There’s a reason why being true and authentic matter so much to me: I know what’s on the other side. When I was young, especially during my early teenage years, I lied a lot, habitually. In this episode, which is a conversation I’ve had back in September of 2020, I share my long and winding path to truth and authenticity.
My journey as a liar
So today I wanted to talk about my journey as a liar. this is such an interesting topic because I don’t think I’ve ever said out loud to anybody that I was an incredible liar for a big part of my life, especially in my youth and how much of a journey it was for me to go from somebody that lied all the time and way too much to somebody that lied a little bit.
[00:00:25]So then somebody that today, I’m sure I still lie at myself at times or something, but it’s, I would say I live in incredibly truthful life and I have a very strong internal aversion against saying lies. Even if it’s the smallest ones, it’s turned three 60 where now it feels almost religious where.
[00:00:46]I will do a lot before. I will say even the smallest light, if I can avoid it. And the funny thing is I never really reflected on that journey and I’ve never really, I never tried to hide it. It’s not something that’s like this thing that I’ve been thinking about my whole life and I’m like, nobody should know that this was part of my life.
[00:01:05] And now this is the big. Coming out of the closet moment where I’m like, you know what? I was a huge liar. Nobody knows this, but I don’t feel ashamed about it. I just have not thought about it. I have not given it attention and space for me to real thoughts about that journey. So this is what I’m going to attempt to do today with you, right.
[00:01:23] Because you know me so well, and hopefully through exploring my own journey as a liar, I’m gonna expose myself to myself in new ways. I learn I’ll have some insights, at least it might help somebody else that listens to this that is somewhere on a similar path. And that will recognize themselves in what I’ve said.
[00:01:42] I mean, there’s something they can glean from that or learn from that. Or maybe it accelerates their journey in ways that I wasn’t able to do. So let me set the stage when I was a child. I don’t know when this started. Exactly. I don’t know how much I lied prior to age six, because everything up to age six is kind of a blur.
[00:02:01] You know, I was so young and my growing up up until that point was very rosy, family life. Everything that I remember was in rainbow colors. And then my father died, we got kicked out of our home with, to do social housing. We had these huge family affairs and, problems.
[00:02:18]And I get into school and I have this teacher there’s and it’s kind of that year six to seven is like when the world, all the colors went gray. In my memory and the world became a very harsh black and white dog eat dog, me against the world type of a place. And I know when I was six, seven, eight, nine, I know I was lying a lot.
[00:02:39] Like that was definitely the beginning. Was it even prior to that? I don’t know. I cannot remember at least I can’t access that, but I know that I was a liar when I was younger. But I think it started peaking around the age of probably just before puberty 11, 12, 13.
[00:02:54] I would say those were the years where I liked to make my life more interesting, to become more impressive, to be more popular. But yeah, it was basically a my life. And what happened today is not enough. I am not enough. This isn’t interesting enough. And I wanted people’s attention. I wanted people’s admiration.
[00:03:16] And because in my worldview, my day in my life didn’t have anything impressive. I would make up stories since that is my gift. Right. It’s like storytelling, communication. I would make up stories to impress others. So we tell things that usually would be me saying something happened to me. That just, it didn’t happen.
[00:03:37]what, like, give me an example, an example. I’ll give you the strongest example I can think of. Right. And I’m sure there’s even stronger examples, but one example, I remember probably because I’m in Greece right now was being in Greece during holidays. I was 12. And I was really passionate about the guitar was playing and practicing day and night.
[00:03:59] And I remember meeting a cousin of mine. That was a really good musician. He was like 13, 14, and I had a demo tape of a bunch of songs from an unknown band from somebody I knew, but it was not a major band. It was not a, it was an indie band in Germany. And I told him that it was my band and that I was playing the guitar on these songs.
[00:04:23] Okay. Yeah. And so that could be something once in a while, there was a big light like this, this is just flat out. This didn’t even nothing happened. And I just came up with something, right? Yeah. But then there were a million lies that were small ones, um, I don’t know, like I saw a pretty girl and she smiled at me, but then when I was describing her, she was like, she was not just pretty.
