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Some thoughts on turning 50

Published by on December 19, 2024

This birthday was different from all of the others. When I got birthday wishes from friends, there was a part of me that wondered if they were sending condolences rather than messages of celebration. I knew in my head they weren’t, but you know…

Despite that brief bit of inner turmoil, I had a great day. My parents took us all out to breakfast at Brother Juniper’s. I worked most of the day but took a little time off. And then Mandy and the boys took me to Bog & Barley for dinner. They gave me gifts and shared things that they appreciate about me. It was very thoughtful and moving.

While Mandy and I were in Germany, I had a thought that I’ve never had before. As we were leaving Salzburg I thought, “there’s a good chance that I’ll never come back here.” Mandy reminded me that I used to leave a city thinking, “One day I’m going to move here!” That was the excitement of an Enneagram 7. This new thought made me a little sad, but it also reminded me to simply be present in the moment and to enjoy the moment. That’s a good practice!

As I’ve continued to reflect, I remember that I’ve been preparing for this time for the past seven or eight years. I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this at some point, but it was seven or eight years ago that my friend Matt shared something with me that I couldn’t stop thinking about. He works with leaders, mostly in ministry contexts, and he told me that it’s his belief that the fifties are a person’s most strategic decade.

Neither of us had reached that point at the time, so I could only take him at his word on something that he had simply observed in his work. But I was very aware of the fact that this decade is also a time, especially for a man, that is marked by mid-life crisis.

At the time, I knew that I was not living life in a healthy way, and my hunch was that if I didn’t make some changes, my fifties might be marked more by crisis than by abundance.

It was at that point that I began preparing for where I find myself today. I wanted to create a healthy on-ramp to my fifties, and I knew that some things were going to need to change for that to be my reality. One of the biggest was that I had to leave my career that I had spent 20 years doing. And if I’m honest, it was more than simply a career. It was a dream. The problem was that I didn’t know how to do the job in a way that made me a better person. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. But it was the right one.

I knew that I wanted to be present for my boys during their most critical years. Last night Adam told me that one of the things that he appreciates about me is that I’ve been present. That was a very timely thing for me to hear.

I also wanted to make sure that my marriage was in a place after we became empty nesters where we would still want to be together. I had seen plenty of marriages drift. I knew how easy that would be for us to drift. But I wanted to start working now in such a way that we would be moving closer together when the boys left rather than further apart. We’re not empty nesters yet, but we’ve both taken the task of cultivating our marriage seriously.

I recently wrote here about my goal to use the 100 days prior to my birthday as a healthy on-ramp to turning 50. I’m really happy with the practices I began. I’ve seen good fruit come as a result.

So an on-ramp was created seven or eight years ago. And then another on-ramp was built 100 days ago. That gives me the confidence to know that I’m where I need to be. It’s an odd birthday for sure, but I feel good. I’m motivated to continue moving towards health and wholeness, towards generosity, goodness and grace, and towards presence and passion. And I’m grateful for the community that is living this life with me!

My on-ramp to 50

Published by on October 17, 2024

Around six weeks ago I realized that I was 100 days away from turning 50. As I was reflecting on this I decided that I wanted to use these 100 days as much as possible to prepare me to make this new year a great one.

I decided on a few practices, and one of those was to read through the New Testament.

The Bible has played a big role throughout my entire life. It’s also had a complex role in my life. There have been times when I was in it daily. It has a way of shaping thoughts and attitudes and the overall way that I take on a day. There have been other times when I’ve gone days and weeks without opening it. I’ve seen the harm that man’s interpretation of the Bible has done to our world. I’ve seen how passages have been twisted for the sake of power and control. I’ve had moments in my own life where the words on the pages brought not hope and encouragement but fear and frustration. And there have been times when I’ve wondered if I would continue to go to it.

I have an overall belief that most times in our lives, when we face something challenging, it’s best to run towards it rather than away from it. I think this is true for me right now when it comes to the Bible. So during these 100 days I want to run towards it.

My mind has continued to shift when it comes to the Bible. I recognize today more than any other time in my life how complex it is, and I’m ok with that. But I still find beauty and depth in it. When I read the Bible I come with curiosity and wonder. This isn’t something I’m mastering. It’s something I need to ground me and to help me live my life.

I purchased my copy of The Daily Bible in Chronological Order over 25 years ago. I’ve used it off and on during those 25 years, and a couple of years ago a friend and I read through the entire Bible in a year using it.

The spiritual practice I decided on for this time was to read through the New Testament and write a reflection each day. The New Testament begins tomorrow and ends on December 31.

As is reflected in the title, this Bible attempts to lay out the stories in chronological order. That means we begin with the birth of Jesus. I love this paragraph from tomorrow’s introduction. I’ll end today’s post with it…

Who is this Christ, this Messiah? His name is Jesus. His symbolic name, Immanuel (meaning “God with us”), signifies his deity. He is man, to be sure, but God as well; and he is God – the God of Creation – but man as well. God lowers himself so that man might be elevated. He leaves heaven so that man might enter it. To man, who cannot begin to understand the ways of God, it is clearly a great mystery. But what a marvelous and wonderful mystery it is!

