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Leitura de 40 min

How to Build Trust Capital

Summary

In this episode, Becca and Dan dive into the concept of trust capital, which they define as the value and level of trust you build with others. They contrast it with transactional networking or favor exchanges, emphasizing that trust capital is about building genuine relationships and credibility over time. The metaphor of capital as an investment is explored, highlighting that trust is built through consistent effort and can be “spent” in the sense of opening doors and creating opportunities, though it doesn’t diminish unless you do something to damage it.

They discuss practical ways to build trust capital, starting with the foundational act of showing up consistently—whether in work meetings, community events, or online spaces. For environments like open-source projects where face-to-face interaction is limited, they emphasize the importance of listening and understanding the community’s current state before proposing changes. Transparency and clear communication are also key, as is shifting from an ownership mindset to one of expertise-sharing, where you teach others rather than hoarding knowledge.

The conversation extends to how communities themselves can build trust capital. Becca shares Virtual Coffee’s mission of creating meaningful opportunities through horizontal mentoring, where everyone can both learn and lead. They discuss the ripple effect of positive, respectful interactions within a community, which then extends to members’ interactions in the broader tech world. Examples from the Virtual Coffee community, like members IU, Kirk, and Ray Deck, illustrate how showing up, sharing knowledge thoughtfully, and helping others reach their own conclusions build significant trust capital.

Finally, they address the benefits of having trust capital: improved credibility, stronger reputations, deeper human connections, and reduced friction for collective progress. They warn against pretending to be an expert in areas you’re not, noting that admitting “I don’t know” can actually build credibility. The episode concludes with an encouragement to reflect on the people you instinctively trust and consider how they’ve built that trust, reinforcing that trust capital blends technical skills with core interpersonal skills, both of which can be developed over time.

Recommendations

Concepts

  • Horizontal Mentoring — A concept practiced in Virtual Coffee where anyone at any stage can mentor others, emphasizing that everyone has value to offer. This approach builds trust capital within the community by fostering mutual respect and learning.

People

  • Ray Deck — A Virtual Coffee member highlighted as an example of someone with deep trust capital. He shows up consistently, offers guidance by asking questions rather than giving directives, and helps people reach their own conclusions with deep expertise and kindness.
  • IU — Mentioned as a Virtual Coffee member who built trust capital by simply showing up and being present in the community before taking on any formal roles or tasks, demonstrating the power of consistent presence.
  • Kirk — Referenced as another Virtual Coffee member who has built trust capital through thoughtful, respectful contributions and consistent support, leading to opportunities like being hired for work based on that established trust.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:01:25 — Defining trust capital and contrasting it with favor exchanges — Becca introduces trust capital as the value and level of trust you have with others, built through relationships rather than transactional favor-collecting. Dan expands on the metaphor, likening it to an investment that opens doors because others know you are trustworthy.
  • 00:04:07 — Ways to build trust capital: showing up and consistency — They discuss the importance of showing up consistently as a foundational way to build trust. Becca emphasizes being dependable, while Dan notes that even just being present in communities or meetings builds familiarity and trust over time, especially in online spaces.
  • 00:07:21 — Building trust in low-interaction spaces like open source — Dan asks how to show up in environments like open-source projects without regular meetings. Becca highlights listening as a crucial investment—reading documentation, understanding community conversations, and learning the context before jumping in with ideas or contributions.
  • 00:10:23 — Transparency, communication, and sharing expertise — Becca discusses how transparency and clear communication build trust, avoiding siloed knowledge. She distinguishes between owning something (controlling it) and being an expert (understanding deeply and teaching others). Dan adds that writing blog posts to share learning or expertise is a great individual way to build trust capital.
  • 00:13:54 — How communities build trust capital and the ripple effect — Becca explains how Virtual Coffee builds trust by fostering positive interactions, horizontal mentoring, and a mission of creating learning opportunities. She describes the ripple effect where respectful, supportive behavior within the community extends to members’ interactions throughout the tech industry.
  • 00:17:54 — Benefits of trust capital and warning against false expertise — They explore the benefits of trust capital: improved credibility, reputation, deeper relationships, and more opportunities. Becca warns that pretending to be an expert in something you’re not decreases trust, while admitting knowledge gaps and saying “I don’t know” can actually build credibility.
  • 00:23:00 — Real-world examples from the Virtual Coffee community — Dan and Becca highlight community members like IU, Kirk, and Ray Deck as examples of people who’ve built significant trust capital. They describe how Ray shows up, helps with pairing, asks guiding questions rather than giving directives, and provides thoughtful, context-aware help that respects where people are in their journey.
  • 00:31:14 — Trust capital blends technical and core skills — Becca concludes by noting that trust capital involves both technical skills and core interpersonal skills (like communication). Both can be improved over time, and doing an inventory of your strengths and areas for growth can help you build trust capital more intentionally.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: The Virtual Coffee Podcast
  • Author: Virtual Coffee
  • Category: Technology
  • Published: 2024-09-16T18:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:33:23

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to season 10. This is episode 2 of the Virtual Coffee podcast. Virtual Coffee

[00:00:12] is an intimate tech community welcoming folks at all stages of their journey. And we’re

[00:00:17] here on this podcast sharing insights, experiences, and the lessons that we have learned along

[00:00:22] the way. I’m Becca and I’m here with my co-host Dan.

