TedGriffith-Impact of Lies & Misinformation

Show Transcript

[00:00:00] Bob Gatty: It was on January twenty-second, 2017, that President Trump's counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway defended White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's False statement about the size of the crowd that showed up at Trump's inauguration. Alternative Facts, she said in explaining Spicer's claim that Trump's crowd was the largest ever to witness in inauguration, not lies.

[00:00:27] Not falsehoods, just alternative facts. Now, our guest today is Ted Griffith, author of the upcoming book, "Theatre of Lies. Misinformation Divides Us With Purpose, how to Protect Ourselves, and Why We Must." It will Be Out next Month, and it'll reveal the secrets that leaders in business, media, and government don't want us to know about the lies and misinformation that they spin..

[00:00:56] So stay with us 

[00:00:58] Ted. Griffith is a forty-year communications professional, not 40 years old. He's been in the business for 40 years who has spent his career mastering and employing the tools of mass persuasion. A communications professional who has spent the, his last 40 years learning and employing the tools of persuasion, Griffith has represented high-profile leaders in sectors such as mining, energy, healthcare, water, tourism, waste management, municipal and provincial governments, and amateur and professional sports. He served as Vice President at Canada's largest PR firm, national Public Relations, and was its number one consultant for several years.

[00:01:46] He's got expertise in crisis communications and worked behind the scenes on the 19 eighty-eight Ben Johnson Olympic steroid scandal, Canada's tainted blood scandal, power failures, and various product recalls. Ted, thanks for joining us on the Lean to the Left Podcast. Appreciate it. 

[00:02:06] Ted Griffith: Thanks very much. Appreciate the invitation. 

[00:02:09] Bob Gatty: You know what crisis management always has been a interesting topic for me. I was in the PR business too for a while. I never did have to deal with the crisis where we had to, make things seem a little better than they really were. Is that how it is in crisis management?

[00:02:28] You, you try to gloss over things and make it seem a little bit better than it really is, 

[00:02:35] Ted Griffith: Not if you're doing it right. Okay. People deserve the truth. Yeah. The we're going back in time. Do you remember it was back when Reagan was shot? Of course. And and then the oh, the general who I forget his name now.

[00:02:48] But he wasn't the head of defense and he wasn't the chief of staff of the White House, but he stood up at the in the white House press room and said, don't worry, I got everything under control. I'm in charge. I'm in charge. Yeah, I'm in charge. It was general.

[00:03:03] People went, excuse me. I think there's a vice president and I think there's a o other people that are doing this. It's, it was almost like a quick coup here to have a military general stand up. And I think, that was his attempt at that time to say, don't worry.

[00:03:17] It's okay. The president's been shot, but. I got it 'cause I'm a military guy. The truth is people deserve the facts. They deserve them. Clearly. They deserve to be told what they need to be concerned about and what they don't need to be concerned about. And also, you know what, perhaps you don't know what the right now, but you're looking into right away.

[00:03:36] Okay? The most, the greatest thing the most powerful thing about crisis communications to do is simply be calm. Be truthful and let people know what you know and what you don't know, and when you're gonna get back to them. That's a simplicity. No, the notion of spin Doctor, which, people in my profession have been accused of,

[00:03:55] Bob Gatty: Oh not without reason, right?

[00:03:58] Ted Griffith: For some, okay. Maybe for some, but overall, in my profession, the people that I have worked with over the years, know Spin gets you in trouble. I always had say in the public relations profession specifically. And of course it's changed. But you gotta go up with the truth because like other than like advertising, which can throw brand and images and color and music and all this behind a message.

[00:04:22] Public relations is pretty much a straight message. Now we use those other tools we do, and yes, there are people using lies, misinformation. It's a whole book about it. 

[00:04:33] Bob Gatty: But hey, this guy wrote a whole book about lying. 

[00:04:36] Ted Griffith: Yeah. That's, remember the term, the Thigh master?

[00:04:38] I'm a lie master I guess. And that's what drove me to write this book starting about four years ago. I was just banging my head, I say, scratching my head and banging my head about this whole idea why do people believe lies and misinformation lies about, you talked about before, about, covid about election that might be stolen or, one race is better than another race or not. And all these things that people believe. Why do they believe them? And also. Why do they repeat them to others is the other part. Like there's, 'cause I want to go, you're actually telling me that's what you believe.

[00:05:14] Wow. I find that hard, yeah. 

