, healthy, viable options that I don't have to be pigeonholed, that my life isn't based on this clinical diagnosis, that my life isn't boxed into this type? And one of the things that I started thinking through why I use the word pilot, is I think if, and I prefer the ready and the I V Q I think collectively. Um, they're pretty statistically reliable even without a whole identity profile, but with a whole identity profile. It's bananas. I actually use it as a standardized intake in my clinical world because it's that good. It's like a functional m r i on somebody's symptomatology. It's so reliable. Clinically. It's crazy. But one of the, the metaphors that we use for folks is that you have pilots, co-pilots, flight attendants and passengers. Everybody's on board and everybody's got baggage. And if you know that you're navigating this thing called life and what you're normally talking about is your pilot, but you don't know if you have co-pilots and you don't know who your flight attendants are and you don't know who your passengers are, your entire experience of why you avoided that conversation may have less to do about your three and more to do about your lowest number, which is the passenger that's trying to open the emergency exit door and get off the plane as quickly as possible. If you don't know what your lowest number is, you can't take that into consideration from a comprehensive perspective that everybody on board is affected by turbulence. Your pilot is the one that helps you to navigate that, but it doesn't mean that there aren't actual flight attendants and actual passengers inside your system that are also being impacted by that turbulence. And that's one of the, the goals with the process is to go, God, we've got this beautiful thing called the Enneagram. What if there's an opportunity for me to develop some fluency and some efficiency in one of my lower numbers? Because they're terrified all the time, but they're buried inside my system and I don't talk to them'cause I don't know how to talk to them. Right. That's just one aspect of how it changes when you start looking at a comprehensive view of the I the Enneagram as an identity piece rather than a personality piece.

Steph Barron Hall: 41:01

So you kind of see them more as like parts?

Jerome Lubbe: 41:04

Yeah. Internal family systems is a perfect overlay. Uh, I think A E D P, which is Advanced Experiential, dynamic Psychotherapy, I think there are so many good models, but yeah, they're parts, you have different versions of you that will show up based on the trigger, and you have different ages of you that will show up based on the trigger. So if people do work around internal family systems, like a great book is no bad parts. I think that's an easy read. Um, and by easy, I mean, it's not so academic. It's definitely hard to work through when you hear that and you start to learn about it. But yeah, knowing that, you know, they, we have, we have so many continents in the world and we have so many countries, but they're all a global part of our experience. I see the sensors as three continents and the types as three countries, and the instincts is three dialects. And then collectively you end up with this global census of the way that you operate as a person, right? Your personhood collectively. Um, but it's important to know that if I have a developing country that I don't go to often, it's gonna be a lot harder for me to have a good experience there if I don't even speak the language. Versus me traveling around the place I've lived my whole life and I know everybody there, of course, I'm gonna be more effective at navigating something like my, my, I have three pilots, two, six, and nine. Uh, when we exchanged emails, you were looking at a, a profile that over the last five years, my, my nine has moved up into the cockpit and my three has moved out. Uh, and, and leapfrog the flight attendant and just said, Hey, I'm gonna sit in first class. I don't wanna participate in the flight crew. Um, but when I know this about myself, I can go oh two, six, and nine, are always working to help me figure out where I'm gonna land. And it's really helpful if that's the only thing I know, that I'm not just considering the world from a two lens. I'm also heavily biased by six and nine. And if those needs aren't met or those concerns aren't addressed, it doesn't matter how much I get into, I still don't feel intrinsically safe or healthy. So it's important for me to know those things.

Steph Barron Hall: 43:06

Yeah, that's where I was curious too because, um, I was wondering if, even though, you know, like I, I still think like our core type doesn't change. Um, but it sounds like you're talking about like you could reshuffle

