Trust Yourself and Others
overview
To Play, you have to operate without the need to watch your steps. You have to come up with ideas without the urge to censor yourself. You have to feel safe not just to fail but also to succeed. Trust is a key pillar in enabling that.
Trust is essential when you operate as part of a team. When you create with others, Trust is the glue the holds the collective together even more than a shared goal. But Trust has an important role even when you think you operate alone. You have to Trust yourself and be confident in your journey. You also need Trust when it comes to the people you meet along the journey. Whether they are part of your team or not, any interaction affects your creation. In that sense, nothing is ever created by a single person.
Trust is not to be confused with confidence in making “the correct” decisions and taking the right turns. Creativity is chaotic, and results are never guaranteed. Trust relates to the motive and the authenticity of the journey. To actively and genuinely Play, you have to know that the game is authentic and does not have hidden agendas.
actionable steps
Consider what drives you in your journey — not a concrete goal, but instead the values that motivate and inspire you. Write them down, and continually revisit them throughout your journey. Make them present in your journey.
Understand the motivations of the people you share the journey with and people you meet along the way. Be genuinely interested, but not suspicious, in what drives them. Your goals might be different, but when you share similar values, you have common ground to build Trust.
examples
Example 1
When working with a partner, if you don’t trust each other’s motivation and core values, you cannot co-create. Even if your goals are different, sharing a set of values and Trusting each other allows you to take the journey together and form a collective that merges both your Creativity Operating Systems.