Sunday, June 15, 2014

Indie Book Review: Know Yourself: The Concise Enneagram Guide By Dragan Matijevic


This book by Dragan Matijevic is simply amazing. I sampled this on a whim and saw how Dragan broke down a few of the base 9 Enneagram personalities. What got me was when I saw mine as clear as day in that sample. I always thought that I broke the mold, that there was no one or at the very least not many others remotely similar to me but this book broke me down and listed all my inner problems as if it knew me. It also listed my strengths and ways that I can "defeat" my shadow or negative/destructive traits and become more whole as a person. I'm a type 3 all the way, with a lot of tendencies of type 5. I bought the book and read type 8 and showed this type to my friend. I told him that I thought this was him and asked what he thought. He read it and agreed with me then promptly bought the book.

I'm now thoroughly interested in this subject and have taken to trying to classify my friends, family, and coworkers. I'm going to do it with characters I've created too to see if they fit the guidelines. This is honestly, as the author says, a great way to really understand the core of people and their motivations. I'm not sure what to do with this info but it feels like I understand others a bit better.

There is more available on the subject of Enneagrams online and in libraries. It's a really complex subject with mathematical formulas, probabilities, and statistics. The author breaks the issue down here to it's most basic and humanistic version. This will give you an understanding of the nine personality types, so far as it relates to personal relationships and personal development. Now I want to really delve into this subject. Kudos to his book for piquing my interest.

2 comments:

  1. This sounds like a book that is right up my alley! I just read the brief excerpt on Amazon, and am considering purchasing it! I love your book reviews because they explain what you got out of the read, and then evaluate it according to who it's intended for and how well it does what it's supposed to do!! Keep them coming!

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    1. Hey Ms. G!!!! Thanks for the kind words! I think you'll like it a lot, especially considering that you work so closely with people. I've looked at a few sites and some other book samples dealing with the Enneagram and this is by far the most simplified (yet highly informative) way to express the subject. Now I'm pretty comfortable with it and can (kind of) see where others fit upon it. I want to see how this compares to the MBTI test and if they can be compatible.

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