How to become more honest - Dr. Mark Matheson (part 1) - Episode 85

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About Geoff Steurer:

I am a licensed marriage and family therapist, relationship educator, and coach with over 24 years of experience. I am the co-author of, "Love You, Hate the Porn: Healing a Relationship Damaged by Virtual Infidelity", the host of the weekly podcast, "From Crisis to Connection", and have produced workbooks, audio programs, and online courses helping couples and individuals heal from the impact of sexual betrayal, unwanted pornography use, partner betrayal trauma, and rebuilding broken trust. As a leader in the field, I am a frequent contributor on these subjects at national conferences, documentaries, blogs, magazines, and podcasts. I also write a weekly relationship advice column available on my blog. I founded and ran an outpatient sexual addiction and betrayal trauma recovery group program for over 14 years, co-founded and chaired a local conference to educate community members about harmful media, and founded and administered a specialized group therapy practice for over 12 years. I currently maintain a private counseling and coaching practice in beautiful Southern Utah where I live with my wife and children. 

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Podcast Description

In this episode, I interview Dr. Mark Matheson on the topic of honesty and how we can become more honest in our dealings with other people.

More on Mark's Background:

Dr. Matheson has an MBA from Harvard and a doctorate in organizational leadership from UoP. From 2010 to 2019 Brother Matheson taught at BYU-Hawaii and Southern Virginia Universities. Before his retirement,  he has been a partner and senior analyst with three investment banks. He was also an Adjunct Professor for four years and guest lectured at eight other universities. He taught at BYU Education Week for four years, seminary for five years and for the last seventeen years, when he is in Utah, he has served as a volunteer teacher serving the Utah State Prison. He loves to mentor young adults as they face multiple important life decisions. He posts thought-provoking ideas daily under the titles @ScriptureAnalyst and @ConferneceAnalyst, the same on both Instagram or Facebook.

Five preliminary basic steps in improving honesty:

1) Perceive Dishonesty as a Threat to the Well-Being of Your Family

2) Seek to Understand Why You and/or Your Family has Dishonesty Issues or Events

Here are two practices you can do now to analyze your level of honesty:

**Conduct an Honesty Inventory for a day or a week- keep a pad and pen with you and see if you can tally how many honesty situations you are in or how many times you lied.

**Do a Personal Honesty Assessment   Reflect on your life and see where you have perhaps cut corners now or in the past.

3) Develop a Personal Commitment to Honesty

Here are some self evaluation questions I use:

Ask: Is honesty for you always a priority or only when someone calls you on it?

Ask: Is honesty a proactive core characteristic of the way you conduct your life or is dishonesty the ‘default’ mode?

Ask: Are we usually honest mainly when it is not inconvenient ?  Is our internal consistent with our external?

4) As We Develop a Vision of Honesty for Your Family and the World

5) Trust in Positive Outcomes of Honest Behavior

--Believe that honesty is the best long term course of action.

--Believe that honesty is rewarded in the Long-run; not always in the short-run.

-- Honesty skills need to be tested over time and under stress.

I Found Two Related Core Traits of Honesty: Sacrifice & Humility

1) Sacrifice to Uphold Honesty

Admit mistakes even when it costs something significant.

You have to be prepared to walk away from profitable but dishonest dealings.

2) Embrace Humility as a Guard Against Dishonesty

Much dishonesty stems from attempts to limit ego damage.

We can improve in this by some simple actions:

Accepting feedback from others

Acknowledging error

The advice offered through Geoff Steurer's podcasts is educational and informational in nature and is provided only as general information. It is not meant to establish a therapist-patient relationship or offer therapeutic advice, opinion, diagnosis treatment or to establish a standard of care. Although Geoff Steurer is a trained psychotherapist, he is not functioning in the role of a licensed therapist during these podcasts, but rather using his training to inform the content. Thus, the content is not intended to replace independent professional judgment. The content is not intended to solicit clients or patients, and should not be relied upon as medical or psychological advice of any kind or nature whatsoever. The information provided through the Content should not be used for diagnosing or treating a mental health problem or disease. The information contained in these communications is not comprehensive and does not include all the potential information regarding the subject matter, but is merely intended to serve as one resource for general and educational purposes.