Pod Insights Jocko Podcast Jocko Underground: Top 10 Signs That Someone is Lying. Improving Attitudes. Working With Personal Friends About this episode Top 10 signs someone is lying.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Jocko Willink? This is the Jocko Underground Podcast number 33. Echo Charles is here.
0:05 Speaker 01 Yes.
0:06 Jocko Willink? And me, Jocko Willink. So, there's a phrase that I use from time to time, and that is intent has a smell. What that means is, when you're doing something, and you're thinking that you're gonna slide by other people, and you're gonna make a maneuver that they're not gonna see, and you think you're gonna get away with it, well, the intent that you have in your heart has a smell, and people can smell it. Now, look, smells can vary in their, in their strength, right? There's some smells you can barely smell. There's some smells that smell really bad.
0:46 Jocko Willink? But it's very good to recognize that your intent does have a smell. And if you think you can just go around stinking,
0:55 Jocko Willink? you're wrong, and you need to put that in check. So, I started thinking about that. And it started bringing me back. I was thinking, well, how, how is that? How does our intent have a smell? Like, because clearly it doesn't have a scent that hits our olfactory nerves and processes into our brain that way, right? But you know what I mean. Everybody knows what, as soon as I say that, people are like, oh, yeah. Because we can all sense it. So, I was thinking back to some earlier Underground podcasts that we did, talking about body language, and how you read some of that stuff, what people are lying. And, and, and so I wanted to start with that, but there was something else that I wanted to tie into the conversation.
1:39 Jocko Willink? So, a couple things. This is from a website called forensiccolleges.com. Top 10 signs that someone's lying. Change, number one, change in speech patterns.
1:53 Jocko Willink? So, this is the way someone's talking all of a sudden changes. Cue, right? Oh, so, that's your intent seeping out. Number two, use of non-congruent gestures. Similar. Similar, because now, we were, you know, using our hands in a certain way. Now, all of a sudden, we start doing something different. Wait a second. There's something going on here. And, and here's what's interesting. You don't really, I think if, if no one, if you didn't know any of these.
2:30 Jocko Willink? People are still picking up on it.
2:31 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:32 Jocko Willink? This is in the subconscious, you can feel it. You ever walk away from a conversation and you feel a little bit, you think you just, you're suspect? Or as my kids call it, sus.
2:42 Speaker 01 Little bit sus.
2:42 Jocko Willink? Little bit sus. Why is that? Cause you picked up on these signals, you didn't even know what they are, but you picked up on them. Uh, not saying enough.
2:51 Jocko Willink? There's a, there's a thing here, when truth telling witnesses describe what they saw and are, and are asked, is there anything else? More details are revealed. But when liars are asked to go beyond their prepared stories, few to no other details are offered.
3:10 Jocko Willink? That's why you get the reservoir dogs. That story, you seen reservoir dogs?
3:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, what story?
3:18 Jocko Willink? The whole story about the, the dogs and the LAPD and he's got a bag full of marijuana and he's got all these details that he works into the story and it makes the story believable.
3:31 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
3:32 Jocko Willink? And he has to tell that story over and over again until it becomes part of him. But most people aren't going to go through that kind of detail.
3:38 Speaker 01 Hmm.
3:39 Jocko Willink? So you ask him one extra question. Ever tell you about the time the tax, uh, fraud people called me? So this was interesting, I was getting audited
3:49 Speaker 01 Hmm.
3:50 Jocko Willink? for real by the IRS.
3:51 Speaker 01 Sure.
3:52 Jocko Willink? And as I'm getting audited for real by the IRS, I'm at an event. And I, there's a break in the event and I get a text and luckily the break came right around lunch. So I get a text from my wife, she says, you know, it's like, the IRS is going to call you, you have to like answer, there's something going on. And I go, okay, so the phone rings and sure enough, it's the IRS, right? And they start, it was early on, did you hear about these scams where people like, hey, listen, your whole, we're gonna have to freeze your bank account, we're gonna have to stop your credit. Uh, we actually have contacted law enforcement, so they give you this whole freaking.
4:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, that happens a few times, or they tried it.
