Welcome back to Alchemy for Authors!
In this week’s episode I chat with humour and mystery author, Enneagram consultant for creatives and the owner of FFS Media, Claire Taylor. We talk about all things Enneagram, her new book Sustain Your Author Career, and how you can become a liberated writer.
Other topics we discuss include:
- Why it’s so important to align your actions and author career with your core desire.
- The differences between Claire’s two books: Reclaim Your Author Career and Sustain Your Author Career.
- How to build resilience and navigate the constant changes in the author world.
- Why we might mistype ourselves and what we can do about it.
- How knowing your Enneagram Type can help you create an aligned and sustainable author career.
If you’re ready to uplevel your mindset and create for yourself a sustainable author career aligned with who you really are, then the Enneagram might just be the key you’re looking for. Make sure you check out Claire’s new book, Sustain Your Author Career, to learn more!
Visit Claire’s website here: https://www.ffs.media/
Support Claire’s Kickstarter and learn more about her book Sustain Your Author Career here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ffsmedia/sustain-your-author-career
Learn more about Claire’s Liberated Writer Course here: https://www.ffs.media/liberated-writer-course
* PS: If you mention you heard about the course through me (Jo Buer or Alchemy for Authors) I get a small commission that helps support the show at no extra cost to you.
Listen to Episode 58 of Alchemy for Authors – Author Alignment & the Enneagram with Claire Taylor here: https://jobuer-com.us.stackstaging.com/episode-58-author-alignment-the-enneagram-with-claire-taylor/
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Find the full transcript of this episode below.
Episode 75: The Sustainable Author Career with Claire Taylor
Jo: Hello, my lovelies. Welcome back to another episode of Alchemy for Authors. Today, I have one of my all-time favourite guests. I have Claire Taylor on the show to talk about all things Enneagram and her latest book which is live now on Kickstarter Sustain Your Author Career. And if you’ve been writing for any period of time, if you’ve been in the author industry for any period of time, then I’m sure you agree with me that the topic of sustainability is so important. It is what is going to help us navigate burnout and overwhelm and to be able to pivot when it feels like everything we do is being thwarted by changes in the publishing industry, which is pretty prolific right now.
So I had Claire on the show back in Episode 58, talking about author alignment and the Enneagram, and her book at the time, Reclaim Your Author Career, which is still one of my absolute favourite go-tos. And I highly recommend that if you haven’t heard of Claire before, or you haven’t heard of the Enneagram, that you go back and check out Episode 58, where we talk a little bit more in depth about what the Enneagram is.
In today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about:
- Why it’s important to align your actions with your core desires
- How to be a liberated writer
- The differences between Claire’s two books: Reclaim Your Author Career and Sustain Your Author Career
- How to navigate the constant changes in the author world
- Why we might end up mistyping ourselves, and is that really a problem?
- And how knowing your Enneagram type can help you create an aligned and sustainable author career.
So Claire Taylor is a humour and mystery author, an Enneagram consultant for creatives, and the owner of FFS media. She loves making people laugh and helping authors build a personalised career that amplifies their unique gifts. Through FFS media, she offers masterclasses, workshops, courses, and consulting on both author life and storytelling. She writes as H. Claire Taylor for her humour books, Brock Bloodworth for her urban fantasy, Nova Nelson for her paranormal cozy mystery books and Claire Feeney for her crime fiction.
So if you are excited to learn a little bit more about the Enneagram and how we can use it to create sustainable author careers, I recommend you go grab yourself a drink, find a comfy chair, sit back and enjoy the show.
Welcome back to the show, Claire. I’m so thrilled to have you join us again.
Claire: Thank you so much for having me back.
Jo: So last time you were on the show, we talked about your wonderful book and one of my absolute favourites, Reclaim Your Author Career. But right now, you have a new book out on Kickstarter, right this moment, Sustain Your Author Career. And this time, my understanding is it’s bringing the Enneagram into the equation of creating a sustainable author career. So just to kind of start at the very beginning, what is a sustainable author career? What does that look like?
Claire: Well, a sustainable author career is one that is able to last the ups and downs of the industry. And so for your career to be able to sustain itself through the ups and downs of the industry, which there are many, there have been many, there are currently many, and there will be many, you need to make sure that you have sustainable patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing. You need to make sure that you are a sustainable author, because your career can’t go on without you.
And so I think a lot of people are trying to imagine what would be the ideal career first, and then try and make themselves suddenly, magically be the exact person that would do that rather than saying, okay, how do I make myself sustainable, and then how do I proceed with the reality of that?
Jo: Yeah, that is really true. I hadn’t, I don’t know why, I hadn’t thought of that before, but it is true that I think a lot of us have this one idea of what an author career should look like, or a very similar idea to each other and what success looks like. But when you bring the Enneagram into the equation, then we’re looking at everybody really having different needs and different strengths and different things that they need to fulfil them. So just for my listeners who are maybe new to the Enneagram, can you share a little bit about what it is and how we can use it to help to, you know, create those author careers that actually are an alignment for us?
