How to Be a Better Human - How to trust in times of uncertainty (w/ Rachel Botsman)

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

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?For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When you choose Athabasca University's online MBA program, you'll get more. Experience more flexibility to pursue your degree while balancing work and family. Discover more accessibility through multiple entry paths that honor your professional experience. Enjoy more personalization with electives and projects aligned to your unique interests. Choose a more reputable MBA from one of the world's top business schools. Get more out of your education. Find out how at AthabascaU.ca slash flexible MBA. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free.

Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. From fleet management to flexible truck rentals to technology solutions, at Enterprise Mobility, we help businesses find the right mobility solutions so they can find new opportunities. Because if your business is on the road, we wanna make sure it's on the road to success. Enterprise Mobility, moving you moves the world.

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. 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. 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 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. OK, 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. Hi, I'm Rachel Bozman, and I've been studying trust for over 15 years across cultures, across different areas of our lives.

I've written great books, I teach at Oxford University, and I'm just really fascinated by helping people to think differently about trust. So Rachel, in your books, What's Mine is Yours, Who Can You Trust? and the new audio book, 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 to know how to trust even objective facts these days, much less other people. Do you feel like this work 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? 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. What are some what's that we trust or that maybe you trust? 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 it's fully autonomous. You're having to trust that car's decision-making in high-risk situations. 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 really wanted to believe that AI wasn't capable of empathy. And something I've been rethinking lately is what 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 empathetic 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? 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 response side of empathy, and then that frees the human up for the support and the care, which can only be delivered through human connection, it becomes a very different trust question. 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 humor 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. 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. I hope it's not the second, but I don't know. I interact with people who are studying AI very deeply, practitioners and academics. One thing I've noticed is they are starting to speak faster and in 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, they're listening and they feel heard and it takes into account all their previous cases because it can read history and data and pull things that a doctor just doesn't have time to process and join the dots around. So that's where 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. Okay, we're going to take a quick break, but trust me, we are going to come right back. This episode is sponsored by Cozy. Remember the last time you moved a couch? It was terrible, right? A nightmare. Well, Cozy is changing the game. They're a Canadian company making modular, high-quality furniture that arrives in compact

boxes that are easy to carry. And Cozy's pieces grow with you. Start with a loveseat, then easily expand to a sectional as your family grows. And Comfort, well their Cielo collection, is like sitting on a cloud. I mean, perfect for unwinding after a long day of, say, hosting podcasts. What really stands out is the adaptability. These pieces are built to last, designed to be disassembled and reassembled without losing stability. It's furniture that evolves with your lifestyle. Customize your perfect piece today. Your back and your style will thank

you. Transform your living space today with Cozy. Visit Cozy.ca, that's spelled C-O-Z-E-Y.ca, to customize your furniture and start living in the future. Cozy, modern living made simple for you. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches,

and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. When you choose Athabasca University's online MBA program, you'll get more. Experience more flexibility to pursue your degree while balancing work and family. Discover more accessibility through multiple entry paths that honor your professional experience.

Enjoy more personalization with electives and projects aligned to your unique interests. Choose a more reputable MBA from one of the world's top business schools. Get more out of your education. Find out how at Athabaskayew.ca slash flexible MBA. 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?

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 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 this 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 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 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. I think that is a very modern feeling, the sense that 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 studied this, this lack of a single institutional source of information that we can just definitively rely on. And where do you go for information out of interest?

Well first things that I go to are I ask other people that I'm friends with, what are you doing? I still have a lot of deference I think towards institutions and especially towards 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. 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. 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 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 a really profound trust shift where 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 behavior. 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 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 believe, but why you need to believe something. So like in particularly 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 inflammation? 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. 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 20. I don't think we had this like 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. It's hard to put down that cognitive burden and they have it just every single day i thought 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. 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, 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? Cause it's definitely not coming from us. And I don't think it's his school. 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. 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. I studied 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 it'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. 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 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 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 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 this kind of 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 un-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.

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 from 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 it's on the bus when he's like, Oh, 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.

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 in 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.

