Pod Insights How to Be a Better Human How to trust in times of uncertainty (w/ Rachel Botsman) About this episode Rachel Botsman studies trust. She’s a professor at Oxford University and the author of the books What's Mine is Yours, Who Can You Trust? and the new audiobook, How to Trust and Be Trusted. From asking AI medical questions, to understanding what’s real and what’s a lie online, Chris and Rachel discuss trust in many forms. What happens when trust is shifted away from human interactions and given to machines or companies to be monetized?
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1:35 Chris Duffy? You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I am your host, Chris Duffy. Today on the show, we're going to be talking about a concept that's so fundamental to our everyday lives that I almost never think about it. I'm talking about trust. You know, we think about trust as just an interpersonal thing, but it's more than that, right? I trust that the audio I'm recording right now is being saved. I trust that Jocelyn, our producer, is going to edit this file into an intro that makes sense and that she's not going to just wildly distort my words and have me say something incredibly offensive, or that she's not going to just make me say the phrase over and over, "Jocelyn is the best, Jocelyn is the best, Jocelyn is the best, Jocelyn is the best, Jocelyn is the best, Jocelyn is the best."
2:16 Chris Duffy? If we didn't have these kinds of basic trust in the way that things work, I don't think that I would be able to function at all. And yet, sometimes these days, it seems like trust is not something that I should be taking for granted. It's actually something very precious and very much at risk. And one of the many ways that it is at risk is because technology sometimes feels like it's changing faster than any of us could possibly keep up with. So I'm extremely excited to get to discuss these ideas and so much more with Rachel Botsman. She studies trust at Oxford University, and here's a clip from her TED Talk where she starts by just defining what the word "trust" even means.
2:52 Speaker 01 Trust is an elusive concept, and yet we depend on it for our lives to function. I trust my children when they say they're going to turn the lights out at night. I trusted the pilot who flew me here to keep me safe. It's a word we use a lot, without always thinking about what it really means and how it works in different contexts of our lives. There are, in fact, hundreds of definitions of trust, and most can be reduced to some kind of risk assessment of how likely it is that things will go right. But I don't like this definition of trust, because it makes trust sound rational and
3:34 Speaker 01 predictable, and it doesn't really get to the human essence of what it enables us to do and how it empowers us to connect with other people. So I define trust a little differently. I define trust as a confident relationship to the unknown. And when you view trust through this lens, it starts to explain why it has a unique capacity to enable us to cope with uncertainty, to place our faith in strangers, to keep moving forward.
4:10 Chris Duffy? Okay, if you're anything like me, Rachel has already completely convinced you that trust is extremely important and it's essential to examine and think critically about it. And luckily, we have Rachel with us here today to do exactly that. Here's Rachel.
4:26 Speaker 02 Hi, I'm Rachel Botsman, and I've been studying trust for over 15 years across cultures, across different areas of our lives. I've written three books, I teach at Oxford University, and I'm just really fascinated by helping people to think differently about trust.
4:41 Chris Duffy? So Rachel, in your books, What's Mine Is Yours, Who Can You Trust, and the new audiobook, How to Trust and Be Trusted, you've been looking at this question of trust. And I think it's obviously both an evergreen topic and a very immediately relevant one to the moment we're in. I've been thinking about this a lot because it seems like each year, and every, honestly, each month, more and more technological advances come out that that make us trust less, whether it's because we see people saying extreme things that we know are not true, or honestly, increasingly because of artificial intelligence that that shows images and presents audio that we know are actually not real. So it's hard
5:23 Chris Duffy? to know how to trust even objective facts these days, much less other people. Do you feel like this work has has become, over the years that you've been studying it, more of a daily hot button issue rather than kind of a big virtue?
5:36 Speaker 02 I don't think we trust less. I think we trust differently. So we used to largely trust people. And that decision, it wasn't straightforward, but it was less complex. And now it's very hard to distinguish when we're trusting a who versus a what. So are we trusting a real human being? Are we trusting an algorithm? Are we trusting a piece of generated content? And when we're trusting a what, who is behind that? So that's why there is this very complex relationship between the truth and trust that is probably one of the most profound things affecting our lives and society.
