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Famous Threes
The cultural aura of America, Lance Armstrong, James Baker, Halle Berry, Joseph Biden, Tony Blair, David Bowie, Christie Brinkley, Dick Clark, Lawyer Johnnie Cochran, Magician David Copperfield, Courtney Cox, Cindy Crawford, Tom Cruise, Michael Dell, Rebecca DeMornay, Nora Ephron, Werner Erhard, (Mrs.) Debbi Fields, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Michael Flatley, Phil Gramm, Bryant Gumbel, Actor Mark Harmon, Jesse Jackson, Michael Jordan, Henry Kissinger, Carl Lewis, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Vince Lombardi, Rob Lowe, Claire Boothe Luce, Joan Lunden, General Douglas MacArthur, Ali MacGraw, Elle MacPherson, Reba McEntire, John Malkovich, Demi Moore, Benjamin Netanyahu, Queen Noor, Oliver North,

Dean Ornish, Bob Packwood, Master spy Kim Philby, Elvis Presley, Sally Quinn, Burt Reynolds, Anthony Robbins, Political strategist Ed Rollins, Diane Sawyer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, William Shatner, Cybill Shepherd, O.J. Simpson, Duchess of Windsor Wallis Simpson, Will Smith, Wesley Snipes, Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone, Pickabo Street, Kathleen Turner, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Robert Wagner, Kurt Waldheim, Raquel Welch, Vanessa Williams, Marianne Williamson, Oprah Winfrey, Natalie Wood, Tiger Woods.

The Dynamic Enneagram: Threes
by Tom Condon

Every four years the Olympic games convene somewhere in the world. Although usually described as a pan-national event, in which athletes from every culture gather to compete, that description is actually wrong. The Olympics are the occasion when Threes from every nation travel to one place to celebrate their values at an event made just for them.
Three is the most competitive, achievement-oriented style in the Enneagram. Unlike Twos, Threes identify less with ideals of helpfulness and more with images of success and productivity. Threes often expect to be loved for what they do rather than who they are. They are emotionally confused about seeming accomplished versus being true to their less-than-perfect inner self.
Healthy Threes are exceptionally good at setting and meeting goals and have usually mastered many life skills. They are organized, flexible and industrious. Threes at their best are genuinely accomplished and practice a credo of personal excellence in whatever they do. They learn fast and generally do well in high profile, socially established occupations where performance is measured by results. As one Three explains, "I'm an athlete. In school I was captain of the basketball team, captain of the cross-country team, leader of the student council. Whatever the clan is I come from it's called the 'leader clan,' because that's what I am. That doesn't mean that we're the ones who have the wisdom. We're the ones who take the risks and lead."
Healthy Threes are often energetic and cheerful, with a positive eye to the future and a self-confident approach to challenges. They make excellent role models and teachers of the skills they have mastered, natural examples of what they preach and teach. They often have a good sense of humor about themselves and their actions are governed by a sense of honor; they value their family and friendships as much as their work. These priorities are sometimes arrived at after a struggle with moral expediency and through a conscious search for values.
The high side of this style reflects the best of doing and Threes can display a sometimes amazing capacity for taking efficient, effective action. They are especially good at multi-tasking ­ doing many things at once. "She gets more done in a day than most guys do in a week," a man said of his Three wife, "and she's one of these people for whom everything turns out well."
Threes know that challenges are neutral, indifferent to the emotions we have about them: "Whatever the task at hand, I want to get it, process it, and move on. I don't want to be in a problem; I want to be in a solution. I don't want to wallow." Another Three echoes this attitude: "I come back to the word practical ­ it's a marvelous quality. What can I do about this? If I can do things, I will; if not, I'm done. Don't agonize; don't waste everybody's time. Just do what you've got to do and move on."
Broadly speaking, the United States is a Three country in the sense that Three values are celebrated in American popular culture; Americans value success, overcoming adversity, being efficient, practical and pragmatic. America is an immigrant country, and immigrants who succeed in the United States often have Threeish strategies even when they are not personally Threes. The myth of America ­ partially true ­ is that it is a place of second chances. You can start fresh, create an image of who you want to be and turn yourself into that person. The drawback to this strategy is that you may be running away from who you really are.

