What Your Human Design Type Says About You

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0:48Don't hold anything too tightly. Just wish for it, want it, let it come from the intention of real truth for you, and then let it go. For me, our soul is like, it's unbound. It's limitless. But we use words to limit ourselves. When people stop believing that somebody's got your back or Superman's coming, we turn to ourselves. And that's where you become empowered. Courageous participation attracts positive things. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow, and this is the Goop Podcast, where we bring together visionaries, scientists, healers, artists, and seekers. I'm so grateful that I get to interview these extraordinary thought leaders and share their wisdom with you.

1:37And I love listening to the conversations that are led by my co-host and dear friend, Cleo Wade. Cleo is a beautiful poet and author. I deeply admire her and the way she keeps her heart open to the world. Together, we believe that engaging in open-minded, honest, and sometimes difficult conversations has the power to change our lives. All right, over to Cleo. Today's guest is Jenna Zoe. Jenna is a world-leading expert in human design, a new system of self-discovery helping people reconnect to who they truly are. Jenna specifically has done this through the lens of acceptance and kindness, which has resonated with hundreds of thousands around the globe through her app, her formal trainings, and now her new book called Human Design, which explores how to identify your own human design and how to use it to reveal your purpose and your gifts.

2:37I personally have done many readings with Jenna for my human design over the years, and it is such a pleasure to have her on. Through her work, Jenna has done an amazing job of giving people the tools for understanding who they truly are and what they came here to do. What I love about her is that she has done this while building an incredible community and teaching so many. Okay, let's get to it. Jenna Zoe.

3:10Jenna is one of the first people, is the first person who I send my own books to. She was the first person to read Heart Talk. There's a quote from Jenna on my second book, Where to Begin. And Jenna and I met when we were 19 years old as interns in New York City in fields that we don't even work in anymore in any way, shape or form. And it's really special to be very close with someone who you have actually, you know, that saying where if you're lucky, you live a hundred lives in one lifetime. It's really special to share that with someone and really see it and feel it in the moment. I feel like we have known each other through such incredible change.

3:58And I know that in reflecting on everything I thought about when I was writing Remember Love, what I thought about the most was the struggles we have with change. because the act of change is actually pretty easy, but the feelings that accompany change are really hard. And that's where people feel they're most alone. And that's where they question themselves the most. And I know that human design is something that when I'm going through periods of change or periods where I'm really confronting kind of my inner compass, when it's in contradiction with the room full of people telling me to do something differently.

4:40I've really leaned on the human design principles that you introduced me to, what, 10 years ago. And it's been amazing to watch you build this human design community and really teach this craft that is so interesting because it's one of the only, I'd say, woo-woo things. I have also seen men really drawn to. So, you know, a couple months ago, I was in London with Jenna and we had dinner with Simon, my partner and my brother, Bernardo. And when I tell you that I cannot even get them to read their horoscope, but they were obsessed with human design and instantly downloaded the app. And we're like, this is so true.

5:25And this is so this. And And so I want to talk about a few things, starting, I guess, with your discovery of human design. How did you discover it or did it discover you? Well, firstly, you know, it does come back to, you know, if I rewind in my head back to the days of you and me reading The War of Art together, you know, at 20, 21 years old in little apartments or little hotel rooms in New York. And, you know, at that point in our lives, not knowing how to do this, but just knowing that we had a curiosity, you know, and I think that moment of us both kind of dipping our toes into, you know, getting to know ourselves or self development, things that we now, you know, I guess, make our whole lives about.

6:14Yeah. I think for me, then it kicked off so much time going to so many people for advice and feeling almost worse about myself because I couldn't just understand co-create with the universe trust the universe live in the flow and I almost felt you know when you're in the beginning of this and you're 19 or 20 you do feel powerless I felt like I didn't believe in myself and how was I ever going to believe in myself and it wasn't until probably I was 26 when I met somebody who was a healer who did my human design on me and it was the first thing that really clicked because it was like this idea that everyone has a custom roadmap of how they are supposed to find their alignment how they're supposed to use their energy because we all know we're different but it's like how are we different where's my specific roadmap on how do I get into the flow how do I open up more ease in my in my journey in my day how do I use my energy patterns to benefit me rather than work against me so it was kind of like an instant remedy for feeling like I was getting this sort of cookie cutter advice wrong and then berating myself for not getting it right so that's where the sort of instant click came from and that was when you know another life that you remember me from was when I had a food business and I just started doing human design on the side for friends and family yeah and then it was that weird moment where I started making more money in my like secret side hustle yeah than in my actual life when when the side hustle starts to center itself you know you're on to something but like you said the change is hard because that's when you're like oh hold on a second I have to give up all the persona that I thought I was this like woman running around running a food business and go and do readings like 10 years rewind to 10 years ago like this wasn't normal.

