Building Trust.

What makes building trust so important?

Trust is like oxygen – invisible but essential for survival. It’s all around us and a key building block of meaningful relationships, a good life as well as a prerequisite for a functioning society.
You need trust all day, every day. 
 
If trust is missing life gets dark and miserable: you doubt, you fear, you are suspicious and uncertain about every move. This means you are basically busy with being inactive because you cannot really do anything or move forward in life.
 
Trust on the other hand makes you feel energetic: you want to do things, you are engaged, and you push forward – not only for yourself necessarily but also for others you care for and who you trust. Trust creates the base for being honest and open, to show your true self, be vulnerable and with this comes a great opportunity to create and build new things.

So, how do we build trust?

First, it’s very much worthwhile to watch this brief Ted Talk from Frances Frei on how to build and rebuild trust.

Frances Frey talks about Authenticity, Logic and Empathy.

Empathy

Show your full attention, don’t get distracted (switch your phone off or put it on silence): look up, look at people in front of you, listen to them, immerse yourself in their perspectives

Logic

This is about the quality of logic or ability of communicating logic, start of with the point you want to make, then build up the supporting evidence.

Authenticity

Comes with living your truth, show your traits – who you are and show your full self, this is how you are most consistent and trustworthy.

Think for a moment and consider what else did you learn from her Ted Talk?
What makes her trustworthy in your opinion? 

How does she show her ability to show Empathy, Logic and Authenticity?

Trust Habits

This was a great start – just be aware that trust building is an investment into a relationship and this takes time. Get started yourself by integrating the following areas into your everyday life:

  • Commit to building trust every day, set an intention to actively create a trusting environment and concentrate on the key aspects of building trust
  • Show your true self, be authentic, follow your intuition: this makes others more likely to trust you
  • Show your vulnerable side: this makes you more human, laugh about your small mistakes and joke about yourself without being too self-deprecating 
  • Decrease stress: interaction with others becomes better when you are not stressed and if they are not stressed since stress inhibits Oxytocin release – the trust hormone (link to article from HBR:https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-neuroscience-of-trust) (How to become calm: link to Calm area)
  • Be reliable, consistent and stand by your words: 
  • Try with smaller stuff: be on time or let the other person know if you will be late, consider if you really want to do sth before you commit, and if you do commit make it a priority; learn to say no more
  • Show interest and care for others: ask the person who you want to build trust with how they are doing and show genuine interest in their well-being, their goals and dreams. 
  • Build a strong relationship and consider their ups and downs.
  • Encourage the person on the other end to share their personal interests and ask questions, listen closely to focus questions
  • Say thank you and smile: sincere appreciation of what others are doing for you is important to show you care and see their efforts
  • Give trust to receive trust: your counterpart will feel if you trust them or not, if you show trust it’s more easily reciprocated
  • Be honest and transparent about your intentions
  • Be kind and helpful to others
  • Show respect to everyone
  • Show gratitude for everyone and everything in your life – also the hard things are here to teach you
  • Have a positive mindset – don’t waste time and energy on ruminating about things that go wrong. If you look at what you learn from failures and understand them as growth opportunities you will win big time. Concentrate on the positives and more positive things will come to you
Facebook Twitter Youtube Github