How I Remember What I Read

Published by on April 14, 2023

I’ve always been a big reader. Each year I set goals for what and how much I want to read, and I track everything on GoodReads. One of the biggest challenges for readers is remembering what we’ve read. Have you ever had a moment where you remembered a bit of a story or idea that you once read, but you had no idea where it came from? It’s happened to me many times.

Through the years I’ve tried many different systems to make sure that I remember, and can locate, what it was that I’ve read and found helpful. When I was a young pastor, after I would read a book I would go back through it and type out quotes and thoughts I had as I read. This obviously took some time, but it was a great solution. This second time through a book allows the major takeaways to become more sticky, which is the whole idea. I actually just located the folder I labeled “My Book Summaries” on my MacBook, and there are over 40 documents.

This addresses one of the issues – that of how to truly internalize what you’ve read. But while it took the best ideas from books and put them into a digital document, it didn’t provide a great solution for easily locating those ideas at a later date. The bigger problem was that as I got busier with work and life, I quit taking notes this way.

The Kindle was a real game changer for me. I’ve never owned an actual Kindle, but I’ve been using the Kindle app for a long time. I actually purchased my first Kindle book way back in 2009. I say it was a game changer because once this technology surfaced, I began reading just about everything digitally. I preferred digital over physical for two reasons. First, I didn’t have to worry about running out of room on my bookshelves. Second, I could highlight important things I read, and then cut and paste those highlights into a word processor doc. So that’s what I began doing. It was way faster. It unfortunately did not have the same impact as when I would read the book the second time and actually type out those notes. But the positive was that I had highlights for many more books.

This summer I started writing the curriculum for a financial workshop I led at my church called Mastering Money. I decided to use Ryan Holiday’s Notecard System. The gist of the system is that you wait a couple of weeks after finishing a book, and then you go through that book a second time and write down the things that impacted you most. So I bought 4×6 notecards and a box to hold them, and then I set out going through every book on money that I had read in the past. I wrote down quotes, questions, big ideas, etc, and in the top right hand corner I would give the card a tag. Once I had gone through all of the books and had several hundred cards, I set out to organize the cards according to tag. From there I started writing the curriculum. This made the daunting task of writing the curriculum for a three hour workshop way less daunting, and I’m so glad that I went through the process.

At the end, however, I decided that this system had some drawbacks. First, my handwriting is terrible. I would write a few sentences on a card, and even I would have trouble reading it! Second, it takes a lot of time to write. I am much faster at typing than writing. Finally, what happens if I lose those cards? I wanted a digital solution.

A few months ago I was introduced to Tiago Forte through the All the Hacks Podcast. It was through this podcast interview, and through further reading about Tiago, including his great book Building a Second Brain, that I began to take steps towards creating a system for remembering and easily recalling what I’ve read.

This interview first introduced me to the app Readwise. I started out with a two month trial, but after a few weeks of using the app I became a paying subscriber. Readwise imports highlights from Kindle, Pocket, Feedly, Instapaper, Apple Books, Twitter, and many other platforms. Every morning, at the time I specified when setting up the app, I receive an email with five random highlights from books I’ve read. It’s fun to read this quick email and be reminded of the books that I’ve read through the years.

Here’s why I love Readwise. When I’m reading in the Kindle app on my iPad, I can add a one word note that begins with a period (.contentment, for example), and then that becomes a tag in Readwise. So just as I sorted those physical notecards by the tags I gave it in that upper right hand column, now I can do that digitally. It’s going to take some time to go back through my books and add those tags, but that is my plan. Once I’ve done this, I’ll be able to go into Readwise, select a tag, and I’ll see every quote or note that contains that tag. It will be so helpful when writing a sermon or article.

Here’s how I’m currently using this system. I recently read the book From Strength to Strength, by Arthur Brooks. It was one of those books that I knew I would want to go back to, so I opened a Apple Notes doc on my MacBook, and had my iPad next to it with this book pulled up. I had a browser tab opened up to this book’s highlights in Readwise. I began to reread the book, and when I would come across something that I highlighted, if it was still meaningful, I would add it to Apple Notes. If it was the entire highlight, I would simply copy and paste it from Readwise. Since I had not started tagging at the time I first read the book, I also used this time to add those tags. Once I was finished going through the book this second time, I had a doc with my main takeaways.

Readwise recently introduced Reader, which is their own RSS reader app, so now I can do the same thing with articles. If I start reading an article online that I think is going to be a good read, I immediately send it to Reader, and I either read it from the Reader app then or save it for later. In the Reader app I can highlight and add notes and tags, and those highlights, notes and tags then sync to Readwise.

