The Complexity of Toilet Paper
This is a podcast about the search for simplicity and making life less complicated. A show that dives into both the everyday moments, as well as life's big stuff where we overthink, hesitate, or just get stuck. Through honest conversations, unexpected insights, and a whole lot of potty humor, puns, and hearty laughs - we are here to help you ROLL with it and make life a little less complicated, one conversation at a time. So, come join us in the Stall! Toilet Papewr not provided...yet!
Disclaimer: This podcast is for entertainment, growth, and informational purposes only. Any opinions expressed are those of the hosts and guests and do not reflect the views of any organizations we may be affiliated with. We’re not your therapists, lawyers, doctors, or plumbers, just a few folks talking it out with a roll of humor and a splash of real life. Please don’t make any major life decisions while on the toilet… or at least, don’t blame us if you do.
Show Credits:
- Show open music by RYYZN
- Roll Up music by AberrantRealities
- Stall Bridge music by penguinmusic
The Complexity of Toilet Paper
The Anatomy of Trust: How Broken Promises, Clear Expectations, And Consistency Shape Who We Let In
What really breaks trust—the big betrayals or the tiny misses that stack up? We dig into the moments that quietly erode confidence, from “I’ll be there at two” to the email that never lands, and unpack why respect and trust are inseparable. A hard-earned story about an on-time ultimatum becomes a clear rule: time is respect, and consistency is the only path to repair. Along the way, we laugh at ourselves, own a public apology, and map the real difference between a rupture of trust and a simple failure of expectations.
We also explore how trust transfers through people. When a close friend vouches for someone, their credibility becomes yours—and the risk does too. That’s why setting expectations early matters more than charm. Remote teams will recognize the thread: you can build deep trust at a distance with predictable delivery, transparent capacity, and a habit of defending each other’s reputations. From theater and improv, we borrow living proof that real-time collaboration only works when partners show up and keep small promises.
The toughest pivot comes back to self-trust. People-pleasers often turn breaches into self-blame; a better move is to name the promise, clarify the standard, and let repair be measured by kept commitments over time. We offer a simple personal framework: write your values, define non-negotiables, decide your response to breaches, and practice the small behaviors that make big trust possible. If you’ve ever wondered whether to trust first or make it earned, you’ll leave with language, stories, and tools to choose wisely—and to fix what’s worth keeping.
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a nudge toward clarity, and leave a quick review with your biggest takeaway. Your words help others find conversations they can trust.
And I wish we could go back to a time when things weren't so complicated.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to the complexity of toilet paper, the podcast that dives into the everyday moments where we overthink, hesitate, or just get stop emotions. Through honest conversations, unexpected insights, and a whole lot of humor, your hosts Phyllis Martin, Mark Pollock, and Al Emmerich are here to help you roll with it and make your life a little less complicated. One conversation at a time. Right, dude, the beauty of this is its simplicity. Speaking of which, it's time to enter the stall. Put the lid down, or not, depending. Get comfortable and roll with it. Oh, worry not, dear friend. It's really quite simple. This is the complexity of toilet paper. Every once in a while you meet two people and you realize, wow, we were destined to be together. And then you realize we weren't just destined to be together, we were destined to play with toilet paper publicly. And thus the complexity of toilet paper has arrived in your eardrums as you listen to this show wondering what is he going to say. I say this. Never underestimate the power of three in a stall.
SPEAKER_00:Well done, my friend.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to the complexity of toilet paper. Yes. That is my Shakespearean without the English accent, because I didn't want to offend anybody listening. We have some listeners from England now. That's pretty cool. We do. Very cool. Yes. And I didn't want to lose them by using an accent that would offend their entire lineage.
SPEAKER_03:I've got a funny story about that. I did work in London, and we were in this part of town called Bank. So for those of our listeners who live in London, they I'm sure know where Bank is. And we were at this really fancy restaurant, and we were talking about the different accents throughout the United States. And they asked if I could do a British accent. And so I was kind of put on the spot, embarrassingly. And so I said, Well, I could try. And I gave them my best shot, and the entire table burst out laughing. And they said, You sound like Tiny Tim from uh a Christmas Carol. And uh and I turned beet red, and and that was that story.
SPEAKER_01:That's okay. Try doing Shakespeare with people in the cast who are English, with dear friends who are from England uh throughout the entire country, and they're like that's that's stress, and and that's happened to me twice, and and on both occasions I got. You do realize that you sounded like you were from four different parts of the country. All at once. All at once, right? Yeah. Anyway, I was like, you know, that's all right, mate. Ah, okay. Anyway, Australia. Hi, I that was Australia. Hi, I'm Al Emric. I'm Mark Pollock, and I'm Phyllis Martin. And this is the complexity of toilet paper, the podcast dedicated to diving into the things in life that are far too complex, whether they're complex on their own or we make them more complex on their own, facing down what we've learned to be often is the fears that create that complexity, and then try to wedge in uh a little bit of simplicity along the way. And um that is this show. And and so as we parse through different topics, um we we have a general shell of an idea. And the last time we got together, we talked about internal trust. And Phil, you outlined this great topic. Wasn't it you that did trust?