4:33 Jocko Willink? Well, what's funny is my son, and this was probably five years ago. So my son was probably like 13 at the time. And my wife is talking, she has him on, she has this quote IRS agent on the speakerphone and my son's going, it's a scam, it's a scam, but still it freaked out my wife. Maybe my son didn't know that we were actually for real getting audited.
4:54 Speaker 01 Right.
4:55 Jocko Willink? And even that for me, it made me go, wait a second, I know I'm for real getting audited right now by the IRS. And now they're calling me. So, but as soon as he kind of laid into, he's like, hey, this is so and so. And I could, he had a foreign accent, you know, he's just a little bit of a slight foreign accent, but here's what's funny. I said, after he gave his spiel about how they're gonna flag all my accounts and freeze this and all this stuff. I go, where are you calling me from right now? And he goes, Virginia. And I go, where in Virginia? What city? I lived in Virginia. And there was a long hesitation and then he said, whatever, some town. And I go, what's the weather there like today? And then he just was wide open.
5:39 Jocko Willink? And, and, but that was it. So, he didn't go deep enough on his lie. He didn't cover his story well enough. So, that's why asking some questions when you think somebody's a little bit sus. Um, here's the, here's the flip side of that. Number four, saying too much. Researchers from the Harvard Business School, Harvard Business School, determined that liars trying to deceive, stretch the truth with too many words. Since such a liar may make things up as they go. They tend to add excessive detail to convince themselves of what others are saying. Very interesting, right? God, that's the person that has all these details. Again, reservoir dogs. Well, you remember that, like you remember that little detail? Why are you throwing that in there? Oh, okay. So we got a little dichotomy going on here.
6:24 Jocko Willink? Too much detail, not enough detail.
6:28 Jocko Willink? Unusual rise or fall in vocal tone.
6:36 Jocko Willink? That's again, I think anytime somebody's mannerisms or voice changes. There's something suspect going on. Direction of their eyes. Much of, much has been discussed on the topic of truthfulness and eye contact. A commonly held cultural belief in the United States is if a person isn't making eye contact, they aren't telling the truth. Whereas in other cultures, eye contact can be considered untrustworthy in a given context.
7:02 Jocko Willink? Um, what does it say? A research study conducted in 2015 by the University of Michigan and featured in Time Magazine showed that 70% of people in 120 media clips lied while maintaining direct eye contact. Yeah, I think you get some people that they
7:18 Jocko Willink? if they're looking you right in the eyes and be like, I did not have sex with that woman, right? That was the classic Bill Clinton. Just straight up, you know, full on bold statement. Um, I think people get that. Again, there's a dichotomy where they're looking you right in the eye and they're telling you and you're like, hmm, a little too, this is a little too rehearsed for me. You're trying a little too hard, freaking trying a little too hard with this stuff. But the other thing you notice with with kids, you know, you got the kids and you ask them a question about something. There's if they're lying, they're gonna look away. They'll like look away and and you know what's interesting for me?
7:59 Jocko Willink? If I'm talking to you and we're, I'm trying to explain something to you, I noticed that I look, I will, I will not look at your eyes to when I'm thinking about where I'm going or how I'm gonna pull this together or whatever. So sometimes when I'm thinking about something, I I kind of look away and then I look back, you know, I'll look away to think. I don't know why I do that. Do you do that?
8:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:20 Jocko Willink? Is that normal?
8:21 Speaker 01 I, I feel like that's normal.
8:23 Jocko Willink? But then there's a thing where I'm looking away because I'm making up a new part of the lie. Right? Like if I was trying to explain to you, hey, from a leadership perspective,
8:33 Jocko Willink? here's what you, you see what I just did? Like that's for real. I'll do that. I'm talking to you and you asked me a question about leadership and I go, listen, here's the thing, when you get in that situation, I'm, I'm looking away because I'm kind of putting my thoughts together. Now, if you were like, hey, did you take my credit card? And I'm like, you know, I look away like, how could I have taken your credit card? I haven't been even seen your wallet since we were at the gym training yesterday and I was in the locker room and you weren't, you know what I mean? So, yeah. Uh, next one, covering up, covering their mouth or eyes. Many people want to cover up a lie or hide from their reaction to it, which is why they may put their hands over their eyes or mouths when letting out an untruth. Okay. I don't know. I I had a professor in college that
9:19 Jocko Willink? she covered her mouth when she talked every single time she talked with her hand.
9:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, I do that sometimes.
9:24 Jocko Willink? So that was, I don't know, I think she was telling me the truth a lot, even though she was doing that.
9:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, wait, what's your hot? What do you mean cover up? Cause like, I'll do this. I'll do this good stuff. I won't go like this.
9:34 Jocko Willink? Well, no, but I think what you just did is it.
9:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:36 Jocko Willink? Little hand up in front of whatever.
9:38 Speaker 01 Isn't that like a lack of confidence?
9:40 Jocko Willink? Yeah, that's what I think this professor had that I had in college.
9:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:43 Jocko Willink? She lacked confidence.
9:45 Speaker 01 So one can kind of be like.
9:46 Jocko Willink? She was not from America, so her English wasn't great.
9:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:49 Jocko Willink? And then I just think she was kind of embarrassed. And so, yeah, she would just cover her mouth when she talked, which is bizarre. I mean, you know, you have to do it a lot to get me to notice that right now. And it's been, I don't know, many years, twenty something years since I went to college.
10:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:06 Jocko Willink? So.
10:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:07 Jocko Willink? Um, excessive fidgeting. Think about what a kid does when asked where the last cookie went. They may lick their lips, look at their nails, or even shake hands and then tell a big whopper of a lie.
10:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:20 Jocko Willink? Um, finger pointing.
10:25 Jocko Willink? The act of pointing at lit- this is literal or figurative, the point of the act of pointing towards something or someone else with gestures or words may signal a surefire desire to take the focus off an individual.
10:40 Jocko Willink? Cool. Uh, lie detector tests.
10:45 Jocko Willink? I've had two friends do lie detector tests that debriefed me on it.
10:48 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:49 Jocko Willink? And one of them was a super kind of honest guy.
10:57 Jocko Willink? And he got got crushed by the lie detector test. It just, as soon as it's, as soon as they, cause they make you lie to it so you can see what it does.
11:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:07 Jocko Willink? And as soon as they even started to get to the thing that he was supposed to lie about, it went off the rails.
11:11 Speaker 01 Huh. What so what it said he was lying when he wasn't.
11:16 Jocko Willink? They say they say, hey, okay, Echo, think of a number between one and five. You got it in your head. Okay, now, when I ask you if that's the number, say no. And I go, what were you thinking of one? And you go, no. Were you thinking of two? And you say, no. Do we thinking of three? And if you were thinking of three, all of a sudden, that thing starts going off the rails. So that's how they set you up. Where you realize like, damn, this thing is good to go.
11:43 Speaker 01 But can she isn't there all kinds of ways.
11:45 Jocko Willink? That's why, yeah, there are ways to be there. And so I had another friend. And again, this is weird because he was a not as honest of a person and kind of sometimes lied a lot about like little things, you know, people that like just kind of habitually lie about stuff.
11:57 Speaker 01 Psychos.
11:58 Jocko Willink? Yeah, well, he wasn't a psycho. He's a good guy. Just like had that weird personality trait. And he well, this is what's interesting. He had to take a lie detector test, too. And he got back and I said, well, how was that lie lie detector test? He goes, I flatlined it. Meaning he just didn't get picked up.
12:18 Jocko Willink? Which could have been a lie because he was kind of a liar. And that sounds really cool, right? It doesn't sound cool like, yeah, that's super cool. Yo, damn, dude, you're freaking awesome. Or he could have been telling the truth, but he just lies all the time. So it's just no factor for him just to be like, no, I didn't never did that. So and both these guys were going for, you know, jobs in government agencies that require you to take it. So this is a weird one. Self identifying as a good liar. Perhaps the easiest way to spot a liar is to let them do it for you. The study showed that good liars mostly told little lies to colleagues and friends in person focused. That's kind. That's kind of what was going on with my friend that was a bit of a liar. You just like tell these little lies like but all the time.
