The brilliantly creative medical doctor and Enneagram author Saleh Vallender (Sexual 5) indulges me with rapid-fire questions about him and his recent books explaining the neurobiological bases of our Enneagram types and Myers Briggs cognitive functions.
Saleh’s questions:
Where in the world are you at the moment?
Where’s home?
What’s a common reason to travel for you?
How do you generally spend a long-haul flight?
What languages can you speak?
Favourite world cuisine?
What is the first thing you usually do when you wake up?
What’s an important habit for you?
Have you ever run a marathon?
Would you?
How do you relax?
What are you most grateful for about your upbringing?
If there was something you could change about your upbringing, what would it be?
What are you most excited to learn more about right now?
What stops you from learning everything you want to learn?
What did you learn from writing your first book, 72 meditations?
Biggest cause of sleeplessness?
Did you always want to be a medical doctor?
If you weren’t a medical doctor, what do you think you’d be doing?
Aside from the obvious, what’s the most intimate thing you can do with another person?
What is a quality that you notice yourself gravitating towards in others?
Quality in others you find difficult?
What is a quality you like about yourself?
Biggest perceived inadequacy?
When did you last fall out with someone?
Do you think that we need to suffer in order to grow?
Which countries did you visit during your break from medical school?
What was your favourite place to visit and why?
What were you seeking?
Did you find what you were looking for?
Do you ever get lonely?
When do you feel the most alone?
What was the last book you read?
What’s a piece of advice you haven’t managed to forget?
Do you still think you’ll specialise in pain?
Name one thing that science doesn’t yet understand about pain.
Do you think there are correlates between our types and our responses to psychological and physical pain?
Describe your own relationship with pain.
Who inspires you?
When do you feel the most creative?
When do you feel the most depressed?
When did you last feel stressed?
What helps you when you’re feeling stressed?
Who do you turn to for wise counsel?
Describe your writing process
The single most important thing you have done for your development?
What is something that you want the Enneagram field to understand?
What is something you wished the medical field understood?
Do you think that correlations exist between our health issues and our types?
What was or is your hope in publishing your book, The Enneagram, the Myers-Briggs, and the Brain, which includes your book, the “The Neurobiology of the Enneagram?
Do you plan to empirically validate your various hypothesis?
What helps you to stay present?
What is a day well spent?
What makes you angry?
What do you tend to criticise yourself for?
What do you tend to criticise others for?
What do you tend to know about people without them telling you?
What don’t you usually know?
What’s one thing other people find normal that you find weird?
What is one thing that other people find weird that you find normal?
What is one thing that knowing the Enneagram has helped you with?
Who in the field of the Enneagram would you like to interview?
What are you working on to do with the Enneagram right now?
What will you likely say to yourself when you listen back?
Saleh's Enneagram books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Saleh-Vallander/e/B0BKP3GQX8/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
The interview he did with Kara on the Blindspot: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-21-the-neurobiology-of-the-enneagram/id1635625250?i=1000590199491