[00:00:25] Thanks, Becca. This season, we are continuing to dive deep into our back pocket topics from

[00:00:32] our Tuesday Virtual Coffees. Today’s topic is trust capital. We’re grateful to be sponsored

[00:00:37] by Level Up Financial Planning that helps you take your financial confidence to the

[00:00:41] next level. It’s real financial planning to help reach your goals and gain clarity on

[00:00:45] what actions you need to take now to maximize your tech career. Level Up even has a podcast

[00:00:49] where you can hear about some of the strategies he uses with his clients. Check out levelupfinancialplanning.com

[00:00:55] for more information.

[00:00:55] And you can get that link in our show notes.

[00:00:58] All right. So now it is time to grab your favorite drink, settle in, and let’s get started

[00:01:03] with today’s Virtual Coffee podcast.

[00:01:13] Yo, what up, Becca? How’s it going?

[00:01:16] Hey, it’s going pretty good. How’s it going with you?

[00:01:19] It is going well. We are talking about trust capital, and I am excited to learn

[00:01:25] from you what that means. What is trust capital?

[00:01:29] Okay. So trust capital, I’ve been on a little bit of this kick lately. You might have seen

[00:01:34] me posting about it on social media, but it’s kind of like the value and the level of trust

[00:01:40] that you have with other people. And so how are you building that up? Are you building

[00:01:46] that up with your teammates, with your community? If someone comes to you, do they trust you?

[00:01:51] Or can you go to other people and use that trust capital?

[00:01:55] Because they’re like, I know that this is a trustworthy person.

[00:01:58] So I think that there are definitely things that build that trust. And then there are

[00:02:01] things that take away that trust. So this isn’t like owing favors and,

[00:02:06] you know, collecting favors and then calling the favors in. This is a little different than that.

[00:02:10] Yeah, I would say it’s definitely a little bit different than that. Like you’re building this

[00:02:13] credibility with other people, right? And it’s not like, oh, this person owes me something.

[00:02:20] It’s like, wow, this is like a good person that I’ve built a relationship with. And I think like,

[00:02:25] I don’t want to go off on this tangent, but it’s almost the difference between like

[00:02:28] networking and building relationships. Because I think when you network,

[00:02:32] you don’t really build trust capital. It’s more of that like favor exchange that you

[00:02:38] were talking about. But when you’re building relationships, then you are working with other

[00:02:43] people in a way that builds that trust and doing things that allow them to come to you

[00:02:50] if they need something as well. Yeah, no, I like that. I like the capital,

[00:02:55] part of it, because, you know, I was when you were first talking and this phrase, I mean,

[00:03:00] I’ve heard it before, but it’s not, you know, something I’ve thought about a bunch. Right. And

[00:03:04] so it I was like, well, what is the capital part? Capital means you need to you should be able to

[00:03:09] spend it or something. Right. And I think you got that right. It’s it’s, you know, ways to build it

[00:03:14] up. And then the way that you spend it with, you know, when I’m doing air quotes that nobody else

[00:03:19] can. Well, I suppose I couldn’t see either, but nobody can see. But the way

[00:03:25] you spend it, right, is going somewhere else. And, you know, the other person or group knows

[00:03:30] they can trust you. Right. And that opens lots and lots of doors. I can think of lots of examples

[00:03:36] in my life of people that I I’m trying to use this metaphor, the capital metaphor. Right. But

[00:03:40] people that I trust, like people that I would be like, yes, no, like absolutely 100 percent. I

[00:03:45] would trust them to do a thing. And then people that I know and like, but haven’t worked with

[00:03:51] or something or haven’t, you know, don’t know anybody that I’ve worked with. And so

[00:03:54] it’s maybe a little bit lower. Yeah. So. So that’s cool. So I like that definition. And

[00:04:02] what how do you want to start? Like, all right. So how are ways to what are some good ways for

[00:04:07] maybe developers or people in the tech community to build trust capital for themselves?

[00:04:12] Yeah, I think that’s a really good question to start with, like building it first, because

[00:04:19] I think no matter where you are in your career, you can build that trust.

