Curious about Trust - Are You Trust Worthy? What Does It Mean to You?

Ken McCarthy wrote in his recent blog, “It's all about trust. Going back to the start of this article, trust may be the single most important word in business.

“I'm not talking about being-blind trust. Healthy skepticism is one of the most important tools in the entrepreneur's tool kit. I'm talking about being trustworthy. Literally: worthy of trust.”

He truly hit a nerve with me and many others.

Having been active on the Internet since 1997, I have found that there are a few gurus one can trust, and many others who are not “worthy of trust” or my money.

I just discovered Ken McCarthy during this past year, and he and his “System” have definitely earned my trust. I won’t list the others here, but if you want to know some of them, do visit my newer website, www.ChrisRecommends.com.

Anyway, back to this blog. What does trust mean to you and your business and/or life? The formula for attracting, selling to and keeping clients is: we buy from those we, “Know, like and trust.” We all need to ask ourselves, “What makes or will make me worthy of trust?”

Here are some examples for me:

• I recently took my car in for service. Since I would be unavailable by phone, I told them that I would be willing to pay for complete replacement of my brakes if needed (they were making a terrible sound). The service man told me what that would cost and I was prepared. When I returned, he told me, “Good news! We only had to replace the front brakes and clean up the back ones.” Did he build trust with me? You bet!
• One habit that has always paid off for me is being timely and trustworthy about answering e-mails and phone messages. Even though I receive a huge number, I work at getting back to people FAST. I know for a fact that when in contention with someone else for a job (especially a storytelling gig) that my quick response has made a difference.
• There is nothing as distressing as ordering a program - especially a pricey one - and finding it is full of fluff or problematic when trying to use it. It kills my trust!

I know we all could go on and on sharing examples, but I do want to share some of the great quotations I found for trust.

• “Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• “Trust your hunches. They're usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level.” - Joyce Brothers
• “We grow in time to trust the future for our answers.” - Ruth Benedict
• “Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do.” - Benjamin Spock
• “Today I trust my instinct, I trust myself. Finally.” - Isabelle Adjani
• “A man who doesn't trust himself can never really trust anyone else.” - Cardinal De Retz

Who and what can’t we trust?

• “Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.” - Agatha Christie
• “Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window.” - Steve Wozniak
• “Don't trust anyone who has been in school for the past 24 consecutive years.” - Craig Bruce
• “Don't trust anyone over 30.” - Pat Boone
• “Nobody expects to trust his body overmuch after the age of fifty.” - Alexander Hamilton
• “I never trust an executive who tends to pass the buck. Nor would I want to deal with him as a customer or a supplier.” - James Cash Penney

Can we trust our friends?

• “I learned you can't trust the judgment of good friends.” - Carl Sandburg
• “I can trust my friends. These people force me to examine myself, encourage me to grow.” - Cher

And some theories about trust:

• “The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way you can make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him.” - Henry L. Stimson
• “Back in the prehistoric jungle, all the animals who trusted other animals got eaten. The only ones who survived to reproduce were the ones who instinctively feared everybody and bit their heads off. This explains why so many people, like artists, who trust their instincts, behave like crocodiles.” - Brad Holland
• “I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.” - Charles Dickens
• “Do not trust your memory; it is a net full of holes; the most beautiful prizes slip through it.” - Georges Duhamel

I will leave you with my favorite trust quotation for the week:

One of my favorite writers, Natalie Goldberg, wrote, “Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go.”