I’m am really excited about this new system. Reading a good book is great. A book can provide inspiration, information, or simply fun. It can give you that one idea that takes your life in a new direction. But now I’ll be able to go back to what I read days, weeks or even years before, and allow it impact me once again.

Favorite Books for 2022

Published by on December 21, 2022

These are some of my favorite books from 2022. They’re in no particular order.

The Psychology of Money, by Morgan Housel, was excellent. There’s a good chance I’ll end up reading it again this year. When it comes to money, our decisions aren’t usually data driven. There are emotions and history and pride and fear all wrapped up, and we need to understand that if we’re going to make wise decisions with our money.

Financial Freedom, by Grant Sabatier, contained a lot of repeat material I had read in other FIRE books, but Grant supplies so much data backing up his teaching, which I found very helpful. There is also a lot of helpful info about earning more money, whether that’s through your current 9-5 job or through side hustles.

Shauna Niequist’s I Guess I Haven’t Learned that Yet was a beautiful read. She shares the struggle of pandemic life, illness, family issues, and moving to a new city. She’s a great writer, and I deeply appreciated her honesty.

Another book I’ll definitely come back to is The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, by John Mark Comer. The title comes from Dallas Willard, who is one of my favorite authors. Comer brings a philosophical yet very practical teaching about the dangers of hurry.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Stanley Tucci read his memoir Taste: My Life through Food. I’ve always enjoyed his work as an actor, but hearing his story, and how food and cooking weaves a path through it, made me even more of a fan.

The AntiSocial Network, by Ben Mezrich, tells the 2020 story of the collision between Reddit, Robinhood and GameStop in a way that would forever change Wall Street.

Michael Hyatt’s Living Foward is not a new book. I’ve had it for awhile, but in January I read it for the first time. Here is a blog post on how I’ve put what I learned into practice this year. I’ll be coming back to it next week as I spend a day planning for next year.

Finally, here are a few of my favorite novels I read this year.

Favorite Books for 2021

Published by on December 20, 2021

There was a time this spring when I was on pace to read a book a week, something I’ve never done before. While I didn’t quite hit 52 books read this year, I got pretty close, and I definitely beat my goal of 40. Here are some of my favorite reads for the year.

First up are some memoirs…

A Promised Land – Barack Obama
This is one that I listened to, which was great because it was President Obama reading it. It’s a very long book, clocking in at over 750 pages, and this is just part 1. It was a very enjoyable read.

I’m Still Here – Austin Channing Brown
This is not an easy book to read. In fact, after getting through about half of it, I put it down for awhile. But I’m glad that I picked it back up. It was less about new information making its way into my brain and more about truths penetrating my heart.

Where the Light Fell – Phillip Yancey
I just finished this one a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think I had ever read a book by Yancey. This one was beautiful. He is around the same age as my parents, and like them he grew up in the south. So there is a lot about religion and racism. And it’s another powerful book on how our parents shape us, both good and bad.

Still Christian – David Gushee
David Gushee began his tenure at Union University my senior year. I really wish that I had gotten to take a class from him. I read his book on ethics while in seminary, and began following more closely his work after that. I felt a real familiarity reading his story, though I have not been in the spotlight like he has, and I’ve therefore not gone through the pain that he has.

Greenlights – Matthew McConaughey
This might just be the most entertaining book of the year. And it’s another one I’d highly recommend you listening to, as the author is the one reading it. I listened to it while driving through Colorado, Montana and Wyoming this summer. It, like Yancey’s book, has the message of parenting at its core.

Speaking of books on parenting, this one was excellent…

The Intentional Father – Jon Tyson
I’ve been using Tyson’s materials on parenting since Adam was in 6th grade and we began our weekly breakfasts together. I’ve read a lot of good parenting books through the years, but I’d say this one is probably my favorite.

Now for some books on finance, productivity, and really just living life well.

Lifeonaire – Steve Cook
This fictional story gets the reader to ask the question, “What is the good life, and how do I achieve it?” There are some cheesy parts in it, but it was one of those right place right time books for me. I’ve actually made an offer to Adam that if he will read the book over Christmas break and write a reflection paper, I’ll pay him $50. I think the message in it is that important for him.

Off the Clock – Laura Vanderkam
For several years now managing time has been just as import as managing money to me. Vanderkam is one of the best writers on this topic.

Work Less, Live More – Bob Clyatt
My interest in semi-retirement came after I left vocational ministry. I had been pastoring a church and doing real estate for several years, which meant I was working well over 40 hours per week. After I left vocational ministry, I had 15-20 hours that I did not necessarily fill up with more real estate. It allowed for me a better pace, which led to better health. However, I would often find myself asking the question, “Am I doing enough?” This book and others has helped me navigate these kinds of questions and helped me to imagine a new kind of life.

