#237: Rachel Botsman – Trust expert on how you can earn trust with your audience

Summary

Creator Science Podcast Summary: Episode #237 with Rachel Botsman

Release Date: January 14, 2025
Host: Jay Clouse
Guest: Rachel Botsman – Leading Expert on Trust

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1. Introduction: The Centrality of Trust for Creators

In Episode #237 of Creator Science, host Jay Clouse delves deep into the intricate world of trust with renowned trust expert Rachel Botsman. Recognizing that trust is the foundational element for creators aiming to build meaningful relationships with their audiences, this episode explores how trust can be cultivated, maintained, and sometimes inadvertently broken.

2. Rachel Botsman's Journey and Expertise

Botsman shares her lifelong fascination with human connections, loyalty, and the dynamics within groups. She emphasizes that trust isn't just a modern construct but an ancient human skill essential for societal functioning.

Rachel Botsman [03:04]: "From a really, really young age, I've been fascinated by how you connect with people, like the emotional connection of people."

Botsman highlights that despite trust being a fundamental aspect of human interaction, it remains underexplored in modern content creation circles, especially from diverse perspectives.

3. The Four-Part Framework of Trust

Botsman introduces a comprehensive framework to understand trust, dividing it into two primary categories: Capability and Character.

• Capability

  • Competence: The ability to perform tasks effectively.
  • Reliability: Consistency in actions and fulfilling promises.

• Character

  • Empathy: Genuine concern for others' well-being.
  • Integrity: Adherence to moral and ethical principles.

Rachel Botsman [10:29]: "The easiest way to describe it is two parts: someone's capability and someone's character."

This framework serves as a diagnostic tool for creators to assess and enhance their trustworthiness in the eyes of their audience.

4. Aligning Interests and Maintaining Integrity

A recurring theme in the conversation is the importance of alignment—ensuring that a creator’s actions and intentions resonate with their audience's interests.

Rachel Botsman [08:25]: "When you truly understand as a creator what your interests are... and how they align with the interests of your audience, trust is maintained."

Botsman discusses how misalignment, even in seemingly minor decisions like sponsorships, can erode trust. She underscores the role of integrity as a compass in decision-making, guiding creators to prioritize their audience's best interests over short-term gains.

5. Debunking the Transparency Myth

Contrary to popular belief, Botsman clarifies that transparency does not inherently build trust. Instead, it can sometimes reduce the necessity for trust by making all aspects visible, eliminating the unknowns that trust typically bridges.

Rachel Botsman [17:04]: "Transparency is not increasing trust; it's reducing the need for trust."

She elaborates that while openness is valuable, overemphasizing transparency can lead to skepticism and confusion, especially when not applied intentionally.

6. Identifying and Bridging Trust Gaps

Botsman introduces the concept of the trust gap, where there's a disparity between how creators perceive themselves and how they are perceived by their audience. To identify these gaps, she recommends soliciting honest feedback through structured surveys or frameworks.

Rachel Botsman [25:19]: "You might have a sense of where you're lacking, but getting others to rate you on these traits reveals the true trust gaps."

This process helps creators pinpoint specific areas needing improvement, fostering authentic trust-building.

7. Building Authentic Connections Through Empathy and Benevolence

Differentiating between empathy and benevolence, Botsman explains that while empathy involves understanding and sharing feelings, benevolence extends to actions aimed at the greater good.

Rachel Botsman [12:41]: "Empathy is caring about people and support and action, but benevolence refers to the greater good."

This distinction underscores the importance of not just feeling for the audience but actively contributing to their well-being.

8. The Impact of Individualization on Public Trust

Using contrasting examples from Copenhagen and Ohio, Botsman illustrates how extreme individualism in the U.S. has degraded public trust, leading to a lack of community dependency and increased skepticism.

Rachel Botsman [15:51]: "Here in the States, we have this extreme individualism that impacts the public trust."

She advocates for reinstating collective trust, emphasizing the benefits of communal support and shared responsibilities.

9. Standing For vs. Standing Against: Trust Implications

Botsman discusses the marketing strategies of standing for something versus standing against something. While opposing certain ideas can galvanize a dedicated audience, it may also leave a creator's own identity vague and susceptible to external narratives.

Rachel Botsman [38:47]: "Standing against something often builds a heated audience... but it can leave a vacuum in defining your own narrative."

She suggests that creators focus on clear, positive values to foster genuine allegiance rather than relying on opposition for engagement.

10. Balancing Trust and Manipulation

A critical point of discussion is the fine line between earning trust and manipulating audiences. Botsman warns against deceptive practices such as hidden motives or misleading promises, stressing that any form of deception can irreparably damage trust.

Rachel Botsman [46:27]: "If you have an ulterior motive that you're successfully hiding, that's manipulation."

She advocates for transparency in intentions and swift accountability in case of trust breaches to maintain long-term audience loyalty.

11. Evolving Perspectives: Trust and Distrust Coexistence

Botsman shares her evolved understanding that trust and distrust can coexist within relationships, allowing for honest disagreements and compartmentalized trust in different contexts.

Rachel Botsman [49:46]: "Trusting relationships are not always comfortable. Trust enables you to be comfortable with discomfort."

This nuanced view highlights that healthy trust relationships can withstand and navigate conflicts without collapsing.