8:02I thought I'd be reading the lottery for people with a wig on, you know, like that would be my highest aspiration, you know. So like exactly what you said, that really resonated with me about the change being easy, but the thoughts and the feelings around it being really hard. But I think that's also why the tribe thing, what you said is really means so much to me, because I think, you know, we spoke about this a lot where we felt like we were almost being talked to at the beginning of our spiritual journey. and what we really needed was more of a hand-holding. And I had that in you as my spiritual running buddy, you know?

8:35And so, and I think both of us actually, that meant a lot to us. And I think you do that as much in your work as I do in mine now, where it's like you really just try to be the person that's, you know, next to someone rather than above someone. Yeah, it's so funny you say that because I have had to start talking a lot about Remember Love lately because it's coming out soon and I've had to do some interviews and things. And every single time I say, you know, my books are a friend, they're a hand to hold. You know, I don't have the answers. I don't claim to have the answers, but what I do try to create is a way to be there with you in those moments.

9:15And I feel that part of how I know the power of that is through our friendship over these years. Anyone who knows me very well or has known me for a long time knows the significance that Jenna has in my life. I mean, even when I was at my, one of my last day jobs, the first self-help book I ever read, I read in the lobby of Jenna's hotel as I was waiting for her. And we had talked about this book, The War of Art, The War of, yeah, right. The War of Art, not The Art of War. And it set me on my path of saying like, wow, this idea of writing these books to help people. I didn't know about them. I didn't grow up in a family where therapy or self-help or spirituality beyond that, like music is soulful and life is soulful was present.

10:06I grew up in a really soulful house, but I don't think there was a spiritual practice in my household. I think your household was similar. And although we have very different kind of parents and homes and our backgrounds. But I read that book and I started that book while I was waiting for Jenna so that we could go out to lunch. And she was the person I, you know, would call and text as I was reading it being like, wow, this is really impacting me. I think I could have a message like this. I think that these messages are hitting me because I have a message within me for people too, which at the time seemed insane.

10:45Because I don't think anyone would have, if you would have known me 15 years ago or in my childhood would have thought that what I do now is what I would have done. And I think that's so true for Jenna also. I don't think that there's anyone who knew you as a teenager who would think that you'd be a leader in human design today. And I think actually a lot of how I've found confidence in doing the thing that is completely unlike what I even ever thought I could do or anyone else thought I could do was because I did lean on human design principles. And I was one of the early kind of guinea pigs for Jenna.

11:23And I remember thinking like, this makes so much sense to me. And this is helping me so much with feeling okay about my kind of particularities or things I felt someone could have looked at as wrong with my journey or like wrong with what my productivity looked like, because I think in our world, we're so obsessed with, you know, we don't think about the joy of getting the thing done or doing the thing in a way that uplifts us. We think about getting it done and looking like we worked really hard to get it done because if you didn't look like it killed you, then you didn't do the important thing.

11:59And human design really freed me from that, where I I remember thinking like, I don't have to look like the walking dad. I don't have to be stressed. I don't have to be tough. I don't have to be sharp. And it really melted my edges because it kind of gave me permission to, I guess. Yeah. And that's the thing that is so unique about it is that, you know, consider all the things you've been told were wrong about you. And what if they were oh so right in one sentence you know that you know your energy patterns work different from mine but when I see how wonderful mine are then I can look at yours and almost vicariously get off on them because I don't see them as a threat to mine you know so then you actually from a grounded place look at people from a more sort of awe and and just enjoyment sort of way because I can go okay wow well Cleo is a manifester isn't it so cool that she can just put something out and then just literally let the chips fall where they may and have this impact on people and have such a big aura that she doesn't need to be doing the same thing consistently day in, day out where somebody else wouldn't have that same, you know, that same sort of effect.

