Trust and Respect

"Self-respecting people will trust and respect you by default regardless of your age." - Bald Dog

That's it!

"We're surrounded - that simplifies the problem." is attributed to one of the most trusted and respected marines Lewis B "Chesty" Puller: "I did the same in the army. I gave trust and respect regardless of rank or position. And I always got it back." -- Bald Man

I TRUST you and Chesty thought alike, Bald Man. Puller's biography is story of how one man committed to doing his job with integrity and treating his team with respect and dignity pays off.
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Once teaching a collection of 9th grade inner city street wise students with low academic skills and high street wise skills and domestic dysfunctional survivall skills I found myself unable to keep their attention without lots of enegry exploding from their mouths and other body parts. I tried everything.

Ond of the problems was I had to keep them occupied for 90 minutes - knowing how to do that I broke up tasks into thirty minute segments. Step one. I also noticed many of the kids mostly black kids - the white kids didn't do this - got out lotion and lathered up their hands and legs especially the legs to keep the ash off - dry skin.

Also, it was a class before lunch and I knew they all didn't eat breakfast. SO I went to the store and got a huge pump bottle of lotion and a couple boxes of crackers.

Mid class one day I offered them a "lotion break" speaking in vernacular and making references these street savy kids might relate to - they were slow to lather up BUT within a couple of weeks most of them were taking squirts from the lotion as I passed through them AND taking a couple crackers. 99% of my problems were over with for good.

What all this has to do with trust and respect in the sales world people will have to figure out. Here's another quick one. Sit down with your legs under you and then fan out to the side a couple of inches your lower legs and feet. It should cause some pain the older you get. THEN try to lie back to touch you head on the floor behind you - you might not be able to do that AND your legs will begin to hurt especially upper thighs and knees.

OKAY, take your hands and itch the souls of your feet of some body part that feel good. As you do that the pleasure sensation will over take and replace the pain sensation. You will in ten or twenty seconds forget about the pain.

Figure out what you can learn from that too.

MitchM

Mitch,

Based on on the fact that you're a pretty trusting guy, how many people have tried to screw you over with some deals or something else?

It's happened to me only a very few times over the 46 years of my life, so I'm not even considering it.

Once with a room mate in England many years ago -> I seriously restructured his nose.

Once with a company that sold me a defective laptop and refused to get it fixed -> I Molotov cocktailed the building.

Once a woman rear-ended me and gave me false name and address to sneak out of the payment. I found her through the registration number, Molotov cocktailed the car and smashed her jawbone with a bicycle handlebar.

Once a client took me to court to recover his money on a project he didn't implement four years after the project was completed. I offered a conditional guarantee but the judge turned it into an unconditional money back guarantee, and I was dinged for $11,000. Sadly, this happened in Canada and here FJ (Fist Justice) is not allowed. So, I lost the $11K. Oh, well.

I trusted them and they abused it. Please note these were the very final measures. I tried to sort things out peacefully first. It didn't work.

But the point is that I may be overly trusting, but people don't take advantage of this attribute. And it gives me a much easier life than being sceptical and suspicious about others.

I believe being suspicious and sceptical would lose me lots of great opportunities.

Thoughts?

"I trusted them and they abused it. Please note these were the very final measures. I tried to sort things out peacefully first. It didn't work.

But the point is that I may be overly trusting, but people don't take advantage of this attribute. And it gives me a much easier life than being sceptical and suspicious about others.

I believe being suspicious and sceptical would lose me lots of great opportunities.

Thoughts?" -- Bald Dog

My experience is the same Bald Dog - I haven't looked at it like this before so some quick thoughts: the first is that some people will assume being trusting as a habit is NOT being discerning AND is being gullible which isn't necessarily true. Also, some would falsly believe being suspicious or skeptical equates with being discerning and smart about your decisions.

It's a fascinating study to look at assumptions and beliefs as connections and definitions colored by other perceptions and impressions.

And I agree that people rarely take advantage of this attitude - I believe it may have something to do with either respecting or keeping a distance from such a perceived attitude.

Quick thoughts there.

MitchM

MitchM would you please share what Trust and Respect means to you. I'm trying to see where you're coming from.

SpeedRacer - just go back over my posts on this thread and one I started about selling more by disengaging and that will give you more than enough to go on.

MitchM

Originally Posted by MitchM SpeedRacer - just go back over my posts on this thread and one I started about selling more by disengaging and that will give you more than enough to go on. MitchM

I've read your posts in both threads MitchM and I don't see a clear representation of what Trust or Respect mean to you. The stories seem to jump around a bit. You mention Trust and Respect in a majority of your posts and considering that different people assign different meanings to words I think it would be helpful to have a clear understanding of where you're coming from in your posts when you use the words Trust and Respect.

I've given as clear an understanding in terms and stories, metaphors and insights into how I think and act, as I can so far - to condense that into a couple of statements isn't something I want to do.

I'm not putting off your genuine question for the sake of not being clear myself - I just don't want to take multiple of posts and put them into a slimmer context. I trust you will respect that and you can be assured that my trust in you is implicit in the respect I'll give you for asking a good question.

MitchM

Originally Posted by MitchM I've given as clear an understanding in terms and stories, metaphors and insights into how I think and act, as I can so far - to condense that into a couple of statements isn't something I want to do.

I can appreciate your decision. I hope you can appreciate the confusion and possibly tension that such ambiguity can have in these types of discussions especially when the terms come up over and over again in your posts.

Perhaps I'm not being as clear as I can be, SpeedRacer. I also know that living with ambiguity has been a great asset for me in understanding some things as I appear to understand them. Ambiguity rules so much at least accounts for so much when we would rather have certainty in a definition or precise black and white description.

Also, what appears black and white to me may appear ambiguous to the next person.

If I can trust you then I can feel [and eventually know from experience] that you will keep your word, that you will not do underhanded things, and that you will be an honest person who puts everything on the table for examination and expects the same in return.

Because of all that I can give you a good measure of respect. I can also respect your position on some things even if I don't agree.

Of course situations vary and so do definitions - again, ambiguity to live with in the real world. What about you SpeedRacer - how do you define trust and respect with ambiguity?

MitchM

Originally Posted by MitchM Of course situations vary and so do definitions - again, ambiguity to live with in the real world. What about you SpeedRacer - how do you define trust and respect with ambiguity? MitchM

The definitions I posted in post #2 work for me. These are straight out of a dictionary. I do appreciate that some people's definitions will differ however the whole point of establishing common meanings is so that we can understand one another.