12. Conclusion: Trust as a Dynamic and Essential Element

The episode wraps up with Botsman's insights on trust being a dynamic force essential for creators. By understanding and applying the discussed frameworks, aligning actions with audience interests, and maintaining integrity, creators can foster robust and lasting trust with their audiences.

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Key Takeaways:

• Trust Framework: Ability (Competence & Reliability) and Character (Empathy & Integrity).
• Alignment and Integrity: Ensure actions resonate with audience interests.
• Transparency vs. Trust: Openness reduces the need for trust but doesn't build it.
• Identifying Trust Gaps: Use structured feedback to uncover perception differences.
• Empathy vs. Benevolence: Empathy involves feeling, benevolence involves action for the greater good.
• Collective Trust: Reinstating community dependency enhances public trust.
• Trust vs. Manipulation: Avoid deceptive practices to maintain authentic trust.
• Coexistence of Trust and Distrust: Healthy relationships can handle conflicts through strong underlying trust.

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Notable Quotes:

• Rachel Botsman [03:04]: "Trust is someone else's. To give that, the giver of trust, your audience, they have all the power."

• Rachel Botsman [10:29]: "Competence is knowing what you're talking about. Reliability is consistency in delivering quality."

• Rachel Botsman [17:04]: "Transparency is reducing the need for trust."

• Rachel Botsman [25:19]: "Seeing where the gap is is where the learning is and the improvement is."

• Rachel Botsman [38:47]: "If you don't define yourself, someone else will."

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Resources Mentioned:

• Rachel Botsman’s New Book: How to Trust and Be Trusted – Available in audio only on Audible and Spotify.
• Trust Frameworks and Tools: Detailed in Botsman’s audiobook and accompanying materials.

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For Further Listening:

If you found this episode insightful, consider tuning into 'Creator Science' for more in-depth discussions on strategies and experiments to grow your creator business. Additionally, explore Jay Clouse’s other episodes, including his conversation with former FBI Special Agent Robin Dreik.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Jay Clouse]

As you start to reach more people, things start to feel more complex, there's more to do and more to keep track of, and it starts to actually take time away from creating content.

[Rachel Botsman]

I felt this struggle personally.

[Jay Clouse]

The more Creator Science grew, the more it felt like I was dropping the ball. So I did something about it. I built a set of rock solid systems all in notion to support the business as we grew and it worked like a charm. I built Creator HQ to be an all in one workspace designed to save you more time, create more content and drive more revenue. By leveraging Creator hq, we are publishing more than we ever have and we're nearing $1 million in annual revenue because of it. It brings all of your data and processes into one place with custom built dashboards to reduce friction in managing tasks, creating content and collaborating with your team. I've spent more than three years building this and now you can have the same systems that I use right out of the box. If you're new to Notion, don't worry. I've included a ton of specific tutorials to help you learn how to use Notion generally and Creator HQ specifically. I've never seen another Notion product integrate.

[Rachel Botsman]

Tutorials like we have here.

[Jay Clouse]

More than 300 other creators are already using Creator HQ and I am not exaggerating when I say I would be lost without this system. As a podcast listener, I'm giving you my best price. You can get 10% off using the promo code podcast at checkout. Just head to creatorhq.co to watch the video and learn more. That's creatorhq.co and use promo code podcast to save 10%.

[Rachel Botsman]

Secrecy isn't the enemy of trust, it's deception. In the short term, it might be a financial boost, but in the long term, you're losing that far more valuable currency, which is trust.

Hello my friend. Welcome back to another episode of Creator Science.

[Jay Clouse]

A few months ago, I started trying to learn everything I could about trust. Who do we trust? How do we make that decision? Why do people trust me and how can I teach that to others? I believe this is the fundamental skill for creators to learn, and there seem to be very few people actually talking about it. But the one name that consistently came up time and time again was Rachel Botsman. Rachel Botsman is a leading expert on trust in the modern world. She is the author of three critically acclaimed books, what's Mine is Yours, who can you Trust? And how to Trust and be Trusted that have been translated into 14 languages. That last one, how to Trust and be Trusted, is brand new and actually just released today in audio only, which is a fascinating decision that we'll also discuss later in the conversation. You can find a link to that in the show. Notes Rachel is consistently recognized as a top keynote speaker and her TED talks have been viewed more than 5 million times. If there's anyone who understands trust more than Rachel, I haven't found them yet.

[Rachel Botsman]

So this episode was really special.

[Jay Clouse]

I'd love to hear what you think about this episode. Just tag me Clouse on your social media du jour or if you're listening on Spotify. Go ahead, leave a comment.

[Rachel Botsman]

I love reading them. I like responding, but that's enough for me.

[Jay Clouse]

Let's dive in and learn from Rachel.

[Rachel Botsman]

I have to say there are times when I think I'm going to break up with trust, that it's no longer my subject anymore and I dip my toe into things like uncertainty and risk, which you could say I like a brother or a sister to trust. But then I realized, like, there's another dimension to it that I don't understand, or there's a really important question or misconception or. Or there's a way of helping people and expressing an idea, and I just keep coming back to it and I discover something new. I think if I was just teaching or speaking or writing, it could get not boring, but you could sound like a jukebox. But it's because I'm always looking to the past as much as the future. So I look at how trust has worked in different times. I look at it through the lens of innovation. So it's constantly evolving in terms of what I'm trying to really understand about this remarkable force that really is the social glue of our relationships.

[Jay Clouse]

Let's touch on that, because I imagine.

