#70 How to Build or Rebuild Trust

Rachel Denning (00:00.974)
Hey my friends. man, I'm excited today. Another great day to be alive. I'm on a business trip and up in Ohio, met with, I got hired to come up and do a training for just an awesome organization. They're starting, got a small business and just rocking it, doing great things, great vision, great leadership, great people. man, it was so good. So we did an all day training. And the bulk of the training was around,

the importance and power of trust. And particularly in a business like building a business team where you can really work together. But the power of this is it, it fits in every part of our lives and especially in family, right? Where we're, we're all about building an extraordinary family life. This is the extraordinary family life podcast and our monthly coaching program. We've transitioned to the extraordinary family life.

monthly coaching. It's all about building your extraordinary family life. But what's interesting is that everything affects everything. And, you know, family affects business and what's going on in your business affects your family and your friends and your inner life. It's all there. It's all this piece of it's beautiful. And the power of trust is amazing and powerful. It can.

be totally detrimental. Think about it, if you lack trust in your family, like your marriage or with your children or your children with you, that suspicion or doubt or fear, lack of trust there, deserved or not.

destroys those relationships. The same is true in business. The lack of trust in business, either with coworkers or team members, I like to call them team members, like the employees, employers, bosses, managers, other accounts, clients, customers. If you lack trust there, there is a huge cost. There's a huge cost. And it is not.

Rachel Denning (02:17.614)
If the lack of trust is there, that cost is negative and it will cost you tons of success in your business. I mean, and you can think through that. You can see that, like, wait a minute, if I don't have any kind of trust with this person, it's just gonna have detrimental effects on every part of our lives. And so it's essential. And what's interesting is that most of us don't give that enough thought. I mean, how often do we sit down and, okay, how can I deliberately and strategically build more trust?

in my relationships. And so I want to give you some strategies today, some of the things I spent in the training and the studying I've done, really around building trust and maintaining it, but also rebuilding trust. How often do we, for some reason or another, we lose trust in someone else or they lose trust in us and we need to rebuild it? You go through life, you're going to make mistakes. There are going to be misunderstandings.

And so we'll often have to rebuild it. And there may be situations where, man, you just, you've never built it. You're just kind of going along and just, just been doing life. And so we've missed out on the strategic piece of building trust. So we're gonna do that today. We're gonna hit it hard. it's awesome. Good stuff. So the big elements of trust, three big questions that I want you to ask yourself and jot these down if you're not driving and you take notes. There's three elements of trust.

Number one, do I trust myself? Do I trust myself? That's the first question. Second question is, do I trust others? Do I trust others? And the third question is, do others trust me? Am I a person that can be trusted by other people? Those are the three big questions around trust. So let's dive in, let's go after this, because this is gonna be gig.

gigantic in every relationship you have you you and I we work with people we live with people we around people and Again, I'll keep reiterating this powerfully if you have trust in a relationship It is so efficient so effective so wonderful so peaceful think about the feeling of peace that comes when you know you can trust someone and and the horrible

Rachel Denning (04:46.158)
horrible feeling of not trusting someone or not being trusted. Ugh. Man, it is so detrimental. So in order to trust someone, there are a few elements. A lot of the trust research puts two elements. I have added a third of my own. Number one, ready? Ready for these? If you're taking notes here, jaws down. In order to have trust,

We have to evaluate character.

competence and caring. Character, competence, and caring, right? And care. So here's how this plays out in life. The first element is we trust people because of their character, which is usually when people think about trust, that's usually the only thing they think about. It's like, are they a good person? Are they honest? Do they have integrity? Will they do the right thing? Right?

And that's character. That's like, it's in your heart and soul and your mind like, are you a genuinely good person? Can I trust you? Because I know you're good. You're not going to do anything malicious or evil or wrong. That when it comes down to it, you're not going to allow greed or anger or selfishness or deceit or evil to guide your decision making. You're just a good person. That's character, right?

Will you do the right thing when it matters? That is character. Whether someone's looking or not, whether you might get caught or not, whether there's external consequences or not, you do the right thing for the right reason because that's who you are. That's character.

Rachel Denning (06:36.75)
The next part, so I'm gonna come back to the three questions and hit that, but I wanna just kinda touch on each of these. The next one is competence. So somebody might have phenomenal character, like just they are just genuinely good and you know you can trust them, but they might not be very competent. Competent meaning you're really good at something, you're good enough at something at least to know that, like I say, so if somebody is a competent driver,

they're a good driver, then you feel safe driving with them. If they have no idea how to drive, they've never driven before, but they have tons of character and they're, you know, it's genuinely great. I have friends like this, right? I just was thinking of this. I have, you know, I know men and women who just have the best character, impeccable character, just some of the best people on earth. They've never driven a car in their lives. They live in a part of the world where they just don't drive. And...

