Trust is a Drug

We think that trust is outside of us.  We go looking for it.  Can we trust this vendor.  Before we hire this person or let them spend ten dollars of company money.  Are they trustworthy?  Aristotle taught us that trust does not exist in the person being trusted.  The virtue of trust lies in giving it away.  Because when you give trust away, you’re giving the power to the other person to let you down or do right by you.  And the virtue of trust lies in taking that risk in giving trust away.

Neuroscientists have since proven that trust is akin to a drug literally because oxytocin is released in the brain when someone feels that someone is trusting them and they reciprocate the trust by extending trust back and you create a virtuous cycle of coming together and becoming closer where you can collaborate more.  Now the only acronym I’ve ever come up with in the book HOW is TRIP.  Everybody wants progress.  We all agree to that.  We all know that if you want progress you have to innovate.  You’ve got to do something different or better than how we did it last week.  But in order to innovate you have to take a risk.

In Their Own Words is recorded in Big Think’s studio.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock