If trust is low in a relationship, everything

gets harder. Communication, making

decisions, even just being around each other.

And here's the reality that people miss. Trust

isn't something you either have or don't have. It's something

that you build, it's something that you maintain,

and it's something that you slowly lose, often

in small ways over time.

Whether it's with your co workers, people you lead,

whether it's with a friendship, whether it's in your marriage or a

dating relationship, whether it's with your kids,

whether it's with your ex spouse. If trust

isn't strong, everything else gets harder.

So today I'm going to walk you through seven keys

to building trust that actually

lasts and where most people get it wrong.

Welcome to the Decide youe Legacy podcast. I'm your host,

Adam Gragg. I'm a coach, I'm a family therapist,

and I founded Decide youe Legacy way back in

2012. So. And what we do is we help

leaders and their teams face the core issues that they're not

talking about so they can actually get unstuck and take

productive action and build habits, make

progress that sticks. And from my point of

view, everybody's a leader because everyone has influence.

If you're a freshman in high school, you have influence. You're a leader. You

may not be acting like it, but you're a leader.

So today I'm going to share some stories from my life experiences recently

on this topic of trust. And these are seven keys.

Seven decisions to apply. These keys that will change

your relationships, change how you approach

relationships, have a big impact on you professionally and

personally. So the first key is say what you mean

and then follow through. Trust starts with

consistency. If you say that

you're going to do something, do it

and don't say it if you're not going to follow through. So be careful as

to which commitments you're willing to make. That means you have to say

no sometimes. If you don't follow through,

own it. Apologize. I messed up. That's on me.

I screwed up. People aren't looking for perfection. You

know why? Because they know they can't live up to it themselves.

They're looking for people who are reliable.

Every time you follow through, you make a deposit in the

trust account. And every time you don't, you make a

withdrawal. And it's little things that you do. And if

you're honest with yourself, you already know

where you're not following through. You

already know what changes you can make. The second

key, be honest. Even

when it's uncomfortable. Tell the truth. A lot of

people avoid honesty because they don't want

conflicts. And honesty means that you're pushing up

against somebody else's perspective, somebody else's ideas,

somebody else's, you

know, desires for that relationship, for that situation.

But you're being honest. And when you don't address

things in an honest way,

they're going to pick up on that. Trust is built when people

know that I may not always like what Troy says,

I may not always like what Adam says, I may not always like what Emerson

says. But I can count on it being real.

I can count on it being the truth. I can count on it being what

they feel and how they think about this, this specific situation.

And that is powerful. And you'll watch shifts in

your relationships over time when they can

count on you telling the truth. And it happens in very little

subtle ways. So I remember seeing something

where this offer would expire in 12 hours

and I was considering purchasing it. And then the next morning I woke up and

I said I hadn't purchased that. I really want to. So I logged back in,

checked out the purchase offer and it was still available.

And no, I wasn't excited about it then. I liked the fact

that I couldn't actually buy it after I

had procrastinated because that give me, gave me trust in that

business, knowing that it wouldn't have been available. I was less likely to purchase

it now because it wasn't expired. And

so I had the plan of calling the purchase the person who was going to

sell this product and ask if they would extend the deadline. That would have been

honest if it really wasn't available. But it was. So it

made me question that specific product in that business at that

time. So key number three is to

address issues early. So some issues don't

stay small. Avoiding issues

doesn't keep the peace. It delays the conflict and actually

makes it worse. It makes it worse for you because you're carrying

this baggage of having to want to address something and not

addressing it. It makes it worse for you because you're not

facing things in your life. It makes it worse

for you because you're not repairing or addressing

that issue in that relationship. So don't

trust if you don't address it.

Trust drops trust in yourself

and trust that you build in the other person. It makes you have to address

it. So if you found this content helpful so far,

check out and hit the link to Shatterproof Yourself Light. You know,

there's seven steps to building confidence and the last Step is building

relationships. But it gives you six steps to address within

yourself before you actually have great confidence in

relationships. So you go through this course and you're gonna see what I'm talking about.

So you can hit the link, check it out, go through it, and it's gonna

address this concept of trust in a much deeper way. And a lot of

it addresses how to build trust within yourself.

So number four key is listen

to understand, not to win. So that's a big differentiator

in relationships. Most people don't do this. Most people are thinking about their

response prior to actually hearing everything the other person is saying.