6:18 Chris Duffy? What are some whats that we trust or that maybe you trust?
6:21 Speaker 02 To make it really simple, right? When I get in my car, I trust that if the car is not intelligent, I trust that the car will turn on. And that when I press the indicator, a light will come on, right? Like, that's trusting the capability side of a car. Now, once that car becomes slightly smart, right? So maybe it assists you with parking. You start to trust that car's spatial judgment more than yourself. Now, you move the next stage on and you go to a car that is fully autonomous. You're having to trust that car's decision making in high risk situations.
7:03 Speaker 02 So the degree of trust that you're placing in the what becomes much higher. And in some instances, it starts to replace the human trust. And the thing that I find interesting, you know, I study humans. Yes, I studied their interaction with technology, but fundamentally, I love understanding how humans connect. So this idea that technology can replace human things has been very challenging to me. Just to give you an example, like one of the key traits of trust is empathy. And I, I really wanted to believe that AI wasn't capable of empathy.
7:42 Speaker 02 And something I've been rethinking lately is what I've, I've realized is AI is very capable of two dimensions of empathy. So if I write a medical question, it can identify, not just sort of informationally, it can identify how I'm feeling. Like if I'm in an anxious state and it can write an appropriate response. And this is the cognitive side of empathy. But by its very nature, it can't feel, right? So if we're having an event conversation, if I'm crying, that might prompt an emotional response in you. And the AI can't feel that. And for a long time, I thought, well, that's its limitation, right?
8:27 Speaker 02 Like, how can something practice empathy if it can't physically feel something? And then what I realized is actually its limitation is its strength. So if you think in the context of healthcare or education or mental health support, a lot of reasons why practitioners get burnt out is because they absorb too much, right? They take on the stress and the feeling of the other person. So if you start to think about this and you go, right, well, actually the AI can take on the identification and the response side of empathy. And then that frees the human up for the support and the care, which can only deliver through human connection. It becomes a very different trust question.
9:09 Speaker 02 We should trust it to do certain things because actually it could do them better than a human. And it can relieve the burdens from human because of its limitations. And then that opens up the human capabilities for things that really uniquely require a person, whether that's physical contact, face-to-face contact, but that that deep human connection.
9:30 Chris Duffy? I see the promise that you're talking about. My only hesitation on that is that there's, I think there's sometimes this like superficial level of connection and you can get it with people too. Where like they're saying all the right things and it feels like it should be good. But it's almost like, are they actually saying that? Or did they just like read that in a little pamphlet called like how to be a good listener, you know? Will using AI in that way push us towards the deeper, more real, more genuine connection? Or will it push us towards being like, I'm a doctor and I'm walking in the room and what I'm supposed to say to you right now is it sounds like it's very hard what you're going through. Okay, pat on the back, see you later, you know? I hope it's not the second, but I don't know.
10:06 Speaker 02 I interact with people who are studying AI very deeply, practitioners and academics. And one thing I've noticed is they are starting to speak faster and in like a more artificial way. It's like the more they interact with this form of processing, they are speeding up. And humans, the human brain wasn't designed to move at the speed of processing power. So that is my concern that the identification response piece feels very constructed and artificial. What the research is showing is that patients are saying it feels more empathetic. So, you know,
10:46 Speaker 02 They're listening and they feel heard and it takes into account all their previous cases because it can read history and data and poor things that a doctor just doesn't have time to process and join the dots around. So that's where I have to think, I think we have to keep ourselves very open. And once we start to understand these lines of, yes, actually, we should trust it to do this, but we shouldn't trust it to do that. That's when it can actually start to carry more integrity and start to feel like it's serving our best interests.
11:19 Chris Duffy? Okay, we're gonna take a quick break, but trust me, we are going to come right back.
11:32 Chris Duffy? This episode is brought to you by Planet Visionaries, a podcast in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. What connects a hidden laboratory in the Amazon, giant pandas in China's mountain forests, research relating to the ocean, and communities living alongside wildlife in India? That's what you'll hear on season six of Planet Visionaries. Stories from the explorers, scientists, and conservation leaders whose work addresses research, biodiversity, and conservation issues in specific locations. Planet Visionaries, hosted by environmental advocate and professional climber Alex Honnold, brings you real stories of discovery, determination, and research and initiatives relating to
12:14 Chris Duffy? environmental change. In partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, this is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts.