SPEAKER_00:It was me.
SPEAKER_01:It was Mark. Phyllis. Phyllis. Take ownership. Phil Smart, not Mark.
SPEAKER_00:Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, you selfish, selfish woman. You always hogging the mic. Always coming up with the big ideas. Mark has the mic dropped. You have the idea. I don't know what the hell I do. You look pretty. But I do look pretty. Thank you. Um, and and so no, we we we it was the first time. It was kind of cool. We we got to this idea, we started talking about it because again, we have a shell, but we don't have a full roadmap, and that's what keeps it fresh. So we we don't want to feel ever that we're choreographing something that becomes contrived, but we got to this stopping point. If and if you haven't listened to Trust Part One, I would encourage you to to maybe go back and do that. But either way, um we we decided now to look uh a little differently at trust because we wanted to continue the conversation, but not have a two-hour show. Uh Phil, you've laid out a pretty cool idea here, haven't you?
SPEAKER_00:I hope I have. Um, and I I have to start by saying, because I just listened to Trust One, that I owe you an apology, because in Trust One, I made a big production of um what I thought was you not sending me the link for the show that day and how that broke my trust. And as it turns out, for all of our listeners who heard that, that was a technical issue on my end, not on the house, if you could see Mark's face right now. So let's start with my apologies.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, can can all can we do a screenshot of you eating crow right now?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I don't have to do it very often, so go ahead.
SPEAKER_01:All right. So, Phyllis, this is Phyllis eating crow. Go. Aw. It's somewhere between sleeping and eating crow. I I do think there's times that she naps during the show, Mark. Yeah, it happens. It does.
SPEAKER_00:So I apologize. No, you Wow, I did not expect that, Phil.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. Look at you come coming clean.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. So you did such a great job, Al, when we were talking um about like all of the many facets of trust. I felt like honing us in last time on um trusting ourselves. And then that seemed like a good time, like this seems like a good time to talk about the complexity of trusting other.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Yeah, I mean, whoo, that is a loaded fodder of canon right there. Um gosh. I mean we might I'm calling it, we may have a part three. Oh, for sure. All right, well okay, so explain that to the listening public.
SPEAKER_00:Well, there's you know, trusting oneself is one thing, but the complexity of trusting others um seems like something sometimes I think more more more difficult. And it, you know, like from the simp simple things, I trusted you to call me at two o'clock. It was really important that you did, and then you didn't. So what does that mean? All the way to um deeper issues of trust, a betrayal in a relationship, or um a betrayal from an employer, um, a a betrayal um of something that is outside of ourselves, and what that really how how how hard it is or can be, I should say, to come to come back from that.
SPEAKER_01:And how it almost yeah, go ahead. It almost creates this uh inverse prison where if you don't trust others, you put it all on yourself, and then you only trust yourself, which creates such an undue level of stress upon oneself, but then also that potential of isolation um and keeping people away.
SPEAKER_03:I I also think that it brings up a another area that we could talk about in in trusting others is the complexity of forgiving others.
SPEAKER_01:Right? So don't be dropping a brand new show. We haven't even started this freaking thing.
SPEAKER_03:But but the the point is, and it could be part of this show, is if someone has broken your trust, what you know, what what does that look like to actually forgive that broken trust so you can you can move on in a in a healthy way?
SPEAKER_00:You know, I yes, I'm gonna hold that, hold that thought because I had something like maybe a little lighter to start with, just so I didn't mean for it to be so heavy. Just for a second. But I just had this situation last week and I um have this chair, it's been part of Tim's family for years. We're getting it recovered. Um the I'm working with this small business, lovely people. Um, and we had like a day scheduled for me to drop the chair off. I called a couple times ahead of time, left voicemails, texted a few times, no response. But, you know, I get that. Everybody's busy. As I was getting in the car to drive, because it's it was like gonna take me about 30 minutes to get to their shop. I just stopped for a minute and I thought, you should try one more time. So I tried one more time, like all of my messages, you know, call me, text me if anything has changed, nothing. Sure enough, I got there and nobody was there. And so like trusting other can be as simple as that, that example. And so, of course, I was flustered and you know, had my Phyllis flustered face on. Um, and we were able to get it worked out. And again, like misunderstanding completely, all of those things. But in that moment, like in that moment, there was like the guttural knowledge before I even pulled out of the driveway. My instinct was they're not gonna be there. And then I get there and they're not there. So then kind of that's feeding, but you said you were gonna be there. We scheduled the date for this date. I'm here, you're not here. Now I feel put out. Um, and now we got to go through the machinations of what happened? Can I leave the chair? Like the whole thing. Totally worked out beautifully, totally understand. But that's like a really small example. I think um, I think all of us kind of take for granted that when you say something as simple as yes, I'm gonna be there at two o'clock, so you can do this, and you're not there at two o'clock, and you don't let somebody know, it it is in a small way a breach of trust.
