Given the serious problems that can be caused to hosts’ property and their businesses by bad guests, and the fact that many hosts feel they dont’ get enough information about guests on Airbnb or other platforms in order to properly screen guests, some hosts have attempted to work together to form a “guests’ blacklist” which would identify bad guests, who’ve caused serious problems, and help protect hosts from them.

What is a “bad guest”, some will wonder, and is a blacklist even legal?

Many may not realize it, but hotels already maintain blacklists for bad guests.  See here for a description of that:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25243594/ns/travel-travel_tips/t/hotels-upgrade-their-no-stay-lists/#.XUYixogvzIU

In the eyes of the hotel, a “bad guest” is not just one who trashes the room or causes damage to the property.  It could also be the “chronic complainer”, which many Airbnb hosts themselves have met:

the chronic complainers often get banned permanently. These are the freebie-lovers who, on every visit, have some sort of problem for which they demand comps. After a while, this type of guest begins to cost a hotel more money than they bring in. The hotel staff must either refuse to give them any more comps, or must refuse to provide them any more service. Often, the latter is easier.

And now, blacklisted guests have even more to worry about, as hotels are beginning to share their blacklists.

Get in trouble at a Hilton in Miami, for example, and you may find it hard to get a reservation at a Holiday Inn in Seattle. That’s because extensive databases of individual hotels’ blacklists are being systematically centralized.

There is nothing illegal about creating such a list of bad guests.
So, it would seem logical that short term rental hosts could band together like hotels and create a blacklist, too.

But let’s look more closely at this and we can start to see some of the problems involved.

First, hotels are relatively standardized from one to another, and they are run by experienced management.  It is easy to imagine that what one hotel would consider bad guest behavior, would be a view shared by most hotels.  The hotelier does not live in the hotel, or have his personal comic book collection there, or his child in the room next to the guest.  So there is a bit more objectivity with regard to a bad guest, as the boundaries are different. 

Also, I’d imagine that any guest blacklist a group of hotels creates, is a professional document with entries in alphabetical order, which provides sufficient info to uniquely identify a guest who may have the same name as many others in the nation.  One article on this matter indicates that the method of identifying the guest is one that uses their address and phone number.

This article gives examples of what hotels may agree constitutes a bad guest worthy of blacklisting:

https://www.welcomeanywhere.com/deal-blacklisted-hotel-guests/

Basically these things
(1) Guest did major damage to the property
(2) Guest assaulted someone on the property
(3) Guest verbally abused or threatened staff
(4) Guest had continual complaints and/or wanted “comps” or free services/add-ons.
Sometimes this one too:
(5) Guest caused problems while intoxicated or drunk, and/or engaged in illegal behavior or violated important hotel rules.

Some hotel blacklists include http://guestscan.co.uk/ and a couple others were mentioned here but I didn’t find them: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/travel/are-you-on-the-bad-guest-list/article1241039/

So, as to the first issue, of standardization: this is something hotels have, but it’s less common among short term rental hosts.  Hosts have very different types of listings — from large luxury homes, to small cottages, to a room in their house or a camper in their driveway.  Because of the standardization of hotels, hotel guests tend to have more reasonable expectations about what they will find when booking a stay.  In fact, if you visit the host community groups often, you’ll know that one of the most common complaints hosts have about guests, is that the guest did not have appropriate expectations.  They thought they were booking a hotel stay, when in fact they were booking a stay in a private home. 

Sometimes the star ratings that Airbnb guests give, are based wholly on their own failure to understand what they were booking, so that in essence they are punishing the host for their failure to read or take in the info the host has provided.  But hosts are actually more vulnerable to bad ratings than hotels are, since as we all know, many 1, 2 and 3 star hotels exist and do a fine business, because there’s no giant corporate overseer sending them emails and threatening them if they don’t get higher ratings, as occurs with some short term rental hosts.

Thus we begin to see how short term rental hosts may have different issues than hotels have, and thus some different rationale for blacklisting a guest.

There is also much more room for rule violation and causing offense to a host, as well as ambiguity and potential for mistakes and confusion, when the guest is staying in the host’s private home, particularly in the hosts’ primary residence, alongside their family, where the host lives their life and has their belongings.  As in the story I told about the Airbnb host whose guest told Airbnb she had an unsecured pistol on the premises, which turned out to be a rubber toy, there can be potentially serious problems created if either guest or host make a mistake about a complaint which leads to serious consequences.  The host in that story ended up terminated by Airbnb, who seemed unwilling to believe her side of the story.  However, a similar situation could have hypothetically occurred with an Airbnb guest…imagine a host thought he saw a gun in the guests’ room and it turned out to be a rubber toy or halloween prop, or gift chocolate in the shape of a pistol.  What if that host erroneously blacklisted the guest over the gun shaped chocolate?

Apart from the fact that guests in private homes results in more complicated situations, hosts lack the standardization found in hoteliers, about what upsets them.  What some hosts find blacklist-worthy, other hosts would find petty and trite and would be upset about a host who wanted to blacklist over such issues.  Again I think these differences can be somewhat owing to the fact that since the guest is in the hosts’ private property, not at a hotel,  there is much more potential in the host to take things overly personally, to be overly reactive to some situations, to misunderstand something they see, to be hasty in their judgments.  They have more invested than the hotelier, after all.  They are more vulnerable than the hotelier in many ways.

Another area where hosts lack the standardization found in hotels, is probably the area of most concern: it’s all too easy to become a short term rental host these days, and that means some people do it by just clicking a few buttons of their computer, without knowing what the heck they are doing.  Imagine a host who knows virtually nothing about the business he or she is in, deciding to blacklist someone based on an issue that may have turned out to be a misunderstanding on the guest’s part.  Various nincompoopery could arise with hosts with little or no experience.

Finally, I feel like I’m saying this for the umpteenth time, but please, hosts, stop trying to do everything on Facebook!!  When the original Airbnb host community groups were phased out, most all hosts who went offsite, went to Facebook, to set up a variety of host community groups, including a group for hosts interested in creating a guest blacklist.  This in my opinion is definitely an enterprise that doesn’t belong on Facebook.  A blacklist does not belong on Social Media…it should be, in my opinion, a standalone website, not something on gabby social media.  I dont’ think you can successfully mix chat and socializing, with running a blacklist function…even barring all the other hurdles and obstacles and difficulties getting in the way.

A group that tries to mix social chat and posts with general hosting questions, as well as “venting” posts about bad guests, alongside “real” blacklist posts, is going to run into a lot of confusion.  To begin with, the setup of Facebook is entirely wrong for any kind of organized list function.  You can’t just post things on the discussion timeline and expect that to be any real contribution to the host community in terms of searchable and findable material.  For a real blacklist, a form of organization is needed…something curated, and organized alphabetically or by some other means so that people can actually find what they are looking for rather than having to comb through pages of material.  This should be something more professional than a document attached to a Facebook group, and more curated.  The problem with documents attached to Facebook groups, is that even as you allow members to add content to those, members could also potentially delete content, and remove other’s entries.  A blacklist which is accessible to thousands of members to edit, is a horrible mess waiting to happen.

To be done right, this would need to be done by a small crew, who would process submissions that they received from the host community, and vet each submission to ensure that it was “blacklist worthy” and reflected a host who experienced a sufficiently serious problem with a guest.

Finally, again to distinguish the context in which hosts are situated, compared to hotels, it’s not at all clear that it’s even permissible for hosts to post either publicly, or semi-publicly, in closed groups, and mention identifying details (eg full name, profile #, address, phone number) of any “bad guest.”  Airbnb in its TOS states that users may not post reviews of users (guests or hosts) on other websites, and in fact at least one guest apparently had his Airbnb account terminated because he posted a review of his host on Google.  Hoteliers are under no such obligation of course when taking direct bookings.  But when taking bookings from Airbnb we have to follow their rules and reading those conservatively, I think it is risky to make a post that could be interpreted as a “review”, anywhere online in which you state identifying details about an Airbnb guest (full name, profile # etc).

The point has been often made, and made well, that hosts do not feel adequately protected by Airbnb, either in terms of being given enough information to screen their guests, or in terms of getting help if they have a bad guest situation arise, or afterward, in terms of getting reimbursed for damages if they have a guest causing much damage to their property.   So it’s understandable that hosts might think that having access to a blacklist would protect them better.   There might be some protection found there, but I am inclined to think that at least on Airbnb, honest reviews are a better protection.  After all, if a guest was problematic for a previous host, wouldn’t there be a review by that host which is available to read and obtain that information?

All in all, I think the idea of a short term rental guest blacklist is an idea worth considering for any value it might have, but I also think it’s a more complicated idea than most hosts may realize.

This story is an important one, because it touches on several levels of problems  — (1) the ever-expanding AIrbnb Terms of Service, which expand Airbnb’s own power and rights while reducing those of users of its platform, (2) Airbnb’s handling of complaints made by one user about another user or listing, (3) AIrbnb’s practice of terminating users without providing any explanation about why they took this action, or (4) Airbnb failing to offer any appeals process both for terminations and for other decisions it makes, say about requests for reimbursement for damages.

There is one recent court case in Baltimore Maryland which involves several interesting factors so it’s worth highlighting.

This case involves a long-time Baltimore host, Jeannette Belliveau, who was a SuperHost with over 500 Airbnb reviews, who had also done political advocacy work to support hosts in Baltimore.  Her Airbnb account:  https://www.airbnb.com/users/show/10722046

In summer of 2018, guest Stephanie Akker stayed with Jeannette in her home.  Stephanie seemed to have a fine time, didn’t complain to Jeannette about anything.  So Jeannette was quite disturbed to hear from Airbnb after Stephanies’ stay, that Airbnb was considering terminating Jeannette’s account on Airbnb over some type of violation of terms.  After reading Stephanie’s review of her stay, Jeannette realized what had happened….the guest had made a false, defamatory statement about Jeannette in her review, and this false statement actually led Airbnb to terminate Jeannette’s account, without even bothering to consider Jeannette’s side of the story! 