This year one of the topics I found myself diving into was Evangelicalism. It no doubt started with the divisive election. I wrote some about this here. I plan to write more on this topic in the coming year, but for now, here are a couple of books I read this year that were shaping influences.

After Evangelicalism – David Gushee
Here’s another book by Gushee. Whereas Still Christian tells more of his personal story, this book shares the why and how by laying out many of his theological convictions and shifts. I’ve recommended this one to several people.

Jesus and John Wayne – Kristin Kobes Du Mez
When a friend recommended this one to me, I asked if he enjoyed it. After pausing for a moment, his response was, “it was really good, but I’m not sure enjoyment was what I felt.” After reading it, I totally understand. It gives a thorough history of how we got to where we currently are with evangelicalism. It shares the good, the bad and the ugly. And the ugly is really difficult to get through.

I already have a good list of books that I plan to read in the coming year, and I look forward to reading them!

Why You Shouldn’t Worship People

Published by on November 30, 2021

One of my favorite shows on tv right now is Succession. It’s the story of Logan Roy, the billionaire owner of a media empire, and his four children, all of whom are vying for his love and attention now, as well as his throne once he is gone. The family has more money than they know what to do with, but they’re not happy. Life is not working that well for any of them.

In each episode the viewer sees just how much Logan’s children and employees hate him. He is simply a mean bully. A kind word out of his mouth is never true kindness – there’s always an ulterior motive. It’s no wonder that there is hatred for the man. What is shocking is that there is also love, awe, and a desperate attempt for approval from these same children and employees.

It’s shocking, but it’s really not that shocking. We’ve seen it before. It’s part of the human story. It’s the worship of man at its finest. Logan is on such a powerful pedestal for all around him to see. He’s placed himself there, but they too have placed him there. And once a person is in that type of position for those around him, destruction follows, and that’s the essence of what we see throughout this show.

I’ve also been listening to the podcast “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.” I was in seminary and then in the early years of starting a church during the 2000’s, and during that time I was definitely influenced by the work of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, along with it’s founder and lead pastor Mark Driscoll. I have known the story of what happened there over its almost twenty year history, but hearing it on this podcast has been an unsettling experience.

In my opinion, at the core of what went wrong there was the celebrity culture that so many church leaders strive to attain. But it’s not just about those leaders. Those in the church want it too. And it doesn’t end well. In interview after interview, you see the love for Mark Driscoll from those who were impacted by his ministry. And along with that love was so often that desperate attempt for approval. He could have channeled this into a different direction, but he too was desperate for approval.

This worship led to destruction.

I often think about the commencement speech that David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College in 2005. Here is an excerpt.

You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship. Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.

And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

The rest of the speech is worth your time to read or listen to, but this is the big part for me. People are not meant to be worshipped. And when I say “worship”, I don’t mean sing songs to or bow down to. As Wallace says, it’s all about where you get ultimate meaning. Humans were never meant to give ultimate meaning to a person. And when it happens, it doesn’t end well.

One note…While a lot of Driscoll’s behavior has made me sick, I don’t put him in the same evil monster category as I do Logan Roy. However, I find myself thinking about these things as I listen to both stories. And I think there’s something we can learn from both.

Reading the Bible

Published by on October 12, 2021

A couple of months ago I decided that I wanted to try to read the entire Bible in a year. I wanted to come back to this beautiful yet complex book with new eyes. Like many, I have a complicated relationship with the Bible. I’ve been reading it all of my life, yet there have been times when I have had to step away from it. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the Bible has been used throughout its history to justify some pretty jacked up things. Through the years this book has helped me grow closer to God, but at other times it’s played a role in me wanting some distance.

Despite all of this, I found myself wanting to revisit it, and I decided that I’d like to try to read the entire thing. This is something I’ve tried before, and I’ve never made it through. Most Bible reading plans start in January with Genesis. The last time I did this, I made it through the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible). I got through Joshua and Judges, and then I began to make my way through the glory days of Israel’s history, which centers on the story of David. I’ve always liked David’s story, so this was pretty easy. It was Kings and Chronicles that did me in. There’s lots of repetition, and I got fatigued and quit.

This time I’ve done three things to hopefully help me meet my challenge. First, I’m reading my favorite Bible – The Daily Bible in Chronological Order. What I love about this Bible is that it’s divided into 365 daily readings, but it’s in chronological order, at least according to the editor. There is also a lot of historical and cultural commentary that I find super helpful.

Second, I decided to start two months ago rather than waiting until January. This meant that I began with Ezekiel, a very complicated book. I’ve read the minor prophets, which are sometimes tough to get through. I also made it through the large book of Job, which gave me a lot to think about. I’m about to finish the Old Testament. There are then a few days that cover the intertestamental period and the impact of Greece and Rome on the Hebrew people. And then we start the New Testament. By the time I get to January and start Genesis, I’ll be almost five months in. I’ll have a good foundation, but I’ll also have developed a good habit.