Jerome Lubbe: 43:20

Yeah. And I think, you know, the, the beautiful thing is, is the core type won't change until you have a trauma big enough to change it. Right? Um, if you don't encounter something that quintessentially put you into a place where you nearly died, um, it's all based on need. It's a survival strategy. Um, so for instance, I tell people when they say that, um, they don't believe that you can be even more than one type. I say, well, the, the entire field of neuropsychology as a field is built off of a guy who had a head injury. His name is Phineas Gage. Uh, before the head injury, he was the guy that every mom wanted their daughter to marry. And then he's hammering in a railroad bike next to a stick of dynamite.'cause that's how you did it in the 19th century. The dynamite ignited and the steel rebar went up through his jaw, out through his head and took clean out the part of his brain that deals with filtering what you say and what you do and how you function. This is called the orbital lateral prefrontal cortex. It's basically the way your brain goes, ah, maybe we keep that one on the inside. And he wakes up from a coma and he is Jekyll and Hyde. He's the Hulk Kin's Bruce Banner. And he woke up a completely different person. So he went into his head injury, essentially more of a a nine energy with a good flavor of six. Like very dutiful, but very calm, very chill. And he came out like a really lures unhealthy seven eight sensational kind of person.'cause he had a functional head injury. Now if you hold that for a second and go head injuries can change personality. That's true. It's always been true of psychology. What they're finding nowadays is that you can have a concussion, post-concussion syndrome without a physical impact. So if somebody has a significant enough emotional trauma that it changes the neurochemistry in their system and somebody gets an onslaught from a near death experience, they will functionally respond in their body the same way as if they had a head injury. So if I know head injuries change personality, and I know you can have post-concussive symptoms or syndromes without a physical impact, then how many people are going through profoundly dramatic trauma that's changing their perception of safety and reality, and now it doesn't serve them anymore to be a strong three energy who's pursuing everything. It serves them better to be a five. Who becomes skeptical of everything around them because the trauma made them feel paranoid about their felt sense of safety. Does that happen for everybody? No. But if we don't know that it's possible, then we start, we continue to have this conversation like so many people have had around neuroscience that you are the way you are and you can't change. The original conversation around neurology was very similar to spiritual and academic and clinical spaces. The way you are is just the way you are. And now they're going, actually, you produce new neurons in your ninth decade. So we actually don't know what isn't possible, but we have to stop saying that's not possible. And then that starts to open you up to go, well, who am I being right now based on the lifetime of experiences I've had up to this point? And do I have a more clear picture of who I am in this moment based on what's happened to me so far?

Steph Barron Hall: 46:26

Yeah. That's so fascinating and I've, I haven't heard about that. Um, the concept of like the post-concussive syn syndrome after like an emotional trauma.

Jerome Lubbe: 46:38

Yeah. I mean, you think about it, how many people have, they lose a family member, they lose a child, and they're fatigue. They have brain fog and their digestion is all over the place, and all of a sudden they're developing like. All sorts of different symptoms related to vertigo and they feel hung over. You go through the list of what is on the paper, what somebody experiences post-concussion, and it is quintessentially the same thing that people have when they experience profound deep grief. Physically it's intense, but then we think, oh, well you didn't have a physical impact. You did have a physical impact. Your body is physiologically processing the impact of what happens to you mentally and emotionally. How can we not do that? Like if we don't understand spiritual trauma legitimately affects physiology. If we don't understand the way that you're raised and the tone that your parents use, when you hear that same tone from another person in a completely random place, your body starts running protocols that were built when you were eight and nothing has happened. Somebody introduced a new tone. Uh, I think it's, it's the beautiful thing with the Enneagram that I do legitimately, profoundly. Feel that it is one of the most effective tools at figuring out how to practically navigate through the world, but not if you look at the diagnostic that it is.'cause I, here's one of the biggest things I, I remember distinctly standing next to Suzanne SBI when she asked me this question,'cause she's wholly opposed to TAs. And I'm standing next to her in front of her cohort, in her classroom in Dallas, and she goes, help me understand. And I said, I think the thing is, is that most people look at the Enneagram as a diagnosis. I look at it as a diagnostic. The tests are diagnostics. You combine that with a really good case history, like the narrative Enneagram, a really good diagnostic like the ready and the I V Q and then a really, really great interview and application and process. And now all of a sudden you're like, oh wow, this thing's really freaking accurate. But not if we just look at one lab value on one lab report, that's not a great idea. I mean, if, if I end up getting a diagnosis off of one lab value off of. A report that gives me tons of information so that it might end up being a bit shortsighted.

Steph Barron Hall: 48:48

yeah. Well and I think that's interesting'cause I used to be really like team anti test, but I think what I see now is I love looking at, you know, how much of each. Type is in, um, your profile, but also looking at, uh, just I think we're not that good at, at self-reflection.

Jerome Lubbe: 49:13

Yeah.

Steph Barron Hall: 49:13

Like, we're not that good at being able to like, read something and be like, yeah, that's me.

Jerome Lubbe: 49:18

Yeah. The joys of confirmation bias. Right? You can't

Steph Barron Hall: 49:22

and

Jerome Lubbe: 49:22

yourself

Steph Barron Hall: 49:24

Nope.

