PODCAST | More Than Your Number (Feat. Beth & Jeff McCord)

Resources:

https://www.yourenneagramcoach.com/

https://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Your-Number-Christ-Centered/dp/0785290990

Transcript:

Christa Neidig:
Welcome to the Vanderbloemen leadership podcast. I'm your host, Christa Neidig, senior marketing coordinator here at Vanderbloemen. In today's podcast, I get to talk with Beth and Jeff McCord about their newest book, More Than Your Number: The Christ-Centered Enneagram Approach to Becoming Aware of Your Internal World. In this conversation, they share transformative approaches to the Enneagram and they explain how it can be used to understand the unique ways that we reflect the image of God. They also share tangible tips for using the Enneagram for ministry and spiritual growth. We hope you enjoy the conversation.
Well, hello everyone, thank you so much for joining us today. I am here with Beth and with Jeff McCord, who are the authors of their new book, which I have right here, called More Than Your Number: a Christ Centered Enneagram Approach to Becoming Aware of Your Internal World. That's a mouthful, but that sounds good.

Beth McCord:
Yeah.

Christa Neidig:
Thank you for joining me today.

Jeff McCord:
That's great.

Beth McCord:
Oh yeah, it's our pleasure.

Jeff McCord:
Yeah, this is a particular book that's come out of our own story. So it's such a joy to be able to share it with others.

Christa Neidig:
Yeah. Well, let's go ahead and introduce your story a little bit to the listeners. I just want them to hear a little bit of your background and ministry and Enneagram coach and all of that that led you to this place to write a book about this. William always says if someone writes a book about something there is a deep passion, because that is a lot of work.

Beth McCord:
It is a lot of work.

Jeff McCord:
Yeah, well, we got married in college but soon after that had a desire to go into ministry. And so that led us, in 1998 to 2002 we were at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis preparing to go into pastoral ministry in the local church after doing campus ministry. We had a couple of kids, and as with all seasons of life, there was some difficult times that we were facing financially, relationally, and then this growing family. Well, that's when a friend shared with us the Enneagram. So we've been studying the Enneagram since 2001, but as with all people, Christians who want to operate from a biblical framework, there were some questions that we had. And so we sat on it and remained quiet, but Beth really resonated with it and really became the expert.

Beth McCord:
Yeah, for me, I'm a type nine, the peaceful acommodators. And the type nines don't know themselves very well. It's like this internal fog. And in our relationship, I know that Jeff was continually pursuing to get to know me, but it's hard to get to know me if I don't even know myself very well. And so when I found my type in the Enneagram, it was just like someone wiped the fog away, to a point. It's still hard to know myself easily, but it gave me the shortcut to understanding myself. And so I was able to help Jeff understand me, and it just really started to change our relationship. But yeah, we definitely sat on it for a long time, even though I devoured it and it really helped me, wanted to make sure that we were going to use it in a theologically accurate way. Which was so great, because Jeff was in seminary. So he was learning all these things, and we just kept it quiet probably for the next, I don't know, five or six years.

Jeff McCord:
Yeah. Wow.

Beth McCord:
Just learning how to use it correctly. But then once we really felt like we had a fairly good handle on it for ourselves, Jeff wanted to start using it with the people in our church when he was an associate pastor. And we started using it and seeing great transformation in other people's lives. We were able to understand them better, to guide them, to advise them, to care and love for them in ways that would have been hard or would have taken a lot longer of a time. And so we started using it in the local church and with even our staff, because I at the time was an administrative assistant at the time. And we would use it in our little team meetings. It was so helpful.

Jeff McCord:
That's right. I remember it changing our staff meeting. We saw each other with new eyes. It was incredible.

Beth McCord:
Yeah. We were able to give each other more compassion and understanding, support, and just in so many different ways. So it was just really a sweet time of all of us learning it together. And yeah, that's ...

Jeff McCord:
Well, and then fast forward to 2014, we moved to Nashville, Tennessee. I was becoming an executive pastor, which was the goal that I had for my pastoral career. And that ended after a year, which got us spun out in life. We didn't know what to do. Our kids were teenagers. Well, at that time we decided to start Your Enneagram Coach. And now we have a reach that's global, we reach millions of people every month, and then we also have a certification program that we've trained over 2,000 coaches in 30+ countries. It's been quite a whirlwind. We've never dreamed of something like this.

