TRUSTING SOMEONE: GOING FROM 0 TO 100% [FOR GUYS ONLY] ……………………………………………………………............. Trust. What a word. To many, it is the difference between an enemy and a good friend. But like everything else nowadays, the word is overused, misunderstood and abused to the point that it is almost worthless. Trust has become this random thing; sometimes you do, sometimes you dont, with no method to the madness. By definition, trust means you are entrusting someone with a secret, a favor, a wish, a job, etc. Basically, you are giving up a little piece of yourself, a part of the control you have over your life, because when someone gets in that circle of trust, theyre also in a position to hurt you. They can expose you, or use that trust to rob, blackmail, con, or even clip you. So why would you be stupid enough to trust anyone to the point where their betrayal can cause some serious damage? Ive lost track of how many men I know in my universe that have had their cartilage ripped out from their ears because of lapses in judgment when it came to trust. Why? Because their trust was random, like some cheap hooker giving out knee-jobs no matter how disgusting her john was. They didnt follow the system Im going to explain to you below. Whats this system of trust? In a nutshell, it means that everyone you meet gets zero trust. Only over time — in relation to how much of a stand-up guy he is to you, his actions, his loyalty, and his reputation — does that trust build up from 0 to 99% (only a fool with brain damage would be stupid enough to trust someone 100%). *TRUST NO ONE Let me tell you right now; no one, I mean no one , can claim a friend at 99%, and if you do, you dont know what you are talking about. Not even your own mother is at 99%. Mothers dont hesitate to turn their backs on you when they find the remains of a dozen associates of yours buried in their backyards. As for me, my most trusted friends are at 90% or so. Thats a lot of trust but not enough that Ill get myself involved in anything blindly or hand the keys to my “Ferrari” over without seeing a valid drivers license (Im a model citizen now, go figure). My most trusted business connections are at 70%, my closest family members at 80% or so, my team at 40%, and everyone else is at zero. Notice my team is at less than 50%, which means I believe that, given the choice between me and them, theyll choose themselves if it means saving their asses. *MEETING SOMEONE NEW So, when you meet someone new, they get zero trust. Why? To me, its pretty obvious, but obviously at those fancy-pancy business schools of yours, they didnt teach you these things. Someone you just met has no reason, good or bad, to give a damn about you. They are indifferent to who and what you are, so theyll just as easily pat you on the back as they would spit on your grave. Given the way human nature is, people are usually selfish and greedy, so, more likely than not, someone you dont know will screw you, so you dont have a single reason in the world to entrust them with anything. Therefore, they get zero trust. *RESPECT & TRUST ARE DIFFERENT Remember; not trusting someone doesnt necessarily mean you disrespect them. Dont treat someone like crap just because you have no use for them. The world is smaller than you think; youll never know when that lack of goodwill will come back to bite you where the sun dont shine. Dont be rude and impolite to people who arent those things to you, regardless if you plan on entrusting them at the present or a future date. The flipside is you can also respect someone without trusting them. I respected Frank Sinatra, God rest his soul, but Id have to be six feet under to leave him in a room with my “granddaughter.” Is it because I wouldnt have trusted him? Of course; I admire his music and his career, but I dont know who he was as a person outside of what associates of mine told me (which confirmed that even my girlfriend wasnt safe around this guy). There existed respect, but no trust. Capisce ? *VOUCHING FOR SOMEONE That said, in business, we often meet associates of associates that force us into situations where some element of trust must be given in order to complete a transaction. This is where the honor system kicks in — when someone vouches for someone else, when you dont have the luxury of time to build up trust in this new associate. This brings me to a very important rule in La Cosa Nostra [the Italian Mafia]: When someone vouches for someone else, their own trust and reputation is put on the line because they are essentially saying that we should trust the unknown guy as we trust the voucher. If the person he is vouching for screws up, they are both done for, regardless of who did what. Even with someone vouching for someone else, you still have to be extremely cautious. The person vouching for someone else might not have the kind of standards you have, so you never now what can happen. So, right off the top, whoever is vouching to you on someone elses behalf has to have built up enough trust with you already (thats 70% or higher folks), for you to even consider putting yourself in the line of fire. *MY LITTLE STORY Let me tell you about a situation I faced a while ago. I needed a rare favor from a friend I trusted at 90%. This friend of mine had to contact a guy he did business with and trusted for the particular job I needed done. I asked my friend if he would vouch for him. My friend said that he didnt have enough trust built up with this associate to put our friendship on the line. He was fairly sure his business associate was trustworthy and would get my job done, but he didnt trust him enough to put his friend (me) in an awkward position. I never used the guy, but the fact that my friend felt our built-up trust was above and