[00:05:17] Bob Gatty: Listen, lemme tell you, let me ask you this. Based on this 40 years of experience that you've got under your belt now you say that lies and misinformation have infected almost every part of our lives. How is that And. What can we do about it?

[00:05:32] Ted Griffith: I'm gonna take you to a very simple analogy. All right? Okay. Every day the sun comes up, okay? We say Sun's up. Okay? Every day, oh, Sun's going down. Start, go to bed. Dinner. Our mother's told us, in the first thing in the morning, Sun's up, trying to get up, time to go to school. Guess what?

[00:05:52] The sun doesn't rise, right? Our place on the planet turns towards the sun in the morning and in the afternoon it comes back around and it goes into dark, and we go into the dark side. It's the planet that's turning. It's not the sun. Okay, now that doesn't sound like it's earth-shattering. Okay? Oh God, right?

[00:06:13] 'cause we've all been talking about this and known this sunrise, sunset for, millennia. But it's a teachable moment that says what and what you experience might not be actually what's happening. And that's where I see it really beginning. I'm not saying we should go tell people, oh no, no more Sunrise Sun talk.

[00:06:36] Not on our smartphones anymore than when sun's coming up. But it's a teachable moment for people I found when they realize it's some way that we've been brought up to accept. Something is fact, which actually isn't true. It's okay. It's part, yeah. 

[00:06:52] Bob Gatty: So why are lies so often used to control people? We've certainly seen that in this Trump era.

[00:06:58] Ted Griffith: Most basic principle about why lies work is a principle of persuasion. My, my business. And whereas all of us believe that we just make decisions on the facts. But go in and you and I are the same age approximately. Don't, they don't see it too much anymore. But you remember we used to go into the car dealership.

[00:07:22] Yeah. I love the new cars coming out. I love the smells and all that kind of stuff. And the brochure that they gave you of the new Mustang you wanted or the truck, you wanted that beautiful glossy brochure, right? Where were the facts about that truck or that car? Last page.

[00:07:38] There were 16 pages of photos. Beautiful stuff. And then at the end it was the actual facts and details about the truck. We didn't buy that truck or that car because of the facts. In the back of the page, we bought it because there was some sort of resonance that we want this truck, it hits something.

[00:07:54] We want this car. Exactly. Emotional resonance is what makes people have decisions. They use facts or what I call, let's put 'em in a bucket. Whether it's facts or lies. They use proof points to justify their decisions. They don't use them to make their decisions. It's how that resonates with you. And that's why so much of why you hear, the term I use in for emotional resonance is, you had me at hello or, I really like the way that guy's talking.

[00:08:24] Okay. That's emotional resonance and that is what is driving people to believe anything that comes, the rest that comes out of their mouths. 

[00:08:32] Bob Gatty: Yeah. I really like the way that guy's talking and that's what people have to say about, that's why they support Trump basically. 

[00:08:38] Ted Griffith: That's why they and they repeat that over and over again.

[00:08:40] You hear that in, in that it's just, yeah. A guy they really he's standing up for what I believe. Yeah. And that's probably the case. Yeah, actually. But what they believe are lies and misinformation. 

[00:08:53] Bob Gatty: Yeah, that's right. 'cause he really doesn't give a shit about those kind of people anyway.

[00:08:58] How can people figure out how can they discern whether they're being fed lies or alternative facts by people in 

[00:09:05] Ted Griffith: power? 

[00:09:07] Number one, you've got I've got three C's that I, I focus on in in, in the book Theater of Lies. Okay. Alright. The first is you have to care.

[00:09:17] Some people just, it's the emotional resonance hits them and they, that's it. Fine. I believe them. But first of all, you need to care that there's so much of lies and misinformation in the world, and you just, so that maybe that takes, gives you a step back. The second thing you need to do is always be curious.

[00:09:34] Okay. The, one of the great things that the people who spread lies and information are doing if you wanna listen to them, is that because they're using lies and misinformation, they're already decided that whatever the truth is of their argument, why they want you to support them is not good enough to convince you.

[00:09:57] They're saying something about themselves and their position that if I told you the truth, you wouldn't vote for me or you wouldn't buy my product. Really important to understand. And the third C is courage. 'cause you have to have courage to ask questions, to stand up for your own beliefs, etc.

