Roofing Quote: Can you spot what’s off?

/26 Comments/in , /by

Our roof is approaching 20 years in age, and doesn’t look like it is going to make it much longer. We started calling contractors, my husband and I, about eight weeks ago. It turns out this seasons roofers are hard to come by. You see in Chicagoland it rained all of June, and all the workers are behind with more work than have time to do before the freeze sets in. Most roofers that we called didn’t even call us back. But a few smart ones came out and said they could take the work next spring.

The first quote was abysmally high. I tossed it immediately. The second and only other quote that came in, well, it too was high too. I am convinced work is so abundant that they are quoting people high numbers now because, well, if it comes it, its a boon for them! I don’t think they care if they don’t get more contracts right now. Not lucky for me. That’s for sure!

Anyway, the second contractor sent out a nice looking young guy to quote us. He’s actually the owner I found out.

We had a nice conversation, but unfortunately when he came to do the quote, it was pouring rain. We ran from overhang to overhang and around the house, and he politely asked if he could come back another time. I was happy to oblige because I didn’t want him crawling on a steep wet roof, and he wasn’t any more anxious to take undue risks himself.

He came out again late last week to finally climb on the roof. He was friendly as always, grabbed his ladder and went to work. He measured, inspected, and measured some more. He spent about 15 minutes in total checking measurements. Then he kindly swept off some leaves from the an area that commonly collects them on the roof. Certainly a nice gesture.

When he climbed down the ladder, he said he needed about 15 more minutes to go do the calculations for the quote. He said he would quickly do them in his truck and bring them to me. I offered to meet him at his truck in 15 minutes. When we met, he pulled out his quote and we talked about it. He told me if I wanted different shingles, there would be an up charge and he priced the garage out separately for me as asked.

He then handed me the quote in a nice yellow folder with a sticker on top identifying his company. He was very professional, very approachable and likeable. We shook hands and he left.

I am putting a link to a quote here from another roofing company.  This is not the company who quoted me, but so you can see a quote. My quote for all important purposes looked identical to this.

Something felt off though, after he left, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

About an hour later, it hit me like a brick.

Can you tell what it is?

Attempted Robbery and Mirror Neurons

/37 Comments/in , , /by

Here is an interesting video recorded by a Go Pro camera that documents an attempted robbery of a guy riding his bicycle in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Go ahead and watch it if you haven’t.

Chances are your mirror neurons (cells in your brain) will light up as this guy experiences fear and hence so will you! Mirror neurons make us feel what others are feeling when we see them go through an experience. You know when you see a friend cut their finger with a sharp object and you wince?  That’s your mirror neurons!

I find mirror neurons fascinating.

When I teach my class to students, I frequently feel the power of mirror neurons in a really strange way.

I play a lot of emotional videos in my training class and my students mirror neurons work very well. They always mirror the emotions of the victims or suspects in the video beautifully. But I wasn’t prepared for how it would bounce and further affect me.

As the instructor, I have seen these videos hundreds of times so I don’t typically watch them. I am usually not listening to the content of the video or thinking about it either. I am often thinking about other things that I need to do and inevitably, through natural pauses in thinking and looking up at my students, I find my face starting to react to my students’ emotions.

I will start to feel a flush of an emotion overcome me.  It’s surreal because I might be thinking I need to check-in for my flight tomorrow when I start feeling this rush of sadness.  And I will catch the feelings of sadness and be perplexed. Why do I suddenly feel sad?  And then I have to re-orient myself and ask what video are we playing right now?  And 100% of the time the  emotions I am starting to feel correlate to the video playing, but  I am not watching it or listening to it.  But I am glancing at my students and obviously my mirror neurons are firing from seeing them!

It’s the strangest thing.

It’s what I would call a mirror neuron bounce effect. A person in the video feels an emotion. They express it. My students watch it, and they feel what the person in the video feels. Then I see the faces of people watching the video, and I, too, react to them watching the video. It all happens involuntarily, too.

I never expected that mirror neurons would bounce like that, but I have experienced it enough to know they do, and when I see a really intense emotion expressed on a face, I will start to experience the strong flood of emotion myself regardless of the source!

So I wonder, does the movement of the facial muscles activate the mirror neurons?  Or do the mirror neurons activate the facial muscles?

Liar! Liar! It’s not so black and white…

/11 Comments/in /by

When someone lies to us, they are a liar, and we naturally assume they lie to everyone for the most part, right?

It makes sense, doesn’t it?

Not so fast. I have an interesting story to tell you.

My mom and I have struggled to find a dentist for years because we keep getting lied to. After years of struggle, my mom and dad finally found a dentist who truly treated them fair. He didn’t push treatments on them, treated them fairly when they had pain resolving it appropriately, and did the essential care for a reasonable price. Having some knowledge of the dental field because I used to work as an assistant, I thought we finally found our dentist. I truly believe he gave my parents quality care.

