Some people just want to be seen as better than they see themselves. The secret truth is everyone has moments of weakness, times when fear and/or greed melt our brains and we’re tempted to say the lies we wish were true. And for that reason the deepest honesty is found in people willing to admit to their lies, or their barely resisted temptations, and own the consequences.
You know them and I do too, those whose jargon hide huge quantities of BS. Their story becomes so unreasonably inflated. Inflated language is a technique of intimidation and bullying. The bet is that if the story is big enough, you will not have enough to call them on it. This is, of course, entirely BS. To withstand BS you have to have an inner core of self-reliance, holding on to your doubts longer than the BS’er holds onto their charade.
A good tool of BS detection is careful assignment of your trust. Never agree to more than your trust allows. Who cares how confident they are: the question is how confident are you in them? It’s rare that there isn’t time for trust to be earned. It’s not offensive to refuse to take someone’s word if they have no history of living up to it before.
And trust can be delegated. I don’t need to trust you, if you’ve earned the trust of people I trust. Nothing defuses BS faster than a collective of people that help each other detect BS. Great teams help each other call someone on their BS. I have a big big weakness in this area as I expect people to always be truthful. I will give people the benefit of the doubt. But eventually the truth comes out. I feel so let down, disappointed, betrayed and double-crossed when I find out everything they were telling me was just BS. It is people like this that make me appreciate the genuine people even more.