[00:10:14] People always say, at the end of the day, you gotta do your fact checking. That's the panacea. Got a guy from the Toronto star Daniel Dale went from Toronto Star to CNN and has his own spot on CNN as a a fact checker. 'cause he started fact-checking truth Trump when he was at at the Toronto Star.

[00:10:33] And they brought him on to CNN. But all the fact checking in the world doesn't change people's minds. It gets back to that notion of emotional resonance. So the first clue that you have as an audience, and I consider that's why we called the book Theater of Lies. 'cause it's like we are sitting in the audience and something is being delivered to us.

[00:10:52] Okay? Is this message hitting me really quickly? I wanna believe it right away. That's a signal. To maybe ask yourself. What's going on? The other thing to, to be clear of is when politicians, when business people start to use very hyperbolic language Okay. Or storytelling, creating villains and heroes.

[00:11:17] That's why I go back to this theater metaphor, because they are the tools of persuasion. Okay. Showing, how. I can attack a problem and why these people are villains and how we're gonna solve it, and barriers to overcome these are the same. This is the same way that when you go into a movie theater that the writers and producers engage you in their story.

[00:11:42] In a movie theater you just, you the technical term is you suspend disbelief. Like when you're reading a book, you suspend reading fiction. Okay, I know this isn't true, but I'm just gonna enjoy the experience. And when so people are hitting you, hard messages are hitting you hard on a storytelling, chances are there's, there may be lies and misinformation there, but there certainly is manipulation.

[00:12:07] So one of the. Features that I talk about in the book, one of the reasons that I wanted to write the book is to say it, the lies and misinformation, the producers of lies and misinformation are not going to stop. It works. So the only protection we have is to become a better audience. Okay, 

[00:12:31] Bob Gatty: now. Do you believe that people have been trained since they were little kids to believe lies and by people in authority?

[00:12:41] And if so, explain that. 

[00:12:44] Ted Griffith: As I, I mentioned earlier, the notion about sun up sundown. Yeah. And and I don't expect to tell a one-year-old, excuse me. This is not about the sun coming up and down. It's about our place in the planet turning. But, and, at our earliest points, our parents, we learn to respect authority.

[00:13:03] Parents tell us, don't touch the stove, don't cross the street. Unless I'm holding your hand, I'm protecting you. But children are curious. Children are the most naturally curious people in the world, and we, through our education system as parents, our tendency is to block the curiosity out of our children.

[00:13:24] Yeah. And there needs to be a balance there. Yes, we need to protect them, but let's take the phrase Curiosity killed the cat.

[00:13:35] It's outta Shakespeare, actually. And first of all, I don't know any cat that's been killed by curiosity, but certainly it is a message that says, don't even think that, go back in your lane. It's a basic closure of your thinking. As soon as you we often, and it's, to get back to your question here your question of how do we raised, it's almost like that mother at the head of the table or father, when you ask a question and they say, we'll have none of that discussion here.

[00:14:03] Yeah. If you want to question God or religion or the economy, or. Or anything that your parents don't wanna talk about, the answer is we're not talking about that, and that kills discussion. Ideology is, as you to relate to another quote, ideology is the biggest killer of curiosity and the basis for lies and misinformation because if you're Ideologically centered on anything, you close off your mind to whatever other facts or truths might be out there.

[00:14:34] And. One of the biggest challenges is facing America and the world is we are getting Ideologically more divided. It used to be that right and left could have a discussion. At the end of the day, whoever ran the government, it'd be a little this way, a little bit that way. Now we've stretched that, we've taken that point and we've made left and right hate each other, and that's the danger.

[00:15:00] Yeah, 

[00:15:00] Bob Gatty: it sure is. I'm just wondering how it is that someone can believe something that they don't know anything about.

[00:15:11] Ted Griffith: It is, part of it is from my research, it's evolutionary. It's in almost in our DNA when we were. Tiny little mammals. When we were living in predatory environments as whether cave people or on the plains, you had to make decisions pretty quickly if that animal was gonna eat you.

[00:15:35] Or this was a dangerous place. If you look over that cliff, I'm gonna fall and die. We needed it to survive this quick, intuitive belief in a situation to make decisions. So that instinct is still within us. To make quick decisions that protect us. It's one of the reasons why we do lie. We lie to ourselves because it protects our beliefs.

[00:15:56] It protects our, how we feel about our family and our job, and who we're gonna vote for that. That it just it's a sense of initial protection that you leap to. And it's something that, and it's really what concerns me. It's what the producers of lies take advantage of.