Beth McCord:
And it's from a gospel centered approach to the Enneagram.

Jeff McCord:
That's right. So it still has this pastoral heart to it on how we apply the Enneagram.

Christa Neidig:
Well, I love getting to have podcasts like these and talking to people like you, because I feel like every day I'm learning something new and another resource, and really Enneagram is one of my favorite. I think it's a fun one, I think it's an interesting one. We use DISC a lot in order to work together, and so I love that you all have created a way for leadership to just work together through learning each other. I think there's so much value in that.

Beth McCord:
Yeah.

Jeff McCord:
Yeah. And we've greatly appreciated from the Enneagram as it relates to a team perspective, because it does give us insights into the hearts of others. And one of the things that were really important about more than your number is, one is getting over the stereotypes of certain numbers so that we're not presuming upon or making wrongful assumptions about who people are. They're much more complex than that. But it's also being able to extend grace and redemption to people whenever there are certain liabilities of their personality, that there are opportunities for growth. So even now we have a team of about 25 people that we regularly use it with as we do work together.

Beth McCord:
Yeah.

Christa Neidig:
I love hearing how you got here. So let's talk about the book. Let's give, I don't want to say your elevator pitch, but what is it that readers can expect out of this?

Jeff McCord:
Yeah, Beth, why don't you go first?

Beth McCord:
Yeah. So it really is an overflow of the work we've actually done together personally, and then in our marriage and then in our work. So when Jeff, when he left that job originally why we came to Nashville, it was a really hard season. It was like the dark night of the soul for the both of us individually.

Jeff McCord:
Yes.

Beth McCord:
But then, not as a couple but we were in it together, but we were really struggling to understand why God brought us here, what's happening, where are we going? I'm sure a lot of pastors and ministry people have been in those same spots. So we did a lot of more internal work and understanding where we were at and why we were struggling. And it was at that time that Jeff was seeing a counselor who was helping him understand his internal world, and they were using a modality that was very helpful and talking about internal parts. And Jeff being a type six, type sixes have an inner committee. So it was easy for him to just rattle off what was going on inside him. And I am like, "What are you talking about?" Because I had that internal fog still happening in me. And I was like, "What parts are you talking about?"
And then I just remember sitting there one day just really trying to focus on, what are these parts in me? And it just dawned on me. I think it was just the Holy Spirit saying that the two wings, so each Enneagram type has two numbers next to them and those are called wings, and the two Enneagram paths, those lines that are connected to other numbers, "Well, wait, what if those are my parts? What if those have a great influence on my life and how I interact with the world?" And so once I started to go there I realized, "Oh, this makes so much more sense." Again, the Enneagram brought clarity to my internal fog in such a precise way. And so that's how EIP, which is really what the book is about, Enneagram internal profile, is all about.
So we have six basic EIP parts. The first two actually come from your main type, and there's the wounded child and the beloved child. The wounded child is a part of our heart that has been hurt through trauma or tragedy in our life. And it's young, it's ill-equipped, and it still tries to help us "help us," but because it's young and it's immature and ill-equipped, it doesn't actually help us any more. It did when we were younger to a degree, but now we need to learn how to access our beloved child. And this is the part of our heart that knows who we are and whose we are. It's our Spirit-led self. And that part of our heart feels confident in our identity in Christ and can lead our wounded child back into alignment.
But not only that, those two wings and our two Enneagram path types, those four Enneagram types have a great influence in our life. And they're either misaligned or aligned depending on whether they're following the wounded child or the beloved child. And so each of these parts of us show up on a daily basis, hour by hour, whether you recognize it or not, and they bring their insights, their defensive strategies, their positive attributes to our life, again, depending on which one they're following. And so by recognizing this, what's so helpful with the Enneagram is we can see when we start to veer off course and maybe you land into a common pitfall. And so the Enneagram is like and the EIP is like that rumble strip on the highway that alerts you, "Hey, you're starting to veer off course. You want to wake up now, surrender, depend on the Holy Spirit to bring you back into alignment, to bring that beloved child back into leadership and allow the beloved child to coach, mentor, shepherd, pastor the rest of our parts into a healthier path to be more like Christ."

Christa Neidig:
Well, I think you answered my main question, which was asking how the EIP is different from just your Enneagram type or number. And I feel like you already dove in much deeper than I had known about it, leaning into that. But if you have anything else?

