The Problem With Being Honest: Ian Leslie

The Problem With...

James Smith

Society & Culture

4.9 • 9.5K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2026

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ian Leslie joins James Smith to unpack the uncomfortable truth about honesty: we can't actually handle it. A bestselling author and host of the Where Shall We Meet podcast, Ian argues that lying isn't a bug in human nature but an evolutionary feature — the very thing responsible for our big brains, our creativity, and our capacity for art. 👁️ Try Neutonic: https://www.neutonic.com/jamessmith 🧪 Check your Test: https://www.manual.co/smith 📝 Business Mentoring: https://www.jamessmith.business 🏋🏼‍♂️ Online Coaching: https://www.jamessmithacademy.com Ian Leslie On Substack – https://ianleslie.substack.com/ The Ruffian Podcast by Ian Leslie - https://open.spotify.com/show/4Qm30smGRQjhEPUMq49uU8 James opens up about being honest with his employees, hiring a brutally candid editor for his next book, and how a rugby coach telling him he "played like shit" taught him more than any polite feedback ever could. He explains: ◼️ Why lying is a sign of intelligence, creativity and empathy in children ◼️ How the online world breeds dishonesty ◼️ Why office politics is passive aggression at scale ◼️ How trust is the prerequisite for any productive disagreement ◼️ Why sport is civilisation's greatest cage for our warrior instincts Chapters: 00:00 Why Lying Is Hardwired Into Our Intelligence 01:22 The Problem With Honesty Is We Can't Handle It 03:14 The Invention of Lying and Useful Deception 06:12 Why Lying Sits in Our Moral Grey Zone 08:37 When Your Child Should Start Lying to You 10:48 Autism, Theory of Mind and Honesty 12:01 Conformity as a Form of Social Lying 14:30 Self-Deception and the Lizard Brain 15:59 Cults, Ideologies and Online Group Lies 19:37 Interrogation Tricks and Cognitive Load 22:05 Telling Stories Backwards to Catch Liars 22:46 The Jiu-Jitsu Ringworm Test 25:18 Artists as Legitimised Liars 26:24 Bob Dylan's Reinvention and the Line Between Lying and Art 27:18 Embellishment, Storytelling and Social Incentives 28:50 Advertising as a Lie We Collude In 30:08 Dating Dynamics and Honesty With Women 32:29 Why Honesty Is Your Best Bet in the Long Run 34:09 The Woman Who Lied About Her Age 36:04 Botox, Makeup and Physical Deception 38:13 Height, Ethnicity and the Online Dating Filter 41:13 How Digital Breaks Humans Into Packets 41:56 Why Workplaces Are Full of Bullshit 44:14 Office Politics as Passive Aggression at Scale 45:06 James Getting Dropped From His Rugby Team 47:22 Hiring a Brutally Honest Editor 48:40 Trust as the Prerequisite for Honesty 50:00 The Two Channels of Every Difficult Conversation 52:19 Jiu-Jitsu, Conflict Resolution and Primal Urges 55:06 Sport as Civilisation's Substitute for War 57:37 Michael Jordan as a Roman Warrior 57:58 John Jones and the Beautiful Cage of MMA 58:24 The Ashes, the Barmy Army and Sportsmanship 01:00:24 The Gilded Cage of Rules and Norms 01:01:13 Zero-Sum Games and Honest Feedback 01:03:09 Why Participation Medals Miss the Point 01:05:16 Giving Brutal Feedback on Content 01:07:16 Have You Earned the Right to Be Honest? 01:08:26 Ian's Book: John and Paul — A Love Story in Songs 01:11:22 The Creative Power of Love This conversation takes a candid look at why deception is woven into the fabric of human intelligence, the corrosive cost of workplaces where nobody says what they think, and the trust that has to exist before honesty can actually land. Ian's perspective on disagreement, creativity and the relationship channel beneath every argument offers a sharp counterpoint to James's trademark bluntness — and the result is a conversation that will change how you think about every hard conversation you've ever avoided. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Lying, it's really quite complex. So in order for me to tell you a lie, I've got to have an idea of the truth in my head.
0:07.4	Also this alternative version, which is the lie, and I've got to keep those two things separate.
0:12.7	Then I've got to have an idea of what you think. It's an incredibly sophisticated ability.
0:17.3	Ian Leslie is a best-selling author, journalist and host of the popular Waffian podcast.
0:21.6	His books cover human psychology, why we argue, and the secrets behind our creativity.
0:25.6	What is the problem with honesty?
0:26.6	Lying is an evolutionary feature of our intelligence.
0:30.6	It's actually in large part responsible for giving us the big brains that we've got.
0:35.6	Obvious politics is basically passive aggression at scale. It's like a quiet killer to relationships and to workplace harmony. When we try to eradicate it, we just create more of it. I think we have to find a way to get over that discomfort and that fear of saying what we really think, doing it in a way where we don't create a huge horrible row. Because if we don't do it, the alternative. It's at this very moment here that I could have got thousands of pounds to sit here and promote a greens powder that doesn't do anything. But instead, I decided to pay for every aspect of this podcast myself and just ask you that if we're in the UK, USA, UAE, to please try and get a can of Newtonic. Australia, we're coming incredibly soon. We're in the
1:11.8	manufacturing process. And for any of you that can, please do try our Newtonic creatine sticks. They are
1:16.6	the shit. You can head to Newtonic.com to see what's available to you and I will let you now get back
1:21.5	to the episode. Ian, what is the problem with honesty? The problem with honesty is that we can't handle it. We can't handle too much
1:32.9	reality. In every human society, there is a measure of deception, probably in every human
1:42.6	relationship. Now, for the most part, we tell the truth,
1:48.5	because unless you tell the truth, you can't actually get anything done, right? You have to have
1:53.3	some minimum level of trust. But it's fascinating to me that everywhere you go, every society, every organization, there is some lying.
2:06.7	And I don't think that's accidental.
2:10.4	And when I looked into it, what I was fascinated to find was that lying is an evolutionary feature of our intelligence.
2:20.8	It's not a bug.
2:22.5	It's actually, in large part, responsible for giving us the big brains that we've got.
2:29.2	So it's literally hardwired into us, deception.
2:33.1	And it's tangled up with other things like creativity.
	...

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