SPEAKER_03:It's 100% a breach of trust. I don't think it's a small way, it is a breach of trust. You had a commitment, they had a commitment, and the commitment was broken.
SPEAKER_01:Um, so this is always might as well just launch it here and uh and it's not small, but it will for me, it was small for a long time until it became this that I'm about to share with you. Um, it is single-handedly one of the most influential moments of my life as it relates to trust, being on time, um, because it has to do with being on time. And um, and and the guy that owns it, um, what it was it was trust in me, but it was also a lesson about trust in others. Uh and uh so I'm shouting out my dear friend Kirby Hamilton because he was the the maestro who orchestrated this incredible lesson. Um many, many years ago, um uh I was always the five, ten minutes behind guy. Um still do it every once in a while, but I I it was it was chronic, I I would say. And um I wouldn't be late to a golf tea time, but I'd be late to a meeting here, late to a meeting there. Part of it was just mismanaging time, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't matter. The point was, so we had this big client meeting. Kirby is an incredible videographer, and he said to me point blank, I because I told him, I said, hey, my client and I may be a little bit late. He's like, Well, if you are, I'm not gonna be there. And this is a big shoot. And and so I was like, oh man, come on, what's a few minutes? And he's like, I'm just warning you, if you're not there on time, I'm not gonna be there. We showed up about 10 minutes late and he wasn't there. I was about 10 minutes late, and my client was about 15, 20 minutes late. And um Kirby at the time and still is one of my best friends. We golf together, we do our regular monthly poker together, and he just said to me point blank, he was like, Hey, listen, man, um time is valuable. You stack up 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there, 10 minutes there, and the next thing you know, it's an hour. And he's like, but it goes down to trust and respect, and respect and trust are intertwined. He said this to me, quote, and he's like, When you're late, you're not showing me respect. And you're also breaking my trust. And so you either fix it or we just don't work together. That was a momentous wake-up call for me. And um, it had to do with his ability to trust me, but then that ricocheted into or reverberated into me saying, Well, can I trust my client if he's always late or she's always late or whatever? And it has a resonating effect. Um, trust has always been a big deal when it relates to, oh, if I said I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. But somehow I think we minimize the trust of the small things, and it becomes death by a thousand cuts. Because if I'm late 52 times, but I deliver the project on time, it's still breaking a trust, right?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I I think you bring up a that's an amazing lesson. I don't want to just glaze over that. That's an incredible lesson by an incredible friend to to to follow through with what they said. What it makes me also think of, though, is our ability to set expectations and setting the correct expectations. So if you're not clear about when you're gonna show up, if you're not clear about the outcome of a project, if you're not clear with your children about you know your expectations on homework or whatever, you can visualize that as a as a break in trust potentially, but it it could be a failure of expectation setting.
SPEAKER_01:Simply said, what are you bringing to the table that is an expectation and is that realistic or not? Bingo. Which isn't that isn't that the death of so many relationships because there's not a communication about the balancing of that expectation?
SPEAKER_00:I was gonna even add to that, like it's the unspoken expectation. So you have to expect go ahead.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, go. No, no, no, please finish that though.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, it's it's the unspoken expectation. We come to a relationship, we think we we make we're making some assumptions, right? Even no matter how long you've been in a relationship, you have an expectation of this, but it's not communicated. And so it translates into something that looks like broken trust, broken commitment.
SPEAKER_01:But if the other person doesn't know that that was the expectation, one of the things I'm so proud of, just deeply and genuinely proud and in love with is the trust we have. We, the three of us. My point of saying that, other than just lacquering you both up, filling you with my my love juice. Yes, I just said I'm filling you with my love juice. No, that's that did not.
SPEAKER_03:You're breaking my trust with that one.
SPEAKER_01:I just I just ruined a beautiful moment. No, one of the things I love it, but that trust exists separate from our individual relationships. We we communicate. We like we come to the table.
SPEAKER_00:You just need to give Mark and me a minute.
SPEAKER_01:You guys can't see this. You freaking derailed me on that one. I did. I we're gonna screw we're gonna we're gonna um I'm gonna somehow screenshot that later on because I don't want to ruin the moment.
SPEAKER_00:But go ahead.
SPEAKER_01:Uh sweating.
SPEAKER_00:Me too.