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14:05 Chris Duffy? Okay, we are back. I live in Los Angeles. And as we're recording this, there are still fires burning. They're much more under control than there were before. But there was this horrific wildfires that so many people lost their homes. And for those of us who didn't lose homes, who were in neighborhoods that were largely spared, there's still been this second order question of, is it safe to be here? Because what is in the air? Did the wildfire smoke come here? Is the air toxic only if you're in the burn zone? Is it safe if you're two miles away? Is it safe if you're five miles away from the active fire? You know, we have these tools that measure air, the AQI, the air quality index, but they don't actually measure wildfire ash. There's been this moment where my family and everyone in our neighborhood
14:50 Chris Duffy? has been trying to figure out, is it safe or is it not safe? And it's a very practical, big question that would change what we do. Do we go outside? Do we stay inside? Do we leave the city entirely? And it's hard to get a definitive answer and it's hard to know who to trust. And it's put me back in this mindset that I felt during a lot of the the height of the coronavirus lockdowns, where it was You kind of had to be the expert yourself. All of a sudden, I had to be the, you know, the public health expert who knew about the droplets virus transmission through the air. And now it's like, I have to learn about particles that are bigger than 2.5 millimeters and wildfire ash wind movement.
15:32 Chris Duffy? I think that is a very modern feeling, the sense that like, we don't have a definitive source to trust and we have to become the expert ourselves. And it's very exhausting. And I imagine you must have have studied this, this lack of a single institutional source of information that we can just definitively rely on.
15:49 Speaker 02 And where do you go for information out of interest?
15:52 Chris Duffy? Well, first things that I go to are I ask other people that I am friends with, what are you doing? I still have a lot of deference, I think, towards institutions and especially towards like scientific expertise. So I watched a webinar that the California Coalition for Clean Air put together that had like six different PhDs talking about, and they were all air quality experts. But again, the hard part is like, not all of the air quality experts agreed. There were disagreements amongst them. So it was a little bit like I was at a scientific conference where there wasn't a definitive answer. And it was hard because I just want the definitive answer. I don't necessarily want the like nuance of, and we need more research into this type of wind pattern and this type of particle. So that's what I tried to do is to go to like the scientists and experts and then filter that with the help of community members.
16:36 Chris Duffy? But it's hard to not have a definitive answer. I think it's hard to not feel like I'm just going towards what I want the answer to be.
16:43 Speaker 02 Yes, and because in these times of extreme uncertainty, what we innately look for is control. And part of control is reducing that uncertainty by someone telling you exactly what to do, or can you go out, or when will this end? And in the absence of that information, it's incredibly stressful. And I think it's something that often gets missed around the debate of misinformation is that in the chaos and the noise and not knowing where to trust, that creates stress, that uncertainty is very hard for most people to tolerate. But what you're talking about is, is a really profound trust shift where
17:27 Speaker 02 For decades, trust flowed upwards. So in the UK, we had like the BBC or, you know, I work at one, Oxford University, or these things, and experts, even like the weather people when they came on, right, we trusted them. And we looked up and there was like deference to those people. What they said we trusted was factually true. And that no longer is the case for the majority of people. So even if you respect institutions, that isn't the natural default behaviour. What's happened is trust moves sideways. So you said, you know, you ask your friends, you ask your family, maybe you go on social media, maybe you look at what influencers are saying on Instagram. It's this fragments, lots and lots of fragments of information you're
18:09 Speaker 02 gathering from these sideways sources. And then you, as the individual, become the filter for deciding what is true. And the problem with that is that you are full of motives. There are reasons behind why you want to believe something. And this is classic confirmation bias. So we shouldn't ever be the filter of factual information, because, I don't know, but maybe you're a runner, Chris, and you really want to go out for your run, you're going to find all kinds of information that says the air quality is clean. And we're remarkably good at that, like finding all this information that affirms what we want to believe. So one of the things I actually encourage people to do is to really think about not what you
18:54 Speaker 02 believe, but why you need to believe something. So like, in particular, in these very high-stakes situations, like if you find yourself looking for information to affirm something, like, ask yourself that question, why do I want to believe this? Why do I need to believe this? And is this influencing where I'm looking for information? And challenge yourself to look in the opposite place. It's a huge societal problem. I'm actually doing this big piece of work in the UK around younger generations and their relationship to the truth and trust, and how it's impacting everything from anxiety to loneliness. And truly, like, it is frightening what is coming out in terms of how young people are feeling around information.