Europe's most famous broker of legitimate fake paintings operates out of Italy. A Three, he commissions high-quality "original fakes" of famous paintings and sells them to rich collectors. He has a stable of painters who specialize in certain periods or particular artists. The legal fakes come with their own certificate of authenticity that declares the painting is a "master forgery," valued and authenticated by the Three's organization.
The idea of selling authentic fakes came to him after he was a victim of a forgery. He bought a painting by a contemporary Italian artist, certified by a reputable gallery. A few years later he showed the painting to the artist who said, "I never painted this. But, it looks like I did, even to me. But it's not a straight copy of one of my paintings, either."
The Italian artist was so fascinated by the forger's ability to capture his style that he made a perfect copy of the forgery ­ which he then gave to the Three as a gift. At that moment the Three decided that forging was a creative activity in its own right.
When Threes are less healthy ­ caught in what I'll call the trance of their Enneagram style ­ they are prone to image-matching or deceit, a kind of forgery of the self. Their drive to be successful and accomplished devolves into a desire to merely seem that way. Their intelligence is no longer focused on their inner life, but on their ability to copy, to imitate, to be "all hat and no cattle," as ranchers say of cowboy wannabes.
Like Twos, entranced Threes are preoccupied with how they are perceived by others as a vehicle to their own self-definition. They want to be well-regarded in other people's eyes ­ what one Three calls "the living outside yourself stuff." They gauge themselves by the world's measuring sticks, often to build up an ever-crumbling self-estimation.
Threes intuitively sense that the approval they work so hard to acquire is conditional, based on performance and therefore not really love. They also know the effort that went into making others love them. If I smile at you so that you will smile back at me so that I'll feel good, I know that I have tricked you into smiling. So I can't receive your smile as part of a genuine exchange.
This can lead to a feeling of trying to fill a bottomless barrel, an endless attempt by the Three to constantly prove herself through her actions. As one Three explains, "I don't know whether it's because of a tremendous insecurity or a vacuum that's unfathomable, that I can never fill, but there's just a sense that I'm incomplete. It just takes a continual challenge to validate my existence. The only way I survive it is through constant challenges."
Another Three adds, "My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre. That's always pushing me. Because even though I've become Somebody, I still have to prove that I'm Somebody. My life in other people's eyes is picture perfect ­ this woman who can succeed at anything. I'm on this race to feel worthy by my works and accomplishment. If I can stay absorbed in that effort then I don't have to feel my own darkness."

The defense mechanism for Threes is identification, which means subjectively merging with a role, task, function or project and believing that it is you. One Three described this as similar to an actor adopting a role: "In each new situation I'm always assessing everybody ­ what works, what are they about, what seems to be important here, how can I fit in? Then I step in and become whoever the situation requires."
Identification is evident in the way that some people identify with and, in effect, become their possessions. While we all do this to some degree, in Threes the tendency is markedly stronger, resulting in a kind of "brand name hypnosis."
I had a neighbor once named Dave who was a cheerful pleasant Three. One day I walked by him when he was polishing his BMW motorcycle. BMW bikes are superbly engineered, very expensive and exceptionally durable. Unlike most motorcycles, they are engineered to last for 100,000 miles. They are attractive refined machines, among the best of their class. Walking past, I admiringly said, "That's a beautiful bike." Dave replied, "Thank you."
On the surface, this was a banal exchange of pleasantries, but something in Dave's tone carried an extra bit of pride and pleasure at my compliment. I sensed Dave was not just feeling complimented for his taste; he was identified with his motorcycle. Dave was the person who owned the best motorcycle there was to own and had aligned himself with an agreed-upon symbol of excellence. On one level, Dave was his motorcycle and he was the best of his kind.
In 1970, an American celebrity was asked how he handled the criticism of his avid support of the unpopular Vietnam war. He replied, "Whenever people criticize me I just point to that" and he gestured towards a Presidential Medal of Commendation sitting in his office. Like my neighbor with the BMW, the celebrity identified with a symbol outside of himself. In his mind, the medal was a credential of such profound social validation that it shielded him from any personal criticism.