SPEAKER_01:Like my forehead got really wet. Hey, listen, if you're listening to this show for the first or the 50th time, this is what we do. This is what this is what hangs us up. Yeah, this is why we can't get shit done. Um, anyway, uh so the the trust that we have that already existed because of our individual relationships and then the collective relationship. Also, we come to the table when we with with everything and and honest communication about our expectations of like when like for example, our capacity. We always talk about our capacity. Like, hey, I don't want to let you guys down, I want to let you know what's going on. Mark does the same thing, Phil. So we we have this infrastructure of trust, but it's so rooted in communication. I don't really know how many people, I don't like I don't know how commonplace that is in relationships, especially something like this environment, for people to look at it through the lens of well, we better communicate so we don't break trust.
SPEAKER_03:I I I want to I want to uh caveat that to not caveat, that's the wrong word, but I I want to add something to that, um, which is really interesting because we're talking about trusting others. We had to trust other people before we trusted each other. So, Al, I didn't know you before, but I trusted someone named Guy Cuttahye who told me I should know Al Emric. And you trusted Guy, and Guy said you should trust Al Emmerich. We met, had a great relationship, trust was immediately there because I trusted Guy Cuttahye so much. When I met with you and you said and we decided, like, hey, there's a they're there, we should maybe start talking about this, we should talk to Phyllis. You already had a relationship with Phyllis. So when I met Phyllis, the trust was already there by proxy. And so it's interesting how you can trust, since the the theme of our show is trusting others, how the trust in a particular person can extend to the next person in line. And the reverse is true. If guy said, I don't trust Al, you shouldn't talk to him, I would have never trusted you. We wouldn't be here today. So the trust in others is extremely powerful.
SPEAKER_01:Alright, question. Phil, start with you and then go to Mark. What? And and I I swear I thought we discussed this in the previous show. It really doesn't matter. Um do you start with trust and it's just there present, or is it earned in the sense of like, oh, I don't trust people? Because you got a million reasons not to trust people, um, but yet you do.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we did touch on this in the other show, and I said I I came to the world just trusting people. I still do. I still I still for the most part trust people until they tell me that I can't trust them. And I I rebound for the most part pretty easily when from my perspective trust has been trust has been broken. Um, because you know, we're all human human. Just I don't know another way to say it, we're all human. Um so I do come to the world, come to the world that way. However, I have close relationships with people who are completely untrusting. Like they do not come, they do not come to the world that way. They're very, very distrustful. And I've learned from them in some ways.
SPEAKER_01:Do you find it like you're a feeler, you sense people, you're a huge empath. Um when you are around distrusting people, is it harder to connect with them?
SPEAKER_00:Um it is. I'll tell you why. Um, because for me, when I'm building a relationship or when I'm in a relationship, that relationship requires fuel. And that's the exchange of energy, conversation, feelings, and ultimately trust. And if if that never occurs, then that goes into kind of one um layer of people, you know, friends, whatever, relationships. It goes into one layer of relationships. I'm just to your point, I'm keenly aware. Um, and I don't want to make somebody uncomfortable, um, quite honestly. And and people are who they are. So yeah, I I mean, I just think there's limitations to the relationship at that point.
SPEAKER_01:What about you, Marky Mark?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think in the last show and uh I I had shared, I do trust, but I verify, and I don't know that I come into a situation with total total trust. But um you you asked a good question to Phyllis. Uh, you know, I think that if the relationship doesn't have trust, it's just transactional. Right? Like there's no depth there. I can't share anything with you, I'm not going to share anything with you. Um we can do our business, uh you know, whatever that that might be, uh potentially. Uh but for the most part, if there's no trust, there's there's really nothing for us to to discuss. Um I I just I think I think fuel is is a great word. I I think it's the the life force of a relationship is is built in trust.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I said it earlier, trust and respect are so intertwined. Um I uh as I now remember did did state this in the previous show that I I come you have my trust and then it is yours to break um or hold on to. Um and I'm I'm probably a little bit more gratuitous in that nature. As I've gotten older, I think part of that is also an excessive fear sometimes of losing people, as we've talked about in past episodes. Um but I believe in the good in people and I believe in the good in their intent, and so I'm inclined to trust. However, I struggle with friendships and relationships where the communication is not easier. Like I've been in relationships where I was the communication's foundation and strong force, and I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to work that hard. I've just lived enough life. Um, and I'm not judging somebody, and I'm not talking about somebody that doesn't talk a lot. People will some people will sometimes miss that, you know. They'll talk about, well, I'm not a communicator, and they're what they're really meaning is they don't talk a great deal. But you don't have to, that has nothing to do with, they don't have anything to do with each other. You can say a very unlike Al, you can say a lot with a little. I said that for the record. Can I get some love? Some acknowledgement, props.
SPEAKER_00:I think I think we got so shocked we we ran out of like words ourselves.
SPEAKER_03:I don't even know what to say to that. Where we're gone.