[00:04:49] She was like, amazing. You know what I mean? I would just add to reality, like buying you’re applying narrative, Instagram filters. Yes. Yes. That’s a beautiful way of putting it. Yes. I was putting a lot of makeup and a lot of filters on real reality. And in that mode, when I was doing that, I was actually telling the truth.
[00:05:09]Because it was lying so much. That was almost, that was truth telling, because I think I got, so it’s so habitual about this, that there was no truth without a filter. And then whenever I would say something like, this is my band, I would actually feel bad about it afterwards. I would have like, regret and I’d be like, huh, why am I lying?
[00:05:27] This is a dumb lie. What did I say? It just want to impress him. But when I said this girl was, an incredible blonde because I knew he likes lawns, but it was actually a black hair girl that was not even a lie. I just talked about a beautiful goal who cares it didn’t register to me as this is also not the truth, right?
[00:05:44] It doesn’t really matter if you edit the truth by 1% of by 100, it’s both a lie. It’s a hundred percent. Why is that? Didn’t happen? So I was lying a lot. And the funny thing is I never externally because I was even at a young age, a natural born storyteller because I was smart and I was never lying in ways that could get me in trouble or that people could discover like this, the whole band thing.
[00:06:11] This is probably one of the dumbest lies I’ve ever told. And he’s still. I don’t know if like he at least pretended to believe me. He seemed to believe me. He never challenged it. It never came up. Right. But it was so big of a lie that it could have come out, but I never, and I lied to everybody.
[00:06:33] My mother, my brothers, my friends, school teachers, just everybody. I met everybody. If I was talking to you, I would lie to you. But I’d never been caught at a lie. Never been PA I was never, I’d never been in a situation where somebody punished me, caught me, challenged me, never. It was was pretty smart about my lies, who I was lying to.
[00:06:57] What I was lying about was probably part of why I was keeping things just to filter on top of realities, because it’s easy to remember. I wasn’t making up crazy stories every day. That would get me in trouble because I would forget anything that, because I lied so crass, so I never paid a price externally.
[00:07:17]Everybody always believed me. People were impressed. It was sort of working as intended, but internally I was paying a big price every day because I knew I was full of shit. And I knew I didn’t like myself. I didn’t love myself. I didn’t believe in myself. I wasn’t confident enough to live my truth in front of everybody and have confidence.
[00:07:41] I needed to tell a lie to pretend, to be confident, to pretend, to be interesting, to pretend, to be whatever. And. It doesn’t matter if nobody knew, I’m sure people knew, like even if it was just their , intuition, I do think people are, have, oftentimes it might not penetrate their conscious mind, but intuitively and subconsciously, I do people.
[00:08:05] I do believe that people know when they’re lied to when somebody is in congruent and honest and authentic. So I’m sure. Maybe some friendships didn’t work out because people were in like I was paying some prices. I just never saw the receipt. So I didn’t know. But I’m sure some people felt that some of my stuff was bullshit.
[00:08:24] It just, nobody ever challenged me to wherever you called me out on anything. But what’s that somebody like in your environment who was like a very, like somebody who, you know, always tells like spectacular stories and embellishes them maybe a little bit. Or was it somebody that I could have learned from, you mean
[00:08:44] as a child? Not that I’m aware of. I mean, in school and all that, there was a lot of lying, there were a bunch of people that I was usually the catch of lies of others because I was such a good liar. So I could CA like I would call people on their lives because I could see it so clearly. And I could ask the question that would make them trip.
[00:09:04] And why would I, I would punish others for my life, basically. Right. I would punish other liars harshly. And now looking back at it, why? Because I will want it to punish myself for it harshly, but I was not. Strong enough, honest enough, courageous enough. That’s the word I was looking for was not courageous enough to face myself and punish myself and become honest.
[00:09:26] So I would see those lies in others and it would make me angry and it would make me feel righteous too, catch them in their lies. But there’s nobody that I could say. This is clearly somebody that I’ve learned this from. No, I think also lying is such a natural thing. Lucy Kay has a whole bit about this that I think is brilliant in one of his standup specials where it talks about how much we punish children for lying.
