Like watching a kid actually pee in the pool rather than imagining how many people have, the stark reality of seeing Lance Armstrong admit to Oprah he was using drugs, if he does, will hit hard. That’s what Dan Ariely’s research indicates. He’s the author of The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty. When what was long rumored to be true becomes real, especially seeing it on TV, our feelings are more intensely felt and contagious.  Here are some very human lessons we can learn, from Lance’s situation about the slippery slope of deceit, alleged and otherwise.

1. Soon after you tell a tiny lie or “borrow” something you may not return or deceive in some small way, beware of the stories you start telling yourself about it

Sometimes we rationalize because we want something bad enough.  Like not thinking about the amount of pee that might be in the pool you are about to dive into, or believing the five-second rule of not eating something you just dropped on the floor, like that warm chocolate chip cookie. Who knows what stories those JP Morgan Chase managers told themselves when the deception started at the bank? Did they feel safer when banks’ reputations were tanking and CEO Jamie Dimon actually got the best title a banker could get at the time, “the least-hated banker in America”? Notes Ariely, “Now we have about three billion dollars to prove the contrary.”

2. Our delusion deepens as our cheating does

“We all want explanations for why we behave as we do and for the ways the world around us functions. Even when our feeble explanations have little to do with reality. We’re storytelling creatures by nature, and we tell ourselves story after story until we come up with an explanation that we like and that sound reasonable enough to believe. And when the story portrays us in a more glowing and positive light, so much the better,” discovered Ariely via his experiments.

Warning: Peter Guber, in Tell to Win, advises us to create “purposeful narratives” that inspire others to play a role in our story, and, in so doing, reshape and share it. Yet that advice has a dark side when the storyteller has been successfully deceiving others with it and many have succumbed to the allure to play an unwitting or unsavory part.

3. Fight the fudge factor

Armstrong is charged with involving teammates and others with collectively organizing dope delivery and use, not with taking actual bribes. We are more tempted to be dishonest in situations where we can distance ourselves from the act. Writes Ariely, “the psychological distance between a dishonest act and its consequences creates a fudge factor of rationalization. Thus we are more likely to take computer paper home from work than money from a petty cash box. In an experiment, more MIT dorm students stole food from the dorm refrigerator than cash. Ariely worries that adoption of this fudge factor will become a more wide spread rationalization as we increasingly move towards cashless culture.

See the rest of the tips at my “Quotable and Connected” column on Forbes.

Yes, we tend to notice the details that most relate to our work or our life experience.

It is also no surprise that we instinctively look for those who share our interests. This is especially true in times of increasing pressure and uncertainty. We have an understandable tendency in such times to seek out the familiar and comfortable as a buffer against the disruptive changes surrounding us. In so doing we can inadvertently put ourselves in a cage of similarity that narrows our peripheral vision of the world and our options.

The result? We can be blindsided by events and trends coming at us from directions we did not see.

The Big Sort author, Bill Bishop , provides a compelling view of population movements in the United States over the past several decades.  He shows that Americans are increasingly seeking out neighborhoods where people share them same political and cultural values, right down to the cars they drive and the movies they watch. We become more polarized when we hang out with others who act right – like us, often missing the pieces that could give us a more complete view of a situation.

Instead we become more certain we are right.

We are reducing our peripheral vision and creating what Jonathan Haidt calls a more contentious culture. That’s a barrier to the most fruitful, satisfying kind of collaboration:  individuals sharing a sweet spot of mutual interest, leveraging value because they view the situation from different vantage points.

That where the richest, most unexpected camaraderie springs up as we experience different sides of our selves, responding to others who don’t always act right – like us.

Worse yet, to generate more value for advertisers, many of the sites we visit attempt to silo us around our similarities. They do this by tracking what we most watch and click on, to most visibly present more of the same kind of topics and people we seem to like. That discovery inspired Eli Pariser to write The Filter Bubble .

The more we see reinforcing evidence that we are right in our beliefs the more rigid we become in defending them. So found Going to Extremes author Cass Sunstein.

Here are five ways to keep honing your talents, growing, staying flexible and open to new ideas and pulling in comrades for fresh adventures.

