CTRL+ALT+TRUST

Quoting poet Adam Phillips, “Trust is when you need not know, yet you trust.”

Quite heavy, huh? Yes, it’s a leap of faith. People would say it’s trusting even with your eyes closed. I beg to differ. I prefer to trust with my eyes wide open.

This kind of trust is not blindness. It’s rooted in experience. You make a mistake. You learn from that mistake, and you rise. Mistakes serve as our life instructors—the tough-love mentors who teach us resilience.

Let’s peek at a practical scenario: wearing a four-inch heel shoe to work. You stumble almost every time you wear it. Now, would you persist in wearing that shoe? Of course not! You’d toss it aside like yesterday’s paper (but not when your column is published) and pick a shorter pair.

Imagine coming to a meeting unprepared—your boss frowns upon it. You’ve been called out for it once, maybe twice. Would you dare be unprepared a third time? I don’t think so. Instead, you’d arm yourself with data, graphs, and a powerful presentation.

To trust with your eyes open means learning from these missteps and adjusting your approach. It also means accepting vulnerability. Success isn’t guaranteed, no matter how much you’ve covered your bases. There’s always that possibility of stumbling.

And when you do fall, what then? You don’t wallow in defeat; you rise like a Phoenix. You analyze, strategize, and move forward—that’s resiliency in action.

Remember the Ms. Universe contestant who stumbled on stage? Or that scene in “Sex and the City” where Carrie Bradshaw tumbled while strutting down the runway? Did they lose their poise? Not a chance. They got up, dusted themselves off, smiled, and carried on with a groove.

That’s the art of getting up—maintaining grace under pressure.

And lastly, trusting with your eyes open leaves scars. They may be physical scars or emotional scars, visible or hidden. They are beautiful reminders of those times when we stumbled and got up. You hear them whisper, “Hey, you stumbled here, but you managed to get up.”

Applying this wisdom to the modern corporate world, trusting with eyes open becomes a strategic dance—a professional rhythm we learn to master through the years. We acknowledge errors, but they don’t stop us. Instead, we assess risks, implement calculated moves, and adapt to change.

Success is a corporate tango with missteps and recoveries. We learn, rise, and groove to the beat of resilience.

To trust is not blindness. To trust is to be beautifully aware.