Trust or Attention?

Seek unabashed attention is the rallying cry. And get it at any cost seems to be the endeavor. By being over the top. Being controversial. By gross exaggeration. By misleading. By being opportunistic. By waving the flag on cancel culture. By tagging along with the powers that be.

The noise around is deafening. The hustle culture is omnipresent. The temptation to trade standards, principles, dignity, ethics and values in the quest for some attention is high. It might be an interim desire but that remains.

Simon Sinek called out to Start with Why– how about Start with Trust ? Trust is the basis for almost everything we do. It’s the foundation on which our laws and contracts are built. It’s the reason we’re willing to exchange our hard-earned paychecks for goods and services, to pledge our lives to another person in marriage, and to cast a ballot for someone who will represent our interests. It’s also the input that makes it possible for leaders to create the conditions for employees to fully realize their own capacity and power.

There is also the temptation to overlap and substitute trust with reputation but there is a clear divide and both are distinct from each other. The tripod of trust stands on authenticity, logic and empathy. People tend to trust you when they believe they are interacting with the real you (authenticity), when they have faith in your judgment and competence (logic), and when they feel that you care about them (empathy). When trust is lost, it can almost always be traced back to a breakdown in one of these three drivers.

So in the toss up between trust and attention, what are you willing to call out?