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[Type 3] Stackemup Enneagram Description For Enneatype III

Tomb1

Active member
Joined
Jun 15, 2011
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994
Type Three

Threes are independent. They have a goal-oriented nature and a drive towards self-determination. They are tough, resilient competitors who rely mainly on themselves to bounce back from set backs. The core distortion of the three is that they are superior beings for whom admiration is their due. Thus, their naturally high self-esteem is based on an unrealistic assumption about their worth.

Threes are self-confident. They have a self-assured quality. As a result of their confidence, they trust others and take a positive view towards the future. They cultivate a can-do attitude and channel their confidence into action and accomplishment.

Threes are competitive. They are hungry to seek out the admiration that they believe others owe them. They have the "eye of the tiger." They rely on their natural confidence to bounce back from any setback.

Threes are exhibitionist. With successes under their belt, they turn away from their focus on accomplishment and resort to self-promotion and showing off. They look to have their qualities admired. They want to be in the spotlight as much as possible. They find subtle and not so subtle ways to represent themselves as winners. They use their accomplishments to court attention, admirers, and "VIP" benefits.

Three are cocky. The admiration they receive through success cements their own cocksure belief of their superiority. They start to give others the impression that it's a pleasure to do business with the three as if others ought to be willing to take less just to have that luxury. Their former self-confidence is replaced by arrogance. They have begun to rationalize their failures. They spend a lot of time making their failures seem like successes.

Threes are egotistical. They start to view their non-admirers with contempt and don’t feel they should have to win people over or impress them. They begin to live more in fantasy to get away from all the non-admirers they have in reality. They give themselves rights off limits to other mortals. They exercise whatever power they might have in outrageous ways, one-upping others with their special privileges.

Threes are expansive. As they sink more into their fantasy world, their goals and self-image become more expansive. They weave together new fantastic rationales for their circumstances in order to recast themselves as the star. They exaggerate their own powers and come up with intricate rationalizations to feed their self-worth. They put others on notice that they are a superior being and that admiration is their due, that others need to be rolling out the red carpet for them.

Threes are self-aggrandizing. At bottom, their positive outlook is a thin veneer for a despairing life. Threes have no true relation to others and their overconfidence is pierced by reminders of their failings and falseness at every turn. Now having suffered persecution from non-admirers, threes believe they have confirmation of their importance, of their greatness. They put themselves on the pedestal of a messianic figure. They have a sense that history begins and ends with them, as if the transition from b.c. to a.d. occurred at some benchmark in the three's life such as raking in the first million dollars.

Unhealthy Threes are narcissistic. Their grandiosity is flagrant, maintained by disdain for reality, since reality is full of people who don’t share the threes' high sense of worth. Psychopathic revenge equates to a last ditch effort by threes to assert their superiority.

When healthy, Threes come to the realization that alone they are absent and are not ever going to be somebody unless they reach out to others and make genuine connections. Threes start to respect others, value other people’s opinions, and put a check on their fantasies. Healthy threes are also able to look at and question their own self-belief of being a superior individual.

3w2s are gamesmen. Gamesmanship is a stable trait of the 3w2's personality that makes them able competitors in pretty much whatever they set their mind on doing. They don't necessarily have to possess any experience in the field they are competing at in order to win. They compensate for their lack of knowledge with gamesmanship, an art that 3w2s have an innate knowledge of.

3w2s are motivators. They how to get a crowd pumped up. They easily fit the mold of a television personality or super salesperson.

3w2s are political. They know how to work and charm people. They often do well in politics and are good at marketing a brand or idea to people. No other type can represent a belief in the type of overly confident outrageous fashion that the 3w2 can.

3w2s are braggarts. They are loud and proud about their accomplishments and positive qualities. They have an itch to brag and impress about all of the seemingly great things they have done. Their hyper-real self-promotion can make them seem unreal.

3w2s are super-competitive. When their past accomplishments are questioned, they launch into an invective of personal attacks. They are ultra-competitive towards anybody who even remotely expresses a disfavor able opinion towards them. Their modus operandi is to seize upon a small flaw of their opponent and blow it up into a gross mischaracterization of who that person is. They want to outshine everybody.

3w4s are self-improvers. They like to be seen as desirable and strive to embody the attributes that others admire. They are status-conscious, status-driven, and efficient. They want to be the best in the shortest time possible. To do that, 3w4s must disengage emotionally and invest all their energy into improving themselves in order to fit an image that others will admire.

3w4s are calculated. They network and play the “game”. They adapt with the circumstances, build coalitions, compete prosocially, trade favors, try to perfect and fill up their resumes, and begin to cut corners in order to advance inside of social hierarchies, always with an eye on their next ‘move.’ 3w4s don’t want to leave anything to chance. They focus on technique, performance, delivery and results.

3w4s are compensatory. They focus extensively on their awards or trophies, admire themselves in the “mirror” to confirm their own desirability. At this point, they are more aroused by the thought of themselves and their achievements rather than by others and look to exploit sex and other interactions with people entirely as a way to worship and self-aggrandize the mask they are lost in.

Distinctions:

Threes are self-validating. Twos seek external validation from others.

Threes disengage from their emotions. Fours dwell in their emotions and pain.

Threes expect admiration from others. Fives are okay with not even being seen.

Accusation by a Six is driven by the projection of guilt onto another. Accusation by a Three is purely goal-oriented. Furthermore, sixes don't get self-aggrandizing when they believe others are persecuting them. Threes do, seeing their persecution by others as proof of their greatness.

Sevens subvert the times. Threes present themselves as a paragon for the times.

Some threes can be dominating and therefore easy to confuse with eights. For threes, dominance is a means of showing off and courting admiration. For 8s, dominance is an end in itself. In conflict, Threes lose ground because they get tied up trying to defend their past accomplishments, before they go back on the attack. An eight will stay more on the offensive without having to step out of the action to self-promote. Eights don't have that super-competitive itch to brag and trash talk that threes do. Contrast Donald Trump and Muhammad Ali who are both 3w2s with Saddam Hussein or Frank Sinatra who were 8s.

Nines are modest. Threes are egotistical.

Threes stand by their goals through thick and thin. Ones stand by their convictions through thick and thin.
 
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