People who are lying are, understandably, more worried about being believed, so they work harder - too hard, as it were - at being believable.
Interpretation
Lying requires more effort to maintain than honesty, as liars must work hard to convince others of their falsehoods.
This quote by Christopher Voss highlights the paradox of deception: those who lie often invest considerable energy in trying to appear credible, which can lead to an overemphasis on believability. It suggests that the act of lying is not just about the falsehood itself, but also about the anxiety and labor involved in convincing others, revealing the complexities of human communication and trust.
In practice
During a negotiation, one might refer to this quote to explain why it's essential to assess trustworthiness.
When you expect to get into a negotiation, you expect to be faced by a guy that's going to attack you, a guy or gal that's going to attack or that they're going to try to get the best of you. Two-thirds of us, that makes us very defensive.
Price doesn't make deals, and salary doesn't control your career.
There are three kinds of yeses. There's commitment, confirmation, and counterfeit. People are most used to giving the counterfeit yes because they've been trapped by the confirmation yes so many times. So the way you master no is understanding what really happens when somebody says 'no.' When yes is commitment, no is protection.
The sweetest two words in any negotiation are actually, 'That's right.' Before you convince them to see what you're trying to accomplish, you have to say the things to them that will get them to say, 'That's right.'
The secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is to give the other side the illusion of control. Don't try to force your opponent to admit that you are right. Ask questions, that begin with 'How?' or 'What?' so your opponent uses mental energy to figure out the answer.
Very few negotiations are begun and concluded in the same sitting. It's really rare. In fact, If you sit down and actually complete your negotiation in one sitting, you left stuff on the table.
I think it's too easy to recount your unhappy memories when you write about yourself. You bask in your own innocence. You revere your grief. You arrange your angers at their most becoming angles.
If God is the Creator of all things and evil is a thing, then God is the Creator of evil and He is to be blamed for its existence. No, evil is not a thing but a wrong choice, or the damage done by a wrong choice. Evil is no more a positive thing than blindness is, but it is just as real.
When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore.
I think the whole policy of pre-emptive war is a serious, serious mistake.
The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.
Nobody ever completely means what they say. Even when they think they're telling the truth, there's always something hidden behind their words.
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