Trust between any two people goes in both directions. Rarely is the trust level exactly the same from one person to the other and vice versa. Trust is also a highly dynamic condition. An activity or message may increase trust from A to B while simultaneously decrease trust from B to A.

When two people are in a relationship, let’s say a marriage, the level of trust should be close in both directions.  If one person has significantly lower trust in the other person for an extended period of time, the relationship is in real trouble.

Later in this series we will deal with the various ways trust is impacted and suggest ways to build higher trust consistently or repair damaged trust.

My daughter taught me a valuable lesson about trust when she was just four years old.

When I would come home from a trip across the country or to another continent, she would demand that I twirl her around and around. She kept me doing it until I would become so dizzy I could hardly stand.

I recall one time my wife walked into the kitchen and saw my condition.  She said, “How many martinis did you have on the plane?” It was all very comical, but years later I realized that her trusting me to not drop her made it essential for me to not let her down.

If trust in one direction begets more trust in the reverse direction, we have a clue as to how we can build more trust others have in us.  Simply find some way to show more trust in them.  This is a simple philosophy of building higher trust that I call “The First Law of Trust.” Try it and you will see it really does work in most circumstances.

Bonus Video

Here is a short video on The Bilateral Nature of Trust.

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