Sometimes we’ll use the phrase, “trust me.” But does this work? Can we tell people to trust us?
Telling someone “trust me,” appears to work sometimes, but I propose that this only works when trust already exists. Our words don’t create trust. Our actions do. This concept is captured nicely in the following quote from Stephen Covey:
We can’t talk our way out of a problem we behaved our way into.
Unfortunately, while our words can’t create trust, our words can break trust. So when working to rebuild trust, we need to pay attention to both our words and our actions.
Trust and Our Calling
Building trust can be an important part of pursuing our calling. Without trust everything takes a lot longer. Sometimes we stop at a standstill without trust.
Imagine the following:
- We decide that we are living our calling in our current position with our employer, but the boss doesn’t trust us.
- We want to start a non-profit, but people don’t trust our intentions.
- We want to own a business but people assume we’re in it just for the money.
As we can see from these examples, trust is important for pursuing our calling, and in fact, trust is important for every aspect of our lives.
What about you? What do you find builds trust with you?