So I might say, you know, in your mind, you're like, I trust you with my life. Go ahead and drive. Just because you're a good person. They're like, I don't know how to drive, right? And so at that point, you don't trust them to drive. Even though you trust them, as good people with character, you don't trust them to drive because they have no competence in driving. They have no skill set in driving. And so even though you trust them in their character, you definitely would not let them drive.

That is, that's the example of competence. Are you good, really good in your thing that people trust you to do it and do it well? And same when you're working with someone or in your family or whatever, are they competent enough in that thing that you trust them? With me? And then caring. You might, you might find someone who is, they have, in,

Fantastic character, you know you can trust their character and their integrity. They're actually really good at what they do. But then this third piece I think is important because what if they don't care? If they just genuinely don't care, they don't care about you, they don't care about what you want, they don't care about your concerns. So, and you know what I'm talking about, right? You've probably met people like that, like man, they're good people, I know that.

Rachel Denning (09:03.246)
I don't think they're gonna be deceptive or dishonest. They're really good at what they do, but they just don't care. And that right there just, and maybe it's not even a trust thing so much as you're like, you know, if you don't care, then you just lose that, you know, the connection, you lose that desire to work together, to build a relationship together, right? To have...

an ongoing connection with somebody if they don't care, or if you don't care. Think about that. You might just, hey, as honest as the day is long and really good at what you do, but your give -a -crapper's broken, in the words of my Alaskan friend. If you don't give a crap, if you don't care, people aren't gonna wanna work with you, they're not gonna wanna be around you.

Because you're probably not going to be very pleasant to be around, let's be honest. So, and have you met people like that? That you know they're honest, they're really good at what they do, but man, you don't want to be around them, and you don't even want to do work with them because they don't care. They might be the best in the industry.

But you don't want to do work with them because they don't care. They don't care about you. And so those are the three elements, right? So let's back it up. Let's dive into this a little bit. Question number one, do I trust myself? And so you have to evaluate in trusting yourself those three things. You evaluate your character, you evaluate your competence, and you evaluate your caring. And so character is like, look, do I?

Do I make and keep commitments to myself? Do I do what I say I'm going to do? And this is a fascinating one, because it all happens within your mind. It really, it honestly doesn't matter what you say out loud as much in this one as what you say to yourself. Because you may not tell a single soul, but in your mind you say, I'm going to get up at five tomorrow. And then the first thing you do is hit that snooze button and hit it again and hit it again and then.

Rachel Denning (11:18.126)
You're dragging your butt out of bed at seven, ugh, and you've already broken a commitment to yourself. In fact, that snooze button is evil. Right? Think about that. You break a commitment to yourself as soon as you hit that thing. If you have committed to get up and you hit it, you start the day by breaking a commitment to yourself.

Woo! Let that sink in. You say you're not gonna eat sweets or drink, you know, you're not gonna have another drink of alcohol or drink of junk or whatever, you're done. And then you do it.

Rachel Denning (12:01.358)
And it, you know, even if you don't cognitively say, I don't trust myself because I didn't do that, you feel it, you sense it. It starts to eat away at you.

And this happens most often in small things. We have all these little things. And what's interesting, because they're small and seemingly insignificant, those are the things that actually destroy our character and our trust in ourselves in small ways, much like a termite does to a beautiful piece of wood. It just eats that thing one little, one teeny tiny bite at a time.

destroys its integrity, the wholeness of what it has. And it's so small things. So for example, small indulgences. Something we know is not good for us or we know is like, it's not our best, and we just allow it because of laziness or greed or selfishness or...

appetites or passions or whatever. We let ourselves off the hook, whether it's emotionally reacting or just a little habit, there's a little training. And we don't keep our word to ourselves. And we don't, and you might try to avoid it. Well, I'm not gonna make any commitments in. I'm not gonna say, and that doesn't feel good. Either you won't trust yourself. Why would you trust yourself if you don't?

do anything, you don't say you're gonna do anything.

