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This is Help Wanted, the show that makes your work work for you. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, editor in chief of.

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Entrepreneur magazine, and I'm money expert Nicole Lapin. On Tuesdays, Jason and I answer the helpline and help callers solve their work problems.

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And on Thursdays, I give you one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love.

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And it starts now.

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Do people trust you? Could they trust you more? We often have binary answers to this. It's either yes or no. Yes, they trust me. Yes, they don't. But trust doesn't actually work like that. Trust is a gradient, and once you appreciate how it works, you can build and maintain trust in smarter, more careful ways. It's a concept called the trust battery. Today, I'll show you how I use it and how it can help you build better relationships professionally and personally. So, first, what is the trust battery? Okay, the idea is often credited to Toby Lutka. He's the CEO of Shopify. He explained it like this in a New York Times story. I'm just going to quote Toby here. He says another concept we talk a lot about is something called a trust battery. And it's charged at 50% when people are first hired. And then every time you work with someone at the company, the trust battery between the two of you is either charged or discharged. All right, that was Toby. So, to be clear, nobody has just one trust battery. Everyone has a different battery with everyone they know. It's a mental model for how to think about relationships between people. Toby later said on a podcast. So, for example, Jane's battery with Amanda might be 30%, but Jane's battery with Suzanne might be 98%. Act wisely and the battery rises. Act poorly, and it falls. Sure, you never know exactly how much your battery is charged with any one person, but once you focus on it, you'll see plenty of clues. I love this idea. So let's take it a step further. Our batteries require constant attention. As I said a moment ago, most people think of trust as binary. Someone either trusts us or they don't. But that would mean that trust is unmovable. You know, I mean, if someone either trusts us or they don't, then it's just. It's fixed in place, it's locked. If we're trusted, we can take that trust for granted or even abuse it a little because they trust us. And if we're not trusted, then our situation is hopeless and whatever. Why? Why even try? But the trust battery forces us to think differently. Now, with the Trust battery. We must factor trust into all of our actions because every action can impact the battery. This creates healthy caution. If my battery with someone is at 80%, for example, do I want to take a risk that could bring it down to 70%? It also creates healthy patience. If my battery with someone is at 30%, I I can incrementally grow it up to 35, 40% and more. That way I'm making progress, but also being mindful that they don't fully trust me yet, that earning trust takes time. And even more importantly, this creates a healthy perspective. The trust battery forces you to consider what really charges or drains the battery, and whether you are unnecessarily holding yourself back because you just have assumptions about what changes the battery. Now, that last part is tricky, and to be frank, I'm still learning it myself. So here's why we're going to talk about when to spend that battery. But first, let's just hit pause on the battery metaphor for a second and just get personal. So a few months ago I was talking with Nicole, Nicole Lapin, co host of this podcast about my personal brand business. Honestly, I can't remember if we were talking for the show or if we were just catching up by phone. When you host a podcast with someone, it all just becomes a blur. So maybe you even heard a little bit of this this on an episode previously. But anyway, Nicole thinks that I can be a lot more aggressive with how I run my business. And she asked me, hey Jason, why don't you market yourself more? Why don't you raise your prices? And I told her my fear. I said, if I am too salesy, then I'm afraid that people will trust me less. For example, I turn down most advertising requests for my newsletter, which is why there are few ads in there. I also rarely promote my own offerings like keynote speaking or one on one coaching. And why? It's because I don't want readers or listeners like you to feel like I'm just after their dollars. I've also kept my coaching prices pretty low relative to the market because I don't want other people to think I'm too uppity or exclusive. And when I work with partners, I almost never propose upsells. Nicole told me this. She said, you want to keep your Trust battery at 100% and I love that. But I think you're overestimating what things drain your B battery. And when Nicole said this, it got me thinking because she's right. She's right. Don't tell her I said that. But she's right. I value people's trust, and I've always been willing to make sacrifices to earn and keep it. I frequently give away my time and expertise. I ask for few favors. I'm rarely confrontational, and I never want people to feel like I have an agenda. Frankly, I'm comfortable with those choices. But as Nicole said, they are all premised on beliefs that may not be true. This is why she's right. For example, I rarely ask people for favors because I don't want to drain my trust battery with them. But what if. What if for people who I already have a trusting relationship with, asking for favors actually charges the battery? After all, I'm showing them that I trust them enough to ask for their help. And when they can help me, it makes them happy. And what if my sales pitches aren't as trust draining as I feared either? It is possible that if I pitch my services in my newsletter, most readers aren't bothered, or, I don't know, maybe their trust drips like a tiny bit and then it just rebounds. But when somebody buys something from me and I deliver a lot of value for their dollar, they could trust me even more than before. So now let's ask you, how are you charging your battery? As I've been talking about this, I've been thinking about how I charge my trust battery. Because Nicole was right. I really, truly want to keep my batteries as close to 100% as possible, which isn't always easy and it isn't always possible. But I try. So I asked myself, what works? What do I aspire to do best? And I came up with 18 ways that I recommend building trust. So maybe they'll help you. I'm going to just read them out here, 18 of them. Number one, give with no expectation of a return. Number two, ask deep questions and honor people's answers. Number three, assume good intentions. You know what? It's annoying to say all the numbers, so I'm just going to rock through them here. All right, 4 to 18. Here we go. Be curious and genuinely interested. Be responsive. Be reliable. Be communicative. Be patient. Be additive. Be predictable. Recognize other people's priorities and prioritize them. Recognize other people's concerns and never inhabit them. Recognize where people are coming from and meet them there. Never be reckless. When there's an opportunity to be kind, even in small ways. Be kind. When there's an opportunity to be cruel, even if it's tempting, Always pass. If someone needs time or space, give it to them. And finally, trust them too. Every day you have multiple chances to charge your trust battery. All it requires is your energy. And that comes from my newsletter. It is called One Thing Better each week, One way to be more successful and satisfied and build a career or company you love. It is a companion to Help Wanted. I read them here on Help Wanted every week, so stay tuned for that. But if you want to get them a few weeks earlier in readable format right there in your inbox, just go to One Thing Better Email. That is a web address, so just plug it into a browser. One Thing Better Email. And I hope that me pitching this to you didn't. It didn't drain your trust battery or my trust battery with you or whatever. But you know what? I don't think it did. I think Nicole's right. I think maybe you'll subscribe to my newsletter and you'll love it and you'll trust me even more. Help Wanted is a production of Money News Network. Help Wanted is hosted by me, Jason.