Trust summary

Picture this. A thief is cornered by police during a failed bank robbery. Panicked, he grabs a nearby child as a human shield to secure his escape. Police surround the bank and call in a hostage negotiator to resolve the situation.

Now imagine that hostage negotiator is you. You’re holding your phone and the hostage-taker is on the other end of the line. The stakes could hardly be higher.

Let’s say you’re founding a startup. Searching for cofounders, you consider a dear friend you’ve known since childhood. Nobody understands you better than they do. You’ve been through it all together and they’ve always had your back.

So, as a friend, you trust them completely – but does that mean you trust them to go on this journey with you? Not necessarily.

As business magnate Warren Buffet said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”

We’ve seen how involved it is to build trusting relationships. And yet even more challenging is rebuilding trust once it’s been broken. Think about a spouse caught having an affair. This is trust-building in hard mode.

Trust is the glue that holds your personal, family, and business relationships together. It’s essential you know how to cultivate it. Trust has five essential ingredients: understanding, motive, ability, character, and track record. When trust has been broken, follow the six steps outlined in this Blink to find out if your trust can and should be repaired.