And you lose them in the interaction because they pick up on

that. You can see somebody's wheel spinning onto whatever they're

focusing on. But

if you're not willing to be aware of the fact that you're not a good

listener, you're never going to actually address it. So take the time to step

back and self reflect and say, hey, I'm probably not doing a great job listening

here, but I know that if I'm going to build trust in relationships, I have

to zone in and start working on this skill in my

life. Most people listen to respond,

few people listen to understand. This will differentiate

you greatly in your sales interactions, in your leadership interactions with

your team, in your interactions with your kids, with your spouse, with your friends.

If you're zoned in and it's a skill you can learn,

it's not a skill that's actually comes naturally to most people.

Slow down, ask open ended, non leading questions,

stay curious. That's where trust actually

starts. That's where trust actually actually grows

is because you're willing to listen in order to understand. The key

number five in this process is take

responsibility when something goes wrong.

Most people explain, they

justify and they defend. Okay,

be the first. But trust is built

when you say that's on me. Trust is built when you say, I

apologize. Be the first to apologize. No excuses,

no spin, own it. But there's another side

that people often don't talk about. Sometimes trust is built

by letting other people take responsibility for their

actions. Not intervening, not

enabling, not letting your own insecurity

drive the interaction because you're afraid of losing the relationship,

doing the right thing, doing the hard thing. There was a moment recently

when with my daughter Emerson,

this really brought this home for me. And she's wanting

to have a car at school. And like most

college students, her first instinct was, dad,

can you help me make this happen? I

could step in and solve this problem for her or I

could slow down and put the responsibility back on her. She's an

adult. She's in college. So I told her, I want you

to take the lead on this, Emerson. Build a plan

and think it through, and we will talk it through. And to her

credit, on Friday, she actually did this. She came back

with a pros and cons list,

and

it was good. So she talked about the pros is that she would

have some transportation, that she would have some opportunities for

internships, she'd have more flexibility with her life. And she also addressed

the cons, the expenses to have a car in college in

Boston, insurance, maintenance. She

shared with me some ideas that she had. And I told her, I said,

I'm really glad, Emerson, that you put this together. This

matters, you know, now let's take it the next step further.

What would it actually cost specifically? And what are you willing

to own in this approach to

purchasing a car? What kind of car and model are you thinking about? What do

you think the monthly payment would be? What do you want as a down payment?

How much are you willing to save up to contribute to a down payment? So

we had that discussion. And I told her, I said, you know,

I'm really glad you put it together. This matters. And

there's some details here. There's some details I want you to go and

take the next step and get spelled out. And I told her, too, I'm willing

to help you in a substantial way,

but I want to see the work. I didn't say that part, but I want

her to come through with the details. So now here's.

Here's the. Here's the challenge with all this. So, like, you

know, it's hard. It's hard not to just say, like, hey, I'll fly out there.

We'll go and look at. Look at cars, you know, and. And I'll kind of,

you know, work it out. So I'll. I'll buy you whatever thousand,

$10,000, $12,000 car, whatever. We'll go there from there.

It was. It was. It's hard, you know, because, I mean, there's a lot of

pause in the conversation. This is a different type of interaction than I had

with her when she was 12, you know, when she's now 19,

just a different kind of situation. And. And it's hard

for me. I mean, I'm telling you, like, this is a hard situation for me,

but if I give into that tension

and I handle it for her, I might feel like it's

helpful in the moment. And I Might feel like she's really positive towards

me in the moment, but long term, what I'm

communicating is that I don't trust you, Emerson, to

handle this on your own. And that's

not the relationship that I want with her.

And I'll share straight with you here. So I don't always get this

right. Like, I'm learning that

taking responsibility isn't just about owning your mistakes.

It's about allowing other people to own their lives.

And this has been a hard shift. I mean, it's been a hard shift from

the last year here. Like I'm telling you, it's been a

lot of challenging stuff for me in my own head.

And the same thing happens in your leadership of other people

all the time. It happens when you deal with conflict with your

neighbors. It happens when you deal with conflict with your co workers and even with

your boss and the people you lead and supervise. Leaders

say they want accountable teams. They say it all the time.

It's like somebody says, you know, I want to stand up and fight for my

family. You know, it's like you. Everybody says that I die for my

family. You know, I die for my team. But the

step. Then they step in too quickly, and then they drop the

ball too quickly and they take over and they make excuses. And when you do

that, you don't build trust in

other people. You actually build dependence

in other people. So the sixth key is to be

consistent over a long period of time.

Trust isn't built by one big moment. You

know, we all have our great days where we're just fired up and we're building

trust in our teams and we're doing all the right stuff. You know, on that

really good day, maybe we just close a really big deal and we're, like, energized.