13:04 Jocko Willink? And and it's sort of at the group. It's almost like that idiosyncrasy that everyone is just kind of gets it and just move on with it, you know? Like, oh, you know, that guy in jujitsu that um. Uh, let's say taps too easy, right? And so you're like, that's just, but you know, he's all our friends. We're just gonna deal with it, whatever. No, no big deal. This guy would just like tell little, like basically innocent white lies, but all the time.
13:28 Speaker 01 And what like what though? Like, you know how like someone, someone lies? Let's say a normal person's gonna lie. You can see the clear benefit of their lie, like to keep them out of trouble. Or to, you know, whatever, maybe get them some kind of reword or whatever. But like these kind, in my experience, I know a few people like this where he, like, he didn't even have to lie about that. Like, it didn't make that much sense.
13:51 Jocko Willink? That's definitely is true. Yeah. Where you, where, you know, if I tell you, hey dude, I was out till freaking one o'clock in the morning last night. And I still got up at four. Aren't I badass, right? And you're like, yeah, you're badass. But one o'clock wasn't good enough. So I'm like, dude, I was out till 3am. You know what I mean?
14:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
14:10 Jocko Willink? Like, why am I doing that?
14:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
14:12 Jocko Willink? You know, this makes no sense.
14:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's weird.
14:14 Jocko Willink? Right? But sometimes people, they just wanna add a little bit of, add a little kicker on it.
14:19 Speaker 01 Right.
14:19 Jocko Willink? The other thing, and I've told you this, I've told, talked to you about storytelling, right? Where I want you to feel what I felt. And so when the mortar landed and it was 50 meters away from me and it scared the living shit out of me. And I was like freaking hit the ground and I was shaken up. Well, when I tell you that story, I want you to feel that.
14:43 Speaker 01 Yes.
14:43 Jocko Willink? So then I'm like, dude, this la, this freaking mortar landed right next to me.
14:48 Speaker 01 Right.
14:49 Jocko Willink? Well, how far? Like, like five meters away. You know what I'm saying? So I'm exaggerating.
14:54 Speaker 01 But that's different though. I, I feel like that's like not in the realm of like, psych, sociopath or whatever. Like, that's not a weird pathology in my opinion. Like, people exaggerate.
15:04 Jocko Willink? Wait, so far, no one that I've talked about is in the realm of sociopath. Like, I know who you're talking about then. People that are just freaking like, they're out there and they're just, just lying, just don't care about anything, about themselves at all.
15:15 Speaker 01 Oh, they're like that. Yeah.
15:16 Jocko Willink? Yeah. I've known people like that over the years.
15:19 Speaker 01 It's weird, man.
15:20 Jocko Willink? Yeah, it's weird.
15:21 Speaker 01 Well, the one, the guy that I knew said stuff like elaborate stuff that is not only was really easy to go disprove, but it had to do with like other people. Like he said, he was like hooking up with this girl who was literally our friend. It's not like he was like some girl in Canada or something. It was like our friend, like I could literally just call her right now, you know? And he'd say, have this whole elaborate, it was weird, man. And then when you find out, you're like, you're almost scared to confront him about it. Cause you're like, bro, what is this guy capable of, you know? But it is odd.
15:54 Jocko Willink? That reminds me of Theo Von was like, he said he's had like a fear of being murdered.
16:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
16:01 Jocko Willink? That's what you have. This dude, well, how, how, so I know what else he's gonna do.
16:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, man.
16:05 Jocko Willink? Lying about hooking up with this chick, he might put an ice pick in my neck.
16:11 Jocko Willink? Okay, so there's some of the things, but this is actually what I, this is what kinda got me back wanting to talk about this, just because I think this is very interesting. This is, this is the idea of smelling intent, but from a very narrow focus. And the narrow focus. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground Podcast. So if you want to continue to listen, go to JacoUnderground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this, we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subjected to their control.
16:51 Jocko Willink? And we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko Podcast, which will remain as is, free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we, but we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us.
17:16 Jocko Willink? And to do that, we are, we're building a website right now where we'll be able to utilize to strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So thank you, it's JacoUnderground.com. It costs eight dollars and 18 cents a month. And if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email [email protected] and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.
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