Claire: Yeah, of course. So there are nine types. Ennea is the Greek root for nine. And then Gram is just a shape. So it’s nine types. And you know, if you Google it, you can see how they’re laid out and you can see the shape. But these types are personality styles that are based on your core fear and core desire. So that is what defines each type. What is the thing that you’re most afraid of, and trying to avoid very much subconsciously in everything you do? And what is this desire that you’ve been seeking externally, that is driving you and motivating you to do things without necessarily you thinking about it? So these motivation styles are going to determine if we have the motivation to do something a certain way and for whatever reason. So as authors someone may be very motivated to do a task, a particular tactic or strategy, and we may feel like, I really need to do that if I want to have their success. But if you’re not motivated by the same thing, you just will be wasting your time trying to replicate what someone else of a different type did. So it’s really about looking at what type of my, where are my gifts? Where are some of my blind spots that are keeping me stuck in the same few options and looking to sort of expand that repertoire while also being true to who you are and bringing, recognising first and then bringing forth your specific gifts of your Enneagram type.
Jo: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And for anybody that hasn’t delved into the Enneagram or followed you before that, they absolutely need to. It is so, I don’t know, thought provoking, but also, a little, um, I can’t think of the word, but kind of like in your face. It’s a little bit like, oh, darn, it could be confrontational. Yeah, confrontational. It’s definitely, you know, you call yourself out when you kind of recognise yourself in these different motivations and that behind what you do.
Claire: Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I find that there’s a huge relief in that because you’re seeing parts of yourself that you probably didn’t, that are a little unflattering. Right? But there’s relief in seeing you. It’s like, oh, there I am. Right? And then you can integrate it. You can become okay with that part of you and it won’t rule you anymore. So that’s why it’s called the liberation process with the Enneagram. Because we’re sort of like, we’ll stop wasting energy trying to pretend that we don’t have all these things, suppress all of these things about us. We don’t have to suppress these things. And in doing less suppression, we have a lot more energy for our career.
Jo: Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that. So your book then, Sustain Your Author Career, how is that different from the one that came before, Reclaim Your Author Career? What is new with this one?
Claire: In Reclaim Your Author Career, I was really focusing on giving people sort of that base understanding of how you can rethink and reframe your author career. So building it from you up, rather than coming up with this sort of idea of this idealized career and then making yourself mould into the right shape. Right? Which just doesn’t work. So we were looking at different parts of the career and aligning them to you. So sort of this blueprint of how you can align your career, your author career.
In Sustain Your Author Career we’re going beyond that, right? Maybe you’ve aligned your career. You kind of understand the basics, but that’s not happily ever after, there’s kind of no “and then they never had a problem again”. Because the reality is that the world around us is constantly, constantly changing. And our life situation is changing. The resources we may have had before, we no longer have. And that makes it really hard to stay in that alignment. It makes it hard to write a lot of days. It presents unique challenges for marketing. And so this is really helping authors who have a general idea of like, okay, I kind of understand that this is what an aligned career looks like for me, but how do I keep doing it when everything is trying to pull me out of it? How do I diagnose what is keeping me from being able to get the words down? We do a lot of sort of this, you know, assessing blocks in Sustain Your Author Career. Okay, if this is happening, check these sort of parts of yourself. See if you’re tuning out, if your heart centre needs you to hear what it’s saying, which is frequently what it is. Maybe you just need some exercise, right? So we’re really looking at all parts of you and creating these diagnostic tools so that when you get stuck, you have a process that you can move forward with and you have the confidence that you can move forward still.
Jo: Yeah. Oh, that’s so needed. Just like what you said at the very beginning here with the publishing industry, just changing every five minutes, like we need that. We need that resilience and those strategies to ensure that we can keep going. So we’ve got the nine different Enneagram types for each of those, is there like a particular block that comes up more often than others for each of those types?
Claire: Sort of, yeah, there’s kind of variation between them, depending on, you know, what the problem is and your options and your personal development at that point. So we look at some of the issues that may come up, like over labelling, for example. Each type has sort of these two labels that they like to attach to things, places where these labels don’t necessarily belong. So, for a Type One, those labels are right and wrong. For a Type Four, it’s authentic, inauthentic. For a Type Eight, it’s strong and weak. And so when we over attach these labels, we run into specific kinds of problems. The attachment of these labels is happening at a very subconscious level until we bring mindfulness into the equation and start to pause and ask ourselves these prodding questions, like where have I attached morality to things where it doesn’t belong? And once you start to examine that, you may find a bunch of new options that are perfectly good, right? If you just remove that label of wrong from them that didn’t belong there in the first place, then you have new options. So, the problems that each type runs into are kind of sourced from the same general kind of theory and mechanics, but they’re going to look very different.
