Exponential Trust

I've written about trust quite a bit in the past. I even touched upon it last night in my thoughts on Mint's dilemma. But it's such an important and recurring topic that it deserves another small mention tonight.

Trust for a five-year-old is lending a toy to a friend and expecting to get it back. Trust for a fifteen-year-old is telling a secret and expecting it to be kept. Trust for a twenty-five-year-old is investing in a passion - individually, within a small team, and/or within a large organization - and expecting real fulfillment.

From these three points of experience, I can imagine that the meaning and value of trust continues to grow exponentially until the end of one's life. This also means that building trust becomes exponentially more difficult as the stakes increase.