desertbunny

Why I won’t trust you

(And you shouldn’t trust me either.)

Working together is all about trust, and yet when someone says that I should just trust them about a certain choice or decision, that’s the last thing I want to do.

I’m a journalist and I believe in the writer-editor relationship. I’m also a filmmaker and I believe in the actor-director relationship just as strongly. I’m a social scientist, and I believe in the client-coach relationship.

All you can ever know is the view outside your own little porthole. When someone else brings their own perspective and their own experience to bear on a situation, the effect is often not a minor improvement—it’s exponential.

The truth is we often do not know why we’re doing what we’re doing, so simply explaining ‘why’ can be an important way to learn some of the wisdom we don’t know we have. Sometimes just saying something out loud, you think it through better.

But the kind of relationships that I’m talking about produce more than just saying something out loud. When two or more people come together to explore a choice and engage in a sincere exploration for the truth, something amazing happens. Answers can emerge between them—answers that neither of them have.

The truth is most of the time we’re rehashing and remixing the same crap gleaned from our own meager experience. These relationships are one of the very few places where humankind can find anything truly new.

So I will trust you with my checkbook or my wife. I will trust you to do what you say you’re going to, but I will challenge you on every decision to tell me why—even if the answer is, “because my gut tells me to.” And I will ask you to do me the same favor.