I mean, I'm like, after closing a big deal, I can be just energized and

fired up. But trust is actually built in those small moments

where people are watching and they see over and over again,

you're consistent. Your

consistency, your reliability is showing up

all the time. And it's not about intensity. It's about

that steady process of showing up.

Are you getting things done for your clients? Are you the one who they can

rely on? Are you the one that knows that they know is going to

be honest with them? A leader will say

at times like, hey, this matters. We're going to hold everybody accountable. It's

kind of that like, I would die for my family, you know, but would you

put your family ahead of

everything so that you're breaking bad habits, and so

you're being honest with them. And so you're avoiding and facing

addictions in your life and you're leading spiritually. Would you?

You know, because that's where the trust is really built. It's not just coming out

saying, I'd die for you, you know, you're my team. I'd fight for you no

matter what. No, you showing it in your actions. Day in and

day out, a leader will say, this matters,

and I'm going to show up for you. And then they're going to prove it.

They're going to prove it. They're not even going to say, I'm going to show

up for you. They're just going to show it by their actions. A week goes

by, often after they say, I'm going to show

up. I'm going to fight for you as a team. And then a week goes

by and there's nothing. Two weeks go by and then there's nothing.

A month goes by and there's still nothing. You're not showing up. You're not holding

them accountable. You're not doing what you said you were going to do. And

here's the problem as a leader,

you forget. But the team does not forget.

And that's the moment that trust takes a huge hit, because they

remember the promises that you're making. They remember that you told

them you were going to show up. What people hear is

when you don't show up is what we say doesn't

really matter here. And if you're not willing to follow through

with accountability with your team, don't say

it. Your team is always, don't say it. Like, if you're not

willing, don't say it, don't say it. Your team is always

watching what you tolerate

in your own life and holding yourself accountable and holding them accountable.

And the seventh key here is be willing.

And willingness is a crucial word. Be willing to have

the hard conversations. They're going to know that in your

interactions with them. Most people will say that they want

trust, but they avoid the hard conversations

that actually build the trust. And again, I'm going to be

straight with you. This isn't easy even

in my own life. With Emerson, one of the

challenges right now is getting consistent time

to have interactions with her. We'll try and

set something up, and then something comes up and

I get pushed back. And there's always a reason, and

it doesn't all

or, I mean, it's like there's a reason going on that she has

and maybe I just won't push and I'll

back off. Maybe she'll avoid it, I'll avoid it. But neither of

those situations build trust. And I

can't take the 100% of responsibility there. I mean, she's busy. And

I'm not trying to say that she's not trying because she is. But

I feel like when you say something matters,

if our communication matters, then we're going to find time

and have this conversation, even when

it's inconvenient, even when it's uncomfortable. Because

avoiding it, avoiding it might

feel easier in the moment, but it slowly erodes

the relationship. And I see this as

a form. I see this form completely

from a different angle recently. So,

you know, I had a situation where a friend had another friend, and

this friend called me because her friend was arrested.

They had had, yeah, a difficult

situation. So it was actually they totaled their car, they broke

the law, they ended up going to jail kind of thing. And

she was approaching me, asking me, how do I help this person

without crossing the line? Okay, because she cares.

And because we all care, we want to show up for people. Different

difficult situation. But if you're not careful in

situations like that, you may slide into rescuing and you may

slide into even codependency. And trust isn't built through

rescuing. It's built by being present, by

telling the truth, and by staying in your lane. And in this case, it

wasn't for her to become a coach or a counselor. It was be a friend,

to be a supportive friend, to be a friend who will hold her accountable.

And sometimes the most trustworthy thing that you can do

in a relationship is say, I care about you and I'm not going to

fix this for you. I may have fixed it in the past, but I

apologize for that. I'm not going to fix this for you. And saying that is

hard, but that's real support,

and that's how we really build trust. Trust isn't built by.

By showing up. It's built by showing up in the right way.

It's not just showing up and enabling. It's showing up in the right way.

And I encourage this friend to have a game plan going into these interactions,

because if she didn't have a game plan, she could be pulled into the emotional

junk in an interaction like that very easily. Have a game plan that

you're committed to and you're willing to stick to and be

willing to step into the conversations that most people

avoid. Trust isn't complicated,

but it is intentional. It's

Built through consistency, it's built through honesty,

it's built through ownership. And most of all, trust is built

through courage. So don't try to fix everything here

at once. If you know this is a struggle for you, don't do that. You're

gonna get really discouraged. Just pick one of those seven areas, go back

and listen to the episode, go through them again. And I got a

pod. I got actually a blog post to link to that relates to

this content. And it's something you're not gonna wanna miss as well. It's

about building. Set these seven steps to building trust. Okay?