19:36 Chris Duffy? Well, one thing that I associate strongly with my conversations with young people is just this real sense of exhaustion. And I feel like that wasn't necessarily true when I was, you know, 20. I don't think we had this pervasive exhaustion. And I think one of the reasons is what we're talking about, which is just this constant daily need to be the filter, to sort through what is true, who's manipulating you, how are you being manipulated, what should you do? It's hard to put down that cognitive burden and they have it just every single day. I feel like that trust shift that you've talked about into this distributed trust, there's lots of positives of it, but there's also this real work that is put on individuals instead of it being done by some sort of institution.
20:19 Speaker 02 A real burden that never stops. It doesn't switch off. And I have a 13 year old and an 11 year old, one's a boy, one's a girl. And the 13 year old only just got his phone. So we were like the last ones to hold out. But even watching the change in him in six months is, since he got the phone, is remarkable. I don't mean with his friends, I mean his views. Like just listening sometimes, I'm like, where is that coming from? Because it's definitely not coming from us. And I don't think it's his school, and that I find quite frightening that it's like, what is influencing his beliefs? And it's partly age, but it definitely access to social content.
21:00 Chris Duffy? One thing that I'm surprised by frequently is how I can see a piece of information online and be told that it is not accurate. So I know that it's wrong and still finds that inaccurate information influencing my belief down the road. Like even though I know it's fake and I've been told that it's not real, it's hard to not have that, just the fact that I heard it at all, kind of shift my perception of a thing.
21:24 Speaker 02 I mean, I study this stuff and then suddenly I'm like, how, you know, I'm training for a marathon right now. And I find it frightening how many moments my day now are signals about runners and what I should do. And I, one day I wrote down everything that people were suggesting. And there was like 15 contradictions in every piece of information about a marathon plan. Now, to your point, like, that is so tiring trying to figure out, like, who do I listen to? I mean, that's a very privileged problem to have, but it's just one example of trying to sort through the noise to actually figure out a direction. All of this is incredibly difficult.
22:03 Chris Duffy? So thinking now about the person to person side of trust. So I grew up in New York City and something that I think about a lot is my dad grew up in the Midwest of the United States, so a place that's historically certainly more like outwardly friendly. I don't know if it maybe is exactly that people trust each other more, but I think there's probably, we would say that they trust each other more. And so my dad has now lived in New York for 40 years, but he's still, when we get on like the public bus, if he sees someone reading a book that he's read, he's like, wow, great book. What do you think about the book? And people always kind of assume that like, there's some sort of scam there, but there's not. He just is trying to be friendly and outgoing. And I grew up with that and I saw the real benefits of my dad approaching people with
22:45 Chris Duffy? this kind of like inherent trust, which is he would have these fun interactions where all of a sudden we're like chatting with someone on the bus or the subway. And sometimes like that person later on comes over to our house for dinner and it felt like there were all these adventures and also just positive moments that got unlocked through that trust. And I sometimes think about that as one of the like undersold benefits of trusting other people is that you have, you go through the world in a way where you actually do exist in a more positive world, just because you believe that it is a more positive world.
23:15 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's a really beautiful way of looking at it. And it's actually, what you're getting into is trust is a two way thing. It sounds like a really obvious thing to say. The most common question I'm asked is how do I build trust? And the reason why that question is so interesting and different from your dad is that's a very power over way of thinking about trust. That's about like, I want to build trust because I want something for someone else. Right? Like it's quite manipulative when you think about it, but what your dad is doing is in those situations, you have a trust giver and you have a trust receiver. It's how it works. It's like a loop. And so on the bus, when he's like, oh, a great book. I read that book, but he's being like a trust giver. And when the other person catches it, they're the receiver and then they create this loop.
