In Goals We Trust
A group of five guys, including yours truly, were coming from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, on one chilly Friday morning. Our car got a flat tire and as fate would have it; our spare tire was flat too.
We were on a stretch of road called Mombasa Road heading to Nairobi city centre. There had been many reported car-jackings around that road so other motorists were too scared to come to our aid.
Imagine this; a bunch of rough looking dudes, looking like gangstas, trying to flag down scared motorists for a lift to the nearest garage or service station. It was an effort in futility.
Someone suggested that we were scaring them coz of the sheer numbers. So we decided that some of us should hide, and have only one of us to try to flag down the speeding motorists. But even thugs had figured that one out. In fact some were way ahead of us. They were reported to have been using pregnant looking women with kids to flag down their prey. Looking back, in the light of the crime rate at the time, we were not in a position to be trusted. We were the epitome of Nairobbery.
Lets Talk About Trust, Baby…
Trust is stronger than love. No matter how much you love someone, if you cannot trust that person, it is hard for that love to bear fruits. It is hard to do business with people you do not trust. It is hard to communicate with people you cannot trust. Lack of trust destroys friendships faster than a snake’s venom.
It takes years to build trust. It is a slow process; just like nature. Trust does not grow as fast as the beans in Jack and the bean stalk.
It is the small things that you do to build trust that count. Small cumulative words and actions allow trust to thrive. You cannot impose trust. You cannot dictate trust. But you can help create an environment for it to flourish.
Trust is so important for success yet many people never really pause to think about creating a “trust strategy”. How do you gain and maintain the trust of the key people you need, to get ahead in life? How do you know whom to trust? How do you use the trust bestowed upon you responsibly? How can you piggyback on someone else’s trust?
A Unity of Purpose
There is a Swahili proverb that says “Mpanda ngazi na mshuka ngazi hawashikani mkono”. It is loosely translated as “someone heading North and someone heading South cannot hold hands”.
It is easier to trust someone after you know their goals. It is easier to trust a person if your goals and theirs are in harmony, and not in direct conflict. This applies to all spheres of life. An employee whose burning ambition is to create a competing business is not worth being on your payroll. A consultant who cares more about his fees than helping his client solve problems is not the best candidate for the job.
Pay special attention to what motivates the people you interact with. Pay attention to what makes them happy. What do they ultimately want? Do not ignore the link between goals and trust.
Positioning Yourself for Trust
People will use your goals in life to judge you, whether you know it or not. Whether you want it or not; it will happen. When setting your goals, add trust to the mix.
Allow me to refer to an earlier blog post I wrote last year. It was entitled – What is Personal Branding from Within? In that post, I applied a Bob Marley song to Personal Branding. I wrote “The truth outs. The truth about who you really are eventually comes out. You can fool some people sometimes, you can fool some people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. The best way to enhance your personal brand is to change your internals; your thoughts, your emotions, your habits and your character”.
Who you really are eventually comes out. The best way to inspire trust is to be happy in your own skin. Be happy with the person you really are. Develop an unshakable character and habits.
Before you can seek to be trusted by others, you must be someone worthy of trust. People break others people’s trust not because they are bad people, but because of conflicting goals.
It pays to know what you want in life. You are less likely to hurt others if you know what you want and communicate it clearly, and in good time. If you have to fake who you are, then you will break someone’s trust eventually.
There is no shame in walking away from people or situations if they do not align with your objectives. Position yourself with people that accept you just as you are instead of camouflaging your real self. It is good for you and them in the long run.
Cultivating Trustworthiness
The little things that you do day in day out are the vital trust deposits into your trust bank. Unfortunately, that bank is a little strange. The numerous small deposits over time can only sustain one withdrawal. It is possible to erode 10 years worth of trust deposits with one withdrawal. Don’t prick the balloon of trust.
Reliability is the long haul trick to solid trust. Learn to keep the small promises. When you say you are going to do something, do your best to make sure that it is done.
Not everyone will trust you. It is hard for Osama and Obama to trust the same guy. Decide whose camp you want to be in. Work on building trust with the right people. Misdirected trust efforts are futile.
Summary
People will trust you more if they know that your goals are not in direct conflict with theirs. Make small baby steps to build trust with the people who matter. Trust can be built over the years but destroyed overnight. Gourd it ferociously when you get it.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.