[00:04:24] With other people, there’s lots of different ways to do it. But like for me, the most important

[00:04:29] thing is like showing up. Right. You consistently show up and you can be that dependable person

[00:04:35] because it becomes really hard to trust somebody if they don’t. Right. If you anticipate that

[00:04:42] they’re going to do something or they’re going to show up for work or they’re going to complete a

[00:04:46] project and then they consistently don’t do that thing. I think that definitely damages the trust

[00:04:51] capital. But when you are showing up, even if you don’t trust somebody, you’re not going to

[00:04:54] complete it. At least people can see like, OK, this person is trying. So I guess part of that is

[00:05:00] like showing up and trying to do the thing that you’re supposed to be doing. Yeah. And I even take

[00:05:07] a step back. I mean, I am going to double down on what you’re saying about showing up, but take a

[00:05:12] step back from completing things or doing things to even just the idea of showing up in general

[00:05:19] without doing anything, but being there, you know. So if you’re talking about work, obviously being

[00:05:24] there on time or, you know, coming to the meetings on time, not showing up five, 10 minutes late to

[00:05:29] Zoom meetings, you know, that kind of thing. Showing up when if we’re talking about a community,

[00:05:35] just kind of being being around, being active. I can think of a lot of people in virtual coffee

[00:05:39] that before we even worked, like had them work on anything like IU is a perfect example. Right.

[00:05:46] IU has, you know, she’s been on the podcast. She’s done just millions of amazing things for us. But

[00:05:53] before we even.

[00:05:54] Asked her to really do anything to help or she volunteered. I’m not sure which which came first,

[00:05:59] but she was just there. She was just there, you know. And so if we’re thinking about ways to

[00:06:06] do this at the from the first step with communities, with open source projects,

[00:06:14] with things like that, I think being present and and that doesn’t have to be in a pushy way,

[00:06:19] you know, but just being present and on a consistent basis is goes.

[00:06:24] A long way. Right. Especially with things like online communities where you’re not seeing people, you know, you don’t you don’t.

[00:06:33] I don’t know. It’s not like you’re in the same room. Right. So it’s a familiar face or something like that.

[00:06:39] The there are ways that you can do this without being pushy or annoying, I think.

[00:06:46] Can you like what I’m thinking now of. So with virtual coffee, we actually do see people’s people’s faces. Right. So it’s a little bit like it’s a little bit easier, which is obviously one of the.

[00:06:54] One of our favorite things about virtual coffee. Right. But it’s obviously lots of other communities or I’m thinking, especially now, open source projects, things like that, where there’s not like there’s not my microphone there.

[00:07:07] There’s not meetings. Right. There’s not like nobody’s going to see your face. And so how can you show up, do you think, in that situation before you’re doing work, even before you’re trying to get issues assigned to you or things like that?

[00:07:21] I don’t have any ideas.

[00:07:24] Yeah.

[00:07:24] So this is a big one. And I think that listening is incredibly important and it goes a long way to building trust capital, because I think sometimes like we get really excited and we want to make changes or you want to take on an issue or we want to do something new.

[00:07:41] But we don’t take the time to listen and understand where we’re at right now. Like, what does the community currently look like? What do they currently need? If you have like this amazing idea, like I want to run this in-person hackathon.

[00:07:53] And let’s do it right now. And we’re like, well, we’re a virtual community and we don’t really meet in person and we don’t really have the funds to do that kind of thing. But like, that’s an awesome idea. Right.

[00:08:06] Like, so I think the first step is like understanding and there’s ways to understand what’s happening. Right. Like there might be documentation that you read or you look at the conversations that are happening or you look at, you know, read me’s or how people respond to each other in Slack.

[00:08:23] Right.

[00:08:23] Or Discord or in issues. And when you do that, like you, although it might be hard, you might be saying like, well, that doesn’t build me any trust capital because nobody knows if I’m listening. Well, they will. It’s an investment. Right. It will take a little bit of extra time.

[00:08:41] Yes. I love that. I love the tying it back into the metaphor. That’s it’s the investment. Right. And to build capital, you need to invest at least some amount of money. Right. If we’re talking about the the the original metaphor.

[00:08:52] And I think that’s perfect.

[00:08:53] I love that. And it applies to all sorts of things. Communities and, you know, reading all messages, listen to what people are saying. Like you were saying, if you’re talking about open source projects, reading the read me, like you said, the contributors guide, things like that. And also maybe even looking through old issues. Right. I noticed that. I mean, like that might save you some time to obviously definitely save the could save the maintainers time as well. But the, you know, having some sort of base knowledge.

[00:09:23] And then, you know, we’ll let you display that base knowledge when you are ready to, you know, involve yourself more. I love that. I love everything you said there. And that investment thing. Right. And so, yes, I’m liking this metaphor more and more. You know, I’m a sucker for good metaphors. And that investing in yourself. Right. Investing in your trust capital fund, I suppose. Right.

[00:09:51] Can take work. And the the more.

[00:09:53] You invest in it, the more the bigger it will grow. Right.