No, there was NOT a 9mm hand gun in a small basket by the front door!  There were a bunch of doggie toys in the basket by the front door, as well as a toy rubber pistol that Jeannette used as a prop in a self-defense course.

Jeannette presented the facts to Airbnb, but willy-nilly they terminated her account anyhow, blithely disrespectful of the facts and demonstrating an unaccountable bias towards the guests’ false and defamatory statement.  Apparently it was of no concern to them that Jeannette was a superhost with a long time solid reputation of over 500 reviews, or that Jeannette solely relied on her Airbnb income, which was her sole income as a retired person.

Jeannette first went to court to sue the guest, Stephanie Akker, in small claims court.  This is Stephanies’ AIrbnb profile page:  https://www.airbnb.com/users/show/153521542

So Jeannette filed suit in Baltimore Small claims court over this:

She won in court, and the judge was particularly upset not only that the guest (who now lived in Massachusetts, not in Washington state) did not show up, but also that Airbnb offered NO appeals process for its decision.

Jeannette requested an audio recording of the hearing and made a YouTube video of it:

For her part, when presented with the facts, not only did this guest Stephanie Akker not back down or apologize, but she went on AIrbnb Hell and posted there about it:

http://www.airbnbhell.com/sued-by-airbnb-host-for-reporting-gun/

No decent person, when presented with the facts and shown that she has made a presumptuous mistake, a mistake that ruined someones’ business, would argue that she is entitled to her view, and to double down on it.  The point isn’t that you have no reason to believe the gun was fake.  The point is that if you are not absolutely certain this was a real gun, you dont’ report to AIrbnb that there was a real gun there!

Jeannette next sued AIrbnb itself in small claims court in November 2018.  While most hosts believe that the Airbnb TOS still direct that users shall use arbitration, at some point the TOS were revised to allow hosts “the right to seek relief in small claims court for certain claims, at their option.”  See some small claims and other suits against Airbnb here:   https://globalhostingblogs.com/2017/12/17/lawsuits-against-airbnb/

This is the video from Jeannette’s court case against AIrbnb.

Jeannette’s complaint against guest Stephanie Akker:

Jeannette Belliveau vs Stephanie Akker Complaint

And her complaint against AIrbnb:

Jeannette Belliveau vs Airbnb Complaint and Affidavit

Jeannette went to court on March 6 2019.  This is her report about what occurred in the small claims court with the judge, herself and an attorney representing AIrbnb:

“OKAY kids, I’m back from Small Claims court, and very much buoyed by everyone’s support and personal messages.

SUMMARY: I was denied damages of $5K, based on the judge’s view that I had voluntarily signed the Terms of Service waiving a right to damages. BUT the judge tore UP the AirBNB attorney for “making money off this host, but not providing her due process or any real investigation.”

The judge ordered AirBNB to do something to write a note on my listing to state (trying to remember exact wording …) something to the effect of, “This review is false and the host has been reinstated.”

She said to come to her if this did not happen and she would issue a contempt of court ruling.

Some takeaways:

The other defendants and plaintiffs in the courtroom were nodding and meeting my eyes and going “Umm hmm” as the judge made it clear there had been NO investigation of my case whatsoever.

Air’s attorney was a total rookie – this was his first District Court or any court appearance perhaps since graduating from law school 2 yrs ago. He did well! We are near-neighbors and both walk our dogs in the big nearby park, so we will greet each other going forward. No hard feelings, none of this stuff is personal.

I have ordered and paid for the audio recording of this trial as well, and will obtain and edit it in time … might take 7 to 10 days. (And upload it and send in a link for posting, God willing.)

Did an indirect shoutout noting “there are a lot of eyes on this hearing” and “other hosts* have been very kind in offering support.

The audiotape will be entertaining, I promise, it was all very Judge Judy (U.S. reality court show).

Some BIGGER takeaways:

You will hear on the audiotape that the judge raises the COMPLETE lack of due process and fairness in AirBNB’s dealing with hosts. (But her hands were tied by my agreement to the ToS.) I am frantically trying to look up the state of Maryland’s laws on contract waivers to see if I can appeal … I think this kind of case is VERY juicy to run up the chain of appeals, because the ToS anymore are getting crazy, for AirBNB and every other company.
I’m not sure about folks overseas or in other U.S. states, but my experience to date (if it can be generalized to others, who knows) is:
A) AirBNB can win against you in this kind of lawsuit because of the waivers in the contracts we more or less sign via the ToS
B)😎 you CAN sue the guest for defamatory reviews and get damages; that is not covered by the ToS

 

So this should be helpful info for others who suffer an unkind and unfair turn of events and end up in a similar situation.

In addition, it might help to point out that if any guest makes a statement in their review, as Stephanie did in hers, about having made a report to AIrbnb, or contacted AIrbnb, or complained to Airbnb, or sought Airbnb’s help with an issue with the host or listing, this is grounds to have the review removed based on Airbnb’s own review guidelines.  Eg see here:  https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/546/what-is-airbnb-s-content-policy  or their review guidelines page  https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/13/how-do-reviews-work.

Note they prohibit:

• Content that provides specific details or outcomes of an Airbnb investigation

So it’s considered providing details of an Airbnb investigation, if any user refers to contacting Airbnb.

I think one of the biggest things that is wrong in this whole picture, is the total lack of an appeals process when someone either has their account terminated, or is denied for a reimbursement for damages.

In the EU, according to new GDPR rules, it’s illegal for AIrbnb to terminate someone’s account without providing any explanation, and/or any appeals process.  This is only basic justice, and really such rules should also apply all over the US and the rest of the world.

Since the birth of Airbnb and the business of people hosting guests in their homes, there have been many changes both in Airbnb and the hosting community.  These changes have not all been for the better.  In fact, some might say there’s been an overall problematic trend, and it’s become quite commonplace in host communities to read hosts writing about how “Airbnb has lost their vision” or “I wish Airbnb had kept to their original vision”.  Often these comments are mixed in with not-so-gentle criticisms of particular policies or practices that, in the minds of many, have made Airbnb and perhaps many hosts as well, lose their way and be somehow “less” than they once were.

So I want to explore this issue — in part to examine what made the early years of Airbnb and hosting more exciting, what problems arose, what were the inferior or problematic choices/policies made by AIrbnb and hosts, and, most importantly, what values do I believe in and advocate for hosts to get “back on track”, if they so choose.

The early years were exciting, first because this was new, and we were few, and we were pioneers on an exciting, fresh horizon, with the world stretching out before us.  This was a time of small-time hosting, when the “airbed” part of Air Bed and Breakfast was a shout out to the smallest of small-time hosts, the ones with the most humble of accomodations and the least available extra space.  These were the heady heydays when Airbnb was something more or less like “Couchsurfing-Plus”.  Not that many people knew about AIrbnb — so those who did could be trusted, there was an implicit secret handshake, and to host in your home, or to book a stay were something relegated to a certain countercultural humble elite.

Yet even in the early days of Airbnb, there was something “hokey” in the AIrbnb atmosphere…there was an enthusiasm for getting to know people and an optimism about connections and belonging, but it could be expressed in a nerdy and hokey way, as we saw here:

Things like this naturally gave rise to satire, particularly as Airbnb showed itself unwilling to come to terms with the prospect of very problematic guests — or the “shadow” in the room of hosting.

Also, the heady enthusiasm and ubiquitous “excitement” (AIrbnb would announce every new development as something they were “excited” about, as though they were all a room of schoolchildren, always eager for new toys), rang hollow to hosts when they read more and more stories of guillotined hosts, hosts who’d been “terminated” and given no reason for the sudden decapitation when they were “banned for life”.  This led to  many hosts feeling that there was a dark, haunted room behind the happy facade of “belonging” and many hosts expressed a fear that one day, they too would find themselves crushed in the talons of the monster or decapitated by the executioner who hid behind the big “Belonging” Belo.

On that note, it should be pointed out that not only is terminating someone’s account and banning them for life with no explanation very disrespectful , but according to new EU rules of the GDPR it is also illegal.   As one host put it,  terminating with no explanation is  like the parent who tells you that you did wrong and will be punished but will not tell you what you did wrong, and when you ask why you’re being punished, just keeps saying “Because I said so, because I said so.”

There are several stories of hosts who’ve had their accounts terminated without being given any explanation, which are posted here:

http://globalhosting.freeforums.net/board/35/problems-working-airbnb-customer-service

Also, here is a story of a host who had an Airbnb guest who wrote a false, defamatory review.

Not only did this review effect the host’s hosting business, but Airbnb terminated her account, without hearing her side of the story, based entirely on false information!  She sued the guest in small claims court and won.  Next step, perhaps: suing Airbnb, because it’s egregiously unfair that a host should have their account terminated over completely false statements.

AIrbnb was intially excited and preached belonging...but were they in love with people, real hosts and real guests, or just an idealistic fantasy of hosting? And particularly with all the new “developments” and app features, many hosts were readily led to wonder if Brian and company had a love affair not with hosting and with people, but with technology. 