[00:16:14] Because like in a movie, they raised the stakes. They look what happened in America. When Trump first started to run for president in 2015. He started with if the Republicans don't make me the nominee, I'm gonna just create my own party. He was denying the Republicans power to actually make them the nominee. Started from that and Mexicans crossing the border and they're rapists and we gotta build a wall and somebody else is gonna pay for it. All the way to now. They've raised the stakes all along till we got the point that now democracy's at stake. Yeah. And that's what lies and misinformation done.

[00:16:55] They, how they divide us with purpose is by completely raising the stakes. Because here's, if a truthful communicator will, will show you a problem, say, and try to persuade you of, I have a solution to fix it. And then you fix it. Okay? And then you move on. But if you're basing your argument on lies and misinformation.

[00:17:19] You can't fix it. Yeah. 'cause there's no real problem to fix. The only thing you can do is to keep raising the stakes. Yeah. And that's the theatrical writer's technique, director's technique, that producers of lies and misinformation to use. They keep raising the stakes to the point in America now.

[00:17:40] And it shocks me, just absolutely shocks me that America. Who the crucible of democracy. The first country with a constitution. Now has democracy as the ballot question. Yeah. Incredible. What happened to the economy? What happened to healthcare? What happened to education? What happened about my tax rates?

[00:18:01] Those are basic ballot questions. Now it's democracy. Wow. That's the power of lies and misinformation. 

[00:18:08] Bob Gatty: As you said a minute ago, you wrote a whole book about lies. It's called the Theatre of Lies. What role do you expect your book to play in the 2000 twenty-four election? 

[00:18:19] Ted Griffith: Being a enlightened capitalist, I'd like it to do very well.

[00:18:23] The but my hope is. My hope for the book is it gets people to take one step back, just one tiny step and say, what am I what messages am I being delivered? The

[00:18:43] my hope is that this, and I, my book is written to be neutral. Okay. Okay. I'm not writing as a liberal. I'm not writing as a conservative, and I'll say right here, I have voted in my own country as a conservative many times and, but I've fundraised and helped get elected liberals, conservatives, socialists in our new Democratic party all across the country.

[00:19:06] I'm not ideological. Okay. The most important thing I hope comes out of this book for americans in particular, but Canadians as well. This is a worldwide problem, but my two concerns are mostly Canada and the United States is to, for a moment, look at your belief system, look at your ideologies, and just park them for a second and say don't worry.

[00:19:33] They're safe. You can have them back anytime. Nobody's gonna take them away from you. Just park for a second. Okay. And listen to what they're saying and ask the questions. Why are they telling me this? What's their goal? Okay. Somewhere in there they'll tell you their goal. And it's not just about being elected or buying somebody's product or supporting a, a windmill wind power versus nuclear.

[00:20:01] It's not about that. Why are they telling you this? What's the reason? And how you hear and really listen is by parking your ideologies just for a second. And again, don't worry, nobody's gonna take them away. You can go back to them at any moment. Okay. 

[00:20:19] Bob Gatty: So the crux of your book how does Theater of Lives deal with this whole issue of misinformation?

[00:20:29] Ted Griffith: I've got a there is a one chapter, which is a sort of a checklist to go through, part of which I just talked about. Okay. The parking your ideology is one the there's a a point that a about simply asking yourself the question self, the question, what if the other side is right?

[00:20:48] Just what if, just play that game. Okay. I've talked about be curious, don't accept things necessarily as they are, even though they could be absolutely right. But just ask yourself the question, why are they telling me this? What information are they using? And where even if I have to lose, get out of my tribe, that's why I get into this whole park your ideology thing.

[00:21:10] You don't have to tell the world about it. Just yourself and take that moment. The other thing that's really important is to encourage curiosity. As we talked about the, I think there's a, there's things we have to do as, as individuals as we talked about Park. I said parking around geology and being curious, but we actually.

[00:21:32] This isn't a problem just for today. Our problem is decades. It's been centuries in the making this of laws and information dominating us. Being, just wanna go back a bit. Remember weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Exactly. I'm not there. They were never there. And just the reason that they weren't ever there.

[00:21:53] And Saddam, Hussein even said. Ah, yeah, I might have them Saddam. Hussein didn't want his people to know he didn't have them. Alright. But they, but the US government was able to take that lie and, go into Iraq and we know the results there. Even though Iraq had nothing to do with nine 11.

