CAN'T GET OUT WHAT YOU DON'T PUT IN

What is:

Essential for effective communications?

A cornerstone of healthy relationships?

Dispensed slowly?

Yanked quickly?

Desired in our daughters' boyfriends?

Vital to all organizations?

Missing in most organizations?

An ingredient in high performance teams?

Abundant in our God?

Lacking in our politicians?


The answer: trust.

Trust is a belief and confidence in something or someone. You either have it or you don't.

Whether trust is in your personal bag of virtues or not doesn't stop you from being asked to display it. How often and in how many ways in your work and personal lives are people asking you to trust them? Occasionally it's easy because you do trust them, and you will gladly and confidently do what they ask. Sometime it's easy because you don't trust them and would never do what they ask even under the threat of having to spend time alone with a mime.

The challenge comes when you're asked to do something you feel you should do that requires a level of trust you don't have. Friends may ask you to play the "Trust Me" game without historically having produced any legitimate reason for you to do so.

In life you can find yourself backed in a person or professional corner frantically searching for trust from people whom you have never given a reason to trust you. If you didn't have people's trust before you needed it, you'll never have their trust when you do need it.

Lesson: Deposit often in the trust bank. You never can tell when you'll need a withdrawal.