13:11And, you know, that's just one aspect of how you're designed. But I think the beauty is that, you know, you don't have to, when you're becoming the person that you really came here to be, you don't have to face unnecessary resistance. Of course, there's always going to be challenges in life, but you don't have to face unnecessary resistance on your path because I really believe that when you're doing something that the universe like you're doing your specific role that you know you play in the collective then the universe is like incentivized to tell you to yeah yes honey you're on the right path so here's all the synchronicities and opportunities to kind of selfishly encourage you to keep going and doing what you're doing you know and in the same way you know it's a beautiful thing when we get shown that things aren't flowing because it's like okay this is just a real time sort of feedback that you need to change something about what you're up to.

14:02And, you know, you're such a good example of someone who, you know, how did you know that embracing something like poetry, which wasn't cool, you know, which nobody. Or happening in any way. I mean, it was, it was crazy. Yeah. And how did you know that you were going to start like basically a ginormous, if I can say so, you know a ginormous Instagram trend and not only that but that it would become so much more but you just embraced it based on the entry instead of questioning like what is it guaranteed to make me successful and you know instead of following paths that you thought were more sure and just kind of have followed it every step of the way of what you were called to do.

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15:22And for our Goop listeners, mention Goop to receive up to$500 off your next meeting or event reservation rental fee. This promotion is valid for all new clients on select spaces booked and actualized prior to December 30th, 2025 and subject to availability. Convene for the moments that move your business. You know, what's really interesting is that I'd recently written in Remember Love that if we can ask ourselves to harmonize our lives, we find that every sound in the song belongs. And a lot of the time I feel that we don't believe every sound in the song belongs. And if we hear the thing that like, we don't think sounds great, or, you know, is the problem.

16:08The thing is, is that it just is, and it just is there. And our choice is how much time we wrap around the thing that is there. So if you look at it as a symphony, you can say like, well, does that deserve a long solo? You know, if there's all of these sounds that could be happening in this, in this giant orchestra, that is your life. You know, if there's the thing and it's rubbing you the wrong way, or it's that hump you can't get over, it's like, maybe you don't get over it. You just give it less time and give other things more time. And so much of when I was writing that I thought about human design because I thought about the ways in which human design really validates every single part of who you are.

16:48And it doesn't really believe in these kind of polarities that we're all really stuck in, which is good or bad or weak or strong. It just says to kind of move and embrace what does flow, what does sound amazing. And don't be shy about basking in the sound that kind of makes you dance the most or makes you feel the most kind of warmth within. And so I guess to get to the nitty gritty for, cause I'm, I mean, it's very hard for me to just have a linear conversation with Jenna because it just is, but I'd love for you to break down the process of how you do a human design chart, even maybe the history of human design, you know, where does it come from?

17:37And why is this something that people can kind of embrace? Like, cause I find it to be one of the more empowering kind of spiritual practices. And what I really love about it is that it's not reliant on you being like a guru. I do think guru culture can be a little scary. And it really is. It's almost like yoga in the way that it, It has these amazing readers or teachers, but ultimately the practice being your own is the ultimate gift. So that's what I love about it too, is it's, it's a kind of a mirror to say to you, this is who you are. And there's not really any new teachings. It's just more about you daily shining awareness on different parts of your life of where you're not embracing maybe who you are or not doing life your way.

18:25And so it's kind of like all the best truths in the world, right? they stay the same truth we just learn them in deeper and deeper ways so it was formulated 36 years ago and it is a combination it's based off of astrological calculations of the planets on the day you're born in similar ways astrology but it's not like astrology in the way that astrology for example will tell you you're going to have three kids or you know that sort of thing it's much more scientific and functional and i think that's one of the reasons why men also resonate with it because it's not inherently spiritual. It's more sort of practical and functional.

19:01So when we take the calculations of the planets to figure out what your energy is, we're actually just measuring the energy that was present in the time and place you were born, which imagine that's like your first like in breath, right, is the energy. And so you get kind of seeded with that energy. And that energy is a picture of who you were before the world started telling you to be anything other than that. And so the goal is really getting back to who you were before you were conditioned. so it's also called the science of individuation and the process is about deconditioning so I believe the reason why it was you know kind of gifted to us now is because we are in an era now where sort of group structures and a lot of top-down and a lot of homogenization throughout the last couple of hundred years they've served their purposes in good ways but now they're really breaking down and we're entering into a new era as of 2027 according to human design where the focus is less on the collective and more on the individual.

