daddy – don’t you know everything?

I recently had a friend compare me to Donald Trump - that was new!

For me it was a “he said-she said” dialogue, and for her I was distorting the “facts”. I was rewriting history to make my world happy again: “Sorry, but the latter sounds like Donald Trump’s thinking.” she wrote to me.

Humph! I began to wonder about that…

Was I being like Trump? Distorting the world to make me happy?

And I came to this rather disturbing conclusion: yes, I was. My friend was right.

Isn’t that what we all do?

Isn’t it the degree of distortion we dispute – because there are no “facts”? Think about it…

How “true” is your view of the world? How do you know it to be “true”? Where’s your evidence? What’s your proof? Almost everything you know and believe is based on trust – very little of what you know is based on evidence that YOU, PERSONALLY checked.

You believed someone else: your parents, a scientist or teacher, your lama, your mentor.

Do I really know that atoms are comprised of protons, electrons and neutrons?

Of course I don’t! I trust the scientists on that, and I trust someone on almost everything I know. We all do. And it can be shocking when that edifice cracks. My daughter Grace loves to tell me this story:

“I remember the day I was shaken to my core on discovering that my dad - my hero – DIDN’T KNOW EVERYTHING!”

She was about 9 at the time, and she never really recovered.

None of us recover. From the day we understand that adults are as hopelessly uninformed (in their own way) as we are as kids, what is left?

It means you get to tell any story, until it becomes your story.

It also means you can believe any story. My friend believed her story, while I believed mine. 62,979,879 believed in Donald’s story enough to vote him into office. Shocking to the 65,844,954 people who believed in Hillary’s story.

Who was telling the truth?

Depends on who your believe doesn’t it? Who could believe HIM?! It comes down to TRUST, not FACTS. Truth is based on facts which you TRUST to be true. Your world can start to crumble once you question the verity of your “facts”.

In this situation – what is your compass?

How do you navigate in a world that is slowly turning into a plethora of alternate universes all happening in parallel?

You trust. You find a person, a thing, a situation that you can trust.

My friend trusts her religion, and it’s ambassadors on earth. Actually, so do I. But I don't trust a bunch of rules that tell me I did a bad thing. For me it's simple. I know in my heart I've done good, and no-one is taking that away from me.

To choose someone to trust, you start by trusting your Self, THE CHOOSER.

How can you trust what you choose, when you don't trust the person choosing? It makes no sense. This is how religion turns itself against the believers, and crushes their spirit. It's religion gone haywire. I want no part of that.

Once you trust you, then you can trust the other, because the other is actually you anyway. It’s all a projection. We may call it friendship, science, religion, politics – you ultimately arbitrate what you trust, no-one else.

That’s why getting people’s trust is at the core of every successful practise.

When you genuinely want to help others, remember this: people only let you help them when they trust the expertise you offer.

Do you trust in your own expertise?

Trusting your Self makes you attractive: people who are comfortable in their own skin emit a special kind of magnetism. You utilize this to make contact with people.

How do you make contact?

You communicate: with blogs, messages, websites, videos, on Facebook – whatever. You take time to build an empathetic connection that makes you attractive to them.

In ATSuccess we say: get them to know you, like you, trust you.

I will be sharing my own hard-won “facts” – based on the trust of a lot of my biz mentors over the last 12 years – at my two workshops in London on Feb 4th (Art of Teaching Groups) and Feb 11th (Art of Marketing). Read more about them here.