Different swing on it, different content, different illustrations. But it's gonna

highlight this content as well. So don't miss that post. Cause it's gonna

help this stick even deeper as a leader for you on how to build

trust. So pick one of those seven areas. Where am I not following

through? Where am I avoiding something?

Where do I need to step up? Because clarity for

you propels action.

And action is what actually builds trust. First in yourself,

and then in those you lead and those you love. Trust doesn't

grow in comfort. It grows in

consistency and it grows in courage.

So if you want to go deeper and build trust, confidence and

clarity in your leadership, in your life and your

relationships, check out the tools at decide your

legacy. Decideyourlegacy.com and remember,

you have to make a decision, because

you can get content today, you can get insight today,

but it's going to require you to make application. 20%

of change is gaining that clarity to say, oh, my gosh, I got to face

something. I'm willing to look at it clearly and be honest with myself. But

80% of change is you're stepping out, you're taking action, you're

committing, you're deciding, and then you're following through. And then

you repeat that cycle. Really crucial.

So I mentioned in an episode, three episodes back, like,

relationship red flags. And I want to tie this all together for

you. So I have a gal that I've been communicating with,

really cool, great and everything. She's lives in California, lives by my

parents, and we've been dating. So. Yeah. And getting to

build trust, seeing how things are going

and everything. And it's gone really well. So there's been

things addressed. Communication, clear, not perfect.

But hey, it's moving in the right direction. It feels comfortable. I'm

excited about it. So I had a conversation last night and it got

kind of intense because she was giving me some feedback in

parenting, and I asked for it. I mean, I brought it up. And we

were watching the final hour of the Masters together and talking and it was

cool. And go, Rory McElroy won it and everything.

But so yeah, I was just being open. She was open

about some stress in her job, I was open and it was a

real conversation, you know, it wasn't just this fun and we have a lot of

fun. I have a lot of fun. It's cool and it's everything but it kind

of got real. I wasn't thinking it was going to, but it did gave me

some feedback and a lot of it was really helpful and useful. But I got

defensive in myself inside because I felt like for a

moment they're like, I'm not a good dad, I need to change things. There's so

much I got to work on and I got overwhelmed by it. And I didn't

really show that verbally, but I can sure she could tell because I justified,

minimized, rationalized some of my actions and everything. But the

cool thing about it was like, okay, I took it in and that's how you

build a relationship. And she showed up for me by being honest with me

about her perspective on how I could, how I can build a relationship.

And I stuck with it and I leaned in even though it was hard and

I listened and I tried my best to just take it in.

And that was a trust building moment. It didn't feel like it though. That's my

point. It was uncomfortable because I wanted these interactions to be mostly fun, you

know. And in my mind I said, oh my gosh, what are we going here?

So, but then I saw it afterwards and I reflected on it and it really

was a trust building interaction. And then one thing I did because I invited her

to come out and visit me in Wichita, I've been out to California, been in

her world more than I, she's been in mine and. But I followed up

the end of the interaction to say, hey, you know, let's, let's get some time

nailed down, we can come visit. You know, we looked at a couple different weeks

at the end of May, beginning of June, but if I had not

remembered that and tried to follow up, I mean that would have been a trust

that would have damaged trust. I felt it was a detail, small detail,

but I wanted to make sure we had the interaction. So we wrapped it up

with that and tied a bow on it. Didn't get all the details nailed

down, but we still have more time to do that. But it was a really

a good trust building interaction. So

in closing here just want to challenge you. Apply something

that you learned today. Go back through this episode, go through the

podcast, go through the blog. Commit to one action,

to building trust. Think about it as it relates to your team or

your family or your relationships with your friends, but do

something about it. Don't just sit on it.

That's a huge deal. You got seven nuggets that you

can apply that can have a big impact in your relationships. And

that's what it's about right there. That's what it's about.

Building trust, building relationships. So what

are you going to apply to? Decide something

is a big deal. It's more than just thinking about it. It's more than

just kind of giving it some attention. It's saying, like, I'm going to commit. I'm

going to eliminate all the other options, and I'm going to commit to doing this

one thing. And then your legacy, by definition, is the impact

that your life has on other people.

There's no positive change and transformation in your life until you decide to

change. And a lot is at stake. Your legacy

depends on it. So I'm going to close today the way I always do.

Make it your mission to live the life today that you want to be remembered

for 10 years after you're gone.

You decide your legacy, nobody else. I appreciate you greatly,

and I'll see you next time.