23:59 Speaker 02 And that loop is the basis of all human connection. Right? It's, it forms a moment of reciprocation. And this is so important to understand that if we turn inwards and we all retreat to our homes and things become increasingly digitized, those very human moments for reciprocation, whether it's you do something and someone does something, return, or you have that casual interaction, they get reduced. And the reason why this is so huge, if you look at all studies that determine like the number one factor that drives happiness and wellbeing, it's not money,
24:41 Speaker 02 it's not fame, it's human connection. And for that human connection to form, you have to have those moments of reciprocation, you have to have those catching loops. And so that's why I think people describe trust as the social glue that really holds things together.
24:58 Chris Duffy? Absolutely. Yeah, it really makes sense and it resonates. It also makes me think that there are all these little subtle clues that we get in person that tell us that it's okay to trust, you know, like, first of all, like, if we're talking about this bus example, right? Like, there's other people on the bus, it's a day, it's lit. When someone is saying hello to you, they're standing far enough away that it's not like invading your personal space. There's just all these like-
25:23 Speaker 02 Trust signals.
25:24 Chris Duffy? You call them trust signals.
25:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, they're called trust signals. So they're cues that you're picking up on. Yes, yes.
25:30 Chris Duffy? And it feels like sometimes those trust signals are a lot harder if you're even just talking on the phone, or, you know, certainly if you're typing through a social media app in a comment, it's a lot harder to get all those trust signals to say like, oh, this person is a safe person or is well-intentioned versus is a some sort of aggressive monster or a robot.
25:48 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, I was reading this report that for Gen Z, it's a phobia. Speaking live on the phone is a phobia for 70% of that generation, like the idea of taking a phone call. But it is really interesting because what's happened is all these signals that used to be verbal and visual have become non-verbal. So you're like, cutting out your palate, you're cutting out context, which is a huge thing with when it comes to trust, like trusting that person on the bus to have an exchange about a book is very different from maybe trusting that person to pick your kids up from school, right? Like, context is really important. And again, digitization can flatten that context because you don't have all the environmental cues or relationship cues.
26:32 Chris Duffy? The idea also that trust is built through a give and take. It resonates, I'm sure, with people listening in your lived experience of how did you become close with someone? How do you trust them? Is probably they say something vulnerable to you and you share something vulnerable with them. There's kind of a back and forth. It also makes me think that I have a one-year-old son. And one of the things that has been really interesting after having a kid is I think that I did this to a certain extent before becoming a parent. I think I was pretty good at being vulnerable with people. But there's just this level of, especially in the early months of parenting, it's too hard and it's too all-consuming and you're frazzled from not having sleep for you to put up a front.
27:16 Chris Duffy? And so when you talk to another parent who's in that same phase, there's just this level of you both saying like, wow, we are in it right now. And that really does build trust, just that when you talk to somebody who goes like, actually, it's perfect and it's not hard at all. You're like, okay, that has to be a lie. I don't believe that that could possibly be true. But then the people who share the things that are really hard, there's this immediate kind of solidarity, I felt like, wow, we are both in this battle together.
27:43 Speaker 02 What you're talking about is this very close relationship between vulnerability and trust. So you're probably familiar with the work of Brené Brown, where she described vulnerability as this like emotional exposure and taking a risk with another person. And trust and risk are like brother and sister, right? Like you need to have risk for trust to be required. So what's happening in those moments is you're sort of taking these micro risks with people. And if you think about other moments where someone shares, this happened to me the other day, where they shared something they've never shared with anyone else, like something really deeply personal. And you could see, I'm not exaggerating, they'd probably been holding this in for 20 years.
28:27 Speaker 02 And like those moments, I really take it as a privilege because you think that person has picked to place their trust in you above anyone else and you have to hold that. Very, very carefully. And that's another thing that I worry we're not putting into practice enough because we don't go out enough and we don't connect with people enough. So if we're not good at those micro moments, like, how do we actually develop the skills to really be vulnerable with people? And on the flip side of that, like, hold those moments like they are real privilege.