Jerome Lubbe: 49:25

neurologically. That's why I tell people, you have to have a witness. You have to have a sounding board. If you are hypersensitive to touch, why can you touch the bottom of your foot and not freak out, and then somebody else touches the bottom of your foot and you freak out? The stimulus has not changed. Your feedback loops when you are processing things about yourself are very different than if somebody else shares that information with you. That's why we hear the same thing from a friend different than a spouse and a spouse, different than a colleague.'cause it's not the stimulus, it's not the input, it's our experience with it. That completely changes the value and the weight of what it is that we're going through. So doing it to yourself a little bit tough when you can't tickle yourself. Right.

Steph Barron Hall: 50:05

Mm-hmm.

Jerome Lubbe: 50:06

It's hard.

Steph Barron Hall: 50:08

Yeah.

Jerome Lubbe: 50:08

Yeah.

Steph Barron Hall: 50:10

I think one of the things that I was curious about is, um, the way that you framed type three as seeking creativity,

Jerome Lubbe: 50:18

Yeah.

Steph Barron Hall: 50:21

that really resonates with me. I'm wondering if you're meaning creativity, um, perhaps different than how I'm thinking about that. So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about seeking creativity for three.

Jerome Lubbe: 50:32

absolutely. This is a, this is a one of the most common conversations when people see that I, I couch creativity in three and not four. Um, because it's, uh, it's a semantics issue. And the thing that I would communicate first is, what's the root word of creativity? Yeah.

Steph Barron Hall: 50:49

Creation. Yeah. Great.

Jerome Lubbe: 50:50

It's create, fours don't create, they imagine fives, ideate, fours. Imagine threes create ones execute, right? So there's different versions of productivity. This is why, for example, if you see a four with a five wing, their relationship with what they produce is vastly different than a four with a three way, because both the four and the five are internalized spaces. So they are creating when they pull in that three wing, but they're maintaining an internal relationship with it because four and five are both internal numbers. That's why they're constantly seeking ways to get what they have in them out. But in order to move it externally out of their system, they have to import three. But if you're told I'm a four with a five wing, when, how the hell are you supposed to get stuff outta your system? You don't have a natural access to a gas pedal, right? Both two and one are throttles. They're not gas pedals. Four and five are brake pedals. If you don't know that you have access to the three, then how do you move it out into the world? Right? How do you get it out of yourself? So when I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about the function of creating, of producing, of productivity, of getting it externally into the world. The idea of internalized creativity and internalized artistry. There's a difference between an artist and a creative. Somebody who is an artist, you talk to anybody who is a consummate artist. Classic examples are poets. How many times are they narrating their own poetry in their own head? How many painters are painting nonstop inside their head, but hold the amount of paintings that they've experienced emotionally in relationships to the amount of paintings that they can show you? And that will give you a very quick snapshot of their relationship with what they create. Internalized creativity is not the same thing as externalized creativity.'cause four is an internalized number. Three is an externalized number. That's why they fit in such complimentary ways. But being a creative requires three. If you don't have three, not only will you not feel yourself creating something that could potentially be measured and and scored and define yourself as successful, but to be able to produce something outside of your internal state, you have to move outside of a four place. Even two in one are externally more energetic than the four. The the five is not the three Definitely is.

Steph Barron Hall: 53:20

Mm-hmm.

Jerome Lubbe: 53:21

So,

Steph Barron Hall: 53:22

That makes a lot of sense to me. And I think it also helps me understand a little bit more, um, the frustration that comes up sometimes when I'm like, I have an idea and I'm like, I just have to get it out there. And it's like, oh, like I really want it to be out. Yes. Like my assistant the other day, I was like, when do you want the sun by? I was like, yesterday.

Jerome Lubbe: 53:40

Yeah, exactly.

Steph Barron Hall: 53:41

And that wasn't about her. That was about me. Right?

