-Karthik Gurumurthy
I am enjoying the time in India serving my parents and thankful to God for giving me an opportunity to be with them during these times. Thankfully, I am blessed with an opportunity to teach couple of wonderful students from US during the night time (using Skype). After I am done with the sessions around midnight, I am all fresh and up. During this time it gives me an opportunity to ponder upon few things which had been in my mind for sometime.
Essentially it revolves around the topic of 'Trust'. How important is Trust in a relationship, in a business or in general life. What gives credibility to someone?
When others believe, trust and have confidence in you, you instantly receive their respect meaning you have credibility with them. When you are respected, your self-worth and confidence increases. When you receive respect- from both yourself and others- you are both self-accepting. Self-acceptance allows you to be just yourself, which increases authenticity. When you are genuine, others instinctively believe and trust in you more.
But wait a minute..Is trust based on the type of person that you are, or is it based on the types of things you do?
If you think about it, the only way we can assess people is from our observations of what they do.
To give you an instance, few weeks back my parents had ordered an inverter (An inverter is an instrument which helps you to operate few of your electrical appliances in the event of an electrical power shutdown so that you can operate appliances such as light or fan etc.). The guy who came to our place for installing talked to us as if he is genuine. After he left we found out, he installed an older equipment which didn't have warranty. Anyway long story short, we found that the guy was a phony (even though he looked genuine). His actions showed what he was really made up of. There are two things which are really vital to understand. Character and reputation. Character is what you are and reputation is what other people think of you. Most people worry about reputation than character.
Actions speak louder than words. It is what people do that forms our opinions, relationships and ultimate decisions of whether to trust and respect them. Our impressions, thoughts, and opinions are constantly being formed and reformed, most often in our subconscious. Although, we might be unaware of it, we stay in constant "observer" mode with those around us, and they say in the same mode observing us! We might not always have all the facts, and our observations might change over time, but regardless it is still the only information on which we have to base our thoughts and opinions of others. For this reason, it is what people do that determines our belief, respect and trust in them- it what we all do that determines our credibility.
Why is this important? At our very core, we want to know who can trust and respect- and we want to receive the same trust and respect from others. However, we are living in a world where it is becoming more and more difficult to discern who deserves our trust and respect. Headlines and TV news are filled with stories of troubled organizations, sports personalities, political leaders for misleading the public. Consequently we find ourselves wondering if personal credibility with public figures is only something of the past. On a more personal level, family, friends and coworkers violate our trust and lose credibility as a result. Most people- regardless of whether they are in the public spotlight-don't intentionally choose a life of being disbelieved, mistrusted and disrespected.
The true reality is that trust either occurs or is damaged due to ongoing decisions we make and behaviors we demonstrate.
For most of us, there is an inherent need to be valued and respected by others, while at the same time, to be comfortable and confident in being who we authentically are. We want to live a life that causes others to say: " Karthik Gurumurthy- now that is someone with credibility or someone I can always trust!' We all don't experience that type of life though. The great news is this :We all can experience greater personal credibility- if we are willing to take sometime to honestly evaluate ourselves, look at our own actions and behaviors, and build some new habits. More on this tomorrow. Good night.