Trust
–
reliance on the integrity,
strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.
I recently met a fellow whom I liked
very much from the start. He was sincere, always kept my quirks in
mind, shared my same dry, sarcastic sense of humor, and went
completely out of his way to include me in his day. At the time he
was dealing with someone who was not returning his calls and messages
and it upset him enough that he would spend about 10-15 minutes each
day venting to me about how he felt about the treatment he was
receiving. Add two more relatively minor family crises (which he
would only hint to me about) and all of a sudden he was not returning my calls and messages. He just dropped the ball entirely. I gave him
the benefit of the doubt of course because sometimes people fall
apart, but after about a week of this treatment, I said my last words
today, deleted him from my contacts, and walked away. If a red flag
was a javelin, I could probably nail him with it from outer space.
I always seem to attract these type of
people - broken in a major way. I have no idea why, it is just a
truth about my life that I have come to accept. My current theory is
that the old saying about all things happening for a reason is
actually part of some universal law similar to gravity and that I am
meant to meet these people to either learn something from them or
teach something to them. I can't always see what my purpose is in
these encounters and sometimes I don't figure it out until years
later when I'm wondering whatever happened to what's-his-name. I
often have those “Aha!” moments in hindsight, when I've gathered
other bits and pieces of wisdom that help me see the situation from
an alternate (and usually more mature) angle.
Of course, I tell this story to set up
a monologue in which I explain to my readers my personal views on
trust. So let's get to it already.
There are so many ways to break trust between two people. I mentioned the fellow above to demonstrate how a person can break trust through hypocrisy. I don't really feel the
need to speak with a person daily, however when that is the precedent
we've set with each other, any change to that established pattern
needs to come with a courtesy in order for me to understand and accept such
reverse treatment. I'm honestly more disappointed than anything. I genuinely
enjoyed the guy and it's a shame that he has done the intolerable.
Intolerable actions get people kicked out of my circle! It's important to draw the line between what is acceptable treatment from others and what isn't!
It's also important to understand that trust
is an investment. Look at it this way:
It's no different than investing on
Wall Street. If things keep going well and your reputation is solid,
people will continue to have trust in your company and they will
invest, but as soon as your company makes that ONE questionable
decision, all of your investors are sitting there slack-jawed in
disbelief and once they blink, it's all over; the decision has been
made to withdraw their assets from your company. It takes only a
second to lose the trust of shareholders that have invested in you
confidently for years! Even new investors won't touch you
considering what you put your long term partners through!
And what about all those people you
burned? Now they are afraid to invest anywhere at all and for a long
time the entire market suffers! You could have avoided all of this
by taking them into confidence at the first sign of trouble and
prepping them for what was to come. Of course some of them will bail
at the first sign of trouble, but those were only short term
investors anyway. It's those that have believed in you for so long
who are going to appreciate your fearless desire to communicate the
bump in the road ahead and your plans for a stronger recovery once
you've cleared it. Investments work both ways. You keep that solid
reputation going and the investors stick by you, come hell or high
water.
I made a little investment of my own over the years. I am a single mother of four children. I never lied to them about anything, not Santa, not the Easter Bunny, not the Tooth Fairy. I told them the real reason that people celebrate Christmas and Easter and I told them there was no Tooth Fairy, but I offered to buy their teeth from them. They were no less awed by the Mall Santa (I insisted that they not tell their friends because their parents didn't want them to know yet), they love Easter egg hunts, and they couldn't care less about putting their teeth under their pillows. If they asked about sex, I answered only the questions they asked and provided only the information they wanted, nothing more. I was careful to explain in ways they could grasp even at a very young age. (We started discussing the birds and bees when the oldest two children were 3 and 5 years old.) If I couldn't do a thing, I told them exactly why. When we had financial trouble, I didn't hide it from them.
