A former mentee got a bad experience from a business deal with some who is deemed to be a successful businessperson in the country.

And this got me thinking of trust.

We spend a lot of time wondering who we can trust.

We are careful to work out who is worthy of our friendship, business or time.

And yet, we often fail to make the connection between trust and success when it comes to ourselves.

We assume that when a person is successful and well-known, she is trustworthy.

Trust is earned, and having a PR machine on steriods is not a measure of trust.

You don’t become trusted by being more successful. You become successful by being more trusted.

We trust people because they are trustworthy, not because they appear to be successful.

Start there.

Image by Zi Krostag