Deciding if someone is trustworthy: Character

- So, the other side of deciding whether someone is trustworthy is trying to assess their character traits, which is why they do things. And this really comes down to a person's integrity and their empathy. Now, what you tend to find with character traits is people over-rely on their intuition. They over-rely on their gut. They tend to say, "I have a good feeling about this person." Because it can be hard to know the questions to ask to really assess someone's integrity and empathy. So let's take a look at empathy. Empathy is a feeling that someone is very conscious of how their actions impact others. A very loud signal of empathy is, Can someone tolerate and listen to another person's beliefs and perspectives even when they're completely different from their own? Are they comfortable in that space of disagreement? A third really powerful signal of empathy is, Do you feel that the other person cares about your interests and needs as much as their own? So, even though empathy is often seen as a soft trait, there are quite concrete questions we can ask and signals that we can look for as a sign of someone's empathy. The last trait, which, in my opinion, is the most important trait, and is often where trust falls down, is the trait of integrity. So, integrity is about honesty, but integrity largely comes down to our intentions and motives. And being really honest about our intentions and motives. Where integrity often falls down, and this is in personal relationships, it's in politics, in business in the world today, is when we no longer feel like that person's intentions are aligned with our own. When we no longer feel that their words align with their actions. Now, what's really interesting about the character traits versus the capability traits, is that when trust breaks down, when distrust sets in, people often point to a capability problem. They often point to how something happened, versus why something happened. And when you look at most trust issues in the world today, they're actually a character problem, not a capability problem. Now, I found these traits so useful to become fluent, because once you really start thinking about competence, reliability, integrity, and empathy, it can enable you to make smarter decisions in all different areas of your lives. It can enable you to continually ask the question, Is this person, is this article, is this product, is this company, is this politician, is this leader, are they worthy of my trust? And on the flip-side of that, in any situation in your life, are you really being the most trustworthy?