29:10 Chris Duffy? We're going to take a moment right now for a quick break and then we will be right back.
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30:05 Chris Duffy? This episode is brought to you by Planet Visionaries, a podcast in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. What connects a hidden laboratory in the Amazon, giant pandas in China's mountain forests, research relating to the ocean, and communities living alongside wildlife in India? That's what you'll hear on season six of Planet Visionaries. Stories from the explorers, scientists, and conservation leaders whose work addresses research, biodiversity, and conservation issues in specific locations. Planet Visionaries, hosted by environmental advocate and professional climber Alex Honnold, brings you real stories of discovery, determination, and research and initiatives relating to
30:47 Chris Duffy? environmental change. In partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, this is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts.
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31:52 Chris Duffy? Okay, we are back. Something that you do in your work, and you've done in this conversation, that I really admire, you think about the individual scale, but you also think about the broader systems and the societal pieces that are part of this too, that influence it. You know, one of the big examples of a trust shift that you've used in your work before has been, you know, the classic example of like a hotel to an Airbnb. So it used to be, you know, you trust Marriott or whatever it is. And now then you're staying in someone's house. And there's this big shift that was really new. But I also think about how I'm old enough that there was like a moment where before Airbnb was really big, there was also couch surfing.
32:37 Chris Duffy? And a lot of people were using couch surfing. And it wasn't like at all a fringe thing. It was this moment where the internet was like connecting regular people and there weren't really, it was a moment when most things on the internet didn't involve paying for things. And I had a couple of really amazing experiences where I stayed with someone in a really nice place and they took me around their town and we had this beautiful connection and it was totally free and there was no expectation of paying each other. And they hosted me because they wanted to meet someone and I went to their house because I wanted to have this experience with a local person. And now I think that that is much more likely that if I was having that exact same experience, it would be me paying to stay in a person's home and it would be much more formal. So I guess my question is,
33:21 Chris Duffy? There's always this creep of exchange of money and capitalism into these things. I wonder how does that change trust? Because a lot of times, for me, my own personal experience has been that like when money gets involved, the trust piece drops out a little bit, or at least it changes the tenor of what the trust is when I'm paying someone, rather than we're just doing it from the goodness of our hearts or curiosity about another person.
33:47 Speaker 02 Yeah, I'd say there's still, there's still trust involved in those situations. So you have to trust that the way they're describing the place actually meets expectations. You have to trust that it's not fraudulent. You have to trust the insurance policies. There's still layers and layers of trust. But what's happening is if you sort of imagine like a trust stack, you've got trust in the idea and then you've got trust in the other person. And then you've got trust, what we call in the platform. So everything that is being mediated by the technology, the payments. And what happens in those situations, so when you move from couches or a thing, say to paying for something via Airbnb or whatever platform, is that you kind of move from the top more to the middle of the stack.
34:32 Speaker 02 So it's become less relational and more transactional. It's kind of interesting because the commercialization of trust is often what allows things to scale. Because you're putting mechanisms in place that prevent people from doing harm. And also that if something goes wrong, there is some kind of social safety net. So it's not necessarily a bad thing to formalize these trust systems. It just takes the dynamics from being purely relational and personal and more transactional.
35:07 Chris Duffy? That idea of putting systems in place to make things safer and also, you know, be able to scale. It also makes me think trust, it depends a little bit on our personal identities as well, right? Like it's, it's very different for me to trust as like straight white man walking through the world, right? Like I'm at less risk of being harmed or being attacked if I'm walking around at night. It's easier for me to trust that like this is a safe street or this is a safe place to stay. People with other identities, right, certainly have more risk or they have to think about trust in a different way than I do.
35:42 Speaker 02 Yeah, the more risk that you have, the more trust that you need. So it's not necessarily that you're more trusting, it's that you actually require less trust because there's less risk involved. So imagine it like a waterline that as the risk goes down, the amount of trust that is required also goes down. So the way I define trust is that trust is a confident relationship with the unknown. So in situations like the fires, like the pandemic, where there are lots of unknowns and there is lots of uncertainty. That's when you need the highest levels of trust. But when you know things or you know what the outcome is, or there is very little risk, less trust is required.
