People who are the worst…

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…at spotting deception, if you want my opinion, don’t question things.

They don’t question things.

While they may ask questions — they don’t dig for answers, or play the “what if” game. Or, if they do– they don’t do it with an open mind. These people are not researchers or fact finders. The majority of them don’t question authority. To them, people in authority are usually “experts” and “good people” who shouldn’t be questioned. After all, they hold a high-ranking status in society which should be respected — not doubted. I’ve come to describe these people as literalists.

Literalists are the people in our society who are the worst at spotting deception, and I guestimate they are somewhere around 15 -20% of people I meet.

The definition of a literalist from the dictionary is: “one who adheres to the letter or exact word; an interpreter according to the letter.” Most people when they hear the term literalist usually think of people who take the book of their religion and choose to believe in it word-for-word — like strict fundamentalists.

When I say literalist, I am using the term slightly differently. I am talking about people who take everything and everyone they met or get to know at face value — but my definition is void of religious implications.

Literalists, to me, don’t see the world in shades of gray. They only see black and white.

If you were to say to a literalist that their best friend was just seen stealing fifty dollars, while they might listen you out, they wouldn’t question the details of what happened. Instead, they’d automatically defend their friend, and tell you all the ways you must have misinterpreted the situation. They’d be certain someone misunderstood something. Literalists don’t stop to say with a truly open mind, “You know, that isn’t the person I know — but what happened? Why do you say that?” They don’t investigate the situation , or truly listen to what someone is saying without bias.

Literalists, however, are usually good people. They truly want to believe the best in everyone. They are often kind and giving and fiercely loyal people — probably to a flaw. They usually make good friends too.

If you continued to insist to a literalist that their best friend stole this money, and you are going to take action against their friend, a literalist would likely get annoyed with you. They would think quietly to themselves that you are the one with a problem — that you are a pessimist for thinking the way you do.

Literalists automatically assume if someone is nice — they are inherently good. Even in the face of people saying otherwise, literalists will continue to believe a good person is good until the evidence against that belief is clearly visible to their own eyes, or it is so overwhelming (i.e. they are the last to hold that believe), it is undeniable.

If someone has done something bad that they have witnessed with their own two eyes (like stealing) — a literalist will not trust that person again, and he or she will be known as inherently bad. They will still be nice, and kind to these “bad” people — but under the cover of their thoughts will be feelings of distrust, and perhaps feelings of “fear” that is not likely to ever go away completely — even after the passage of time — and renewed efforts to restore the distrust.

Literalists don’t understand human nature nor are they able to read emotions in people. Hence, they take the world at face value. When you and I see color, they only see black and white. They don’t see gray. They are, in essence, color-blind.

The reason I write this post is get people to ponder things more — to question things around them. I am not suggesting that you distrust anyone and everything you hear. Give people the benefit of the doubt, always– but do look at things and ask questions. If someone tells you someone is really nice — it’s okay to wonder why. Why are they nice? If someone tells you someone is really bad — don’t just accept it. Question why. You might find a brilliant, exceptional person underneath the exterior who has been greatly misunderstood.

The dumb question, as the saying goes, is the one that was never asked. As I see it, you have absolutely nothing to lose by questioning things. In fact, you might actually discover a new truth!

As I see it, people who are good at spotting deception find evidence to either support or reject their belief system. They are always looking for things to substantiate what they believe. They are naturally curious and inquisitive. They also don’t take things at face value. They question things all the time, and are open to a new belief if the evidence points them in a different direction.

Anyone, with any ability to detect lies, can improve their abilities by wondering why and asking questions — with a truly open mind to discover whatever may come their way.

The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)
Truth fears no questions.
Anonymous

High-Stake Lies

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When a liar stands to get a notable gain, or faces a notable loss by telling a lie, this type of lie is known as a high-stake lie. In this situation, the liar stands to gain or lose either emotionally, physically, financially or psychologically by maintaining his lie. If his lie leaks out, the liar will pay a sizable price.

It is also when the stakes are high for the liar that clues to deception leak from a liar at a far greater level than a low-stake lie.