1. We each have many facets to ourselves, found Rita Carter, author of Multiplicity.  Create more adventures in your unfolding life story by cultivating diverse friendships, matching more of your facets with others in ways that bring out the best temperament and talents in each other.  What a waste to let parts of yourself atrophy. That’s akin to not using all the features on a favorite product or experiencing other sides of your friends and colleagues.

2. With strangers — especially those who are different than your usual crowd – you can project a different part of your personality, discovered the authors of Consequential Strangers, Melinda Blau and Karen L. Fingerman. As you act differently, so will others will respond differently, than usual to you, sometimes sparking unexpected turns to the conversation and your perspective on a situation.

3. Participate in organizations that feed your diverse passions and enable you to hone your strengths in them. Marci Albohor shared stories of individuals with “multiple professions and multiple identities can converge into a unified–and better–life” in her book, One Person/Multiple Careers, now re-released by her as an eBook.

4. If you are part of a large association, synagogue, civic group or special interest club, encourage the organization to support the creation of self-organized, special interest groups of no more than seven people, providing a few suggestions of they could operate. Provide a private-to-the-organization online community where groups can compare notes on what they are learning, ways to self-organize and offer and ask for help from other groups.

Such loosely affiliated small groups within a larger organization deepen a sense of belonging, help more people learn from diverse others and stay open to growing through that shared learning and collaboration.  That’s one way members of Rick Warren’s large Saddleback Church have maintained a close-knit feeling yet continue to grow in fresh ways, according to Malcolm Gladwell’s account of the cellular church. I’ve found that many of Mark Howell’s ideas for how churches thrive through fostering small groups can be adapted to other organizations.

Similarly the innovative outdoor gear company Gore-Tex has nimbly grown by using their version of self-organized teams of 150 or less within the larger corporation. In fact, they give grants to those who further their learning about that philosophy when adapted to outdoor adventure, traveling in compact groups of “close friends who had mutual respect and trust for one another.”

5.  Share an experience with a former foe in an unfamiliar situation. Because George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have quite different beliefs and temperaments, they probably learned more from each other during their joint visit to earthquake-stricken Haiti in 2010.  They could observe different ways of interacting with people as well as of collecting ideas about how to help the situation.

Leo Tolstoy wrote that, “Once we’ve thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost; but it’s only here that the new and the good begins.”  why not seek out opportunities to share an experience with others who have different talents, opinions and ways of operating in the world. I learn more and can hone other sides of myself I’d let slide because of getting stuck in a rut of habit. That’s one of the lessons from Jim Collins: “What often gets in the way of being great is being good at something.”

My goals are more modest, perhaps.

I’ll settle for the sometimes fractious yet often adventuresome times with people who, because they don’t act right like me, spark conversations and experiences where we can see ourselves and this wondrous life in fresh ways. And, yes, we sometimes accomplish something greater together than we can on our own, That makes life more satisfying and more meaningful.

Within minutes I was swept into LeCarre’s masterful spy mystery. But I promised myself I would savor my truffles, eating each one slowly.  At some point the motion of the man’s arm next to me caught my attention. He, too, was reading – as he casually took a truffle out of my box that was on the narrow table between us.

Flummoxed, I made a throat noise, which went unnoticed. I was angry and cowed, so I just move my box closer to me. He took three more by the time my row was called to board. I grabbed the box, got up quickly, as did he, and gave him a thin-lipped smile that he returned with vague warmth. It was only when I was in my seat, with my book and box of chocolates opened that I looked down and saw my unopened box buried in the side pocket of my commodious purse where I’d absentmindedly put it right after buying it. As you’ve anticipated, the box I was holding was his.

As soon as the safety belt light went off I managed to find him and apologize, arousing several disgusted expressions from nearby passengers. His low-voiced, gentle “It was a delight to see you enjoying them, truly. I’ve been in your place in other situations so thanks for the opportunity to play this role this time as you undoubtedly will in the future. Now go enjoy your chocolates and your book.”

Don’t let somebody else determine your behavior

It is humbling to get glimpses of how blind we are to what is actually happening, especially if we feel wronged or irritated when others appear to be acting badly. When driving we are irritated at pedestrians who dawdle in the crosswalk or walk against the light, yet our righteous feelings reverse when we are pedestrians.