Beth McCord:
Well, I would just say, sorry, one quick thing. We do use all nine parts to varying degrees. So I do, as a type nine, use all of the nine parts, but our basic EIP really focuses on your wounded child and your beloved child for your main type and the two wings and those Enneagram paths. But that's not to say that some of the other parts don't show up in different ways from time to time as well. But if we can just focus in on those aspects of our type, the basic EIP, it will shed so much light onto whether we're operating in an alignment or misalignment with the truth of the gospel. What were you going to say?

Jeff McCord:
Yeah, really at the heart of more than your number is a few things. Number one, we are more than just one number. Some of the times we get put into a box or a stereotype according to this Enneagram number, which is just kind of odd language in itself. Like, "I'm a six." Well, what does that mean? You're not that attractive, or what does that mean? So it does speak to that, that we're much more complex than the first initial description of each Enneagram type in their way of relating to the world. But I think too there's a great phrase that I've heard my recovery friends say, that discovery is not recovery, or observation is not transformation. So much of Enneagram introductory material is about describing the types and just growing in our sense of self-awareness.
But it doesn't take the next step to do what David was doing in the book of Psalms, of learning to, when he talks to himself and he says things like, "Why so downcast, o my soul?" Or in Psalm 131, "I have learned to quiet my soul." And that's where more than your number takes the Enneagram a bit further to help us to understand how we can apply the truth of all that God is for us and the person and work of Jesus and applying it to our hearts now, so that the fruit of that shows up in our leadership and shows up in our relationships and it shows up in how we exercise our calling.

Christa Neidig:
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Yeah, so speaking of that, I want to talk back to these relationships and leadership and talk about how the EIP applies to these different areas of life, whether that's your marriage, your parenting, your ministry, just those around you.

Jeff McCord:
Yeah. There's a great line that we learned and we say it a lot. There's part of me that wants to do this, or maybe, why does a part of me show up whenever I'm in my occupation versus whenever I'm at home in family life? EIP gives a map to understand not only that these parts of us exist, but it gives vocabulary and understanding of their motivations, their roles, their gifts, as well as their liabilities. What else would you add?

Beth McCord:
Well, I was just going to say I can give an example of how EIP works for myself. So Jeff and I are the co-owners of Your Enneagram Coach. And so we're leaders, we're employers. And he's the CEO, I'm the chief content creator, and so we have to lead these wonderful people. Well, all people are scared of being in leadership roles for different reasons.

Christa Neidig:
Right.

Beth McCord:
I being the type nine, the false message of the wounded child within me says, "Don't assert yourself. Don't make much of yourself. Don't have too much confidence. Don't boast." Well, you can see how that can really hinder my ability to lead, because then I become small. I want people to ignore me. "Don't think too much of me," but that's not good leadership. So I have to recognize that part of my heart that has false messages, limiting beliefs, and then to bring the beloved child, which says, "No, your presence matters. God created you in such a way with different gifts, but you have to assert yourself. You have to bring the gifts to everyone else, not hoard them, and to trust him."
Now, what also happens with the EIP is I also have to recognize how those other four parts are operating. When my wounded part is in the lead, my type one will show up with quiet criticism or passive criticism or judgmental attitude. Now, no one's going to probably feel it like a pure type one, but it's going to come in more of a cold way and a demanding way that things are done right. My type three, when it's in a misaligned place, can really be more consumed of my image. How do people hear it? Now, I'm still a nine, my nine is always leaving, and my three is working on behalf of my type nine, but the three is still concerned about image.
Well, how can we appear still soft and gentle, but also I don't want to be overlooked, so how do I get my presence out there, how do I win people over? But then my six part will show up with worrying about all the things that could happen and go wrong, and she can get really anxious and spun out and irritable and defensive and trying to just take control of things because she's so afraid. But my type eight part, she wants to just plow over everyone. Usually it only shows up with the family for the most part, occasionally you'll see this passionate side come out. But let me show you what it looks like from a beloved stance. So as an employer I know that my biggest weakness, my Achilles' heel, is sloth, which is the core weakness of a type nine. Which again is not thinking much of myself, thinking I don't really matter, my voice doesn't matter.
So my beloved self needs to come in and speak the gospel to myself, but also speak it to the type one and say, "No, we don't need to judge people, but yes, let's bring wisdom. Let's bring truth. Let's make sure things are done well but with gentleness. Okay, type three, yes, we do want things to look well, and yes, we want to make things happen. So let's have a plan. Let's have goals. Let's have the team have goals and let's make sure those things happen for sure. Let's kill it. Let's make sure that we achieve, but from a healthy perspective." And then the type six, the type six part of my heart, a lot of people think that the six part is anxious, but actually they're the most courageous in the Enneagram.
And so they're like a warrior that helps me to get through difficulties. And then my type eight brings strength, passion, and assertiveness, and when she shows up she helps my nine to be strong and gentle all at the same time. And so that's where it's so important to understand how the different parts of us can either be misaligned or aligned from a working standpoint, so that we make sure that we bring the best of who we are into our work environment.