Finally, probably the biggest key is that I’m not doing this alone. My friend Luke is going to be reading with me, and our plan is to meet weekly to discuss. Getting to talk about what we’re reading is going to be great. It will of course give some accountability to meet the challenge, but more than that it will be great for our friendship.

I’m going to use this blog to write from time to time what I’m learning and how it’s shaping my life. I’m excited to dive in and see where this takes me!

Formative Books – Work & Productivity

Published by on September 16, 2021

In previous posts I have shared my favorite books on the topics of spirituality and money. Now I’d like to highlight those books that have most helped me to do my work. As a long-term solo entrepreneur, I’ve rarely had someone looking over my shoulder to ensure that I was actually doing my work. That may sound heavenly to you, but it’s meant that I’ve had to develop systems and habits so that I actually get things done. Like previous posts, this list is in the order of when I first encountered these works.

First up is Time Management for Dummies, by Jeffrey Mayer. You may chuckle with this one, but this was the first productivity book I ever read. I read it during a time I had a job in which no one was there telling me what to do. I had to figure out how schedule my days so that I actually got things done. While I don’t remember much specifically about the book, there is one exercise that I continue to use. It’s the master list. You take a yellow notepad and write down everything that you need to get done. I now primarily use Nozbe for my to do list, but when there is a lot on my plate, I come back to that master list. There’s something about getting everything from my brain to a piece of paper that is clarifying.

Next is The 4-Hour Workweek, by Tim Ferriss. I’m a big fan of Tim Ferriss. I’ve been listening to his podcast since soon after it launched in 2014, and I’ve read just about all of his books. It was through this book that I first began thinking about concepts like life design, mini-retirements, and remote work. I’m fairly certain that a lot of my thoughts on working the system probably came from Tim as well. This is a book I come back to every few years.

Next up is StrengthsFinder 2.0, by Tom Rath. I first took the StrengthsFinder assessment back in 2001, but I didn’t have anyone really help me to understand it. But in 2010 our church had a consultant come and spend a weekend with us. I learned that my top five strengths were Command, Self-Assurance, Adaptability, Activator, and Arranger. This gave me language to understand the tasks I do that make me feel strong. I began to understand that this is a unique way that God has designed me, and it’s good for me and others when I spend the bulk of my time living and working out of these strengths. If you’ve never taken this assessment you can do so here. I highly recommend it.

Next up is Anything You Want, by Derek Sivers. The subtitle is 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur. I like that. I first heard Derek on the Tim Ferriss podcast, and I was immediately a fan. He is about as outside the box as you can get, and more than just about anyone I’ve ever heard about, his decisions and day to day activity are so rooted in his values and desires. This is a short book with short chapters, and it’s another one that I come back to every few years.

Greg McKeown’s Essentialism came at a perfect time in my life. I was doing too many things, and this book helped me make some radical changes. What do I feel deeply inspired by? What am I particularly talented at? What meets a significant need in the world? At the center of these three questions are just a few things. I understood that my focus needed to be on these things. That meant that I needed to stop doing a lot of other things. And that’s where the next book helped immensely.

Before Free to Focus was a book, it was a course by Michael Hyatt. It was one of the best investments I’ve ever made, and it continues to bear fruit in my life. It was from Hyatt that I learned how to construct an ideal week. The course/book also helped to give me the courage to cut out a lot of things I was doing that might have seemed urgent, but that weren’t really that important. It also gave me the skills to automate a lot of the tasks that I did on a day to day or week to week basis.

Deep Work, by Cal Newport, was another big one for me. The idea behind the book is that a lot of the work that is needed today is what he would call deep work. The problem is that the way so many of us spend our working days pushes against deep work. We are so easily distracted. What I learned through this book was to have time set aside during my most productive hours (morning) that was devoted to this kind of deep work. During that time I wouldn’t check email or browse the web for whatever entered my mind at that moment. It’s a discipline for sure, but it’s one that totally pays off.

The Complete Enneagram, by Beatrice Chestnut, is similar to StrengthsFinder in that I believe that the more I understand about myself, the better I’m going to be. Everything starts inside and works itself out. I’ve written on the Enneagram before, so I won’t repeat myself here. But of all the books on the subject I’ve read, this one is by far my favorite.

There was a time in my life when I was a workaholic. I worked a lot because I loved my work, but I also worked a lot because I felt better about myself when I did. Burnout was of course the end result of this kind of unhealthy lifestyle. Rest, by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, taught me to take seriously the need for intentional rest and play. There are chapters in this book about taking walks and taking naps. Simple yet very counter-cultural.

Off the Clock, by Laura Vanderkam, has been out for awhile, but I didn’t read it until this year. I had read a couple of her other books, but this one is definitely my favorite. In one of her earlier books, Vanderkam encourages the reader to keep track of how their 168 hours (one week) were spent. This is an activity that I’ve done several times, and it’s one that I highly recommend. The subtitle of this book isn’t just a catchy line. I think it’s truly possible: “Feel less busy while getting more done.”