Why, if Airbnb promoted “belonging” and why, if Brian kept saying he intended to listen to hosts, was Airbnb so tin-eared, when hosts called in to ask for reimbursement for property damaged by guests, or vandalism or crimes perpetrated by guests?  Why did hosts keep saying they had to call Airbnb 4, 5 or 20 times, just to get paid for their damaged property? Why were they being asked to post on a Twitter page, when they wanted to talk to Airbnb customer service?  Why, in response to yet another media article about another Airbnb guest trashing a hosts’ home, and the host expressing that they were having difficulty not only getting paid, but even being listened to by Airbnb, did Airbnb keep saying, “We regret our initial response was not up to our standards.”  Why couldn’t they just do things right, straight off, instead of waiting until the host went to the media to pressure them to take responsibility?  Why was there so much happening that was apparently not up to standards?

Also,  as being an Airbnb host became more popular, and I think largely because it became lucrative, the original spirit of hosting was lost, both in hosts and in Airbnb.  As many hosts have lamented, Airbnb is pushing hosts to operate more like hotels, and is pushing, particularly through its “Plus” program, a rather boring, uniform and predictable style. Also, hosts on the “Plus” program, though ostensibly an elite, are actually being demoted in that they end up with less control over their own business — they can’t use their own photos, Airbnb writes their listing description, and AIrbnb even dictates to them what furniture or carpets to use.

A not subtle way of pressuring hosts to use instant book, or to allow Air to run their business via making them a Plus listing, is that AIrbnb puts instant book and Plus listings first in the search results, so that if you want to run your business in your own way and refuse these new “options”, you get punished, as AIrbnb actually makes it harder for guests to find your listing.  Many hosts have complained that in some places guests have to actively click on something to indicate they dont’ want to seek a “Plus” listing, just to get to ordinary listings.

Though the original “vibe” of Airbnb was humble hosting by small-time hosts in their own home, with all the implied character, quirkiness and soul of such settings, I think the primary reason that this vision did not last, is because the founders of Airbnb — Nate, Joe and particularly Brian — may not have an attunement to this soul quality, a part of ourselves where wisdom lives and grows.

What is soul? Soul is an earthy, salty, type of substance, full of vitality and robust energy.  It’s a place where individual uniqueness, even idiosyncrasy, are highly valued.  Perhaps most significantly for us as hosts helping each other in host groups, it’s a place where wisdom lives and grows — wisdom as distinct from mere knowledge.  What’s the difference between wisdom and knowledge? This may be hard to define, but I present it to you as a koan, something to ruminate and reflect and chew on.  For reflection is part of wisdom.

Soul is a spiritual dimension of existence, but the more earthy and chthonic part of spirituality — not the transcendent otherworldliness, but a this-worldly aspect of spirit.  If we view transcendent spirituality as correlated to rules, order,  principles and doctrines, soul is correlated to art, stories, mythology, symbol and imagery.   Spirituality may be viewed as more like sitting in zazen, or being a disciple of a mainstream religion, and listening to the yoga teacher or institutional church authorities tell you what to do and think, whereas soul is more like being a Mage or Mystic, and listening to the voice of the earth and the creatures, or your own Inner Guide.   It is more closely tied to the unconscious realm, and thus to our dreams and the depths of who we are.  Carl Jung, who wrote Modern Man in Search of a Soul, and explored his own soul’s depths in his amazing Red Book, (which has been called “The Holy Grail of the Unconcious“)  was one of the foremost explorers of the soul in modern times, along with Joseph Campbell.  This article, on a website oriented to Jungian psychology, explains something of the map of the soul.

One way of starting to have insight into the value of soul, is close by to many of us.  It’s in our pets.  We love animals…in part because they’re cute, in part because they are loving and innocent, or loyal…but there is more.  See that doggie butt wiggling, the tail wagging?  We think that’s funny…as is the dog who creeps under the table at dinner and stares at you with a baleful imploring look.  Animals are uninhibited.  So, they can show forth the realms of the subconscious, that we in our civilization, may have a harder time accessing, because the very process of “civilizing” separates us from parts of ourselves, parts that contain some wisdom, some important energy and power.  Unfortunately, even though civilization is necessary in the process of growth, this process leads to repression and suppression of good things with the rest of the “id”, and so we can lose access to our own Inner Guide to some extent.  This is one reason why animals can be teachers for us, they teach us to listen to our instincts again — which is a part of the soul’s education.

Another phenomenon that can point to soul, is a certain type of humor that is salty and earthy…for instance satire.   Big full belly laughs are close to the realm of soul.  Being able to laugh at ourselves, and engage in gentle self-deprecating humor, is an earmark of soul…and we can compare this soulful humor to forms of contemporary humor that seem rather strident and schoolmarmish, even viscious and self-righteous, in comparison.  Satire and self-deprecating humor are rarely self-righteous, and so there’s a wisdom they contain which can carry us back to soul.  For instance, think of the old Carol Burnett sitcoms, or “Mama’s Family”

Or something from Saturday Night Live that pokes fun at someone who many of us generally support and vote for.

(BTW,  in that latter video, “D O” means “Do Over” )

When you find that you can’t laugh at yourself, or you can’t laugh at a a satire on a bloop by or shortcoming or “folly” of a politician you generally support, then you may have taken a tangent off the journey of the soul.  The dwellers in realm of the soul are, unlike repressed civilization, cognizant of what is often termed “the elephant in the room” .  When you are in touch with your soul, you are aware of the “shadow” element in yourself, as in any setting or community.  And all people and communities have a shadow element.  One of the profund truths of the soul is that the more the shadow is suppressed, the stronger it becomes.  You cannot sweep an infinite amount of dirt under the rug.  Eventually the rug will become a tiny cloth atop a dirt pile grown into a mountain.  “What is relegated to the unconscious comes to us as fate”, said Carl Jung, which is a bit of profound wisdom that too many in our times seem to neglect.  And ignoring this truth means it will become your fate. 

Pause….I hear a question.

What in the world, you may ask, does all this have to do with Airbnb hosting? Well, soul not only has a lot to do with hosting, but it has a lot to do with everything, as from the realm of soul comes the world of Archetypal Psychology, and a way of viewing everything in the world, all phenomena, as representing different archetypes.  And the point I am making is that I believe Airbnb is going in the direction it is today — away from what many perceive as its’ “original” vision — primarily because  I suspect that its founders have little valuing of this soul quality in human nature, and instead, are captivated by archetypes more aligned with the clean, pure, somewhat minimalist and certainly more “safe, predictable” and boring aesthetic of spirit. Although in their case they are not representing a mainstream religion, but something more like a “religion” of technology, and a “religion” of the ideal luxury hotel.  The clean, white minimalist style, like the clean spare website style of the Airbnb site, can be read as a representation of the refutation of the unconscious, and of the soul who wells up from the unconscious seeking expression in this world.  This is not to say that the minimalist aesthetic is inherently lacking in soul, for it certainly can be an expression of a unique soul quality, as can any style or aesthetic.  Rather, what I’m calling attention to is the uniformity of style, the imposition of style and the suppression of hosts’ unique selves in all aspects of their business — from how they choose to decorate, to how they choose to run their business and screen guests,  — and this is where the problem lies.

There’s another issue/theme involved here which I’ll write another article about, which I might call the “Hotel to Home Back to Hotel” shift in Airbnb.  AIrbnb started up as a hip alternative to the hotel.  But people were booking stays at AIrbnb listings, who weren’t really wanting the full reality of staying in a private home, and made complaints that, well, basically the home was not more like a hotel!   If they had really been committed to what they started out seeming to support, Airbnb would have said to these folks, “Scram, get lost, go stay in a hotel.  Airbnb listings are not hotels.”  But instead of saying that, they began to pressure their hosts to be more like hotels.  The “Plus” line and the Luxury line on AIrbnb make this clear, as does the trend by other platforms to create “predictable” or “consistent” short term stays in “catered” situations.  For instance see  https://www.sonder.com/  This is not “the new hosting”, this in my view is the antithesis of hosting.  It’s not hosting, it’s the hotelization of private property.

Like the fear of the Airbnb guest who books a stay in someone’s home, but is afraid that they might find a cobweb there, one wonders if Airbnb’s founders are fearful — do they fear the depths of their own souls? the dark unconscious depths?  —  for this type of fear could explain someone going in a direction of trying to get rid of these unpleasantries of the real, earthy soul.  Airbnb has, after all,  pushed a viscious rating system that can result in hosts banned over too many cobwebs, or perhaps just guests’ fears of cobwebs.  Airbnb  amplified the “extenuating circumstances” policy such that guests can essentially get a full refund if they have a hangnail.  Airbnb has forsworn the humble home and its at times humbly dirty hearth, in their push for super duper clean homes and “Super” hosts and “5 star ratings”.  Airbnb seems to have turned their backs on idiosyncrasy and style by pushing the dull uniformity of the “Plus” listings.  They even turned their back on the very small time host that they themselves once used to be — perhaps now because the founders are billionaires, they now seem more oriented to “mega” hosts with many dozens of listings, boutique hotels, “brands” and other frou-frou savoir faire.

Airbnb’s policies make things more difficult for small hosts, but work well for hotels.  Policies like “infants stay for free”, or requirements to accomodate the disabled or those with service animals, non-discrimination policies that make hosts fearful of declining any guest of a “protected group”,  the pressure to allow guests to instant book, and now the intentional hiding of the guest photo from the host…all these things are just fine for hotels, who accept basically anyone at any time of the day or night, people who intend to stay for 2 weeks or just 2 hours.  But these policies dont’ work so well for hosts who actually (gasp!) live in the home where they have guests, and need to protect both their home and themselves from not only rude people but the criminals, drug dealers and ravers who now regularly book AIrbnb listings.  As well, the distorted Airbnb rating system essentially results in hosts being punished for not giving into manipulative guests, or for daring to confront guests who violate house rules, when the guest retaliates with low ratings.  Instead of supporting hosts by not penalizing them for doing what they need to do to protect their business, Airbnb, by failing to address the problem of retaliatory ratings (and by placing too much emphasis on the rating system) fails to support guests in taking care of ourselves.  And to live holistically means to care for ourselves, in every aspect of our lives, including our business.