Jerome Lubbe: 53:45

that's exactly right. And it's funny'cause I joke around with everybody using the flight analogy that every type has four nonstop flights. If you move away from this I idea that you're limited in terms of your resources and destination from the way the brain works, everything is connected. It's called a connect home or a default mode network. All traffic affects all traffic. Especially, I mean, like for instance, nine 11 happens and you shut down traffic. Nationwide, and it impacts traffic globally, right? You can impact traffic globally from one location. So for instance, A three has a nonstop flight to 4, 2, 6, and nine. None of those numbers are more energetic than a three. If the three is the gas pedal, both your six and your two are throttles and four and your nine are brake pedals. So the three cannot import more energy from another number. All of them are energetically lower than the three. So if the three is like, I need it done now, right? Yeah. None of your resource lines allow you to go faster. If you try to go faster, you're doing it from an instinctive space. You can do it from a heart center, you can do it from a sexual instinct. Uh, but yeah, that orientation to want to go faster is why the Enneagram in the brain is so good at checks and balances. It is so good at checks and balances. I mean, if you look at the, what they call integration and disintegration lines, which I refer to as resource lines,'cause you don't integrate and disintegrate in the brain. You can disregulate and regulate, but you can't integrate and disintegrate. It's not the way the brain works. Um, but if you look at every connecting line, they're all different paces. Like for me, for a two, I go to an eight'cause the two is not a gas pedal. And I go to the four.'cause A four is a brake pedal. So as a throttle in high two energy, I'm fortunately check and balanced with a break and with a gas depending on the context of what I'm trying to do. So when you're in that space as a three, if you consider the four nonstop flights you have and what each of them accomplish, if they're like, if you're importing their resources into your local economy as a three, very quickly you can go, oh, I can import introspection and that's hard and I don't like it and I gotta reflect and I gotta slow down in four. And it's not a productivity driven space because it's not about creating, it's about reflecting and it's a completely different energy with the heart, like I gotta sit with. Why did that comment online hurt so much? Oh look, let's produce something. Not the same. So the nonstop flights can help with that if you import the resources.

Steph Barron Hall: 56:13

Yeah. And that I think also makes sense.'cause I think I like three was offline, except for the image piece

Jerome Lubbe: 56:20

Yeah.

Steph Barron Hall: 56:21

three was offline for like six months. And actually to an extent the image piece too.'cause I was like, I don't, I don't care anymore.

Jerome Lubbe: 56:27

flip a breaker. The brain's real good at it. It'll power you down.

Steph Barron Hall: 56:32

makes a lot of sense. Um, I have so many more questions, but we only have so much more time. So

Jerome Lubbe: 56:41

your question.

Steph Barron Hall: 56:42

Yeah, I, I think, um, I really, you know, of course I want everyone to go out and, and grab your book. I saw that it's volume one.

Jerome Lubbe: 56:52

It is,

Steph Barron Hall: 56:53

that mean we're getting, you know, more volumes?

Jerome Lubbe: 56:56

yeah. That's the goal. I think, uh, uh, objectively, if I flesh out everything that we've already got on paper, uh, it, it would be safe to say that we could probably do 50 plus. Um, you know, it's, uh, it's one of the examples that I tell people to use this as a practical example for me. When I talk, most people think that I'm highest in five. Five is actually my lowest number, and it has been historically, for the entire time that I've been around the Enneagram for 15 years. It has never not been my lowest number as many times as I've tested. It's always there. And one of the things that I'm sharing, and this will answer your question, is your highest number is your most efficient external language. You externalize that language. Your lowest number is your most efficient, internalized language. So I talk in the book about efficiencies and inefficiencies, but if you think about the dialogue that you never really share with anybody, but you're experiencing on a daily basis, whatever you are afraid of in your lowest number is what you are thinking about or processing internally all day, all day. So, Why I say that is from a five place. When I get to have these conversations, I have thought about these answers, whether you've asked them to me or not a thousand times. So when I go to answer these questions, I'm like, now I just have to move it out of my internal space and share it with you. But then I have to be really conscientious of how much time and energy as a clinician and in other spaces I'm answering questions because if it's my lowest number, it will actually fatigue me the fastest. So in that regard, knowing my relationship in high two, low five, high six, low, what was the last one? Low four. And we're trying to get, we're trying to get one back up to trying to exercise that. Uh, what I'm doing right now is actually I'm stepping away from, uh, any kind of writing or creative content, probably for the next year.'cause I've got a lot of stuff. And then as I fill my tank back up and I take care of myself well, and I practice what I teach, uh, there is a good chance that. Five years from now, we can have another conversation and there may be anywhere from four to 10 books, uh, but there are definitely more volumes coming, but not in the next year. There's a lot of resources that are available online, a lot of content that's already accessible, but specifically more books, not just yet. Yeah,

Steph Barron Hall: 59:19

Okay. Yeah, that totally makes sense. Writing a book, it's, it's, its own sort of trial. Right. Um, but I think what I noticed is in hearing you in all these different spaces, I'm like, The book is like a really accessible version of this, but I hear all these thoughts from you in these seven podcasts and I'm like, oh, that was really good and that was really good. And I, I want this all in writing, you know,