My Enneagram Journey

Published by on June 29, 2021

I first heard about the Enneagram in the early 2000’s, but I didn’t really get into it until around five years ago. To say that it has been helpful is quite the understatement. I’ve always gotten a lot out of personality studies. StrengthsFinder was huge for Mandy and I when we first dug into it a decade ago, and the Enneagram has only added to this. As I’ve gotten more into the Enneagram, though, I have found it to be much deeper than anything else I’ve encountered. I feel that it’s difficult to exhaust all that I can learn through the Enneagram, and that’s what is so great about it.

This blog post presumes that the reader has at least a rudimentary understanding of the Enneagram and the nine types. If you don’t, or if you just need a refresher, check out Integrative Enneagram Solutions and The Enneagram Institute. My hope with this post is to give an example of how someone would go through the process of discerning one’s type.

When I first started reading several years ago, my first thought was that I might be a Three, but I had a couple of friends say that they didn’t see that. It was Mandy who first suggested that I might be a Seven. The Road Back to You, by Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile, was the first book I read cover to cover. I immediately dismissed the Seven as a possibility because of some of the stories the authors told. As I read that book, a Seven to me was personified by the class clown. It’s the person who is the life of the party. Neither of those have ever been me. So I quickly dismissed the Seven.

However, as I read more, and discussed it with Mandy and a couple of friends, I began to explore the idea that I had perhaps dismissed it too quickly. Learning about the triads was my first step towards the Seven. There are three triads, each made up of three of the numbers of the Enneagram.

There is the Body triad, made up of Eights, Nines and Ones. There is the Heart triad, made up of Twos, Threes and Fours. And then there is the Head triad, made up of Fives, Sixes and Sevens. As my study continued, I began to gravitate towards the Head triad. Those in the Head triad are driven by fear, though each number handles it differently. Fives externalize fear, Sixes internalize fear, and Sevens forget fear. When I read this, I knew that I was in the Head triad. I live in my head. And I am very driven by fear. So this meant that I was likely a Five, Six or Seven. I quickly dismissed the Six, so that left me with Five and Seven.

On this Typology podcast I learned about stances. Here’s what Ian Cron had to say:

“The social styles of the nine Enneagram types are divided into three stances: assertive, compliant, and withdrawn.  Stances refer to the basic posture of each type and how they move in the world.  The Assertive Stance (Types Three, Seven, Eight) moves against others and takes action to get their needs met.  The Compliant Stance (Types One, Two, Six) moves toward others to meet their needs externally. The Withdrawing Stance (Types Four, Five, Nine) moves away from others by turning inward to find fulfillment.”

There are areas of this journey that have not always been clear, but this is definitely not one of them. I 100% am Assertive. This means that I am most likely a Three, Seven or Eight.   If you want to read more on these stances, check out this article.

The final piece of discernment came when I heard this question: “What were you like in your early 20’s?” That was a very helpful question. Coming out of college, my biggest fear was that I would settle. Settle for doing what everyone else did or for living where everyone else lived. Settle for a typical job making a good salary. Those can be fine things, but I felt that I would be missing out on something more. I didn’t have a clue what that something more was, but it eventually took us to the SF Bay Area for further exploration. All of this is very typical of a Seven.

With each step in my journey I found myself moving closer to identifying as an Enneagram Seven. There are three areas that I believe all Seven’s have in common. They have to do with pain, authority and freedom. I’ll share the relationship I’ve had with each of these.

Pain
The need for a Seven is to avoid pain. Again, the way that we do that is through forgetting about it. I am an all star when it comes to reframing pain. When I was in college I gave a speech (in speech class) that was about a defining moment in my life. I talked about my parent’s divorce when I was four years old. In the speech I mentioned Romans 8:28, which says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” I could say with certainty that God had taken something bad and had brought about good in my life. I am a glass half full guy. I’m an optimist. I don’t struggle to find the silver lining in any challenge or difficulty. I love that about me, but the Enneagram has helped me to understand what is behind that. It’s often due to the fact that I don’t want to sit with my pain.

A key question for a Seven is, “What do you do with your pain?” As an exercise at an Enneagram workshop I went to a couple of years ago, this question was asked of me, not once, but over and over again. My first response was, “What pain?” That seems to be the first response for most Seven’s. The reason the question is repeated is that you have to dig deeper. There is pain in all of us, but Sevens do an amazing job covering it up. But to grow in health, one must go to those places of pain and deal with them.

I’ve found that there are some major ramifications to this in marriage. Reframing someone else’s pain has gotten me in trouble quite often. It’s difficult. When Mandy lost her job this spring, I immediately saw the positives. In that moment I had a larger vision for her life than I probably ever had for mine. Yet what she needed in the weeks to come wasn’t optimism and strategy. She needed me to sit with her in her pain. To listen and to love. That does not come easy for me, but it’s a discipline that I must continue to work on, both for myself as well as for those I love.

