Trust With Robert Rostant [The Zero Dot Podcast #27]

When the world is in scarcity, fight or flight takes over and so, and that's what we do as
creatures.

Slowly and surely tribes expand, partnerships arise, nations are born.

And then borders are drawn and the choice to distrust anyone that doesn't match our vision
of who we are all because of fear, right?

Fear is the strongest motivator in all of our brains.

It's toxic, but it can also help us survive.

Fear of what you'll take away from us if you cross our borders, what you'll take away from
us if you assimilate, if you take over from us.

There's hatred and greed in there, but at its core, I think it's always fear.

ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, boys and girls, everyone of all ages, but those,
especially on Team Human, welcome to the Zero Dot Podcast.

This is where we come together to gather our resources, collect our efforts and realize
that when our resources are down and our chips are down, that's actually when we are most

strongest.

I'm Sam.

Daniel's in the background.

And John, where are you, John?

Hello, I'm John.

I've morphed into the second John.

I'm a Time Lord.

new John whose John is also Robert.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, I am accompanied by the lovely, the one and only
Robert Restante, our dear friend, our first Patreon support member.

Thank you so much for that.

The man with no limits himself, the green tea enjoyer, the student of exploration, Robert.

Welcome aboard, my friend.

Honestly, this is crazy being on the other side and I love it.

is great.

I said to Sam, I'm like, really glad to be on my favorite podcast.

And it does kind of sound like I'm kind of sounds like I'm kind of like talking on my ass,
but I'm really not.

love this podcast.

It is my favorite podcast.

awesome.

And you know, we're like 45 seconds in you use the word ass.

So now we'll get demonetized by YouTube.

Fantastic.

Really looking forward to that.

Arse.

That's correct.

But YouTube AI algorithm is that dumb.

I don't think you don't know the difference.

So you're fine.

You're fine.

I'm kidding.

We don't care about that stuff.

It's all good.

It's all good.

Welcome, boy, Robert.

I am pleased to have you with me, my friend.

And em as is tradition, we talk about things that are, you know, going so...

going pretty well before we talk about some deeper topics.

And I would love to talk about some really good news, Robert.

And one of the things that's really pressing to my heart, something that I've been kind of
looking at is we actually are a recent study just came out a twenty twenty six study

published in PNAS confirms that human lead exposure dropped roughly a hundredfold since
nine since the 1970s.

And that exposure is lead poisoning.

We have dropped.

100 fold since the 1970s, largely driven by environmental regulations like phasing out
leaded and leaded gasoline.

And as Daniel is a big fan of, we're a huge fan of our environment.

So whenever we make huge environmental changes to our ecosystem, it's Analyzing historical
hair samples, researchers found lead levels in humans fell from over 100 parts per million

to less than one part per million in 2024, demonstrating the dramatic impact of
environmental policies.

Robert.

Do remember a time when lead was just everywhere?

Lead paint especially?

do remember like specifically petrol stations would mention they had unleaded petrol,
which suggests they have a blooded petrol as well.

It's crazy.

At first I was like, I wonder if they're finding less lead because the lead made people's
hair fall out.

it's a really cool study.

Like, and also the fact that like, I mean, yeah, it makes sense looking at someone's hair
because that absorbs so many

Like, I'm not a science guy, but I assume it absorbs so many molecules,

Right?

Yeah.

And that's how they, that's how they are able to analyze this.

mean, taking us down memory lane, I'm going to share my screen in just a moment.

Fun fact, sharing screen in Riverside is not the best thing ever, but I've done it in a
way that hopefully Daniel will like it.

Cause now there's a bunch of space on each side to put our faces on.

But I'm showing a little memory capsule from the National Library of Medicine.

And Robert, we used to tell people that lead was good for you.

The Dutch boy was a marketing tool used in the 20s to say, hey, lead is fine for you.

You know, all painting to be done with the pure lead paint.

He's riding a lead horse.

He's riding a lead horse.

Look at this.

Lead.

It's fine.

Also, that's a brush, but it looks like a glass of wine for a second to me, but it's a
brush, right?

is- is- is blood poisoning or like alcoholism the Dutch boy's hobby?

uh

one is it?

And then this study right here, this ad, this advertisement, ad placed by the National
Lead Company, National Geographic Magazine, November of 1923, lead helps to guard your

health.

They literally used to promote lead.

Lead was good for you, they tried to argue.

I, you know, you know when like there's a weird push for something that you have no reason
to care about that is probably bad for you.

Yeah.

A hundred percent.

yeah.

man, excited batteries.

Yeah, so they used to have storage batteries.

So this is what started the chain of people going, hey, maybe lead isn't good for us.

They had this whole thing about electric storage batteries.