36:25 Speaker 02 And I think it's really interesting that you've taken that to an identity level and recognizing it's not just now personalized, but in the workplace. For some people to trust, it is a higher risk, higher stakes situation. And that can be as simple as the level you're at in a company. It can be to do with your gender, all kinds of things. And even something as simple as saying something in a meeting that might be slightly controversial. For one person, that requires a much higher level of trust in themselves and others than for other people. So once you start really recognizing and understanding this relationship between trust and risk. It's really helpful because you can start to understand where you hold back.
37:10 Speaker 02 And maybe where you you worry about taking risks because there isn't enough trust in the situation or the environment or the person holding you.
37:18 Chris Duffy? That really hits home. I mean, just to give a specific example of that is for myself, I have felt that level of trust and risk change a lot, even just over this. This is season five of this podcast and I have felt it change really dramatically where like season one, I was in a tough financial spot. I I didn't know that I was necessarily secure. I felt pretty replaceable. And so when they asked me like, will you do an ad for blank? My answer was yes, I will read whatever ad, you know, it could be like, would you like to smoke lead cigarettes? And I'd be like, I guess I'll say that and I'll try and communicate through my tone that I actually don't think smoking lead cigarettes is good. But like now, when they ask me to do stuff, I feel.
38:00 Chris Duffy? I have such a deeper level of trust that it's okay for me to really say like, I will voice my concerns or objections. I will be like more my full self in positive ways and negative ways. Whereas at first it was like, my only goal is to just keep this thing going because I really need this to go and I'm not in a financial place to be able to have this not exist. Like that felt like I didn't have the level of security to have trust.
38:26 Speaker 02 You very quickly got to the heart of what trust does, which most people don't get to, which it gives you permission in different ways. So it gives you the permission to say no, right? No, I don't want to work with that sponsor because they're not aligned with our values. No, I don't want that guest on the show. So that's the first thing it's doing. And then the second thing, as you felt the trust level go up, you can take more risks.
38:48 Chris Duffy? Well, one of the people who works on this show and who does a lot of the, helps me with a lot of the prep, Morgan, Morgan and I were chatting about how we both have friends who sometimes bemoan themselves for saying that they're too trusting. I think especially in romantic relationships, this comes up a lot. I imagine that's a thing that people must say to you too. And I wonder, is that a thing? Is it possible to be too trusting? And if so, what are some steps that a person who's in that situation can take to make smarter decisions about how they give their trust away?
39:20 Speaker 02 Yeah, I don't think it's that they're too trusting. I think if you think in a professional context, when I ask people like, what's a bad trust decision that you've made? What we'll often come up with, I should never have hired that person. Or I should never have worked with that client. They just turned out not to be trustworthy. And then you say, well, how did you make that decision? And they're like, oh, my God, I was under so much stress and pressure and I really needed to hire someone. So I did it really quickly. And they're going on intuition, right? It comes back to where we started, right? They're seeing what they want to see. And speed really is the enemy of trust. So they're placing too much trust in that person too quickly, or they don't have enough information to make a good decision
40:02 Speaker 02 about that person. And the same, you know, romantic relationships is not, you have to ask Esther Perel this question, but I'd imagine what happens is people, they give a lot of themselves to that person and that person is not ready to give it back in return. And it's when they don't. Feel the same response. So they've opened up about something or they've been vulnerable in a way and they don't feel that met, that feels like a breach of trust. And this really ties to something that is really important when it comes to trust. It's being very clear about expectations. So you fill that trust gap sometimes where in your head, those expectations are really clear, what you want back from that person, but you've never said that out loud.
40:48 Speaker 02 And that creates the trust gap that if it's not addressed, it just gets wider. And then eventually it's a breakdown of trust.
40:55 Chris Duffy? If someone is in charge of an organization and they're thinking about how they can make their company or their organization be trusted, what's one, there's obviously many things, but what's one thing that they should think about?