Some hosts willingly go along with all Airbnb’s policy changes, in the name of “adapting to the rules of the game”, regardless of what those rules are, how fair or ethical they are, or how disadvantageous or even harmful some of those “rules” are for small in-home hosts.  This may be partly “brown-nosing”, or, in the terminology of soul that we are using here, it could be viewed as “selling one’s soul to get ahead.”

Not that making money is evil — for it certainly is necessary — nor is it necessarily problematic to not object to policy changes by Airbnb.  This is not a simplistic, black-and-white issue that I’m trying to call attention to, but one that lives in the inner workings of our hearts, that has to do with our values, our pursuit of meaning in life, or our getting off track in following our heart’s or soul’s call, and allowing ourselves to fall into intertia or what is simply easier to do, as opposed to what is more joyful and meaningful to us. 

What I am trying to call attention to, has to do with balance, proportion, holism, authenticity, freedom, as well as soul.  Airbnb hosts have become angry, because we liked the original vision of Airbnb in its implied valuing of individual soul, individual expression, freedom to do business as micro-entrepreneurs in a way that worked for us and aligned with our own values.  We certainly valued making money, but not making money by any means necessary, or did we want to be told 4 or 5 “tricks” that could improve our business and allow us to edge out the competition, but required compromising our values.

And speaking of offering tricks to improve our business — have you noticed the ungodly amount of advertising, spamming and self-promotion that goes on in the host community now? It sometimes seems that half the posts from new members in my group are self-promotional posts.  I wonder if this is owing to the “values vacuum” that has unwittingly been created by insufficient attention to valuing collective wisdom in the host community — that is to say, not best practices to make the most money, but best practices to take care of yourself, run your business in a way that works for you, that supports your own needs and allows you to fulfill your purpose and live out something of your soul in the midst of your life.

In the early days, the hosting community was about helping each other and sharing stories.  That is still a strong theme in most communities, but there’s another theme that’s entered into the host community, and it’s not one that I like.  It’s one that can be deadly for the soul.  It’s about making more and more and more money, building an “Airbnb empire”, how to make $2 million in your first year as an Airbnb host, how to acquire more and more and more properties, how to figure out all the tips and tricks and edge out other hosts and make a mint as a host, and other crap like that.

Suffice to say I’m not impressed.   Not that I’m opposed to anyone growing their business and having several properties they run as Short term rentals.  What bothers me is when I get the sense that making more and more and more money is someone’s primary goal in life.  Because that is an empty goal, in and of itself it doesn’t have meaning. Making enough money — yes, that is good.  Because when you’re making enough, that may be a very helpful thing actually to help you have time to do things that support the growth of your soul.  Not making enough money can be very stressful and living in a survival mode can make it very hard to take care of yourself, and to have the silence and space and down time, the space for leisure, that the soul requires.

Also, often people who focus too much on making money, dont’ think enough about what this is doing to them.  How they are compromising, losing themselves along the way.

Perhaps we say, “Oh, I’m not really a spiritual type”, or “Those other people are more artistic or creative than I am”, or “I”m just too busy for that kind of stuff”, but the development of the soul, in whatever way that is meant to unfold in our life, is not something for anyone else to do for us.  Too often, we project both bad and good qualities onto others, disowning these in ourselves.  Other people are angry, not us.  Other people hate, not us.  But also — other people are the creative ones, the spiritual ones, or the soulful ones.

In my area for instance, it’s common for well off middle class people to learn Spanish and travel to Latin America, to pepper their homes with “folk” art from remote villages in another country, and to, in a sense, project their soul outward onto other people. To let other people do their “soul work” for them.  Face it, this is a kind of patronization — we “assign” some folk culture in another country to be “the ones who do that soul work for the rest of us”.  At the same time, some of us are workaholics in our tech job, and the folk people out there can project all their innate inventiveness, math and logical ability, organizing ability, tech know-how and entrepreneurial spirit onto us, we get “assigned” to do that for them.  All of this psychological projection of our growth tasks onto other groups of people mitigates against integration, because one half of humanity isn’t supposed to carry the growth of the other part.  We are all called to become integrated, to become whole, in ourselves.  So buy intriguing folk art if you like, but let it be a symbol of what YOU want to do and become in your life, not what you remain content to let someone else do for you.

Keeping your business small is actually a good way for it and you to stay soulful.  Because the larger a business grows, the more difficulty you will have, keeping your hand and your own personal touch in it. The bigger the business is, the more “automated” it will be, the more “apps” and “tech” you are likely to have, the more employees you have, the less interaction you’ll have with your own guests….and the narrower your involvement in actual hosting.  To the point where it would be a misrepresentation to say you are a host.  Rather, what you are is a short term rental corporation, and at some point…what you do is so automated and impersonal….you could actually be replaced by a robot or a computer.  And that’s not very soulful. 

Keeping your business small allows you to cultivate your soul by having actual meaningful interactions with people, with staying humble and grounded by cleaning your own guest rooms.  There’s also something “beautiful” about smallness, which pertains to the salty and earthy folk of the earth.

As well, I think it’s time to just come right out and say it…there’s been a problem of “concept creep” in relation to the term “hosting” and “host.”  In the old days when Airbnb began, it was somewhat understood that a host was someone who (preferably) did in-home hosting, or (alternatively, but less preferably) on their property hosting, or even possibly off-their-property hosting, if they had a small business.  These days, people are claiming to be “hosts” and doing “hosting” who run 100 to 1000 listings (or more!), have 10 to 20 employees, and/or never actually meet their guests.  Let’s cut to the chase — as I see it, you’re not really a “host” if you have a dozen properties and never meet your guests.  You’re not a “host” if you have 150 listings and are aiming for Empire.  You’re not a “host” if your listing is a room at the Ramada Inn.  You may be better described as a short term rental corporation or vacation rental corporation, or perhaps just a giant hotel chain.  And in its unfortunate support of such non-hosts, many have felt that AIrbnb has steamrolled the real hosts to make way for corporations. To the extent that it has done this, Airbnb is no longer actually a business centered on  “hosting” but is just another VRBO or Expedia, focused on running hotels or vacation rentals.

If you’ve watched the development of short term rental regulations in various cities, this distinction in hosting actually is codified into law in many places.  Cities will often refer to a listing as “non-hosted” if the host isn’t present when the guest arrives, and/or doesn’t actually live there.  This in contrast to a “hosted” listing, which means, a host lives at the property and offers a room for rent or a 2nd unit at the property.  This is a good clue about what hosting actually means, which we’d do well to be informed by.

So…responding to the call of colorful folk art is a good start, it can help us focus our interest and intent.  But then ask….what more is our soul wanting from us?

So, what I’m saying here, is that there was more “soul” quality in the atmosphere in the early years of Airbnb, and there are many angry AIrbnb hosts these days —- and if we take time to reflect on all this, this reflection can help us identify our own values and ultimately to promote what I will call “Holistic and Authentic Hosting, Hosting with Soul.”  Because if we look at it more deeply, I think we’ll see, it’s not just that we are upset that “Airbnb sides more with guests” or that Airbnb’s policy changes make it more difficult for us to screen guests, and protect our homes and ourselves.  But really, we are objecting to an interference with our running our business in our own way, and more deeply still, with our ability to express ourselves and live out our unique soul’s path in this world. 

So in this article about hosting holistically, I am essentially calling you to attend to things beyond hosting, things which may emerge and be expressed in your hosting business but which go far beyond that.  I am calling on you to attend to your soul and your soul’s journey in this life, and ask what are your deepest values, what is most meaningful for you?  I believe that every one of us has a “religion”, even atheists, because I believe that whatever is most meaningful for you in your life, is where your heart is and thus in a symbolic sense and perhaps in a practical sense, what you value most is your religion.

Many people are afraid of questions of meaning, so they keep busy.  Keeping busy, they dont’ have to think about it too much, and perhaps can keep at bay those nagging parental voices, such as from our churchbound parents or stale elders about how we were supposed to pray or go to Church.  Well, developing the soul is not about going to church, and in fact, some of those who are most diligent about making appropriate observances in their mainstream religion, may be stunted in their soul growth, because your soul doesn’t grow when you only do everything that some institution or nice neat set of dogmas or doctrines, or sacred book tells you to do.  No, the challenge your soul presents is to think for yourself, which is why Carl Jung said, “Would you find the way? I warn you away from my own.”  He understood well that being true to your soul means listening to your own heart, and only your own heart.  No teacher, school, church, temple, doctrine or guru can teach you, but only you, yourself. 

For your task, the task of your soul journey, is to become yourself, not to become someone else.

Now some will say at this point, OMG, you’ve certainly departed from the topic of Airbnb hosting.  Well, let’s circle back around.

From what I’ve said here, I mean to distill out some “hosting values” that I intend to advance and advocate for, more clearly.  Given the deterioration of the hosting culture in Airbnb, and the superficiality of values in many hosts, I think it’s growing more important for there to be some people to issue a call for these values I am wanting to represent.  Because I’m growing fatigued with the “Empire Building” talk and the brown-nosing advice when it appears in the host groups….though truth be told, even the most committed brown-nosers have trouble with their nosey religion when Airbnb yanks out the one thing that they really depended on.  