You know, the Eight is going to overdo it. The Eight is the challenger. The Eight is going to overdo it using forcefulness, right? When things change and when your tactics aren’t working the same, if you’re a Challenger Type Eight author, you’re probably going to try and force your tactics to work the way they did before. You’re going to say, okay, well, this can’t happen, this can’t be right. I’m going to go exert my will until this bends to my will. And that’s how you get really tired, if you’re not aware of that pattern. Meanwhile, Type Nine, The Peacemaker, if their tactics stop working, they may take it personally and say, Yeah, I guess just like no one wanted my book after all, it’s not that big of a deal, I’m going to withdraw, I’m going to sort of step back. Right? And then you’ve just kind of ended your own career that way. So it looks a little bit different, but the underlying causes tend to be kind of the same.
Jo: So where do we start? For somebody who is just getting to learn about the Enneagram and whatnot, and realizing that their author career is not where they want it to be, where do you suggest they start? Cause there’s a lot of information and you can go really, really deep into this. So what do you think their first step should maybe be?
Claire: Well, if you’re brand new to the Enneagram you can read a little bit about the types. See if you can figure out yours. You can take some tests, but the tests aren’t super accurate. There’s one that is really accurate, but it’s rather expensive. And I would suggest taking it, like coming to me and taking it through me because it can use some guidance along with it. It’s very complicated, like with the big report and everything. But you take some online and you can get, you know, kind of ranking your scores. The lowest score that you get is probably not your type. The second lowest, probably not your type. It’s probably somewhere in the top three or four scores that you get on one of these online tests. And then you can start reading about those types and really dig into them.
There’s resources like https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/ has the types described. https://enneagramspectrum.com/ has the types described as well, and with a little bit different framing of it. So that can be kind of useful if one framing works for you and the other doesn’t. Or they both make sense, you can kind of find that nice middle ground.
So it’s really an exploration process. And I think if you have a general idea of like a few types that you might be, then you can start reading Reclaim Your Author Career. And I do describe the types a little bit more and you may start to see like, Oh, I’m seeing these patterns show up more than these other patterns that are described, so I’m probably more of this type. But there’s really no rush to figure out your type. Uh, you know, some types are more impatient about it, in which case I’ll say, okay, fine, fine, fine. Uh, let’s go do this. IEQ 9, which is the super accurate one, and we’ll go do this IEQ 9 together and then we’ll work from there.
But I think there’s a lot to be gained by just kind of asking yourself, Okay, over the course of my life, what have the nature of my issues been? What lessons have I had to learn over and over and over again? And those are your clues to your Enneagram type there. So, Sustain Your Author Career also includes some basic type descriptions so if you’re like, okay, we can like work on building the career first, or, I think I have my career pretty aligned, I just need some like troubleshooting, you can jump straight into that. I mean, I’ve designed ’em, so you can kind of read them one after the other, or you can start on either one.
Jo: Yeah. Yeah, I like that. So what happens for those people who are torn between two and they can’t make up their minds? Is there a way to kind of really narrow down which type, because if they’re torn between two and they’ve kind of, maybe decided that they’re not an Enneagram number that they are, can that be a little bit detrimental to their path as well?
Claire: Well, I don’t tend to think so because there are all kinds of reasons why we initially mistype. Other people may tell us what our type is and we just kind of go along with that. And then, you know, maybe like a year or two later, we realized that they were wrong. And that discovering that they were wrong brought us to more understanding of ourself. So we’ve still gained something from that realization. Something fun I see a lot is people are torn between two numbers, and one of them is their type, and the other one is a parent’s type. So if you mistype and you’re actually thinking you’re your parents type, then probably what you’re doing is sorting through a lot of stuff that’s not yours. And so you can kind of clear it out, and then you get to work on your own stuff. So there’s all kinds of ways forward, and the approach that I like to take is you find your type when you’re ready to find your type, because I may be talking to you and I may be like, I absolutely, from my experience, from my gut, it’s telling me you’re this number. You think you’re this other number. Then that means that you need to work through some of these things and kind of discover why you’re not that number. You think you are, you know, cause if I tell you, I’m, No, you’re this other number, there’s a good chance you’re not going to believe me anyway.
Jo: True.
Claire: Or it’ll throw you into conflict or I’ll just, I can be wrong, you know?
So I think that it’s an interesting process. I was mistyped at first. And so it’s not the end of the world, if you get mistyped. I mean my mom and my sister did Enneagram stuff years ago and they thought I was like, I think a Three or a Four. I’m neither of those. I took a test and I typed as a Nine. I’m not a Nine either, but I did take on a lot of the Peacemaker, the Nine is the Peacemaker. I took on a lot of the Peacemaker responsibilities in my home, like in my family of origin, and so of course I tested as a Nine when I was still living with my family of origin. I think I was like, you know, junior, senior in college or in high school or something.