SPEAKER_00:Do you know? Oh, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01:No, you know, yeah, Phil, you gotta stop giving up all the points. Go.
SPEAKER_00:No, no. It's I was just thinking, I think it's something. One of the two of you said something that made me think this. It's interesting when I reflect on when trust is broken. When somebody has broken my trust. I didn't do the trust breaking, somebody broke my trust. For years, and I'm still working on it. My first reaction was slash has been, what did I do wrong?
SPEAKER_01:Totally me. Yep. Same thing.
SPEAKER_00:Isn't that like so like what? Talk about overcomplicating, right?
SPEAKER_01:Well, all three of us are pleasers by nature, first of all. Let's let's remember that. Um and I think psychologically that has to what, Mark? You disagree? No.
SPEAKER_00:Mark's a pleaser.
SPEAKER_03:I am, actually, but I think it it hits me different. Uh no, I'm I'm absolutely a people pleaser. I've I've trying this part of my life, this, this next part of my life not to be a people pleaser. Um still make people get an asshole, Mark. Great film. No, no, but I I think um uh not on the show. You could see that another time. Um uh I I think I it hits different. Like I don't I don't necessarily get retrospective on what I did wrong, but I definitely feel less than.
SPEAKER_00:I hear that.
SPEAKER_03:So I do try to make people happy, and I'll arrive early, or I'll make sure uh someone uh has extra uh or or whatever the case may be to almost d do more for others. And this comes back to kind of the expect the expectation piece too. When I don't get that in return, it it's almost not a not just a break in trust, but it's it's a break of I I'm not good enough for you to do that for me. And so um it hurts in a different way. And so I think um I think it not only breaks trust, but it breaks my own self-confidence with with that. Well, you weren't I wasn't good enough for you to be on time. Like my five minutes wasn't important to you.
SPEAKER_01:Do you believe Okay, I want to pose this. Phil, you created uh when you put together some notes for the show. Thank you. You were you talked about the anatomy of trust. What makes trust tick before it talks? Very creative, by the way. Um don't know if that was you or Chat GPT.
SPEAKER_00:That was chat, I'll just give it up right there. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01:We are earning your trust.
SPEAKER_00:Um because I was truthful just then.
SPEAKER_01:Well, ooh, wait a minute. I'm gonna derail well no, I'm gonna I'm gonna go inside the show here and I'm gonna talk to the listeners here. Your anatomy. Are you breaking the fourth wall? I am c I am like Kool-Aid that Kool-Aid. Remember Kool-Aid going through the wall? I'm like Kool-Aid going through the wall. So the anatomy of trust. Um we trust ourselves, Phil Mark, and I, to have this conversation. Like having this conversation as au natural as it is, verbally, everybody's clothed, just for the record. Um, but I mean, we're having this conversation, we've had past conversations. Hell, we broke the damn show in talking about death in our life. We just kind of went to the well right away. But we all agreed we had to be 100% ourselves transparent, which transparent in a trusting way is the epitome of trust. Um, but in a way, we're trusting the audience as much as we're trusting ourselves. We're hoping the audience trusts us. And I can't ask the audience right now, but I'm asking you, the audience, if if you could come back to our social and tell us, it would be a wonderful joy to know what do you trust about this show or other shows. Like, is it just entertainment or you do you trust? The feedback we get is people like what they hear from us, they trust, and that's reinforced by our transparency. And my whole point about that is that when you think about the anatomy of trust, what is it that really builds trust? You wrote down a few things, Phil. You wrote reliability, competence. Like, what do you think builds trust in others? Um, whether it's you or other people trusting other people? Because you you work in an environment where, you know, it's it's about trust in community, trust in with people's dollars, it's trust in resources. I mean, lots of money.
SPEAKER_00:Do you know? I don't have like I have many thoughts, but the one that's jumping out to the front of my mind right now is consistency over time. That's an incredible to me part of trust in others. They are consistent, you can count on their responsibility. Or some version of the response you know over time. So I know when I come to you two with a problem, an issue, I'm late on a deadline that we set, I can almost predict what your response is going to be. So I can trust that it's a safe place, that I don't have to feel bad, um, that you're not going to judge too harshly, that you'll always try to come up with um a way for me to address um to address whatever the whatever the issue is. And I think that's just a critical part as we think about the anatomy of trust.