Some may confuse spiritual values with politics,  and in particular with things like being welcoming to the rainbow of humanity and supporting non-discriminatory hosting, which some will say they are pleased that Airbnb stands for.  Well, having principles and politics is good and this may be part of your soul’s expression, but it is likely not the fullness of it, since the soul is deeper and more complex than politics, principles, doctrines, beliefs.  It is more mysterious and paradoxical than all these things. WHich is why, if there is some paradox and contradiction in your hosting, that may well be a good thing.

Holistic and Authentic Hosting, Hosting with Soul

So here are a few suggestions about values that go with holistic and authentic hosting.
(1) First, even though soul is not synonymous with Christianity or Judaism or any particular religious worldview, there are wise sayings that appear under many guises, and one of them is, “You cannot serve both God and Mammon.”  This doesn’t mean that you can’t make money and have to become a beggar and live in a box on the sidewalk.  Rather it is a message about proportion and where your heart is.  You can make money, but do not make money into your God.  So first off, holistic hosting is certainly not about fixating on making more and more and more money and building a bigger and bigger AIrbnb Empire, like these guys did:  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/nyregion/airbnb-nyc-law.html   Those guys really had an addiction to money making and it’s going to do them in, from the appearances of things.

(2) Second, holistic and authentic hosting means that as much as possible, you want to run your business in your way, not the way some other hosts say is right, and not in the way Airbnb is starting to push you to do.  Your hosting business, like everything else in your life, is an expression of the uniqueness of you, and your values.  This means, among other things:  (a) Your house rules, (b) Your method of screening guests, (c) Your choice of furniture and decor, (d) Your style of interaction with guests.  When Airbnb starts to try to take away your right to run things your way, you push back, as far as is possible to do so. You dont’ just accept someone telling you what to do.
In line with putting your own touch on your business….also, though this is not possible for all hosts, particularly hosts with several listings or one or more listings located at distance  —  ideally, so that our business is an expression of our own soul, we try to do as much as we can by ourselves.  This means, not using a property manager, but communicating with the guest ourselves.  Meeting the guest ourselves.  Cleaning the guest room ourselves.  Choosing the furniture and decor ourselves.

(3) You value advice in the host community that helps you live your life and run your business in a way that works for you and supports your values, and you dont’ value advice that seems to come from the perspective of, “Here’s what I suggest you do if you want to make more and more and more money, and get the edge over other hosts, and beat out the competition.”
(4) Valuing your own soul’s journey implies that you also value that someone else is following their path, and that their path is not your path.  People who don’t understand the soul or are out of touch with it, can be very oriented to conformity, but those who hear the soul’s call, oppose conformity and its animosity to freedom, while appreciating unconventionality for the way it inspires us all to our own direction.  THis means that it’s inherently not in keeping with soul to judge other people or hosts. This doesn’t mean that we dont’ recognize when someone’s giving bad advice, or might have an agenda or ulterior motive. It doesn’t mean that we don’t recognize that the host community has developed some collective wisdom — but it does mean we dont’ blast people just for doing something differently from how we do it.
(5) Being concerned with living holistically, we place importance on self-care and taking care of ourselves in all respects.  This means, running our hosting business in a way that does not give short shrift to our own needs, and it means speaking up against policies which show a lack of respect for hosts’ needs. Among other things, we resent being punished by AIrbnb for not using its “optional” instant book feature (because we want to protect our homes and screen our guests) or not being a 5 star listing (because we insisted on confronting guests who violated our house rules, who then retaliated and gave us low ratings) , when Airbnb makes it harder for guests to find our listings if we aren’t instant book hosts or Plus hosts or 5 star hosts or Superhosts.
(6) Finally, we’ve all heard stories like this — the guest who cancelled their reservation because there was an ant in the room or a cobweb in the house.  Apart from being stupid and neurotic, this is soul-less, in its fear of nature and lack of a healthy sense of the presence of nature in the world, and nature includes our homes.  The idea that houses should be hermetically sealed sterile environments separated from Nature and Earth, is a troubling idea.  Every house should have at least one cobweb, and for Gaia’s sake, please let it be a honkin’ BIG one!! 
I hope you preserve a quiet corner of your house — perhaps someplace guests dont’ see very much or have access to —  to grow a nice big cobweb and hopefully thereby make a little spider happy.  Believe me, this will be good for your soul!

This is a 19 minute film I created, using toys as characters, a fictional satire, to help illustrate the kinds of problems that can occur when either hosts or guests are too much aimed at perfection.  I got a significant amount of help on this film from a friend, whose film projects you might like if you like this one.  More on that below.

This film follows the life of the Cutie family (Carl and Carlotta and their kids, a rabbit couple) as they delve into the world of Airbnb Hosting, and make the mistake of signing up for “Airbnb Plus”, which they discover, a bit too late, is a big fat minus.

While they remain content to do standard Airbnb hosting, the Cuties have great guests, people (various other critter families) from around the world, who are grateful to stay in their nice home.  But as soon as they sign up for Airbnb Plus, they get the “guests from hell” who seem like professional scammers, and eager to take the Cuties down, exploiting the system that sets up hosts to be heavily punished if they don’t meet a ridiculous standard of perfection, one they never agreed to meet in the first place.

At the end of the film, you’ll see a satirical take on Airbnb’s truly awful star rating system, how bizarre it is when compared to a hotel rating system, or for that matter, nearly any other star rating system in existence.

Enjoy! 

If you liked the style of this film, you might like similar satirical fiction films on another topic made by the friend who significantly helped me with this one.

Find his YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-a8gJBeYMPLdCkfI5LPUhw

You may recognize some of the characters of this story showing up in his adventure tale!!

Some of you may already know about the Enneagram, which is a system of personality classification.  This is a fascinating system, which features 9 different personality types, but due to all the sub-types (each type can be one of 3 subtypes — survival oriented, one-on-one relationship oriented, or socially oriented) and wing-types (each type can have a “wing” related to an adjacent type), there are actually 54 different types if you look at it in depth. Further, each Enneatype varies according to the level of psychological development, from unhealthy (stuck in type-based fixations) to very healthy, so if you cast the unhealthy wing and the very healthy wing as 2 other types, you can see that a total of 108 types total could emerge.

While those at the “unhealthy” level for each type can be more readily recognized because of how their personality is compromised by their fixations or growth challenges, those at the “very healthy” level may be more difficult to recognize because in their growth they become much less limited by the typical fixations of their type.

The amazing thing about the Enneagram is that it actually works, and everyone fits into one of the 9 types. However, there are skeptics of every system, and it’s often healthy to disagree, so if you don’t agree with this psychological system of understanding personality, then take this article and the system too with a grain of salt and just enjoy the adventure as one possible way of interpreting reality — take what you enjoy or can use and leave the rest.

One of the beauties and most helpful contributions of any personality typology system, or really any way of understanding differences in human personalities, is that these systems help us understand not only that people are different, but why they are different, and see that people are meant to be different.  This is important, because it can create serious problems for us all when people just expect everyone else to be the same as they are — meaning, assuming everyone has or should have the same values, beliefs, views, predispositions.   Major conflicts can occur when people mistakenly assume others are like themselves, and then get very upset when reality doesn’t match their presumptions.  So, the more we can understand what makes others different, and how deeply people are different, then we are actually assisted in avoiding conflicts because we are trained out of presumptions.  Thus understanding the Enneagram can be one important kind of “unconcious bias training”, to use a phrase popular in our time.

I thought it would be interesting to explore what all these 9 types may look like when they appear as hosts or guests. Keep in mind in reading this, that I”m not an expert on the Enneagram, so don’t take what’s written here as gospel.  I’m informed, but not a scholar on the subject, so what’s offered here is in the spirit of inspiration — some ideas, and the suggestion that if the topic appeals to you, you might want to study this in greater depth.

This picture shows the 9 types in the standard Enneagram diagram:

Now as we explore the hosts and guests of each type, this will help you understand the Enneagram at the same time. First, let’s look at the hosts of each type.

Type 1: The Reformer

The Enneagram type 1 is oriented towards right and wrong.  There is a right way to do things, and a wrong way, and the Type 1 host will surely do things the right way.  So this type as a host, (particularly if not distracted by involvement in some higher mission, which many of the more evolved TYpe 1s will be involved in)  is likely to be  concerned with having the right type of hospitality, the right linens, the right house rules, the right listing description, and with following all applicable laws, policies and practices for hosting, both Airbnb laws, local laws and state and national laws.  Once the Type 1 gets things right, they feel confident to start teaching other hosts how to do things right, as well.  In their teaching, they can at times become sermonizing, so confident are they that they know how to do things right.  The Type 1 host does not like it when other hosts don’t do things right.  So, this host is likely to be the first and loudest to complain when other hosts dont’ follow correct/applicable laws, policies and practices.  They might be quite critical of the host without any house rules, or the one who doesn’t know in what category they should pay taxes, or that they have to have a license for short term rentals.  There is a right way to do things, and a wrong way, and the Type 1 will surely be doing things correctly.  In host community groups, the Type 1 host will quite possibly be found chiding other hosts for their incorrect views/practices. 

In their attitude towards guests, Type 1 hosts will be focused on guests who do things the right way — read the information they are asked to read, present themselves correctly, act polite in the host’s home, follow house rules as asked, check out on time.  The Type 1 host may pride him or herself on having correctly described what they offer, and they will be pleased with guests who do as they are supposed to do…but not so happy with those who don’t.

