142 Leading with NLP
ing the other person more and more of ourselves. The risk
comes from lack of knowledge – how much do you have to
know of a person before you can trust them? Will they let
you down? Will they laugh at you? Do they feel the same way
about you? We usually judge by hindsight. If the relationship
turns out well, then you took a well-calculated risk. If it turns
out badly, then you took a foolhardy chance. At the time it
was neither, just your best guess in an uncertain situation.
Even when you know someone very well, they may still let
you down. They may lie or they may just make a mistake.
When someone lies to you, they were not trustworthy. But a
mistake is an error in retrospect – literally a mis-take, ‘taking’
the situation the wrong way. When you say you made a mis-
take, you are claiming you are still trustworthy.
We have different thresholds for trust. We build these
thresholds from our experience, especially our earliest ex-
perience with adults. Too low a threshold and you trust too
easily, without testing for strength first, and you may be let
down often. Too high a threshold and you want too much in-
formation – life history, date of birth, collar size and brand of
toothpaste – before trusting someone, so very few people
qualify and that can leave you emotionally isolated. Some peo-
ple seesaw between the two extremes. They start too low and
people take advantage of them, so they become disillusioned
and decide no one is trustworthy. But with too high a thresh-
old, they give no one a chance to prove themselves
trustworthy and therefore they cannot get feedback about the
best level of trust. Then they feel isolated and may think per-
haps it is best to trust people after all, so they lower their guard
too far and someone comes along and takes advantage again.
You do not have to trust completely or not at all, there
are degrees. The best threshold is somewhere in the mid-
dle, a threshold that allows you intimacy, but keeps you safe
from being exploited. There is no absolute certainty, but
trust is as near as you will get with another person. Gather
as much information as possible, especially if you have a lot
to lose, however in the end you always have to make a leap
of faith.