SPEAKER_01:Consistency makes total sense. I mean Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Go. No, I I think that's a beautiful answer. I like that. It made me think of time though. So in order to be consistent, there has to be time involved. And that goes back to the well story that we had in part one is you have filled that well. I mean it it overflows with water. So if you miss a deadline or something comes up, we don't think twice about it because you have consistently always been truthful, honest, vulnerable, open. We we wouldn't think that there was any malice uh or or anything behind anything. Like it's just okay, well, something came up and you know, that there's also no feeling of less importance. It wasn't like this wasn't important. We just know something came up. And uh I think that that consistency is is that time piece.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's it's also to me how I know or how you might know if something is wrong with the other. If I'm just as you describe me over and over again and I show up a couple times not like that, then I I also trust that you would say, are you okay? Something is something is is something happening. And that responsibility, I think, is on me too, for people in my life where we have a very trusting relationship. So I know if there's something that changes drastically or doesn't sound or feel like them over a short period of time, I'm gonna check to see what's happening. And oftentimes I think in the world we're running so hard and so fast that we miss it and we miss that opportunity.
SPEAKER_03:You know, it's it's uh also interesting from a work perspective because I've had so many conversations about remote work. And many of our jobs today, we actually don't physically interact with the people that we work with. And we don't ever get toget I mean, once a quarter maybe we get together um and when we've really only been together twice, I think, maybe three times. Uh but you can build that trust, that consistency, that integrity remotely. You can build that emotional connection remotely. And I think that that's an amazing trust element as well, uh, because uh we don't see behind the scenes, we don't we don't see you daily, uh, but we interact daily. And it's just kind of an interesting thing that you could you could build that relationship and and be hundreds of miles away, thousands of miles away, whatever the case may be.
SPEAKER_01:When years ago in in the uh early 90s, I uh along with some other awesome folks, um founded co-founded the first improv company in Jacksonville. It was called Improv Jacksonville, it eventually became Matt Calford. Started off in entertainment uh only, but then we started doing corporate training and uh team building and and and all that. And um one of the first principles of theater um is trust. Incredible layers of trust. You trust that the other person is knows their lines, you trust that the fly uh is gonna come in at the right time with the drop, backdrop. You trust that the music cue is gonna land when it lands. Um at a very early age, theater performance, um, which leaves no margin of error. You can't do a redo like you can in television, unless you were in front of a live television audience, um, you have trust. I never thought of it until just this moment. Uh actually that's not true. I spoke about it once a long time ago, but I never thought about it in that respect. The same thing happened with improv. You know, with improv, you don't have a script. So you have to trust these, these, these other players to come to the table with material that's not going to make you look like a fool, that's not gonna be too blue, too whatever. And I bring that up because companies, and this ties back to what you said, Phil, with regards to trust over time, consistency. Businesses would come to us and they say, hey, we've had a break in trust. Can you help us? And the question we would ask them is, well, we can we can offer you a band-aid, we can offer you an exercise to create an environment where people can be trusting. Uh, because way back in the day, the big thing was you fall. Remember that? It's like, oh, you fall, I'll catch you. Now, like, I don't, I think, I think it's been banned because people just dropped people.
SPEAKER_00:I was just gonna say that.
SPEAKER_01:Oops. But but um, but we already struggled to build trust when we were face to face way back. Now we're virtual, and and so my question to you is what do you see in your experiences as leaders and as business folks and as and as colleagues is a way to build trust so that others trust in themselves and others um in a work environment that's remote? I'm just curious, like what it what are ways that that you would repair because I love the term you used, Phil, is rupture. Because once trust ruptures, I mean that that that in itself is a great concept, right? Does trust rupture or does it does it leak?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I I think we have a lot of leaking of trust that we allow to leak. Uh we just look the other way, like me being late a few minutes here and a few minutes there, or whatever back in the day. Um, but we make a lot of excuses. It's weather uh or later, it's traffic, it's this, it's that. Oh, I listen, hey, my dog ate my homework. Those are little leaks of trust, because it's not always the case. You're bold face lying. We've all done it.
SPEAKER_03:I I think where it comes into play is when trust impacts other things. So if you're late to a meeting, that could make someone else feel foolish. Right? I'm bringing you into a meeting, I'm saying how wonderful you are, and then you're five minutes late. That's a reflection of me. And so I'm putting my trust on the line every time I recommend somebody. In a business environment where I think if trust is leaking, for me, I would look at expectations. Am I setting the correct expectations? Am I living up to the expectations that I expect of others? Am I living the truth or am I just demanding the truth? And if I'm living the truth, that means that I'm going above and beyond of what I'm asking others to do to prove my consistency. I love that word uh that you said earlier, Phyllis. Uh, to show my integrity, uh, to show my care for others and and their reputation. And with that example, uh I'm going to look at who who then follows it. And if other people continue to break it, then then that's a different type of business conversation that one has to have. And unfortunately, we've all probably had to have that conversation at some point. Um But there are the I think the repair of of of trust really becomes with one having a vulnerable, open, honest conversation and then figuring out how how do we get on the same sheet of music moving forward. And and then time. It takes time. Uh I don't I th you know, and and depending if it's a rupture if trust is to be repaired, it's probably going to take longer. It's going to take more examples, it's going to it's going to need that consistency showing up every day of saying, I've made this promise and I've kept this promise. I've made this promise and I've kept this promise. And then after time, you're like, okay, you you are keeping to your word.
