Jim's Secret Thoughts

When I moved into my new office this last summer I was handed a key to the building as well as the suite and I thought for a minute, “Wow, these guys trust me with entering the building anytime I like and they trust that I will use the office as a professional workspace and present it as such, to the benefit of all the business tenets”. Then I thought “why do they trust me?” and it came to me that it is because I trust myself, I know that I can be trusted with the keys and stewardship of the office space, which gave me self confidence and credibility which I believe they could perceive.

Sadly, trust in our modern day society has taken a huge beating and many people have very low trust levels. “Only 34% of Americans believe that others can be trusted” According to Stephen M.R. Covey in his book, The speed of Trust. If we can’t trust others then we will stifle all our good endeavors and all we attempt to do is slowed down. Think for a minute about the level of trust in airports, which since 9-11 has dropped lower and lower. How much extra time and effort must now be put into a commute or travel itinerary?

“Low trust slows everything—every decision, every
communication and every relationship.” – Stephen R. Covey

But if we don’t trust others who can we trust? We are all familiar with stories of people who couldn’t trust themselves to quit smoking or drinking or something similar and thus they ask someone else to be a steward over their problem – which of course does not work because each individual needs to take ownership for his own life and not claim victim hood. The folks in these stories must learn to trust themselves or they will not be able to honestly trust others. And on the flip side, if others know that an individual does not trust himself then they will lack trust in that individual as well.

The law of attraction is apparent when it comes to trust. It seems that those who distrust others seem to attract others surrounding them who also distrust others.

It is obviously a weak character flaw to lack trust in ones self as well as believing that anyone else can be trusted. So what can be done to insure that you can trust yourself and in turn be more trusting of others? It means believing what you tell yourself and then beginning to work on building your self confidence which will inevitably shine through to others. As these qualities project themselves from you they will resonate with others and you will be perceived as a person who is credible and authentic. And you will attract others with the same qualities. If we can gain confidence, trust ourselves and have faith in ourselves then we can inspire others to be trust worthy and have their own credibility.

“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself” – Bruce Lee

If we then can trust ourselves we can then learn to trust others. Trusting others must begin with believing, if I can be trusted then so can someone else. And in an environment of trust innovation, creativity, imagination and good things can happen, more often, more quickly and to the benefit of all. My hope is that we as a global human populace can reach back to the value of trust and seek to move forward with improving life, because the alternative is not pretty.

This article was written by Glen Gunnell. For further reading on the subject of trust, check out his article, “Trust is the New Currency” or www.speedoftrust.com