Rachel Denning (13:47.758)
It's as bad as just saying it and not doing it. So here's how we rebuild the trust with ourselves. We build or rebuild trust with ourselves. Now, a lot of us have just grown up, you guys, in situations where we were never taught this, we were trained otherwise, we grew up in situations where that was just the norm. And for some of you, you're probably hearing this for the first time, and this is the first time you might have really just thought through it in this way of like, wait a minute.

I don't trust myself because I don't actually follow through with what I say. I talk all the time or I tell myself all the time doing it and I don't do it. And some of you right now are just for the first time going, that's that feeling I've been having of self doubt or insecurity. It's actually a lack of self trust. So here's how you build or rebuild is you make and keep small commitments. Now,

Again, when you make a commitment, your integrity is on the line. This isn't a goal, this isn't a promise, this isn't, like, this is integrity on the line, character on the line. So be careful what you commit to and then do it. And so you can do it with small successes. You can just say something, anything, any small commitment to get up at a certain time, to eat a certain way, to smile at somebody, to...

Greet somebody you've been kinda keeping your head down to finish a little project, clean out that drawer you've been telling yourself you're gonna clean forever, that closet that, yeah, I gotta organize that, I'm gonna get to that. Or losing that weight you've been talking about losing for 20 years. Or writing the letter, did I say that one already? Writing a letter to someone, shooting out that email, cleaning out your email box. All these little things you keep saying, yeah, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna do that, and you don't.

Or when you say, you know, I'm not gonna binge watch Netflix tonight. But then you do. So make and keep some small ones. What happens is you start to feel really good about yourself, even if it's really small. You feel good. So do that and then do it again and again and again. And you start to develop those muscles and that trust. You literally can rebuild trust with yourself by.

Rachel Denning (16:12.846)
making and keeping small commitments. So say things to yourself that you know you'll follow through and follow through no matter what happens. Stick to those commitments. All right, next. Well, okay, and then, man, we can't go through all, this would take forever, it'd be a full day training to go through it all. So I'm gonna go faster with competence. If you don't trust yourself in your competence because you're not really good at what you need to be good at,

then it's easy, you just step that up. What do you have to be good at? You trust yourself. A lot of us, we don't trust ourselves in our relationships, because we're not very good at relationships. We're not good at talking to people. We're not good at communicating. We're not good at listening. We're not good at forgiving or apologizing or whatever your crap, parenting, marriage, housekeeping.

paying the bills, exercising, whatever it is, like if we're not good at it, that creates this incompetence, and of course, incompetence breeds a lack of trust in ourselves and of course from others. Right? You see how this plays out? Isn't this powerful? Man, I love this stuff. It's so powerful. And so you're looking at it and like, okay, I don't trust myself, because I haven't been keeping my commitments to myself, and I'm not really good at it.

And other people see that I don't keep commitments that I make to myself or to them. If you say something, if you're dishonest or deceitful, they can see that. People can sense it. Even if you do it privately, people can publicly sense the lack of integrity. And they can see and sense the lack of competence. Now here's the great news with all of this and with caring. All of it is simply a choice. It really is.

So wherever you're at right now on the trust spectrum with yourself or others or trusting others, you can easily just say, well, wait a minute. I can do what I say I'm gonna do. If I say I'm going to bed tonight at nine o 'clock, my butt's in bed. My eyes are closed, but I can't sleep. That's not the commitment. You're in bed with your eyes closed and you're not, you know.

Rachel Denning (18:31.086)
getting on your device and messing around, you're laying there with your eyes closed, you're going to sleep because you made a commitment to do it. Do it. Yeah, but yeah, but yeah, no excuses. You do it, right? You get it done. And then with competence, such a great thing because it's all just training. It's all training, habituation, and learning. The only thing standing between you and where you need to go,

is what you need to know and what you need to, a set of skills, right? So it's knowledge and skills. It doesn't matter what it is. The only thing standing in between you, where you are and where you want to go is knowledge, some knowledge and a set of skills. So learn it and practice it. That's it, it's so easy. You can become great at listening. You can become great at marriage, great at forgiving, great at apologizing, great at parenting, great at mentoring, great at...

at speaking, guiding, teaching, great at money management, great at exercise and body care, and great at making meals that are healthy and delicious, and great at managing your money and investing and working and mastering your craft. It doesn't matter what it is or how small and insignificant you think it is, become great at it. If it matters, if it's important, if it moves the needle in your favor,

If it builds trust in yourself and in others, become great at it.

Now, most of us make all kinds of excuses of why we can't or shouldn't or no, not that important, whatever, and then of course we remain in a low trust position.

