Never Be Lied to Again (16 page)

Do the same in conversation. When you give an order, expect people to follow it and they will.

When you shout, you send the message "I'm shouting so you'll listen to me." The best way to get a person's attention is to speak softly and directly.

Not only will people often do what you expect them to do, but they often feel how you suggest they should feel. Take a look at three distinct examples of this influence at work in our everyday life.

A. When a small child falls, if his parent makes a big deal

out of it, he will likely cry and become more upset. The

child's thoughts are, "Mom knows best, and if she thinks

I hurt myself I must have."

B. The well-known placebo effect can induce physiological

changes such as lowering blood pressure or controlling

cholesterol levels. With no more than a sugar pill, a patient's body may react as if it were given the actual medication.

C. Someone says you look tired and your whole disposition

changes. Try this on a co-worker and you'll notice a complete change of body language. If you want to be nice,

try the converse and tell someone she looks great. Watch

a smile appear and her eyes widen. While she may deny

the compliment, watch her face to she how she really feels

about it.

7. When we ask a favour of someone, common sense dictates that we might want that person to be in a good mood.

The thinking is, if he's relaxed and feeling good he's more likely to give us what we ask for. This is usually true, but it doesn't always work when you ask for the truth. When you want someone to come clean with the facts, you're asking for more than a favour. You have to assume that it-—the truth—is something that he doesn't want to give.

Thus the more comfortable things are, the less his incentive is. The best time to seek your confession is when he's tired, hungry, thirsty, whatever. He won't be thinking clearly and will be looking to end the conversation as soon as possible. Of course he's going to be more agitated and grumpy.

Nonetheless, if the only way he can become more comfortable is to tell you what you want, then he will.

8. You must be able to walk away. If your opponent senses desperation, you're sunk. You're only as strong as your alternatives, and the more attractive your alternatives, the more power you have. When you're desperate, the facts look grossly out of proportion. When this happens, you'll be apt to do what you never should do: make a decision out of fear. When your options are limited, your perspective is distorted; your thinking is emotional, not logical. This is true for all of us. If you perceive your power to be nonexistent you are likely to give in without good cause. By increasing your alternatives and narrowing the other person's options, you gain considerable leverage. The equation that determines the balance of leverage is simple. It comes down to who needs who more.

There's a saying that the person who cares less, wins. One way to increase your power is to demonstrate that what your opponent has to offer—in this

case, the truth—can be obtained through other means—in this case, other people. This decreases his power, and hence his leverage.

9. It's important to know how human beings process

information.

When it comes to doing what we like, we do what's called
single-tasking.
When we think about things

we don't want to do, we do what's called
multitasking.

What

does this all mean? Well, if you have to pay your bills but

never feel like doing it, what's the thought process you

might go through? You think,
I've got to get all of
the bills

together
and
organize them into different piles;
get out my

chekbook, stamps, and envelopes; address each
letter;

write out the check; balance the checkbook;
and so on.

When it comes to doing something you enjoy doing, you

internalize the steps in larger groups. For example, if you

enjoy cooking, the steps might be, go the store and come

home and make dinner. If you hated to cook, everything

from waiting on line at the supermarket to cleaning the

dishes afterwards would enter into the equation.

Fine, but what's the practical use of this? Well, if you want to give someone a motive to do something, you're going to show him that it's simple and easy. If you want to discourage a behaviour, you need only stretch out the number of steps into a long, boring, and arduous process.

Same event, but depending upon how it's

internalized, you'll generate a completely different feeling toward it.

10. Every action human beings take is

motivated either

out of a need to avoid pain or the desire to gain pleasure—or

a combination of the two. What you link pleasure and pain to determines how a person will respond.

If you want to influence a person's behaviour, you need to attach pain to the direction you don't want him to move in and pleasure to the direction you want him to move toward. Too often out of anger or ignorance we lose sight of this powerful motivating tool. If someone's not being truthful with you, do you want to shout, "You're a no-good liar! I knew you'd only cause me misery.

Tell me the damn truth and then get the hell out of my life!" This is not an effective strategy. It's a simple equation: if the benefit of being truthful outweighs the benefit of lying, you will get the truth. However, a crucial criterion needs to be met.

The benefit should provide for an easy out. This is something that most people don't take into consideration. The liar above all else wants to change the conversation, move on, and put this behind him. When you outline the benefits make sure to include, if you can, that the subject will never again be brought up, it will be forgotten about, and you both will be able to put this in the past. You could offer him the greatest incentive for being truthful, but if he thinks a lengthy conversation and constant reminders will follow, he's not going to budge. The silver bullets are good examples of how to phrase your request for the truth using the pleasure/pain principle.

P A R T

7

I N T E R N A L T R U T H

B L O C K E R S : WE L I E

L O U D E S T W H E N WE L I E

TO O U R S E L V E S

"Once he finds out who he is, what can console him?

. . . for on Earth

Everyone who lives, lives in a dream." —

CALDERON DE LA BARCA

You have all the tools necessary to spot deceit and to ferret out the truth. However, several factors can interfere with and even completely block your ability to detect deceit. The good news is that being aware of these factors neutralizes their power and leaves you free to examine the facts as they are.

