How the Nine Types Get What They Want

There are only three ways to get what you need from the world -- and you have spent your whole life favoring one of them without ever choosing it on purpose. Some of us go and take it: we push out, speak up, make things happen. Some of us pull back to protect what matters: we step out of the scramble and meet our needs from the inside. And some of us earn it by being good -- responsible, helpful, right -- trusting that if we do our part, what we need will come. This is a clear, warm guide to the three social stances behind the nine Enneagram types: the assertive types who move against the world, the withdrawn types who move away from it, and the dutiful types who move toward it. The idea reaches back to the psychologist Karen Horney, who saw that everyone leans on one of these three strategies; the Enneagram sorts all nine types neatly among them. Inside, you'll learn what each stance is really after, how every type plays it out in everyday life, how to spot your own, and -- most freeing of all -- how growth means borrowing the strength of the two stances you usually skip. It's a small map with a big payoff: once you see your stance, you can finally see the strategy you've been running on autopilot.