Becoming Somebody New
Threes make exceptionally good proteges and subsequent mentors to others. As proteges they can identify with a mentor, absorb what the mentor knows, make it their own and then move on. In the process, they could adopt the mentor's brand of clothing, appearance and tone of voice. NLP calls this "modelling," which means acquiring a skill or quality by imitating someone who has mastered that skill or demonstrates that quality.
Modelling is based on identification: you pick a role model and pretend you are that person, forming a subjective basis for acquiring their ability. In everyday life, children model adults and anyone who has a hero or heroine practices modelling when they imitate their idol's behavior. Some Threes don't model a specific person, but rather observe and imitate several people who effectively practice the skill the Three wants to master. To this end, the Three might try to determine what the models all have in common as they achieve the same result.
A Three who coaches others on how to become successful likes to say, "success leaves clues." A professional comedian who heard this quipped, "In comedy, we call that stealing." The down-side of modelling is that you can lapse into impersonation, acting like your role model but not really integrating their skill or quality, simply stealing their moves instead of making them your own. Like someone who stays in school but never graduates, some entranced Threes perpetually model and remain stuck in impersonation or serial impersonations.

Threes are among the trio of Enneagram styles who reject themselves, overidentify with roles and have trouble knowing how they really feel. In the trance of their style, Threes reject their authentic but insecure feelings ­ and the self who has them ­ and pretend to be someone they are not. Most Threes have an "Achilles Heel," a sense of inadequacy that they compensate for with their achievements and role-playing, like someone who tries to overcome humble roots by acquiring wealth.
Every four years, just prior to the Olympic games, the most promising new athletes are profiled in newspaper and magazine articles. The profiles almost always describe the athletes' current achievements in terms of their past limitations: a promising long distance runner who was born with a club foot, a champion swimmer who overcame childhood asthma. One Olympic sprinter was a victim of childhood diseases that caused her left leg to be almost paralyzed, and she was forced to wear a special shoe fitted with a leg brace until she was 11: "My first goal was to get rid of that ugly shoe and run like the other kids. Then I realized I had a special talent. After that, I wanted to be the best."
This mirrors a split common in Threes. Whatever the Three aspires to be now is the reverse of what she once was and still fears she truly is. The specific qualities that the Three now cultivates and displays to the world are a kind of reverse silhouette ­ the opposite of their insecurities. The stronger the Three's drive to model, the stronger the Three's insecurity.
This split is a replay of a childhood dilemma. As children, Threes tend to age progress ­ to become older than their years and make themselves into premature adults. Like Ones and Eights, Threes can experience their childhood as short. A Three child can be prized for achievement, competence and little adulthood. Early separation from the parents is encouraged, the child's dependence is discouraged. As Three children become adult-like in a way that their early environment applauds, they also suppress their childlike insecurities and emotional needs. As adults, they may continue to unconsciously reproduce this conflict while still trying to resolve it.
One Three remembered: "When I was a kid I had a bad speech impediment. It was frustrating because I would stand up in front of the classroom and make mistakes, and the kids would ridicule me." The Three became an accomplished public speaker, although decades later he still actively feared that he might falter when giving a speech. Another Three who stuttered in childhood and endured many painful experiences finally "just shut up and wouldn't talk. That's when I directed all my time and energy to what I could do physically." He later became a professional athlete.
When adult Threes try to become someone new, they split off from a younger self within them whom they reject as inadequate, insufficient or defective. As they perform and achieve, they unconsciously hope to triumph over this young self, but actually the rejected self follows them like a shadow.
Unlike Sevens, who defensively inhabit fantasies of future times, places and activities, Threes are focused on becoming a future self. A Three who had just turned 40, said, "Worry about getting old? No! At 40 I'm so much better than I was before. I look better than I did 10 years ago; I've just come into myself. I'm going to start planning that 50th birthday party now. I just can't wait to see me."

