Shine With Grace

Trust is the cornerstone of all human relationships - in friendship, marriage, business…   We can’t afford to lose trust.  When it’s gone, the relationship falls apart.  If you want to build long-lasting and secure relationships, be a trust-worthy person.

Are you trust-worthy?  Reality check:

(1) Do you lie?

This may sound obvious but this mistake is committed more than we are aware of.  We lie when we have done something wrong, when we don’t want to tell a truth and when we want to exaggerate our contributions.

But after all it is not worthwhile.  To be a successful liar you have to be a great story teller with excellent memory and logical thinking, who is also good at manipulating your tone, facial expression and body language.  And, be prepared that when you start telling a lie, you are going to tell a series of lies so as to cover up the first one and make it logical.  Also remember:  lying is addictive.   If you pick it up, soon you’ll find that you also lie about totally unimportant details.

If you are a habitual liar, mostly you don’t trust many others.  Your skeptical attitude towards the others renders your reluctance in telling the truth, and therefore your lying habit.  But the curx is, trust is mutual.

Quit lying!  Trust in relationships take years to build but can be shattered in seconds.  Don’t be tempted to preserve a relationship by telling a lie - you are going to kill it even faster.  What’s more important and fundamental is lying puts you in constant stress and anxiety.  It’s no fun to guard a dark secret and worry about being discovered on a daily basis.

(2) Do you over-promise and under-deliver?

We have all bumped into sales representatives who promises everything before you make the purchase and acquintances who ask you to call him/her up whenever you need help.  The result?  You’d rather they haven’t set your expectation this high or otherwise you won’t be so disappointed.

Don’t try to please your friends / customers by hollow-promises.  If you can’t do it, or not sure whether you can deliver it, don’t say it.  (BTW, if you are not providing six-star service, don’t charge at six-star level - your price level is another way of conveying your promises (and therefore creating the angry customers…))

The better approach?  Under-promise and over-deliver.  Understand that human beings responses not to the absolute but the relative.  What does that mean?  For instance, if you’re confident that the goods can be delivered in 3 days, promise to deliver in 5 days to allow some buffer.  When the goods arrive on Day 3, your customer is more than pleased.  If you promise to have the goods delivered in 3 days and the purchase arrive on time, your customers would only regard it as normal.  What if you deliver on Day 3 but have promised to have it all done on Day 1?  Your customer is gone forever.  The same 3-day delivery, very different result.  Why?  It’s all about expectation management.  And this is what Amazon is doing.  Every time when you receive the book before the ”anticipated arrival date”, you think “how efficient!”  

(3) Are you a loyal person?

In relationships we expect loyalty.  We trust people who are faithful to us, who won’t leave us alone during hard times, who try to understand us while the others don’t, who would stand up and defend us when we’re being misunderstood/being attacked, who can keep secrets, who don’t disappoint us.

Are you a loyal person?   Are you perceived to be a loyal person by your friends, familiar, customers?  People trust you when you are able to show inner strength and convictions, even (and especially) during difficult times.  

The only way to be a friend is to be one.

~ Ralph Waldo

Cartoon adopted from Everyday People Cartoons.

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