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- [00:00]
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- [01:00]
Jason Blair
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Julian Morgans
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Jason Blair
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- [01:14]
Verizon Advertiser
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- [01:48]
Jason Blair
Subaru. We had this meeting with a bunch of the editors up in this conference room on a floor no one ever goes to. And we were going over the stories and they were asking for receipts and other stuff like that. This first time in my life I had like suicidal thoughts. And they went from, like, suicidal thoughts to like a suicidal plan to like, can I hang myself in the bathroom if I go. You know, like, if you're having suicidal thoughts, is it really worth it, like, to continue this? Yeah, seriously. So, you know, said I wanted to resign, said I wanted to tell them everything. Left that day. And it got crazy because the New York Times did not run to go cover the story or to go figure out what was wrong with my stories. The managing editor at the time dumped the newsroom of a bunch of reporters who knew me and knew anything about me to find me wherever I was in the city. And eventually one of them found me. And I ended up ultimately getting admitted to a psychiatric hospital, got diagnosed with bipolar, which changed my life.
- [03:04]
Julian Morgans
Hey, I'm Julian Morgans, and you're listening to what It Was like, the show that asks people who have lived through big dramatic events what it was like.
- [03:19]
Jason Blair
Foreign.
- [03:24]
Julian Morgans
Welcome back. So I want to tell you about this dream I keep having. In the dream, people are calling me out on a podcast episode that I've just totally made up. Like, I've made up the story, I've done all the voices, and I've published it as though it all happened. And people are like, hey, Julian, you made this up. And in the dream, I'm kind of defending myself. I'm like, no, no, no, It's a big mistake. I didn't make that up. That's not my voice. All the while knowing that they're completely right. And it's a really stressful dream. I always wake up with this feeling of, like, oh, God, I've got to deal with that. And then I realize, oh, it was a. It was a dream. And I think it speaks to this fear that I have probably quite a rational fear of getting it wrong. There's probably a bit of imposter syndrome stuff in there as well, but, you know, this stuff happens. Journalists do get caught out getting the facts wrong. And in some cases, some journalists do get caught out just completely fabricating stories. So with that in mind, I was like, I want to do an episode about lying. Like, big career ending liars. And if you look through a few lists of journalists who have been caught out making up stories, there's one name that stands out. Jason Blair. So in the early 2000s, he was a rising star. He'd edited his college paper. He'd landed all his jobs at major American publications, until eventually he scored a job at the New York Times. And then in 2003, it all fell apart, because it turned out he'd been inventing details. He'd been lifting material from other reporters. He'd even been claiming to have visited places and reported from locations that he'd never even been to. And the fallout was massive. He was very publicly hung out to dry. Two of his editors were actually fired, and the New York Times published this big front page story detailing Jason's transgressions in excruciating detail. And now it's over 20 years later, and Jason's had a long time to think about what he did and why he did it. So I'm going to talk to him and I'm going to ask him why and how did it all feel when it came crashing down? And just quickly, before we get into it for subscribers this week, I'm looking at a new story that you might have heard about. It's this cluster of around 10 high profile scientists who have gone missing or turned up dead across the US And I'm speaking to a private investigator who's working on one of the cases and he's got a very interesting take on what's really going on. So that's our subscriber episode this week. But back to our main episode, all About Lying, here is Jason Blair. Hey, Jason, welcome to the show.
- [06:11]
Jason Blair
Thanks, Julian. I appreciate you having me on. I think for me, the opportunity to being able to share some of the worst moments in your life really helps people, I think, be more vulnerable in their lives. So, you know, anytime I get a, a good, legitimate offer to talk about it, I'm always excited.
- [06:32]
Julian Morgans
Well, that is, that is unique. Most people, when given an opportunity to talk about bad moments in their life, will very promptly swerve around it. So good on you for embracing this. Let's start with a big question. What is it about you that led you into this situation?
