Trusting people is a challenge for me, as it is for many people. Yet I remain committed to trusting, because I know you can’t get anything done as a leader without it. I’m  openly admitting it — I trust because I want to produce and achieve and I know there’s none of that without it.You will only go so far with anything doing it by yourself. Anything you are going to do all by yourself is going to be pretty small. If you want to build something great, you are going to have to trust people.

Despite committing myself to do it, there are reasons it’s hard, going waaaaaay back.  Actually it goes back to 1966. (You think I’m kidding? Nope.) It’s a combination of challenging things that have happened in my life, my personality type, fallen nature and other factors I’m probably not even aware of. Regardless I won’t let it stop me from trusting anyway. Because there’s too much that I want to accomplish, so I do it scared.

About “Trust Issues”…

We refer to them as “trust issues” as if it’s a problem, but then encourage people to rely on God and trust in Him alone. There are scriptures– hundreds of them, to back that up.  And songs.  Look no further than, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness, I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.”

There is definitely a mixed message we send that you are to trust in God alone, and in the next breath we tell people they need to trust the people surrounding them. It’s confusing.  Organizations bring coaches in to assist in developing trust between co-workers.  Professionals do everything from ropes courses to “trust falls” to create an environment of trust.  I never was a fan of trust falls.  Or ropes courses.(Let me be perfectly clear, I despise both. I would rather drink iced tea out of a soda fountain machine and if you’ve had that before you know it’s disgusting.)

I’ve been let down by people a lot. (But who hasn’t been?  I’m nobody special in that regard.  Everybody gets shafted at some point.)  The difference is that some people respond better than others.  Or at least they respond differently.  I don’t know whether I’m classified as better or different, but my response to getting disappointed is to not let it keep me down, work harder, always have a “Plan B” in my pocket, and never give up.   This works but not without it’s share of crushing fatigue. (I also eat a lot when I get let down. Just being honest.)

At times over the past few decades, vocational ministry has put my ability to trust on life support. I know too much that goes on behind the scenes. So much that at times, it is dangerous to my own physical and mental health and well being. Because it becomes more challenging to believe anyone’s word, I’ve become skeptical about things I didn’t used to think twice about. For example, I know a guy we once pastored who cannot be relied upon. He is not a dependable person or a hard worker, at least what we know of him at the church. This same man is an airline mechanic and the thought of that scares me out of my mind.    Every time I get on a plane I think about that now.  I try not to, but it’s hard. When I was younger I used to love rollercoasters, but in my adult life I stopped riding most of them because I figured if the person who is supposed to maintain the rollercoaster is like the airplane man, what then? What if he/she decides they want to take more time on their break or lunch and not really do a thorough check this time? That time could be the time right before I ride it.  Maybe their hot sandwich was waiting and they rushed through because they were hungry and wanted to eat. Maybe their significant other texted them and they were distracted. I could write a whole post on nothing but workplace distractions.  Okay, so it’s not tragic that the Taco Bell in our town has gotten our drive thru order wrong every single time for the 20+ years we’ve lived in this neighborhood.  It’s irritating, but not tragic.  But a plane?  A roller coaster?  Much different than a bag of tacos although if I were making tacos I’d take it seriously and most anyone who knows me can vouch for that. As my observation of the typical American worker continues, I have at times become overly-sensitive to too much that could happen and many things that probably never will. I check and re-check things just to be sure. (I know, I know, it’s called OCD, but I have not been diagnosed with that. I think I just like things to be like they ought to be.)

I didn’t want to be a boring Mom…

Back in 2011, my family went on a cruise. The week before that I went to get my hair done.  I spoke to my hairdresser and good friend, Ada Alfonso, and she asked me if I was going zip lining. (I was thinking about it on our previous cruise to Cozumel but due to the aforementioned  trust issues, did not.)  She said, “Deanna, you need to go.  You need to break through your fear that something could happen. Really, you need to do this.  And don’t you dare come back in here to get your hair done next time and tell me you didn’t go zip lining!”

Ugh.  I knew I  had to face my fears because who the heck else was I going to get to do such an amazing job on my hair?   She’s the only person I tru……… (There I go again.)

I also wanted to have fun with my kids.  I didn’t want them to think I was a boring Mom.  I didn’t care if they accused me of being strict, eccentric or even mean at times when I had had to enforce standards in our home.  But boring?  No.  It’s a sin to be boring.  At least in my personal interpretation of the bible. (But maybe my fears were starting to make me boring anyway? I dunno.)

When we got to Fly High Adventures in Cozumel,  I was hoping to God that the zip lines wouldn’t be as high as I imagined in my head, but they were.  Especially the first one.  Feeling a little weak in the knees I got strapped into the harness and began the climb up the tower with my family.  The wooden tower made noise as we climbed it.  “What is that creaking?” I wondered.  It felt way too rickety for me but I kept saying, “cancel, cancel, cancel” as I climbed.  Cancel those fearful thoughts!    We were all attached onto a rope as we climbed each tower, in case one of us fell we were always on the wire.  Dustin went across first, then Savanna, then Jordan and then it was my turn.

My heart was beating so fast I thought it would beat out of my chest. The guide reminded me to keep my left hand on the rope and my right hand behind me on the wire, leaning back.  After attaching both of the straps of my harness to the wires, he said, “Okay, sit back..”.and then gave me a hard push across the first wire…

Oh my stars!!!

