What is trust?

Hi. Welcome to Trusting, the first part of the TRUE Leaders Programme. Within this section, we are going to look at what trust is. We are going to look at trusting yourself, trusting other people, trusting the process, and then we will bring it all together to think about what trust really means for you and how you can use that knowledge.

So the first part is defining what trust is. Now, like a good librarian, for those who do not know, I am a chartered librarian, and that is the job that I did for ten years in my career. So I did my research, and what I found is that the definition of trust is a firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of something, someone, whatever that might be. So reliability, truth or ability. The bit that stands out to me in that is the belief aspect. Quite often, we think about trust as something that is important to us in our workplace, in our relationships across our life. But it is something that... the belief aspect is something that has really been quite present to me recently. I have never thought of myself as a particularly religious person, for example, but I do think of myself as someone who has a lot of faith and belief in other people, in myself, and in the situation of things. So for me, there is something in there about that belief aspect. Now, there may be other aspects of what trust is about for you.

What I would like you to do for today is to just, that is all it is, just think about trust. Just think about it, and ideally, jot something down. What I would also love for you to do, which kind of is an additional thing that might help you, is talk to other people about what trust is to them. That could be people that you live with. It could be people that you see today. If you are really brave, people that you just see out and about, and whatever feels comfortable or whatever takes you slightly outside your comfort zone, but not to your panic zone, remembering that we are staying in that stretch zone. What does trust mean to you? Maybe get some ideas from other people. This is something that you might want to kind of ask people on messages or whatever. Whatever feels right. Just have a little think about what trust is for you, and what are the important aspects.

So for me, for example, the definition that I found was a firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of something or someone, and the word that stood out from that, for me, was belief. What word stands out for you? It could be one of the other words in that definition. It could be a different definition. Do a little bit of research. Not too much, but just a little bit. Then think about how does that show up for you in your life? We will dive a little bit deeper in the upcoming days on trusting yourself, trusting other people, and trusting the process. As a sort of primer for that, start to think about how does trust show up in your life at the moment. Maybe think of some examples of when you have had trust in something, or someone, or a situation, whatever it might be, and what is it that defines that element of trust for you. You might also want to think about what does trust give you. What does it mean when you trust? What is the benefit of having trust in something? So day one is simple as that. Just start thinking about trust. Maybe notice as you are going about your day-to-day life, people who are putting trust in others, putting trust in themselves, or putting trust in a situation. You might want to think of a role model. Whatever feels right for you. So a little bit of time to think about trust, and jot down some notes of the things that are most salient for you at the moment around trust, and we will build on that in the coming days. I will see you again soon. Thank you ever so much. That kicks off the element of trusting.