First Why and Then Trust by Simon Sinek at TEDxMaastricht (Full Transcript)

Simon Sinek at TEDxMaastricht

Full text of First Why and Then Trust by Simon Sinek at TEDxMaastricht conference.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Thank you. Thank you very much.

What I love about events like these is that it’s not just people coming together to hear ideas. It’s that we all came here for the same reason. Every single one of us came here because we share something, we have similar values and similar beliefs and that’s the reason we showed up. We don’t know each other and yet we know something about each other.

Now this is important, you see, because the very survival of the human race depends on our ability to surround ourselves with people who believe what we believe. When we’re surrounded by people who believe what we believe something remarkable happens: Trust emerges. Make no mistake of it, trust is a feeling, a distinctly human experience.

Simply doing everything that you promise you’re going to do does not mean people will trust you. It just means you’re reliable. And we all have friends who are total screw ups and yet we still trust them. Trust comes from a sense of common values and beliefs.

And the reason trust is important, is because when we are surrounded with people who believe what we believe, we’re more confident to take risks. We’re more confident to experiment, which requires failure, by the way. We are more confident to go off and explore knowing that there is someone from within our community, someone who believes what we believe, someone we trust and who trusts us, will watch our back, help us when we fall over and watch our stuff and look after our children while we’re gone. Our very survival depends on our ability to surround ourselves with people who believe what we believe.