Trust – The Gamechanger

Trust is everything. How many things do you trust in a day? We trust for much in our lives and yet, we take that for granted. 

You trust that your paycheck will land in your bank account, and trust for that bill to auto-pay. You trust that the food in front of you is going to get delivered by trucks, to arrive at the grocery store or restaurant, and that it will be of acceptable quality and available to you for purchase. You trust that the vehicle you are driving was designed, made properly, and is safe. You trust that a bridge will withstand the wind and natural forces in order to hold you up properly as you drive across it. You trust that the stoplights were designed to do the job of managing traffic, and both lights at an intersection will not be green at one time. You trust the pilot to land the plane safely and responsibly, putting your seatbelt on when told in preparation for turbulence. You trust labels on medicines purchased from the drugstore, and that they are safe for use according to the instructions listed. 

The definition of trust is:

(when used as a verb) to believe in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of.

Or

(when used as a noun) firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.

Trust, or belief in one anothers’ abilities, their reliability and their unique strengths lends to teamwork, and good teamwork means lighter loads, which leads to more success.  In fact, I can’t remember one person who felt overjoyed that they had to, “do it all.” So it would seem like it is common sense to choose trusting others, but that is not often or always the case. Sometimes, you should not extend trust to others, especially if trust is rightly lost. Trust should be lost when someone continuously dismisses your needs, has poor motives, are incapable of healthy relationships, dismisses your feelings, has bad character or persists with repeated betrayals. Often though, we don’t trust despite the total lack of evidence that says someone is untrustworthy. If we self-protectively engage in a reluctance to trust, we are set up to struggle more though life.

Without willingness to trust, we get sucked into becoming as self-reliant as possible. As a result we miss out. 

Over time, a life of self reliance can become a jail and burden. A life without trust boxes us into living at the bare minimum, spending our resources on our own survival and self-protection rather than focusing on the offer to experience life more abundantly. After all, look at what COVID did to us! Everyone was all too busy baking bread, hunting down toilet paper, lysoling lettuce leaves and learning how to cut hair rather than getting out in the world and exploring. Not to mention, a life without trust gets lonely since trust is a form of connection. Trusting those who are trustworthy can project us into amazing lives where we thrive; however, we have to take the risk to do it each day.  We see this professionally, personally and globally. It takes self awareness and courage to be capable of offering a basic level of trust to those around us. To fully weigh the individual risks of extending trust, I think it is only proper to examine what it is about trust that can really add to our lives. 

It is perhaps easiest to see this romantically. Differences between a couple can be expected because we are often attracted to those who possess traits that we do not, or traits that we truly wish for ourselves but have not yet been able to embody. Thais Gibson, from the Personal Development School describes this as the, “Golden Shadow.” She suggests using the pain of this kind of loss to inform yourself about ways in which you want to grow and learn how to live without someone, whether that be through a breakup, illness or death. While it is a great way to grow towards your wholeness and realize your goals or dreams – I fully believe we still need and will always have those differences. We each have a unique experience on Earth. No one else will live Nancy Rogan’s life, or specifically know how I experienced the delightful taste of dinner on Tuesday night, how I have lived out relationships, technical/work development or other experiences in the way that I have. How do you know what you do not know? You can’t – you need others to mirror back what you do not yet know. We are made to rely not just on ourselves but on eachother, and through that we have access to not just what we know, but what others know too. Differences between a pair could very well be seen as weaknesses, and as points of disconnection. Alternatively, they can be utilized to build a stronger, more capable unit.

Ultimately, individuals in a partnership can be different, as long as there is trust in eachother for the areas in which they are particularly different. 

If there exists the right measure of respect and trust alongside them, differences actually enhance relationships. For instance, let’s say an interior decorator is dating an electrician or a plumber. Wouldn’t they be nuts if they insisted on doing the job themselves, without any regard for their partner’s abilities? What if they just didn’t trust them to do the job right, despite the fact that they obviously are much more capable? There would be a lot of toil for nothing. The reality is, there is more REST for each of us if there is room to rely on someone trustworthy. If the pair here can trust in eachother rather than insisting on their own way, they will end up with a tastefully decorated home, with very sound mechanical installations and proper wiring. While this example seems pretty blatantly obvious, we can apply this same thought process to people that are more emotionally aware, money savvy, individuals that can plan, shop & predict household needs well, make delicious drinks, cook a feast, organize well, research deeply, shop efficiently, are better with time, better with kids, good with pets, repair cars, notice trends, have a medical degree, and are experts at discerning the emotional landscape of the family and other major aspects of life. There is only room to win if we can make mutual displays of trust, and risk letting go of our own insistence or control  i.e. “You can trust my emotional intelligence, and I’ll trust you to wire a house.” 