[00:09:53] But if you actually think about it, like the first time a child tells a lie, let’s say the child did something bad and the parents get really angry and they’re asleep. Oh, did you do this? And then the child goes no, and the parent goes, Oh, okay. And then walk away. And the child is like recognizing the power of a lie.
[00:10:11] Right? Oh my God. I am a God. I can make any problem. Go away with it. This thing called line. I think that just caught this at some point and realize this is a tool. I can just say something that didn’t happen. Then if people believe it, they’re impressed as this. And I see this with my younger son, I have two sons, my oldest son, you would actually think he would be the bigger liar because he’s such a performer, such a storyteller, and he’s very talented communicator.
[00:10:40]But funny enough, he’s very, very honest. Way more honest than I was. It’s kind of crazy. He did almost doesn’t fit his personality, but he’s very honest to a fault. And my youngest son who can’t quite match the communication abilities of his older brother, he can’t quite do the storytelling. You can’t quite impressed people with writing a poem or writing a horror story, or like telling a story in a very compelling, catchy way.
[00:11:10] May. Oldest son, he’s performing in front of people and they react the shower, him with attention in awe. They’re like impressed by him. My younger son doesn’t have that ability. So my younger son lies. He lies a lot. We try and we are telling him, dude, you’re amazing. You don’t need to let you shoot this really happen.
[00:11:30] And he’s not really willing to let go of the line, but he’s lying a lot. And it’s his way to be. Like, I also want to impress people. I also want to say something that people go really, this happened, but I don’t have anything. So I’m just going to, and I’m just going to make up stories. And this happened at kindergarten and this happened to me here.
[00:11:48] So he is, although he’s a much more sensitive kid, a much kind of less of a performer, a much bigger, hard, much more empathetic. But for whatever reason you found this, it’s like they walk around and he picked up the stick and he’s wow, with this stick, I can do things. And it’s just lies. Right. And I feel like I wouldn’t be surprised if something similar happened to me.
[00:12:10] I at least I don’t remember seeing it with somebody else and learning it from another person. Not consciously, at least
[00:12:17]promise, even with nobody catching me on my lies. I knew. I was lying in every line, made me feel slightly uncomf, like a little bit like a coward. Every lie was proof to myself and I’m a little bitch and I’m not, not courageous enough, to be honest, not courageous enough to be myself, not confident enough to live my truth.
[00:12:39] So I, to embellish, I had to lie. It’s kind of like a coward thing to it is a big car thing to do. And I, even, as a child did not want to be a fucking coward. It didn’t feel like my true self is a count. So every little lie was like cutting myself a little bit. It was not big enough paint for me to go to the hospital and fix it, but it was noticeable and uncomfortable.
[00:13:01] And over time it was like, my body was full of these small cuts and I was like, this is, I could sense I’m going in the direction. That is very bad and eventually it’s going to be my identity and I don’t want it to be that way. And again, it didn’t come externally. Nobody, it was never my parents or my mom or my brothers or a friend or somebody teachers sitting me down and giving me the, you need to be honest age, but he was, you know what, maybe they did.
[00:13:32] You know what? I just remembered. There’s only one story I ever remember. My father telling me kind of a fairy tale sort of story. And it’s a story of the shepherd, the cried Wolf. Hmm. I remember being in the kitchen and I remember my father telling me that story, you know, when you cry Wolf and then.
[00:13:52] Well, if he’s not there and you do it in the whole diligence trust, believe you, first time, second time, third time. And then it’s a believable. The Wolf really came and he ate all your sheep. So, and it’s funny because it stuck with me that he told me that story. And now as I’m speaking, I’m like, well, probably he didn’t just tell the story for no reason.
[00:14:12] Probably told the story because I was lying about something and he wanted to teach me not to lie. So there you go. Maybe there is a good chance I was doing that even before he is dead. Not, you know, not to say that I would ever think that his death made me a liar. I thought that the line had never anything to do with it, but it’s just that I remember it when it was seven, when I was nine.
[00:14:32] I remember parts of line there, but when it was three, I don’t remember anything or four or five, six kind of very muddy waters. But now that this memory popped up, my father was telling me this, this must’ve been when I was. Five or six just before he died. And that must have been a good reason. The best reason is that I was lying like hell then as well.