[00:22:12] It was Afghan and the Taliban, which by the way, the Taliban are back in charge of Afghanistan after the lies and misinformation that came out of that. I guess my point is to get back to your question, what do we do? We have to work as individuals become better members of the audience, ask questions, be more critical.

[00:22:33] We also have to look to society. We have to encourage curiosity and lateral thinking in our children, right? In the school system. Our school system is designed to produce workers. Not designed to produce thinkers. And the problem with that is, I'm not saying we don't need workers 'cause we do, but even the jobs that they're, we're talking about giving, getting our children to work at, we don't know the jobs that are gonna be needed in 10 years.

[00:23:06] When my grandson starts school he's three years old now and he's gonna start school in a couple years and in about, what, 15 years? 13 years. He'll. Graduate high school, then go into some sort of college, do you or I have any idea what kind of jobs are gonna be needed in 15 years?

[00:23:23] This whole notion of educating our children to be good workers? No. We need them to be able to think and be lateral thinkers and long-term learners. And that's where the curiosity comes in. The other thing we need to do is on an organizational basis. I'm talking about corporately. I talk about governments.

[00:23:44] Ask yourself, are we part of the problem? Because so many organizations don't even know they're spreading lies and misinformation. Lemme gimme an example. I love chocolate bars. Okay. Yeah. I dunno if you do, but lot, lots of people do. And if you look at the back of most every large manufactured chocolate bar. In some way it says sustainably produced cocoa. Okay. All right. Okay. Yet, and they spend, millions on these programs of the sustainability programs for cocoa. Okay? But the people that grow the cocoa, they can't even afford, they, they don't even know what a cocoa tastes like.

[00:24:26] They don't know what, they can't eat it, and they earn about $3 a day. That's not sustainable cocoa. No, it's not. It's not. But yet, on the boards of, of the chocolate manufacturing companies, the cocoa buyers, they have this system in places. Look at this. Marvelous. We're getting all this cocoa.

[00:24:46] Now they also have another small part of the market. It's called Fair Trade Cocoa. 1% of all chocolate bought is fair trade. That's where they spend money to have buy cocoa at a fair market price that, that allows a family who grows cocoa to actually live and go to school and raise their children.

[00:25:05] But billions of dollars are spent. Nothing. And yet all these companies say they have a sustainable Cocoa product. I'm sorry it's not there. So my note is this, is that you've got a board the manufacturing of chocolate. Multi-billion dollar industry all around the world. You have people on the board of directors and in management who think they have a sustainability program and they don't.

[00:25:28] So they're actually spreading. Won't call it a lie, I'll call it misinformation. 

[00:25:33] Bob Gatty: Once you moved you moved into an area I wanted to talk about when you brought this up, and that's climate change. One of the issues that's often the subject of misinformation, of course, is climate change.

[00:25:46] How has climate change been affected by lies and misinformation in your opinion? 

[00:25:51] Ted Griffith: That's a big topic for for a couple hours and I'd actually like to maybe get back to you sometime and have a, maybe a. We can do that a longer discussion about that. We can do that. Because I think there's a lot of information that has to get out there, but I'm gonna go back to basics.

[00:26:04] Okay. Because part of the power of lies and misinformation is a tactic that producers of lies and information will do, is they will take a word, a term from the opposition and twist it around. Okay? And the climate change advocates made a decision. I think when we go back to the international panel on climate change, they moved away from the term global warming. Some decided, and I've got some research, which I can't just pull off the top of my head that, that said that climate change was a better term than climate, than global warming. And I. We can debate the reasons why they went there, and that's why I think it's a longer discussion, but what's happened is that the anti-climate change, people have been able to take that term and throw it back in everybody's face.

[00:26:51] 'cause change is something that's well, climate's changing. It's almost like the weather changing. All right? Yeah. It's been part of their term. Whereas global warming, it's I go I take a pill every day to manage my cholesterol 'cause my cholesterol is getting higher. Okay. Now that prevents heart attacks and other things like that.

[00:27:15] But it would be like my doctor saying to me we're not talking about your blood pressure's high or your cholesterol is high. They would talk about we need to protect your heart, whereas saying my cholesterol is high is really a better thing that it can be measured. And I think that's part of how losing the term global warming.

[00:27:35] And replacing it with climate change has been part of the problem. 

