Have you ever accused another person of something?

If so, did you already know they were guilty—or were you still in the “investigation” stage of the matter?

Most importantly, did you notice their reaction… to the accusation?

Whether the subject is infidelity, money missing (more…)

Believing the words of other people is natural.  In fact, it’s necessary. 

Even a guy like me tends to believe people initially… yep, I subscribe to The Truth Bias just like you do. 

But there’s believing, and then there’s trusting. 

We tend to believe everyone (it’s shallow enough, though, we can toss it aside immediately when there’s cause for doubt).

And we tend to trust the people closest to us (and it’s deep enough with family and friends that we can maintain it to our detriment).

With trust comes risk, right?  Put your trust, your faith, in another person and you’re vulnerable.  Don’t infer that I’m suggesting trust is a bad idea.  It’s not.  It’s necessary.  But it does leave you vulnerable.  And so herein lies the trick to it all, the safety valve:  Knowing when to (more…)

Every time you hear another person speak, you decide whether to believe them—or not.

For virtually everyone, this “decision” is made passively, by default:  They believe.

This automatic tendency toward belief isn’t due to naivet’e, ignorance, or having not read my book, but just a phenomenon called ”The Truth Bias“, which simply means that we all naturally tend to believe what others tell us. 

This default faith in what others say remains perfectly intact until we have reason for doubt.  Sometimes that doubt comes almost instantly… sometimes never.  People do tell the truth sometimes, you know.  

When I read this week about (more…)

Many years ago I knocked a Gypsy fortune teller on the head and swiped her crystal ball.     

I never had any faith in the thing working, but still I’d dust it off occasionally over the years and crank it up for guests, or when things were slow around the house.  You know, just for fun. 

So you can credit coincidence, intuition, or a crystal ball that’s right once in a blue moon, but 2 of my recent posts contained a couple of foreshadowings that were manifested through the Casey Anthony verdict yesterday:

Foreshadowing Number 1# - In the Oprah/OJ post I mentioned that “we often consider the lie more egregious than the act they lied about”. 

Is it interesting to you that the jury (more…)

Were you surprised when Oprah said last week that she wanted to interview OJ Simpson—with the condition that he confess to the murders of his ex-wife Nicole and friend Ron Goldman?

Would you be surprised if he submitted to her demand?

I guess my surprise was that Oprah thinks he’s guilty.

You can see a clip of Oprah talking about her idea here.  In it she says, “I wanted to talk to him, not because, you know, not to be a voyeur for that evening, but just because (more…)

Wouldn’t you know it:  The one time I don’t take a position on an act of public deception, the guy comes out 2 days later and admits to lying.

“Confessing to the lie”:  This NEVER happens, especially with public figures, so the fact that Anthony Weiner (D-NY) did it makes this a very interesting case study. 

And while the rest of country talks about the obvious points of this scandal, I’d like you to consider a question that’s escaping everyone:   (more…)

(NOTE:  I’ve gotten great positive feedback from readers on the  videos, so here’s your chance to give an analysis of your own…)

Why should you care whether Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) Tweeted a lewd picture of himself to a college girl?

Maybe you shouldn’t care.

But here’s the deal:  I don’t care myself about the act itself, but this, like a lot of other public figure ’scandals’, gives you and me a great opportunity to examine the words of a person who: 

1-Stands accused, and

2-Is not claiming responsibility for the event

Be careful… Don’t infer that my saying he’s “not claiming responsibility for the event” means he should.  Maybe he didn’t do this. 

I’m leaving open the question of (more…)

We’re trying to raise Tav (4 now) with a sense of the classics; no Dinosaur Train or Dora, he watches the old stuff, when cartoon characters smoked cigars and carried shotguns.

Same with movies… he’s served only the best.  So the other night he and I watched Batman (the real one, with Adam West) and he went nuts over the exploding shark segment, doubtless the most talked-about scene from this ‘classic’.   

But what caught my attention was the piece that followed just after, wherein Batman, Robin, Commissioner Gordon, and Chief O’Hara give us a lesson on (more…)

When I read about the Nir Rosen Twitter flap two weeks ago I dang near did a post on it. 

But who’s Nir Rosen and why should we care that he’d Tweeted about the assault of Lara Logan in Cairo? 

We shouldn’t care… but the media did.  Rosen posted some Twitter remarks to his 3000 followers that were so reprehensible to the media that they reported on it for days and expanded his comments from his 3000 followers to untold millions. 

The only part of the Rosen story that interested me was this:  He became the latest public figure to (more…)

People always expose more of themselves than they realize. 

No, not like your plumber’s coin slot… I’m talking about something much more personal than skin:  Their thoughts.

Consider this:  Your thoughts are the only ‘thing’ you have that: 

1-Can’t be taken away from you

2-Can’t be changed without your consent

3-Can’t be seen or known by another person  

The only caveat to all of this?  It centers on point three.   Since spoken words always begin with thought, every time we speak, we take the risk of (more…)