Emotional Dissociation
I knew a Three in college who got perfect grades in all his classes. He would routinely turn in lengthy term papers weeks before they were due. He was impeccably groomed, meticulously organized and a decent, modest, good-natured person, impossible to even dislike. Most people reacted to him as if he was a machine, and, in a way, he was.
In the trance of their style, Threes often think of themselves as high-performance machines, whose purpose is to race from task to task, securing an outcome and then speeding on to the next goal, becoming, as poet ee cummings said of someone, "a perfectly distinct unhe, a spook of stop and go." This machine self-image helps Threes maintain a state of non-feeling that keeps their fears and insecurities dissociated.
Some entranced Threes unconsciously think of themselves as robots. One Three, who calls himself "the terminator," after a single-minded cyborg in a science fiction movie, says, "I see people all the time who are better than me. My ace in the hole is my dangerously obsessive drive. I absolutely positively will not stop until I win." Another Three remembered that "at work, if somebody needed to have something done, they would assign it to me. I was like a robot ­ I wouldn't allow myself to feel tired."
Other entranced Threes describe themselves as automobiles. Summarizing his recent divorce one man said: "You know how you're on the freeway and you see that one car on the side of the road? Thousands of cars drive by it. Well, every once in a while it's your turn to be broken down. And you wait for the tow truck to come. That's how I viewed that difficult time in my life." He went on to praise his easygoing new wife for being "low maintenance."
Another Three adds: "I've been working hard lately, and I'm not sure I've been enjoying it as much as I used to. It's a reevaluation period for me. I don't feel particularly healthy. I've got a lot of miles on me and haven't had time to give myself a bit of a tune-up. I need to rotate the tires, put in some new spark plugs and buff out the upholstery. I need a complete mind-body tune-up."
A young woman who vowed to be chaste until married eliminated one suitor, a probable Three, when he insisted on pre-marital sex. Explaining that he would have to take her for a "test drive" before their relationship went further, he added: "Nobody in their right mind buys a car without first driving it, shifting the gears, smelling the leather and seeing whether it feels good." It was their last date.
Another way that Threes keep their feelings dissociated is by talking about themselves in the third person. A Three named Bob Bates might say, "This is the year that people are going to see what Bob Bates can do; he's going to surprise a lot of his critics. No one will doubt Bob Bates after this. He's going to be Number One." A variation on this dissociated way of speaking about yourself is to use the "editorial we." At the height of his fame, Three basketball star Michael Jordan often used to say, "We always try to respect the fact that we're a role model."

Other Sensory Distinctions
Some Threes have an internal visual sense of being watched, or of performing before an imaginary audience. One reported that she carried a mental mirror with her so she could see how she looked to others. Another Three saw himself on an inner TV screen, while another caught himself unconsciously looking at his reflection in nearby windows especially during social encounters ­ "checking my image," as he put it.
In the trance of their style, Threes are prone to distorted vision, especially of people. In their mind's eye, they see others as stereotypes, unlike Eights, for instance, who see others as caricatures or cartoons. A Three's stereotyping is based on conventional cultural types, as if the Three is seeing people the way they are presented in television advertising. Entranced Threes also see people (and themselves) as objects ­ two dimensional, without essence, like life-sized stand-up photographs. Threes can also see others as clusters of information, or as allies or obstacles to satisfying their goals.
This quality of subjective vision reflects a preoccupation with surfaces and leads to shallowness. A Three's shallowness is literally a lack of (inner) depth perception. Three author F. Scott Fitzgerald once called personality "an unbroken series of successful gestures." Another Three said, "I don't believe in truth. I believe in style. I think the truth is a tremendous chimera ­ or maybe I don't understand it. There's a kind of authenticity in good style, which is interesting. I like people to be charming, to be stylish. I don't really care if it means anything. It's enough in itself."
Emotionally dissociated Threes can have a weightless quality. If you hug them, they can feel physically lighter than they are. Or you could feel as if you are talking to a hollow person, trying to connect with something that isn't there, as though the Three lacks emotional gravity or heft. An unhealthy Three could be charming, as though his whole personality has risen up to pool in his face. Farther back behind his eyes, however, you might sense someone hidden, watching you in a calculated way, perhaps with a tinge of contempt.
Entranced Threes may talk about their feelings, but these tend to be either derived from images or visceral physical feelings. Athletes, for instance, are physically kinesthetic but not necessarily in touch with their emotions. A Three athlete could talk about how she feels, but be referring to her physical energy level or the pain she feels from an injury. Meanwhile, her emotions remain an unfamiliar realm.