- [06:49]
Jason Blair
I mean, I think there are a lot of factors. If you look at what got me in journalism, it's pretty simple. I got into journalism because I really thought it would be a great way to help people and have a positive impact. Some of the qualities that probably made me good early on, if you look at the arc of my story and really thinking about it, probably created some of the challenges, or I don't want to say created, but were a part of that perfect storm. I'm very ambitious, I'm very driven. But that drive can also be blinding. Right. I think there are a couple other things that probably played roles. I'm a risk taker. I think I'm very, very creative. And I think that helped me in my field, helped me, like, see around corners. But if you think of something like you're a risk taker or you're creative, which can be very adaptive things, well, all of a sudden when you're trying to hide a secret, those can be very dangerous things. So I think it's a combination of like the mental health stuff, the. And being young, where I was played a role. But none of it happens without my own personality. And, you know, I was the world's biggest critic of the journalism scoundrels and liars that came before me. Patricia Smith, Stephen Glass Pick. I knew all their stories and I complained about all of them. I was critical of them. But I think my naivety was, I thought, really tough ethical choices. Came with a big question, right? Like, are you going to rob the bank or not? Are you going to commit this murder? Are you going to lie and fabricate? But that's not the way it happens. You know, it comes in little baby steps. It's never. All of a sudden you're presented with this line, you choose it, or at least in my situation, starts way before that. And so when I look at my story and I look at all all those positive qualities, losing sight of my values, my pride getting in the way, those were actually the first steps, long before there was ever a lie, of course. Yeah, if that makes sense.
- [08:57]
Julian Morgans
Let's illustrate some of those baby steps that you're talking about. Do you remember the first ever lie that you wrote for the New York Times?
- [09:07]
Jason Blair
I think the first ever deception was after 9 11. We were in New York, we were covering the post terrorist attacks. Eventually it would become much more clear what this was later. But I kind of like froze one day as I was reporting. And it was like the simplest thing, right? So, like, if you think of my job, you're kicking down doors, chasing people to get them to talk to you when they don't want to. But I couldn't this one day. I just could not do a man on the street interview. I had been sent out to go out onto the street interview someone. I think it was about, like, the economic impact of the terrorist attacks. And I just froze in the street on the east side of New York. Couldn't get anything, couldn't talk to anyone.
- [09:56]
Julian Morgans
As in you felt too socially anxious to be able to get that job done.
- [10:00]
Jason Blair
Maybe it was like an emptiness, but it was anxiety. Ultimately, the only thing I can really compare it to was it was like a panic attack. But it wasn't like with the panic, it was like slow motion. So I go back and I go back to the newsroom and I got nothing. I got an empty notebook. And all I have to do is write this like very short reaction blurb. So I go look on the wires, which are like the Associated Press, and I found a story somebody had written, a reaction story. And I Lifted a quote from the reaction story. And so I inserted the quote. And because the newspaper pays for the wire services, you can, but you're supposed to attribute it to the wire service. And I didn't. And I think the reason why I didn't was I didn't want them to know that I didn't go out and get a quote. Because for them to know meant admitting that something was wrong and admitting something was wrong. The pride piece of it got in the way. A little piece of background that would be helpful here. I had gone to rehab the year before. I'd gone in one day, didn't even know why I was going in to see my editor. And I had gone in. She was like, why'd you want to meet? And I said, I think I have a drug problem. I just blurted out. So they got me into outpatient, but it wasn't really working well, so I had to take time off. I sort of felt like I wouldn't get another chance. So during this period, I'm very focused on making it look like everything's okay.
- [11:41]
Julian Morgans
So when you placed this unattributed quote in your piece, was that moment accompanied by some anxiety? You know, were you stressed about getting found out?
