Enneagram Type 3

The Performer, Motivator, Achiever, Producer, and Status Seeker

Energetics: Avoidance and Adaptation - adapt image to avoid shame

Hidden Essence: Divine Appreciation

Type 3 Subjective

Celebrity Oprah Winfrey

People with the Three pattern fixate on performing and accomplishing as a means to be appreciated by others. They strive for an image that will be valued by others.

They get their sense of self from having a positive effect on others. They have a chameleon quality and transform into what seems pleasing. They change their appearance and personality based on who they are with and what that person seems to value.

Intrinsic value is a blind spot and they only feel valuable when being successful. They avoid the emotional experience of failure by reframing it and moving on to the next success.

They feel their world depends on constant motion and creation. When they stop moving and creating they feel emotions, vulnerability, and uncertainty. It often takes a serious illness for people with this pattern to slow down or stop.

The only emotion they have easy access to is anger - irritation, annoyance, resentment, etc. They feel that fear and sadness get in the way of performance and success. They often feel annoyed by the emotions and sensitivities of others, making them seem cool and superficial.

A successful image is most important and everything is used toward that goal - friendships, marriages, business, education, homes, clothing, etc. They are not looking for ordinary success, they are striving to be at the top in their field.

Type 3 Objective

Cyclist Lance Armstrong

They have a well put together, sharp, and dynamic presentation. They can appear doll-like, looking good on the outside but empty on the inside. They are often well groomed, not a hair out of place, perfect nails, and everything color coordinated for a slick and corporate image.

They present self confident, haughty, charismatic, intense and willful. Their talking style is sharp, abrasive, often loud, controlled, and logical. When they perceive a situation to have importance, they can transform themselves to appear competent and important with a dazzling smile and upbeat demeanor.

They are usually upbeat, positive, inspiring, creative, and full of energy. They can also be sparkly and charismatic. People are often attracted to them. However, they lack depth and compassion and can cut off close friends and lovers as if they meant nothing.

Type 3 Childhood

Children with the Three pattern do not feel valued for themselves. They get praise for what they do and become productive to get this praise.

They often unconsciously adapt themselves to become what the nurturer wants them to be. They often pursue a career that may make their nurturer proud of them.

They have a deep feeling of shallowness and deceit, their insides do not match the image they have created.

Type 3 Subtypes

Self-Preservation Subtype: The Ordinary Image

They try to be the perfect person. They are more virtuous, need to be good, down play image, and look more ordinary. They are more autonomous and know how to take care of themselves. They look the least like people with the Three pattern.

Golfer Tiger Woods

Social Subtype: The Center of Attention

They have a passion for brilliance in doing the job the best and must do everything perfectly to get everyone’s applause. They can cheat and do whatever it takes. They are more concerned with prestige, status seeking, degrees, job descriptions, and who they know. “I am what I do.

Fictional Character Don Draper

Sexual/Attraction Subtype: The Most Desirable Image

They have empty sexuality and surface sex appeal. They create the image of the perfect man or woman in their culture and want to attract a person with the right image to facilitate their success. They need to please and impress.

Celebrity Cindy Crawford

Type 3 Wings

2 Wing: The Professional

They embody perfection and avoid failure and rejection. They have more access to the deeper emotions and are more introverted.

Musician Elvis Presley

2 Wing: The Charming Chameleon

They take on the qualities of others in order to be desired and so they can succeed. They are more outwardly pleasing, have less real emotion, and are more extroverted.

Actor Tom Cruise

Type 3 Continuum

Lower: Revengeful, deceitful, unprincipled, climbing the ladder of success - doing whatever it takes.

Middle: Grandiose, obsessed with image, over achievers, cool, abrasive.

Higher: Self improving, adaptable, authentic, and successful yet with other interests and real deep relationships, still ego based.

Liberated: Self improving, adaptable, authentic, and successful yet with other interests and real deep relationships, still ego based.

Type 3 Essence: All Inclusive Love and Appreciation

The essence of each type is the quality of character - a particular expression - that remains when the fixation softens and releases. While these qualities are human they are not personal and cannot be developed.

The essence is revealed when fixation is recognized and freed through awareness and compassion. We all have the potential to realize the essence of our type - our more subtle authentic nature. This authenticity means living from open, free, wholeness.

The essence of the type Three is all inclusive love and appreciation.

Each type has a blind spot that creates a unique experience of separation. Each blind spot is directly related to the essential nature of each type. People with the Three pattern have a blind spot for intrinsic value and divine appreciation.

This blind spot prevents them from perceiving and experiencing intrinsic value. All nurturing environments are inadequate to some extent. This inadequacy is experienced personally and interpreted through the enneagram pattern. When this is experienced by the child with the type Three, they fixate on a lack of intrinsic value and appreciation.