[00:14:50] And he wanted to teach me not to lie. Cause people won’t believe me once I tell the truth. But it was never, at least at that point, I really didn’t. Consciously. I never had a moment where I felt like, Oh, the world will punish me for this or a feeling that Oh, somebody caught me and other people will catch me.
[00:15:10] It was not external. It was an internal feeling that I am doing something bad to myself. If I keep doing this, I will pay for this for the rest of my life. And I don’t want to be that person for the rest of my life. So I need to change this at some point. Now, I don’t know when I decided to start actively working on this.
[00:15:33] I don’t remember. I want to say it must’ve been somewhere between 16 and 20, somewhere along those sides, because at some point I consciously made the decision. I don’t want to be a liar anymore. I want to stop lying. And I think at first I stopped making these big lies. So I would not say this is my band or something, or I wouldn’t tell a story of something that didn’t happen at all.
[00:15:58]That was my first battle. Cause that took effort and energy. And at times I would win that battle. You know, I’d be at the coffee shop with a couple of kids and friends and I would have this brilliant story that I could tell that just popped up in my mind to impress everybody. And I wouldn’t hold myself back from it.
[00:16:16] Right. And it’s like a struggling fuck. And now I’m sitting here silent. It’s almost uh, was like, it wasn’t like a kinda like having a, I dunno, a hungry creature inside the glass that, yeah. Yeah. And it, these stories, these lies, they were being born in birth violently. Out of my mind are hard.
[00:16:37] And then there were in front of me. It was not, I was not thinking what cool story can I tell now it was just there. And then I was like, don’t say it. Don’t say it. Just keep it inside, just keep it inside. And then I would feel pain because, okay. I’m not telling it. So what am I doing now? Just sitting here.
[00:16:56] Well, just sitting here, I have nothing to say. I kind of sucks. And like the social dynamics of my friends or groups were also that people were expecting me to have, like, to have stories, to tell and stuff. Right. So the dynamic that I’d set up was one that was always a group and me at the center. I was always the leader of the group.
[00:17:16] And so now I’m sitting here and I typically can’t deal with the silence. And now I have to suffer through not saying anything interesting, just sitting here because I have nothing to say in all honesty. And that was painful. I was like, that sucks being honest. I just sat there and didn’t say anything, because I would talk less because my real stories were just in my mind, not worthy of sharing. Right. So it’d be like, if I don’t tell the lie, then I might as well just not say anything. And then once in awhile I’d been some situation and I just, it just blurred out of me and the moment it was out, I was like, why, why did I, why didn’t I.
[00:17:55] Catch this, and then I would push it away. And maybe the next morning or the evening, I would think about it. And it’d be like, why did I, why was I not strong enough to catch this lie? Why did it just came out of me? So that was the beginning of the process. And it was a struggle. It was a fight, some battles.
[00:18:11] I won some battles I lost. And again, I don’t know when, but eventually I’d won the war. I would not tell big lies anymore. Or very rarely, maybe once a year, I would do it in a moment of probably grave and great insecurity or mindlessness or whatever. And then I would feel terrible about it. But, went from like a weekly, multiple time occurrence to a once a month occurrence to a twice a year occurrence to a once a year.
[00:18:43] And then it was just gone that kind of a thing,
[00:18:45]
[00:18:45] really very loft, um, uh, Eddie Murphy. Yeah. You know what I’m talking about, where he’s like, I don’t know, slick Asian, and he’s always telling lies and this and that. And then there’s like, he’s got like a thousand words. Wait, Eddie Murphy is a slick, Oh no.
[00:19:00] Eight agents not Asian. I was like, he’s a slick Asian. Oh yeah. Way his lie, a lie or something where it’s a thousand words and then no, no, no, no. There’s one word. No, no, no, no, no. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That is it’s a thousand words. Yeah, you’re right. And then he has always to stop himself. No, we’re conflating two movies.
[00:19:21] I think the liar liar, Jim Carrey movie is the one where he could only say the truth is a lawyer, but it can only say the truth, but then there’s an Eddie Murphy movie. Right. Okay. Thank you. I think they’re two different movies, but I get, I get what you’re saying. Yeah, so that was that that’s the big lie, but then the small lies, there is a battle that was.