[00:09:58] Yeah. And I think this continues. You build trust capital also by communicating with other people and being transparent. And I know like sometimes that takes a little bit of work. You have to figure out how to be trained, how how much transparency is needed. And that’s really going to depend on like what your role is or what you’re you know, whether that’s on a team or as a member of a community, because, you know, you don’t need total transparency.

[00:10:23] Right. But you need some so people understand like, OK, what is your approach? And I think that if we don’t have transparency, we also have a tendency to fall into this trap of like siloed knowledge. And so part of building that trust capital is like sharing that information. And so it’s actually working on a blog post before this.

[00:10:45] And I was talking about like, OK, there’s a difference between owning something and being an expert in something, because ownership kind of implies that like.

[00:10:53] this is mine and I control what happens here. But if you look at it in terms of expertise,

[00:10:59] it’s more of like, hey, I have a deep understanding of this and I’m willing to

[00:11:03] teach other people about that. And so I think that that goes a long way towards

[00:11:08] building trust capital as well. And you might say like, OK, well, I’m really new. So how can

[00:11:13] I have expertise over anything? I think, again, this comes back to like, take it back a little

[00:11:18] bit, look at what the transparency is. Part of that is asking questions about things,

[00:11:22] communicating with other people and making sure that you know that it’s important to have those

[00:11:28] conversations because then you’re growing with the other people and it helps them to understand

[00:11:33] like, hey, where are the knowledge gaps on the team or in the community or in the projects that

[00:11:38] we’re working on? Yeah. Yeah. I like that a lot. I think like one of the reasons why trust capital

[00:11:44] is so important is because it starts to when we have trust capital, it reduces friction for

[00:11:50] progress. So it’s not usually what happens when you build trust capital. You can’t build it by

[00:11:56] yourself. Like I can’t just be like I have so much trust capital alone. Right. Like I have to

[00:12:01] collaborate or communicate with other people. And that that trust capital is built between us or

[00:12:08] among us in a community or something like that. And so then that reduces the friction for everybody

[00:12:13] growing and making progress together. And so I think like we can’t talk about trust capital

[00:12:19] without saying like this is an investment. And so I think like we can’t talk about trust capital

[00:12:20] without saying like this is an investment in our communities, in our teams and being able to make

[00:12:27] progress together. Yes. Yeah. I like that a lot. And just to go back to a point you mentioned

[00:12:35] before about blog posts and being an expert and sharing knowledge, things like that.

[00:12:40] Writing, I think writing blog posts is a really great way to build trust capital for yourself.

[00:12:46] And this is a little bit like this is one thing that you might you can try to do.

[00:12:50] On your own. Right. But the more and we’ve seen this, like the more people tying this all together,

[00:12:58] the last few points you made, if you can write your blog posts and sort of reach out to people

[00:13:04] and, you know, kind of collaborate a little bit, things like that, or even just sharing it. I mean,

[00:13:09] blasting it on the Twitter isn’t, you know, I mean, it’s great. You know, go ahead and do that.

[00:13:13] Obviously, if you wrote a blog post, like share it everywhere. But the trust capital part of it

[00:13:18] kind of builds up over time. Right.

[00:13:20] And if you can, it’s a great way to share your expertise, like you said, or if you’re learning,

[00:13:27] share your learning process, you know, it’s a it’s a really good way to build that trust capital on

[00:13:34] the individual level. You know, one thing you said, we come at a lot of these from a community

[00:13:41] management standpoint, you know, because of virtual coffee, or like open source stuff. One

[00:13:47] thing that I was thinking about recently was like, how,

[00:13:49] how can let’s start with community? Like, how can a community,

[00:13:54] the community itself build trust capital? What, you know, what do you think?

[00:14:00] Yeah, I think, you know, for us, it’s been really important to create positive interactions with

[00:14:05] people. And our mission is to create meaningful opportunities for learning leadership and

[00:14:10] contribution for everyone. And so I think like that actually is a huge part of building trust

[00:14:16] capital. Like we really believe in horizontal mentoring. We believe in horizontal mentoring.

[00:14:19] And so I think, you know, when we say this whole idea of mentorship, which means that anybody at any

[00:14:22] stage can mentor each other, like we all have value, and we all bring something to the table

[00:14:28] that we can offer other people. And I think it when you see that and encourage that in the

[00:14:32] community, it creates this ripple effect. And I’m like, super big into this idea of the ripple effect,

[00:14:37] because it shouldn’t just be the community itself benefiting from each other. But it should be

[00:14:42] communities outside of virtual coffee benefiting from what we’ve set up here. And I think when we

[00:14:47] treat each other with respect, when we’re at a table where we’re talking to each other, we’re

[00:14:49] we answer each other’s questions, when we support each other, when we’re going through hard times,

[00:14:54] that’s not just something that stays here. This extends itself to the interactions that we have

[00:14:59] with other people throughout tech on our own teams and wherever we’re interacting, because like we

[00:15:04] try to model that behavior that we want to see and it leads to, to growth for everybody.

