Hey, it’s Scott again. Thank you for reading about me and sharing my life experience. If you read the book for entertainment, I hope you enjoyed it. There will be more books about my story coming out soon. Just search online for the authors’ names or for the name of my book. My life goes in yet another direction later and I can’t wait to tell you about it.
I wanted this book written for more than just entertainment. It exists to help you become more trustworthy. While trying not to micromanage, I made sure that the authors progressed carefully, not shoving as many lessons in the book as possible. Therefore, the only lesson in here is to increase your ability to be trusted.
Speaking of the authors, let me introduce the authors to you:
David Allen co-wrote this story at 22 years old, and has a business degree. Since he learned about the three legs of trust, he has learned how to gain a network of people he trusts. This network has proven helpful to him in dealing with the deaths of both his parents, who died four months apart from each other. Without constantly working on increasing his trust, he would not have any deep connections with anyone.
Brian Shaul is a life coach who has spent over 10,000 hours working with people one-on-one to improve their lives. He has found that the three legs of trust are the foundation for emotional health. He has found that the people he works with get the results they need, add value to others, learn who to trust, and learn who not to trust when they understand this basic lesson at a heart level.
Now that you have some background information on them, I want you to understand what I mean when I say someone has learned something at a heart level, because this is what makes all the difference.
People can learn a lesson and store it in their head, and can answer correctly if asked a question about it. That is one level of learning, a level with which most of you are familiar. To take action based on that answer is to know that lesson at an even deeper level. Further, to be able to act in accordance with what you’ve learned without having to think about it is one of the furthest levels at which you can learn anything. I cannot stress the importance of learning at a deep level, especially with issue of character.
I call this deep understanding ‘learning at a heart level.’
If you do not learn trust at that heart level, people will be suspicious of you, often without reason. Progress in any endeavor will move very slowly, and problems with people will plague you all the way through your journey. However, if you do learn at an actionable level to live a high-trust life, your little mistakes will cause less suffering, higher trust people will gravitate toward you, and your chances of success are greatly increased.
One great way to learn at a heart level is to study this book and the worksheets that follow in a group. Many who read the book and do the worksheets by themselves will find themselves scoring around 70% or 80%. This is often because we see the world through our eyes only. Studying in a group will increase your perceived capacity to be trustworthy.
In other words, you’ll fi nd that you really aren’t as trustworthy as you thought, that you actually have a lot of opportunities to improve. Keep in mind that this understanding doesn’t make you less trustworthy than before, it just gives you a chance to gain more trust and to better identify trust in others. You may get defensive. If you do, it is because you are letting an emotional wall down, allowing new things to influence how you see the world. Sometimes that is uncomfortable.
I promise you this: Increasing your trust will improve your life, taking you from good to great in all areas where you apply the lessons. I urge you to work on the worksheets as a group and share your own strengths and weaknesses. You are welcome to make copies so that you can repeat them as much as you like, measuring your progress as you go. God Bless You.
— Scott Calloway