With that, if someone lied to me about his favorite color, and had nothing to gain or lose for doing so—which is a low-stake lie—he likely wouldn’t give off detectable hints. With that, I would be in the dark along with everyone else as to what the truth is. Quite simply, this is because it doesn’t cause anyone much difficulty to say blue instead of red, or wine instead of beer.

Now, not all low-stake lies are undetectable; it really depends on the simplicity of the lie. The more simplistic the lie is, the more difficult it is to spot (e.g., favorite color). The more complex the lie becomes, the more likely it is a clue will leak (e.g., lying about your whereabouts for six hours). Regardless, though, you still don’t get the same abundance of clues as you would in a high-stake lie.

For example, in low-stake lies, you may or may not see word searching, stammering, or thinking clues. In high-stake lies, you will likely see a mixture of those, plus emotional clues.

However, when a murderer who kills for the psychological thrill is facing charges, the stakes are high. He knows his days could be numbered, and that puts pressure on him if he wants to continue to get his sick thrill. That pressure is what causes more clues.

So, next time you tell me what your favorite color is—and lie—don’t be surprised if I don’t see it. I see lies when it comes to high-stake lies. Low-stake lies are another ballgame.

Update 7/19/2007:
High-Stake Lies also dissipate once someone is convicted of a crime. After a conviction, a person no longer has anything else to lose by continuing the lie (since they are paying the ultimate price by the conviction and the sentence). Hence, the pressure that comes from having to maintain a lie dissolves away, and the person is no longer under any pressure to lie. There are no more repercussions to lying, and as a result, the clues will be greatly diminished, if not disappear altogether.

When I do not trust…

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As someone who sees lies, I’ve stated before I am amazed at how when I meet people, I am positive, open-minded, and trusting.

You’d think otherwise, wouldn’t you? So would I, but I don’t. Even to my amazement.

I always give strangers the benefit of the doubt. And amazingly, I do not walk around the planet grumpy at all the lies I see. I may be sad, at times, because the lies represent an over abundant amount of troubled people, sad people, insecure people and people struggling to cope with the harshness of life, but I am never grumpy, mistrusting or edgy. I truly believe this is because I am confident I will catch a dangerous or impact-me lie when it rears its ugly head before it will seriously hurt me most of the time (Do know I do not believe I am infallible).

However, there is one arena in my life where I do not trust people. That arena is business, and only when I am the customer in the transaction!

When I meet service professionals or salesman, while I am friendly and extend a handshake, and I want to believe they are honest — I have uncovered enough lies in my lifetime to know better.

When money is involved in a transaction, YOUR MONEY, beware.

A-L-W-A-Y-S.

I say NEVER LET YOUR GUARD DOWN. Ever!
(unless it is a relative or relative of a friend — then, well maybe…)

Be warned.

People, by human nature are greedy when it comes to the green stuff. Remember, we all need it — and when you are the customer — the main reason that salesman is working is to get that green stuff: YOUR GREEN STUFF.

When you sell a car, you don’t tell the prospective buyer all the reasons why he shouldn’t buy your car now, do you? Of course not. No one does! We each have to look out for ourselves. That isn’t to say someone won’t be honest if you ask the right questions, but that’s the key, you have to know what to ask, and what to say, and most people don’t.

But there are honest salesman, you say? Yes, there are. I’d say they are less than 10%, less than 1 in 10 — maybe even less than 1 in 20. You have to work to find them.

I have seen so many switcheroos, product fact lies, warranty lies, product misrepresentations, ignorance, b.s., etc., and plain old “sorry ” lies that I could write a book! People get taken more than any of us would ever want to know. To me, it is horrifying! And even with my abilities to see lies, I’ve been lead down that garden path. When it comes to money, these guys are good!

When we don’t know someone, and we aren’t connected to them in anyway, it is much easier for them to over charge, misdiagnose, misguide, misrepresent, etc. I believe it is human nature. Yes, human nature. Even good honest people get callous over time when exposed to the sterility of business. Business is a sterile arena in our lives. We don’t see the pain we’ve caused others by intentionally or unintentionally misleading, misrepresenting, or misguiding them. The process of dishonesty, in this area, sadly doesn’t bring many consequences to reprimand the behavior.