- [11:51]
Jason Blair
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. In fact, I'll never forget this. It was like, around 7:30 at night, I send it off to my editors. And at the Times, you have what's called the backfield, and those are your content editors, and they're the ones who work with you through the day, do the early edit on your story. Then it goes off to the copy desk. And the story had gone over the copy desk. And I remember being at the office late and staying later than I normally would, thinking to myself, I need to go over to the copy desk and tell them that we need to put an attribution on this quote to the Associated Press. And I didn't do it. And I went home, had a restless night, woke up that morning convinced it would be called in and I would get fired, but nothing happened. And see, this is where sort of like deception and lying can become a really slippery slope. Has now planted in the back of my head is, wait a minute, like nothing happened. And then I think it can become a tool that people use later. And I mean, not to name names, but I've seen it happen with other journalists. I remember we had this old rule. It was crazy rule doesn't exist anymore. But that if you had a story that had a dateline which is like the city name on the top of it, you had to be in the city on the day that it was filed. So if I wrote a story two weeks ago, right, and it was gonna have a dateline from that place, I needed to be in the city at that time. And what this colleague of mine did, she went home, told the editors that she was still in this other city. And that was like, huh, that's another thing. So now, all of a sudden, unbeknownst to me, I've had this one incident, and now I'm building this toolkit in my head of different things, tools that I didn't even know or think I would use. And so when things went off the rails and I really wasn't doing well because it was anxiety, and it's also the mood disorder symptoms of bipolar. When your mood's rapid cycling and when you're feeling anxious and you're irritable and agitated, it's really easy to, like, become sort of shut in or afraid to go outside or afraid to travel, that all of a sudden there'd be days where I was perfectly fine and I could do my job, and then there would be other days where it was not fine, and then I would deploy these tools to try and make it look like I was doing my job, like in my story. I think one of the things that's always been misconstrued, people thought, oh, he's got this ambition to be on the front page. I did have an ambition. Ambition played a role. My ambition was to cover up the fact that I wasn't doing well because I didn't want people to know. And all that energy and drive and creativity was going into that.
- [14:56]
Julian Morgans
Hey, it's time for a quick ad break here, but please don't go anywhere. Stick around because we'll be right back.
- [15:03]
Jason Blair
Foreign.
- [15:08]
Julian Morgans
Hey, so May is Mental Health awareness month, and every year there's a lot of talk about checking in on yourself and getting the support you need. You know, it's good stuff, but. But actually doing it well, in my opinion, it's still way harder than it should be. I think what happens for a lot of people is that they decide they need therapy, and then they get bogged down in the logistics. You know, the first major issue is that a lot of online therapists don't take insurance, or if they do, they don't take yours, which means you're either paying loads or you're locking yourself into some sort of expensive subscription. But that is where Ruler is different. They work with over 120 insurance plans, so they probably take yours, which brings the average copay down to around $15 a session. So you just end up using the benefits that you already pay for and they match you with a therapist who specializes in exactly what you're dealing with. So no searching for the right person. You know, needle in a haystack, no wait lists. It all just works. This Mental Health Awareness Month, don't just think about your mental health. Actually take the step to take care of it. Visit ruler.comwaslike to get started. That's ruler r u l a.com waslike because you deserve mental health care that works with you and not against your budget.
- [16:29]
Commercial Narrator
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- [17:28]
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- [18:27]
Verizon Advertiser
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- [18:57]
Jason Blair
Foreign.
- [19:03]
Julian Morgans
Yeah. When you describe lying as like, a little tool, you've got this kind of, like, dark arts toolbox, and you whip out one of these little tools every now and then to cover up the fact that you're too shy or too anxious to go and actually talk to people or travel. That is a very slippery slope. Yeah, I can imagine that getting addictive.
- [19:21]
Jason Blair
Yeah. But I think whether it's big or small, we all go through moments where we're like, why did I just lie about? Or what's really going on here? And I think it's always good to say to yourself, like, ask yourself the question when you're lying, even if it's like a. A perfectly decent lie, like, I'm lying to my abusive boyfriend because he might hit me. Lie.
- [19:46]
Julian Morgans
Yeah.
- [19:47]
Jason Blair
Ask yourself, why am I lying? Because if you're an environment where you feel like you need to lie or. And this is most people, or you feel like that is the approach that has the most utility, there's something wrong.
- [20:00]
Julian Morgans
Yeah. So let's talk about this period you had in the New York Times where you start using this toolbox, as you put it, more and more. Do you remember the first lie that you got pulled up on?
- [20:13]
Jason Blair
Oh, it wasn't till then, wasn't it until the end?
- [20:16]
Julian Morgans
There weren't a few sort of stepping stones along the way?