Authority
A Seven dislikes authority. To be more specific, they don’t want to be under authority, and they really don’t want to be in authority over others. To a Seven, authority equals limitations and control. I see that playing out in my life time and again. I’ve been a working adult for twenty-five years, and during that time I have had a lot of jobs. In fact, I’ve pretty much always had more than one job at a time. But in those many jobs I have rarely been managed by others, and I’ve also rarely managed others. I would characterize my jobs primarily as solo entrepreneurship.

Twenty years ago I was living in the SF Bay Area pursuing a masters degree and preparing to start a church. One of my non-negotiables was that I wanted to do that with a team. Part of that was because I strongly valued community, but as I look back on that now, I see that it was also because I wanted a flat structure. I didn’t think anyone needed to be in charge. We would all figure it out together. I chuckle a bit as I write that. It rarely worked very well, but I now understand some of the reasons behind why I wanted it.

Freedom
The ultimate goal for a Seven is freedom. A Seven hates to be locked in. They want to keep their options open. Commitment is difficult for a Seven because it can push against the desire for freedom. This has always been a big theme in my life. I’m extremely flexible, and I embrace change almost too easily. I’ve even been known to blow something up that was going great simply because I felt locked in and got bored. I didn’t know I was doing it at the time, but I did it nonetheless. Thankfully I’ve grown a lot since then.

One of the ways that a Seven deals with pain or boredom is through planning. I love to plan, especially when it comes to travel and other adventures. I heard one Seven say that a Seven goes on vacation to plan his next vacation! Boy do I resonate with that. One month ago Mandy and I went on vacation to Mexico. A few weeks earlier I was afraid that the trip might be cancelled due to COVID-19 lockdown in Mexico. One morning I woke up really early thinking about this. I decided to plan a backup trip. Around thirty minutes later Mandy woke up, and I, in a way more excited state than is warranted for that early in the morning, proceeded to share with her how I was ready to book a trip to Miami. I had the flights and hotels already picked out, and I was doing it all with points! She looked at me for a moment, and then said, “I think we’re going to be able to go to Mexico.” Then she turned over and went back to sleep. I didn’t think about that trip again, but those thirty minutes of planning sure were fun!

Thinking through these three areas has really helped me to settle in on the fact that I am a Seven. This has helped me to dig deeper into my motivations. It’s helped me to ask deeper questions. It’s helped me to pause and really take notice of pain rather than immediately trying to reframe it. I’d like to think that this has helped me to become more healthy.

Where the Enneagram gets really interesting is when you learn about the subtypes. There are lots of helpful books on the Enneagram, but my favorite has to be The Complete Enneagram, by Beatrice Chestnut. She has done a lot of work on the subtypes. Each of the nine Enneagram types has three subtypes, so in reality there are actually 27 types.

When delving into the subtypes, you need to understand about instincts. There are three instincts, and each of the nine types has all three of them. There is the self-preservation instinct, which focuses attention on personal safety and security. There is the social instinct, which focuses attention on the greater good of the community. And there is the sexual instinct, which focuses attention on one-on-one relationships. We have all three instincts, but there is a dominant one for each of us.

I have spent the last couple of months learning about these instincts so as to seek to figure out which subtype I was. I knew that I wasn’t a Sexual Seven. These are the charismatic wooers. Not me. I’ve had a couple of friends suggest that I might be a Social Seven. It’s the countertype for Sevens where sacrifice becomes the theme. While I’ve seen that in myself at times, it’s not that dominant. I don’t like writing this here, but I care too much about having my own needs met to be a Social Seven.

After a lot of reading and assessing, I identify as a Self-Preservation Seven. Here’s how Beatrice Chestnut describes Self-Preservation Sevens:

“These Sevens are very practical, good at networking, and skilled at getting what they want and finding a good deal; they tend to be opportunistic, self-interested, pragmatic, calculating, and clever. They readily recognize opportunities for creating an advantage for themselves. Self-Preservation Sevens always have their nose to the wind for good opportunities. They find ways to get what they need and want, and they have an easy way of finding pathways to making things happen for themselves – whether it’s finding the right people, the most advantageous connections, or a fortuitous career opportunity. They have their ears to the ground and are socially adept. These Sevens make business connections and network easily because they are alert and mindful to the opportunities that come along that can support their survival. They hold the position that if you are not alert to opportunities, you will lose out.”

I resonate so much with this.

There is so much more I could write about. Not a week goes by when the Enneagram does not play a role in my thinking and conversations. I continue to learn more about myself through the Enneagram, and I truly hope that this has helped you see the potential of the Enneagram in doing the same!

