After hacking your biology and your finances, we arrive at the most complex part: hacking your own mind. And for that, you need to understand the operating system you're running. The resource I'll discuss in this episode is something like a spreadsheet that maps out exactly why you do what you do, why certain situations trigger you in predictable ways, and why some patterns repeat over and over in your life. It has 9 columns and about 4 rows, making our entire existential human mental diarrhea seem logical and understandable.

This Excel is called the Enneagram and it's probably the most powerful tool you'll find for understanding deep human motivations, including your own.

An Ancient System for Modern Life

The Enneagram isn't just another personality test. While systems like the MBTI describe the "how" of behavior, the Enneagram reveals the "why". It's the difference between knowing someone is introverted and understanding that their introversion stems from a fear of rejection installed at age 5, perhaps by a belittling family.

– Look, here comes the most unbearable person in the class. – Maybe consider how that human was treated at home to make them so unbearable.

This system has roots that trace back to Sufi traditions and was brought to the West by George Gurdjieff in the early 20th century. But it was in the 70s when Óscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo (Chilean) transformed it into a modern psychological tool, integrating it with Western personality theories.

The fascinating thing is how this ancient system perfectly resonates with modern neuroscience and virtually everything you've read thus far. Each type represents a specific strategy of emotional survival developed in childhood that now operates automatically.

The Enneagram identifies nine personality types, but not as static boxes, rather as dynamic patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior. Each type has:

• A core motivation driving all their decisions.

• A basic fear they try to avoid at all costs.

• A survival strategy developed in childhood.

• Predictable patterns of behavior under stress or safety.

Perhaps the part I like least about the Enneagram is that each number has a “name”, which as a result, doesn't do justice to what they represent, as they lack nuance. Typically, according to the author of the Enneagram, this is how a personality is named, but generally the thing goes roughly like this.

The types are:

• Type 1 - The Reformer: Motivated by being good and right. Fear of being corrupt or defective.

• Type 2 - The Helper: Motivated by being loved and needed. Fear of being unworthy of love.

• Type 3 - The Achiever: Motivated by success and recognition. Fear of failure and insignificance.

• Type 4 - The Individualist: Motivated by finding their unique identity. Fear of having no identity or personal significance.

• Type 5 - The Investigator: Motivated by understanding and being competent. Fear of being invaded or overwhelmed.

• Type 6 - The Loyalist: Motivated by security and support. Fear of being without support or guidance.

• Type 7 - The Enthusiast: Motivated by keeping options open and avoiding pain. Fear of being trapped in pain.

• Type 8 - The Challenger: Motivated by having control and autonomy. Fear of being controlled or vulnerable.

• Type 9 - The Peacemaker: Motivated by maintaining internal and external harmony. Fear of conflict and separation.

The Strategic Advantage of Knowing Your Mind

Companies have discovered that the Enneagram provides unique insights precisely because it reveals what other tests cannot: how you'll behave under extreme pressure. While you can control your conscious presentation, the motivations of the Enneagram emerge especially in moments of stress.

This capability to "read" deep motivations has become a strategic tool in:

• Recruitment: Recruiters use it to predict behavior under pressure

• Team building: Creating groups that balance different strengths and blind spots

• Leadership development: Each type has a natural leadership style that can be enhanced

Another aspect that makes the Enneagram unique is how it integrates Buddhist concepts like samskaras (conditioned mental patterns) with modern Western psychology. Susan Piver in "The Buddhist Enneagram" shows how each type represents a specific form of attachment and aversion.

There are also connections to Jungian psychology, particularly in concepts like individuation and shadow work. Both systems recognize that personality patterns are both masks and doors to the authentic self.

The true power of the Enneagram is not in labeling you, but in clearly showing you the automatic script you're running so you can choose consciously. It's like having access to the source code of your mental operating system.

When you understand your type:

• You recognize your triggers before they control you

• You identify self-destructive patterns as they occur

• You develop compassion for your own limitations

• You access the resources of other types when needed

Research shows that consciously working with your type significantly improves self-awareness, interpersonal relationships, and professional effectiveness.

Why Am I Writing This Guide?

At this point, as an exercise, I want to show you how our personality, according to the Enneagram, is capable of crafting so delicately yet evidently how we act or why we do what we do.

I, personally, am an Enneagram 4 with a 5 wing (E4W5). This means my strongest unconscious motivation is to find and express my “identity” (4) combined with an intense need to understand how things work (5). Or put simply, it's an obsessive voice in your head constantly asking: Do I like this? What does it mean? Do I want it in my life? Am I comfortable? How does it work? Do I understand it? And so on indefinitely until the end.

This explains practically everything about this EVERYTHING guide. Type 4s are obsessed with authenticity and processing pain, the bad or negative, to transform it into something meaningful. That's why each chapter begins by recognizing the wounds to then hack them. The 5 wing brings the compulsive need to research, analyze, and synthesize complex information into comprehensible systems. I'm not sure if it's my personality or my neurodivergence, but I can't conceive life without investigating and understanding to then “proceed.”

The E4W5 combination creates what some call "the bohemian" (cringe), or someone who needs to express deep truths in unique ways, but backed by rigorous research. That's why I can't just tell you "work out" without explaining the biochemistry of cortisol. Or why each strategy comes with its philosophical and scientific context.

My type also explains why this guide exists in written format when everyone says "no one reads." The E4W5 values depth over popularity, permanence over the viral. We prefer to create something that deeply resonates with a few people rather than something superficial for the masses.

The Enneagram showed me that my obsession with finding "the real" behind social masks is due to brain configuration. And that my “tendency” to move away from the mainstream to process and synthesize information is exactly what allows me to create “different” perspectives.

Unlike a light horoscope, knowing our type is not an excuse to justify. Rather, it's the first step to consciously hacking our mental operating system and accessing its most powerful version. The greatest act of rebellion in the Anthropocene is not to reject who you are, but to know yourself so well that you can choose consciously from where you operate.