“How do you use your image to your advantage?” I ask a panel of Enneagram Type Threes that I am facilitating in prison. There are four guys, seated on high stools in front of about a hundred men in blue who want to understand how personality works. Type Threes come to teach the rest of us about value. My panelists understand that the currency we are dealing with is self-awareness, and they want to deliver the goods.
The man closest to me brings the mic he’s holding to his mouth and introduces himself as Snowball. He grabs my line of inquiry and runs with it. Snowball knows exactly how to win people over—to be who everyone wants him to be. He is excellent at this and tells us so. The audience is with him, nodding and smiling. We call Type Threes, “The Performers.” Anyone in this room can see why. I relax into paneling, where real people teach the Enneagram types themselves.
Wondering if my Threes are feeling safe enough to explore other aspects of their personality, I decide to stir the pot a little.
“How does vanity show up in you as a Three?” I ask them. Their quick clip comes to a screeching halt. The panelists return four blank stares. Too soon, I realize.
I pivot and instead ask the Performers about their relationship with success. The panel picks back up as they rattle off their many accomplishments. These are hardworking, driven men who have goals. Success is the water Type Threes swim in. They exude competence and seem unaware of the rapid pace they are keeping with one another. I appreciate this in them, and they practically glow.
I try again to invite them inward, turning directly to Snowball this time.
“So, what’s the downside of being so good at delivering what people want?” I ask him. He looks at me while he lowers the mic to his lap. I wait, feeling for him. I know that this is unfamiliar territory. I want insight into his feelings, which Threes learned to suspend to get things done. Early on, Type Three children come to believe they are valuable because of what they do. Achieving becomes a strategy for feeling loved, and it sort of works the way personalities do: leaving them feeling accomplished, perhaps, but not really seen. Eventually, Threes confuse what they do with who they are, and that’s the rub.
When he raises the mic again, Snowball sounds annoyed, “I’m pretty good with myself, actually. I can’t understand why other people would have a problem.”
Wamp wamp.
With his defensiveness, I notice an irritation arise in me. I work with Type One, the Idealist. Type Ones come to teach us about what’s possible. The panel is not going as planned; panels rarely do. Take a breath. I whisper to myself. On my exhale, I realize my frustration is pointing me to an expectation. Let it go, I tell myself, and try. Also, I sort of envy Snowball. I have been accused of being ‘too nice.’ I once facilitated a live panel before my Type Eight teacher, another assertive type, who told me, in front of God and everybody, “Susan, you don’t have to be so solicitous.” I want a dose of Snowball’s assertiveness with this panel.
I take another breath. I know better than to believe that Snowball doesn’t care. Threes are an image type, at the heart of the feeling triad, driven by a deep desire for connection. His bluster does not entirely deter me, but I do tread mindfully. I have met Threes who have murdered people over feeling like a fool. Nothing in me wants to shame Snowball. I want to know him; I want him to know himself.
Trusting the Enneagram a little more than I trust myself, I try one more angle. “What can be challenging for others about your drive for success?” I ask.
I have met Threes who have murdered people over feeling like a fool.
My question fills the now excruciatingly still space in the room while the four Type Threes once again fall silent. Threes get caught in a closed feedback loop of vanity and self-deceit—he may be in one right now. At this point, I think I’m in one, too, vainly attempting to divine the “right” question to bring his awareness to the foreground. I am running out of time and ideas. I check my urge to force it and move on to other questions. If the goal was to demonstrate the Type in action, the panelists crushed it. I thank them for their participation.
Back at my hotel, I play the panel back in my head, reviewing my lack of skillful means with my inner critic. My reluctance to leave good enough alone annoys me most of all.
The next day, we are back in prison, and Snowball approaches me on a break. “Ma’am,” he says, tentatively, “I want to apologize to you for what I said on your panel.”
“What do you mean?” I ask him, taken aback.
“Well, I really didn’t understand what you were asking me. Afterwards, one of the guys told me, ‘Man, you were really kind of arrogant on that panel, you know.’ And I said to myself, That’s the last thing I wanted to be. I wanted everyone to LIKE me! So, I looked at the book again to figure out how I could do it better, and it finally hit me what you were trying to tell me. I thought it had to do with the chameleon aspect of my personality. I’ve never seen it as deceitful. But it was about deceiving myself about my emotions! That’s why I try to do so many things at once. I’ve never seen anything wrong with it. It was just my way of life.”
I feel an overwhelming tenderness for the big lug in front of me and his compelling honesty. A pang lodges in my chest for the way I clouded his perfect process, projecting my own misgivings onto it. There was much more at work during the panel than I appreciated.
While waiting at the airport, I find Snowball’s feedback in the stack of evaluations and read it with a flood of gratitude.
He wrote:
“I do feel emotions. I get happy, sad, angry, frustrated, and all sorts of stuff. I’ll feel them for a while, then put them away and get back to business. I cry. We watched Soul Surfer the other night, and I almost cried the whole movie. But when it was over, it was back to the task at hand. I guess sometimes it’s okay to dwell in these emotions, or even, God forbid, talk about them.
“The thing I don’t do is express them to others. There are some emotions that I don’t let myself feel, like loneliness. It’s just unproductive. I’ve been incarcerated for 13 years. You would think I would be a little lonely. I don’t know what that is. I just find things to stay busy. That’s the deceit. Now I get it. It’s okay for me to have these feelings and even share them. That’s going to be the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. But I’m going to work on it.”
This last golden statement makes me chuckle in sweet appreciation of Snowball. Of course, he is! Watch out when a Three sets his mind on accomplishing something. As he identifies his growth edge, in his own good time, Snowball inspires me to remember that accepting people as they are is the gateway to becoming more of ourselves.