So yeah, there’s all kinds of interesting reasons. And then once I hit on the Type One, which is what I am, and started reading about it, it was like Oh, oh, okay. Wow. Yes, this is definitely it. And you can kind of, when you hit on your type, a lot of the times you’ll kind of see your past unravel and it’s like this, you know, it’s like this Rosetta stone that just unlocks so much from the past that you didn’t even understand about yourself. So it’s a nice little decoder ring that we can carry around.
Jo: Yeah. And I think it’s really interesting too, because we’ve got the numbers on either side of our Enneagram types. So we’ve got the wings. And so that can kind of influence our actions a little bit too, can’t they?
Claire: Yeah. Yeah. So the wings are, you know, the Enneagram is designed in a circle. So Nine and One are actually next to each other in that circle, even though they’re opposite sides of the, you know, numerically. So yeah. So the number on either side of yours in that circle, you can start to take on some of the tools of it to support your dominant types motivation. And that will look different. Like an Enneagram Five with a Four wing is going to look much different from an Enneagram Five with a Six wing. And then some people may be an Enneagram Five with very little access to either wing or access to both wings. And so, yeah, the wings are something we can develop that can be extra tools, extra options for us, but it does sort of what we’re bringing into the work, like which wing we have always kind of leaned on certainly makes the type look a little bit different. It makes typing more difficult sometimes. But it’s just one more option that you have when you have a wing. So, you know, if you can develop your other wing, then you have two wings, more options. It’s great..
Jo: Yeah, because I would think that would be kind of useful in different areas of your life, if you needed to draw on particular qualities for, yeah, being able to tap into those kind of energies around you as well.
Claire: Yeah, definitely. Cause when we don’t have access to either wing, we tend to solve everything with the same tool. It’s like trying to build an entire house with just a hammer. And so you want to try and sort of diversify your toolbox. And that’s what we do with a lot of this development is we can look to our wings and add some tools there. So we’re not just trying to solve every problem like our Type. And you know, a lot of the problems that are in our life are made by the patterns of our Type. We have created some issues for ourselves. We’ve boxed ourself in a little bit. And so the way in is not going to be the same as the way out.
So if you’re hitting on those patterns, just like stomping the accelerator on your familiar patterns of your Type, and these are like thought patterns, emotional patterns, and behavioural patterns. If you’re stomping the accelerator, you’re only going to get in deeper. But when we start to get trapped, that’s what we do, we stomp the accelerator. And so when we do this work, we learn how to find these other ways out of the problems that our specific type patterns have created.
Jo: I like that. So does that mean that we can tap into all the different Types? Because we’ve got the wings, which is in my mind, probably easier to tap into. And then we’ve got the Types that we kind of move towards in stress, or when we’re kind of, you know, rocking everything. But what about the other numbers? Like, can we tap into any of the numbers as we need them?
Claire: Yeah, so I think that we can use them almost as guides. So we have all nine Types inside us, but we do have one dominant Type who is the leader, who is making most of the decisions, and the subconscious decisions are almost entirely that Type making it our dominant type. But we have access to all nine Types. And so that is important because we can ask them questions and that can help us sort of take the blinders off that we have. You know, our Type is like, you must do it this way. We’ve always done it this way. But we can start looking at, like you said, the wings are the easiest one. We tend to have access to the numbers next to us. So just for instance, if you are, let’s say a Nine, The Peacemaker, The Peacemakers are really conflict avoidant to the point where they can let conflict slip really build up and then it’s even harder to address them. And so slowly over time, the Nine starts to kind of check out. They try and detach from the external world. They detach from their internal world rather than confronting the conflict and resolving it. So they have these patterns of neglect that can kind of come up. But generally no one wants to interrupt that because a lot of people like someone who just says yes to whatever they say and just goes along. Right? So that’s unfortunate for the Peacemaker that people tend to like these sort of unhealthy expressions of theirs. But, what the Peacemaker can start to do is if they’re like, okay, I don’t know how to approach this conflict. I don’t have practice with this. They can go, okay, what would this sort of bold, magnanimous Eight energy tell me to do, right? What would be the thing that would restore equal power to everyone in this situation? Cause that’s all stuff that comes from a very healthy Eight. And when we tap into our wings for advice, we tend to want to ask the healthy parts of them. We don’t want to be like, hey, unhealthy part, how do I get even, you know? And then, you know, the Nine can look over to their One wing and say, okay, I know the Nine is moving towards right action for, you know, that’s sort of the virtue that they move towards is right action, knowing the right thing to do in the moment and doing it in the moment, rather than waiting and hoping it goes away. So the One is very good at that. The One has this moral clarity in this wisdom, so they can look at their One wing and say, like, if I was a One, what would be the obvious way forward here? Right? What would be the wise, the righteous way forward? And looking at those perspectives can help eliminate the resistance to taking that action.
