Each Word Of The Week looks at the extraordinary power of a familiar word, this week that word is TRUST.

Lot of bantering about this word lately. It’s a word that is  so universally understood, yet  hard to define, and with many manifestations.

It feels strong and established, sturdy and dependable…yet still fluid.

Trust is not a manufactured modular house, created quickly, and dispassionately in parts that are trucked to and assembled on site. No, it is a stick-built home, that starts with the foundation, and is built up, upon that foundation, piece by piece. As in our relationships, each new piece rests on the integrity of what went before.

I think that’s why trust betrayed is so hurtful, you question everything that went before. But like a physical structure, if a part does fail, repair can make it stronger, but timeliness is urgent, so damage doesn’t grow.

It is not a solitary pursuit, it’s always about a RELATIONSHIP…even if you can’ trust yourself’  with, say cheesecake in the house (!!), you create another, evil, cheescake-snarfing bad-twin,  because your sane self would know, and behave better.

Trust requires open and authentic communications, so LISTENING is important. To be trusted, you need to know what is important to the other side.

Implied is a suspension of belief, so there is also RISK in Trust. It is taking LOGIC as far as you can, then letting go. Ernest Hemmingway once said the only way to know if you can trust someone, is to trust them.

Little known fact: Regan’s famous ‘Trust, but verify’ comment to his Soviet counterpart actually came from a Russian parable that Lenin himself used to quote.

I have a number of random thoughts about TRUST, but one thing I know for sure, TRUST cannot occupy the same space where HURT, ANGER or FEAR exists.