How a 1944 Experiment With Triangles Explains Why You're Stuck

In this video, I'm going to show you a 3-step process that completely changed about how I think about purpose. I've got my employee Matt here so that we can talk and I'm not like just talking to some computer in the middle of my office. I'm also going to give you an example of how that process was demonstrated in a scientific experiment. And then I'm going to give another example about how it's going to work in my business as I cut one of my top employees' pay, which Matt is convinced is him. And actually, I'm not even going to tell him if it is him or not. I'm just going to let him be like, "Oh my gosh, they're going they're going to cut my pay, and that's going to kind of prove the point. Um, and then finally, I'm going to show you two simple things you can do to take advantage of this framework in order to stop stressing about your life or your job, Matt, um, or your purpose, or maybe just not get so pissed off in traffic. Matt, you need to work on that too. Anyway, all this starts with the story of a circle that's already fallen off of my nipple, uh, a couple of triangles. Here's a big bad one and a tiny underdog one. And a scientific experiment from 1944. So two researchers showed college students a short animation, two triangles and a little circle moving around a white screen. They're going to see it in the video. You can't see it today. So there's no narration, there's no background music, there's no explanation, just triangles and circles moving around. But when people were asked to describe what they saw, most people didn't say the facts of like, what was happening, like 3 shapes moved around on a white background. What happened instead is they told stories about those facts. They told interpretations or explanations about why those facts were happening. So like in the video, the big triangle is kind of like— people say that it's bullying the little triangle. They say that the little triangle and the circle are in love in this relationship. And like the big triangle's angry and like breaking this box that it's in. Anyway, the stories are not boring. They are full of drama, personalities, power dynamics, and even purpose. You could say that I heard that the purpose of the little triangle's life is to protect and serve the small circle. And I know this sounds silly, but like this is how our brains work. You don't just observe a fact. Like, you literally walked in and saw what this says, and you're like, oh my gosh, you like, you immediately interpret it and did these other steps. So we make up meaning and motivations, and that's just what's really happening in our brains. So this 3-step framework is what we're going to go through for the rest of the video, and we're going to again show this scientific example and this real-world example and see if you can keep from shitting your pants or not. So The 3-step process is, and I took this from a book written in 1999, so 55 years after this experiment. In 1999, a book called Difficult Conversations uses this framework: fact, story, which is usually like an explanation of why those facts are happening, and then it's from that story that you build an emotion. So let's break this down using the video that you just saw of the triangles and squares and whatever the hell. So fact: some triangles moved around. Story: well, there could be a few of them. And emotion: there could be plenty. So fact: some triangles moved. That's a fact. Some stories we can make up is that, again, the small triangles being annoying Another one could be that the big triangle is— insulted the small triangle. And so the small triangle is like defending its honor. So you could have emotions depending on what story you told yourself. You could feel disgusted by how annoying the small triangle is, or you could feel maybe inspired that the little triangle is sticking up for itself to the big triangle. That's crazy. They're just shapes and your brain is already assigning values, intentions, entire life stories. Now, when it comes to interactions with real people, especially people in authority, because I'm your boss, or of the opposite sex, the same song is played, but the volume is turned way up. So here's the example that you saw. At some point in the next week or two, I'm gonna have to tell a very important employee in one of my businesses these four words. Just four words. I am cutting your pay. He walked in, he's like, oh my gosh, what's this about? Who's— what's going on? So let's actually use you as an example. What is the story that you told yourself? So this is, this is going to be the story I think this person will hear, and this is the end, the emotions that will happen. And this is the story I'm telling myself and the emotions that happen on my side. So what is the story that happened for you when you saw this? What emotion did you feel and what story did you tell yourself?

Anxiety and anger. Okay. Anger as much as that kind of anger and sadness at the same time.

Angst. So anxiety. So the feeling you felt— this is an important point— is when this happens, you don't— you go straight to the emotion and you skip over this entire— if you take one thing out of this, it's like recognize that it's, it's not these 4 words that made him feel anxiety, anger, and fear. It was the story that he told himself, meaning it's going to apply to me. They're going to cut my pay by like— actually, I literally pay him an extra dollar a year. So maybe I'm going to pay, like, cut his pay by $2 just so that— because he's the highest paid person in his company. And just as a joke. So anyway, you didn't ask any questions. You felt an emotion immediately and then you didn't realize it was fueled by this story.

Yeah.

Okay. What was the story, you think?

Story was, I'm not worth it. I mean, you're going to cut my pay because I'm a worthless piece of shit.