So that’s how you can kind of start to use your wings. And then the Nine can look to it’s growth type of the Three, which is the Achiever and ask the Achiever, what is the most effective way forward? Because Achievers are very effective. A healthy Achiever, very effective, very inspirational, motivational. So what is the way that I can proceed that’s effective and that inspires other people to do what they need to do, right? And then the Nine can even look toward their Six, which is their, usually their stress type, but eventually, you know, they can get access to this and say, ask the Six, what is the best thing for the group here? Because Six is very group focused, they want group success. They want collaboration. They want cooperation. How do I, you know, what do I need to do to get everyone working together on this thing, you know, rather than conflict? Like we’re going to move towards conflict to create a solution that works for everybody.
So you have those four options right away if you’re a Nine. But you also, if those aren’t giving you the answers you need, you can look at all of the other types and ask sort of this committee of, you know, wise Enneagram elders, what their advice would be, what would you do in this situation? And as you learn about the Enneagram more, you can kind of put yourself in there, but you can also put yourself in those positions because that is a part of you too.
Jo: Yeah, that’s cool. I really like that. So I saw in some of your write ups about your new book, Sustain Your Author Career, that even though each Enneagram type has a kind of title to it that you’ve given them like the Peacemaker or the Achiever or whatnot, you’ve given them slightly different descriptors like Type One being the Peacemaker, you’re calling them the Principled Writer, and like Type Two, the Reformer is the Helpful Writer. Can you talk a little bit about these descriptors that you’ve kind of given them in terms of being a writer?
Claire: Right. So, you know, as a person we can be, there’s all kinds of descriptors. First of all, for every type, there’s all kinds of descriptors. Every single, you know, school of Enneagram kind of has its own terms. I use what are called the Riso Hudson or Ready Model terms, because I think they’re the best, but I did want to take this to the next level and make it a little bit more specific.
So I was developing these terms from all of the writers that I’ve worked with of the type and sort of this core identifier that shines through in their writing and in their career decisions. So for Type One, that’s the Principled Writer. So Ones are writing about their principles and those principles, you know, Ones can’t not function within their principles and Ones have very specific principles that usually at some point differ with societies, right? That’s an important thing. Ones don’t create their principles based on what society tells them should be their principles. They have this sort of inner morality that they defer to. So these are going to be stories that are about, you know, characters that stand by their principles. And the principled people are probably going to win in the end of the day in their stories. And they’re going to make decisions for their careers that align with their principles. That’s really their guiding star.
So for each of the types I’ve developed something like that. So, yeah, I mean, you know, it’s, if you want, I can go through it, and these are just, you know, like looking at the Four, the Authentic Writer, this is not only the gift of the Four, but this is a problem that a lot of Four authors run into in, in that I want to be authentic and sticking with a specific genre feels inauthentic to the story. Cause I think this story is beyond genre, right? If I was to shape it to really fit those genre tropes, it would feel inauthentic, and that’s just yucky. So that can become a problem for marketing, frankly, because it’s hard to describe, you know? The harmonious writer, the Nine, usually the Peacemaker, the Harmonious Writer is, you know, going to have a lot of different characters that kind of get along in their story. There’s going to be a lot of inclusion. They’re also going to run into the problem of trying to write conflict when Nines don’t like conflict, right? They want harmony, but to get to harmony, you got to get some conflict in there. You can’t jump straight to harmony. You can’t skip the conflict as a storyteller. And it’s also going to show up in some of the decisions they make as they’re going to sometimes be stifled and stuck because there is no way forward. If you think of something like AI, there’s no winning, right? There’s no way to make a decision for your business that’s not going to upset someone when it comes to that. So the Nines want everyone to get along and that can really get them stuck in certain places. But at the same time, it’s their strength because who better to help bridge, you know, chasms between people than someone who has spent their whole life thinking about harmony. So they’re really going to bring this sort of inclusive feel to their writing. And that’s why that phrase works for them.
So, yeah, this is just a new way to think of yourself as a writer and to think of both the gifts that you bring with it and some of the issues that you’ll necessarily run into because of it.
Jo: I think it is so fantastic just simply because so much of being an author, I think really comes back to mindset and how you’re predisposed to deal with things that arise along the path of your career and everything. And this is such a valuable tool to help you work out what is the best way to deal with things and think about things and change your mindset for you. Not for everybody, but for you. So I just think it is so valuable. It’s wonderful.
Claire: Yeah. And it’s hard to give ourselves permission to do that sometimes. You know, it is hard. It it fights against these ideas that we created early in life about what it means to be a writer, what it means to be an author. Some people think, you know, Oh, I have to be a full time author to be an author, which is just now you’re trapping yourself. You’re building a box. Right? And it may not be right for your patterns, your patterns may not allow you to thrive in that box. So why would you put yourself there? So we just want to make sure that we’re evaluating things. A lot of this in sustainability is a mindfulness practice. It’s about finding that space between stimulus and response and really deciding, you know, once you find that space, you have a decision. You can continue exactly as you always have, or you can try something new and get fresh results.