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. 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. 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 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- Trust signals. You call them trust signals. Yeah, they're called trust signals. So they're cues that you're picking up on. Yes, yes. And it feels like sometimes those trust signals are a lot're cues that you're picking up on. Yes. Yes.

And it feels like sometimes those trust signals are a lot harder if you're even just talking on the phone or 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 some sort of aggressive monster or a robot. 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 or visual have become nonverbal. 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, digitalization can flatten that context because you don't have all the environmental cues or relationship cues. 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?

As 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, um, especially in the early months of parenting, 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. 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 someone 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. 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, you know, she describes 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 had probably been holding this in for 20 years.

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. We're gonna take a moment right now for a quick break, and then we will be right back. If you're at a point in life when you're ready to lead with purpose, we can get you there. The University of Victoria's MBA in Sustainable Innovation is not like other MBA programs. It's for true change makers who want to think differently and solve the world's most pressing challenges. From healthcare and the environment to energy, government and technology, it's your path to meaningful leadership in all sectors. For details visit uvic.ca slash future MBA. That's uvic.ca slash future MBA.

When you choose Athabasca University's online MBA program, you'll get more. Experience more flexibility to pursue your degree while balancing work and family. Discover more accessibility through multiple entry paths that honor your professional experience. Enjoy more personalization with electives and projects aligned to your unique interests. Choose a more reputable MBA from one of the world's top business schools. Get more out of your education. Find out how at AthabaskiU.ca slash flexible MBA. From fleet management to flexible truck rentals to technology solutions.

At Enterprise Mobility, we help businesses find the right mobility solutions so they can find new opportunities. Because if your business is on the road, we want to make sure it's on the road to success. Enterprise Mobility, moving you moves the world. Okay, we are back. You move the world. 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 the classic example of like a hotel to an Airbnb. So it used to be, 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 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 um 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, 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. Yeah, I'd say 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 it 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 couchsurfing, 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. 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. That idea of putting systems in place to make things safer and also 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 very different for me to trust as like straight white man walking through the world, right? 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. Yeah. The more risks that you have, the more trust that you need. So it's not necessarily that you're more trusting is 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's 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. 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 and maybe where you worry

about taking risks because there isn't enough trust in the situation or the environment or the person holding you. 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 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 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 have not enough 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. You very quickly got to the heart of what trust does, which most people don't get to. 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. 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? 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 will often come up with, I should never have hired that person or I should never work 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 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 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 feel 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 and that creates the trust gap that if it's not addressed, it just gets wider and then eventually leads to a breakdown of trust. 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? 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 is 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're 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. 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 big things, how can you still think about your work and your relationships professionally through trust? 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 at the organizations and you're very good at letting go that you are not a micromanager, the faster you will accelerate through that organization. Well, Rachel Botsman, thank you so much for being on the show and thank you, Mack the dog. You did really good until right at the end.

You did fantastic. Can you hear him woofing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what? That's great. I love it. I love that you held it until the end. You held it as long as you possibly could.

He did. He would hold 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 a person. I really, I will second that shameless plug

and say that I really, really strongly recommend it. 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 rachelbotsman.com. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me, including my weekly newsletter

and other projects, at chrisduffycomedy.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 Ballerezzo, Ban Ban Chang, Chloe Shasha Brooks, Valentina Bohannini, Lainey Lott, Antonia Lay, and Joseph De Bruyne. 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 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. From fleet management to flexible truck rentals to technology solutions. At Enterprise Mobility, we help businesses find the right mobility solutions so they can find new opportunities. Because if your business is on the road, we want to make sure it's on the road to success. Enterprise Mobility, moving you moves the world. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack,

fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected, be Zen.

When you choose Athabasca University's online MBA program, you'll get more. Experience more flexibility to pursue your degree while balancing work and family. Discover more accessibility through multiple entry paths that honour your professional experience. Enjoy more personalization with electives and projects aligned to your unique interests. Choose a more reputable MBA from one of the world's top business schools. Get more out of your education.

Find out how at Athabaskayew.ca slash flexible MBA.