beyond any big payday he might have gotten helped his trust go from 90 to 92% or something (this isnt a black and white rating system you know). His actions made me trust him more. *GOING FROM 0 TO 90% This little story brings me to my next point. Trust is not built up over time alone, but because of actions and situations , which test the trust over a period of time, a pattern of behavior is established. Time can help you trust someone but only because time allows you to see what people are really about (given enough time, most people screw up big-time). Just because you know a guy since childhood, doesnt mean he is going to help you bury a body in the woods. But time alone isnt important, actions are. Everyone starts at zero trust, and even though there are shortcuts to trusting someone (the vouching part I wrote about earlier), the vast majority of the time, actions raise that number over time. Getting from 0 to 50% is easier than going from 50 to 99%, because most things we do on a daily basis do not need more than a passing level of trust (what are you going to do with people like your dry cleaner? Sit down with him on some mountain top for a week to figure out if you should leave your Brioni suits with him?). The lesson is simple; you need different levels of trust for different tasks. Dont be a cafone and slow down your life because you need to trust everyone completely before you have anything to do with them. So how does someone move up the trust ladder? By proving themselves dependable and loyal through different things life presents to them that involves your personal well-being. Another way? By being your partner in crime. When you and someone else are involved in something specific (and illegal) together, a natural shutting up clause goes into effect, and the desire to stay out of the bighouse (and have the ability to buy canoli at will) will build up a bond between the two of you because of a shared and equally harmful secret. Unfortunately, it is mostly during rough times that we see who deserves our trust and who doesnt, but it is those rough times when you have little value and are on the verge of becoming unimportant that you see the people who deserve it the most. This is the time where people can climb up your ladder of trust quickly or fall right off it forever. Also, some people never get tested; you might know someone your entire life who might have never betrayed you, but they havent been faced with a situation to show their ultimate trustworthiness either. Though they have nothing but positives on their side, an untested friend can never be trusted in the 90 to 99% range. He could trust you with his most incriminating secrets, but just because he opens up to you or trusts you , doesnt mean you can trust him. *BE CAREFUL WITH... You might be sitting there thinking Im being too severe, but there is a reason I can sit here, despite my chosen profession, and write this instead of rotting away like a rat in some jail cell. I have been very selective with my trust. Ive exclusively allowed actions to dictate who has built up trust with me, so Ive kept betrayals to a minimum. Most of my colleagues havent been so lucky. One of the reasons for that is that there are two groups of people they trust too easily and without merit: family and old friends. Family might merit your love and devotion but when it comes to trust, the song has a different tune. Ill kill anyone who harms one hair on my sons head, but I dont trust my son enough to give him access to my bank accounts — onshore or off. Human nature and the school of hard knocks taught me that. Old friends gain trust because of time. Ive already said time is irrelevant without actions when it comes to trust, but plenty of smart people in my line of business have fallen victim to this old friend, sentimentality crap. What dont people get? A friend from the old hood, who you stole candy with when you were 12 years old, has nothing to do with the 40-year-old man you know now whose character could have changed a dozen times since your playground days and whose debts you dont know anything about. *TRUST IS FLEETING So now you know the basics of how much trust to give to different people. Now comes the hard part: maintaining it. Like every damn thing in life, its not getting to the top thats tough; its staying there. The same applies to trust; it takes a lifetime to build and a few seconds to lose. Dont be a victim of time; a friend of 30 years who screws you 30 years into your friendship wasnt a friend for all those years, but merely an acquaintance you never got to test. Never let someone get away with letting you down, and never let anyone down; you will destroy your trustworthiness, your reputation and many things youve worked hard to build. It can take 1,000 good deeds to prove the worth of a man, but one mistake to vilify him for life. *TRUST ONLY YOU So, what have you learned? • Trust no one, except when they prove themselves to you over time with their actions. • Dont confuse respect with trust. Respect without actions is meaningless when it comes to trusting someone. • Time is irrelevant when it comes to trust. Old friends count for nothing without actions. • Being a family member does not make someone trustworthy. Like all others, its actions that matter (along with loyalty and desire to help). • Maintain the trust people have in you by never letting them down through your actions, but anyone who doesnt maintain the trust you have in them must be expelled from your life. • Actions are pretty important because its the sixth time I mention them. Watch your backs and keep your noses clean. SEE U SOON USJ.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 12:38:35 +0000
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