Christa Neidig:
That's awesome. I just love how much more there is to this. And you all have studied this for years, and so there's so much depth to this. I'm a little bit scared to ask but also curious, I would consider myself a type seven. And we've talked about earlier before the podcast, we were just talking more about this subject, and you mentioned that she went down this path with someone and they were like, "Oh my gosh, I feel like you saw everything." So I'm a little bit curious what you would say to the people like me and myself as a type seven in that.

Beth McCord:
Yeah. So if people were to look at you as just a type seven, they're going to say, "Oh yeah, she's spontaneous, she's fun, she's whimsical, but she's also scattered. She doesn't complete things. She forgets stuff and she doesn't take life seriously."

Jeff McCord:
Maybe bounces from relationship to relationship.

Beth McCord:
Yeah, she can't stay in the present moment. She's always off to the next thing. Now, those things are true and accurate whether you're aligned or misaligned, but that's not the whole of you. Think about going to Sherwin-Williams. So in our Enneagram symbol, the type seven is more of a red color. Well, if you were to go in and pick out a red, there's thousands of reds that you could choose from. And so what we are wanting to show is that you are your own red, and it's a mixture of how you're using your type seven parts and how you use the ones that you're connected to. So your two wings, which is six and eight, and then the two Enneagram paths are five and one.
So what this might look like, so as the wounded child who's trying to protect you, she might show up and go, "Oh my gosh, I'm feeling trapped. Someone's making me deal with emotional pain or negativity. I don't want that. So I'm going to think of the positive. I'm going to reframe things. Because I can't depend on anyone else, I've got to do this myself." Well, when that's not happening really well, you might move into your one space. So the type one might show up and is like, "You know what? I am really disappointed that other people are keeping me from fun or that they are not making things happen. So I'm going to be a little critical. I'm going to be a little curt in my communication to make sure that they do what I want them to do so that I'm okay." But also the type eight part of your heart, the wing part of your heart, might come in with a lot more passion and consistency that people do what you want to do. So there's a little bit more control and intensity.
The type six part of your heart might actually get you revved up with anxiety. Like, "Well, what if I don't get what I need? What if I'm always going to be in this state of thinking of negative things? Or what if I lose relationship with others because I'm bouncing from thing to thing?" So the six can get you riled up with a lot of what-ifs. And then the five part of your heart can be like, "Well, we just need to escape. We just need to get away. We just need to recharge. No one gets me. No one's helping me." Well, that's the wounded part of your heart. Now, the beloved part of your heart is when the seven goes, "You know what? There are hard things in life that sometimes I have to deal with, but Christ is going to walk me through that. He's not going to let me go to a place that I can't handle. He's going to replenish me, he's going to restore me, and he is going to bring joy. May not be happiness all the time, but he's going to bring deep-seated joy.
And when that happens, the type one part of your heart is going to recognize, "You know what? There are things that we actually need to do. It's not always fun, but if we do them, actually goodness will come. Satisfaction will come. So let's double down and get this list accomplished." The type eight part of your heart will go, "You know what? We can plow a path on the behalf of others and still have fun." The type six part of your heart can go, "You know what? There are hard things in life, but I'm going to show you how to tackle those hard things. I'm going to give you courage when it feels impossible to sit in it." And the type five is going to say, "Hey, come inward, listen to the Holy Spirit, listen to who you are, and understand that joy and sorrow can be together and let's process that together."
And when you're there, then the type seven part is going to bring true joy and abundance to everyone around us. Because joy doesn't always mean happiness, but it's the fulfillment of life that Christ gives us. Does this sound accurate in your life?

