Often Known As: Achiever, Doer, Competitor, Performer (note that names are as limiting as they are revealing.)
Sin/Passion: Deceit
Focus: on what’s valuable or praiseworthy
Fear: of not embodying what’s valuable or praiseworthy
Energy Center: Heart (energy is suppressed)
Social Stance: Assertive
Key Positive Traits (embodied at their best): Energetic, Practical, Admirable, Driven, Well-presenting, Competent, Performing, Adaptable, Competitive, Attention-grabbing, Excelling, Hard-working, Busy, Organized, Has it together
Key Negative Traits (embodied at their worst): Inauthentic, Vain, Pleasing, Performative, Ruthless in competition, Obsessed with the prize at the end, Phony, Shallow, Shapeshifting, Attention-seeking, Self-aggrandizing, A facade with nothing behind
Growth and Stress Direction: to Six and Nine respectively

Introduction

Everyone knows them. They are the well-adjusted cool kids, the popular ones with the winning smile, the employees of the month, those who are probably going to snatch the promotion from under your nose. Some people simply give off an aura of success, and Threes are those kind of people.

Hard-working, endlessly adaptable and capable of presenting themselves in the best light possible, Threes are often role models for many of us. They embody the ideal of the self-made man or woman who has it together and is going places in life. If they have a talent (and they usually have more than one) Threes are those who tirelessly cultivate it until it makes them shine.

Threes are also very good at picking up on social cues, which gives them the ability to integrate into a variety of environments and be always perceived as just the right person in the right place. And they like this, because admiration and validation is very important to them. You will rarely find them in contexts where there is little chance for them to earn praise.

Inwardly, Threes feel a constant drive to outdo themselves, and they are indefatigable in this. However, in the process they may sacrifice their authenticity, and they may even feel that they have lost themselves by adhering to their character too much. Sometimes this may lead to a real identity crisis, as they realize that the image that they have submitted to others for validation either doesn’t satisfy them or doesn’t match their inner reality.

Core Mechanism

Threes’ focus tends to be on their image. They are an inherently social type, which doesn’t automatically mean that they are extroverted–they may be, but as far their Enneagram type is concerned, all this means is just that they derive their sense of worth from the social framework in which they move and act.

In this sense, Threes are one of the types that represent humanity at large, since obviously everyone’s sense of being valuable derives, at least in part, from social acceptance. However, the mechanism of a type Three centers exactly around this point, while that of other types tends to focus elsewhere.

Somehow, Threes have absorbed the message that their performance is more important than their authentic self. This can derive from a variety of personal, family and social backgrounds, but in general Threes find their validation as people comes only from either playing a part or pleasing others by achieving certain results, regardless of how this relates to the Three’s feelings.

The obvious message that the little Three got from this is that their feelings don’t count: presentation counts, doing counts, status counts, excelling counts. This realization, deeply absorbed and integrated into their worldview, sets Threes on their path of achieving whatever they believe is going to give them the validation that they intimately feel they won’t receive just by being themselves.

For some Threes, their true feelings are something that they “put away” for when they will have time to sort through them, that is, after they have done what they are supposed to do to achieve what they think they must achieve. Unfortunately, this moment rarely comes, as something more important always pops up.

Sin/Passion

The passion of Enneagram Type Three is Deceit. Sometimes it is called Vanity, Delusion or Falsehood. Deceit is not really a passion as much as one of the fundamental forces that drive human nature. We are creatures of dissimulation, for better or for worse (and there are indeed good sides to this.) It represents the fundamental act of creating a self-image and submitting it to others for approval.

This is done because a self-image is always a relatively arbitrary selection of personal traits that we decide we embody or ought to embody. Because of its arbitrary nature, a self-image is nothing unless it gains interpersonal acceptance so as to become stable. It is not unlike roleplaying, except we actually believe this.

Threes’ self-deception comes from overidentifying with this image and seeking always more validation for it. This leads others to sometimes perceive Threes as salesmen or saleswomen trying to sell them something–this something is actually nothing material, it’s this image. In this sense, Threes tend to try to drag others into their roleplay, which can lead from self-deception to deception of other people.

While healthy Threes can learn to laugh at themselves and their excessive attention to social standards, average to unhealthy Threes are perennially engaged in a sales pitch to sell themselves, or rather their successful self-image, trying to get the validation that they feel they lack. If this validation doesn’t come, the experience can be very hurtful for the Three, who will usually either double down or, if the cause is lost, they will seek other avenues.

Misconceptions

Among the key negative traits I listed “a facade with nothing behind.” This was harsh, and it is not *really* true: structually, Threes do not differ from any of the other types. However, because of their emphasis on achieving, it is not uncommon for people to believe that Threes are actually rather empty once you peel off the veneer of success.

This would be really unfair. As long as the person does not suffer from some dark triad pathology, there is a real human being under the mask. Unfortunately, this is hard even for Threes to understand, as somehow they have absorbed the message that their performance is what truly matters about them.

It is not uncommon, in their path of self-discovery, for Threes to feel that, once they discard what they do to conform to certain standards, there isn’t much that they feel their being gravitates around, because they are not used to looking for it.

This leads us to another misconception: that of the Three as a machine without feelings, solely concentrated on achieving the end-result. Just like Fives, Threes tend to be seen as unsentimental, but unlike Fives, who are downright uncomfortable showing their emotional depth, Threes do show feelings when there are social cues that tell them it’s the appropriate time to show the appropriate feelings. It’s part of the performance.

This, in turn, can lead some to seeing Threes as inauthentic. But this doesn’t mean that Threes don’t have true feelings underneath the crust of socially acceptable feelings. It’s just that these feelings have been suppressed because devalued or scorned during the formative years.

Wings

3w2 Threes with a Two wing tend to have a sweeter, more pleasing demeanor. Their interpersonal qualities are usually cranked up, and their focus in obtaining validation has often more to do with fields that allow for helping others or that allow the person to feel useful and needed. They can have a stronger sense of community and of what holds the community together, but they are driven to excel within it. If 2w3 is the mom who organizes the neighborhood’s pie contest, 3w2 is the stereotype of the mom winning the award.

3w4 Threes with a Four wings usually stand out from the rest and are driven to stand out from the rest more decisively. Themes of uniqueness tend to surface, although it is still a somewhat stereotyped kind of uniqueness, the socially accepted kind. Furthermore, they tend to project a glamorous image and to have a rather refined taste. They are, in a way, the archetype of the hollywood star doing something outlandish at a screening or on the red carpet to get the first page.

(note that wings can have some minor descriptive power in terms of superficial behavior, but they are irrelevant in terms of what motivates the person. Many people have no noticeable wing, while few show signs of both.)

MQS