[00:19:44]Bigger because it was more subtle. She took me again. I don’t know when and how it happened to one when the fog first appeared. But at some point I remember the feeling of thinking and feeling, why did I add this filter to this story? Because the story was actually pretty good without the filter.
[00:20:04]It was a recognition of, I don’t have control over this anymore. This is just doing me. I’m not doing it. These lies are running me. I’m not using them. They’re using me. They’re living, they’re generating life force for themselves through me, but I have no say it just happens and they don’t benefit me like saying.
[00:20:28] That this girl was, wearing a blue dress versus a black whatever. Why, why, what, why do I have to change the story? Just because I’m used to always changing all the stories. And when I recognized that I was like let me practice and work on that. Let me, I want to let go of this. And this I think was a much longer process.
[00:20:49]Because it was more subtle. I was catching myself. It was not so obvious to me. It was not like I’m going to say something that totally didn’t happen. It was a big thing that I would see and recognize much more strongly than when I was actually recounting something. I wanted to tell you something that truly happened this morning.
[00:21:05] And I would start telling the story of what happened this morning. Then as I’m telling the story, I’m just adding a little detail that wasn’t there and I keep. At the moment I’ve set the detail. I said another thing that actually happened, so it was much more hidden. And that took me a long time of catching myself, practicing this, holding back editing.
[00:21:26] And then I started doing it less and less and less, but it was again, it’s funny. How long of a pro this is something that took years. It didn’t happen over weeks. Two years until I arrived at a point where aye, I feel like I written myself of feeling like a liar and being able to identify with that word was like, it doesn’t mean that I never lied, but I am not a liar.
[00:21:55] Yeah. And because this journey was such a big battle for me, because it took so long and it was very internal. Nobody ever knew any of this, or most people didn’t, I never paid a price for any of my life was just something I didn’t want to be. And it didn’t feel right. And I knew I’m selling my soul and setting a path to hell for myself.
[00:22:17] This weight in small little pebbles and it took a long time turned around, but eventually once I was off that path, it became very important to me to be truthful, to live the truthful life and to be around truthful people. And even it was even interesting. Becoming a father was really an interesting kind of journey around this because.
[00:22:41] Once my children became like two, three, four years old and they could communicate and they had desires and wishes and things they wanted that were difficult to please. Or you had to break their little hearts. So you had to tell them no. Or they were asking very difficult questions. I was seeing how a lot of adults were just super heavy handed with the lies with children.
[00:23:03] So with my mother, my mother is a grandmother. Wanted to be. Super heavy handed with the lies. And I realized I will not tell my sons, I’m not going to lie to my sons. I’m always going to give them the truth. Maybe at times I won’t say something, but I will not lie to them. Because if I tell them the truth, I’m going to demonstrate to them the kind of man I want them to be.
[00:23:28] I’m going to be the father I want to be. And they’re going to trust me because I deserve the trust. And I remember like my, and this is something I’m well, this is probably one of the things I’m proudest of with my children. They trust me. They’re eight and six now. But if I say there’s no chocolate, they don’t ask.
[00:23:46] They don’t like, I remember. I would not believe my mom, right when she said this, we can’t do this. I didn’t believe this. It’s like, she doesn’t want to do it, or we don’t have this. I didn’t believe it. I would go and check myself. But when I tell my sons this doesn’t work or B, but I often tell my sons inconvenient things.
[00:24:04] They say, we want to do this. And I don’t say we don’t have the money or we don’t have this year, or we don’t have the time. I say, no, I don’t want to allow it to you. Yeah, you could have it. We have it, but I don’t want to give it to you. And that’s, you know, no, my mother, she would come up with these like, well, no, you’re not.
[00:24:24] We’re out of chocolate. Well, my kids would be like, well, let’s go to the store and buy some. And my mind would be the claws of the stores are closed now. And I would step in and go stop mom. And she would get a note with children. I’m just seeing this to make their life easier. I’m like, no, you’re saying this to make your life easier.
[00:24:42] Yup. Now turn around and I tell them kids, all stores are open. There’s an abundance of chocolate all around the world. And even in this house, I have chocolate, but you had enough. And I don’t want to give you any more because I love you. And I had to, and I had to coach her when you interact with my children, be honest, don’t lie with them.