[00:27:39] Bob Gatty: Okay. Yeah. It seems to me that what they did was they took a term that is pretty specific, global warming. It tells you what's going on global warming and turned it into climate change, which is very general and doesn't tell you really anything.

[00:27:55] And to me that's part of the spin, 

[00:27:58] Ted Griffith: isn't that? 

[00:28:00] Yeah. There's, there's even a. There's a a memo out of the Bush administration that had been pointed to, and I have a copy of it. Whereas an advisor to the Bush administration on the issue of the environment said, use climate change.

[00:28:14] Don't use global warming because climate change is more palatable to people and it doesn't raise fears. Guess what? They're right. We don't have enough fear behind. Global warming and rising sea levels and, loss of habitat and changes in food and all the impacts of global warming.

[00:28:33] And we don't measure climate change too much. We actually measure global warming. We measure degrees going up in, in the world. So it'd be easier to track, easier for people to understand. And it's part of the problem that, I'll call it the. The climate change proponents have done is in order to make it, more palatable, they use the word climate change and it's a, it's now been turned around and used against them.

[00:28:57] My other example on that, it's not climate change related, is the word woke? Oh, yes. Okay. Don't you hate that? I, I. I never liked the word in the beginning. I remember it was one of those things that as a writer and a communicator, if I've gotta stop and look it up as to what it is. Okay. Yeah. It's not the right, it's not the right term.

[00:29:18] And where it comes from woke comes from black American street slang. Okay. And it comes from the point, it came out in the sixties. It was written in a, it was a, an article in the New York Times and it was a recommendation by a black writer to black youth about be woke when you're around the police.

[00:29:37] Which was, be aware that as a black youth, you are going to be treated differently and be careful what you do. Okay. So the, I'll just call left. For lack of a better term the left took this and said to be woke about other things, made it their own. Now they could have just used the word be aware.

[00:29:58] But because it was a strange word, the lies of misinformation people, we were able to create the term anti-Woke. Now you don't know what woke is. But if I'm more right-wing or conservative anti-woke sounds something because I like to be against things. Okay. So yeah. Being anti-woke gave that power.

[00:30:19] But could you stand up and would people stand, like what? Governor DeSantis is, said that, Florida is the state where Woke goes to die. Yeah. Now would he say this Florida is a state where awareness goes to die?. Well I think that's probably okay. That's the problem when you create these Fancy new terms. The other one is critical race theory. My lord. Okay. I, and again, I remember seeing it for the first time, and I've read about it in the book. I went, I gotta look this up. Where does what's this about?

[00:30:55] I'm an intelligent man, been running the business for, 40 years and critical race theory. Where does that come from, as opposed to black history and its impacts. Yeah. Okay, that's what we're talking about. It is, and, but because it can be critical race theory and then it becomes CRT.

[00:31:13] Now the other side who are promoting lies and misinformation, say. No critical race theory. And of course if I'm not taking the time to think, which most people don't, yeah, that sounds good. They're forcing this critical race theory and people don't even understand what the word theory is. They say, oh, e evolution's a theory.

[00:31:32] Gravity is a theory, that's not how science uses the word. That's another topic. But words are very powerful and so part of defending yourself and as organizations and governments who want to have people on their side or political parties, you gotta use the right words. Yeah, for sure.

[00:31:52] And simple, clear communications is what I preach in my business and it's what I preach to the world. Because as soon as somebody starts to spin something, that's when you ask. We ask, when do you know? When they throw these other terms out, when they create this new language, which we love to do.

[00:32:10] Simple, clear language is the way to cut through this. 

[00:32:13] Bob Gatty: You mentioned your business. Just real quick, what does the Fixers group do? What do you do? 

[00:32:18] Ted Griffith: We it was a moniker that being the fixture that my clients used to call me. Okay. And, I started in this business like so many on the, what I call the marketing communication side.

[00:32:28] And which was at the end of the day to me a fight for, which toothpaste was better than the other toothpaste. Yeah. Okay. Like not a, didn't really get me up in the morning. No. Fixing problems. And so many problems are communications related. Yeah.

[00:32:46] That if you just went and now there's strategy involved, of course, about, the right thing to say at the right time to the right people, with the right people saying it in the right way, right? Yes. That's not spin that's strategy. And often I found that how I fix things, how my company fixes situations, whether it's a a power plant that needs to, wants to go into a neighborhood that nobody wants it, or, a, a big layoff of people that, people don't want to have layoffs or any issue, right? Is to make sure that all sides of the issue get the same clear, simple information and 'cause that's often what most companies that we get hired by, they've started defensively with problems.