Okay, got it. Amazing. So glad you're here, bro. This guy is emotionally tuned in, ladies and gents. So, yeah, so his story was, I'm going to be cut because I'm worth this piece of shit and I'm not worth it. Now, I'm not going to get into that, where that comes from, but I will talk about that concept. Actually, I am going to get into where that comes from. But I'm gonna stick with my, like, semi-script here. So here's the thing. He did not react to the fact, like, after all, when I tell this to this person, we're just gonna be standing there in a room. Nothing's gonna, like, some woolly mammoth's not gonna come busting in and eat us both. And there was no saber-toothed tiger that existed when he walked in and saw that, but he still had an emotional reaction. And so my guess is the reason that his nervous system responded that way is that, well, actually, let me first say this process happens without him even knowing it. So I think that he'll say, "This is happening because Luke hates me," and that he'll feel sad or mad. I'm not really sure. But this happens immediately before he even thinks about it. But the real reason I'm actually doing this is I've been working this guy's ass off. I gave him a raise. Like a year ago, and I was like, "Hey, would you just work 7 days a week for like a month or 2, and then we'll like bring you back down to where you were?" And I have felt guilty that I've worked this person to death, and so now I'm going to just take a ton of pressure off of them and go back to paying them still good, but not crazy, so that they cannot feel so stressed. So this nervous system reaction that my employee will feel and that he is feeling right now, probably from me too, it's not something that happened today. It's something that happened a long fucking time ago. So for my employee, maybe when he was 7 and his parents like took away some of his responsibilities, he decided that that meant that they didn't love him anymore. And interpreting an action like that from your parents as like, they don't love me anymore, can be extremely disturbing for a kid. So what feels like a grownup overreaction, like you walked in and you shit your pants, you know, it's often just a kid memory waking back up wearing adult clothes. So we live inside stories that we didn't consciously choose in the first place. And we relive them over and over like you just did just now until we hopefully someday realize that it's happening in the first place, which you didn't realize even until the last few, like, weeks of working here and I was talking so much. So what does that have to do with finding your purpose and how the hell do you apply it? Well, first, what does it have to do with your purpose? Everything, because if you can assign meaning to some ink on a whiteboard that has nothing to do with you, or a moving triangle, these things, or a coworker Slack message, or a one-line email from your boss, you're probably doing the exact same thing with how you're taking the facts about your life and turning them into stories that keep you stuck in emotional patterns about, I'm a worthless piece of shit, or whatever your patterns are. You take factual events about things that have happened in your life, like I either For example, in your case, you did not— you got a GED, right?

No, not great.

Yeah, okay. Didn't go to college. Okay, yeah, so you only have a high school education, and you could say, "Well, I didn't get into college," assuming you tried. Like, "I didn't get into college," or, "I did get into college." That's a fact, and then you create a story around that that can maybe mean, like, "I'm meant for this job," or, "I'm never worthy of being in," I don't know, the presence of people that have lived a different life, right? So then you feel this emotion based on believing that story that you can frankly just stay fucked up and cause you to make choices that are based on avoiding those emotions fed by these fake stories instead of making choices based on the ones on what you authentically want inside your true self, whatever the hell that is. So just like those triangles, you probably never stop to recognize that the facts of your life reliably justify the stories you've created about as much as the fact that two triangles bumping into each other means that one is mean and the other is annoying. So what I'm gonna do with this information when I break this news to my employee, and how can you use it? To stop reacting and start rewriting your own stories. First thing, when I tell this dude this stuff is I'm just going to recognize that this is going on. So when I say, hey, man, cut your pay, and then I'll go through more of it, I'm going to go first and I'm going to say, by the way, I was feeling really guilty. I have felt really guilty about like asking you to do all this extra work and then keeping you doing something that's kept you miserable for a long time. And so, yeah, the reason I'm doing this is because I've been working you too much. And also, like, the company doesn't need you doing the work that you're doing. I just want you to know, like, what's going on underneath this policy or this decision. Just naming it in me gives me, like, distance from it and builds some trust with that employee. And allows both of us to understand what's going on inside the other person's head. And then step 2, after you've just recognized that the emotion is there, is to start questioning the other parts of this equation, namely the facts. Like, if I were to just say this, like, he could have asked, like, when is this going to happen? How much is this going to be? Does this apply to everyone? Like, you could have asked other facts. And you also can start questioning the story. Like, is someone— are you angry at me? Are you— did I do something wrong? Like, what is the motivation behind this, Luke?

And what is—

like, why am I feeling so terrible? Like, for example, my story, for me in this particular case, the reason I feel guilty and I'm— I just— feel bad is I have this belief that if someone gets upset with me, which by the way, they may be upset that I'm cutting their pay and it's not even about the pay though. It's about the story that gets activated. That's what pisses people off. So I have this story that if someone gets angry at me for any reason, then what I did was wrong and I deserve to be punished, or actually I deserve to be abandoned. And where did that come from? My childhood, just like all of us. Welcome to be a human being. So I could ask the question, "Who would I be if I didn't believe it? How true is that actually?" I could just create some space by questioning the facts and questioning the story. And the goal here isn't to convince yourself that your stories are wrong or right, that I'm like a good guy or a bad guy. It's just to release you from the absolute roller coaster that's created by clinging to those beliefs so tightly or rejecting them so violently. So this is the punchline: like, purpose isn't a book that's found, it is authored. And just like you wrote that story about how the triangle and the circle were meant to be together, you're writing one right now about your life. And the best part is that you can choose to write a better one starting right now without changing any of the circumstances of your life. You just take the same facts consciously pick a different story, then feel different emotions, and subsequently live a different life. So the next time you feel confused or stuck or overwhelmed about like the right way to go, which by the way is made up, the right way, remember you're just, you're not lost, you're inside a story and it's time to pick up the pen. So if you thought this was helpful, then please send it to the most aggressive triangle you can find. And if you wanna watch like more stuff about what I'm learning trying to grow a bunch of businesses with my man Matt and a bunch of other people, and how I'm trying to make a whole bunch more money while also being a human and realizing that I'm making up a story that money fuckin' matters at all, and occasionally making fun of myself and other people, then like this or something, like, go find other shit. You're probably on my channel right now, so do that.