Good morning everyone,
I hope you all had a great week this past week and enjoyed some sunshine with friends and family.
Today we are finishing up the numerator of the trust equation. For those that don’t remember, the numerator is all of the variables above the dividing line in a fraction. So far, we have talked about credibility and reliability in building trust. The third and most important numerator variable is vulnerability.
I was raised in a single parent family for most of my younger years and being vulnerable was not a soft skill I was taught. I was taught to “man up”, “suck it up”, etc. We didn’t show emotion at all. Well we did show anger and sarcasm. That was about it. Vulnerability was something I have and am working on to this day. This was one of the hardest skills for me as a man, but one of the most beneficial skills as a person of influence. If you can be vulnerable and go deeper with people you will gain more trust and influence with them over time.
I know what you may be thinking at this moment. I don’t have time to be vulnerable. I just need to push through with my team or my customers and get the job done to move on to the next task. I understand business and getting work done. What I am talking about is building a trust with your team or customers that gives you the benefit of the doubt in a bad situation. The kind of trust that will provide you help when fighting against the competition. This kind of trust is more than the superficial arm-length kind of relationship. It brings people in to get to know you on a deeper level. A level that when the chips are down, they will step in to help without question.
Now let’s talk about what vulnerability is. Vulnerability is a soft skill that is not typically taught. Vulnerability is about going deep and opening up ourselves to be potentially judged, let down, hurt emotionally, and disappointed. It is that uneasy feeling when we are about to disclose something about ourselves to someone because we are risking our comfort level. Vulnerability is deeper than honesty. When being honest, we can speak the truth, but still not show our true self. People can be rubbed the wrong way with honesty and not trust us. We can not gain the connection with others when we are just being honest. We need to develop our level of vulnerability with those individuals to gain the next level of relationships. Vulnerability is a scary place for most people because there is that risk of being hurt, but the payoff is definitely greater than the risk.
I have worked with ex-navy seals, business owners, entrepreneurs, engineers, contractors, etc. and those that are most successful are vulnerable to those they need high levels of trust with. Leaders learn how to be vulnerable. Leaders strive to grow the relationship with those around them so that when the time comes to dig down the leaders will have the buy in from those around them to work together and accomplish great things.
The reason why I have had such great success in sales is because I am vulnerable with my customers and team members. I trust them and pushed through my comfort zone to allow others in to see who I am. By doing so I have gained great relationships and trust with those around me and built strong bonds that helped me when working on new business, growing a men’s ministry, my marriage, and some close friends that would drop everything and run to help if I truly needed it.
This week I want to challenge us to open up when we are trying to bottle up things that we don’t want to let others know about. Let others open up to us while we use active listening and not just give solutions. I should also say that “suck it up buttercup” would not be the best phrase when someone opens up to us and is vulnerable. That might get you quickly thrown out of their circle of trust. I have to used this quite often as it is a reflex for me with my wife. My commitment this week is to listen and be more vulnerable to those around me and not jump in to fix it and move on. What is your next step you can do today to be more vulnerable with those around you?
Next week we will talk about the last part of the trust equation that is the most important variable. For now here is where we are so far for the equation.
Have a great week everyone and a save Holiday weekend!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom