“To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.” ~ George MacDonald
I was torn on the direction to take with today’s email. I was considering discussing how leveraging “buyer’s blue balls” and keeping prospects in the friend zone makes them want what you have even more. I thought it’d be interesting to talk about the creative power of unfamiliarity using last night’s private DJ lesson as an example. Maybe you just wanted to hear how last night’s escapades landed me at a drunken birthday dance party with some famous YouTubers. All of these stories had lesson.
The more I pondered, the more I realized that the lessons had a common root.
I have to give props to Maxx H. for inspiring this realization as he broken my cherry by being the first person (ever) to send me a drunken email… at 2:34AM.
My father has spent his life rooting around through the most guarded information of complete strangers — their bank accounts. He’s a CPA and, by nature of his role in their lives, he needs to have access. The curious thing to me was how often people shared beyond what was needed. People would ask what car they should buy, how they should tell their kids they can’t afford to pay for college, or whether of not they should divorce their spouse. He was often more of a therapist than a CPA.
I found it odd, and yet interesting, that people would do this and it took me a decade to truly understand the reasoning behind their openness. People were required to open up to him in order for him to do his job — it was exposure by necessity.
Once exposed in this way, they could find no other reasons to hide.
It would be as if you let your doctor check your prostate and then felt too embarrassed to tell him that you smoke weed when your kids aren’t home.
Trust doesn’t live in compartments, once you have it — you’ve got it all.
My typical “office” is a smattering of cafes around the westside of Los Angeles. I find that, somewhat paradoxically, I’m more creative and focused with a lot of movement.
While I love finding unique environments to inspire new ideas, there’s one thing that matters more than fast wifi, plugs to charge, and the comfort of the seats —trust.
There’s a Starbucks in West Hollywood where I’ve worked a few times. While there, I never let my computer out of my sight and have regularly lost my seat by taking my computer with me to the bathroom for a two minute break. Why does this matter?
When you feel so disconnected from the people around you that you can’t trust them to watch your computer while you pee — it’s going to constrict your creativity.
Trust makes you feel safe and safety affords you the comfort to be open.
I once asked someone to watch my computer while I went to the bathroom and he politely obliged. I got back, thanked him, and went back to work. A while later he asked me to do the same. When he got back to his computer (that I hadn’t stolen) he remarked that he was more likely to trust me because I had trusted him first.
This got me thinking, could you “buy” someone’s trust by trusting in them?
While I share many of the responses to these emails, there are a plethora of diverse, and immensly personal, conversations that remain private. You have shared the recent loss of jobs, emotional trauma, detailed revenue numbers, and even divorce.
What I realized is that the brutal honesty and openness of my writing was, in essence, me trusting you — allowing myself to be exposed. You matched that.
I try to speak without a filter. I’ve found in past relationships (business and personal) that the moment you have one — you have to maintain it forever. I once pretended that I was a respectable member of society for two years in order to land and keep a hot Swedish girl as my girlfriend. When I finally broke it off I experienced what I now refer to as “snap back” and quickly discovered how far I’d gotten from me.
Being open, honest, and the most authentic version of you is frightening at first, but it’s the most effortless life you can possibly lead in the long run — it’s sustainable.
Not only is authenticity sustainable — it’s extremely profitable.
When you trust (the right) people enough to open up to them, they trust you in return. As a consultant, this makes assessing potential clients far easier. As a marketer, this makes assessing projects far faster. As a human being, it’s energizing beyond belief.
Last night at 2AM my time I checked my email to find Maxx H’s drunken message and it all came together. Trust begets trust. Openness begets progress.
Imagine the progress you could make in life and business if you didn’t have to scale people’s walls to get the information you needed to help them. Open up and see.
When was the last time you opened up and trusted someone new?