Once all the business about right and wrong in the hosting environment can be set aside — and it can be, by the Type 1, once there are no violations or calls for alarm in this department, then the Type 1 can be a fascinating person and conversationalist, all the more so if they have found their calling in life, which may truly be a mission in life.  “History is full of Ones who have left comfortable lives to do something extraordinary because they felt that something higher was calling them.”  Ghandi, for instance, was a Type 1.  It’s not clear what type of a host Ghandi would have been…but at some point, the call of right and wrong can pull the Type 1 so far beyond day to day business, that their sights may remain set on their higher purpose.

Type 2: The Helper

The Type 2 host is very oriented to taking care of others.  The Type 2 person is one of the most common personalities in the helping professions, because, together with the Type 9, this personality is gifted in the area of taking care of others.  So they are a natural host, and their orientation is much more to taking care of people’s needs, than to focusing on what is right or wrong, or where the guest was correct or not.  So, the Type 2 host is likely to be a bit loose with their rules, if they can see the guest needs to be accomodated, and they can feel good providing for the guest.  They will be flexible in their response to guests, and more generous than other types of hosts.  They will likely be more attentive to the guests’ needs than other hosts, and also will want the guest to feel cared for and even loved, and they will be able to make the guest feel this way, more so than other types of hosts.

However, even though the Type 2 host is oriented to taking care of others — this may come with the caveat, that the Type 2 host wants to be recognized for what he or she has given.  This Type 2 host wants or even needs to be seen as loving, generous, kind, compassionate.  You may well see them in the host groups, writing a post about how compassionate they were to a guest in need, for instance someone who had a special need, such as a shoulder to cry on during an emotional break down.  The Type 2 host is truly compassionate, yet some of them do need to be recognized as compassionate, and particularly if they dont’ get this recognition from a guest, they may want to get it from the host community, so you may find them there posting  about how they cared for this or that guest with a special need, how they went out of their way for someone.  IF they aren’t congratulated for being compassionate, they may become resentful.  The Type 2 might be confused by hosts who respond that they should not be a doormat or they should have better boundaries, or be careful about the guests who “ask for an inch and take a mile.”  This is hard for the Type 2, as they are so pulled to care for people, it’s difficult to understand how one would be a host and not feel the same way they do about caring for guests.  So they might lash out and accuse others of not being compassionate, as they are. 

Type 3: The Achiever

The Type 3 is the professional host par excellence.  That they are professional doesn’t mean they have over 50 listings, but having a bigger, larger, more profitable business, and being more successful, is certainly what they are all about, and so they are usually wanting to grow their business.  Brian Chesky is an Enneatype 3, (and it’s likely Joe and Nate are as well) as are most of those with a powerful passion to launch a business or new product.  Type 3 people are the CEOs of the world, and so it’s very likely that the hosts who have dozens or even hundreds of listings, are often Type 3 hosts.  Knowing more and more of the tools for success, teaching seminars about success, coaching other hosts, writing books about making money (lots of it ) as an AIrbnb host, doing podcasts, blogs, attending superhost seminars, “secrets to success” seminars, and making the circuit as a pro host is what the Type 3 host is best at.  You’ll find this type of host toting his or her e-briefcase at the Vacation Rental summits, the Airbnb Opens, all the places where the most accomplished and successful businesspersons are.

This host may well be more  interested in making money, or in perfecting their polished presentation and products, than in attending to guests.  As a corporate style, we see the Enneatype 3 quite strongly in Airbnb itself, (not surprisingly, since it grows out of Type 3 founders) which has become more oriented to growing and growing and being shiny and polished and professional and “Plus”, than in what many perceived as its original vision, something more folksy and idiosyncratic: celebrating the diversity of down-home home shares. 

The Type 3 host is in fact the type of host most likely to make a lot of money.  Their personality is oriented to success so they focus on this.  This can at times be to the detriment of the guest, who may feel that they aren’t personally cared for, that they are seen just as dollar signs.  However,  Type 3 hosts can be quite charming people, warm people who can really make a guest feel happy and comfortable.  They can have a real gift for hospitality, and would do well at making sure the guest has everything that they need for a comfortable stay.  They would do better in providing materially and practically for the guest, than in attending to any emotional needs, and are not likely to be as delicately sensitive to the guest’s feelings as would the other feeling types of the Enneagram — the Types 2 and 4 — who are more conscious of their feelings.  The Type 3 is a feeling type, but is often less conscious or aware of their own feelings than these other types.

Type 4: The Creative Individualist

The Type 4 host is perhaps the most creative type of host, and is likely to have a unique or creative listing.  This type of host is very interested in showcasing their own personality through the uniqueness of their listing.  Type 4s also have a need to be authentic, so any limitations that others put on their ability to express themselves authentically will not be tolerated.  The Type 4 host is the one most likely to be offended by Airbnb or other platforms’ pressure to conform to some idealized vision of a perfect/proper/pro host or listing, particularly when such a vision is a bland and, for the Type 4, hollow and meaningless accomplishment.  For the Type 4, meaning and depth are all-important life values, and they will try to bring these values to their business in some way. 

As contrasted to the Type 2 host, who is primarily oriented to recognizing the needs or wants of the guest and caring for them, (and then having the guest see them as compassionate and kind, caring) the Type 4 host is more oriented to having the guest see their unique personality, house, or listing, and appreciate it, as well as to enjoying and celebrating what is unique and authentic in the guest.

The Type 4 host is highly oriented to beauty, or unusual aesthetics.  They are likely to be the host who places the flowers “just so” in the guest room, or has the most unique gift for the guest.    They may spent a lot of time seeking out just the right vintage furniture or art prints, intriguing collections of books or religious statuary, dazzling collections of seashells or butterflies or wood carvings from Oaxaca, and the Type 4 will be very pleased when guests or other hosts compliment them on their unusual or brilliant style.  The Type 4 host also is likely to be more oriented to the odd or weird stories of hosting, and to unusual stories and funny anecdotes, than some of the other hosts.

Type 4s also have greater self-awareness, and in particular awareness of their own flaws and negative traits and the “animal” side of human nature, so they are also likely to understand these things in their guests, better than others.  So the Type 4 is less likely to be surprised by bad guest behavior, than some of the other types.  Because they are aware of their own faults, they are also more likely than some of the other types to take responsibility for their own mistakes as hosts.

That said, it’s quite possible for a Type 4 host to be more critical of themselves than their guest is.  The Type 4 is shame-based, more susceptible to experiencing a crippling sense of shame than other hosts, and so if they are criticized for not having a clean bathroom, for instance, this can feel to them as if someone called them a pile of turds.  To put things in contrast:  the Type 8 host whose guest complains about a cobweb in a crevice deep behind the cupboard, will feel no shame at all, and be inclined to smack such an impudent guest smartly across the face.  But the TYpe 4 host, particularly if less developed and freed from their viscious superego, can be reduced to a nearly impotent shame-filled being, by the same criticism.  Which is one reason why Type 4s may want to call a Type 8 friend over to help them with problem guests.

Each Enneagram Type has a wing, and the wing would be one of the adjacent types.  So, the Type 4 host could be either a 4 with a 3 wing, in which case they would have some of the charming nature of the Type 3 and that gift of hospitality, or they might be a 4 with a 5 wing, called “The Bohemian”, in which case they will inherit the 5’s tendency to isolate and enjoy alone time, and may prefer guests who don’t want much socializing, so they can retire to their room and work on their creative masterpieces.  The Type 4 with 5 wing tends to think deeply, and is likely to have a rather thoughtful approach to hosting and to the host community.

Type 5: The Investigator

The Type 5 is not a “natural” host, but would be an ideal host for the guest who didn’t much care to socialize (because the 5 doesn’t really like to socialize, either) and would be the perfect host for the guest who after arriving, stayed in their room for most of the next month, because the Type 5 would understand that inclination.  But this isn’t to say that the Type 5 has no interest in guests.  Some Type 5s are quite interested in people, though they like their interest to be from a safe vantage point — a formal situation (such as host and guest) where they know the rules and/or can expect boundaries and limits, and know that not too much will be demanded of them, and their own boundaries/privacy will be protected.  Of all the TYpes, they may ask the most penetrating questions.  In the host community, the Type 5 is likely to be the scholar of the set, who has done research or inquiries about hosting topics, laws, policies or practices, in a deeper or more extensive way than most other types.  There may be an area that the TYpe 5 host specializes in and chooses to learn a lot about, and then this host could be a resource for the host community in that regard.

Indeed, if there is to ever be a comprehensive book on short term rental hosting, a 800-page tome studying the whole phenomenon — not a self-help book, not a coaching book, not a book on how to make $10 million in your first year as an Airbnb host — but a real thorough scholarly study about the phenomenon in all its aspects — it is very likely that an Enneatype 5 individual will be the author.   While others will write books on winning and success, or on their personal hosting stories and anecdotes, the Type 5 is the real scholar who would be likely to produce the definitive academic study on the matter.

Type 6: The Loyalist

The Type 6 personality is called “The Loyalist” because they tend to be loyal to those people or causes that  they decide are worth supporting and putting themselves behind.  They are strong supporters of ideas, or communities, and so they are likely to be key figures in the host community.  However, the Type 6 has a lot of fear and doubt, including doubt about their own decisions or choices, so they are also a type that is likely to turn to the host community often for support or affirmation about how to run their business or what to do about hosting dilemmas.  Within the host community as elsewhere, the Type 6 is the most likely to be in the role of “Devils’ Advocate”, bringing up doubts or questions about the prevailing wisdom or consensus view on any one topic.  They are natural skeptics, and can be rebels against authority in many ways.  The  “authorities” who they doubt and question, could be the  political leaders of a nation, or it could be a corporation, or it could be leaders in the host community, or really any strong or influential voice. 