- [20:18]
Jason Blair
No, I wouldn't say that. I mean, like, what? There was. There are moments where people, like, ask questions like, huh, how'd you get back to New York so quickly? Right. They're just, like, legitimately wondering again. Lies begat more Lies, as it goes, the fabrication, plagiarism. What you have is. It's like there's a good couple days, then a bad day or a bad couple of days, and the bad days started to increase and increase in volume, and it was like I was on a kamikaze mission to get caught in the end. So I've created this elaborate fake world to convince you, world around me simply that I'm doing my job, that I'm able and I'm capable to do my job well. As you progressively get worse and you're not dealing with a problem, it takes more creative stuff to keep that world going, which then, of course, is going to drive up your worry and your anxiety, and it all sort of like, blows up in the end. My friend David Carr, the late media critic at the time, said it didn't make sense to him because it took more work to do the lies than it would have been to just do the job. And I said to him, it makes perfect sense to you that it would have been easier to just do the job. It would be a lot easier to walk across the room. But I felt like I didn't have one leg at that point. So this thing that seemed very easy to you was no longer easy to me, but the way he described it was that it was as if I took a lasso and I put one end around my neck, tied the rest of it to the newsroom, and then jumped out the window. And I feel like that was the best description, honestly, of what it was like in the end.
- [22:16]
Julian Morgans
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about how it ended. So you're claiming to go on all of these reporting trips, but you're not actually leaving New York. And the case that really brought you down was that you claimed that you'd gone to Texas, but you hadn't really. And in order to cover that up, you borrowed all of this phrasing, you borrowed all this stuff out of an article that appeared in the San Antonio Express.
- [22:40]
Jason Blair
Yeah, and it was the craziest thing, because I did not notice in borrowing all this stuff from the San Antonio Express, that the byline on the article was of someone I knew, a woman named Macarena Hernandez, who, many years before, when I was an intern at the Times, she was also an intern with me. And so what really led to the downfall is that Macarena, for days, really thought, like, something's wrong here. I know Jason doesn't speak Spanish. I don't think he was down here. And she really, really wrestled with it. And she eventually called the woman who had been the editor who supported all the interns, and that is how it actually became identified. And I remember it was another one of these days where I couldn't get out of the house. However, I did not have a work assignment that day. I got paged, and. I don't know, I mean, like, my life was such a mess. I had moved into a new apartment. Remember, this is 2003, so we're not all walking around with cell phones. Those of us who are reporters have cell phones. People still have landlines right in their houses. I'd been in my apartment for a year. I hadn't even gotten a phone. So I get paged. And I remember walking down the street, and it just took me forever to get to the spot so I could get to a pay phone. And it called in the office. Jim Roberts was on who's the editor of the Paper, saying that there were some questions about some of my stories. So what had happened in between? Macarena calling, the media critic at the Washington Post had caught wind of, like, there may be some problems in some of these stories. So they wanted to question me about it, me being the idiot that I am. No, I did not fold. I. I instead said, no, no, no, I was there. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
- [24:43]
Julian Morgans
You doubled down.
- [24:45]
Jason Blair
Well, yeah, doubled down. But what I had done on a number of the stories, I, let's say, could not or did not make a trip to a place. Often our photographers would go, for example, and we had this whole internal photograph database at the time that most people didn't even know existed. But I could see the photos in that database, and I could, like, paint the scene for the lead, what the flowers look like or what the walkway looked like or whatever it was. So I had this, like, enormous set of stuff. So, like, how could I have possibly gotten these facts if I was not actually there? Right?
- [25:21]
Julian Morgans
Yeah.
- [25:22]
Jason Blair
And so, you know, I tried that for a bit. I think I made it a couple days. I don't know. But it was definitely multiple days. You know, they brought me in to go over the stories where this meeting with a bunch of the editors up in this conference room on a floor no one ever goes to, and the labor relations people from the Times and other people, and we were going over the stories and they were asking for receipts and other stuff like that. We end the meeting. Of course, I still have not folded with, you know, my plan to get the receipts and all that.
- [25:55]
Julian Morgans
Of course, they wanted receipts from the trip, because if you'd bought fuel and rented a car and stuff. You'd have receipts?
- [26:01]
Jason Blair
Yeah.
- [26:01]
Julian Morgans
Okay.
- [26:02]
Jason Blair
Yeah.
