🤯Accept Your Triggers

If I walked up to you right now and shouted “You have purple hair” would you get offended?

Would you start arguing or need to prove me wrong?

You wouldn’t feel any emotional sting because you do not have purple hair (unless you actually do!)

But if I said “Your company is failing because you are terrible at execution” would you feel a sudden spike of anger or shame?

We get defensive when the external criticism matches an internal insecurity.

The anger we feel is not about the other person being rude. It is about us secretly fearing they might be right.

Defensiveness isn’t a shield. It is a spotlight that shows us the parts of ourselves we have not accepted yet.

Let’s try to disarm the trigger.

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The Drill

The only way to stop being triggered is to spot the Secret Agreement you have with the critic.

Copy and paste the template below, fill in the blanks and reply to this email.

I read every single reply.

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MY TRIGGER TEMPLATE

1. The Trigger Event: (What specifically happened or was said?)

<“My co-founder told me I wasn’t moving fast enough.”>

2. The Emotion: (Did you feel anger, shame, panic, shutdown?)

<“I felt immediate anger and wanted to list all the tasks I did yesterday.”>

3. The Secret Agreement: (Finish this sentence: I only got triggered because a part of me is afraid that I actually AM...)

<“...I am afraid that I actually AM lazy and slowing everyone down.”>

4. The Acceptance: (Can you accept this trait without judgment?)

<“Sometimes I am slow. Sometimes I am unproductive. And that is okay.”>

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Why this works:

The moment we admit the flaw to ourselves we take the weapon out of the hands of others. I can’t be impacted by the phrase “You are lazy” when I have already accepted that I am not perfect and have a plan to work on flaws.

Reply with your trigger template. Let’s clear this out!

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