Have you ever thought about the strength of your relationships as a fundamental part of harmonious design?
A home where everyone feels heard, valued, and comfortable?
Isn’t that what we are all striving for?

My guest this week, Darryl Stickel, is a trust expert.

Darryl Stickel holds a PhD in Business from Duke University. He wrote his doctoral thesis on building trust in hostile environments. Upon completion of his studies, Darryl worked for McKinsey & Company in their Toronto office. Darryl founded Trust Unlimited in 2003. Darryl has worked with senior executives from a broad range of industries all over the world. He has served as faculty for the Luxembourg School of Business and the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California. Darryl recently completed his book Building Trust: Exceptional Leadership in an Uncertain World.

We had an empowering and heart-warming conversation about a topic that doesn’t get as much attention as it should.

Building Trust

The journey he shares with us through hardship has shaped his, now sightless, view of the world.  It has helped him see opportunities to build trust, enhance and restore relationships in even the most hopeless circumstances.

He shares with us his story, a heart-wrenching story of his teenage years and how it taught him empathy from feeling hopeless and helpless. 

From this empathy blossomed a connection with strangers, who often turned to him in times of need and opened up to share their story with him. 

​​Through the difficulty of adversity, he learned firsthand the power of trust to not only survive but to thrive.

The work that he has done for over 2 decades in helping others build trust in hostile environments can be applied to every relationship in our lives.

Home, work, business, community.  Whether they could use some enhancement or a radical transformation.

Darryl defines the word trust as the willingness to make ourselves vulnerable when we can’t predict how someone is going to behave.

Our ability to trust is derived from the relationship between our PERCEIVED UNCERTAINTY + our PERCEIVED VULNERABILITY.  

Uncertainty comes from 2 places: us, as individuals and the context we are embedded in.
We can directly affect our ability to build trust by reducing people’s level of uncertainty by explaining to people our context.

Building trust means leading with imperfection.

It means committing to effort over outcome.

It means acting from benevolence.

Darryl  breaks down the different elements of trust giving us an actionable template to apply to any relationship.

His unwavering passion for this topic is deeply rooted in the transformative potential of trust. Witnessing how trust can serve as the cornerstone for rebuilding relationships, mending divides, and creating pathways to reconciliation.

Trust, or the lack thereof, lies at the very heart of many of the world's problems today. 

When trust is compromised or absent, it sows the seeds of suspicion, fear, and discord, undermining the fabric of communities and nations alike.

While many of us understand the lack and need for building trust, there’s not a lot of discussion around the ways to rebuild that trust. This is why Darryl is the perfect guest and resource for this topic. 

Darryl shares with us a sneak peek into his relationship with his own kids and the choices he has made in order to continue to build their trust. 

Open and honest communication is paramount, as is demonstrating consistency and reliability in our actions. 

Additionally, cultivating empathy and understanding for others' perspectives can go a long way in fostering trust. 

Ultimately, trust is a fragile yet essential element of human relationships, one that requires nurturing, commitment, and dedication to rebuilding when it's been broken.

We dive deep into the reasons that our ability to trust and to build trust are at an all time low in the climate that we are currently in.

It is a conversation full of powerful observations and actionable tips that you don’t want to miss!

COME SAY HI

WELCOME TO THE IN HER EYES PODCAST COMMUNITY!