SPEAKER_01:Phil, do you think it's easier or harder to trust today? Trust others.
SPEAKER_00:That's a really great question. Um I don't know that it's easier or harder. It's I think it's um I think it's different. And I think it's different in part for me because I'm older. So, you know, you have a lifetime of experiences um and um knowledge to look to look back on. I think it's different because uh it's interesting. I find myself interesting that I'm about to say this. I am interesting. Um that now I have to laugh. Hold on.
SPEAKER_01:Ladies and gentlemen, we break in with this late news. Phyllis Martin is interesting. We now return you to previously paid programming.
SPEAKER_00:I'm also menopausal, so I hope I can remember what I wanted to say, but here we go. Um all the menopausal women know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01:I just I I just want you to know that the world knows you're now in menopause. So there you go.
SPEAKER_00:They probably could tell that before. I think it's harder now because I have so much more trust. Um trust myself so much more. I don't doubt myself as much. So I come to the world, I think, from a stronger position um than I did before. So maybe perhaps my need um to trust for whatever that was filling before isn't quite isn't quite as strong. I just think it's different, it's different for me now.
SPEAKER_03:I think trust is different now too. And then Al, I'd love to hear your response to it. I I think it is different than in the past. I think age is is one element of it. I I think the other piece is while we have so much information in the world, we don't really know what the truth is anymore. And you know, now there's even these videos. I watched one the other day. It's, you know, Bob Ross talking to, you know, somebody else who's who's passed away, and it it looks Bob Barker, I think. And it you're like, uh how'd they do that? Like, I don't like if i it doesn't even make sense, but it it looks real. And and you can't even so you can't even trust that. So what do you put your trust into? I think where age has changed it for me is when I was younger, if someone broke my trust, I I probably for fear of losing someone in my life would have kept them around and would have allowed a continuation and breaking of trust. And I'm way more confident in life now where I just don't need to surround myself with with people like that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So there's a clarity that comes, Mark. I let I mean I think I'm right there with you. There's just a certain clarity that comes and and um Yeah. You don't need to.
SPEAKER_01:What about you? Well, I'm gonna respond to something you just said, then I'll give you my feedback. I I have been very blessed if I'm if I'm rolling through the Rolodex of my brain right now um and memories, which fortunately I still have pretty good access to as that faculty uh exists in my head. Uh I've been very blessed and lucky to really have trust surround me a lot of my life. I mean, I can truthfully say I haven't been burned too many times. Um even in business, you know, clients typically paid. Uh and there's been some that haven't here and there, and when I've held them their feet to the fire, okay. Um, and then the same for me, obviously, but but in trusting others and external facing trust, um, I've been I've been very fortunate. I think what's been surprising is as I've gotten older and I realize that other people, mother, parents, family members, haven't been as truthful. I I understand the perspective of why that was the case because I was a child at that time. And I'm not talking about trauma, and I want to be very clear. I'm not talking about childhood trauma. I'm just talking about the shit that parents say do and adults do, and you're a kid and you didn't quite understand it, right? Um so what I wrote down, and and and I'm gonna use our word for our show, you're saying different. I just think trust is more complex today. And I think it's more complex today, um, even more so in others than sometimes ourselves. Uh but yet oh, trust in ourselves is always a conundrum. But the it's because the increase of trust pathways that exists today, the pathways to break, the pathways to gain, the pathways to access. We have so many different ways to sense, feel, touch, smell, connect with different people through technology, through social media, through um, you know, the way we travel, the way we go about the world. And as a result of this, that means proportionally the increase in the number of ways to break trust vis a vis the video, vis-a-vis uh you know, the person lives in a pig sty, but you think they live in a Taj Mahal because of their backdrop, um, or their studio is filled with pillows. Are you saying something? No, trying to tell me something just the pillows, just the pillows. Um, and and so the the complexity is what's what's your choice? What's your um what's your criteria? What and and I don't I don't I think this is one of those questions Tyler um talked about it, Tyler Schultz, in his episode about, you know, as a whistleblower. It's like he holds on to his values and and it's like, what do I believe? What are my morals? And and and and he said I do this kind of moral check-in. I write these things down and and I review them. And I was like, that was so amazing to me. Well, I think it's worth an exercise today to ask ourselves, do we do a check-in in what we trust in others? Because it it has become more challenging. Relationship time is is is more frail, it's shorter as we get older. And who do you want to spend your time with? You want to spend your time with people that you you trust. And so I look at this like, all right, well, what are the morals, what are the values, and what's the communication? And that's that's the litmus test for me, I think, um, for for trusting in others. What do you stand for? Um, what are your values and how you show up with them? And then what's the communication flow?
