An excerpt from The Red Chair Experience. Click to get your signed copy or check out the digital or audio versions here.
“Men are socialized to trust women until evidence to the contrary surfaces; women are socialized to be suspicious of men until an individual man earns trust.” – Warren Farrell
Our society is built around trust and trying to find out whom we can trust. We have natural defenses built into our psyche and then we have the ones that are taught to us by those we are supposed to trust. We are taught things by those in leadership positions in our lives like parents, teachers, other adults, and extended family members. 
Too often we see those in teaching roles extending their own fears and misinformed understandings to the younger generation. We grow up with this belief system that was given to us by other’s experiences. There is something powerful about being able to teach others to avoid our own failings or our shortcomings. It is something else to teach people to not trust another simply because they look like someone that hurt you in the past, without knowing the person themselves. This theory can best be seen in people’s trust or lack thereof in certain professions. There are people that we automatically distrust simply because of what they do for a living. When I mention lawyers, police officers, politicians, and salespeople, what are your first thoughts? Do you think about someone that you know in each of those roles and automatically make a judgment on the whole of the profession or do you think more openly? We can get caught up in not trusting people because of what they do but that is not the way you want people to look at you, is it? Men are viewed differently than women. Is it because the men have acted a certain way with consistency and therefore every one of them is to not be trusted? Has every woman acted in such a way that they should be trusted without verification? We are too quick to judge and not quick enough to ask the right questions, then verify with follow-up questions. I am not saying you should blindly trust everyone, but you should not distrust everyone either. Eventually, we have to make our own decisions and be responsible for those decisions. How do you treat others and what are you teaching those who come behind you or follow in your footsteps?
Today, I will find ways to unlearn some of the mistrust I have learned over time and learn to ask the right questions. I will no longer look at certain professions and cast a dark cloud over them just because.
What are you doing to earn trust from yourself and others? We can forget that we need to learn to trust ourselves as much if not more than we trust others. Find ways to trust yourself and others. If you need help with this or other business-related concerns, let's talk. Contact us today to get a free one-to-one conversation and start your journey!