Okay since I wrote about asking John to lie to me yesterday I thought I would share with you information about a presenter I met at Tony Robbin’s workshop in Orlando a few weeks ago. His name is Gary King. He had a unique presentation on character and honesty. He spoke about “inconsequential lies” such as “no honey,. . .  those jeans do not make your butt look fat” and how he believes those little white lies triggers your brain to believe lying is okay, leading to larger,  more significant lies (such as cheating on a spouse).  He called it compounding behaviour like interest in your bank account. He used the example of television morality to prove his point.

Gary reminded the room of how in the early days of TV only twin beds where shown in a master bedroom, kissing on the mouth was not allowed and absolutely no swearing even words such as “hell” or “damn.” Compare that to the anything-goes-ground rules of today where, even if they attempt to bleep words out they still allow the view to hear enough to know what is being said.  Gary believes that behaviour gets compounded we go from kissing on the mouth in the ’70’s television to some of the reality TV shows that leave nothing to your imagination. If you allow yourself just one small exception to your morality code, before long you maybe caught in a landslide and wonder when and where your integrity left you.   Certainly gives us all something to think about.

Gary started his journey after a near death experience left him unable to lie to people (kind of like a real life version of Jim Cary in the movie “Liar, Liar”).  His story is an interesting one. In his workshop  he claims that people lie on average something like 15 times per hour (sorry I don’t remember the exact number-it could very well have been 15 times per minute!). He includes withholding information because you think it would hurt someone as a lie. He asked us all if we could recall a time when we told a “necessary lie” that made both us and the person we told it to feel warm inside.  Of course people offered up stories of telling a friend that you did something that the he or she had really expected and hope you would do when in fact you hadn’t done it. Gary then questioned, if it made your friend feel good because you lied to him, what does that say about your relationship? It is one based on dishonesty and what happens to that relationship when your friend actually finds out the truth?  If the friendship is important to you you won’t lie to maintain it.

It takes courage to be completely honest with everyone you meet, every day of our lives. Gary believes the reason people lie is because they won’t be brave and have those “hard conversations” so instead they lie, which may make them feel okay at the time (having potentially avoided a conflict) but over time erodes of both your health and happiness.

Hmmmmmm, interesting stuff, so is his DVD “Pay Truth Forward” you can check it and other cool stuff out on his website (http://www.thepoweroftruth.com/)

Today, in addition to honesty, Gary is on a mission to have positive messages be presented to us, and especially children, in our every day lives. Messages such as “nothing is more important then character” or “Winners never cheat.” Watch this short video clip to get the idea of the impact he is trying to create.  I think it is a good one.

What about you guys, ever a time you think lying is necessary?  Personally I think if the person asks you to lie (as I do with John) I hope that has gotta not count:)!

Today I am grateful that Buzzy seems much better than even yesterday and yes, his new head tilt is kind of cute.