The Rule of Three and It Works Everywhere
- Brainz Magazine
- 30 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Written by Annette Densham, Chief Storyteller
Multi-award-winning PR specialist Annette Densham is considered the go-to for all things business storytelling, award submission writing, and assisting business leaders in establishing themselves as authorities in their field.
The Rule of Three appears in stories, psychology, and business. Three points form a complete pattern, boost memory, and make choices feel balanced. See how structuring ideas and offers in threes reduces overwhelm, builds trust, and drives clearer decisions for better results.
Three little pigs. Three musketeers. Gold, silver, bronze. Past, present, future. Mind, body, spirit.
Have you noticed how the number three keeps showing up? Once you start paying attention, it’s impossible to unsee. It’s almost as if three is the minimum number we need to feel complete. One is a dot. Two is a line. Three creates a shape, a pattern, and has edges. It’s in the way we tell stories, the way we measure success, and the way we make sense of life.
It shows up in every corner of human culture. Almost every religion has some form of trinity. Nature is full of threes, solid, liquid, gas, past, present, future, birth, life, death. The way we tell stories is built on threes, setup, conflict, resolution. Three is enough to give perspective. More than three, and people get lost. Less than three, and it doesn’t feel like you’ve got the full picture.
It’s not a woo-woo principle. There’s science behind why three feels so powerful.
Memory: Psychologists call it chunking. Our brains process and remember information better in groups of three.
Perception: Gestalt theory shows that three points are the first number the brain recognises as a complete shape. One feels incomplete, two feels like a standoff, but three creates wholeness.
Communication: Rhetoric and linguistics research prove that three-part structures are more persuasive and memorable. Think life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or blood, sweat, and tears, or veni, vidi, vici.
Without realising it, I’ve been fighting against the Rule of Three in my business. I had one way of doing things. It was a bit of a take it or leave it situation. If you fit, great. If you didn’t, too bad. It worked, to a point, but something always felt off.
At Tony Robbins Business Mastery earlier this year, it finally clicked. The problem wasn’t that people didn’t believe in what we do. The problem was that I’d made it too hard for them to step in by putting unnecessary friction in the way. The process was complex, and the options were too narrow. I thought I was protecting the integrity of what we offered. What I was really doing was shutting the door on people who wanted to be part of it.
It was my lightbulb moment. We didn’t need to water things down or add more layers. We needed to simplify and give people clarity and choice, without the overwhelm.
We rebuilt the model around the Rule of Three. Enough choices to give people clarity, but not so many they were like a deer in the headlights. The impact has been immediate. Clients now self-select and see themselves on the pathway before we’ve finished the conversation. It’s easier for them to commit, and easier for us to deliver.
Choice matters, but too many choices paralyses people. That’s why Netflix scroll fatigue is a thing and why menus with 15 pages never get read. We needed to simplify and create options. The answer was staring me in the face, three pathways. Here’s how we reframed our business:
Ethical essentials – the starting point. Clear, simple, accessible. For people who believe in what we’re doing but need an entry that doesn’t overwhelm them.
Ethical bespoke – the tailored path. For investors who’ve been around the block, know what they want, and need us to customise it.
Ethical elite – the top tier. This is where the big, sophisticated investors play, building Specialist Disability Accommodation at the highest standards.
I’ve thought a lot about why The Rule of Three works so well. It comes back to something deeper than sales strategy. Humans trust threes.
If someone gives you one option, you feel boxed in. Two options you’re weighing, one against the other, and there’s always the nagging feeling you’re missing something. Three gives you a middle ground. It feels like you’ve explored the spectrum. The way we communicate has three showing up everywhere. We talk about good, better, best. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Blood, sweat, and tears. Three is rhythm, balance and trust.
Embracing the Rule of Three hasn’t just been about restructuring the options we give our clients, it's become a guiding philosophy. Whenever I get stuck now, I ask. What are the three things that matter here? It works in strategy, in storytelling and life.
Don’t underestimate simplicity. People don’t buy complexity. They buy clarity, certainty, and trust. The Rule of Three gives them all three.
Annette Densham, Chief Storyteller Multi-award-winning PR specialist Annette Densham is considered the go-to for all things business storytelling, award submission writing, and assisting business leaders in establishing themselves as authorities in their field. She has shared her insights into storytelling, media, and business across Australia, UK, and the US, speaking for Professional Speakers Association, Stevie Awards, Queensland Government, and many more. Three-time winner of the Grand Stevie Award for Women in Business, gold Stevie International Business Award, and a finalist in Australian Small Business Champion awards, Annette audaciously challenges anyone in small business to cast aside modesty, embrace their genius, and share their stories.