In their relationship with guests, the Type 6 hosts may reveal more anxiety than other hosts, as they are unsure and thus anxious about each guest, whether they can be trusted.  As they evolve, they will have less anxiety.  Sixes tend to use the defense mechanism of projection, so with guests and in the host community, they will tend to accuse others of attributes that they can’t yet own up to in themselves. For instance, if they aren’t comfortable with their own anger, they are likely to view others as being angry.  If they aren’t comfortable with their own prejudices, others may find themselves accused of being racist or sexist.

Type 6s like security, and that security may come through income, or through preparedness, or a clear business plan.  Of all the types, the Type 6 as a host is the one most likely to be prepared for an emergency — perhaps a flood or fire, an earthquake or hurricane.  They will have emergency supplies safely stored away.  As a type based in thinking, they have less access than the feeling types or gut types to one’s “gut sense” and together with their doubts about their own decisions, they may have difficulty for that reason with issues pertaining to screening guests.

Type 6 hosts can be contradictory, as is typical of the Enneatype 6:  “The biggest problem for Sixes is that they try to build safety in the environment without resolving their own emotional insecurities“. Inviting a parade of revolving guests to their home, the Enneatype 6 hosts may find that reality rather unstable, and thus make them more likely to seek stability in friends and community.   Or, the guest may find the host skeptic challenging them in what they expected would be casual conversation.

Type 7: The Enthusiast

The Type 7 person is enthusiastic by nature, enjoying getting involved in different projects, adventures and kinds of fun, and they are the type of host who’s probably most likely to go for the “Airbnb Experiences”, as they enjoy helping others have a good time so they are a natural for this type of endeavor.  The Type 7 host may be more likely than hosts of other types to be found at the local bar, nightclub, or restaurant with their guests, showing them the town.  The Type 7 can easily become overcommitted, as they can never get enough of trying different experiences and fun adventures.  They will care less than other host types about getting approval from their guest — they are optimistic by nature and focused on fun and positive energy.

Type 7 hosts may also be very busy with work, as they do quite well in situations where they can bring a great deal of energy and be involved in several projects at once.

The Type 7 doesn’t want to miss out on choices, so when faced with options to buy a new property or join with a partner to create a new AIrbnb listing, they may end up trying to accomplish all the options instead of limiting themselves to just one. As one article on this type puts it, “We can see this in action even in the most trivial areas of their daily lives. Unable to decide whether he wants vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry ice cream, a Seven will want all three flavors—just to be sure that he does not miss out on the “right” choice.”

A challenge for the Type 7 host will be to slow down and spend time and energy on a few choice endeavors, rather than trying to cover all bases and spreading oneself thin, having a less than quality experience due to depletion of their resources.

Type 8:  The Leader

The Enneatype 8 is a strong personality, sometimes forceful, who is a natural leader, but with the potential to be a steamroller — a bully.  One might say that this type is the least likely of the types to be a host, or the type who has the nature which is least suited for this endeavor, because at least on the surface, they don’t seem so oriented to hospitality.  Eights can be domineering, seeking to control their environment, in a way that can make their partners or guests in their home feel intimidated.  They are uncomfortable with their own vulnerability or any sign of “weakness”, and so many not be very empathetic to guests’ needs, at least at the emotional level.  However in terms of providing practical support and materially for their guests, that they could do quite well, and may pride themselves in having a well-stocked liquor cabinet for guests, a luxurious hot tub which they invite the guest to enjoy,  a full refrigerator of offerings, quality bedding or other listing attributes that make for sensual pleasure and contentment. The Type 8 host is well suited for helping guests experience sensual pleasure in life as they are a “gut” based or instinctual type and are quite comfortable and well attuned to this dimension of existence.  

Of all the types, the Type 8 host will be most capable of “putting the fear of God” in a miscreant guest who is breaking the rules.  If indeed any guest at all dares break the rules of an Enneatype 8 person when in their home.  Something about the very bearing and energy of this Enneatype, communicates their potential for ferocity and dominance, they have a real “dont’ mess with me” aura.   In fact, one of the things they may offer to the host community, and not all in jest, is the willingness to come right over to another hosts’ home and help them out with a problem guest.  And you can believe that the Type 8 host will be able to put that miscreant guest in their place! The raw power of the Type 8 person will emerge, if not also the physical power, as Enneatype 8s also tend to be physically powerful.

This brings up one of the more host-like qualities of the Type 8 host, which is that in their growth or evolution, they become more like the Type 2, which means, more oriented to caring for others.  But they tend to care for others in a protective way, a different way than the Type 2.  Theirs is the “Momma Bear” or “Poppa Bear” type helping.  While they will not be patient with trivial complaints from guests, they will do very well to make guests physically comfortable and will project confidence in the guest as they attend to any maintenance or functionality issues during the guest’s stay.

Type 9: The Peacemaker

The Type 9 host is, like the Type 2, highly oriented to taking care of others, so being a host may come easily for them in that respect.  They are often loving, caring people who are good at listening to others, attending to their needs.  They are in particular very good at encouraging people to take a break, go on vacation,  take care of themselves, pull up a chair and relax, sit down and have a soda or a cup of tea or a beer.  But the Type 9 host has a couple difficulties that the Type 2 host doesn’t have.  One is that the “vice” or weak point of the Type 9 is lethargy or sloth, and where this shows up is quite often in the order and cleanliness of their household.  Type 9s are not as concerned with a sparkingly clean house as some of the other types — they may just not have the energy for it.  So as a host, the Type 9 might be challenged to keep the house clean.  They might keep a clean guest room, but caution the guest about not going into their own part of the house, which is unlikely to be as clean as the guest area. 

The Type 9 is the type who most easily identifies with others, being able to see the world through others’ eyes.  So they are very good listeners (they make good therapists and healers) and a guest who needs to talk, is feeling stressed out and has emotional burdens to unload, would be hard pressed to find a better listener in a host, than an Enneatype 9 host.

Type 9 hosts are conflict avoidant, and so are likely to be more troubled than other host types when conflict arises with a guest, such as guest not following rules, being upset with them, or having inappropriate expectations.  Their first impulse is to care for the guest more than for themselves, but the Type 9 host can become upset when they find that their space has been whittled away — and in response to problems, rather than learn how to engage in conflict and work things out, their reaction may be to go off and watch TV or space out or numb out, hoping the problem will go away.

Type 9s are spiritual seekers par excellence, but tend to be out of touch with their instinctual centers or “animal” selves, and also of all the types, tend to have least sense of their own identity.  Perhaps this is related to the fact that they easily identify with everyone.  Thus, the Type 9 host is less likely than some of the other hosts to create a listing that conveys their own values or personality, and instead is likely to create a listing that focuses on providing for and caring for anyone who comes to visit — which is a truly generous and hospitable gesture.

Now that we’ve looked at the Enneatypes as hosts, let’s look at how they show up as guests in one’s home.

Type 1 Guest — Perfectionist

The Type 1 guest is the guest most likely to notice what’s right about your home or listing, or what’s wrong.  They more than any other type, (except possibly the Type 6)  will focus on the stray hair in the tub or on the pillow, the cobweb in the dark corner behind the refrigerator, or the lack of spring in the mattress, the age of the magazines in the living room.  Not all Type 1 personalities are OCD, but there is a predilection in this direction.

The Type 1 guest, being oriented to right and wrong, is also the most likely of all guest types to be concerned with whether the host has all applicable licenses, permits or permissions,  and pays all applicable taxes.  The Type 1 guest is completely willing to pay more in order to pay all applicable taxes, fees and such — because they like to do what is right.

Of all the types of guests, the Type 1 is probably the most likely to leave a review, once they find out or are told that this is the correct thing to do.  Because they like to be correct.  And their review will be honest, which for the host may or may not be a good thing.

One way of weeding out Type 1 guests, should you be so inclined, would be to stress the imperfections in your listing.  On the other hand, should you be interested in attracting Type 1 guests, maybe because you’re a Type 1 host and like to be valued as such, would be to stress the correctness and perfection of your listing, your linens, your decor, your cleaning service, or perhaps even — if you are adventurous — your political views, as Type 1 individuals may be drawn to perfection in that arena as well.  They are, after all, also termed “The Reformer” because they can find a mission in life and throw great energy behind that mission, be it in business or spirituality or politics or wherever it is.

Type 2 Guest — The Helper

Since the Type 2 person is oriented to helping others, what does it mean when the guest is a Type 2?  Well it’s likely to be a good thing, because the Type 2 guest is perhaps the most likely of all the Types (excepting maybe the Type 9) to want to help the host, to support you, so they may empathize with you more than other guest types.  The Type 2 guest wants to be a good guest that isn’t a burden to you, someone who sees your own needs and appreciates what you’ve done for them.  They are the most likely to leave a little gift for the host in their room after they depart — but they will be miffed if they don’t hear back from you about it, thanking them for their thoughtfulness.

The Type 2 guest is likely to keep a clean room, and to be considerate in leaving common spaces clean — they are highly oriented to showing their own compassion and thoughtfulness in this way — so of all types of guests, they are one of the ones who is least likely to need reminders about keeping things clean.

Type 3 Guest – -The Achiever

The Type 3 guest is likely to be busy busy busy, out of your house a lot, as they are full of plans and activities in their pursuit of success and achievement, so you as their host may not see much of them.  When you do, you’re likely to find them charming and congenial, an excellent socializer, and full of ideas for how you too could achieve more, build a bigger more successful business, develop another successful side business, write a best selling book about your business, or do other things that would bring success, wealth and fame.   You might find this type of guest inspiring, or overly oriented to material things….or you might just find them gone a lot.