Someone who worked closely with several Threes reported, "None of them had much ability to dialogue. They either blocked me out with words or were rehearsing what they were going to say next while I was talking." The words of an entranced Three are often disconnected from their feelings. This is the sensory structure of deceit ­ words without body truth. A harmless version of this is the polite lies we all tell in social situations. In the world of sales, words without feeling are often used to persuade people to buy things. In Threeish American culture lying isn't even lying; it's euphemistically called "spinning."
Author Francois Mauriac once said, "Anyone can tell word lies; but body lies require different skills. The art of faking desire, or happiness or agreeable fatigue is not vouchsafed to everyone." The only way to impersonate someone you are not, is to cut off the contradicting feelings that you have when you tell a lie. With the feeling removed, someone can say things they do not mean, make promises they will not keep or pledge love that they do not truly feel.
The negative extreme of this strategy is apparent in the behavior of sociopaths, a significant percentage of whom are very unhealthy Threes. It is said that autopsies performed on the brains of diagnosed sociopaths reveal the absence of important linkages between language function and feelings. If true, this would match the experience most people report with sociopaths as well as very unhealthy Threes: that they will say or do anything to make an impression or get a result.

Keys to Change
Threes may be motivated to change for a variety of reasons, among them: a brush with mortality that gives the Three a sense that life is short; a medical problem that requires her to slow down, a professional failure or a "midlife crisis" in which the Three achieves a major life goal and realizes that it did not give him what he wanted; the exposure of a long-running lie where the Three is forced to face the depth of his impersonation; a sudden shock about having neglected the interpersonal part of his life, noticing, for instance, that his children are a foot taller, and he does not remember when that happened. A workaholic Three TV reporter who spent most of his time traveling began to rethink his priorities when he was told that his seven-year-old daughter had seen him on TV and said, "Look Mommy, there's the man who took us to the zoo."
Generally, a Three's neurotic momentum is broken by an outside event. Presenting problems to therapists can include: difficulties in relationships, depression, excessive stress, low self-esteem, a diagnosed medical condition, social alcoholism or struggles with other addictions.
Good goals for change include: learning to feel and to tell the truth; identifying the difference between authentic emotions and feelings that are derived from roles; learning to risk being loved for who they are instead of being falsely loved for who they are not, acknowledging and accepting their fears and insecurities, becoming a full person instead of an achievement machine, integrating activity with feeling, learning to lose and making a place for spirituality in their lives.
The National Aeronautics Association once told an American pilot that his solo flight over the North Pole was officially recognized as a national first. His response: "It's nice, but I knew I had done it anyhow." Threes generally need to learn how to validate themselves, to "know they have done it anyhow" instead of seeking self-esteem through outside recognition.

Therapists or counselors working with a Three may have to first secure and then later reinforce the Three's commitment to changing. A new Three client could be so over-scheduled that she has trouble fitting therapy into her crowded life. You may have to push Three clients a little with questions like, "How much does this really mean to you?" and "Are you sure you are ready for this?"
Threes can also come to therapy wanting information, quick fixes or stress reduction techniques. Watch for pressure to produce fast results, couched in a charming, depersonalized manner. Some Three clients view therapy as a place to fix themselves ­ a further expression of the "achievement machine" self-image.
Threes don't often go to therapy unless they have to and their reasons for seeking help may be ill-defined. When I had a private practice, specializing in hypnosis, a Three client would occasionally want to learn self-hypnosis for stress reduction. The Three's life was so busy that he wanted to be able to reduce his stress on demand ­ so he could be more comfortably hyperactive.
Occasionally I would agree to this request, but fish around to see whether the Three was interested in making other changes. Sometimes this fishing hooked something that the Three wanted more deeply, sometimes it did not ­ it depended on the individual.
Threes have good learning strategies and are often dedicated and competent. Once they commit to therapy, they will work hard at it. They may, however, play the "good student" for therapists. They could take notes during sessions, effectively summarizing what you say to them, both getting it and not getting it. If a Three client is new to self-examination she may first need a framework of insight, but mere insight will not be enough since the general goal for people with this style is to discover who they really are and how they really feel. Just understanding their behavior can leave their emotions untouched.
Having an authentic relationship with a therapist ­ someone who sees through the Three and still accepts her ­ is also valuable, if the Three is ready for it. They may first have to confess their Achilles Heel. One function of therapy is to provide a safe place where clients can reveal or discover the truth about their lives and this is especially nourishing for Threes.