Furthermore, businesses are sure to pass the buck when it comes to blame. We’ve all seen it. “We didn’t know any better,” “The manufacturer didn’t tell us that. Talk to the manufacturer”, and the circle of blame begins!

My solution to this problem: Do your homework–no matter what you are buying. Know the facts, find the details, and be one hard negotiator. Become the expert on everything you buy. You don’t know how many times I have done my homework, and then listened to the salesman and knew instantly that the guy was ignorant, and bullshitting his ahem-off just to make a sale!

When you do your homework, then and only then are you likely to get a fair deal, and even that isn’t a guarantee that something won’t go down after the transaction and before delivery. Even that happens more than you’d want to know. But with a little homework and knowledge, you do scare off a large majority of problems.

Don’t want to put any effort in? You’re a salesman’s best friend!!

Spying Eyes

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Yesterday, my husband and I were at the register at Burlington Coat Factory. As my husband stood there to pay for the goods, I looked around the store. It was packed with people — more people than I had seen in a month! Children were screaming, one cashier was dressed as Santa — and others as green elves. It was somewhat chaotic. I just stood there silently absorbing it in.

Behind us in line stood a young family of three with another male friend in tow. I noticed them because they were so young. They had a young daughter under the age of one dressed in a dirty, dingy pink coat with white snow flakes. The child’s coat had obviously seen its day. I would guess the young couple to be between the age of 17 to 20 years old. Along with them was another guy. He looked a lot like Prince with dark features and a thin, chiseled face. He looked like he could use a really good fattening dinner to give him some softness and warmth. I wanted to feed him!

A few old ladies in the line next to us cooed and awed over their baby. Oddly, the young couple didn’t say much. They seemed a little distracted. I thought nothing of it. I continued to peer around and watch people.

As I glanced back at the family behind us, I watched the young mother pick up her baby from their mostly empty cart, and shuffle herself around the two guys. All of them were busy looking around too. Then unconnected, I saw the young mother move over towards my husband. She looked directly down at his credit information which he was entering in on the keypad.

At first I thought nothing of it. Nothing registered as I was so absorbed with the people around me. I wasn’t thinking. Then as I blankly watched them, I saw the guy swoon over and start looking!!

My husband stood there patiently waiting to finish the transaction unaware of the vultures at his back.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I remembered my husband standing there in line with his credit card in the tip of fingers just moments before barely clasping the card’s edges. He was holding his credit card in a very dangerous position waiting to scan it — with the numbers clearly visible for all those in the back of the line to see.

Had they remembered his numbers? Were they looking again to verify them? Why did they keep looking? What the hell was going on??

I started to look to see if I could see a cell phone – wondering if they snapped a photo of the numbers. I didn’t catch a glimpse of one. However, when I started intently watching them — they started to look away from me. This concerned me.

I didn’t know what to do.

What do you do? I couldn’t fairly accuse them of anything! My mind was going a million miles an hour. This is a crime that is hard to call when it is in the making!

What if they are innocent? Were they? My gut told me they weren’t so innocent so I continued to watch them. I made my concern of them very clear — and yet they acted totally clueless!

As the cashier pulled the receipt out of machine for my husband to sign, I reached in from behind — grabbed it abruptly — and I said firmly, “You are going to sign this over here!” as I put it down to the far end of the register where the family couldn’t see it. The cashier looked surprised. People noticed my odd behavior. These was almost a hush in the air of surprise.

The family, however, all turned around away from us – and starred off into the distance. They tried to act oblivious to what I just did yet they had been very aware of our transaction moments before!!

((((bells are sounding in my head))))

Normal responses from them would have been odd looks, inquisitive behavior like the others around us — but they didn’t act normal. I am pretty sure they sensed I sensed what they were up to but it didn’t ruffle them at all. What could I do to them? They had my valuable information in their brains which is something I could never, ever prove until the damage is done. Perhaps each person had remembered a sequence of numbers. Very clever.