[00:15:12] Yeah, I love that. And that ripple effect is great. We I, my son is in third grade. My oldest

[00:15:19] son is in third grade and he’s in Cub Scouts, right? And I’m the den leader. We have like 18,

[00:15:23] you know, eight year olds that all meet together. And that’s actually something we were talking

[00:15:28] about. And it is one of our goals for Cub Scouts as well. It’s not so much like our goals aren’t,

[00:15:34] you know, there are like badges and all that stuff and it’s fun. But our goal as leaders,

[00:15:39] right, is not to make sure the kids get to badges, right? Our goal is to set these kids up so that

[00:15:45] they have that ripple effect for the rest of their lives. And, um,

[00:15:49] I mean, as a person who went through that program myself as a kid, I mean, I, me and my like four

[00:15:55] best friends went through the whole program and, um, and we talk about it all the time, like how,

[00:16:00] how it did help us and set us up for that sort of thing. And I think that is a amazing goal for

[00:16:05] any community. And, and like, I agree it’s for our, for virtual coffee, it’s, it’s always kind

[00:16:10] of been, you know, there’s some goals, there, there’s some things you think about where it’s

[00:16:13] just like, what are we doing, you know, day to day from the community level? Um, what are,

[00:16:19] our activities we’re doing, but like our ultimate goal, right. Is, is, is helping people become

[00:16:25] better. I don’t know, better online citizens, better people, you know, better leaders,

[00:16:29] everything, you know, um, better developers or tech, you know, people. Um, but I, uh, I totally,

[00:16:38] I mean, I totally agree with, with everything you said. I think it’s, I don’t know. And this,

[00:16:43] like this trust capital is, it’s always kind of weird, like thinking about things from that

[00:16:49] you know, standpoint, it can, it can, I guess lots of times when you think of like capital

[00:16:54] investments and things, you think of sort of greed maybe here, or, you know, selfishness,

[00:16:59] things like that. Um, but, but with, with this, it’s, you know, I don’t know, I’m going on a super

[00:17:08] big tangent here now. Uh, uh, I’m like, I’m like re, uh, rethinking this metaphor even a little

[00:17:12] bit more, but like the, if we get to trust capital and we want, you know,

[00:17:19] well, let’s, let’s, let me ask you this. What are, so we’ve talked about ways to build trust

[00:17:25] capital, like lots of different ways and how it’s important. So what are some benefits of having,

[00:17:30] I don’t know, a large chunk of trust? What is, what is a unit of measurement in, in,

[00:17:36] in banking and capital? I don’t know. Like, like a, a, a big old, uh, you know, um,

[00:17:43] all the Scrooge, like, you know, the safe where he swims in it, you know, except that like,

[00:17:48] it’s, it’s like trust capital. Um, so what are some benefits of having a large chunk of trust capital?

[00:17:49] All right. So what are some benefits? Like, what, what, what do you think? What do we, what do we,

[00:17:54] how does that help? How does that help me? If I have, let’s say I’ve worked really hard and built

[00:17:58] up a whole bunch of trust capital. Well, I mean, I think it really goes a lot towards improving

[00:18:04] your credibility and your reputation as well. Like if people can trust you, then you’re

[00:18:09] automatically seen as more credible in that thing. Um, and I, I just like want to mention

[00:18:15] really quickly here, this doesn’t answer your question, but one of the things that I see that

[00:18:19] decreases trust capital a lot is pretending to be an expert in something that you’re not.

[00:18:24] Um, and I think that it’s really important to like warn people against that. You don’t have

[00:18:28] to have a command and a deep expertise in everything. And I think that some of the

[00:18:33] greatest leaders that we see in tech acknowledge those knowledge gaps or say like, Hey, this is my

[00:18:38] specialty. Like, thanks for asking me about this other thing, but like, I don’t know, I can, I can

[00:18:43] give you what I think based on my understanding, but I don’t know that thing. And I think that it’s

[00:18:48] really important to be able to say, I don’t know. And that also builds that credibility because

[00:18:53] nobody can be an expert in anything. So, I mean, you can be more credible. People will take you

[00:18:58] more seriously and for sure it will increase your ability to have different opportunities throughout

[00:19:05] the tech industry. Um, but also I think like what’s really important to acknowledge, like

[00:19:09] on a human level, um, it allows you to have deeper relationships with people. When you trust someone

[00:19:18] that’s something that connects you as a person. And I think that it’s really important that we do

[00:19:24] have those connections. I don’t think that we were ever meant to live in silos or by ourselves. Like

[00:19:29] we were meant to have relationships with other people and to, um, help each other through things.