Rachel Denning (20:17.422)
So decide to be in a high trust position and build that competence. Whatever it is, it all comes down to training. It all comes down to training. So just, and you guys, you and I, we are training ourselves and those around us every single day. Whether we like it or not, whether we're cognizant of it or not, whether we're even aware of it or not, we are training ourselves and others every single day. So you might as well be deliberate about it and do the right kind of training, because you're training yourself.

every day no matter what and usually it's in poor training. So become actually world class of the things that actually matter and then care. Here's the coolest part. Caring is the choice. You just decide to care and you might be like, well, I don't care. I just don't, I've never cared. I don't care. You literally have the power to change right now and start caring. You literally may have never cared about eating well. This moment.

Right now, you can choose to care.

Whoa, it's so powerful. And so all of these are within your power. And so if you're building or rebuilding trust, you can do these three things. You can work on your competence, become really good at things you need to be really good at. You can work on your character by making and keeping commitments and being honest and good and true. And you can work on caring by literally just deciding to care and then proving it with your actions and your words and your habits and your training.

Prove it, prove that you care. And really feel, don't be insincere because then if you pretend to care, the only thing worse than not caring is pretending to care. If you pretend to care, then you're jeopardizing your character. And so then you can't be trusted because you're jeopardizing character. You with me? This stuff is awesome. And so.

Rachel Denning (22:23.438)
with, well again, in trusting others, we have to choose to be trusting. Here's something that came out yesterday in the training.

I know I was in a place where I got to a point in one part of my life where people had betrayed me and done terrible things and I'd seen it all and I'd seen the deception and you know I'd seen it you know some of you might have seen your parents you know be deceptive for a little social pleasantries they're telling you to be honest but then they lie to get out of some social thing they don't want to and you're like I just saw that where they're screaming yelling angry and the doorbell rings and they act all pleasant and happy.

And you're like, huh? And you see that, so you stop trusting them, and then maybe you do it, so you stop trusting yourself. Well, what happens is we can kind of grow up in that way and get to a point, like I did, I got to the conclusion that I can't trust anybody. And I was wrong. I was surrounded by people that I couldn't trust at certain times, and I felt like, I can't trust anybody, but that's not true. And what came out of training was awesome, and somebody said, look, you can't trust.

Don't say I can't trust anybody say I can't trust everybody and that that's that seems more true like you can't trust everybody but it's also not true to say I can't trust anybody and And so I don't know it's beautifully just just think about that and a lot of a lot of times you keep and Perhaps you shouldn't trust everybody because they're not they don't all have great character. They don't all have competence and they don't all care But you can trust the people who do

That's the powerful thing. You can trust the people who do.

Rachel Denning (24:06.542)
who have character and competence and they care. Aw yeah. And so you can have more trust and you can share this with them. In fact, share this podcast, share this podcast with people who are struggling with self -trust or trusting others or being trusted by others, right? Share with them, share with people you care about. We've got to share this message so that we can increase this level of trust because it's affecting every area of our lives in a gigantic way.

I love this stuff. I love this stuff. It's so good. And so, so do do your training. Do your training your trust training. Work on yourself hard. Work on your character making and keeping commitments work on your knowledge and your skills. Right, become really competent in the things that move the needle in your favor, and then choose to care.

just decide you're gonna care about things that are worth caring about. And you're gonna care about people that are worth caring about.

And when you do that, woo, it's gonna be awesome. You're gonna trust yourself more, you're gonna trust others more, and others will trust you, and that will transform your relationships, which of course transforms your life, and the way you do life, and all the things you're working on. You guys remember, awesome is always an option, even in trust, and rebuilding trust. If you've broken trust, or others have broken trust with you, it can be rebuilt with those three things. Reach upward.

Rachel Denning (25:48.654)
Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening to this episode. I hope you got a lot of value out of it and found some things that you can apply to your life right away. Hey, I'm being totally sincere when I say I live to help you live your extraordinary life. So I hope you'll reach out to me if you have any questions or let me know how I can help you in any important area of your life. And in fact, you know, this, this podcast is brought to you by the school of awesome sauce monthly coaching program. Take advantage of that. Get in there. If it's the,

best way to get a breakthrough to the next level so you can level up your health, your spirituality, your emotions, your mind, your relationships, your finances, business, every part of your life. Just get in there where you have a coach and a mentor, you have a supportive community to make things happen. So jump in there, take advantage of this, try it out, get in there with us and level up your life. See you on the inside. Reach upward.