Poker Face (1)

Olivia Pope is regarded the best in her field. She and her team are called gladiators in suit. She says her gut is never wrong hence its easy for her to tell when a client is lying. When I first saw its movie trailer 'scandal' coupled with the fact that it was directed by Shonda Rhimes,I just had to see the movie.

Believe it or not you are a liar. We are going to talk about lie spotting to truth seeking and ultimately trust building.

Truth 1; Lying is a co-operative act; a lie has no power whatsoever by its mere utterance, its power emerges when someone else agrees to believe it. l know it may sound as tough love but at some point if you got lied to its because you agreed to. Not all lies are harmful. Sometimes we are willing participants in deception for the sake of social dignity but there are times when we are unwilling participants and that could have dramatic consequences.
2011 saw 997 billion dollars in corporate fraud alone in the united states.That's 7% of revenue. Lies could undermine our security in a country.

According to british authority Henry. O. a con man could undermine the entire banking industry in the whole western world. During an interview he said " everyone is willing to give you something for whatever there are hungry for". We all kind of hate to admit it; we wish we were better husbands, wives,parents, colleaques...lying is an attempt to bridge that gap, to connect our wishes and fantasies to whom we wish we were, how we wish we could be to what we are really like.

On a given day, you may be lied to 10-200 times. In  another study,strangers lie 3 times within the first ten minutes of meeting each other, extroverts lie more than introverts, men lie 8times more about themselves,women lie more to protect other people and couples lie in one out of every ten interactions.

Truth 2; We are against lying...but covertly for it. Koko the gorilla was taught sign language as a means of communication. koko once blamed her pet kitten for ripping a sink out of the wall.  We are wired to be leaders of the pack. It starts really early, how early?  As babies we fake a cry,pause, wait to see who's coming and then go right back to crying. 1 year olds learn concealment,2 year-olds bluffs, 5 year-olds lie outright and manipulate their flaterry, 9 year olds? masters of the cover up. By the time you are in college you lie to your mom in one of every five interactions. And by the time we enter the work world and are bread winners we enter into a world that is filled with spam,digital friends inshort a deception epidemic. One author refers to it as a post truth society.  So what do you do?

Tomorrow we will talk about  lie spotting . Stay connected .

Tags; TED,Pamela Mayer,FMB

twitter handle ; @dahliadona