Put plainly, context deeply influences our perceptions and actions.

That’s why, as Snopes reported, commuters rushed past renowned violinist Joshua Bell when he played, incognito, one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars, while standing in a Washington, D.C. subway.

He may have been just another street performer panhandling for spare change.

That’s why, when asked to count the times individuals pass a  basketball back and forth in a video, we miss the man in a gorilla costume stroll through the scene.

Situational blindness can be self-sabotaging. It can sour relationships. It may turn everyday encounters into bruised transactions rather than opportunities to enjoy a moment that might blossom into other possibilities.

When asked what they see when looking at an aquarium, for example, Americans and Western Europeans usually comment on the school of fish swimming to the right, and one fish swimming left.  Japanese observers, on the other hand, usually describe the arrangement of plants and color of the water as well as the swimming formations.

Western cultures appear to, “notice and consider context in a way than many Americans do not,” writes psychology professor Sam Sommers in Situations Matter.

To mitigate such blindness and turn more situations into opportunities to connect rather than conflict, consider adopting these two mindsets.

Go slow to go fast

We are hard-wired by our survival instinct, to respond sooner, more intensely and longer to what we perceive as negative behaviors than positive ones.  Simply knowing this, when you start to feel upset, — and that you are blind to the other person’s true feelings and motivation – can give you pause to learn more. Someone’s apparent abruptness, for example, may be a delayed reaction to the people who had just acted badly towards them.

Your natural instinct is to either leave, which solidifies their upset, or escalate, mirroring the other person’s offensive behavior which will cause you both to spiral up in intensity. As that person acts badly toward you he may resent you for seeing him behave that way, quickly rationalize his rude response to preserve his self-esteem, and retaliate for his perceived grievance.

Instead, know speed and loudness increase tension, so adopt the calming Slower, Lower and Less Effect.  While maintaining a genial facial expression (slightly elevated eyebrows), speak and move more slowly, lowering your voice level and the amount, speed and level of your gestures. As the stripper, Gypsy Rose Lee once said, “Anything worth doing well is worth doing slowly.”

Look to their positive intent, especially when it appears they have none

Even if someone is intentionally rude, de-escalation makes life easier for your both. Speak to the side of that person you genuinely like – and that he likes in himself. In so doing make evoke the appearance of that trait.

People like people who like them. The more he enjoys how he acts around you, the greater the likelihood he will see a trait in you he admires – even if you haven’t exhibited it. That’s an example of the Fundamental Attribution Error where, for example, if we see someone cheat, we presume she would cheat in any situation. The upside of such contextual blindness is that once I see you in a possible light, I tend to project onto you the blanket assumption that you are always that way.

Wrote Malcolm Gladwell, in What the Dog Saw, “In the late 1920s, psychologist Theodore Newcomb analyzed extroversion among adolescent boys at a summer camp. He found that how talkative a boy was—say, at lunch—was highly predictive of how talkative that boy would usually be at lunch.… But told you almost nothing about how he would behave in a different setting.”

We assume that personalities are fixed yet they aren’t. As Multiplicity author, Rita Carter discovered we have diverse facets to our personality, some unbecoming as you discover in Out of Character by David DeSteno, Ph.D., and Piercarlo Valdesolo.

The upside is that while positive traits may be less entrenched than we imagine, our negative ones are also less fixed. Consequently, it is easier than we think to evoke a better side to someone, even when they are acting badly. The truffle-eating gentleman spoke to my kind side rather than referring to my rudeness in taking his truffle box.

In so doing, he reinforced a positive quality I value in myself. He also evoked my admiration for him, and modeled behavior I have since tried to emulate.

What could have escalated into an even more embarrassing incident instead served as an indelible lesson in paying it forward – in practicing bonding behavior so needed in our increasingly complex yet connected world with a steep rise in anxiety and loneliness.

Every situation with strangers can be an opportunity to bring others’ better side. Then they are more likely to see and support yours. Also, times with strangers can be opportunities to practice latent parts of your personality or interests, as Melinda Blau notes in Consequential Strangers.  My friend Arthur is consumed with software coding at his crowdsourcing start-up yet he still makes time to play the tenor sax with pick-up groups. They see an emotive side of him that does not appear as much at work.  Despite having a three year-old and twins who just turned one, my friend Claire takes night classes in advanced biology, not just to keep up with her career, but to exchange ideas with her peers that are not possible at home.

Don’t let somebody else determine your behavior

Simply recognizing how I can easily leap to wrong conclusions, biased by context, sometimes enables me to adopt these two mindsets. The indelible remembrance of that gentleman’s warm, affirming response to my halting apology is a recurring nudge for me to act similarly, not that I always manage to do so.

At any time we can alter the character role we play in the next chapter of the adventure story we want our lives to become. We can change scripts, pull in new characters and even enter new scenes. In difficult situations, how have you learned to bring out others’ better side?

I met one of my closest girlfriends at a fundraiser dinner when a big donor at our table made a snide comment to us about a homely woman at the adjacent table. My soon-to-be-friend responded warmly to him, acting as if he meant his insult as a compliment about that lady. In so doing she warmed us up towards her and deflected him from continuing that line of “humor.”

“The best time to make friends is before you need them.” ~Ethel Barrymore

Here are six ways we draw people to us:

1.  When someone is snide or otherwise rude, thoughtless or difficult in front of others, rather than acting affronted, interpret their words or actions as if they meant well.  That way that person has the opportunity to self-correct and save face rather than feel cornered by your correcting him so he escalates his negative behavior.

2.   Use self-deprecating humor that highlights an admirable trait in her – especially one that matters to her, at the expense of your own related trait.  In so doing she flourishes around you.  When others like how they feel when around you they will like you.

Some  effortlessly make friends with all kinds of people. For the rest of us it helps to understand how they draw people to them. Having just a few close friendships is especially vital in this increasingly connected yet more transient world.

Thankfully even apparently small behaviors can make a huge difference in our ability to make friends.

“In my friend, I find a second self.” ~Isabel Norton

3.   College students living in the center of dorms tend to have more friends than those at the end of the halls. Those in center offices have more relationships with colleagues than those who work in the corners of buildings.  Those who sit side-by-side in just one meeting will feel more comfortable with each other later than with others in the meeting yet will not usually know why.

This so-called Proximity Effect is discussed in Rom and Ori Brafman’s new book Click. When you want to get to know someone, find a way to sit or stand next to them in some situation – the more times the better.

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too?” ~ C.S. Lewis

While it’s obvious that people like people who are like them the extent of this so-called Similarity Effect is considerably deeper than I would have thought. For example, in a study cited in Click, if a woman asked me for a donation, she would have double the chance of getting me to give if she was wearing a nametag with my name on it.

That’s why bonding happens when people first meet and ask those innocuous yet safe questions about where they live, work, went to school or grew up. Once you find a shared interest – the deeper the better – explore it further. I’m drawn, for example, to other avid readers.

“Probably no man ever had a friend that he did not dislike a little.” ~E.W. Howe

To connect with someone, here’s the warning – we are wired to respond sooner, longer and more intensely to the negative rather than the positive things someone else does. It’s our primitive brain wiring to survive – Fight or Flight Syndrome.

Yet when we are physically close to someone when seems much different than us then we are likely to feel, not more positive, but more negative towards that person than if she was further away. That’s why, for example, that students in racially mixed high schools are more likely to be racist.

People like people who are like them and people like people who like them.

Here’s why that’s important, especially when you first meet or re-meet someone. Focus on finding the things about that person that are most like you and that you like:

A. Speak first about those traits you share.

B. Speak next about what you honestly respect or like about that person.

Keep those feelings and thoughts top-of-mind so that you feel, act and speak to that side of the person. That’s relationship glue-building. If you start to get irritated about something don’t focus on the feeling.  Instead turn your mind to one of their positive traits.