At this point, my husband’s intuition was telling him something was up. He finished the transaction and without a word we high-tailed it out of there. Once we got far enough away from them, I told my husband what I saw.

His face drained a little. He had never even thought about it and he realized how he had made himself vulnerable.

As we walked out the door, I flipped open my cell phone. I took the credit card out, called the number — and canceled the account!

What was even more chilling to me was the fact that the guy at the credit agency told me of the last few charges we made — including the one just made minutes before. If I had not called when I did, we may have come home a few hours later to a debt of ten thousand dollars or more!

Lordy, those eyes were up to some nasty lies! I have little doubt.

Whew. Close-call.

Seeing the Truth for what it is…

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…is difficult if you are emotionally involved in a situation. Even if you have an extra-good radar for the truth, as I do, if you add emotions, the lie-dar gets fuzzy, making the truth harder and more challenging to decipher.

As long as you remain emotional, you’re likely heading down a dangerous path if you have to act or make decisions!

I believe that as humans, we have two conscious brains for thought: our emotional brain and our logical brain. I also believe that it is critical to be able to differentiate between our emotional brain and our logical brain. It’s quite easy to do, but you must be disciplined with yourself in order to do it.

When we endure a painful situation, our emotional mind starts playing tricks with our head. It keeps “replaying” over and over again the good memories of things we’ve lost, as if we can have them back: “if only…” Or it makes a difficult situation seem outright desperate. Our emotional mind makes us feel like we’ve been stuck into a dark abyss that has absolutely no way out (or only one out: the wrong one!). Our emotional mind torments us, cripples us and keeps us in a limbo situation. It doesn’t ever give us peace or resolve.

We can be having a good day (trying to get back on our feet) when “WHAM!” our emotional mind decides it is time for us to remember something “oh, so sweet” that is now gone (your children in divorce, a failed relationship, a loved one, etc). Our emotional mind is the one that moves us to tears in difficult situations and makes us torn about what to do! It is deceptive, and represents a trickery to our sanity. It paints things rosier-than-rosy and blacker-than-black. Our emotional mind is very dramatic.

Your logical mind, however, does not trick you. It is honest and straight to the point. However, like the devil and the angel, the angel doesn’t always prevail unless you force it to. You have to consciously work at being logical and at denying your emotional mind the liberty to sabotage you.

Your emotions will never be up to any good in difficult situations. This is when they will not be trustworthy—only your logic will be…

When you start to feel overwhelmed with either happy past memories of what was, or you get overburdened with all that you don’t have now, you have to stop your mind from creating all those vivid thoughts of lost times. You have to stop it dead in its tracks and say to yourself, “That’s the past—this is now. Where can I go from here? Today is the first day of the rest of my life.”

Then you have to force yourself to see the truth. Was it really that rosy (or is it that dark)? What it really that good (or bad)? Weren’t there problems that caused things to get to this point (There always are!!)?

What were those problems?

The problems you think about are your truth. They will be logical occurrences that happened to bring you where you are today. Write down the problems that popped up before things got to that stage of emotional torment. Own them, claim them, and then each time your brain plays tricks on you and you start to get emotional, pull them out, read them, and remember them. Then continue to take steps to move forward.

By doing this, you will logically deprive your emotions, and your brain will slowly clear. You will start to think rationally. With that, logically you will see problems for what they are, and you will see the truth about how to resolve your situation. It may take a few days, but if you are vigilant, the truth will come so long as you stay in your logical mind and deny your emotions by pushing them out of your head. You can succeed and find your truth!

When I am really having a difficult time deciphering the truth, I ask myself:

Is this fear?

Or is this what I really believe to be the truth?

If I am facing something fearful, I realize that I am dealing with my emotions, so I dig deeper. I dig until I know I see the truth and I know I have no fear. You will know the truth—you will feel it. You will feel confident and strong. Lies makes us feel weak, and vulnerable, and afraid. Emotions can deceive us, make us feel weak and incapable. Just remember that.