Jo: Yeah, it really does give us permission to quit with that whole, there’s only one way to be a successful author. There’s only one way to write books, to plan books, to market books, to do all those things. This really gives us permission to be our own unique little selves, but also kind of realize that we’re not unique because there are other people that have those same kind of ups and downs as us and who think similarly. So, yeah.
Claire: Yeah. I find both of those comforting that we have to be unique from various other people, but there’s always going to be people who understand what we’re going through as well.
Jo: Yes. Yes. I love that. But now saying that, is there a common theme that you see with authors maybe at the moment whom are coming to you for coaching, that is kind of cropping up quite a lot at the moment, regardless of their Enneagram type?
Claire: Yeah. There are a few things that are coming up. One is this need for certainty of results. So there was a time where it felt like the results of an action were more predictable. If you run Amazon ads, you will start selling books, right? These sorts of things around tactics, around strategies. If you publish a book every month, month and a half, you will eventually, you know, your income will steadily increase. You will find readers just by doing that, right? There was a time that that worked for some people. It was never universal. None of it was universal. But I think a lot of the illusion that we have control over the outcome of our actions is really being shattered lately because things are so unpredictable. And so, a lot of the work that I’ve been doing is helping people sort of understand that you cannot predict the outcome. I mean, you can try, you can make it a hobby to predict the outcome, but there is no evidence, like there is no proof. You will never be a hundred percent or have a hundred percent certainty on the outcome. What you can do is you can learn to have confidence in your ability to adapt to whatever outcome occurs. And so that’s really taking the power away from this sort of, you know, external world that you can’t control, that we spend a lot of effort trying to control and returning that energy to yourself because you can control what marketing tactics you do. You can control what genres you write in. You can pick your book covers. There’s a lot that we can make decisions on. And if we are so focused on trying to control the external world in ways that we have no control over, we’re actually abdicating a lot of responsibility for the things that we can take care of. And we forget that no matter what happens, we can be okay.
Jo: Yeah. Ooh. I like that. And so is there different ways then that each Enneagram would maybe take that responsibility and maybe build that confidence or have different ways to kind of adapt or come at it from a different perspectives?
Claire: Yes. So the confidence that people are looking for or the certainty that people are looking for in results, I mean, it does tend to go back to the three childhood desires. So the three childhood desires as described in the Enneagram are attention, autonomy and security. And so these are things that we’re seeking. So the Twos, the Threes and the Fours are looking for attention and they want certainty that if they do an action the outcome will give them the attention that they are looking for. The Fives, the Six and the Sevens are looking for security. They’re hoping that they can feel secure and have what they need, as far as resources, knowledge, that sort of thing, if they do a certain outcome. And then the Eight, the Nine and the One are looking for autonomy. So that is sort of the certainty that they will not be controlled by the world. And that they will instead be able to maintain control of over themselves and possibly influence or control the world instead.
So these are sort of these themes that are battling through, and when those needs aren’t met we get very frustrated. And so then we can start to, you know, try to wait until we get certainty until we feel like, oh, yes, I will definitely be able to do this with the outcome that gives me the attention I need, or, you know, that sort of thing, depending on what your childhood need is. So, yeah, it can break down by those triads.
It can break down by how we try and get our needs met. So some types are assertive. They take an assertive approach to getting their needs met. Some are withdrawing and they withdraw to meet their own needs. And then some are compliant, sometimes called dutiful and they use service and duty to others to try to earn their needs being met. So there’s all kinds of interesting ways that people do it. And so rather than trying to learn all the patterns, you can, you can read about your type in my books, or you can come work with me because it’s a lot of information and it’s very complex, but it is, as complex as it is, it is very frequently predictable.
Jo: I love that. So let’s talk a little bit about your Kickstarter then, because you’ve got lots of amazing tiers available for people, so that they can right now go onto your Kickstarter, they can look at your book, purchase your book kind of through that. But you’ve got other tiers and ways that they can work with you. Can you talk a little bit about some of your other offerings as well?
Claire: Yeah. So I have, I think all of my author career offerings are offered through this Kickstarter. The way I have it structured is sort of show up, look at the book, if you think the book is right for you, this is a book that you’re going to want some support on, likely, because it’s a lot of information. It’s a lot of information, and it can be a little bit like, is this me? I don’t know. I need to like bounce this off of other people. Right? I need to see how other people are different, kind of thing. So sometimes the support is just, you want to work with me because it’s a little scary and I can help guide you through it if you want personalized support. Sometimes you’re going to want to build support with other authors. So support is a big thing that I think Indie authors especially, all authors, but Indie authors especially, can dismiss or devalue, as like, oh, well, I don’t need support. And it’s like, well, we all need support. But also, life is easier and better when you have support and when you support other people. So, you know, it’s not a failing, it’s not a weakness. It’s not a sign that you, you know, couldn’t do it on your own. Maybe you can do it on your own and you can also have support. So depending on what you need in your life, maybe you don’t have that much bandwidth. Maybe you have young kids and you’re like, I know that I’m not going to get through this unless I joined the book club, right? Or I’m having these problems. I’ve been having these problems of the same nature, my entire career, maybe my entire life. And I’m just ready to get through these and like figure them out and decode them. Then we can, you know, maybe like the Liberated Writer Course, that’s the level you want, you know, it’s a five-week course. So it’s really about coming in and figuring out what support do I need to get started? And so that is how it’s laid out. So you can pick whatever support you need. Generally, my rule of thumb is think about how much support you need, then double it because we’re really bad at estimating. We’re trying to go with like the minimum amount of support we need all the time. And you just don’t have to do that.