The ABC's of Feelings
Each Enneagram style is naturally good at some things and weaker at others. Threes, in particular, are highly skilled at taking action but are challenged in the realm of emotions. As they start to reconnect with their feelings, they may have to do it in baby steps.
A Three client of mine wanted to learn self hypnosis as a way to reduce his stress and explore his inner life. After an initial interview, we began a little light trance training. I spoke to him in a calm voice, encouraging him to relax, close his eyes and take a few deep breaths. My idea was to begin with a mini-trance, to have him drop inside his internal experience, sample a hypnotic state and then awaken and discuss it. This approach usually soothes any fears a newcomer may have about going into a trance.
Instead, when I started speaking, my client closed his eyes and was gone. Approximately twenty minutes later he came out of trance. When I asked him what had happened, he reported total amnesia for the experience. He was so unaccustomed to venturing inside himself, so used to living in a hyper-conscious state, that when he closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths his attention sank into deep oblivious unconsciousness.
This reaction is similar to what many people go through when they first try to remember their dreams. When you wake from a dream that you cannot remember, it is because the gap between your conscious awareness and your dream state is too great. When people start to take naps their dream recall improves, because they shuttle between sleeping and waking more often. It also helps, of course, to have the will and intention to remember their dreams.
With my Three client, the task became to help him sample his inner life in a way that he could remember and integrate. To do this we had to make his hypnosis experiences both light and brief. After several tries, he was able to drop inside himself momentarily without losing consciousness. With practice, we expanded that to a few minutes and then for half an hour. Later we graduated from using hypnosis at all; he was able to know how he felt while awake. Over time, he was able to explore his inner states, to identify how he felt and expand his emotional range. He continued to practice self-hypnosis on his own when he needed to reduce his stress.
If you are a Three and have paid little attention to your inner life, the best way to begin to learn about it is with small steps, to learn about your feelings in an almost systematic way, and practice shuttling back and forth between your conscious and unconscious minds. Some exercises are helpful to this end:

Letter writing. Write a letter to the part of you that represents your emotions, insecurities or unwanted feelings. Begin the letter with "Dear Feelings" or whichever name is appropriate. Then express a) everything that you resent about this part of you and then b) everything that you appreciate about this part of you. Sign it, "Love," and your name.
Take a short break. Now, imagine that you are the part of you that you just wrote to. Pretend that you are your emotions, insecurities or unwanted feelings and write a new letter back to the rest of your personality, replying with everything that you resent and then everything that you appreciate about the rest of your personality. Sign it, "Love, Your feelings" or whatever name is appropriate.
Generally this exercise will help you improve conscious-to-unconscious communication. It creates a dialogue, a channel of communication between the two parts of you that need to become more deeply related to each other ­ or admit the depth of relationship that already exists. The exercise will help you better understand your own motives and especially identify how are you trying to take care of yourself, and give yourself basic things like love, safety and security. It may be helpful to repeat the sequence several times, perhaps returning to it once a week for a month or so. (This exercise could work with any Enneagram style as could the next one.)

