Hi, everybody. I’m Mike Staver. This is Mondays with Mike, a weekly video series where I answer questions from people just like you. Here’s this week’s question.
“Why do people lie, when there is no reason to lie?”
Lot of philosophical questions these days, which I think is a sign of our times. People are asking a lot of these kinds of questions. Why do people lie when there’s no reason to lie? I wish I knew.
This is going to be one of those, I don’t know. If you do know, if you guys have an opinion, send it to me at info@mikestaver.com. I’m not sure why people lie when there’s no reason to lie, but they do. Holy smokes. I have known people who will lie when I know it’s a lie, and they know it’s a lie, and we both know it’s a lie, and it would have been easier and would have been less consequential had they not lied. You know a person like that? You know people like that? It’s crazy.
What I want you to think about is this, is it worth confronting a chronic liar, and why would a chronic liar be in your life? There are times, I know a person, I know them pretty well, who lies a lot. Lies. Lies. I know they lie. They’re a colleague of mine, they work in our profession. The fact of the matter is I just ignore it, I always verify it. Then if I know that they’re lying about something that is a manipulative lie, which is trying to get me to do something, then what I will do is ask a question.
Here’s how you deal with those people. You deal with them by asking them a question. That’s weird because the other day, I was talking to Frank or Susie or Jane or John, whoever, and they told me something very different. I will tell you and the person that I’m thinking about right now, they’ll generally change their story. Oh, well maybe that’s it, maybe I misunderstood.
Lying can become habitual, it can become a habit. First, ask yourself if this person’s in your life and it’s chronic, don’t call them names, don’t call them a liar but you probably do want to sometimes say, “You know what? It seems like sometimes I get information from you and it turns out not to be the case.” What I always do is go, “Ha, that’s interesting” because the other day, here’s what I heard.
Most of the time I ignore it unless it’s consequential to a circumstance or another person.
Hope that was helpful.
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