One day, I told them we would take a trip to Wally World and that just this once I wouldn't forbid them to touch anything as long as they didn't break it. You would have thought the light had shown down upon them from heaven. As the day wore on, I wore out and honestly I didn't have the energy for that touchy feely trip to marketing utopia. From the living room, I could hear them encouraging each other to keep their rooms clean so they would be ready when I said it was go time. "Come on clean up! You know that mom said we were going to Wally World today and she never lies." I think it was the second oldest of the four that said that. Of course, I dragged myself and my nerd herd to Wally World shortly thereafter. I couldn't let my biggest investors down and we had a blast fighting in the toy aisle with Styrofoam swords.
As a result of choosing to always be honest with them, I've been able to take them through many an uncertain transition with their absolute trust that we would come out better off on the other side. They never doubt me because I have never given them reason to. Anytime there's even a remote possibility that I might have to go back on my word, I simply don't give my word and offer them a "maybe" instead. I didn't realize it early on, but after a while I discovered that this raw honesty with them had given me a trump card. Whenever they are asking me for information I am not ready to give them, I can always ask them "Don't you trust me?" and that's the end of that conversation. They have to abide by their blind faith and wait. That's trust at it's purest in my opinion.
With that being said, I
want to take a moment here to talk to you, the investors. You're the opposite end of the spectrum and some of
you need guidance too because you keep flinging your trust in all the
wrong directions! I can't necessarily tell you where you should
invest, but I can offer my thoughts on where not to invest.
Okay, first let's cover the catch
phrases:
“I have a hard time
trusting people.”
“Trust is earned.”
“I'm a very jealous
person.”
“I know you really enjoy
that, but if you're going to be mine, you can't do that anymore.”
“I just want to know
what the competition looks like. I don't like competition.”
“It's too much work for
me to date more than one person at a time and you shouldn't either
even though we are JUST dating.” (Note that dating in this sense
does not include sex or a relationship of any sort. It's just dating,
going out to dinner, grabbing coffee, etc to see if you're even
compatible.)
Let me inject a bit of background information here before I continue. I tend to study a bit of
ancient philosophy, partly because it is the purest observation of
the nature of humans, completely unadulterated by media influence.
Ancient philosophies are true to the actual nature of the human
condition which transcends cultural differences and is not confined
to any historical period. It is as true today as it was 2.5 millenia
ago because it is based on human nature.
Now, let's consider those catch phrases. The founder
of Taoism, Old Master, Lau Tzu (C. 600 BC), gave us his insight on trust saying, “He who does not
trust enough, will not be trusted.” Take a moment to absorb that,
then think about that person who is always saying they have trust
issues whenever you two meet for some quiet conversation. They
don't say that to Bill or Angela when you double date with friends.
They only say that to you. Ask yourself why they feel the
need to keep reminding you of that. It's their issue after all, not
yours, so why are they constantly reminding you about it all the
time? You're not a weasel, right? You're not setting off their weasel meter then, are you? Good. Read on.
Think about that person for
a bit. There is probably something about them, but you just can't
put your finger on it yet. That's your intuition speaking. Don't
ignore it. Would you trust that person to babysit your car? Or your
dog? Or your mom? No? Is it because of that something you can't quite
put your finger on? Then why the hell are you still giving this
person the time of day? Are you one of those infinitely curious
people who is just sticking around to figure out what that something
is, so you can high five yourself and say “I knew it!”? You do
realize that you don't owe this person anything, right? Not a second
date? Not an explanation? Nothing? I mean it would be courteous to
say you're going to be moving on and by all means you should, but
don't sit there and feel obligated to anyone for anything. If you
feel like there's something you just aren't seeing, then THERE
IS! That's your intuition talking! Learn to trust THAT!
I'll leave you with two
other quotes to ponder.
The true feelings that arise
from being deceived are summed up nicely by Friedrich Nietzsche, who
says, “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from
now on I can’t believe you.”
This last quote is just good
for the brain to chew on. It reinforces what I've said about trusting your intuition. “It isn’t an easy thing
to give your loyalty to someone you don’t know, especially when
that person chooses to reveal nothing of himself.” Those are the wise words of Megan Whalen
Turner, in her book The King of Attolia.
How do you know when you can or can't trust a person? What's the "Aha!" moment that lets you know?
How do you know when you can or can't trust a person? What's the "Aha!" moment that lets you know?