Rock reading. Another helpful technique is rock reading, adapted from a Shamanic practice by anthropologist Michael Harner. Here you use an ordinary rock as a stimulus for ideas and solutions and to access unconscious information. If a Three is blocked about getting to the truth of her feelings or is trying to solve a practical problem, reading a rock can help her access her intuition and unconscious intelligence. The technique is another way to shuttle back and forth between her conscious and unconscious mind, between a Three's outer world and inner life.
Step 1): Go to a nearby source for a rock. If you have time, make the exercise into a kind of walking meditation, wandering about in a place of nature until a rock "calls" to you. Otherwise, pick the nearest, most obvious rock, one without personal or sentimental associations. It must have at least two distinct sides and some visible detail on its surface.
Step 2): Seat yourself somewhere comfortably, with a sheet of paper and pen nearby. Take a few deep breaths, and let yourself relax about 15% more than you are.
Step 3): Think of a question that you want an answer to. Write it down at the top of the sheet of paper.
Step 4): Pick up the rock and begin to examine one side of it. Notice anything you can see or sense about the rock, its crevices, texture, details, color, size and shape. Write down each thing you notice, as well as any associations that come to you as you look at and touch the rock.
Step 5): When you have finished pause for a few seconds. Now read what you have written out loud. Quickly ask yourself, "How are these things an answer to my question?"
Step 6): Now turn the rock over and look at a new side of it. Repeat step 4. Notice anything about the rock's crevices, texture, details, color, size and shape. Write down each thing you notice, as well as any associations that come to you as you look at and touch the rock.
Step 7): When you have finished pause for a few seconds. Now read what you have written out loud. Quickly ask yourself, "How are these things an answer to my question?"
Step 8): Pause for a few moments. Now read everything you have written ­ what you observed on both sides of the rock ­ out loud and ask yourself, "How are all these things taken together an answer to my question?"
This exercise, which functions like much like a Rorschach ink-blot test, stimulates and focuses unconscious associations. People are often surprised by the connections they make. I've used this technique with conventionally-minded business executives who had no experience with self-examination, much less reading rocks. The fact that the technique is so strange and far afield actually works to its advantage; it is harder to resist than something only slightly odd and deviant. Reading rocks is also practical: you can ask questions about business decisions and realistic situations as well as find creative ideas for solving problems, meeting challenges or making money. You can literally profit from being in touch with your unconscious.

Learning To Lose. In a city neighborhood where I once lived there was a Japanese teahouse that served lunch and tea. One day I walked by and saw that it had gone out of business. On the door was this notice:
"This tea house is closed. We established Tasshi (a Tibetan word meaning happiness and true ambition) here in June. This was during the season of wisteria blossoms. The shop is now gone forever, but its spirit is still alive somewhere. Many thanks for your patronage." Taped to the notice was this poem written in calligraphy:
Whence stirs this wind?
Bit of dust in my hand -
Gone like the spring cloud so soon
The mountain calls Tasshi
No movement.
We are moved.

This was the most elegant description of a business failure I had ever seen. It did not excuse, rationalize or personalize what happened. The owner simply accepted that his attempt to make the teahouse succeed had failed and was gracefully surrendering to the fact. There is an Inuit proverb that also captures this same attitude: "To win a dogsled race is wonderful, to lose ­ that is all right too."
In the trance of their style, Threes take their victories and achievements ­ and failures ­ far more personally than other Enneagram styles. One Three remembered how he used to play Scrabble ­ a word game based on the size of your vocabulary ­ with his grandchildren. He played with great competitive intensity and felt triumphant when he beat small children at an adult game.
As Threes grow and change they often begin to wrestle with their compulsive desire to win. Those who succeed at this report having more choice; they are able to pick their contests and feel generally less stressed. Ironically, they also say that they succeed more with less effort. "I've learned that when my work is ego driven," one Three explains, "it makes me lonely. When I approach it in a spirit of service, I'm much happier and more successful."
Exercise: Pick a situation in which you would normally feel compelled to win and where there would be no realistic consequences if you did not. The possibilities might include: sports that you play for fun, card, board or computer games that you play with friends or other small competitive exchanges or minor rivalries that you have with people in your personal life or workplace.
The challenge of this exercise is to break your compulsion to win ­ to throw the game and deliberately lose. You must do this well enough that the other person believes they have truly won. Telegraphing that you are allowing them to win is cheating and another form of competition. When you first attempt this exercise, you may want to quit or notice that anxiety, shame or other feelings come up.
The exercise is designed to get you past the shadow of failure and evoke feelings that you may routinely avoid. It is not complete until you can find a way to feel genuinely happy for another person's victory. You may have to try a number of times before you can do it successfully.