[00:19:36] And so like, we’ve seen it at virtual coffee for sure. Like we’ve gone through loss together at

[00:19:40] virtual coffee and it’s been really challenging if we didn’t trust each other. I don’t think like

[00:19:48] we’ve ever been able to build a community at this point, but we’re able to help and support each

[00:19:52] other. And like you were saying, like it’s, it’s not just about, um, the community, but it’s, it’s

[00:19:58] about developing those relationships with other people and being able to grow together.

[00:20:04] Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I it’s, and you’re right. It’s, I was trying to kind of build that metaphor

[00:20:12] and you know, like what can you, what can you buy with your trust capital and stuff? And that’s kind

[00:20:15] of where it breaks down a little bit, you know, like it’s a good way to think about it as far as

[00:20:18] building it. Right. But at the end, you’re not, it’s not like a transaction, right? You’re not,

[00:20:22] you’re not doing this so that you can buy things, uh, right. Or favorites or whatever.

[00:20:27] Well, I think like you don’t spend your trust capital ever, right? Like you have it and you

[00:20:32] use it, but it doesn’t go away unless you do something to take away that trust capital.

[00:20:37] Right. Only you can reduce your trust capital. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I totally, I agree. And

[00:20:43] I think that’s, I think that’s pretty much where the, where the metaphor ends and that’s fine.

[00:20:48] You know? Um, but yeah, like you said, it’s, it’s, it’s both, we, it can create lots of

[00:20:55] opportunities. Um, there’s lots of things where, I don’t know if you’re thinking about finding a job,

[00:21:00] if you’re, if you’re on the job search or whatever, you know, um, obviously this sort of thing can

[00:21:04] help you, but it also will provide opportunities. This has been true in my life, both on, on both

[00:21:10] ends. Um, we are, somebody might just like reach out to you, you know, for like to, to, to help on

[00:21:18] or whatever, um, instead of, as opposed to looking good on a resume, right. For instance. Um, and it,

[00:21:25] and it does tie in a little bit too. I mean, we all kind of hate that everybody hates the term

[00:21:30] networking, you know, because the network is like make connection, move on, make connection,

[00:21:34] move on. Right. Um, but the, I think the, if you want to think about your sort of social network,

[00:21:43] uh, you know, the network of people, you know, um, the ones that

[00:21:46] can trust you are going to be the ones that are much stronger ties. You know, you, I work,

[00:21:53] I’m generally like, um, have a small amount of close friends, like throughout my whole life,

[00:21:59] you know, it’s, it’s not been like I’ve had a hundred friends. I’ve had a small amount of

[00:22:03] really close friends, but, and that has kind of, I’ve never really thought about it, but like that

[00:22:07] has been true in my work as well. Um, I’ve, and that doesn’t have to be for everybody, but like

[00:22:12] the people that I work with, I trust like a hundred percent all the time, you know what I mean?

[00:22:16] And not everybody, if you’re in a larger company, you’re never going to know everybody. You’re never

[00:22:23] going to, um, whatever, have close friends throughout the whole company, all that stuff.

[00:22:28] But if there’s people in the company that you can trust, you probably do know. I mean,

[00:22:32] if you’ve been working there at least long enough, there’s probably people, you know,

[00:22:35] that you can trust. There’s probably people, you know, that you can’t trust, or maybe you can’t

[00:22:38] in a certain situation, you know, like you trust them to be your friend, but not so much to follow

[00:22:43] through on, you know, X, Y, Z or whatever. Um, right.

[00:22:46] And I would say like, if you’re, if you’re thinking about this and this is like ringing

[00:22:51] some bells, um, I would try to, I think one thing that would be cool to do is like kind of just sit

[00:22:56] back and think about the people that not think about how you can build it yourself, but think

[00:23:00] about the people that you know, or work with, or, you know, talk to online, things like that,

[00:23:05] that have for you, like a whole lot of trust, like, like you trust them. And, um, I think

[00:23:12] you’d be surprised, you know, I think it’ll, you will.

[00:23:16] Pretty instantly, like, it’s like a almost instinctual thing, right? Um, if you don’t

[00:23:22] think about it, like in these terms a lot, I think if you do for me, it’s like, I don’t have to think

[00:23:28] hard. You know what I mean? Does that make sense? Like I can just like think through the like list

[00:23:32] of people that I know that I work with and there’s things that I would trust them to do. And there’s

[00:23:36] things that I wouldn’t trust them to do. Some people I trust anything, you know what I mean?

[00:23:40] It’s, it’s kind of, it’s kind of like, I’m just kind of enjoying it in my head. Um, thinking,

[00:23:44] thinking about this sort of thing. And I’m sure that’s true.

[00:23:46] Uh, for yourself. Right. And so, yeah, you could, I know, I know you mentioned IU and I think that’s

[00:23:53] a great example of somebody that just showed up, um, and built that trust capital. Kirk for sure

[00:23:58] is another one. Um, we’ve roped him into so much stuff at this point, but you know, he’s always

[00:24:04] done it, uh, in a really reasonable and kind way. Um, one other person I want to mention is Ray

[00:24:10] deck, uh, who’s been a member of virtual coffee for a long time. And Ray has such a depth of

[00:24:16] knowledge.

