“Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
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Hello Friend!
We all sat in shock as our colleague, Susan, completely snapped.
With one effortless blow, she deliberately knocked her coffee over for dramatic effect. I was sitting next to her and took the most damage.
Her last words were spewed in absolute vitriol: “Guys, TRUST ME, I know what I’m doing!”
Outside of the boardroom window, a threatening thunderstorm was unleashing armageddon. An ominous sign of what was happening inside Susan’s head.
My executive peers looked at me to say what none of them would.
And with Susan’s coffee now decorating my shirt and dripping down my neck, I cleared my throat and offered some kind truth.
“Susan, that’s the problem. I’m not sure any of us trust you right now.”
In my coaching work, I’ve been hearing this quite a lot these days. If it’s not, “Trust me, I know what I’m doing…” it’s:
Trust the process.
Trust my track record.
Trust my decades of experience.
Here’s the unignorable truth: Saying any of those things is completely disconnected from human behavior.
Paul Zak’s research on the Neurobiology of Trust included his team drawing blood from participants before and after they decided to trust or reciprocate trust with someone else, finding that receiving a signal of trust raised recipients' oxytocin levels, and that oxytocin levels predicted how trustworthy people then behaved.
Oxytocin is the hormone we release when we feel connected and a sense of belonging.
The punchline? Our competence, experience, and title have way less to do with trust than we think. Instead, how we intentionally build relationships and ensure others feel heard and understood is undeniably more important.
In other words, throwing your coffee and yelling at your colleagues isn’t the recipe you want to replicate.
Over the last 10 years of fieldwork and research for my forthcoming book, I’ve identified five behaviors that build trust. I’ll be brief, but want you to have them as a takeaway:
1. Be Easy To Work With
This isn’t about being agreeable or saying yes to everything. It’s not about being a pushover or avoiding conflict or making everyone happy.
It’s about removing friction.
Making collaboration feel effortless. Making communication feel clear. Making systems feel simple.
It’s about showing up with warmth, clarity, and processes that make other people’s lives easier.
People trust you when working with you feels simple.
2. Be Good At Unlearning
This isn’t about learning faster or knowing more. It’s not about reading more books, taking more courses, or collecting more certifications.
It’s about letting go.
Letting go of outdated beliefs, behaviors, and mental models that no longer serve you… even when they once made you successful.
If you cling to old ways of thinking such as “this is how we’ve always done it,” “what worked before,” “my tried-and-true method,” you become a bottleneck. The resistance. The person holding back progress.
People trust you when you’re not stuck defending the past.
3. Have An Original Take On A Problem
This isn’t about inventing something no one’s ever thought of. It’s not about being the most innovative voice in the room or having breakthrough ideas.
It’s about reframing.
Taking a familiar problem and helping people see it in a completely new way. Making the invisible visible.
The fastest path to influence is helping people see a problem they didn’t know they had or see a familiar problem in a completely different light.
People trust you when you prove you understand their problems.
4. Sell Without Slides
This isn’t about rejecting data or logic. It’s not about dumbing things down or avoiding analysis.
It’s about understanding how people actually make decisions.
We like to think we’re rational. Logical. Data-driven.
But neuroscience tells a different story. People make decisions emotionally, then justify them rationally.
The emotional brain processes information faster than the rational brain. It decides whether something feels right before the logical mind can catch up.
And then after the emotional decision is made, the rational brain comes in to justify it with facts and figures.
People trust you when you move them, not just inform them.
5. Be a Serial Wonderer
This isn’t about asking questions for the sake of appearing curious. It’s not about performing interest or pretending to care.
It’s about genuine curiosity.
About what other people think. What they need. What they’re trying to solve. What’s keeping them up at night.
Most people are so focused on being heard that they forget to listen.
People trust you when you prove you understand them first.
Your Unignorable Move
Telling people, “Trust me, I know what I’m doing,” is illogical. They won’t trust you because of competence alone. Instead, see trust as something you earn because of the way you make other people feel when they experience you.
Your coach,
Chris
P.S. I am hosting the next Becoming Unignorable cohort. This is a 6-session program where we go deep into the five specific behaviors above that change how people experience you, opening up more career opportunities. In every session you will have a tactical playbook you can immediately apply. You don’t have to play politics or self-promote to be taken seriously at work. There’s an early-bird discount if you sign up now. Seats are limited, and the room will close at 50 people.
“This course is life-changing. It opened my eyes to new skills that I’ve never experienced before, and I’m 30+ years into my career.” —Suzy Sandifer, Director of Enterprise Apps