[Rachel Botsman]

That'S the answer to why you care about it so much in the first place. So what got you interested in the subject?

From a really, really young age? I've been fascinated by how you connect with people, like the emotional connection of people. I, from a young age, was really fascinated by the idea of energy and why some people had certain amount of energy and presence. And, you know, I probably couldn't say I was interested in behavioral psychology, but I was. I was interested in friendships and I was interested in betrayal and loyalty and dynamics of groups. And when you think of all those things, central to those things is trust. You know, some people are interested in power, some people are interested in leadership. But there's something even more fundamental about trust that society can't function, our lives can't happen. And what I discovered was that most scholars of trust are men. And there hasn't really been a modern day study of trust. So that was part of the motivation was could I bring a very different perspective to something that has been quite academic and theoretical on one end, or what I call like the Stephen Coffee end, which is like very salesy. Right. And there's something really important in between that I thought I could uniquely do and bring to people.

I completely agree with you. This is something that I've been trying to study a lot lately because in my space I find that trust is fundamental to how we build businesses as content creators. And some of the feedback I get from my audience a lot of times is, you have such great trust. How do you do that? And when I thought about it, my answer was like, I actually don't know. I don't know what I'm doing to create this bond between the people who listen to podcasts or read my work. And so I started trying to research it and there's like next to nobody.

[Jay Clouse]

Talking about trust as trust.

[Rachel Botsman]

It's like trust as manipulation or as persuasion. And the more I thought about it, it's like this feels like it's literally the atomic element of how I interact with people. Why aren't we talking about this more? I started to feel like I was crazy.

No, you're not crazy. Because so much of sort of trust speak is really the language of influence and manipulation, right? So you'll find it in like how do you negotiate better or how do you sell something to someone? And that's why you hear this language of trust being built, because it's really thought of as this like power over dynamic, right? That you're going to do something, whether you're the content creator or leader of a company, and then other people are going to trust you. And as soon as you realize that actually trust works in completely the reverse to that, that trust is someone else's. To give that, the giver of trust, your audience, they have all the power, right? They decide whether to trust you and you have to consistently earn that trust. And it's a process. But I'd ask you, do you ever feel like you put something out and in some way or you make a decision and it's a slight breach of your audience's trust. Do you ever get that feeling?

Definitely in the past. And what I've realized is when I have a tinge of that feeling, it's like a compass to not do whatever that thing is. I mean, it comes in like with sponsor relationships, someone's like, hey, we want you to promote our product. We want you to come speak or do this thing. And I get this spidey sense or this itch where I'm like, that feels wrong. And I can't articulate why. And I've been using the term integrity a lot when I talk about this. But, yes, I feel that. And I think I've gotten better at identifying it and then using that to not do whatever the thing is.

Yeah. And so many good trust decisions are around deciding not to do something, not to take that sponsorship, not to hire that person, not to make that investment, which I think is interesting in itself. And the only reason you can decide not to do something is because of integrity. So the way I think about integrity and why it's such a powerful compass in decision making is because of this idea of alignment. And when you truly understand as a creator what your interests are, and I think it's one of the most important things to figure out, people talk about audience and they talk about voice. What are your interests? What are your motives? What are your intentions for doing this commercially? And also purpose, like, how do you want to have impact? And then you have to be really clear on how they align with the interests of your audience. And it's when you have that misalignment, trust wobbles and breaks down. That's that feeling of, oh, I could take this sponsor and that extra bit of money, but is it really in the best interests of my listeners or my audience that I have the sponsor on the show? So it sounds so simple, but it's what you see. So many people, whether it's creators or large companies, where trust really goes wrong is they don't have that compass. They don't really think about those interests. So what they do with someone's data or how they decide to charge someone, these things feel like small decisions. But you're taking that interest and you're misaligning it. And it's the first thing that people feel like. You know, when people say they can smell it, that's the thing they're picking up on.

Yeah. It feels like this ancient human skill to basically decide, is this person trustworthy? Do I trust them? And the stakes have obviously changed a lot over the centuries, millennia, whatever. But today, as you understand it, help us break down how we make that decision on an individual level. Who do we decide to give our trust to?

Well, the beautiful thing about this is that there is a science around how we make trust decisions. This. Social scientists have been studying this for over 50 years. And the easiest way to describe it, I think of it as two parts. So you have someone's capability and you have someone's character. Capability really comes down to two traits that are quite easy to understand, which is competence and reliability. And then on the character side you have empathy and integrity. And the interesting thing about these traits is it's not like they're all even plain, like you need different amounts in different contexts. So you know, if you're hiring a surgeon, you want really, really high competence, but actually the empathy is not that important. But a teacher, you're going to want them to be much higher on empathy. And I think these traits are so relevant to creators, right, because the competence is. This person knows what they're talking about. They have the skills, the expertise, the right kind of knowledge. The reliability is really down to consistency. So you're consistent in what you deliver, both in terms of quality, you meet expectations, that's the capability side. And then the character side, you genuinely care about what you're creating and the impact it's having. And then we've spoken about the integrity piece and usually we're all weak on one, right? We've all got work to do on one. But it's people that really can perform highly on those four traits that earn trust.

I love this framework. So you basically have two halves divided into ability on one side, character on the other. Underneath ability we have competence and reliability or consistency. And under character we have empathy and integrity. I've heard you share this framework before, which is part of the reason I was so excited to talk to you, because I haven't heard frameworks on this subject. I've also heard you refer to this empathy quadrant, if we call it that, as benevolence. Can you talk about benevolence and why sometimes you might use that word versus empathy?

