As a Type 8: The Change Agent...
As a Creative Enneagram Type 8, The Change Agent, you are a force to be reckoned with. If the Seven is a ball of fire that sparks creative energy in those around them, you are a ball of fire meets tornado meets lightning storm that blasts away anything in its path.
You work and create with a kind of righteous fervor that is almost maniacal in its fervor and intensity. In fact, intensity to you is not a scale, it’s a binary switch that is either on at maximal power or off. And you are never off.
Something is always in your sights and in need of change. You give yourself to an idea and an ideal so completely, so fully, that others step back in awe. You believe everything strongly enough to fight to the death for, and it bothers you when others don’t feel the same. Diplomacy and safe art are for cowards and pretenders, but you are out to make a difference in the world or die trying.
At your best, you change the world for the cause of Christ and image your Creator’s raw, unbridled love and passion. At your worst, you trample over everyone in your path in order to make a name for yourself. You are strong-willed but should never attempt to hold back that part of you, rather, your aim should be to submit every part of you, both strengths and weaknesses, to following your true Master’s call on your life. When you live a life for Christ, and for others, especially those weakest among us—those who are victims of injustice, abuse, and neglect—your burning creative fire is never more world-changing.
The Creative Enneagram Type 8, The Change Agent, has both healthy and unhealthy manifestations.
Healthy
You see something that needs changed and you personally move heaven and earth to change it. You embody Creative Destruction. You image our Creator’s omnipotent, all-consuming and all-encompassing creative fire.
Unhealthy
You run over others, even potential creative collaborators, all in the pursuit of an ideal. You devote yourself to an idea without allowing yourself to be agile enough to iterate and improve along the way.
Famous Enneagram Type 8 – Scott Harrison
Scott Harrison walked down a small dirt path in Liberia, tall grass brushing against his thighs as he went ever deeper into the forbidding jungle canopy that seemed to swallow up the sky. He’d been walking for just a few minutes but couldn’t imagine having to travel this far every day just to get something as basic and life sustaining as water. Scott recounts stepping over huge ropey tree roots to see a small pond, brimming with muddy green water, infested with bugs, and stinking of the stagnant bacteria laden rot that made growing up in Liberia a challenge simply to get a drink of clean water. Women were filling yellow jerry cans with the filthy, reeking water. A young girl lifted a plastic cup to her lips, and it was at that moment that Scott knew his calling: he was going to help everyone get clean water.
“I honestly hadn’t understood water poverty before. It had been one thing to hear [talk] about people drinking bad water but seeing it up close made me angry. I decided right then that if I could ever do anything to help these people, if I could help [build] more wells, I would do it in a heartbeat.” [1]
Today, Scott is the founder and CEO of charity: water, a non-profit that has mobilized over one million donors around the world to fund over 28,000 water projects in 26 countries that will serve more than 8.2 million people. Call it personality, or gifting, or all of the above, but when change agents like Scott see something wrong with the world then it’s almost as if they don’t have any other option but to throw themselves wholeheartedly into creating for change.
[1] Scott Harrison Thirst: A Story of Redemption, Compassion, and a Mission to Bring Clean Water to the World Random House October 2018 p 144
Nest Steps: Where to go from here...
Did one of the Creative Types immediately resonate with you? While no one is “just one thing”, many people recognize both the healthy and unhealthy characteristics of their Creative Type quickly. Remember though, your personality type, or your Creative Type, is just one part of the amazingly intricate and uniquely created image bearer that you are. Your spiritual giftings, your life circumstances, your habits, your family, and countless other factors all play a part in shaping you into who you are and who you might someday become.
For all you personality test deniers, don’t overlook the patterns woven into you by your Creator. For all you personality test believers—yes, we see you posting your Type on social media—don’t let your type dictate to you who you are or what you are capable of, because God is changing and maturing each of us to be more like Him. So, let Him!
Just be forewarned, change is a process. Sometimes it’s a long and arduous path to understanding your creative calling, and learning your Creative Type is just the first step.
In the Created for Change community, we embark together on the adventure that is The Creator’s Journey.
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