The 3/6 profile.

Learns by trial and error in the real world. Tries things, finds out what doesn't work, and the discovery is the contribution. Permission to fail in public is essential.

In plain terms: The experimenter. They learn by trying — including by failing. Their wrong answers are valuable data, not waste. Don't punish their visible mistakes; they're how the team finds out what doesn't work. Deploy them on R&D and prototyping.

Lives in three distinct life phases — experimentation, retreat, and embodiment. Earns wisdom by living it, then becomes the example others follow.

In plain terms: The seasoned example. Lives in three career chapters — early experimentation, mid-career retreat to integrate, and later-life embodied leadership. Don't expect a Role Model in their 20s to perform like one in their 50s — the wisdom is earned through living it.

The 3/6 profile combines a martyr's conscious mode of operating with a role model's unconscious one. The conscious line (3) is what you identify with — the way you see yourself and articulate your role. The unconscious line (6) is what others see in you that you don’t see yourself.

The friction in your design lives in the gap between those two lines. People may project the role model onto you while you’re trying to be the martyr, or vice versa. That gap is structural, not a personal failing — and the work is to acknowledge both modes rather than try to collapse them into one.