People actually are really caught up with empathy right now. So you see this at work. The empathy isn't therapy, right? Like empathy is caring about people, but it's also this idea of support and action, it's active. So benevolence is really referring to the greater good than just the individual self. So the problem with empathy is sometimes it can be slightly self serving and narcissistic, which is why a lot of leaders say they struggle to be empathetic because the expectation is you're going to put yourself in someone else's shoes. Whereas benevolence is saying I genuinely care and I know how to put the actions and the structures and the systems in place to really support this person or support this product or to hold this space between us.

I love that distinction because it makes me think of another phrase I've heard recently that I really like, which is the public trust. And you probably can speak to this.

[Jay Clouse]

Better than I can, but my understanding.

[Rachel Botsman]

Of this is basically like, culturally, how do we feel about each other in this space? And kind of like the almost baseline starting point of where we're coming from, from a place of trust, is this.

[Jay Clouse]

Language that you think about or talk about as well.

[Rachel Botsman]

It's a really astute question because not just in trust, but many sociological concepts have moved from being something that is about the collective, the we, to the individual, the me. It's where we sort of started this idea that trust is all about negotiation and how I can gain more in a relationship. And that's not how we thought about trust for a really long period of time. It was really about communities and neighborhoods and the social fabric of our lives. And I do think this individualized notion of trust and thinking about self benefit and self gain is actually the root cause of a lot of problems in society, whether that's why leaders decide to run for office or not. Sure where you live, Jade, but you know, I have two teenage tweeny kids and I'm always saying to the parents, we have to learn how to depend on one another more. There's not a great dependency in networks anymore. And you know, I remember my grandma like she just used to ferry kids and pick them up and they'd always be at house and someone and she didn't even think of it. And I think that collective notion of trust is something really important to think about how we reinstate in our lives. And it comes out in so many ways. This may sound really silly, but I was looking at the history of New Year's resolutions and the idea that you'd make a resolution that was like, I'm going to get fitter or I'm going to quit something or I'm going to change my job. That was about the self. It didn't exist. It was a moral obligation to someone else. So you would think about. Yeah, and it's like a very modern day phenomenon that even the way we think about change and goals is this self absorbed lens. And so that individual lens on trust versus the collective lens on trust. It's a really important distinction.

My wife and I went to Copenhagen as part of our honeymoon.

Yeah.

And we saw just like packs of children walking to school unattended in the morning. And we live in the United States we live in Ohio and we just looked at each other like we would never feel comfortable doing this in Ohio. And it's because of this, like, degradation of the public trust. We don't necessarily trust our neighbor to look after our children as their own. I do feel like here in the states especially, we have this, like, extreme individualism that impacts the public trust. You know, in the space that I work in, in the online business space, there are so many actors, bad actors, who have poisoned the public trust and the ability to teach these different things. So this brings me to this idea of transparency, because some of the feedback I get from people is like, I love how transparent you are. And I get a sense that, okay, that's probably helping develop trust in this place where there's low public trust. But you have this perspective on transparency as not fixing trust. And I'm really interested to hear how that plays out in your mind, especially in a place of individuals operating and trying to earn trust versus companies.

I think one of the biggest myths about trust is that transparency leads to more trust or that it's going to fix trust issues. So that when trust breaks down, the solution is to make things more transparent. What often happens is people conflate trust with openness, which is really important. So just to take a step back, the way I define trust is that it's a confident relationship with the unknown. So the very essence of trust is that it's the things that you can't see. It's the things that are really complex. It's the behind the scenes, the decisions that are not visible to people. That's where you need the most trust. And so when you start to see trust through that lens, you start to realize that transparency is not increasing trust, it's reducing the need for trust. If you're disclosing everything, if everything's visible, you don't need a lot of trust. It's like you think about when people put trackers on their children or when offices monitor workplace attendance. They're actually acts of transparency, but they're not really trust because you know where that child is at all times. So it's not like I'm saying transparency is a bad thing.

I see what you're saying.

It can backfire, right? Because then two things happen. The person that the transparency is being imposed on them, it doesn't feel like transparency or trust to them. But then also, even with your own audience, what you share and then their expectations of what they think you should share, they may not stay consistent. And you may get to a point where you're like, actually, you're not entitled to know that. And that's what we call the backfire effect of transparency. And it happens a lot in organizations where leaders go, I'm going to be totally transparent with you. I'm going to disclose all this information. And two things happen. Either you get into this culture of compliance, so it just becomes information disclosure, or there's a mismatch in, no, you told me you're going to be transparent, but you won't tell me what that person's bonus is. Why? Didn't mean that kind of transparency. So the key thing is to be very intentional with transparency. Essentially, when people are asking for transparency, they're trying to understand the context behind a decision. They're trying to understand why did you make that decision. And if you actually give them that, you don't need to promise full transparency.

Right. It's kind of impractical to promise blanket full transparency. And then if you select for where you are transparent, but it's out of alignment with other places where you're not being transparent now this creates a conflict and a struggle of, well, why should I trust this transparency at all then?

Totally. I mean, you can see this with platforms and algorithms, right? We're going to be transparent about our algorithms. We're not transparent enough. And I still don't really understand how they work or how they're making that kind of decision. So sometimes it can even lead to more questions and more skepticism than more trust.

