Okay, now I don't want to alarm anybody in this room,

but it's just come to my attention that the person to your right is a liar.

(Laughter)

Also, the person to your left is a liar.

Also the person sitting in your very seats is a liar.

We're all liars.

What I'm going to do today

is I'm going to show you what the research says about why we're all liars,

how you can become a liespotter

and why you might want to go the extra mile

and go from liespotting to truth seeking,

and ultimately to trust building.

Now, speaking of trust,

ever since I wrote this book, "Liespotting,"

no one wants to meet me in person anymore, no, no, no, no, no.

They say, "It's okay, we'll email you."

(Laughter)

I can't even get a coffee date at Starbucks.

My husband's like, "Honey, deception?

Maybe you could have focused on cooking. How about French cooking?"

So before I get started, what I'm going to do

is I'm going to clarify my goal for you,

which is not to teach a game of Gotcha.

Liespotters aren't those nitpicky kids,

those kids in the back of the room that are shouting, "Gotcha! Gotcha!

Your eyebrow twitched. You flared your nostril.

I watch that TV show 'Lie To Me.' I know you're lying."

No, liespotters are armed

with scientific knowledge of how to spot deception.

They use it to get to the truth,

and they do what mature leaders do everyday;

they have difficult conversations with difficult people,

sometimes during very difficult times.

And they start up that path by accepting a core proposition,

and that proposition is the following:

Lying is a cooperative act.

Think about it, a lie has no power whatsoever by its mere utterance.

Its power emerges

when someone else agrees to believe the lie.