The Type 3 guest will want to see that you’ve put some effort into your listing, and your presentation.  They don’t so much care about the aesthetics — you could get all your art at Ikea, they may not know the difference — but they do want to see cleanliness and are impressed by expense and higher quality items.

Type 4 Guest — The Creative Individualist

The Type 4 personality is, as previously stated, very oriented to creativity and authenticity, so they are likely to choose to stay at unique listings, or select hosts whose profile makes them seem like interesting, unique and/or creative individuals.  They are much more oriented to a listings’ artsy qualities, than its cleanliness or the thread count of its linens.  So if you want more Type 4 guests, emphasize the unique aspects of your listing, or your own eccentricity or whatever is really unusual there.

Being in a setting where original, even idiosyncratic values are cherished, makes the Type 4 guest themselves feel valued and recognized.  You will make the Type 4 guest happiest and feel at home, when you inquire about their own creative interests or projects — which may well be something separate from their paid employment.  The Type 4 guest cares much less about being fed and getting just the right supplies in their listing, and more about having the chance to demonstrate how creative they are or be seen in all their uniqueness, and/or share in “deep/real/meaningful moments/conversations” with the host.

If you have a guest register at your listing, which guests sign into and write messages in, the Type 4 guest will very likely make the most original and colorful entry, including drawings or anecdotes.

Type 5: the Investigator

IF you have a Type 5 guest, you’ll make them happy by leaving them alone when they want to be left alone.  More than the other types, the Enneatype 5 really needs their space, and can actually feel threatened when they are forced to socialize or engage when they prefer not to.  So if you want to invite more Type 5 guests to your house, emphasize in your listing description that it’s a great place for independent guest, for those who like/need privacy or solitude.

That said, the Type 5 guest does enjoy conversation — but only when it’s the right time and when they have the energy for it.  When they do, you could find them a fascinating conversationalist if you engage them in one of the subjects that appeals to them, which is likely to be some area of study or investigation into which they go in depth, in a scholarly manner.  They have sharp, engaging minds and they may inspire you to think on a subject more deeply.

Type 6 Guest — the Loyalist

Owing to their divided nature, where they are both very doubtful/fearful, anxious and skeptical, but also, once reassured, quite loyal and supportive, the Type 6 guest more than the other types, is one that may need to be convinced.  First of all, they want to know you’re not a scammer and haven’t put out a fake listing, and intend to scam them and run away with their money.  Then, they need to be convinced that your house is safe, that it’s in a safe area, that you have taken precautions to keep windows and doors locked, that they will have a lock on their room door.  They may want to know if there will be extra blankets or a first aid kit.  They may have more questions before booking than any other type of guest, which could be experienced by many hosts as a red flag.  ANd it might be.  But once the Type 6 guest does obtain reassurance and does feel that you are someone they can trust, and that your home is well constructed, isn’t covered with black mold or infested with scorpions, isn’t burglarized every week…then they can become quite loyal and a supportive and friendly guest.

The Type 6 guest may however be more easily triggered by a “fearful” sight in your home, than some other guests.  They may see one rodent in the yard, and be worried that rats will break into their guest room and crawl over them at night.  They may see a bedraggled person down the block and worry that the neighborhood is swarming with dangerous panhandlers about to conk passers by on the head.  So, with the Type 6 guest, it helps to be honest in your listing description about the real issues at your listing, and to describe why guests need not be afraid.  And then, you just might end up with a friend.

Type 7 Guest — The Epicure

If you have a Type 7 guest, you’re fortunate, as the Type 7 individual is very optimistic and positive in their outlook, so of all the types, they are the one that’s least likely to give bad reviews.  The caveat, is that they are so busy, they are also — apart from the Type 9 who can forget to leave a review because they have spaced out — the type of guest who’s most likely to not leave a review at all. Life is short — so much fun to do — why spend a half hour filling out a form?

The Type 7 guest is also likely to be out a lot, as they are busy, busy, busy enjoying themselves in whatever city they happen to be in, finding all the fun things to do, places to eat, shows to see — bike adventures and kayak trips to be had — they dont’ want to miss anything fun, and there isn’t enough time for all the fun to be had.  So they are not likely to stay around home very much.

Hosts may then obviously want to court such guests.  To attract them, focus on describing all the fun things to do in your area — particularly all the “secret” fun things to do —  which could suggest to Type 7 guests that you’re a good bet for a host who knows how to have a good time in town, as you are a fount of information about the best experiences to be had in town.

Type 8 Guest — The Boss

When you have a Type 8 guest, you may well feel a challenge to your authority in your own house, because the Type 8 individual has so much physical power just in their bodily presence, so much command in their bearing, that you could start to feel uneasy, particularly if you are a much softer less commanding presence yourself.  That the Type 8 guest has great bodily intensity need not be seen as a sign of disrespect or challenge to your authority, as it’s just their way of being in the world, but it can feel intimidating.

When the Type 8 guest is a good guest, there will be no difficulty, — and in fact, some hosts may enjoy having an energetically strong guest in their home as it can feel protective — such is the mojo quality of the TYpe 8 person, they can function almost like a magical amulet as protection from harm.  But if the Type 8 guest is violating your house rules or starting to boss you around in your home — look out, because this will feel worse and more oppressive than with most any other type of guest.  As a bully, the Type 8 guest will have more power to intimidate than you may ever have seen.  They can command a host to get out, scram from your own kitchen or living room, they can dismiss you with contempt that leaves you speechless.  If a Type 8 guest has a problem, and thinks you didn’t attend to it very well, they can make you feel like an absolute worm.   So…while the vast majority of Type 8 guests will be fine persons whose physical power and emotional intensity you can just enjoy, beware the problematic type 8 guest!  You’ll never forget them.

Type 9 Guest — The Peacemaker

The Type 9 person as a guest is likely to be one of the most pleasant and easy going types of guests,  in terms of not making demands on you, not asking for extras, not being a burden, appreciating whatever you do give, and being a great listener to boot.  They will be unlikely to complain about cleanliness issues, and will readily empathize with you, whatever situation you are in as a host.  However, their lack of concern with cleanliness may mean that they dont’ clean dishes well, or that they never clean their room during their month long stay, or dont’ adequately clean the tub after use.  They may need prompting in these areas.

Type 9 guests can space out, so this may mean that though they try to do as directed and read all the information you provided prior to booking or arriving, they may not actually accomplish that, necessitating extra efforts from you to repeat information.  When supporting them in this way, be careful of coming across as annoyed or condescending, as then you might see the stubborness or resentment of the Type 9 emerge, or a passive aggressive pattern emerge.  Type 9 individuals are conflict avoidant, which may mean that if pulled into a conflict they dont’ want to be in (such as being confronted about house rules they inadvertently violated) that they may end up retaliating in a passive aggressive manner.  For instance, if you remind them to clean the tub, they will do that, but then begin forgetting to take their shoes off in the house…or something.

More evolved Type 9s will be less likely to space out about house rules or respond in a passive aggressive way, and can simply do what Type 9s do best, which is radiate a delightful quality of peace and love, bringing this softness into whatever environment they happen to be in.

 

What Enneatype Are You?

Whenever discussion of the Enneagram comes up, it’s typical for some people to have trouble identifying which type they are, or for some to see themselves in all the types.  This is quite predictable, and one can’t really expect to be able to identify one’s type just from reading one or two articles on the Enneagram.

One might compare this to the situation of a person who’s never been to the USA, who is presented with a 1 or 2 paragraph description of each state, and asked where they’d like to live.  It could be very difficult to figure this out from such a brief description.  But once you travel to a place and “get a sense” of the place, things become clear that may not as easily be able to put in writing.

Similarly with the Enneagram — what is involved is basically a set of gestalts, types which are more than just the sum of their parts or descriptions.  The more intutitive people will have an easier type grasping or “grokking” the gestalt of each type.

Some people can immediately identify themselves, but for others, it will take a while.  And of course, some will argue about the Enneagram system or dismiss it entirely, claiming that it isn’t accurate and doesn’t work, or say that everyone is every type.  Even reading an entire 300 page book on the subject may not be enough to figure out which type you are.  This is why there is an entire science of determining type, and there are websites and books where you can go to take personality tests that would help you understand your type.  There are also experts on the system, some of whom make a living doing workshops on the topic and also consulting with people to find out what type they are.

What’s the use of finding which type one is? Isn’t this just another kind of stereotyping?  Putting people in boxes?  Well as with everything, if you don’t find it useful, skip it — but there are some big advantages to knowing what type you are on the Enneagram, or in another system that may be more widely known, the Myers-Briggs Personality Typology system. 

These are some of the great advantages to knowing your type:  this can help you understand why you react the way you do, to different types of situations and people. It can help you understand your needs, motivations, and what the path to fulfillment and happiness can mean for you.  Knowing your type can allow you to make better decisions, and avoid pitfalls common to those of your type.  As I try to outline in this article, it can help you understand the challenges that any particular business or endeavor can present to you — for instance hosting.  It can help you understand patterns in yourself that may often result in difficulties with others, or stress or discomfort in work (for instance, if your work doesn’t fit your type well — though this may be something that is easier understood with the Myers-Briggs personality system).  In general, those people who are more interested in understanding more about themselves and their path of growth in life, are more likely to find the Enneagram helpful, than those who do not have these interests.

To help you identify your type, you may find Enneagram tests useful — for instance, you can find Enneatype tests here:

https://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test

https://enneagramtest.net/

This one is perhaps the most thorough test, but you would need to purchase it:

https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/rheti/

As well, going to Enneagram events or workshops where there are panels of each type, and presentations on the types, and/or consultants available to help you, can be very helpful if you have the motivation to discover more.