SPEAKER_00:I'm gonna put a little spin on that, yes, to everything you're saying, but like a little spin is so I I think there's also something to be said for you can have a a a difference in morals and values with somebody you know. And because you are aware of their morals and values, you can trust that they'll be a particular way.
SPEAKER_01:But that requires time.
SPEAKER_00:Um sometimes not. I mean, sometimes on first shots. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Think about it today. I mean, think about the social political environment. If you have a long history with somebody, like I have I have some friends who I won't name for the show because I know they they wouldn't care to be named. I have some friends who we are we are politically, socially different. We have some different morals and different values on some things. Our morals and values are aligned in a lot of core ways, which is what keeps our friendships together after all these years, but also we have a long history. However, I think the leash on some of that differentiation is a bit shorter today than it ever has been.
SPEAKER_03:I I'm I I get worried with the word morals. Right? Like, sure, yeah, you know, I I could be politically different from someone and we can have a trusting, loving relationship. I can be religiously different than somebody and still have a trusting, loving relationship. But when I think the word morals, I I I don't I don't know. That to me seems different than so um maybe uh maybe just to find morals for me and the audience a little bit, because that seems like if you have different morals than me, you know, if if you're fine with going out and shoplifting because that's cool to you, um I I I don't know that we can be friends.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's it's degrees of separation. So morals are principles of right and wrong behavior that guide how individuals and societies act. They are often influenced by culture, religion, and personal experiences, blah, blah, blah. So definition principles of right and wrong, ethical guidelines, motivation, examples of morals, honesty, fairness, respect, kindness and empathy, responsibility, the golden rule, loyalty.
SPEAKER_03:Um But that's different than I I'm uh, you know, uh this political and you're that political. I I think that's different than morality.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no. I I a hundred percent agree. I just I was making a sweeping kind of statement, like I just kind of encompassed all of that. Oh, okay. Because some of the beliefs one may have politically reflect socially and reflect back to trust, right? Um, and I mean this could be an entirely separate conversation, I get it. But let me just kind of wrap it to say that at the end of the day, for what I was really trying to say is that I think we're at a time where you, Phyllis, by introducing trust in ourselves, it was very easy for three reflective people, you the three of us, to start exploring that. Um, but until you brought up this idea of trust in others, not to be confused that I don't all of a sudden trust others. That's not it. But I think it it deserves exploration. And that's what I would encourage for me, and I want to know what you guys think. You know, this is that part of the show where we kind of throw out some ideas. I would encourage, if you're listening to this, for you to ask yourself a question. How do I define what what is what is trust in others look like to me? How do I create that trust? How do I build that trust? How do I seek that trust? And and Phil, I think I think I'm gonna take some of the comments that you created and put those in our show notes because you have some great ideas there, like, you know, um the this anatomy of trust, what makes it tick, the rupture, and then I threw in the leak. You know, what where does trust leak in your relationships?
SPEAKER_03:I I think the fact that we have two shows on this, and if again, to kind of calling out what you said earlier, Al, listen to show one. I I think in order to trust others, you have to trust yourself, and you have to understand the areas that you trust yourself in and areas you don't trust yourself in. Uh I think that that is such a strong indicator of the people you can trust.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I I agree. I think, and that's why I kind of answered the question that way. The the more I have learned to trust myself, my instinct, my response, my ability to do X, Y, or Z. Um the more, Al, I'm better able to answer, I think, the question that you just asked. And it does influence my trust in others. I think in part, quite honestly, because my self, like self, doesn't depend so much on other anymore. It depends on me. So it allows me to interact with people um and come to um, I think, mutually lovely, uh, reciprocal, trusting relationships. Um, I think probably in a in a healthier, in a healthier way.
SPEAKER_01:Did you hear that? Those were two mic drops. You both just dropped mics. Actually, there may have been three. There may have been three mic drops. I don't know. We'll have to go back and count. Wait, well. Wait well.
SPEAKER_03:Um gotta trust that count.
SPEAKER_01:This is time well spent, my friends. I am so glad that we decided to dive into this topic. Uh, I hope that as you are on the receiving end of our conversation, that we elicited some interest within you to start to explore trust on your own. And and Mark couldn't have said it. Like, where do you sit on trusting yourself? Uh that that's a journey that's always uh a tough one, but one that merits being being journeyed upon because it affects how you do trust others. Very well said. Um listen, it's called the complexity of toilet paper. Uh nothing's more simple. We never made a promise that we would have all these answers. We may have just made your life more complicated. But we didn't do that, we didn't do that. No, no. We want you to trust us, so we're just gonna leave it that. We're gonna ask the provocative questions that add to your curiosity.
SPEAKER_00:Well said again.
SPEAKER_01:Nicely done. Thank you. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a freaking mic drop. And that is until the next time we invade your eardrums, the complexity of toilet paper.
SPEAKER_02:Did you say toilet paper?
