The Trust Bank

The Trust Bank

TRUST – a small word for the most important thing in any relationship.

Trust will make a relationship, and it will break a relationship. However, the difference between those two scenarios is that trust builds a relationship over time, and it will break a relationship in an instant.

Recently, a good friend of mine shared how he broke trust with his middle school age son. What I love about this friend is that he knew he was wrong, so he sat down with his son and they talked about what happened. He owned his behavior.

Let’s be honest. How many of us are willing to do that? To be vulnerable and admit when we are wrong to our kids? Or, honestly, to anyone?

When we talked about it, I could still hear the emotion in his voice. It hurt him to have a break in the family values. I could hear the love, the regret and the hope all at the same time as he wondered if the trust could be mended with no lasting damage. My friend shared that he witnessed his son experience some anxiety after he broke trust (waking up with nightmares and scared to be alone). He had been out of town and was heading home when we spoke. I could tell he was unsure about what would happen when he got home.

Trust is where it’s all at. Every last one of us has been hurt by someone we trusted in varying degrees. Some relationships recover. Some don’t. Some were never meant to.

But this was his son.

The key is building up the trust in the trust bank. If you are just making the minimum deposits, it’s pretty easy to go into an overdrawn status, and it can be hard to recover from that.

What I knew about my friend’s situation is how much these two loved each other as well as how much this dad deposited into his son’s TRUST account, which, by the way, is more important than any amount of money that can be deposited into a bank account.

My friend shared with me that as a result of the trust break with his son, he also broke trust with himself, and he had to check that first. His ego showed up, and would have won, if he hadn’t made the choice to own his actions. By owning his responsibility and being vulnerable, the trust withdrawal was less significant than if he blew off the situation. Vulnerability is the new strong. In that moment, he was a role model on being human and owning your mistakes. It’s something that will benefit that young man for his lifetime.

And, sure enough, this text came through later in the evening.

“I arrived home to a hug from my son that was so tight and sincere I knew that he felt the same way I did. That no matter what trials we face, or differences we have, when we trust each other there is nothing that will get in the way of what we all want and need … love. I love what he teaches me every day, and I am so grateful for investing in our values every day so that the trials we face turn into nothing more than development.”

The deposits completely outweighed the withdrawal in this situation because the work is done every day in their household. Check in with yourself. How are you doing building your TRUST deposits? Will there be enough if you ever have a withdrawal?

The next morning came the message that his son, after that hug, slept soundly. The heart starts to heal, and the Trust Account starts to grow again.

We will always have moments where we break trust. Remember, though, that when trust is broken, the relationship is NOT done unless you choose for it to be. 

What will you do today to build more trust?

And it ALL starts with trusting yourself. Keep the promises you make to yourself. Build your own TRUST deposits with yourself. If you do that, you’ll be willing to be more vulnerable and strong when you need it the most.

Make sure you are consistently checking the account statements that matter the most … your TRUST statements.

“When trust exists, conflict becomes nothing but the pursuit of truth, an attempt to find the best possible answer.” Patrick Lencioni

Barb

The most important relationship we will ever have is the one with ourselves. This relationship deserves regular attention, and it rarely gets it. When you start working on that relationship, everything changes for you AND everyone around you. Are you unsure about how to improve that relationship?  Email me at barb@high5leadership.com and let’s schedule a call.

High5 Choices lead to High5 Moments to create your High5 Life!