When I went a year later, my experience was dramatically different. This dentist filled multiple cavities, and did a sloppy job–nothing like he did for my parents. He also tried to tell me that I had a cavity in my front tooth, and something told me he was full of it. I decided to go for a second opinion and sure enough, the next dentist I tried showed me that I did not have a cavity. What in fact this dentist who said I did have one was doing was pointing to a genetic flaw in my tooth– a hole–which occurred on the same tooth on the other side of mouth, too. There absolutely was no cavity. She showed me how it was just the design of my teeth. I had other problems with this dentist to, so I started seeing this new doctor who shared the truth with me. This new dentist is approximately 10 years my senior.

Fast forward another year, after our experiences with my parents old dentist, my parents decided to try my dentist. I trusted her. Can you guess what happened? She told lie after lie to my parents in attempt to get them to do expensive procedures! I was flabbergasted at what she was telling them. For anyone who knew anything about the dental field, it didn’t take a second to see that she was truly hungry and being deceptive.

My mom and I got into a few arguments about “our dentists”, and I finally said that we can both find someone we trust to care for us, but it doesn’t mean they will give that same care and honest treatment to someone else. It was kind of a shocking revelation, though it makes sense in an odd way.

In hindsight, the dentist my mom found was older. He was within 10 years of her age. This dentist likely saw her as a peer and felt a need to meet a certain standard of care with my parents. When I showed up, I was just a “young kid” to him. I was within a few years in age of his children. He didn’t have the respect or care he did for my parents so lying to me was much easier. Then when I found my dentist, she was more my peer and my parents were “old people” to her–easy to influence because they were “old” in her eyes. She forgot I was knowledgeable about dental procedures. Oops.

People affect us in different ways. We react to people differently. We may trust one person and have a bad feeling towards another. It all affects how we interact with people. We may be generous and giving with one person and turn our back on another. It’s reality. So next time you are convinced someone is honest, don’t always be confident just because they are honest and treat you fair, they will treat others fair too. Biases affect all aspects of our lives.

And its clear, some people will take advantage of those they feel superior to. It’s a little uncomfortable to think about, isn’t it?

Travels

/in /by

I haven’t been sharing my travels lately for a variety of reasons, but this past week I got some stunning photos so I thought I would share them with you. I did two classes in New York for the US Court system…one of which was in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn (New York City). Here is a snapshot into what I saw.

One of my classes was held on the 30th floor:  I must say the view was outstanding!

IMG_0646-001 IMG_0612 20140618_081141 20140618_140640 20140618_152822 20140618_152853 IMG_0650

“Are you a perfect liar?”

/in , , , , /by

Of all the questions that arise when I doing training, the one I least expected was, “Since you understand deception so well, are you the perfect liar?”

I remember the first time it was asked, I was blown away.

In real life, people trust me and tell me I have an honest face, so this was a bit alarming! Why would anyone think that of me, I thought. But when I thought about it more, I could see the point of the question.

It makes sense, doesn’t it?

But there is good news! The answer is no, I am not the perfect liar nor could I be, even knowing what I know about deception and human behavior.

And the reason is simple. Clues leak to deception for two reasons:  First because we are under a higher cognitive load when we tell a lie–we have to balance the truth from a lie) which causes clues to leak naturally.  And second, because we want to succeed with our lie, we naturally put pressure on ourselves to succeed and that pressure increases our cognitive load emotionally, which also causes clues to leak.

The more pressure on a person to get away with a lie, the higher likelihood they will leak clues. And in high stake scenarios, we naturally put pressure on ourselves with our desire to be successful and hence we slip up.

So while I know what the clues to deception are, if I try to make sure cognitively that I don’t display any of them, what am I doing to my cognitive load?

I’m sending it through the moon, aren’t I? So what are the chances I would leak clues? The chances are greatly elevated.

Just imagine my thought process trying to tell a lie…blah, blah, blah…don’t forget you can’t stare someone dead in the face, don’t move your shoulder or your lip…what was I saying, oh yeah…blah, blah, blah…did I just move my shoulder?  Bahhh!!!  What was I saying?   Oh yeah, blah, blah…wait…don’t skip pronouns, confuse verb tense — uh…stutter, stutter…. at this point, my lie would blaring for all the world to see LOL!

So while I may understand deception on a detailed level, it doesn’t mean I would be the perfect liar.

And furthermore that is why I am comfortable openly teaching my material to people because if I teach my material to someone sinister, its very unlikely for even more reasons than I am discussing here that he or she will be able to become a better liar either.  Actually, the converse is true. If they focus on all the clues I teach, it will only cause them to leak even more clues, which is candy for me!

Update: For those who are curious what makes a good liar, this article is for you.