Okay, so a couple things I want to dig into here. Your definition of trust, of being a confident relationship with the unknown. For people who are listening to this, I want to help them visualize. You have this great illustration where you show, on the left hand side, this.

[Jay Clouse]

Is what is known. On the right hand side, this is what's unknown.

[Rachel Botsman]

Trust is the bridge between the two, this confident relationship with the unknown. And what you're saying is transparency, when done well, might actually make the unknown known. So it sort of removes the need for the bridge.

Exactly. You don't need trust.

You don't need trust.

You described it very well. So if you make things transparent, what you're actually doing is reducing the need for trust. And this is a problem because, you know, when you are faced with something unexpected in your life or uncertainty increases, people's trust tolerance has gone down. Right. So now you're like, no transparency is going to fix this situation. Like, no one can tell you when the end of pandemic is going to happen. Just as an example, and people's tolerance for the uncertainty is reduced. And it's so important because when you look at what's going on, sort of a macro level, and you zoom out, so much of life is not wired for unexpected things to happen. You want information, you just search for it on Google or ChatGPT. You want a date, you want food, you want to know how far away your taxi is, you don't even get lost, right? You have gps. And so this feeling of being in the unknown, this feeling of trusting yourself, it's actually reducing. And when you look at a lot of issues in society around people's confidence to take risks, people's confidence to even leave the house, people's confidence to meet up in person, it's in a really rapid state of decline because we've constantly been making this thing visible and transparent versus building our tolerance. It's the unknown.

[Jay Clouse]

After a quick break, Rachel shares how to identify your trust gaps and why you may not be the best judge.

[Rachel Botsman]

Of where you fall short in building trusting relationships.

[Jay Clouse]

So stick around.

[Rachel Botsman]

We'll be right back. Hey, it's Jay.

[Jay Clouse]

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[Jay Clouse]

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[Rachel Botsman]

And now back to my conversation with Rachel Botsman. I want to go back to this four part framework you shared of competence and reliability underneath the ability umbrella and empathy and integrity underneath the character umbrella. If I feel like I'm not earning trust to the degree that I want to or think I should, it's an indication that I'm lacking in one of these four areas. How do I identify which of these four areas is lacking?

That's a good question. You are probably not going to be the best identifier of the trait. You might have a sense. But then I've run this exercise many times, so it's really interesting where people tend to rate their issue trait as reliability because they'll say they don't have enough time and they just can't respond to people or be consistent in the way people expect. And then when you get other people to rate you, whether that's your family or your colleagues or your audience, you see something else come back and that's the learning moment, right? Because that's what we call the trust gap. There's a gap in how you think of yourself and how you think of yourself showing up and how an audience is perceiving you. So the one that hurts the most, apart from being lack of empathy, is competence. Right? Like if you think, oh I'm really competent, this thing, and then it comes back, well, actually you're not. So you have to get other people to score you on These traits and seeing where the gap is, is where the learning is and the improvement is.

How would you encourage people to do this scary, painful, vulnerable exercise? Is it as simple as sending people a four question survey that basically says, how would you rate my competence on a scale of 1 to 10? Or is there a more reliable way to get honest answers from people?

This is going to sound like a book plug, but it is one of the reasons why I wrote how to Trust and Be Trusted because people are asking me for the tools and frameworks that I use in the classroom. And one of these tools and frameworks is how you give that feedback. So how to Trust and Be Trusted is an audiobook that's based on these five principles of earning and giving trust. And it comes with these printed frameworks, these toolkits that you can use with other people. So you can literally mail it to other people and say, rate me, I want honest feedback. And then you just tally it up and you see where the gaps are. Some people just do it at like five people, some people at 10 people. I've known people who have done it like hundreds of people across their organization. It's also really revealing to do at a team level. So sometimes when you have trust issues in an organization, it can be really difficult to know what to fix. And so when you actually go, oh, actually the trust issue is with sales or the trust issue is with legal, you can start to go in and be quite precise about the thing that you're trying to fix. And this is really, really important when it comes to trust because so often we talk about trust in a very generalized way. I don't trust this brand, I don't trust this person, I don't trust this host. And you can't do anything when trust is generalized and it lacks context. So this is what these frameworks are designed to do, is to enable you to figure out where these gaps are, where you can take more risks, where you need to let go and empower others. Kind of put trust into action, if you like.

Yeah, I like this exercise. I've seen you run before where you flash up some options on the screen and say, clap if you trust this company, this brand, this person. And you've then gone and break down like, well, it's not that easy. It's not just about I trust person or not. It can be situationally or context dependent. I trust person to X, but maybe not to Y. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, well, my trust barometer and I get people to clap for the brand. They trust the most. And I might intentionally show like three tech brands. So Tesla, Amazon, Meta, and then I'll get them to boo for the leader that they think is the least trustworthy. And the interesting thing is often the brand they cap for is different from the leader that they boo for. Or sometimes it could be the same. And then, like, you know, Tesla's a really interesting example. Like, people often will say, well, actually, Elon Musk makes great products, we trust his cars, but I don't trust him as a human being or Amazon. A lot of people clap for Amazon. And then you dig into it and you say, why are you clapping for Amazon? And they'll say, well, you know, if I order something online, I trust it's going to shop the next day. And you go, well, is that convenience or is that trust? And then you say, do you trust that Amazon treats all its employees well? Do you trust that it's a sustainable company? Do you trust that they pay their fair share of taxes? Do you trust that they're not a market monopoly? Whatever the question is, and the answer is no, no, no, no, no. So then you're like, will you trust them in a context? And Amazon is actually, it's a phenomenal brand in terms of their understanding of trust because they are very clear about what you can trust Amazon to do. And they don't even make promises in the other areas of trust. Right. You don't see Amazon talking about being a green and a sustainable and even a fair company. Right. They're like, no, we, we deliver things on time and make it really easy to return. So some way you have to respect that. The promise is so clear. That's their compass might not be ethically right, but that's why people trust them.