- [26:02]
Julian Morgans
Well, how did you cover that up?
- [26:03]
Jason Blair
Well, I was also lucky because I was. I was among many people at the New York Times who didn't turn their expense reports in on time. So we all collectively kind of sucked at that. So it wasn't like unheard of that you'd have some reporter who had come in like, five months later with their receipts, you know, So I think that's probably part of how you could get away from it.
- [26:25]
Julian Morgans
So you just said, yeah, I've got the receipt somewhere. They're coming, I'll get them to you.
- [26:29]
Jason Blair
Yep.
- [26:29]
Julian Morgans
Yeah.
- [26:30]
Jason Blair
So I go out with a friend that night and we go out to eat. And I'm explaining to her the mess, and I'm trying to let her in on what's going on on. But she doesn't fully know it, and she's catching it. I remember this first time in my life I had, like, suicidal thoughts. And they went from, like, suicidal thoughts to, like, a suicidal plan to like, can I hang myself in the bathroom if I go? And I got up that next morning, so remember, I'm sober now. And I went into the office and I couldn't sleep. And this was going to be another day of grilling. There's this woman named Maria. I love her. She was the day bartender. And I actually confessed to her, sober as all get out for a year. And I told her I didn't know what. What to do. And, you know, I. Guy has been sober for more than a year, talking to his bartender, getting some of the best advice in my life. And I decided at that point to resign.
- [27:36]
Julian Morgans
Was that the advice that she gave you? She's like, you're gonna have to resign.
- [27:39]
Jason Blair
It's kind of like I came up with it. And she supported the idea. She asked questions. I mean, she was a good coach. She helped me sort of like, navigate the different questions because for so many years I wanted to be a journalist and I became a journalist, and it was my way of doing good. And I just didn't have in my mind any identity without it. So I think her questions about what was really important to me, you know, like, if you're having suicidal thoughts, is it really worth it, like, to continue this?
- [28:11]
Julian Morgans
Yeah, seriously.
- [28:13]
Jason Blair
So, you know, I went in, said I wanted to resign, said I wanted to tell them everything. That union rep, really cool lady who was a reporter at the time, sports reporter, came down and got me. I told her about the suicidal thoughts. We wrote the Resignation left that day. And it got crazy because. And this is just a beautiful thing about my employer, they are dealing with enormous scandal that's going to land on their front page, the front page of everywhere else. But like a sort of side story behind this is that the New York Times did not run to go cover the story or to go figure out what was wrong with my stories. The managing editor at the time dumped the newsroom of a bunch of reporters who knew me and knew anything about me to find me wherever I was in the city. They found my family, they found my friends, and eventually one of them found me. And they called the employee assistance counselor who had helped me go to rehab. And she got me set up with my counselors before. And I ended up ultimately getting admitted to a psychiatric hospital, got diagnosed with bipolar, which changed my life. Getting treatment, but not only getting treatment, Being humbled. I think being humbled changed my life. Like, several times people have asked me, like, if you had to go through it again and that was the only way you could get those lessons, would you go through it again? And even though that was, like, horrendous, I would. Because going through that experience created, I think, a life that I think is in many ways even more meaningful for me, at least. I work in coaching right now of your mental health. But I'll sit and I'll get some feedback from somebody that's unbelievably positive about the impact that I've had on their life. And I'll think in my head, like, it's so funny. You have no idea. If I hadn't made the worst mistakes in my life, this moment would not be happening, at least not with us. And so here we are.
- [30:32]
Julian Morgans
Wow, that is a beautiful silver lining.
- [30:35]
Jason Blair
Yeah.
- [30:36]
Julian Morgans
Yeah, it sounds very hard earned.
- [30:39]
Jason Blair
It's one of those things I could have never imagined, even the aftermath. And as I was dealing with my early mental health treatment and going through medication after medication with all the side effects, I gotten so resigned to the idea, like, maybe I'm never going to work again. Maybe I'm never going to function again. Maybe I'm never going to feel like I have a good day. And I think in life there are many people who are listening here or just around us who are living that day right now. That day where they look out and they feel like it's all darkness and that there's nothing good in the future. And I'm telling that I have been there, and then all of a sudden there was like, so.
- [31:26]
Julian Morgans
I mean, the darkness seems to me to have come from many different angles. You know, there's obviously the emotional aspect of peering inside this void, inside yourself. But then I can only imagine how it felt when, you know, your mistakes at work became front page news for the country as well. That's a whole other pressure as well.
- [31:49]
Jason Blair
Yeah. And I think one upside is the beginning of this madness. I am in the Psychiatric Hospital in 2003. There's not much TV going on in the acute care ward, and they're not handed out the newspaper. So that part made it a little bit easier. But I think when I got out, seeing the, like, damage that was done to my colleagues who, you know, never did anything wrong to me.
- [32:14]
Julian Morgans
Could you just tell us a little bit about that?
- [32:17]
Jason Blair
Well, I mean, like, let's start with the top, the more global piece of it. You know, I had been embraced by a profession. I had worked at the Boston Globe. I had worked at the Washington Post. I'd worked at the Washington Times. I had worked at the New York Times. I had been an intern at a ton of small newspapers. And they all carried the stain of me. So there's that. And then I think the second piece is journalism as a profession, period, took a huge hit. It's another sort of stone that people can cast when they don't like what's being reported, even when it's accurate. So that's another piece. So, like, all of a sudden, you have this profession that you love that you think can do such good in the world, and you've damaged it. You've damaged the good thing. And so there's that. And then I think for black journalists in particular, because a lot of people wanted to make the affirmative action argument, that was hard. But to this day, in 2015, Donald Trump yapping, calling it the Jason Blair New York Times, you know, so I'll never really escape that part of it.
- [33:24]
Julian Morgans
Hey, this bit of music means it's time for an ad break, but please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.
- [33:36]
Commercial Narrator
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- [34:34]
Julian Morgans
And so I understand that the New York Times, to deal with this, they published a front page article basically talking about what had happened from their perspective. It was quite a lengthy sort of introspective piece from them. Did you read that?
- [34:50]
Jason Blair
I did not read it immediately, actually, about a year later or so, I did read the article. I don't know that I, like, swallowed it really. And really read it deeply until like seven or eight years later. So we're talking about like 2010. And, you know, one of the things I thought about when I read it, I felt bad for my bloody colleagues who had to go report that story. That must have been hard for them.
- [35:17]
Julian Morgans
Yeah, seriously. You know, I assume that most people listening haven't read that. That piece, but in this timeline, it's pretty significant. So could you just summarize it for us?
- [35:26]
Jason Blair
I mean, in short, 7,000 word front page article over multiple columns on the front page to what we call Double Truck, which is two full pages on the inside with art. And, you know, it basically covered my entire career. It covered what fabrications or plagiarism they had found. It reported out a lot of the. The journey. And it was deep and it was personal. And, you know, people took their shots, which is good. People said they're strangely good things too. I certainly feel like ultimately, in retrospect, they probably spent a little too much ink on it. But I think that's the natural reaction when you're an institution used to calling people out. Yeah. When it's time to call yourself out, you were gonna go full bar. You know, it's actually a harder article to read. Tell me it's not that one. It's reading about the resignations of my bosses who lost certain. Oh because of it. Now, let me be fair. They contributed to their demises by things that they had done before this all happened because I think to some extent there were some long simmering issues in the newsroom over their management, and that this was used to beat them down. And. And the crazy part is, was used to beat them down by people who are probably even more responsible, or you could argue had more responsibility, which I really don't think it was fair. That's my opinion. Other people have other opinions, and they think it's fair. But whether it was fair or not, that was particularly difficult to watch. These two journalists who were work their entire careers to get to where they are because of a choice I made. They lost their opportunity to do their thing. That. That. That's hard to read.
- [37:20]
Julian Morgans
Yeah, that is. Have you ever spoken to those two
- [37:23]
Jason Blair
journalists since one died and the other one I wrote, but I never. I don't even know whether it got there pre email times.
- [37:33]
Julian Morgans
And how do you digest that these days?