[00:25:01] There’s no need. It was interesting. You were. I could sense a recognition. You’ve always like you’ve seen this with your own. Parents or your mom or with the parents of your wife or other adults that tried the light?
[00:25:13]
[00:25:13] Yeah, I remember. Yeah. They tell they could start on, Oh, you know, if you do this, this ghost will come and eat.
[00:25:24] Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, you have to like brush your teeth. because you think these are direct, right? And then, yeah, it’s, it’s complicated because you have to have these debates and discussions. And instead of making it a, too many things, it turns into a, an hour thing sometimes. But yeah, like you say, in the long run, I think it makes life easier.
[00:25:46]Yeah, I re I remember driving one day with Diana, me and the two boys in the back of the car. And I had this debate with that. I was like on the extremist camp, I will only accept hell. I’m only going to tell the truth to my children and everybody else needs to tell the truth to my children.
[00:26:04] Diana was like, I want to be very truthful, but once in a while, if it gets too annoying or whatever you can lie, I don’t see the big problem right at the, my mom was in the old school Greek grandma. She wouldn’t even, she would challenge me that these aren’t lies. This isn’t a lie. We don’t have chocolate kids so that they are not sad that you don’t give them any trouble.
[00:26:26] Let me tell a lie. It’s not true. So must be like, what are you you talking about? It’s not a lie. It’s like this category of all these things, because they’re not like, this is not your father or whatever. Like it doesn’t have this grant. Consequences. So it’s not even a lie. And so we’re in this car, we’re driving.
[00:26:44] And one of my sons is asking he’s like, mom. And he was just kind of grasped the concept of a construction worker, construction workers, building things, right. Who’s building houses, or it’s an architect who makes the designs and, and they they’re construction workers that come and they built the house.
[00:27:03] And so he’s in the car and he’s like, Who wait a second. He’s like construct and we, I think we pass some construction site. It’s like construction workers build houses. Right. And his mom was like, yes, honey. It’s like, so who built the earth? And then Diana Turns around to me, looks at me and goes, well, what do I say now?
[00:27:23] You know, kind of like a, see, this is the type of situation where seeing the truth is difficult, right. Or complicated. Cause I don’t even know. And then she was like, so what do we say now? I said just the truth. Yeah. She’s like, all right, then do it. She was like, all right, challenging me. Right.
[00:27:40] And show me your truth in this situation. And I turned around and I was like, I was exactly that. I was like, honey, We don’t know, we have ideas and we have beliefs. Some people believe God, some people believe this. Some people believe that many people don’t know what to believe, but the honest truth is we don’t know yet.
[00:28:03] We’re just curious. And we have ideas, but we just don’t know. And he’s like, well, if there is a God and he built the earth who build God, And it was like, honey, this question is so powerful that I don’t know how to answer. I don’t know. I’m just as amazed by this question as you, I don’t know either.
[00:28:22] Nobody knows. What do you think he was like, I don’t know. It’s like, I feel the exact same way. I don’t know. Right. It was like, just say the truth. I don’t know. It’s not that difficult. Right? But it was a funny, it was a funny moment because to their mother, it, in that moment, it felt like this is so difficult and I’m conflicted because I don’t believe in God, but I know in school they tell them about God and their little children, or maybe this will scare them who know?
[00:28:53] Right. It’s like this overwhelming question. It’s like, well, you can just be honest with them. Right.
[00:28:57]
[00:28:57]
[00:28:57] Santa Claus, Easter. Bernie does it also at some times she asked me, is it, is it real? I’m like, actually it’s not real. It’s just, you know, parents doing things to, to have their kids, but you’ve seen her like chasing the Easter Easter expert.
[00:29:13] She’s still fucking enjoying it. It’s not like, it’s, you don’t take the joy out of it. You can tell them the truth, but they’re still enjoyed just as much. Yeah.
[00:29:22]
[00:29:22] If you don’t, if you don’t destroy the possibility for them to use their imagination to add, wonder to their life, they will add their imagination everywhere and wonder and magic, right?