Christa Neidig:
It does. The first part was like, "Oh wow, she's really seeing me. Oh, my goodness." And then as you were talking I'm like, "Wow, I have seen those at different phases in life." It's funny, we actually did a mental health podcast not too long ago, and I talked to our VP of strategy, Jen. And we were talking about just the times when I had struggled with more anxiety and the transitions of life and just as things become harder, and the ways that you have to learn to look at God through those moments and have a deeper trust in God when I want to be controlling and I don't want to release control and trust in him." So that's really honestly refreshing.

Jeff McCord:
You know, there's a great passage in the gospels where Jesus comes to a man who has a demon possessed child, and the man asked Jesus to deliver his son. And Jesus says, "Well, I can do that. Is this what you really want?" Or, "Do you believe?" And then the man responds, "I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief." That there are parts of our hearts, and we experience that as followers of Jesus, we're both-and. I'm not just full totally of faith. There's part of me that doesn't believe, that has been experiencing the pain and tragedy of living in a sinful and fallen world. And so it's easy for us to bring this experience now. So the anxiety through transitions is not something to be avoided, but the Enneagram gives us a map and language as well as a sense of direction to be able to apply what we believe to be true about the gospel, now apply it to these parts of us that are really struggling.

Beth McCord:
Yeah.

Christa Neidig:
That's great. So I want to ask a quick question. In the title of the book on the front cover it says, "An Approach To Becoming Aware." And this is an acronym. And so I want you to talk to that, of what that means in terms of this book.

Jeff McCord:
Yeah. Well, that's something that Beth and I have developed over the years. I remember early on whenever we were using this model of the Enneagram, I called them team meetings. So in my devotional times in the morning, just there with God's word, his Spirit, and now opening myself up in silence and solitude, how do I take account for all that's happening inside of me? And AWARE became the acrostic to account for everything. So A stands for awaken, that's just recognizing that I'm experiencing something internally. For me that could be ruminating thoughts, it could be anxiety, something that's getting me up in the morning. It could be something I'm feeling in my body, maybe tenseness in my neck. We've even talked recently about how pain shows up in our shoulders. Just accounting for it. Number two is welcome. That is to be hospitable to these various experiences because they actually may become opportunities for the Spirit to bring insight and understanding into our lives.

Beth McCord:
And importantly, welcome without judgment, shame, or guilt.

Jeff McCord:
That's right.

Beth McCord:
Literally just from a nonjudgmental place, welcome, see it, deal with reality at hand in a place that's kind.

Jeff McCord:
And then the next A is ask. That is both asking the Holy Spirit and these parts of us internally, is to invite God into the experience of helping us understand. It's David saying, "Search me and know me, see if there's any unholy ways in me." The next one is to receive, to receive truth. Oftentimes the parts of our hearts don't fully embrace, see, or understand all who God is for us in Jesus. And then the last thing is, based upon that truth it's faith working itself out in love. So what does it look like for me to reengage in my own life as well as into the lives of others and maybe into the lives of the congregation in new ways based on that truth?

Beth McCord:
Yeah.

Christa Neidig:
Wow. Well, that's great. Thank you guys so much for sharing a little bit of insight into this book. I'm so glad that I have my copy now that was sent over, and it's a great resource that I can go to as well as the friendship now that I have with the two of you. I know that you all are a great resource and that our team could greatly benefit from just knowing more about this and working together, as well as so many other aspects. So thank you for the time you've put into this. Where can people find this book? I know it comes out in September, I want to say September 20th?

Jeff McCord:
That's right.

Beth McCord:
Yeah.

Jeff McCord:
Yeah, that's right.

Beth McCord:
September 20th. Yeah, so everyone can go to yourenneagramprofile.com, and all the resources and benefits of what we have to offer in the book and where to get the book are at that website. So yourenneagramprofile.com.

Christa Neidig:
Great. And just so everyone knows, we will make sure to have all of your website and links and social media and all of the resources available in the show notes so that everybody can see that after the show. Thank you so much, Beth and Jeff, for your time.

Beth McCord:
Yeah, thank you.

Jeff McCord:
It's great being with you.

Christa Neidig:
Thanks for listening to the Vanderbloemen Leadership podcast. At Vanderbloemen we help Christian organizations build their best teams through hiring, succession, compensation, and diversity consulting services. Visit our website, vanderbloemen.com, to learn more. And subscribe to our Vanderbloemen Leadership podcast wherever you listen to podcasts to keep up our newest episodes. Thanks for listening.