I love this concept of alignment, alignment with words and actions. What I'm saying, what I'm doing, if you can't act in a certain way, don't say that you will. It's kind of the takeaway from this Amazon example. I'd love to hear how this plays through in your work as a writer, as a creator, you know, you're a lot of things. You're an author, you're a speaker. But when it comes to putting content.

[Jay Clouse]

Out online to an audience who's reading.

[Rachel Botsman]

Your content, how do you think about earning their trust?

I really struggle with putting out anything that is self promotional. You know, I even struggle, like posting pictures of myself. So I've always made a distinction in my work that people, they're investing in the ideas and the concepts and the way those concepts are presented. And I am part of the delivery of those concepts, whether that's the way I show up on stage, and my presence and my energy, yes, my clothes, the way I visualize things, the importance of design. But I am not the brand, if that makes sense. So you see, it's particularly on LinkedIn where it's a lot of stories that are self led, good stories and bad stories of breakdowns. And so I am not the subject is the key thing. So there are these very clear guiding principles that I have. You know, is this valuable content to share? Is it something that is gonna allow people to pause, slow down and think about something differently in their day? That's often a really key guiding principle. And then when it's an experience, I'm thinking as much how people are gonna feel as what they're gonna think. And that could be anything from teaching a class to giving a talk to now designing installations that when people walk in a space, what's the feeling that you're trying to create? Has always been a really big guiding principle. But I know, I mean, I like to think, I don't think this sounds arrogant, but I think I'm right with it 99% of the time because I know my audiences. And it's actually when you're moving into new worlds and new cultures and new mediums, it's really, really hard because you intuitively don't know how people are going to connect with you, or the content or the information. And I think what I've learned is not to rush that process. So learning how to work in audio and write audiobooks and radio shows, it's very different from print. Learning how to connect with an art audience, very different from an academic audience. This stuff takes time. And in some way, being new to things has taught me what people value in the things that I know how to do really, really well.

When you're thinking about how do I want to make people feel, where do you often land on that? I know there's different circumstances in different places, but in general, how do you think about the way you make people feel? What are you trying to achieve?

So usually it's curious, sometimes it's challenged. Slightly different emotion there. But they gotta feel like that kind of childlike curiosity. Hmm, I never thought of that. Or I want to read more of that. Like it's like scratching something or reframing something, or that slightly confused look because you've just jarred something in their brain. So like curiosity, definitely warmth is a really big one. I Don't want to sound ever like a corporate. I don't ever want to sound like an academic. It's different from being relatable. Like there's a warmth there and a humanness is really important. And then what I would describe as a feeling of vibrancy. So I think there's some content that feels like a drain and there's some content that feels like a radiator. And I always want people to feel a sense of. Not like a little energy boost, but you haven't taken something away from their day. Which is probably why I have the allergic reaction to the content, which is very. The mirror content about bad things that are happening in your life. Because I think. I'm not sure that has that effect. I know it's really important for some people and it can be done in a really genuine way, but I. When it's done to boost attention or your reputation, I don't think it's a good long term strategy.

There's something similar in MySpace that I see a lot and I found myself starting to participate in before realizing better of it, which is this almost performative transparency where you show, look how awesome I am, look what I did. And I realized that I think the emotion it was giving was envy and it created attention and so it gave the appearance that this was engaging, successful content. But when I thought about it from the individual's perspective, I realized I think.

[Jay Clouse]

This is just creating envy whether they.

[Rachel Botsman]

Realize it or not. And I don't think that's a positive emotion. Where does envy live in your mind? How does this relate to trust? How do you think about it?

It's such an honest observation of yourself as well. Because you know, to put stuff out there also that's kind of saying I'm on a higher platform or a higher level to you. I also don't think it's a long term strategy. I mean, most audiences will describe this feeling of allegiance. It's like it's different from trust. Like this feeling of allegiance and loyalty because they feel like you're with them, right. You're not over them or against them. And that's where you start to get into the deeper space of identity. And this is so important. Like if you don't know that when people engage with your content they are trying to be X, there's going to be something missing. Right. So for some people, they engage in my community because their identity is they really want to be a lifelong learner or they are a super performing athlete. And this is really important to be part of that club. Or maybe they are really unwell and being in this community feels like caring support. It's different from purpose, like understanding that identity that you bring to them. That's I think, really key to feeling like you're with people versus over people. And I think it's the over thing that creates the envy.

Something else I observe on this point is some people whip up attention and drive audiences based around a shared identity of being anti something rather than for something. And I've realized for myself, I've decided for myself that's not really a strategy I want to take either because I think it attracts a more cynical anti person, which just isn't the personality I really mesh with well and want to spend time around. But I'm curious, from your perspective, is there a trust impact on saying I am for something, for something versus we are anti this? Anti this?

