Type Eight
The Powerful Protector

Center of Intelligence: Gut Center
Motivation: To avoid weakness through independence, strength, and acquiring power
Core Fears: Being disempowered, weak, taken advantage of, harmed, or naive

Eights are motivated to avoid weakness, vulnerability, and the feeling of disempowerment. They seek power, influence, and strength to prevent others from overpowering or taking advantage of them. Eights employ denial to disown their vulnerabilities and weaknesses, allowing them to plow through obstacles and intimidate those who would underestimate them, making them formidable opponents. The characteristic anger of Eight is expressed through callous indifference and implied threat rather than explosive reactivity (although this can happen). Eights have the psychological vice of lust, which refers to a lack of inhibition or self-regulation about one's desires or impulses and a desire to have what they want in excess when they want it. Eights take a "too much is almost enough" life orientation. Eights won't be controlled and resist any limitations and become self-referenced, so they never have to answer to someone else.

Power and Intimidation
Eights naturally attune to who has power in each situation because they're infrequently if ever intimidated; they project an air of strength that drives others to seek their protection and leadership. Eights are aware that others are intimidated by them but do not go looking for a fight; instead, Eights will not back down from a fight if challenged. Eights have visceral instinctive responses as gut types and quickly and easily "size up" another person to identify potential weaknesses.

 The predatory nature of Eights is a defense designed to prevent others from taking advantage of their vulnerabilities (which they sometimes believe they don't have). However, they deny their weaknesses and often conceptualize themselves as indestructible.

Cynicism and Callousness
Eights are naturally skeptical of others' motivations. Because of early perceptions of the absence of innocence in the motivations of others, they grow up quickly and are parentified or made into authorities far too young. As such, Eights often feel like adults long before adulthood. Most Eights are extraordinarily sensitive, and as reactive types, have a visceral response to any perceived threat. However, they believe showing their emotions or sharing their sensitivities with others will be exploited or unappreciated. They tend to appear cold, dismissive, or indifferent when defended. Eights focus on equity, and if that means getting even with a perceived enemy for a transgression, they will do what it takes to ensure justice, as they've defined it, is served.

When Eights are stressed, they fear being betrayed and disempowered. They often test others' loyalty and look for ways people manipulate, coerce, or otherwise take advantage of them. This worldview often reinforces their cynical "dog-eat-dog" perspective and hardens them further. Eights see their relationships as transactional, where they take care of or protect others. In turn, they expect others to pledge their loyalty to the Eight. Those who gain entry into the Eight's inner circle of care will see a softer, accommodating, and naivete they fear will be used to harm or overpower them. They go out of their way for those who have proven their loyalty and that they will not exploit the Eight's weaknesses.

Predatory Rage
Eights use their strength and power to exploit and take advantage of others they see as idiotic or weak. They have a cynical worldview and see incompetency, unfairness, and callousness everywhere. They believe that to avoid becoming the prey, they must become the predator. The belief in the world as dog-eat-dog and gladiator-like causes them to feel little remorse, empathy, or guilt for overpowering or exploiting others.

Unhealthy Eights will say and do whatever it takes to win, overpower others, and become invulnerable. They can become incredibly insensitive and calloused to the brunt of their impact. They can become disdainful of weakness, vulnerability, or softness in others, and rather than protecting innocence, they take advantage of those who embody the vulnerability they're trying to avoid.

When Healthy and Balanced
Healthy Eights are magnanimous leaders and utilize their considerable self-confidence and strength to protect the vulnerable and champion justice. At their best, Eights learn to see people three-dimensionally and come to appreciate the vulnerability and emotional authenticity of themselves and others. Healthy Eights are mindful of their impact and mitigate their forceful, blunt, or cold presentation to learn the art of diplomacy.

Exemplars: P!nk, Muhammed Ali, Donald Trump, Chrissy Hynde, Denzel Washington, Rosie O’Donnell, Roseanne, Yolanda Hadid, Danny DeVito, Queen Latifah, Idris Elba, Kathy Bates, Liev Schriber, Ray Donovan, Chris Hemsworth, Martin Luther King Jr., Marilyn Horne, Natalie Maines, Alec Baldwin, Suzanne Pleshette, Russell Crowe, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, Michael Douglas, Fidel Castro, Josh Brolin, Joan Jett, Joseph Stalin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Penn, Dr. Dre, Ammachi, Bruce Lee, George Gurdjieff, Jim Jones, Nina Simone, Etta James, Ice-T, Hulk Hogan, John Lewis