41:07 Speaker 02 Oh, consistency is an easy one, like so it's tied to expectations, right? And this happens a lot with customer experiences where, you know, the first moments of interaction, there's a lot of investment and then the middle's not so great. And then maybe they try to impress you at the end and this up down is really bad for trust. So just think about it in the context, if you ever stay in a hotel, like how much they put in that moment of arrival and then like there's something in departure, but sometimes things get up and down in between. So I would really look at those touch points. What does consistency look like? Because consistency, not intensity is what leads to trust.
41:46 Chris Duffy? Okay, same question. If you are one of the lowest down people at a big company or a big organization where you don't have the power to, you know, define the consistency or change make things, how can you still think about your work and your relationships professionally through trust?
42:02 Speaker 02 I think it's really learning how to trust up and learning how to trust sideways and learning how to trust yourself. Those things are in your control. So you cannot control how people trust you, but the more you take risks and show other people that you're comfortable taking risks, that trust will come back. And the more you demonstrate that you are very good at empowering others sideways or slightly up the organizations and you're very good at letting go, that you are not a micromanager, the faster you will accelerate through that organization.
42:35 Chris Duffy? Well, Rachel Botsman, thank you so much for being on the show and thank you, Mac the Dog. You did really good until right at the end. You did fantastic.
42:41 Speaker 02 Can you hear him woofing?
42:42 Chris Duffy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what? That's great. We love. I love it. I love that you held it till the end. You held it as long as you possibly could.
42:47 Speaker 02 He did. He held it in. It's so nice talking to you, Chris. You take care. And please, please do listen to the book. It's made with a lot of love and I think it generally can help people. So that is a shameless plug for How to Trust and Be Trusted.
42:58 Chris Duffy? I really, I will second that shameless plug and say that I really, really strongly recommend it.
43:05 Chris Duffy? That is it for this episode of How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much for trusting us with your time and attention. Thank you especially to today's guest, Rachel Botsman. You can find her books, including her newest audiobook, How to Trust and Be Trusted, at rachelbotzman.com. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me, including my weekly newsletter and other projects at chrisduffeycomedy.com. How to Be a Better Human is put together by a team I would trust with my life. On the TED side, we've got reliability incarnate. We've got Daniela Balarezzo, Ben Ben Chang, Chloe Shasha Brooks, Valentina Bohanini, Lainey Lott, Antonio Le and Joseph DeBryan. This episode was fact-checked by Julia Dickerson and Mateus Salas, who both make sure that we do not lose your trust by saying something that is a total lie. On the PRX side, this is a team that puts the us
43:50 Chris Duffy? in trust. I'm talking about Morgan Flannery, Norgil, Patrick Grant and Jocelyn Gonzalez. Thanks again to you for listening. Please share this episode with someone who you trust and I trust you to write us a positive review and give us a great rating. That's how we get out to more people. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for sharing and have a great week.
44:19 Chris Duffy? This episode is sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Here's a question this show asks a lot. What can one person actually do? Take protecting the environment. When the task feels so big, it's hard to know where to even begin. Turns out, the answer isn't doing it alone. It's teaming up with people who care as much as you do. With the help of 3 million supporters, the Natural Resources Defense Council is in court to defend ancient forests, pristine coasts, and the wildlife that depend on them. None of these places or species can be replaced. They're still here because people fought for them, in and out of court. And that fight needs your support today. Donate at N R D C dot org slash human and your gift will be matched five times.
45:08 Chris Duffy? With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See Capital One dot com slash bank. Capital One, N A, Member FDIC.
45:38 Speaker 03 Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at G O O dot G L E slash Workspace with Gemini. That's G O O dot G L E slash Workspace with Gemini.
46:12 Speaker 04 Hi there, it's Adam Grant from Ted's Rethinking Podcast. And this episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. I get to spend my days studying how people think and what it actually takes to change our minds. It's work I find deeply meaningful. But even in meaningful work, there's still busy work. The admin, the repetitive processes, the invisible load that pulls attention away from what really matters. That's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work. They actually do it. Start to finish, cases closed, requests handled, no extra work for you. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow dot com.
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