Jerome Lubbe: 59:45

Yeah. Yeah. I think the biggest thing that I would encourage everybody for is we've we've got some, what we call really kind of stage one accessible resources and then some really big level kind of deeper dive stuff like e-course. Um, you can find a lot of this stuff@drdrum.com. But one of the biggest things that I'm trying to do kind of culturally as a content creator and as a writer is introduce new language. Because language really drives culture, especially our internal landscape and the culture that we have about ourselves. So one of the resources that I would recommend is we've got a really cool exercise that helps people to find new words that are more contextually appropriate for them based on their lived experiences. For instance, I don't use the word challenge in eight. I use the word advance because no matter how you frame it, I don't wanna challenge you and I don't like being challenged by you. Sorry for the background noise. Um, so if you go to dr jerome.com/language, uh, there's a really cool resource there that helps people kind of figure out, man, I'm, I'm, I, I agree with him on the word creative for three, but that doesn't sit right for me. I need to reclaim creative as a for'cause. There's no way in hell I'm letting him take my word creative. I am a creative. And then somebody goes, oh yeah, no, he's right. It's artist. Um, it's, it's, if I look at the synonyms for Create, I don't access that as often. Um, that, that resource, um, at dr jerome.com/language is a really accessible piece. Um, but then for more content, we have something called the Year of Becoming Whole, which is literally a year worth of weekly releases. Uh, we're, I think we're somewhere in the 30th week right now, somewhere in the thirties, 34, 35, 36. Um, so there's no shortage of stuff. And the last thing that I'll recommend if people like you have heard different things, is a really great website. It's called Listen Notes. And if you go to listen notes.com and you just type in my name, it'll aggregate every podcast that I've been on ever in one page. And then you can just pick by topic. Those are all free. So lots of different ways to, to digest and if you get through everything that I've already done in the next year while you're waiting for another book, you are killing it.'cause there's a lot out there. There's a lot out there. But

Steph Barron Hall: 1:02:01

yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Um, and so that's the best place for people to find you, dr drum.com.

Jerome Lubbe: 1:02:07

Yeah. That's it. Dr jerome.com. The benefits of a, a unique name and it's just d r j e r o m e.com. And then the Instagram is just doctor spelled out dot Jerome. So d o c t o r dot Jerome. But those are the two main places to find me. People keep telling me to do TikTok. One day we'll do it, but I'll, I'll figure it out. I

Steph Barron Hall: 1:02:26

You've got your,

Jerome Lubbe: 1:02:27

I need more three. So

Steph Barron Hall: 1:02:30

there you go. Um, okay. To, to finish, I just have two questions I always ask everyone.

Jerome Lubbe: 1:02:36

sure.

Steph Barron Hall: 1:02:37

Tell me about a book that has helped you refresh you or shaped you in the last year.

Jerome Lubbe: 1:02:45

A great question. Um, and it's funny'cause you sent that to me and I completely forgot that you sent that to me, so I didn't think about it. What book has, um, I think probably one of the, the first one that comes to mind is Wisdom of Your Body by Hillary McBride. Um, I've always enjoyed Hillary's work. Um, she, I think, writes from a very comprehensive perspective and that particular book about connecting the dots with your capacity to actually leverage this thing that we call a body to become a healthier version of yourself really aligns with the way that I move through the world as a clinician. But specifically, I think there are safe and approachable ways for my, my bias at this point as it's evolved. I think it's a really safe book for people who are looking for a thread of spirituality, but not necessarily being reintroduced into a church climate. And a thread of, um, consideration for people who don't fit the normal profile of what a book is written for or who the book is written for. Um, you know, I think most books books are written for particular demographics that look like me. Um, and I think Hillary threads a really great perspective of not only clinical perspectives and spiritual perspectives, but really practical perspectives, uh, especially around this thing that not most of us were taught, which was how to be in our body and how to have a healthy relationship with our body, because that's a huge part of the way that we're engaging. So I think it's actually kind of a really cool way to leverage the gut center, but from a cognitive perspective, like what am I thinking about my gut center? What am I feeling about my gut center? It's really just your head and your heart being able to reflect on what it means to have a body. So the wisdom of your body by McBride would be my answer.

Steph Barron Hall: 1:04:35

Okay, cool. I haven't read it yet, so I'll have to put that on my list too.