Jo: Absolutely! Oh, I love that. So I want you to talk a little bit about your Liberated Writer Course, because I’ve mentioned it on this podcast before, because I was part of your cohort back in October. And yeah, and it’s this amazing five-week course. We really deep dive into the Enneagram. And I know you’ve got another one coming up here shortly. Can you talk a little bit about what that is specifically and who that would be geared towards?
Claire: Right. So I think that this is a course that anyone who wants to have a sustainable career will end up in eventually, that’s kind of how it’s designed. I mean, I say that knowing that some people have a knee jerk negative response to the Enneagram and that’s okay. We find the Enneagram when we’re ready to. But you know, it’s designed so you can read and think, process at your own speed. We have two calls a week, which originally were like 60 to 90 minutes. Now I’m just giving up and say, it’s a 90-minute call. We’re going to be here for 90 minutes. So yeah, two calls a week with me. The first one, we usually will do sort of like a discussion topic or, you know, chat a little bit more that one we can do any coaching and troubleshooting that individuals have on those live calls. And then the one on Thursday, this is every Monday and Thursday, on the Thursday call is just a Q and A. It’s just, okay, I read your material, Claire, how does this, you know, what am I missing here? What about this? You can kind of throw any question at me. They’re a good time. So we do five weeks of that and it takes you from kind of figuring out your type. And if you’re having issues figuring out your type, this course is good. Cause you can have plenty of time to troubleshoot with me and I can guide you through that process if you’re just ready to figure out what your type is. And then, you know, taking you to a point where you have practices that work for you and you feel confident that if things get off, I either know how to adjust, or I know the people who can help me figure out how to adjust. So, yeah, that’s the thing. You don’t have to know everything, you just have to know people who know things, and then you’re good, you know?
So, I really like the group aspect of this. I’ve just been so blown away by how people start to understand themselves and support each other and people of different types, you know, coming together and like helping each other understand the different types. A lot of the times it’ll be a question like, okay, so I know this is off topic, but I have this friend and I think she’s this number and I don’t understand it. So it’s kind of just a fun time where we get to look at all the different types, talk about, learn about how to write different character types just by observing and listening to people. Once you understand the lens they’re speaking through, you can really start to put some things together for your characters. And then by the end, hopefully people in the cohort will start to hang out together and talk and chat and keep up and do that sort of thing because again, we just need support if we’re going to get through. I mean, the longevity of my career is in large part due to a mastermind group that I joined and I think 2016 and we’ve been together ever since. But from that group, I’ve met so many other people. And so now I have this whole network of people, the safety net of, you know, connections and I don’t have to know everything. I just have to know someone who knows it. And that is a huge relief.
Jo: Yes, I love it. There was so many aha moments. And so unfortunately being on the side of the world, I couldn’t make the live calls, but I was always listening to the replays and yeah, just hearing other people who are a similar type to you or you think are a similar type to you, and going, Oh my gosh, I do that too. Or like there’s all those really cool moments where you get to see yourself reflected or begin to question, Oh my gosh, have I been doing that? Oh dear. You know? So yeah.
Claire: Yeah. It really helps with blind spots. Cause the nature of a blind spot is that we can’t see it on our own. And so, we need something like a book that tells us about it. And then we start to go, okay, let me look for that. Or a friend that points it out or, you know, other people who kind of know the lexicon of Enneagram to be like, Hey, you’re doing this thing. And then, oh, am I? Yes, you’re right, I am. I never would have seen that. So even within like this work that we do with the Enneagram, there’s certain work that only we can do for ourselves, right? This deep work, this contemplation, only we can do that. We can’t continue to do this work without help from other people. We need support. We’re going to hit a wall where we’re like, well, I’ve reflected all I can reflect, I guess I’m enlightened now, you know, and then someone will come and trigger us. So some people are there to sort of bring up old patterns and stir those up and trigger us in that way. And some people are there to reflect to us, Hey, you’re doing that thing you’ve done before. Like, are you okay? Do you need more support? What can I do to help you? That sort of thing.
Jo: So much fun. Like it’s honestly, it’s so much fun. And I’m finding more and more in my kind of like, author circle and the people I connect with, some of them have gone on and done your course as well. So, like the language that we use now in conversation quite often brings in the Enneagram. It’s just a really, yeah, it’s infiltrated all parts of our life.
