My background is a bit all over the place. Political science, leadership development, project management, pastoring, and then people and culture work with hiring, onboarding, training, coaching.

But more than any one role, I’ve always been someone who goes looking. Books, podcasts, conversations. If something doesn’t quite make sense yet, I don’t stop wondering about it and I dig a little deeper.

Type Blends is one of those things.

I’ve loved the Enneagram for years. The depth of it, the nuance. But it always felt like it stopped just short. Close, but not quite it.

I started noticing it in coaching. I’d find myself saying things like, “that’s because you have a very high 8 under that 4,” or “there’s a real 5 flavour to your 2.” And I kept running into moments where someone didn’t quite fit what was written about their type. The quiet 8, the organized 7, the somewhat reclusive 2.

After a while, it stopped feeling like a one-off. It felt like something I couldn’t ignore. So I followed it.

I love how much this shapes the space between people.

I see it in my own life. I’m married to a Five with Nine, my eldest is an Eight with Five, and all the other overlapping people in my life are just as fascinating to me. As a Three with Two, I’m endlessly interested in how people tick and how to meet them in a way that actually works.

I think we’re quick to fill in the gaps with our own instincts. Or wonder why others don’t approach things the same way we do. This gave me something else. More perspective. More language. More ways to stay connected, even when someone is wired very differently than I am.

Type Blends started as something I needed. A way to make sense of what I was already seeing. At some point, it became something I wanted other people to have too.

When you have language for something that used to be hard to explain, you don’t have to keep working around it in the same way.

You can start from somewhere that feels a little closer to you.