[00:29:35] It’s just when you forbid it or when you work towards them stopping that debt. But if you tell them there’s no real issue, but we will pretend, and the Easter bunny will bring chocolates and it’s going to be amazing. That’s just going, gonna, we’re playing a game and game in life to them. It’s on bridging for one thing.
[00:29:52] It doesn’t really matter. You’re right. Yeah. Yeah. So
[00:29:55]that’s my early years as a liar. I think that it’s not a, it’s not a coincidence that I show sales as a tool. That made me successful early on, because I do believe that a lot of great liars make great salespeople because they know how to get people’s attention.
[00:30:17] They know how to win over people’s trust, and they know how to tell stories in a way that will make people follow them and do what they want. It’s a powerful tool. And because they be, some of them become these chameleon beings that adapt so effortlessly to the environment that any room they’re in any group they’re direct with, they know exactly what to say and how to beat to please impress and convince these people to do what they want them to do and to purchase from them.
[00:30:48]So I think that big part of why I was successful in sales early on, I dunno, was I like, I was, it was not lying by telling people like crazy stories that didn’t have or something like that. But I was much more chameleon in like adapting, knowing what people wanted to see and showing it to them. And it took me.
[00:31:10] In sales as well. It took a journey for me to recognize who I truly am and then show that to lead people through my off anticipate versus leading through. But I wonder if like, if a lot of like natural born liars or like artists, because there’s an art to it. And I was really good at that art, if a lot of these people, when they find financial success, they find it because they go into a profession where.
[00:31:38] Your main job is to convince others to do things through communication, right. That would make that make currently that theory makes a lot of sense to me. If I pass through, by if I review all the sales people I’ve met in my life, um, w will kind of make sense. I am. No, I am wondering
[00:31:56]there’s I don’t have a big lesson. Or a template or something practical or pragmatic to give. But I do like usually anything that I recognize about myself or the journey I go on, there’s a need for me to share it with the world to help others. This is an interesting one where I’m like, I don’t have a, particularly like this would be a much better story.
[00:32:16] If there was one moment that turned me around from Leo to truth-teller. Right. It was, it would be a more compelling story. If something catastrophic happened had to pay a big place that made me learn the lesson. There’s not that much detail in color in this journey, but I don’t know. I still feel like it might be useful to people even just to hear somebody like me, describe himself as a liar.
[00:32:42] And as somebody that went through this journey, maybe even bad, just gives people some relief or maybe helps them recognize something and gets them on a path.
[00:32:51]and maybe as I think more about this later on in life, I’ll develop more, more insights or more thoughts that are, that I’ll be able to share with the world. But I had something in me, some something recently happened where I saw somebody not being honest with themselves and somebody sort of, kind of using lies.
[00:33:10] To win things over. And that made me recognize my journey as a liar. And then I remembered, wow, this was such an important part of my personal development, my character development. And it’s one that I’ve never shared with anybody. And I think that’s, that was my intention for today’s episode for today’s recording is just to share that jury jury says out there for everybody to see.
[00:33:33]you also mentioned this, feeling the need to embellish your story so that they would capture the attention and get you that admiration that you crashed. And then at some point realizing, Hey, actually, this is not necessarily, it’s like in the actual truth itself, how I’ve experienced it.
[00:33:48] Right. And how I recall it. There’s things that, and I’m curious about this because like you haven’t, I don’t think you’ve actually in this conversation explicitly said it, but now you are able to, tell stories and events truthfully, and very captivating. And you don’t need the tool of lies anymore or even embellishment anymore to, captivate or move an audience.
[00:34:09]No, but I have now lived and I’m now living in a much more interesting, exciting eventful life. Right. So I went from dreaming about who I wanted to be and pretending I’m part of that already and telling that to the world. To being the way I want to be living the life I’m living that generates so many stories that I write, you just can share them.
[00:34:39] Like I live in interesting life, so I can be interesting in the way I communicate with people, but it’s not, I want to be interesting. So I tell interesting stuff, stories. Yeah. And it’s not even an all in all areas, you know, there’s the, this is a journey of like self-acceptance and self-love like, it’s. If I don’t face my own truth, that I cannot tell my truth to others.