[00:33:30] Denied that it's there. And so we fix things by getting all people to have the same information. So you're still doing this? Yes, I am. Yes. We still have a vibrant client base. Yeah. Because 

[00:33:42] Bob Gatty: what you said you were, you and I are about the same age. Yeah. If that's the case, or I guess maybe I better get off my lazy butt and start doing something besides podcasting.

[00:33:53] Ted Griffith: You know what? That's a full-time job. I've looked at, people have said to me, Ted, you should do a podcast on lies and information. I said I'd have to have a machine behind me. I'd have to be like Jordan Peterson. Yeah. That has and he's a guy. I'd love to debate Jordan Peterson. That would be my, that's I've said that to the people that I work with and who are helping me on this book.

[00:34:10] I said, if there's a debate I want to have, it's with Jordan Peterson. That would be the. That's a topic you can reach for. I don't expect 'em to reach it today, maybe in a couple years. Yeah. But the this gets me up in the morning and so yes, I talk about it. I want to do more frankly, of doing seminars for companies on how to find lies and misinformation in their own business.

[00:34:32] Like I talked about the chocolate side that, and there's, there are other industries like that. I'm always in my entire life been doing work that I would do for free if people didn't pay me. I really I've always loved the challenge of communicating ideas and specifically what I call, and what I learned even more through this book was persuasion, persuading people change their minds.

[00:34:56] Bob Gatty: When's, this thing gonna be published. 

[00:34:58] Ted Griffith: It should be out available in sort of the Amazons of the world. The end of February, I would say middle to late February. Okay. And then major retailers after that and, yeah. Okay, cool.

[00:35:10] Bob Gatty: Now, how can people reach out to you if they want to get 

[00:35:13] Ted Griffith: a hold of you? From, you can reach me at Ted.

[00:35:16] At TedGriffiths.net. That's my author site. And there's also my business site, which is Ted at TheFixersGroup.com. Okay. Both are available and of course I'm on social media, okay. You can find me there. Just Google Ted, Griffith. There's a few of us out there, but I'm the only old guy that's bald and has a beard, so that's how you can find me.

[00:35:37] Bob Gatty: Okay, Ted, is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap it up? 

[00:35:41] Ted Griffith: I think it's important for people to remember who, and I've talked to a lot of people about this. When they say, I'm writing this book, it says, oh, that's so good that you're doing, you've done this. And I'm saying when you read it, you might not think so because it says you in the audience have a responsibility.

[00:35:58] Yeah. It's the producers of lies and misinformation are taking advantage of you. Of all of us. And so we have some work to do to become a better audience. And that's the hard part because taking responsibility for anything is hard. We always wanna blame somebody else. 

[00:36:15] Bob Gatty: That's, people are lazy. People are lazy and will allow that to happen if they're not aware. 

[00:36:21] Ted Griffith: It's I don't know who said this a long time ago, but they said everybody gets the God. They deserve of the God that they want. Very much. Yeah. And if that's the case, that is, but my book is not going to change the world.

[00:36:39] But if it can get at 1%, 2% of the people, that's what makes difference in elections. That's what makes difference on, on a product, whether they buy it or not. We know people can make change and my, my real hope for the book is that it gives people pause. It lets them understand how, in a way, it's not their fault you've been raised on this.

[00:37:04] I talking in the Bible in the beginning, there were lies that, Eve, told Adam to take the apple and eat of the tree of knowledge. If there was ever a message that knowledge is dangerous, it's on that page. But knowledge is not dangerous. Knowledge is where we have to go.

[00:37:25] We'll see how it does. I hope it inspires conversations like this and more of them. And I look forward to talking to you again, Bob. That would be great. I. Okay. 

[00:37:32] Bob Gatty: And once again, folks, the book is Theater of Lies. Misinformation divides us with purpose, how to protect ourselves and why we must. You guys check it out.

[00:37:44] Sounds like it's gonna be a great one. And Ted, thanks so much for being with us. I really appreciate it and I would like to have you come back and we'll focus on that climate change issue if you want to. 

[00:37:55] Ted Griffith: Good. And I'd also like to hear from you personally about after you've read the book, what you think about it, please.

[00:38:01] Bob Gatty: Very good. Thank you.