Oh, that's such. I've never been asked that question. It's a really good question. I mean, what we know is that messaging that is against something has much higher cut through traction than messaging that is for something. It's partly, I mean, not to look, go look at the election, but you can see it black and white there, right? Hope is not an emotion. And so standing for something is often anchored on hope. Standing against something is often anchored on really powerful emotions. Jealousy, anger, rage. And so it's very easy to go, oh, I can build an audience very quickly and a highly engaged audience and a heated audience by pushing against that thing versus standing for something. Now, the thing with the standing for something and I think about this a lot with my work, it doesn't mean not challenging things. It's not like always going with the flow. It's often calling bullshit on stuff or it's saying you disagree with someone, but it's being very comfortable with that discomfort of disagreement. You can still be on that standing for something side versus standing against something.

I listened to a conversation with Derek Thompson, who, great writer for the Atlantic, wrote a book called Hitmakers. I think every creator should read, but he was kind of describing his definition of a cult. And he's like, a cult is a group of interests that stands in opposition to the mainstream. And so in that way, cult like followings, which there's a lot of talking about this in the creator space where you should build a cult following.

[Jay Clouse]

And it really feels like those audiences are built on the against something angle.

[Rachel Botsman]

That'S against the mainstream. Most people believe this, we believe this.

[Jay Clouse]

But it's kind of a mix.

[Rachel Botsman]

It's like we stand for this because we don't stand for this. And so I don't think it's as easy as saying being anti something is bad, especially when it's paired with we are for this, not for this. But I do think a lot of people have taken this stance of, well.

[Jay Clouse]

If I build a common enemy and.

[Rachel Botsman]

Just shout down at that common enemy.

[Jay Clouse]

That will bring people towards me.

[Rachel Botsman]

And I feel like that's incomplete, I guess.

Yeah. And especially when just projecting or pointing the finger at the common enemy means you don't really have to define yourself, but you don't really have to define what you stand for, your own identity, because your identity becomes pushing against that other person. Again, we saw that in the election, right? Like if you throw mud and your message focuses on someone else, you're leaving a massive vacuum around the narrative of yourself. And what we know about vacuums, particularly trust vacuums, is they will always get filled. So if you don't create that narrative about yourself, someone else will come in and create that narrative for you.

[Jay Clouse]

After one more break, Rachel and I talk about why her content rarely comes.

[Rachel Botsman]

From a personal perspective perspective. She has some strong opinions on this.

[Jay Clouse]

That are counter to a lot of.

[Rachel Botsman]

What we're seeing on places like LinkedIn today.

[Jay Clouse]

We also dig into how to walk the line between building trust and manipulation.

[Rachel Botsman]

So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

[Jay Clouse]

I am once again inviting you to join our membership for professional creators, the Lab. Of course I am biased, but Andrew is not. Andrew has been a member for about two years now and this was a testimonial he sent me unprompted.

[Rachel Botsman]

Joining the Lab has been the single best investment I have made in my business and in myself since I started doing this going solo 17 years ago.

[Jay Clouse]

If you benefit from the conversations here on the podcast, you'd love the things we talk about in the Lab. In fact, some of the past guests of this show are members themselves. The Lab helps you keep a finger on the pulse of what's working and what's changing for creators right now. I could tell you about all the things that are included, like all of my courses, including Build a Beloved Membership podcasts like a YouTuber, the newsletter masterclass. You get a complimentary copy of Creator hq, our operating system built in notion. But the best thing is the people. Incredibly generous, incredibly kind, incredibly smart and accomplished people are in the Lab. I could go on and on about this, but just know there is nothing more important to me than continuing to make the Lab the absolute best community for Professional creators. You can join the basic tier now, which is an absolute bargain, or you can apply to join our standard or VIP tiers. Just visit creatorscience.comlab to learn more and get started. That's creatorscience.comlab. it's in the show Notes. I hope to see you there. And now please enjoy the rest of.

[Rachel Botsman]

My conversation with Rachel Botsman. I want to go back to this idea you had about your own content where you don't center yourself in it, you don't talk about yourself or your own personal stories. But this is such a common thing right now on LinkedIn, especially as teams. But everywhere a lot of people are like, here's a story through the lens of me. Can you expand on this more? And where that starts to become problematic. What's wrong with telling a story from my perspective or my hero's journey as a way to relate to you and what you're trying to do?

I mean, I tell a lot of stories, right? And I even tell stories about my kids, but I strip out their names. I talk a lot about, about experiences or moments. So I'll share something that happened in the classroom or I'll share a behind the scenes moment. It's when I am the central character of the story all the time that I personally have an issue with. So if it was about my trust issues at work, or if it was about, you know, a relationship that had blown up, or that I was constantly struggling to trust myself in these, if it was constantly that narrative, I would find that really boring. But it's not saying, you know, sometimes my experience is a prompt, but I feel like it's sometimes like this pinterest way of thinking about content, right? Like it's like a carousel. And I like to think that my content is more like a library archive that you're going into the dusty nooks and crannies and finding things from the past and unexpected places and ugly things and beautiful things and historic things. And so it's got that moment of surprise. And I think sometimes with this self led content, what makes it very palatable is you can relate to it and it's really easy to digest and you don't have to work that hard. And there is a really important place for that. But I think there is a void in content that is in this more deeper curatorial, takes more time to stitch these things together, to really try to show to people like, look, here's the biggest shift that you are a part of. But it's not just about you. You're a little dot in this change that is happening.

