How to break the habit of lying to yourself

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i totally met my dream girl a few years

ago

and i wasn’t even expecting it i just

come off of a previous relationship

just wanted to get to know a few of the

ladies and i jumped on the dating apps

and i

happened to match with a particular

special girl on bumble

one date turned into two two turned into

four

and within a few months you can say we

were falling for each other

you could even say we were falling in

love that’s a powerful feeling

but you know what else is a powerful

feeling knowing deep down inside

that was lying to her i told her a lie i

told her

that i was divorced and i wasn’t

yeah awkward right it’s usually one of

the

uh precursors you need in order to date

somebody else but the reality was

i hadn’t even started the paperwork yet

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and so as i had this lie in the back of

my brain and the more i got to know and

to

love this individual the more

i was afraid of telling the truth

a few months later she happened to be

going through my phone

and she found a particular text from my

wife

and then it was revealed to her that we

hadn’t even started the divorce

process yet

she was hurt betrayed i was embarrassed

shame what am i supposed to do

i hated it i hated myself

i just wanted to crawl in a box and

start over

i’m sure you can imagine how that story

ended the reality is

we are all liars

have you ever been caught in a lie

before

yeah have you ever been afraid of being

caught in a lie before

yeah it’s a horrible horrible feeling

clearly

i know what that feels like

but the reality is is every single one

of us is a liar

i’m a liar you’re a liar all

liars and i want us to do something i

want to you to turn to your neighbor

and say i am a liar if you’re watching

this online

turn to the person and say i am a liar

good i am glad we are now i feel better

now because now we’re all

on the same page now i know i’m not the

only one

but even saying it out loud is a really

uncomfortable feeling nobody wants to

admit

that they are a liar when in reality we

are all a liar

and the interesting thing about lying is

lying is a natural

part of survival research shows that we

learn

to lie about the 82 years old when we

can take

facts that true what we want or

what we uh what we to get what we want

or to avoid

pain if you’ve been around a

two-year-old you know you don’t have to

teach them how

to lie isn’t that right so we lie to get

what we want or to avoid

pain i was lying to avoid the pain of

loneliness

just nine months before i met this dream

girl i

had a suspicion that my wife was

cheating on me had a suspicion that my

wife was having an affair

and she kept denying it over and over

and over again

and i couldn’t take it any longer my

suspicion got the best of me and i

waited until she fell asleep i went

through

her phone and found the evidence of

her affair myself feeling

broken feeling pain feeling betrayed

and i feel like we could have worked

through the relationship if it was just

cheating but there was also the lying

that i couldn’t get through

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so we lie to get what we want or to

avoid

pain lying does not

exist in a vacuum we think if we tell a

lie

here and a lie there it’s not going to

have an impact on anybody else

right you could even ask the question if

if you tell a lie in the forest that

nobody is around to hear it is it still

a lie

is it i believe it is

because lying begins with lying yourself

and the moment you start lying to

yourself

that has a ripple effect that starts

impacting not only yourself

but the people around you and on and on

and i was caught

in the cycle of and the lie ended me

losing out on things that were really to

me

the impact of lying is significant

not only does it impact us it impacts

our health

as well research shows that

every lie you tell no matter how big or

how small that lie is

increase your cortisol levels spikes

your anxiety and stress

through the roof it doesn’t matter if

it’s a little white lie or a major lie

has the same effect on your body leaving

you with headaches

lower back pain and stomach issues

but not only does lying impact your

health it impacts your

relationships you know it doesn’t matter

even if it’s a big life

just that person who’s always late to

work right

like oh we just expect it of so and so

never of me no it’s usually of me

this is why i’m giving this talk

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religion give your word and something