Seriously??!!

I let out a holler.

I wish I could say I was immediately over my fears but truth be told I was in shock the first time.  I mean I literally went into a state of mind that I can only describe as numb.  When I got to the other side, the guide gently caught me on the platform, and helped me steady myself and stand up, but I was holding on with a death grip on the wire, just blankly staring ahead and shaking.

“M’am…you have to let go of the wire.”

It was if I didn’t hear a word he said.  I stood there, silent and blinking.  And blinking some more.

I had the disoriented kind of feeling you have right before or after you faint.

“M’am…you have to let go…”

Jordan knew I needed help.  Coming to my side he attempted to soothe me with with, “Mom, you’re alright.  You made it! Let go of the wire and step over here with me.”

“What am I supposed to do?” I mumbled.  I kept blinking, just starting straight ahead motionless.  It was as if whatever he said made no sense.  My feet remained frozen right where I landed, as if there were a hundred pound bricks attached.

He started prying my gloved hands from the wires saying, “Let go of the wire, Mom, I’ve got you. You’re alright.” He steadied me by the shoulders while the guide took my harness and reattached it to the rope with the rest of the family, to get ready to zip across the next tower.

I took my gloves off as Larry was zipping across.  My hands were dripping with sweat.  (My hands get sweaty when I get nervous.)  I wiped my hands down, and put the gloves back on.  I took them off and wiped them down all twelve times.  The sweat never stopped.

I wanted to come down from the tower.

I wanted to come down so bad.

They had stairs on each one in case you wanted to quit.  You could just walk down and be done.

I wanted to quit.  I wanted to complain. But I wouldn’t allow myself to do either.  For so many reasons.  One of them was that I remembered the quote by Tommy Barnett, “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to quit. Just don’t.”

So I didn’t.

I needed to do this.

I did it eleven more times.  With each line, my family was hooping and hollering and wishing they had dozens more times.  As for me, I would do one and then silently think, “Okay, we’re a third of the way through…I can make it, I can make it…I can make it” 

At one point when I was particularly nervous, getting ready to go across the longest zip line with nothing at the bottom (I felt safer over the trees than bare ground) Larry pointed out the owner’s dog, “Chico”.

 

We met Chico when we came in to the zip line park.  He was chasing a soccer ball and playing in the area where we got our harnesses on.  He immediately warmed up to me and I petted him while we waited to go up to the towers.  I learned that Chico had his own harness and loved to zip line!  I was amazed.  A zip lining dog!  At one point Chico climbed the tower with us and got ready to cross.  He actually gave me courage!  Knowing how I feel about dogs Larry said to me, “Deanna, just look at Chico and you’ll calm down.” I did and it worked!  Just like my dogs at home bring me comfort, Chico did too. I kept thinking that if he had the courage, so could I.

The rest of my family were flying high and lovin’ it!

Jordan has no fear of most things.  The group we were zip lining with had never experienced anyone quite like him.  When he would do this crazy stuff as he zipped across, other tourists who were zip lining would scream and ask us, “Are YOU that crazy boy’s parents?”  The men who ran the place said, “Hey, Jordan, you’re a pro.  You need to come work for us.”  Of course he ate that up like candy.

Larry zipped across with no hands a lot.  When it came to him the workers would say, “Ah sir…please keep your hands on the rope…”   They had to tell me to take my hands OFF the rope when done, and ask him to keep his hands ON.

What’s my point of this post other than to say that I managed to zip across a high wire 12 times?  A few things as it relates to your success with continuing to trust people and things even when it’s terrifying.

Courage is required daily.

Even after you do it once, it doesn’t always mean the next time is easier just because you’ve done it before. If there is something significant you feel the need to achieve for you, for others, or for whatever reason, keep persevering, even when it hard. John Wayne once said, “Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway. You have to saddle up not just once, but every day.

Just like I had to take courage to keep doing tower after tower and line after line, so we all have to take courage every single day.

It’s okay to want to quit…just don’t.

Tommy Barnett says that when you want to quit, you’re blessed because you actually have something to quit! Some people have nothing to quit in their lives. You, on the other hand, have something to quit! Just don’t quit. 

There’s a huge market for trust.

Many people including myself will sacrifice a bit in the areas of  education, certifications or other hard skills in the process of hiring someone in exchange for greater dependability and loyalty.When I was a reemployment coach years ago, I coached countless job seekers that there is no greater value than  soft skills. You can train people on a computer. You can train Word, Excel, and a plethora of other programs.You can train every admin skill there is. You can train customer service. You can train communicating and first impressions and assimilation and worship leading and the list goes on and on. But you can’t train loyalty. You can’t really train trust. You can’t train character — you either have it or you don’t.

People who really want to work and are loyal are a hot commodity. Extremely loyal workers are like finding a needle in a haystack. For the person who will deliver 100% quality on time, every single time  — and be loyal while they’re doing it — there will ALWAYS be an open door.

The truth is, most people today are not hired because of a resume. The hidden job market is where it’s at, with 80% of all hires coming from there. The hidden job market is all about your network. This means who you are is more important than the skills you have. Skills are trained, your character is golden. If your boss can trust you, he/she can train you on all the rest.

The bottom line of this post?
There’s a huge market for trust.

Can people trust you?