- [37:37]
Jason Blair
Well, I do think of this. So he and I were both smokers, and we used to smoke in the smoking room, and then he quit smoking. Someone once told me afterwards that after all the stress of what happened with me, he started smoking again, and he died of lung cancer. So the way I deal with that is I just remind myself to be careful of my impact on other people, because just like you can have an enormously positive impact on people unintentionally. You know, we're on a podcast right now. Somebody might be listening. Something we say might change their life, and we may never hear about it, but we can also do similar harm.
- [38:22]
Julian Morgans
Yeah.
- [38:23]
Jason Blair
And never know.
- [38:24]
Julian Morgans
Yeah. What's your relationship with the truth these days?
- [38:31]
Jason Blair
I think going through my experience kind of goes back to what I was telling you about, that Keats quote. I really do think truth is beauty, and beauty is truth. I think it is so unbelievably empowering. And here's the real trick of it. Being through a scandal like mine where, like, all your stuff is laid to bear. There are no more secrets left to hide. If I did something wrong five minutes ago, I will tell you so fast. If I made a mistake, I have no problem telling you. I. It's so freeing to be truthful. It is so free. Because there really is no consequence to being truthful that you can't live with. So if the question is, did Jason eat the last cookie? Yes, he ate the last cookie. If the question is, did I spend more money than I was supposed to, Yes, I did. Because there is something so empowering in life about telling the truth. So I would say my relationship with the truth is. It's the most freeing thing I've ever experienced.
- [39:48]
Julian Morgans
Yeah. I think there's this sort of counterintuitive thing that happens where if you admit to being kind of disgraceful, there's a sort of confidence to that that people really admire.
- [39:59]
Jason Blair
Yeah, well, and I also think there's this two way street that happens, right. Like when you admit to your failings and your mistakes, what does that do to people around you? It makes it easier for them to admit to their mistakes and their failings. And I'll have these situations where people find out about my story and they will tell me things that they haven't told people who have been working with them or engage with them a lot longer than I have. And so when you're willing to be vulnerable and then that other person is willing to be vulnerable with you, a mistake is not the end of the world. So if somebody goes and makes a mistake, you can just have an open, honest conversation about it. And that's why I come back to that idea. If we can be more vulnerable with each other.
- [40:50]
Julian Morgans
When you encounter people who are lying in your day to day life, or you know, maybe you see a politician on the news, what do you feel about them?
- [40:59]
Jason Blair
First I laugh if they're lying directly to me. Lying to me does not bother me. Me, I am kind of amused by it because I think when people lie to me, at least directly, they're showing me something about themselves. And I don't mean character. They're showing me where their pressure point is.
- [41:18]
Julian Morgans
Yeah, that's true.
- [41:19]
Jason Blair
Yeah. And where that's really helpful is like, oh, you lied to me about this, so I know this thing really makes you nervous. Or this thing is very important to you. It can actually be helpful. When I think about the broader world of lies, I feel like we have gotten into a world where almost every other word you hear on any public debate involves somebody lying or someone being deliberately deceptive. Like you can Google and figure out that they're lying to you. And I think this distortion, you lose sight of the objective, you lose sight of any common ground that we can have. Because any common ground needs to start with some, like facts. Yeah. So how do we work together ultimately? So I'm hoping that we have an enormous course correction at some point. Related.
- [42:17]
Julian Morgans
Yeah, me too. Me too. To enter anew golden era of truth would be amazing.
- [42:22]
Jason Blair
Yeah, bring it on.
- [42:24]
Julian Morgans
It'd be refreshing amongst others.
- [42:25]
Jason Blair
It'd be confusing for a lot of people.
- [42:27]
Julian Morgans
It'd be confusing. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. If I turned on the TV and some politicians were just speaking in regular language and just saying straight up what the thing was I'd be like, what? What is this? Is this.
- [42:39]
Jason Blair
No, you're right. This would be the right thing to do for the climate. But I'm getting paid by the whalers.
- [42:46]
Julian Morgans
I just said that.
- [42:46]
Jason Blair
Okay.
- [42:48]
Julian Morgans
Yeah. God, that'd be amazing.
- [42:50]
Jason Blair
Yeah.
- [42:50]
Julian Morgans
For anyone who's listening to this, who has been, I don't know, lying about their intentions or their identity or maybe they're midway through an affair, what advice would you offer?
- [43:02]
Jason Blair
I mean, I do believe the truth will lead you to freedom, but I also believe that has to come when you're ready. And I think the most important thing is to have the awareness and be able to sit with the awareness that truth will help you when you are ready. Right. You know, because if you sit there and you continue to tell yourself that the only way to survive is to tell the lie, it's just going to go on longer and it's going to get more complicated. But I would just encourage them to sit there even if they're still continuing to tell the lie, and just know that it'll be better when they can tell the truth, whenever that moment comes.
- [43:49]
Julian Morgans
Will it hurt?
- [43:52]
Jason Blair
I don't know. I think it really depends. I mean, for me, I don't think it hurt. What hurt was the transition, what hurt was the loss. But I mean, telling the truth was just a sense of relief. Yeah. So maybe the consequences of telling the truth did hurt. But you know what, those consequences were coming anyway.
- [44:28]
Julian Morgans
Yeah. I guess it's just sort of like a. Do you want to deal with this now or in the future? Yeah, you got to deal with it.
- [44:34]
Jason Blair
Yeah. And do you want to deal with what this grows into in the future?
- [44:38]
Julian Morgans
Yeah. Yeah. It can really metastasize if you let it go.
- [44:42]
Jason Blair
But I would say like the real, the real important thing, I don't want to watch anybody jump off a cliff like I did, but I do want to be respectful of the idea that there's no airport self help book for this one. The truth is you've got to be ready. And you know, I mean, you can find people in life, whether it's like a therapist or a truly non judgmental friend or someone like that, that even if you can just open up to one person and bounce it off of them, that may be a first baby step. It might not be your best friend. It may be a more distant friend that you know is just non judgmental and maybe even they're safer because they're more distant from the world where you're lying to. I think being able to have that one person you can at least start to have the truthful conversation with. It's probably a good step to getting toward freedom.
- [45:33]
Julian Morgans
Yeah, you have a lot of conversations through your podcast. Can you tell us how listeners can check it out?
- [45:42]
Jason Blair
Yeah, you can find it wherever you get podcasts. It's Silver Linings Handbook podcast. Also website for the same name.com Jason
- [45:52]
Julian Morgans
I've loved this, so thank you so much.
- [45:55]
Jason Blair
Yeah, and thanks for the great conversation.
- [45:59]
Julian Morgans
If you found this story interesting, Jason wrote a memoir about the whole experience called Burning Down My Master's House. It came out in 2004, but it still holds up. It's definitely worth a read, definitely worth tracking down and you can find it online. And if you want more after this over on this week's subscriber episode, I'm digging into a story that I mentioned at the top. It's a story that you might have heard of. It feels pretty sensational, but we're going to check it out. It's this idea that a number of high profile scientists across the US have either gone missing or been murdered over approximately the last two to three years. Is it a conspiracy? Not exactly. But according to the private investigator that I spoke to, there's a real pattern of crime sitting underneath the headlines, but it's just not the one that people are focusing on. That's on the subscriber feed this week for subscribers only. And for the rest of you, thanks for joining me. I'll see you next week. What It Was like is produced by Rachel Tuffery. This episode was edited by Ellie Dickey, who also does our research. Our cover art is by Rich Akers. Our theme music was produced by Jimmy Saunders. And this whole thing has been a super real production. AI is transforming customer service. It's real and it works. And with fin, we've built the number one AI agent for customer service. We're seeing lots of cases where it's solving up to 90% of real queries for real businesses. This includes the real world complex stuff like issuing a refund or canceling an order. And we also see it when FIN goes up against competitors. It's top of all the performance benchmarks, top of the G2 leaderboard, and if you're not happy, we'll refund you up to a million dollars, which I think says it all. Check it out for yourself at fin,
- [47:56]
Commercial Narrator
AI graduation season is around the corner and Michaels has everything you need. Whether you're throwing the party of the year or just celebrating your grad's achievement. Start with a class of 26 banner. Then add party supplies and frame photos that'll have everyone remembering when. Then bring the wow factor with balloons. Order ahead for delivery or in store pickup shop now to create a celebration
- [48:18]
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as special as they are.