falls through

that chips away at your integrity

even if you’re the person that says hey

i’m gonna come for coffee and you don’t

show up

for coffee chips away at our

relationships the third

thing that relationship impacts is our

impact relationships

impact our impact and i can think of two

popular characters

in history in near history where the

impact significantly impact by

their lives you can think of this person

president bill clinton two-term

president

had a great run great economy he had one

of the lowest employment rates but his

great run as a president was totally

derailed by

one lie he told under oath

impacting his impact you could think of

this other person lance

armstrong is another one he was the king

of cycling

he was bringing attention to the cycling

world not only the

bringing attention to help fundraise for

cancer

through his livestrong foundation

and yet all of that impact he was making

was sidelined by the scandal

of his denying the use of performance

enhancing

so lying impacts our health our

relationships

and our impact so when we lie

about lying is when we lie to get what

we want we end up

losing what we really want

it’s an oxymoron you think if we could

lie to get what we want we’re going to

be happy and satisfied but that’s not

the truth but what happens if we do in

order to

rebuild our integrity once it’s lost i

often wondered

if if bill clinton and lance armstrong

could go back and

what would they have done differently to

help rebuild

the lives that they have told now the

interesting thing is i mentioned

that you don’t have to teach a child to

lie right

but you do have to teach them honesty

and integrity

it’s like a muscle you are building over

time now this had me thinking

how am i going to rebuild my integrity

i just got caught in a lie i was ashamed

and embarrassed that i

didn’t know what i’m going to do so i

dove headstrong

into some self-development books i was

listening to audio book i could do to

try to make myself

better i had an epiphany because when

you start to chip away

at when your integrity is starting to be

chipped away by those

around you people lose trust in you

and then you start to lose trust in

yourself and you feel

like a loser at least that’s how i felt

i felt

like a loser and one of the epiphanies i

had

is that a loser is simply a collection

of badass

and if you want to rebuild your

integrity

you must break those bad habits and

learn

new habits you must break those habits

and learn new habits here are three

habits i believe you can learn

in order to break the habit of lying to

yourself

the first one is self-awareness i said

we lie

in order to avoid pain you first must

identify

what is the pain you are running from

what is the pain you are attempting to

cover up when we spend so much time

lying to other people and we spend so

much time

lying to ourselves it’s hard for us to

know what we’re running from because

we’ve put on

so many masks and we put up so many

fronts

with so many people but the first step

is self-awareness really digging down

and taking off the mask so that we can

identify the pain

that we are running from and then once

you’ve identified

the pain you must take ownership of that

pain

and a lot of times the main reason why

we lie to people is because we want to

push the pain as far away we don’t want

anybody to know about the pain we are

going through

in our life

but the truth is there is power in our

pain

there’s power in our pain let me

illustrate i was with a group of people

there were

actors and athletes and a lot of

important people in this circle

and there was a guy who was facilitating

a conversation

and he started going around the room

asking people individual questions

and as they asked this one individual a

question he was a hedge fund manager he

went on to explain what he did he said i

went to uc berkeley then went on to

graduate from stanford

and i had this many billions of dollars

under management and the facilitator

said

stop i want you to now explain what is

the pain

that you’re going through in your life

and he went on he said okay

he said well my marriage is falling

apart my health is deteriorating i feel

horrible and he went on and on and on

and and the facilitator said notice what

happened when you were bragging about

all of your accolades

when you were bragging about all the

things you were doing the room was

sitting back with their arms crossed

not really paying attention but as soon

as you started talking about your pain

the room leaned in

this is why i believe that there is

power in our

pain and it’s not something for us to

run from but it’s something for us to

take

ownership of the third thing is is take

action what i like to call

be the buffalo be the buffalo now

i spend part of my time in cheyenne

wyoming

cheyenne wyoming wyoming is a great

place i don’t know if you’ve ever been

there before we’re recruiting people so

if you want to move

there’s plenty of room there’s plenty of

room

and one of the cool things about wyoming

is that we have buffalo

technically bison and one of the cool

things i learned about buffalo

is that when buffalo see a storm coming

up over the rockies

they actually turn and face the storm

going into the storm head on thus

getting through the storm that much

faster

now their friends the cows when they see

a storm coming up over the rockies

they run away from the storm thus

staying in the storm even

longer so when first we’re able to

identify the pain

second we’re able to take ownership of

the pain and the third thing we do in

order to

break the habit of lying to ourselves is

taking

radical action taking

radical action being the buffalo and

being willing

to go all in and do whatever it takes to

make a change i knew at that point

as i was in the midst of this

relationship with this special someone

that i didn’t want to be a loser i

didn’t want to lose out on this thing

that was so

important for me so i knew i needed to

take

radical action i knew i needed to own

this situation and i knew

i needed to take action in order for it

to

work now you have a choice

you have a choice to be the buffalo

take on the storm take on it head on

which isn’t always the easy way out

or you have a choice to be the cow and

run in the opposite direction and avoid

your problems all along i had that

choice i could have run from the lie i

told

and continued to stay in that cycle of

lying

but i decided to be the buffalo and i

knew

i had a choice that i know you have a

choice as well

to take radical action radical honesty

and to go all in now i have to tell you

these three things

might seem really simple you’re like

jeff come on i could have read this

anywhere i could write this in a

kindergartner book yeah it is simple

but in order for it to work you must be

willing to go all in

you must be willing to go all out you

must be willing to be 100 honest you

must be willing

to go you must be willing to risk

everything and lose everything

and thankfully when i went back to this

girl

and i totally laid everything out i was

vulnerable it was a horrible feeling

didn’t like it at all but it was also

healing

it was also freeing

i was free to choose and i gave her the

freedom to choose and luckily she did

choose me

and two years later she continues to

choose me

but you know what winning doesn’t always

mean you get the girl

winning to me means you have the

integrity

the courage to live the integrity that

you were meant to live and to be who you

are supposed to be

now when i look in the mirror i don’t

see a lying lonely loser that just

misses out on everything that is caught

in this cycle of hurting myself over and

over and over again

but i see a person of value i see a

person with flaws but a person who is

willing to show up

and do whatever it takes even

when it’s hard i see a person who is

here to call others like you to join me

in the journey of being real with

yourself so that we

can be real with others thank you

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you