I’ll end this post with a few resources. I earlier mentioned a couple of websites that are helpful for further exploration. I also mentioned a couple of good books. Two podcasts I recommend are Typology and Enneagram 2.0. And while online tests aren’t necessarily the best place to begin one’s journey of discerning one’s Enneagram type, they can be helpful. In my opinion the most comprehensive and helpful is definitely the IEQ9. If you’re not ready to spend the $60 it costs, you could also try the RHETI.

Formative Books – Spirituality

Published by on March 4, 2021

It’s fun to go back in time and reflect on the books that have shaped me most through the years. Like the previous post, this list is in the order of when I first encountered them. I must say at the start that this was a difficult list to settle on. Being that much of my adult career was in vocational ministry, reading books on spirituality was part of my job. And so I’ve read a lot of great books during that time.

I also want to point out the fact that I’m aware that all but two of these books were written by white men. When I recognized that, there was a part of me that didn’t want to write this blog post, both because I felt a bit of shame because of that, but also because I feared being judged by others. I guess I got over that. I share this post in part because I can’t change my past. Each of these authors impacted me in profound ways. I’m so glad that I read each one of these books. I do wish that my exposure had been broader, and I know that this hope can impact how I move forward with my reading.

First up is No Compromise: The Life Story of Keith Green, by Melody Green. I first read this book in high school, and for the next few years, I would share this as my favorite book whenever I was asked. If you’re unfamiliar with Keith Green, he was an uber talented musician who was also a very passionate follower of Jesus. He, along with two of his children, tragically died in an airplane crash. It was his passion that caused me to see the Christianity that I had grown up with in a new light.

After college I had the privilege of helping to start a new church in Nashville. A little over a year in, Mandy and I got married, and it was such a wonderful community for us to begin our marriage in. We were a part of a small group there, and The Life You’ve Always Wanted, by John Ortberg, was one of the books that we read together. As you can see, the subtitle is “Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People.” At the time, I didn’t know much about spiritual disciplines, but I certainly didn’t think they were for ordinary people. This book not only opened me up to spiritual disciplines, but it also gave the opportunity to practice these together as a community.

The Silas Diary, by Gene Edwards, is the first of five books that tells the story of the early church. There’s a lot of reading between the lines in these books, but these books changed the way I thought about the Bible. I read these during my final months in Nashville before we moved to the bay area so that I could go to seminary. It was an exciting time of dreaming, and these books helped to shape those dreams.

Today, when someone asks me what my favorite book is, without hesitation I say The Divine Conspiracy, by Dallas Willard. I’m not alone in this. This book opened me up to Jesus and his kingdom in a way that few other books have. Willard isn’t the easiest author to read, but the reward is well worth the effort. I’ve read just about all of his books, and all are excellent.

I was first exposed to John Perkins through CCDA, when my friend Ryan and I went to New Orleans for their annual conference. When I got back I bought Let Justice Roll Down, which is John Perkins’ autobiography. I knew the history of injustice that African Americans had faced, and I knew a bit about the Civil Rights Movement. But this book caused me to see it in a new way. Perkins grew up and lived much of his life in the Jackson, MS area. This isn’t too far from where I was born. I still remember that what hit me so hard reading this book was realizing that some of the unjust treatment that he faced happened after I was born. It wasn’t simply something that had happened long ago. It was still happening. That changed the way I thought about race relations and injustice.

The Ragamuffin Gospel, by Brennan Manning, is one of the most beautiful books that I’ve ever read. The subtitle is “Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, and good news it truly is. It’s probably the book I recommend most to those who are interested in coming back to the faith that they grew up with but later rejected.

Mandy and I listened to Walking with God, by John Eldredge, on a road trip to Florida almost thirteen years ago. It wasn’t so much that it was new material, but it couldn’t have been more timely. I was in the middle of a challenging time in my life, and I really needed to hear these words. And what were those words? That God’s desire is for us to be near him and to be able to talk to him. Come to think of it, I need those words today as well!

Some of my buddies like to say that I have a man crush on Mark Sayers, author of The Road Trip that Changed the World. I think they’re right. I’ve read everything that Sayers has written. This was the first, and it’s still my favorite. Sayers has a way of bringing God, culture and history together in a way that I’ve seen few other authors accomplish. I highly recommend his work.

In Christianity, the crucifixion of Jesus is central to our faith. But there are so many theories on what happened, and why it’s important. N.T. Wright’s book, The Day the Revolution Began, has helped me the most in understanding the significance of this moment.

In May, 2018, I kicked off my three month sabbatical with a silent retreat at Our Lady Queen of Peace retreat center. On the first day I was perusing the library, and I came across Everything Belongs, by Richard Rohr. At the time I had heard of Rohr but had never read anything by him. By the next morning I had finished it. This was another one of those very timely books. I couldn’t put it down, and I took pages of notes on it. I highly recommend it as well as silent retreats.

I hope those of you reading this find one or two books to add to your reading list. Reflecting on this makes me want to reread quite a few of them.