There’s a double benefit for you in practicing this. Your capacity to befriend those who are not like you enables you to:

A. Lead a richer, more varied life where you may have diverese adventures and work and social opportunities.

B. You will be able to recognize and express more facets of your temperament and use your talents in more varied ways.

“Friends are relatives you make for yourself.”  ~Eustache Deschamps

5. Those who make friends most easily are what psychologist Mark Snyder has dubbed “high self-monitors.” The Brafmans call them social chameleons. When done consciously, followers of NLP call this mirroring and matching. Without effort or an attempt to manipulate however chameleons instinctively bring out the facet of their personality that is most like the person they are with.

As Rita Carter suggests in Multiplicity, we have many people inside of us. Some people bring out our worst sides and we dislike them for that effect.

“Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

These chameleons bring out the best side on more kind of people. Sometimes that makes them adept instigators of projects, or facilitators of teams with diverse personalities.  They may become the glue that sticks the group together. See how much of a self-monitor you are.

The downside is in deepening friendships as high self-monitors may not demonstrate how they feel but rather what they feel is wanted by others. As with any strength there’s a flip side. The good news is that, in understanding both the strength and the disadvantage of such chameleon behavior, we recognize the value of it in the beginning to create the familiarity that builds trust.

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive.” ~Anäis Nin

6. I love to design and arrange furniture and glass lighting yet have difficulty with even minor computer problems. One of my dearest friends is a gadget geek who helps me with computer fixes and advises me about if and when to buy the shiny new thing. And I thoroughly enjoyed creating Danish/Italian-style sofas, chairs and a dining table for the home he just bought.

Those who keenly aware of their talents are more likely to see the benefits in befriending individuals with different ones because such relationships enable them to accomplish greater things for each other – or together. This is the Complementarity Effect. Sure we can find most anything online yet we can’t be an expert at everything. Having friends who have different talents and interests makes life easier and more enjoyable.

“If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone.  A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.”  ~Samuel Johnson

We have to go out of our way to keep such friendships strong because we have different top interests and ways of thinking, talking or doing things.  Yet research shows that we tend to take  for granted that which comes easily to us and to value that which we work at maintaining.

Here’s to cultivating and keeping ever-deepening relationships to savor life together.

“It takes a long time to grow an old friend.”  ~John Leonard

In Star Trek two heroes in-the-making, one impulsively intuitive, the other straining to be rational, recognize they can learn from each other. So can women and men. How do you react in a hot situation?

“A thought comes when it will, not when I will,” wrote Nietzsche. Emotions are learned shortcuts for deciding, based on experience. In an argument culture we have many cues to overcome. 

Some shortcuts destroy relationships. Frustrating as it feels we seem destined to repeat the self-sabotaging behavior. 

Other learned behaviors enable us to strengthen relationships and to attract opportunity. Here are some shortcuts. Using them we can recognize traps we set for ourselves and act from our strengths.

Don’t Repeat the Same Thoughts

When something bad happens your brain cascades through a web of past bad memories.  However you have reacted to difficult situations in the past is the habitual way you will repeatedly review the same facts next time. Yet you can’t expect to go down the same road and see something different.

Such over-thinking makes you feel worse. You become less clear-headed in making a choice to move forward – and out of the situation.

Recognize the Pros and Cons of Acting in Anger

Men are more apt to tunnel down into logic. Women focus on how ideas relate. Consequently men are more likely to act their way out of the situation.  Women are more likely to over-think and to verbalize their feelings, getting stuck in the situation. 

In anger, you feel certain that the other person isn’t acting right – like you. Simply recognizing these differences when you get upset with someone of the opposite sex enables you to be more understanding and less reactionary.

Side effects:

• Women are more likely to get depressed than men.

• Men act to get out of a bad situation. They leave, sometimes exercising to work out the tension. Others become violent.

What Men Can Do Differently

Men who practice speaking up for what they want and listening in the stressful moment – or after exercising to relieve tension – become more resilient in work and personal relationships with women and men.

What Women Can Do Differently

Women who learn to get in motion, by taking a walk for instance, are less likely to get depressed and create a Memory Rut to repeatedly sink down into immobility when something similar happens again. Thus we experience being resilient in stressful situations.