[00:35:00] And if I cannot accept or face the truth, that in some areas of my life, I am, you know, I think in a recent recording we were talking about this year was the year where I discovered that I w I had been out of touch with my emotions. I didn’t make hard, was completely closed down. And that I, I haven’t felt my feelings in decades.
[00:35:25] I’ve just thought them. Right. Cool. The next thing that I shared, I think in the recording was the realization that my mind seemed very mature, but emotionally I was still a child I hadn’t developed. Now. I’m able to share that today because I’m able to accept that and forgive myself for that. Be okay with that.
[00:35:44]But for most of my life, I wasn’t, I was so mature and appeared so wise to the outside world, that the areas of myself that were childish and insecure, I was hiding. And you know what I mean? Like those are still areas that wasn’t willing to share with everybody. I w wanted them hidden because I was not willing and courageous to face them myself.
[00:36:07]And. But I think the how to tell interesting stories, I think the talent was always there for me. Obviously I’ve practiced now more because I’ve done so much content, so much storytelling, but the source of capture CA being captive the way I tell stories, doesn’t have to be embellishment anymore because I have worked hard enough.
[00:36:30]To be the type of person and to live the type of life that generates interesting stories. And so I can just share what is happening in my life and what I’m learning and what I’m experiencing, and just share my truth with people and know that it’s going to be great for them. Now, if I lived a life that I felt was, you know, boring and empty and meaningless.
[00:36:52]I couldn’t share compelling stories and then I would either have to lie or I would have to jump off a cliff and just like ended. But yeah, I think that that’s the shift that happened
[00:37:05]actually wonder it was like the whole social media is feeding into that because you have this. Kind of your own stage that is there, right? Yeah. And it’s about spending like, so maybe I’m just looking through the grumpy old man lands where every generation looks at the next series and it’s like, Oh, the world’s good digits.
[00:37:24]But I do think there’s a little bit of actually where it just feeds into that where it’s like, wow, look at what my circle of friends, the awesome things they have. Right. And then like, okay, There’s some, some kind of urge to keep up and top that right. To remain part of this, Yeah. I actually, I don’t think that’s the old grumpy grandpa. I think that’s true now. What will the consequence been long-term now, if you look at this as very negative, all generations from now on are going to be fucked. I think that’s old. Grandpa sent him. Are we going through a negative face? I am a hundred percent certain we are is social media more negative force in people’s life, all positive one, I think now more negative.
[00:38:03] And I think this is the 50 minutes of famous. That has been such a prophetic statement, right? Because on social media, everybody, no matter who they are, has a stage and they have the tools to pretend. To be more beautiful and more interesting than they truly are. So you give somebody a stage and an easy tool to make themselves look more interesting, more successful, more, pretty, more happy than they are, and they’re going to use it.
[00:38:32]And now what you’ve given everybody is a cage because now that image and identity of themselves is out there. And so what do you do now? You only want to live up to that and everything that doesn’t live up to that you want to hide from the world and you’re learning to hide it. Pictures that don’t look that good.
[00:38:49] Nobody cares pictures where you follow the path of this will be attractive to your audience. Get strong reactions. So you get rewarded to be interesting and pretty, and you get punished, punished by no engagement. Punished funnel likes punished by no retweets punished by no whatever comments interests your tribe.
[00:39:11] All right. So you kind of sinking a little bit in the, in the social ladder or hierarchy. Yeah. So what do you do? You do less and less things that are not interesting or will not be rewarded, you attempt to do more and more things that are rewarding. And now all of a sudden you push this so far that there’s a version of yours.
[00:39:30] There is absolutely nothing like the truth. And so now what do you do with that? Right, but that is the version. People love. That is the version people respond to that is the person people accept. What does that mean about you? that is fucked up. That is very, very tough. And it’s creating a golden cage that people willingly enter and lock themselves in.
[00:39:48] And then they start when they’re in pain. But they are so rich because the case they have is out of pure gold, you know? And so I definitely think that, that this is amplified through social media today. Now, where will this lead? Who the fuck knows pretty sure it’s something beautiful is always born out of something painful.
[00:40:05] But I think that we’re in the phase of of generating more pain and more suffering than ever before on the psychological level, through these stages that we’ve built, follow us.