Claire: And it does that. It really, it really does that. But yeah, I have such a good time in those calls and with the classes and it’s so wonderful. Like even just doing this work, I have expanded my network to so many interesting people. I mean, people come to the author life, having lived full lives doing these completely random things. And you’re like, Oh, you were an undertaker. Oh, you worked for the FBI. Like, and so it’s just this, like getting to know everyone through this. And it tends to be people who are like, yeah, I want to be in this for the long haul. I’m willing to do the kind of scary work of looking at myself. And I’m like, Oh, these are the people I want to hang out with anyways.
Jo: Yeah. Oh, it’s just, it’s so amazing. And I’m so just thrilled that you were able to bring this into the author sphere as well and just make it, yeah, so commonplace now, it feels very commonplace like to think along the lines of your Enneagram type and how that is impacting upon your author career. And I just love that. Love it.
Claire: I love to hear that. I, you know, my type, the Reformer, can lean towards being sort of evangelical. We like to spread the word about things. So for me, my little pet project is the Enneagram.
Jo: You’ve done a good job.
Claire: Well, I can’t shut up about it either way. So I’m going to keep talking, you know,
Jo: Love it. Love it. So, I know you’ve got so much other things too on the horizon. I think you’ve got a podcast that you’re starting? Or has it started?
Claire: Yes. I have not started releasing the episodes yet, but I am excited about it. That’s going to be coming up soon, once I can kind of get over the Kickstarter stuff, regroup, rest. An important thing, resting. And then we’ll launch that. I’m really, I’m looking forward to that.
Jo: Wonderful. And what’s that called? What’s your podcast called?
Claire: It’s going to be called What If for Authors. So we are going to be, each episode is going to be looking at the sort of, well, what if this happens and we’re just going to talk about it. We’re going to find out. Find out how it will be okay.
Jo: Awesome. Love it. We need that. We need that. So how can people connect with you and join your Kickstarter and find your books and work with you and all this good stuff?
Claire: Well, my Kickstarter, you can go to kick FFS.com. FFS Media is my business. So that’s why that’s the URL. And for everything else, you can go to ffs.media, but you know, anything that you find on, on ffs.media is currently offered through kickffs.com through the Kickstarter. So that’s probably where I would get it. Cause a lot of the stuff is cheaper right now through the Kickstarter and it’s like, cheaper and I’ll throw in a book, so, you know, a little added bonus.
Jo: Awesome. Love that. Well, thank you so much, Claire, for coming on the show again and bringing all your expertise on the Enneagram. I can’t wait for your new book.
Claire: Oh, thanks so much for having me.
Jo: Takeaways from today’s show:
1. Trust that you’ll learn your type when the time is right.
2. Get familiar with your Enneagram wings and other Enneagram types so you can increase the tools you have access to in your life.
3. After many of the problems we create for ourselves in life are due to the patterns of our Enneagram type.
4. Sustainability is a mindfulness and mindset practice.
5. Get comfortable with the fact that you cannot predict outcomes in the writing, publishing world. There is no certainty of results in this industry.
6. We can build resilience and confidence by focusing our attention on the childhood desire of our Enneagram type: attention, autonomy, and security.
7. Consider networking or joining a group of other authors with an understanding of the Enneagram to help you navigate your type’s blind spots.
So I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. I absolutely love talking with Claire Taylor. I love learning about the Enneagram. I find it such a fantastic tool, not just for personal development, but also for creating believable characters in your stories and utilizing the idea of themes and just getting into all those wonderful nuances of how people think and behave and what they believe so that your characters can really resonate with your readers. And again, you can learn a little bit more about that, we chatted about that in Episode 58: Author Alignment and the Enneagram with Claire Taylor. So make sure you go back and listen to that one, if you haven’t already.
I highly recommend that you go check out Claire’s books. Her Reclaim Your Author Career is one of my absolute favourite go-to bibles that I have on my writing desk all the time. It is very well highlighted and referred to, with its tattered corners now and bent spine because I just use it that much. I have already supported her Kickstarter, because I cannot wait to get my hands on Sustain Your Author Career, her new book. And I was in her cohort in October for her Liberated Writer Course. And I highly recommend you check that out, if that is something that resonates with you as well.
If you have enjoyed this episode, I am always super grateful if you could leave a review, rate, share with a friend, or if you want to, you can make a small donation by going to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jobuer.
All the links to how you can support the show or check out Claire’s books and courses will be in the show notes. And you can also visit my website, https://jobuer-com.us.stackstaging.com to read the transcript as well and go back through that.
So thank you again, my friend, for joining me for another episode of Alchemy for Authors. And I am wishing you a wonderful week ahead. Until next time, bye.
Author Alignment, Author Career, author mindset, Enneagram, indie author, Sustainable Author Career