19th March 2025
This anecdote is the source of the popular Chinese idiom, ‘Sanren Chenghu,’ or literally “three men make a tiger.”
It often reminds people of the remark “repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth,” often attributed to the Nazi propaganda head Joseph Goebbels.
An ancient Chinese parable illustrates the concept very well.
A minister approached the king & asked, “If one person came to you and claimed there was a tiger in the marketplace, would you believe it?”
The king replied, “No, of course not.”
The minister continued, “What if two people claimed there was a tiger in the marketplace?”
The king paused & said, “I might begin to have some doubt.”
Finally, the minister asked, “And what if three people insisted there was a tiger in the marketplace?”
The king responded, “If three people claimed it, I would start believing there’s a tiger.”
The minister concluded, “Your Majesty, there is no tiger in the marketplace, yet with enough voices, even the most absurd claim can seem true.”
This story, often referred to as ‘Three Men Make a Tiger,’ offers an important life lesson that repetition can create the illusion of reality.
The ‘Illusory Truth Effect’ says that consistent, repeated exposures to a statement will increase the likelihood that we believe it to be true, even if it’s false.
In other words, if you’re told something over & over again, it will take in your mind as a truth.
There are a variety of implications of this idea, but I’m most interested in how it relates to a few areas of life:
Throughout your early years, you’re told that the path to a happy, successful life is making money & accumulating things. This is the mountain that people tell you to climb, so it’s the mountain you eventually accept as your own.
Your internal voice repeats certain stories about who you are and about what you’re capable of. Those stories are repeated so often that they take hold as truth and control your actions in the real world.
If you tell yourself you aren’t capable, you start to believe it, and you start shrinking to match that belief.
Iam reminded here of an old proverb,
“If you throw enough mud at the wall, some of it will stick.”
The real wisdom here is not to ignore the voices of the crowd—after all, sometimes, if three people say there’s a tiger in the market, there may actually be a tiger in the market.
The real wisdom is to pause before you default into believing them.
Cultivate an independent mindset, Question the assumptions you’ve been told about the mountains you should climb, Question the stories you believe & tell yourself,
Pause & question whether the tiger is real & stay blessed forever.