SELF-DECE PTIO N

The easiest person to lie to is someone who wants to be deceived. While several factors can get in the way of our getting to the truth, the worst offenders are usually ourselves. If you don't want to see the truth, you often will not. We all have a friend whose boyfriend comes home late every night from work. He's seen around town with women half his age, smells like perfume, and is constantly taking business trips on the weekend. Yet despite all of the evidence she refuses to see the truth.

She accepts him at his word, and that is that.

When we don't want to see the truth we'll lie to ourselves. These lies are the toughest to spot because they are our own. There's no objectivity to give us perspective.

People spend millions calling 900 numbers to hear a recording of their lucky lottery numbers.

We would like to believe that we could make a thousand dollars an hour in

our spare time working at home from the

kitchen table. Our desire to believe strongly influences what we see as our reality, from miracle wrinkle creams to guaranteed weight-loss pills.

And our desire
not to see
filters out vital information that would often give us clues to discovering the truth.

Only the exceptional person is willing to look at what he doesn't want to see, listen to what he doesn't want to hear, and believe that which he wishes would not exist.

When you go into a meeting wanting it to work out, you'll overlook too many things that may make it a bad deal. You must try to remain as objective as possible—^as if you were reviewing the information for someone else. Wishful thinking, desire, and hope cannot allow you to lose sight of reality.

The secret lies in learning how to suspend your interests. And yes, there is an easy way to do this usually difficult task. Watch out for the three Cs.

They are compliments, confirmation, and

confrontation. If you're listening with any of these preconceptions in mind, the information is likely to be distorted.

In other words, if you're looking for praise, looking to confirm that which you already know, or looking for an argument, you will miss the true meaning behind the message.

O P I N I O N S , A T T I T U D E S , AND

B E L I E F S

In the previous paragraphs, we saw how our desire to see or not to see colours our perception of reality. What we
believe
to be true also distorts our perception. All of our prejudices, beliefs, attitudes, and opinions filter out the truth.

If you grew up to respect and revere authority and were taught never to question an authority figure, this belief will greatly inhibit your ability to be objective about information that comes from someone in such a position. Similarly, if you believe that all salesmen are thieves or that all police are corrupt, it becomes impossible to see what is there. Instead you see a projection of your own ideals, beliefs, and prejudices.

Sometimes we need to generalize about our world; with literally thousands of decisions to make each day, we can't look at everything as if we were seeing it for the first time. There are times, however, when it's vitally important to suspend your beliefs. Then and only then can you see things as they are, not how you believe them to be.

D O N ' T L E T Y O U R

E M O T I O N S G E T T H E

B E T T E R O F Y O U

Strong emotions cloud our perception of reality.

Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle had this to say about emotion and distortion: "Under the influence of strong feeling we are easily deceived.

The coward under the influence of fear and the lover under that of love have such illusions that the coward owing to a trifling resemblance thinks he sees an enemy and the lover his beloved."

Emotional states are either self-induced, externally

brought on, or arise from a combination of the two. Some of the more powerful ones are: guilt, intimidation, appeal to ego, fear, curiosity, our desire to be liked, and love. If you're operating in any of these states, your judgment is likely to be impaired.

Furthermore, anyone who uses any of these is attempting to move you from logic to emotion—to a playing field that's not so level. In the process the truth gets lost because you're not operating logically and can't effectively see the evidence before you, let alone weigh it. Some generic examples of how these manipulations sound are as follows:

Guilt:
"How can you even say that? I'm hurt that you wouldn't trust me. I just don't know who you are anymore."

Fear:
"You know, you might just lose this entire deal. I don't think that's going to make your boss very happy. I sure hope you know what you're doing. I'm telling you that you won't get a better deal anywhere else. You're a fool if you think otherwise."

Appeal to ego:
"I can see that you're a smart person. I wouldn't try to put anything past you.

How could I? You'd be on to me in a second."

Curiosity:
"Look, you only live once. Try it.

You can always go back to how things were before. It might be fun, exciting—a real adventure."

Desire to be liked:
"I thought you were a real player. So did everybody else. This is going to be a real disappointment if you don't come through for us."

Love:
"If you loved me you wouldn't question me. Of course I have only your best interest at heart. I wouldn't lie to you. You know that deep down inside, don't you?"

Look and listen objectively—not only at the words but at the message. These internal truth blockers interfere with your ability to digest the facts. When these emotions creep into your thinking, temporarily suspend your feelings and look in front of you, not inside yourself.

P A R T

8

E X T E R N A L T R U T H

B L O C K E R S : T R I C K S OF

T H E T R A D E

"The truth is the same from every angle. A lie always needs to be facing forward."

—DAVID J. LIEBERMAN

Unlike internal truth blockers, which we bring on ourselves, these truth blockers are done to us. These are the psychological secrets of the experts, the tricks of the trade—factors that can affect your judgment in objectively evaluating information.

No matter what area of life we're in, we're always selling something. In business you're selling a product or service.

In your personal life you're selling yourself and your ideas.

Regardless of the situation, the reason you don't succeed is always going to be the same: the person doesn't believe what you're saying is true.

Let's say you're a real estate broker. Someone who is not investing with you may say "I have to think about it" or "I have to talk to my wife." But really it all comes down to one thing. If your prospect believed what you were saying was true—-that you would make him money—then he would invest with you, wouldn't he? Establishing credibility is the key to influencing the behaviour of others. When credibility can't be gained through the facts, distortion of the truth is what often follows.