[00:24:16] And expertise in a lot of different areas. You know, he is, he shows up and help in pairing to,

[00:24:22] uh, answer people’s questions. He’s been a founder before he has a nonprofit. I think still

[00:24:29] Ray has done all of the things. And anytime I have a question and I’m like, ah, I don’t really

[00:24:36] know, like, who should I ask this career question to, for example, like Ray, Ray will at least

[00:24:42] offer some guidance. And one of the other great things about Ray is he doesn’t say like, this is

[00:24:46] the right path for you. He does a really great job of like asking questions and listening and

[00:24:52] trying to understand like, well, what are you trying to get out of this? And like help you get

[00:24:56] to the decision for yourself. And so I would say like, that’s another great way to, to show that

[00:25:03] you respect another person is to, you know, help them come to this knowledge and understanding by

[00:25:09] themselves and being willing to answer those questions. I know it can be hard and overwhelming

[00:25:14] sometimes because you can get a lot of questions. But I think it’s a great way to show that you

[00:25:16] have questions, but knowing like, okay, that’s the person that I can go to if I’m in that situation

[00:25:22] also like makes me feel comfortable and feel like, wow, I really appreciate this experience that I

[00:25:30] have with this person. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Ray’s a, Ray’s a great example and a couple other

[00:25:36] things he does. I mean, he’s, you said he shows up help comparing all this stuff. He’s not shy about

[00:25:41] helping people, you know but he is, I’ve never seen him be pushy or anything.

[00:25:46] I like that. Right. And it’s like you said, the, the answers that he tries to provide are usually

[00:25:53] not like one line answers, right. They’re not, and they’re not usually just like, because you know,

[00:26:00] the, we’ve said this before, but the answer to every question on earth is it depends. Right.

[00:26:05] And, um, and Ray doesn’t leave it. It depends, but he’s like, that’s, that’s always the answer,

[00:26:11] you know, but he helps you find, you know, if it, if the answer to a question,

[00:26:16] is it depends, then what does it depend on, you know, and like, he helps you to kind of dig through

[00:26:20] that stuff. And you’re totally right. I mean, like, he’s a, he’s a great example of somebody

[00:26:24] who has built up a lot of trust capital, not by doing YouTube videos or, you know, being famous

[00:26:29] or whatever. Right. Um, but just by going back to kind of how you started by showing up, you know,

[00:26:34] and, and sharing, I mean, obviously he’s had lots of experience and, you know, he’s done a lot of

[00:26:39] things himself, but with that experience, he, you know, I wouldn’t have heard of him if the,

[00:26:45] like, it wasn’t for virtual coffee. Right. It’s not like somebody who is out there, I don’t know,

[00:26:51] whatever, you know, uh, being selfishly famous, right. It it’s because he is shows up and he

[00:26:58] provides thoughtful help and he shows that he cares about people, which is another, I think,

[00:27:02] big thing. Um, it can be easy, especially with tech stuff, you know, to forget that you’re

[00:27:10] dealing with people sometimes, you know, uh, like if somebody presents a, just a tech problem,

[00:27:15] you know, I’m having this bug with this react thing. I can’t figure it out. Blah, blah, blah.

[00:27:19] You know, um, it can be easy to, if you have run into that and you know, the answer to be, um,

[00:27:26] dismissive almost, or, you know, even if you’re helping, you know what I mean? To like the way

[00:27:30] you help can be sometimes not as helpful. Right. I mean, like there’s like, yes, I want the answer

[00:27:37] to the problem, like for sure, but not if you’re going to talk down to me, obviously, uh, you know,

[00:27:43] I mean, like there’s, I think we can all agree, like, don’t,

[00:27:45] that’s just like general thing, but there’s, you can be, you can be, I don’t know if rude is the

[00:27:52] right answer, but, uh, accidentally, like not on purpose, not as helpful or kind. Right. And, um,

[00:28:01] I think that we have a lot of people in virtual coffee that do a good job of, of, of doing that

[00:28:05] answering questions, but like kind of in a helpful way and maybe with some more context or, or asking

[00:28:10] them questions to see where, um, where they are or where they’re, where they are.

[00:28:15] In their process. Um, I, I talk about this a lot when I’m doing stuff like this is, is, uh, level

[00:28:22] setting. Right. Um, so if you’re trying to help somebody and this isn’t always like super helpful,

[00:28:29] uh, you know, if you’re in like a thread and Slack or whatever, you know, but lots of times

[00:28:33] in virtual coffee, I kind of know that people anyway. Right. But, um, if you are trying to

[00:28:38] help somebody, a very good thing to do is level setting is right, is figuring out where they are

[00:28:42] in their process, you know, and it’s not, uh,

[00:28:45] like if somebody is just starting out, this is their first like computer project ever.