Jerome Lubbe: 1:04:39

It's solid.

Steph Barron Hall: 1:04:40

And tell me a piece of advice that has really stuck with you.

Jerome Lubbe: 1:04:45

Oh, you know, it's funny, as soon as you asked, I gotta trust what came right to the surface. Um, a couple of, uh, months ago, somebody said, you know, it doesn't have to be perfect for you to ship it. And for me, I wrestle with so much about if it's enough and that's a lot of my two. But then my one wing comes in screaming about this is not right. It's not right in the way that it needs to be. Right. And there's uh, there's so much history for me around being able to articulate things in a way that increases my safety.'cause when you go to 11 different schools as an immigrant kid, one of them that collects stamps to mail you back to Africa just after your dad died. You get very well practiced at saying things the right way so that you don't get hurt more often. Uh, and that particular statement, for some reason just really stuck with me where he is like, I think what you've got is good enough. You don't have to wait, you don't have to wait for it to be perfect to ship it. Um, and he was just, you know, really encouraging me to go. I, I think you just need to, to put it out, just share it. Um, and for me, as a person who, you know, my two lowest numbers are withholding numbers and, and my highest number tends to be a very other focused number, um, to trust myself and my competency in five and what I'm saying is authentic and four, that's gotta make its way all the way out from the depths of who I am to believe that what I'm sharing matters and what I'm sharing is competent and capable from those two spaces specifically. So yeah, it doesn't have to be perfect. You can ship it.

Steph Barron Hall: 1:06:19

And, and that's just, you know, the entrepreneurial journey, I

Jerome Lubbe: 1:06:23

I know, right? I'm an idiot. Everybody's gonna find out. Well, you know, I'm a human. And I think everybody knows that it's not the same thing.

Steph Barron Hall: 1:06:33

yeah. And I think just like the dehumanizing nature of perfectionism is, whether that's, you know, internalized or people are placing that on you. It's just

Jerome Lubbe: 1:06:45

yeah,

Steph Barron Hall: 1:06:46

the more you realize the impact of that, the more you're like, no, no, no. I'm allowed to be human.

Jerome Lubbe: 1:06:51

yeah. Exactly. I mean, for the love of God, the one is the only one that gets a clinical diagnosis. Stop. Like perfectionism is an actual clinical diagnosis. Either stop using it or start clinically diagnosing every number and see how well that works out for you in a conversation. It's, it's, it's a survival strategy that if everything is better, I feel safer. What a gift, right. For somebody to be able to go, that's not just right. It's almost there. It's almost there. It's almost there. You know, that's why you look at the holy idea, holy ideal for a one, and you're like, yeah, I can see how that's, that's hard to find. It's not about being perfect, just about being more holy, you know?

Steph Barron Hall: 1:07:32

We can't get started on holy ideas, so we'll leave it at that.

Jerome Lubbe: 1:07:37

Yeah.

Steph Barron Hall: 1:07:37

Well, thanks so

Jerome Lubbe: 1:07:38

I don't know. There's, I don't know what holy ideals are. There's something in there. I think I, I read about it once a couple years back.

Steph Barron Hall: 1:07:43

Oh, the, ah, almost the facets of unity.

Jerome Lubbe: 1:07:46

Oh yeah. His stuff is great. Uh, he, he's also a lot of fun just to watch when he's talking.'cause I, I love that energy from, from an Arab man when he's talking where there's so much nonchalance and so much intelligence and you're like hanging on every word. He's a lot of fun. I really enjoy his work, but I digress.

Steph Barron Hall: 1:08:08

Well, great. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast and it's been lovely.

Jerome Lubbe: 1:08:13

Likewise. It's a gift. I appreciate it Stuff.

Steph Barron Hall: 1:08:17

Thanks so much for listening to Enneagram IRL. If you love the show, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating and review. This is the easiest way to make sure new people find the show. And it's so helpful for a new podcast like this one, if you want to stay connected. Sign up for my email list in the show notes or message me on instagram at nine types co to tell me your one big takeaway from today's show I'd love to hear from you. I know there are a million podcasts you could have been listening to, and I feel so grateful that you chose to spend this time with me. Can't wait to meet you right back here for another episode of any grim IRL very soon. The Enneagram and real life podcast is a production of nine types co LLC. It's created and produced by Stephanie Barron hall. With editing support from Brandon Hall. And additional support from crits collaborations. Thanks to dr dream chip for our amazing theme song and you can also check out all of their music on spotify