Trust

Thursday's Thought Provoker:

Imagine if more people were raised in an environment where their life experiences instilled an ability to trust.

I recently identified a correlation between how coachable people are to the type of home environment in which they were raised.  Now this might be old news as I see a few studies on the issue, but I felt the need to pontificate on the matter.

As a coach and educator, I can quickly assess the environment at home, with about a 90% accuracy, based on how the child seeks and accepts coaching.  You see, when I child seeks out, accepts, and implements coaching you can tell that they have been raised in an environment where they learned how to trust.  In this environment, the child has had real life experiences where promises, advice, and direction have been honored and produced positive results or feelings.  Most of the time, the kids that are the most coachable, have been let down the least in life.

On the other side of the equation are the kids that avoid, deny, and reject coaching.  Typically, these kids have been raised in an environment where there has been little if any support.  Instead of reinforcing our natural desire to trust, these children's life experiences have been full of broken promises and bad advice.  These kids have been forced, through experience, to only trust themselves and their inability to trust acts as a steel blockade to coaching.

As a father I hope to create and maintain an environment where my children learn not only how to trust but also how to discern who is deserving of their trust.  I can string together a bunch of cliches to sound smart, or I can simply say that I want my children to understand that they can always get better.  Even when they believe they know everything or are performing at their highest level I want them to know there will always be room for improvement and in order to improve they have to seek out, accept and implement coaching.  They have to know who and how to trust so that they can be their best!

#DIFGTBAF