19:57And so I believe that we get given tools when we are ready to, in terms of our kind of group consciousness, and also when it's time, right, in the great unfolding of humanity. And so the whole point about human design is that I really wanted it to be accessible. I didn't want people to have to pay, you know,$350 for a one-time session and wait a year and a half to see me. So that's where the sort of the book and the app and the website all come in handy because there's not a single person on the planet who doesn't want to know a bit more about themselves, you know? So I think we're really entering into this age where everything is for the people.

20:36And that's where I think it's really why it is around now. It's interesting because all of my friends who did readings with you for their kids back in the day, what I really found it helped them with the most was to remind them how individualized each child is. Because I think a lot of the time you blanket mother. So you're just like, well, I'm momming and they're childing, right? Like you, you, you, you mostly hear people say kids are this kids are that instead of saying, you know, Memphis is this and Bayou is this and, and really kind of constantly appreciating the ways that they are individualized, you know, as a, as a practice, you know, cause most of the time you're just like, Oh, sorry, my kids wouldn't go to bed, you know?

21:20And, and, and, and of course we talked like that, you know, it's, it's shorthand it's, but the thing is, is that over time, what we don't realize is that kind of putting those, you know, words consistently on our kids, we forget that they're like, just so, so different needs such different things. You kind of forget to individuate them, I think a little bit, cause you're just trying to get by. And I remember when my friends did their human design readings for their kids, it really helped, especially cause some of them were coming into being teens and getting older. They were like, God, it really reminded me to just give them totally different rules.

21:56If one needs to stay up later to read, I don't have to worry about her sleep the same way as the other one. Yeah. That's why I think it's especially cool for parents. Yeah. It's really liberating because also, you know, there's two parts to that equation. One is who your kids are and the other one is who you are. And if your life is about being the person you came here to be, you also need to be a mother in that same way. So there's so much conditioning about what a good mom is. But if you, if you believe that your kids pick you, if you are more of a hands-off person, you know, I know so many moms who are giving themselves a hard time for not being more involved, but maybe that's the mother that your kids need is the mother that you would naturally be if you were your unthought through self would show up that way you know and so it's equal parts looking at the mother's design or the parent's design and the kid's design and then seeing how they fit together just in the same way as any any relationship and so I think it also helps remove a lot of the guilt of you know if you're a mom that is more of a guide versus if you're a mom that's more the one who they want to be doing all the activities with, right?

23:00And there's so many different flavors and they're all beautiful. What are the different human design types? Okay. So the first thing that we look at when we look at your human design is called your energy type. And that's kind of like saying your sun sign. So it's not everything, but it's the first place to look. And what your energy type tells you is not so much of a personality thing it's more about the way that your energy functions so how you put energy into the world to get the most bang for your buck right so if you imagine we all have a different battery our battery functions five different ways in human beings and so for example you have people like you who are manifestors you also have in your camp you have Adele and people who put something out and it makes an impact and they create a movement.

23:50Gloria Steinem is one too. They do something and then they're not hot on the heels of micromanaging how it gets received, what happens to it. They just feel this urge to groove a new pathway in humanity's kind of movement forward. And then when they are doing that, they're at 200%. And then when they go, they need to come back down and wait for the next urge to come. So these are not people who are built for a nine to five or for consistent energy. It's at like 200 % or it's a 50. So that's number one is the understanding that that energy pattern is completely different than the conditioning of the world.

24:25And that's what you were saying earlier about, you know, not pushing and forcing and understanding to not, you know, rest in the same way that other people do. And it's really, it's really hard in, in that manifesting journey at times, because you really find yourself in tears a lot because whenever I'm working with other institutions and everyone's like, do this and do this and do this in order to have success in this way or in this. And I'm like, listen, I have to trust that. I know I wrote the right thing for my reader. Cause I like think about them the entire time I'm writing it. And so I trust the outcomes because I trust my intention.

25:02And I think that that has been throughout my entire career, one of the hardest things. And I feel like if you hadn't told me 10 years ago, that that was like kind of a function of my type, I would get hijacked way more often. And I still get hijacked because you get, you know, you get in a corner and you're kind of like, okay, I guess. And, but I wouldn't know how to trust the kind of larger energy within me. That's like, no, I need to trust that. Like I wrote the right thing at the right time for the right person. And like, I feel that in my heart. I only write when I feel called to write. I don't have plans for like, if I do three books a year, then da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

25:43You know, it's like, I need to call my friend and tell her this long story. Like that's when I sit down to write the book. So beautiful. I don't think I'd be able to truly function had I not had a human design reading 10 years ago. I truly feel that way. That's amazing. And there's so many things you said about that, that are so bang on in the sense that, you know, manifest is the other thing about them is that they are the train driver. So they're saying, I'm going from Italy to Rome and their aura, your aura is so big. So the right people do find you, like you said. And so your job is not to get out of the train onto the platform and ask where everybody wants to go.