Trust can make up for the gaps in knowledge, ability, and intelligence that we might not otherwise have access to unless we relied on other people. 

With trust, you can accomplish things with more skill and less time, and possibly at a greater quantity. You can get a proper medical diagnosis, figure out how to fix something from YouTube, and get your car on the road again. At work, a boss can hire speciality experts to design or repair things once they decide that this potential employee is trustworthy enough to complete the assigned task. The result is a team of successful employees that build a company with many moving parts and functions, all relying on each other to do their individual roles and areas of expertise. 

Now, I do believe that there are basic areas that we absolutely need to have similarities in order to build an initial platform of trust and goodwill. This is generally based on an understanding of important shared values. After all, being, “too different” in certain areas can drive you nuts or lead to criticism in the mind, which translates contempt in the heart, which then takes you to disrespecting your partner, and disconnecting from them. So the question here is, what are the values and traits that are important enough to us that they are non-negotiables to be able to rely on your partner? I believe it is these similarities that help us determine if we can consistently understand our partners so that when it does come time to make decisions apart from eachother, we can trust that we are on the same page, even if we are at different places on it. We are then able to take this established trust and extend it into those other areas. For instance, if I can trust someone in general as a person, it makes it a lot easier to trust their judgment in other areas until proven otherwise. Their general character which can be shown through honesty and transparency, can lend to betting on their decision making in other areas of life. Why else do we go to people we generally trust for life advice? Additionally, we have to believe that the other person considers our interest alongside of their own or alongside of what their strengths are in order for us to trust them further. For instance, if Lucy is really good with money, she wouldn’t be able to expect her partner to trust her if it’s always money at all costs. Her partner would trust her if they thought she could soberly weigh the interest of her expertise (money) alongside her partner’s interests, desires, goals and ambitions.  

People will disregard your strengths if they don’t sense that you have regard for them as a person.

In other words, if someone only sees the product over the person, and fails to respect their partner more than they value the goal and inherent strength, this entire concept of trust will fail.  If the knowledge or strength of the individual is weighed rightly alongside of the best interests of the other person, this is where the magic happens! This is where our skills combine to build more!

Now,  I have heard many people who will say things such as, well you really want someone more similar to you, more interested in the same things, or someone more, “on your level.”  I simply find that while some similarities work to build the inherent and basic trust, these other types of less value based similarities are simply an element of attraction, but not the absolute driver.  

If there is enough proximity of interests and ability to complete tasks of mutual interest, there can be connection and attraction. The rest of the relationship’s “greatness” is built on being teammates, and a pooling of trust and the summation of the collective abilities.

It would take a whole separate blog post to detail the nitty gritty of why people don’t trust. There are many obstacles to trust, and it cannot be forced and it is sometimes difficult to get there. Intellectually, I think I have us all convinced that there is a lot to be gained from trusting those who are safe to trust. However, there are just a lot of life experiences, trauma based or even childhood reasons why people are primed to be unable to offer each other basic gifts of trust and goodwill. To add to that, trust is gained in drops, and lost in buckets. It is clear that despite the work it takes to earn trust and keep it, trust IS a game changer. Emotionally, figuring this puzzle of how to trust others is much harder. It takes uncovering beliefs about yourself and others, and the examination of those drivers. However, there is no denying that if you don’t trust yourself, or anyone really, you’re missing out. In other words, without it, we are pulling together pennies when we could be throwing out enough dollar bills to toss in the air and dance in – and I love dancing!

For a minute, just consider just how much you already put a healthy measure of trust into others each day! From there, recall where you haven’t with current and former partners, friends, co-workers or relatives and perhaps be open and willing to explore and challenge that perspective.