Women: Show Anger and Get Ahead

If a work-related situation makes you angry and you show it you get a different reaction, depending on your sex. A man who displays anger may be admired for his strength. A woman is liable to be seen as “out of control” and incompetent. So found Yale scholar Victoria Brescoll.

Here’s what we women can do. State the facts, not the feelings. Women who stated the justifiable reason they were angry have higher salaries than women who don’t describe the reason they are upset. 

Sadly, “Men could actually be hurt when they explained why they were angry,” says Brescoll, “Perhaps because observers tend to see this as a sign of weakness. I believe (albeit intuitively, as a woman) this is less likely in younger people and in an increasingly connected world where diverse people have more change of interacting.

It is never too late to change your way of thinking and feeling or to compensate for a physical or mental handicap, as Norman Doidge vividly explains in The Brain That Changes Itself. Also, to add to the unavoidable adventure of learning to enjoy each other we now know even normal people have many distinct personalities.

Prediction for living well in this increasingly connected world:

Next to using your main talent your most valuable trait for enjoying a meaningful life will be your capacity to get along with people extremely unlike you. As a journalist it took stubborn me a long time to discover that the biggest stories often came when I was able to connect with people who didn’t act right (like me).

Soon, with childhood friends, he started Captain Video. They designed the first video rental display shelves, a style still used today. Video rentals popped up on many street corners back then yet his stores were packed, staff became like family. Some went on to be managers and then part owners.

With Blockbuster looming, he and his partners sold the rental outlets, with money from the sale flowing through to many employees. Along the way, he continued his weekly basketball games, read and wrote poetry, took friends on rock mining trips for Herkimer diamonds and amethysts and more – all pursuits he started in childhood. Longtime partners became friends, split off and invested in each other’s businesses, still staying in touch. Over the years the ones I recall include Amoeba Records, Escape From New York Pizza (pizza and poetry), Purity and (my favorite name) a chicken take-out place in S.F. called Poultry in Motion.

Yes, he’s made money, and deep friendships. He’s happily married to Lisa Bennett. Along the way he’s been a retail start-up helper, owner of several mines, board member, Big Brother, team mate, frequent best man, jokester, – and the rich source of a quirky, soulful life philosophy. He started a “do good” fund called For Love or Money. He launched a holiday that you, too, can celebrate simply by wearing your shirt inside out, an easy way to recognize others who’re celebrating it, eh? I thought of Paul when I first saw The Wire because I knew he’d love the brilliant script, chaotic storyline and true-to-life characters.

This has been a stellar year for him, even by his standards. I thought of him when I read Rita Carter’s Multiplicity and Marci Alboher’s Slash Life.

Paul embodies the spirit, generosity and ingenuity of the Me2We spirit in enjoying work and life – with others. Want an emotional lift, a few laughs and some insights on how to grow your business and live a life that takes in into different worlds, a life you can savor with steadfast friends? As Robin Sharma wrote, Who Will Cry When You Die?

Yet even the argumentative or otherwise darker personalities are in your life for a reason. In Carter’s newest book, Multiplicity, you can get to know your “people”, the one who plays the most likeable role and the one who keeps getting you in trouble.

In a conversational style, Carter describes the research on our multiple personality brains. In the second part of the book, find exercises to understand more about the multiple you. As a quiet child I’m still surprised at the diverse personalities that appear out of me in my multiple, overlapping careers, as a high tech exec, journalist and, perhaps most peculiarly, public speaker.

Imagine doing these exercises with a spouse, best friend of co-workers at a retreat. It would be a vulnerable time – and an opportunity to explore ways you can bring out the best side in each other more often.

Combine this self-discovery and how you relate to others with the fascinating work by Steven Pinker, Helen Palmer, Dan Pink, Marty Seligman and Marcus Buckingham and you may find that you become happier, get along better with others and get more done with less stress. (I’m stumbling along in my own practice here.)

Possible Side Benefits

• You can design a more satisfying work and life.

• You won’t let somebody else determine your behavior. With heightened self-awareness of your many roles, you’ll be more aware of your hot buttons and the type of people and situations who set them off. You can protect yourself from being “primed” to react.

Instead you’ll have a better chance to choose how you want to act. Hear more in this podcast interview with Rita Carter.