26:20You're saying, this is where this is going. And then the right people, everyone reads a sign and the right people come join you. So there is a self-selecting mechanism about your aura, your energy body. And, you know, it's a big, big aura. So it will find, it will call people on your behalf, even if you're just trying to sneak past and get a coffee, people feel it, you know, so the right people feel it. And, you know, there is such a beauty as well when you get more micro with human design, where if marketing is not your, one of your inherent gifts, it's not aligned for you to try to do that. Either someone else will, or you won't need it, or it will just magically disappear that even that was even part of the necessary plan.

26:56We just don't know. So I think that's such a, I'm going to send this to all the manifestors that I know. And I also think that Since you're an emotional manifesto, what drives you is your feelings, right? So you get these urges, like you said, from the heart, from this feeling called to do something. So it's, it's very aligned. Enough about me. I'm so sorry. I'm hijacking this podcast. I feel so, I'm like, sorry. Well, we don't talk about them enough. So it's really refreshing to have like a deep dive a little bit on a manifesto. So what's another type? So the next one is generators. Now generators are people who are much more sort of like daily devotional.

27:32so you have people like Oprah, Beyonce, they do something they love and they just add it up every day and when they're doing something they love they have the consistent energy battery to do like to compound and add something to the bank account let's say and just have it compound into achieving mastery of something by the use of they have this like gut energy that that they need to actually use up over the course of the day right and so when they just keep on doing that thing the thing about generators is that when they do something that they love from the gut like from feeling literally viscerally physically pulled to people they're very grounded touchy you know get their hands into it type of people right so when they do that and it's something that they really love it gives them more energy when they're doing something that they feel like they have to it actually takes their energy away but they're the people that kind of hum along and we all feed off of their juicy life force that they create and so it doesn't really matter what generators are doing it doesn't matter what they love it matters more that they're kind of creating such a spillover of their energy that it kind of magnetizes other people to them and in the same way that a manifesto's energy is really big and impactful a generator's energy is really inviting so it's like we want to be close to them we want to like sip on their sparkle you know what i mean it doesn't matter whatever they're whatever whatever it is they're doing we're just like want to get close and want to like whiff off of their energy because their energy can just kind of hum along right so that's the thing about generators is that they often feel this incredible guilt of it can't just be as easy as being selfish and doing what i love but it's ironically the most self-less thing they can do because they don't see how it actually then ends up lifting the energy of the world and you think about the word generator it is to literally generate energy and so that's what generators are here to do and then you have a hybrid of manifestors and generators and they're called manifesting generators and manifesting generators are like the classic multi-passionate multi-directional people right so they have their kind of spontaneity of a manifester but with the consistency of a generator to back it up so they're often the sort of multi-hyphenates like you think about Angelina Jolie who's like directing and then she's saving a baby and then she's speaking at the UN and it's just like making it all work but no one doesn't think it doesn't make sense when she's doing it because it's all aligned.

29:48And what's amazing about them is that because they're meant to do many things in their lifetime, it's okay for them to quit while they're ahead. It's okay for them to get bored quickly. And they also master things faster than other people, right? Because they aren't supposed to stick around for very long. They're not supposed to have that consistent devotion that a generator has. So for them, like to just put their fingers in all these random different pies, even if it doesn't make sense, it will somehow, you will fuse it together and make sense of it to other people but because that doesn't yet exist we can't wrap our heads around it so you can't wait for us to be like oh that's a good idea so that's manifesting generators and they have a huge engine and a very very quick way of moving through the world so for them with their energy is again to do things that light them up but in the same way as generators but also to not be scared about moving on quicker about adding lots of things about fusing the dynamism that is the sort of USP of their energy?

30:46Yeah, I always think of them as like quintessentially abundant with energy. Like most people, the more they take on, the more they feel like they're holding. Whereas I think with them, the more they take on, the more they expand. And I think that sometimes that's just confusing to the brain because just so many people are not like that. And so I find that my friends who are that sign, I'm always like, just keep taking it on. Don't be trapped into thinking that you can't because most people wouldn't be able to hold it or handle it. Like you're actually built to handle more and more and more as a function.