Finding a Balance
I once read a magazine profile of an entrepreneur from Texas who had built a business out of nothing and was doing phenomenally well. Late in the article, after the author had detailed the man's accomplishments and successive triumphs, came this throwaway line: "Of course, Bob has little time to see his three children (ages six, eight, and eleven) because of his seventy-hour work week. But, he says that projections for next year's growth are 400% and this may eventually allow him to slow down." The article chirped on, describing someone swept up in work to the exclusion of their personal life, detailing both an admirable business success and a spiritual disaster in the making.
Well-intended friends of workaholic Threes often plead with them to stop their chronic activity and take time off. Sheer inactivity, however, is not especially good for Threes; the style is so action-oriented that if a Three goes to the other extreme it can feel like paralysis. If you mainly know that you exist through your actions, then suddenly doing nothing feels like being dead.
It is often helpful, instead, for Threes to find a middle path between hyperactivity and inaction, moving from incessant work to having a more complete life. As Threes grow and change they often reorganize their lives to include activity and yet allow for new personal dimensions. One Three nicely described this progression: "No matter what I accomplished, something always seemed terribly unfinished. As soon as I climbed the new mountain, then I would be really finished, I told myself. But I never was. Finally, I just couldn't do it anymore. And then, I wouldn't do it anymore. Instead of overextending myself, I now arrange my schedule so I have some time to do whatever I want ­ walk, garden, go to a movie or be with friends. The irony is that I get as much done as I did before."
In his audio series, Metaphors of Identity, author-therapist Charles Faulkner presents a technique for uncovering and working with metaphors that unconsciously drive problem behavior. His thesis, based on the work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, authors of the book Metaphors We Live By, is that compulsive behavior is supported, if not caused, by unconscious metaphors, stories that we feel compelled to live.
Working with a probable Three, Faulkner helps him uncover the metaphor driving his hyperactivity. "Driving" is the right word because the man saw his life as a race around a track and himself as a high-performance race car. Faulkner "entered" the client's metaphor and helped him expand it. Specifically, he helped him to rewrite the rules of his inner race so that he could take penalty-free time outs. The man could then go off with his family, enjoy life and resume the race at the place and time where he left off.
Threes are especially prone to the classic "midlife crisis," an episode of depression about the difference between their expectations of life and the result they have accomplished. If you have done all that you should have, been amply rewarded by society, and it still does not fulfill you, then a period of depressive emptiness sometimes follows.
Often that leads Threes to a conscious search for new values. As one Three says, "I think it was a coincidence of recognizing my mortality when I turned 50. That plus the combination of reaching my life-long goal of being financially successful. I got what I had been shooting for all my life, and I said, 'So what? This isn't making me happy. Where is it? Where is the value here?' I started to search for what it's all about and wonder what I was going to do with the rest of my life." Some Threes begin this search with reading; a book like The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck, for example, raises pertinent questions about values and is easy to read and accessible. Other Threes ask their friends for advice or look within their church or community for resources.
Still other Threes find new meaning in focusing on their family life. A Three explains how his priorities shifted when he had children: "When my first son was born, I felt like I became a man. There was a new level of maturity. Now I was responsible for that child. Not tomorrow or the next day but every moment of the day. I couldn't think selfishly anymore. There continue to be sacrifices based on the commitment I have to my family. But, it has always been good for me. It provides balance when my life could easily be out of balance. They don't know me as anyone but Daddy. They don't care about my accomplishments. I'm a father and a husband. My family won't allow me to be anything else and that's fine with me."
Another Three speaks of what his marriage has taught him: "If there's one revelation I've had in the last few years, it's that I should focus on my relationship the way I focus on everything else. It's so simple, but it just took me forever to figure out: you can't work 14 hours a day, come home on weekends exhausted and think that everything's going to be wonderful. You have to talk, to work at it. Now my wife and I do that all the time."
Another Three adds: "I think I've just become more of myself which is better than anything anybody can imagine. That's what the goal is. Authentically being yourself means really not having any concern about what other people think. Or living your life and making your behavior based on other people's expectations."

Exercises:
o Ask several people close to you if they would still love you if you quit your job. If they answer "yes," ask them why. What is there to love about you besides your work, your status or what you produce?
o Search for a pattern related to your Threeness that you could practice interrupting without negative consequence. One Three who described himself as "addicted to information and current events" began taking "news fasts." He would avoid watching or listening to the news for a day at a time and was gradually able to work up to a week.
o Threes often graduate from the role of student to teacher, from athlete to coach, from mastering skills to teaching them. As one Three comments: "You hear so much that the only way to learn is to teach. Part what I do is teach personal development. I would like to help other people avoid all the needless suffering I went through in my life."
If you are a Three and you came to yourself for help with how to live a more balanced life, what would you advise? How would you coach or counsel yourself to achieve that goal? What would you help yourself to see and feel? What would you teach yourself about self-love? About developing your inner life and feelings? About having a more complete life?