I Trusted. I Got Burned. So What?
It stung! No doubt about it. A few months after Bob left the company, I found out he had pulled the wool over my eyes. I got burned by someone I had trusted.
He faked his work activity reports. He forged signatures of clients. There were even rumors of him talking to me on the phone during work hours as he lay in bed with one of his colleagues.
I have a choice!
I liked him. We had similar backgrounds, and I thought we had a lot in common. I thought we respected each other and could be honest with each other. The bottom line was I trusted someone who was not trustworthy.
Trusting someone after you have been burned by someone else is tough. Many of us begin to build up a tough outer shell of distrust as a result. We walk through life doubting.
We doubt people’s words, feelings and motives. We protect ourselves by presuming everyone is guilty until proven innocent. Then we wonder why we are alone, or why we lead a team or a family that is fractured.
Distrust and Never Getting Burned
Doubters often believe the best thing in life is to avoid being burned. Avoiding the pain created when trust is broken becomes a wall that prevents relationships from growing beyond the surface.
I can avoid the risk of getting burned by others by choosing to distrust.
It does not take any Courage for me to distrust someone.
After my experience with Bob, I had a choice.
- I could let my fear control me and cause me to distrust everyone. In that scenario I would be treating a lot of people unfairly. I would be safe, but rarely involved in successful teams or relationships.
- I could step out in Courage and trust again. I would be risking getting burned, but I would also stay on the path of establishing fruitful and lasting relationships.
But why don’t people trust me? Click on the following title to read more: Three Reasons People Don’t Trust You.
The Bottom Line:
I truly believe the majority of people are trustworthy – the worthy 80%. Most people tell the truth and have genuine motives. The ones to distrust are the minority – the ugly 20%.
- In other words, distrusting causes me to treat 20% of the people, as they deserve to be treated and 80% of the people worse than they deserve to be treated.
- Where trusting causes me to treat 80% of the people, as they deserve to be treated and the other 20% better than they deserve to be treated.
When I look at my choices in light of the last two statements is it any wonder that people who decide to step out in courage and trust build stronger teams and stronger families?
Yeah. I trusted. I got burned. So what? I used the lessons from Bob to make me wiser and not let them make me fearful.
Through experience, shouldn’t we all strive to grow in wisdom instead of growing in fear?
Question:
Who are you avoiding trusting in the present because of getting burned in the past?