[00:28:49] That is totally fine. And you’re going to need a lot of help, but I want to know that, you know,

[00:28:53] and if you’ve been working for five, 10 years and you are stuck on a thing, the way that I’m going

[00:28:59] to answer your questions and talk to you is going to be a little bit different and not like talk to

[00:29:03] you like, Oh, this is my peer. And Oh, that person’s just like my, you know, a noob, you

[00:29:08] know, it’s not like that, you know what I mean? But the, the ways that I answer questions is

[00:29:12] going to change drastically, um, depending on where a person is.

[00:29:15] Like, or if somebody is worked for 20 years in, you know, backend stuff, but is now trying

[00:29:23] JavaScript for the first time. Right. Again, I’m going to be, I’m going to talk to them

[00:29:27] differently too, because I, they have some amount of experience with development and they,

[00:29:32] you know, so they’ve built up that, those tools in their brain. And the, the, the trick here is

[00:29:37] just like, yeah, it’s JavaScript. So it’s going to be weird, you know, like the, you know what I

[00:29:41] mean? But it’s a little, a little bit different. Right. But that kind of information isn’t really

[00:29:44] useful for somebody who’s just.

[00:29:45] Starting out, um, in, in tech and beginning, right. Like explaining the weird crap that

[00:29:52] JavaScript does. They don’t need to, they don’t need to know that they’ll figure it out, you

[00:29:56] know, eventually. Right. Uh, but if somebody is used to like C plus plus, and then comes to

[00:30:02] JavaScript, they might have some, uh, you know, they might run into some interesting things that

[00:30:06] they don’t expect. Uh, so, so that kind of thing. And that’s, uh, you know, that’s the kind of

[00:30:11] thing a lot of our members do really, really well. Um, and yeah, you mentioned Kirk,

[00:30:15] also, like, I mean, I, I mean, this goes back to, I reached out to Kirk and, and, and, you know,

[00:30:23] hired him, I don’t know how long ago, almost a year ago, I think something like that, um,

[00:30:27] with sprockets. And it was based purely on, I mean, a lot of things, but like, I mean, he’s my,

[00:30:34] he’s my friend. So, you know, it’s, it’s like your friends, you know, really well, whether you’ve

[00:30:39] thought about trust capital or not, you know, but he has done the kind of things over the years

[00:30:43] that, um,

[00:30:45] that have built up a lot of trust capital, especially with, like you said, thoughtful,

[00:30:50] respectful, that kind of thing, the way he approaches things. Um, not, not even just

[00:30:55] developer stuff. There are, there are like people in the world that are very good developers that I

[00:31:02] would never want to work with, you know? Um, and this is like, this is like some of the trust

[00:31:06] capital stuff. And, and also some of the, I don’t know, maybe it’s all tied up. Maybe,

[00:31:10] maybe it’s like tied up together, you know? Yeah. I feel like, um, when we talk about trust capital

[00:31:14] to it, I want to make sure that we recognize that it can be, it, I think it is both your technical

[00:31:22] skills and your core skills, right? Like these things work together. And so sometimes you’ll

[00:31:28] have more of a strength in one over the other, but what’s worth noting is that you can improve

[00:31:34] in both of those things. Um, and so, you know, maybe your technical skills are, you know,

[00:31:40] you’re at the newer end of things. And so they’re not really refined or you still have a lot of

[00:31:44] questions. That’s fine. Building that trust capital means you work on improving those skills,

[00:31:49] right? And you continue to show up and you do those things. And it shows like,

[00:31:53] okay, this person thought through this problem before they jumped into it. And it’s the same

[00:31:58] thing with core skills. Like if you’re not great at communication, that doesn’t mean that you’re

[00:32:03] forever not great at it. It just means that there’s room to improve and you take some time

[00:32:08] to do some listening, ask some questions and then move forward and progress in that too. And so I

[00:32:14] think that, you know, there’s a lot of different ways to improve trust capital, maybe doing an

[00:32:19] inventory of about like where you stand, what do you think your strengths are and how can you move

[00:32:23] forward with that would be useful. But, um, let us know what you think about trust capital. If you

[00:32:28] have some things that you want to add to the list, drop those in the comments and we hope you enjoyed

[00:32:34] this episode. All right. Thanks everyone. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the

[00:32:42] virtual coffee podcast.

[00:32:44] This episode was produced by Dan Ott and Bekah Hara-Weigel. If you have questions or comments,

[00:32:49] you can hit us up on Twitter at virtualcoffee.io or email us at podcast at virtualcoffee.io.

[00:32:54] You can find the show notes, sign up for the newsletter, buy some BC merch and check out all

[00:32:57] of our other resources on our website, virtualcoffee.io. If you’re interested in sponsoring

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[00:33:14] Bye.

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