We've spent 45 minutes talking about how we can think about trust, better earn trust, how we can make people feel.

[Jay Clouse]

A certain way that's in alignment with.

[Rachel Botsman]

How we want them to make them feel. Where does thought and intention turn into manipulation?

Such a good question. It's something you have to be really careful with audiences. You set out to do something or you tell your audience that you're doing something for one purpose, but really in the back of your mind, you have another purpose or another interest. And this is difficult, right, because you have to be commercially savvy around it. But like, oh, I'm gonna build this really powerful online community around education. Well, actually I've just done this. Cause I really just want a TED Talk or something like that. Like that's right. That's when you're manipulating that audience's trust in you or selling out is another big one. So this is why con artists really understand trust. Because you can take the principles and it's like strings that you're pulling because you know the strings to pull, but it comes back to you. You're not doing it for the right interest, you're not doing it for your audience's interest.

Okay, so if I can restate this another way. Implicitly you're saying there's a misalignment between what you're saying and what the outcome that you actually hope to happen happens. To intentionally earn trust does mean to be aware and to pull levers in a way that gets people to take action. The question is, are they taking action for their own betterment? Do you have this empathy? Or are they taking action for an ulterior motive that you are actually successfully hiding?

Yeah, secrecy isn't the enemy of trust. It's deception. So you can keep secrets from people and people can still trust you. You cannot deceive people. Right, that's the manipulation part. So I asked for your information under this guise, and I didn't tell you that this is how I plan to use your information. That's manipulation. That's deception. It sounds so simple, but it's where we've got into a lot of trouble in the online world. Even like the gift, the incentive, the sign up to the newsletter, the 15% off. And I'm not honest about how much I'm going to pound you three times a day through text messaging. There's a deception there, there's a manipulation there. In the short term, it might be a financial boost, but in the long term, you're losing that far more valuable currency, which is trust.

Yeah. I see it as, like, a lie of omission. That happens a lot of times where people aren't. They're not lying directly. They're just sort of willfully misleading. Deception's the right word.

Yeah. If you ever say to yourself or someone on your team, no one's ever gonna find out. Like, no one's gonna know. That is like, signal number one. Right. Like, even if no one finds out and even if no one knows, you probably shouldn't still make that decision. So affiliate links, like, if something doesn't feel entirely right about that, the audience will tell you pretty quickly.

This is something I thought about the use of AI tools in being a creator, and now I realize actually this applies to anything I do. But for a while I thought, well, if my audience had perfect information about how I'm using this thing or how.

[Jay Clouse]

I'm doing this thing, would that have.

[Rachel Botsman]

A positive or negative impact on their perception of me? And if the answer was negative, I just didn't do that thing. It's been useful as a compass for me. But, you know, hearing what you're saying, it's this idea of not embracing or not, like, leaning into deception. It's just not deceiving people.

And if you discover you have deceived people, that's where you have to apologize and be accountable. That loop around the acknowledgement and the apology and the accountability and what you're going to change, that has to be really tight and pretty quick.

Okay, I guess my last question, Rachel, is you have been talking about this for, like I said, over a decade. Has there been anything you've really changed your mind on over the last few years?

Ooh, yeah. I mean, the transparency thing, I changed my mind on. If you watch, I can't remember which TED talk it is. I actually talk about making the world more transparent and really studying what happens in organizations. That is really key. And this one sounds so obvious, but that 99% of the time, most people want to talk about trust. When it disappears, when it breaks down, they talk about distrust and mistrust, and they see it as the opposite side of the coin versus something that can coexist in a relationship. I don't think of them as a spectrum anymore, like a linear line. We've got trust on one end and distrust on the other end. Actually, there is a coexistence in really healthy relationships of trust and distrust. And that took me a long time to get my head around.

At the risk of trying to boil this down to a very short period of time. Can you expand on that? How does trust and distrust coexist?

So if you think about judges or you think about a board, what you want is a really, really high level of trust. So when they don't trust the decision or they distrust the motive of the other person, the relationship is strong enough to hold that tension and that conflict. So they can say, I think you're wrong. I disagree with you. I challenge that opinion. And the trust can hold. That discomfort is number one. And then also in really trusting relationships, you can say, look, I trust you implicitly to look after my kids, but I don't trust you with money. So there is that level of honesty about things that you don't trust that person about that requires the trust in the relationship to be able to be honest around that.

It's like a macro and a micro or even like a compartmentalization underneath the macro. I like that.

Yes. And that's why trusting relationships are not always comfortable. You know, this idea of a comfortable culture is a very bad idea, actually. Trust enables you to be comfortable with discomfort in relationships and decisions and teams and cultures. That's what it holds and keeps people together in those moments of tension.

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider.

[Jay Clouse]

Leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and letting me know I say it in every episode because those reviews.

[Rachel Botsman]

Go a long way to helping us grow the show. If you want to learn more about Rachel, visit her [e-mail] her new book.

[Jay Clouse]

How to Trust and Be Trusted, is out today and available in audio only.

[Rachel Botsman]

On Audible or Spotify. Those links are also in the show notes. And lastly, if you enjoyed this, you'd.

[Jay Clouse]

Also enjoy my recent episode with former FBI Special Agent Robin Dreek.

[Rachel Botsman]

Once again, that link is in the show notes. Thank you for listening and I'll talk to you next week.