“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” — Rumi
Trust is a profound human emotion, which unfortunately is a loosely used word in our everyday life, especially in personal and business relationships. But what is TRUST?
To understand trust, we must first look at two other commonly used emotions — belief and faith. Belief is derived from our perception of certain situations or a person under specific circumstances. You may have noticed yourself saying I believe in myself. Similarly, the new hire fits well into the role, or I believe in a particular person’s capabilities. Whereas faith generally ignores the rationality of a belief. This is commonly the case when it comes to the rituals and rules of a community, God, and certain other aspects flowing through generations. In other words, faith is believing without questioning.
Trust is like graduating from faith and belief. Trust is EXPERIENTIAL. You start with a belief or faith and start questioning, observing the responses you get until you are convinced. Imagine when you meet someone, you believe he/she could be your life partner, a great employee, or a business partner. However, you validate your belief and gain trust when you live and work with them. Similarly, you sit on a plane not because of faith or belief in the airline but the trust you gain from the airline’s record of successful flying.
Consider another example — You may have often heard someone say that their life partner broke their trust. However, most often what they are talking about is their belief or faith that the other person is loyal. The same is the case with business partners. It is easy to believe but trust is very hard to come by and is an everyday effort to keep it.
Trust builds with emancipation and accepting vulnerability. The first step to developing trust in yourself or within your team is to empower with responsibility, independence, and acceptance of failure. When you take responsibility for your actions, you are most often building the character that will thrive in adversity and become trustworthy. Similarly, in intimate relationships, empowering responsibility, love, and freedom is the most proven way to build trust.
Trust begins with yourself and is central to becoming “unstoppable”. We always begin with the belief in ourselves and the experience from our failures and successes develops trust in our instincts, decision-making, and abilities. Trust in yourself is of paramount significance for the success of any relationship you develop and in the continued quest to stretch your limitless potential.
When you trust yourself, instinctively you become fearless and relentless in pursuit of your goals. In this journey of trusting yourself and generating results, you first trust your instincts, but over time when you become so good at what you do, your instincts will inevitably start trusting you. That is when you become UNSTOPPABLE.
Trust is integral in building a team — an extension of yourself. When the goals are big, you inevitably need a larger group of people, a mastermind alliance in achieving them. A major part of success means recognizing the people who can help you get where you want to go, meaning, putting all the best pieces in place. However, a common trait of an “unstoppable” person is that he will not put anyone “in place” unless he has full trust. The job is not easy, and so is the goal.
My life experiences have made me trust religiously in Rumi’s “what you seek is seeking you”. When you trust yourself, you will inevitably attract trustworthy people who will share the same burning desire as yourself to stretch beyond limitations. Without trust, getting anywhere would be challenging. You must have seen this in sports quite often how a team trusts each other’s instincts and abilities to pull together a very well-coordinated effort on the field. Similarly, in a business, the team with complete trust in each other will most likely be the best performing.
Trust is the basis of our existence, the joy of our life, and the pathway to becoming unstoppable. Look for what you trust, nurture it, and let the magic unfold!
I’m grateful for your time in reading this blog. Let me know your experience and perspective about the subject in the comments section. Please share the blog with your friends if you enjoyed reading it.
