How do you clean up a lie (cheating), when its not the first time you got caught?
With Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Cathy: One of our listeners wrote in and said that … It was about our video about cleaning up issues and if you were caught lying. He was cheating on a test and got caught.
Reid: Oh!
Cathy: His teacher caught him. The problem is this is not the first time she’s caught him cheating. He wants to know what he can do because he feels kind of paralyzed. He wants to deny it but she actually has the cheat sheet that he used.
Reid: Becoming better at cheating and not getting caught is not an option?
Cathy: I think that that’s not what he’s asking for help with and I think to be in integrity with our brands and our …
Reid: We are not transparency? That’s right. I’m Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com.
Cathy: I’m Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Reid: This is not a cheating video.
Cathy: No. It’s not, not how to cheat.
Reid: This is how to get your ass out of a tough situation since you got caught twice my friend.
Cathy: Yeah. I think most people have been a position where they told a white lie and got caught. It’s really uncomfortable and if you’ve gotten caught a couple of times that’s really hard.
Reid: Understand that even I, the great Reid Mihalko used to cheat on tests and I …
Cathy: I didn’t know that.
Reid: Yeah. I got caught and it was horrible. You just feel like, “Oh.” It’s the same thing with shop lifting and little things where human beings will do this. I’m not apologizing or making excuses, however, first, don’t beat yourself up too much. Be like, “Yes. I shouldn’t be a cheater. That’s not cool. That does not have a lot of integrity.” Understand like, “Wow. Okay. Now that I know that I’m just human, how do I go and be a more amazing human and what’s the growth piece here from me? How can I figure how not to be like this?”
Cathy: How do I clean it up with that teacher?
Reid: Yeah. That’s the next piece. It really begins with admitting that you have a problem. That you’re powerless, but you have power here. Admit that you have a problem. Go to your teacher and be like, “You know what? In a weird way I’m glad you caught me because I want this to stop. Can you help me figure out how to be better at studying so I don’t have to do this anymore?”
Cathy: Yeah. You can share that a lot of people that cheat do it out of the shame. They are ashamed to ask that they don’t know why they’re not getting it or they’re struggling so much and they want to hide it. They want to pretend that they’re getting it just like their classmates are. You might actually in the long run help the teacher help people more. There might be other people that are struggling with the same thing in the class and she may not be aware of either a gap in her teaching style or something that you need to remediate so that the information lends easier.
Reid: Yeah. That’s tricky because now you’re basically saying, the reason I was cheating is because you suck as a teacher.
Cathy: No. I don’t mean it that way.
Reid: Okay. First things first. Admit that you were cheating. Don’t deny it. The three laws of being a lair demand proof, admit nothing, and there is a third one that I can’t … There is a whole saying for this. Basically you don’t want to become a better liar so you’ve got to cop to it. That means admitting it and apologizing. Just apologize to the teacher, apologize to yourself and then invite support. Do I need a tutor? Can you help me with the concept that I don’t seem to be getting?
Go for resources and empower yourself because the great thing is if you can figure this out, and it might be that you just haven’t figured out your learning style and how to study for you. You’ve got your PhD and you did a lot of school, probably more than me, so some of the best students are the people it’s not just that learning comes naturally, they actually locked out of figured out how they study and learn the best. I don’t know if you have any study tips oh great PhD Engineer.
Cathy: I know what works for me is I set aside block time and that’s all I work on.
Reid: What’s block time?
Cathy: It’s a time where in my schedule nothing else comes in. I don’t answer phone calls. I don’t turn on the TV, I don’t go on Facebook. You generally start with a short period of time like 20/25 minutes and build up from there with short breaks in between. For me block time where nothing, I’m telling myself this is all I’m doing during that time and just focusing on that one thing. Most of us have 50 different things coming by and it’s hard to let any one of them set anchors so for me having block time really makes a difference with how well I learn.
Reid: Understand your adult learning styles or even if this question was written by somebody younger like your younger learning styles I guess. Are you somebody who if you’re reading and you write things and copy things writing them out that helps get you in your head? Studies show that writing things out helps you retain information better than typing, your mileage may vary.
Are you somebody that needs to study with a buddy and go over things verbally? Do you learn better verbally when you are moving and not just sitting at a desk? There is all these little things that you probably don’t know that will increase your ability to learn. Then you’re dealing with some people are great at taking tests and some people suck at taking tests.
Cathy: There is a lot more resources out there for people that have testing difficulties now. It might be asking for help. I want to emphasize that we’re talking about integrity too. This is not a legal discussion. Some colleges have a zero tolerance rule, so if you’re caught cheating then you can actually be kicked out. You may want to check in on that. Again, this is a discussion of integrity not what you should legally do for the best outcome for yourself.
Reid: Depending on what class this is, this is just me pulling something out of my ass. Depending on what class this is and if you want to apologize to the teacher and if you really want to do this don’t promise and not do this. Ask them as a form of restitution, that you would like to do a paper or a presentation on learning and study styles for the class. One that will put your ass on the line and then you’ll have to research and learn how to learn and then you can share it which might help some of the other students.
That’s me just being a geek because I know when my ass is on the line and I have to teach somebody something it really helps me learn what I need to teach. That’s just a crazy idea but it might work for you and it might help your teacher show that you really give a fuck.
Cathy: Yeah. You are wanting to change things.
Reid: Yeah. Good luck with this. Thank you so much for sending this question to us. We hope this information was useful for you. People, listeners, interwebs, give us some resources to really good learning style and study style, videos or website stuff. Let’s help this person together.
Cathy: Let’s crowd source.
Reid: Yeah. Thanks.
Cathy: Thanks.