They would manufacture them.

uh But it turns out, uh shortly after, in 1914, they did a uh study by Alice Hamilton, a
physician activist, saying the manufacturing of these storage batteries is causing

significant dangerous hazards to all of the workers.

It's a significant threat.

And then...

In 1959, Chicago Defender argues news reported stories about the deadly results of the
illegally dumped battery casings.

So they dump these things instead of actually recycling or getting rid of them safely.

Those dumped casings would pilfer out into the air and children were dying from this
breathing the toxic lead sulfate.

And that's what got people to start thinking, hey, maybe this lead thing isn't super good
for us anymore.

Maybe.

like anything that kills you if you breathe it in, you know, we should rethink
advertising.

I am super glad that you're on the same page as me.

Anything that kills you, we should stop.

Now I do wanna do a quick little personal aside about this, because this does affect me a
little bit.

As Daniel and you all might know.

I recently got a home.

And when I got a home in the United States, it is a legal requirement that they give you
this fancy pamphlet to say, hey, if your home was built before a certain year,

specifically 1978, do you know there might be lead in your home?

This is how crazy this is, Robert.

So they give you this pamphlet, it's 20 pages.

Protect your family from lead in your home.

It says, hey, are you planning to buy or rent a home from before 1978?

This is an informational brochure to tell you all the ways in which lead will kill you and
be bad for you.

That must be terrifying, like...

It is absolutely terrifying, but we're not even at the most terrifying part, my friend
Robert.

They give you all this information, they tell you all the ways in which it can affect your
children, especially if they're younger than six years old, it affects their brains and

how they get developed.

So they're like, hey, please don't have children in these houses that might have lead
poisoning in them.

But here's the fun thing.

This whole pamphlet just basically tells you, be concerned about lead poisoning.

But from a legal perspective, the person you buy the house from, all they have to say is,
I am not aware.

as to whether or not this house has lead painted or not.

That's all they have to legally say.

And they are not required to do any kind of testing.

They're not required to check anything for you.

If you want to do any checking, you have to do it yourself as the homeowner or buyer or
renter.

That's insane.

That's crazy.

not checking at all.

like, because it in that case, like, I mean, from the worst like possible avenue, it could
be like, oh yeah, it will cost me money to check if there's lead poisoning.

I don't know if there's lead, I guess.

That's terrible.

It really is.

And when I was going back and forth, my real estate agent, he just basically said, ah I'm
not aware that there is any lead paint in the household.

That does not mean there is lead paint.

I'm just telling you that I am not aware.

And that was legally fine.

ah Yeah.

Now not to get too into the weeds in this, but like if your house has been repainted a
bunch of times since then, at the very least, the lead paint should be at least covered.

uh My house has been repainted quite a bit.

Every, every surface is repainted.

We don't have kids at this point, so that's the biggest risk and we seem to be okay there.

But I mean, that's just insane that we are still dealing with the ramifications of things
from pre-1978 with lead-based paint.

But it makes me happy.

It makes me joyous that this has dropped down so significantly that it's not a non-threat,
but it almost certainly is.

And that makes me happy.

Yeah, I mean, I was, I watched the video you sent me and it's like the way that lead
poisoning works, it like cuts off like the oxygen to the brain and it could lead to like

brain damage and like it there's probably like billions of people just have a little bit
of brain damage because of lead paint, you know, the the Dutch hobby.

Thank you Dutch Hobby for doing it.

There was an advertisement that I saw that I don't think is real.

I think someone just made it as a goof, but there's an advertisement saying, and the lead
paint is sweet like candy.

Go ahead and lick the walls.

Because the joke that people would say is, well, it's fine if your house is lead painted,
just don't lick the walls.

Like, no, it's in the particles, it's in the air, it's everywhere.

Like, you gotta be careful about that stuff.

Willy Wonka would never.

Seriously, ah but yeah again big win for science.

We love science here in the zero dot podcast science is how we live longer big win So
we're super happy about that ah We're gonna talk a little bit more about our major topic

in just a little bit before but before we do that I think it's important that we talk
about something a little quirky and let me ask my good friend Robert and potentially

Daniel are you familiar with the the the comedian actor and dare I say philosopher Rodney
Norman

actually not.

I didn't think so.

but I just want to clarify that the potentially Daniel was for a response and not
potentially a friend.

Just, yes, my dear friend Robert and potentially Daniel.

I've not quite made my mind up about being a friend just yet, but you

How dare you?

You know what I meant.

But yes, you're right.

Now, Daniel is always a dear friend, but yes, potentially if he wanted to give a response,
that's all.

Like I do want to say we had a lovely meetup a few years ago in Birmingham and just like
hanging out in the core was just bringing those memories back, you know.

Mmm, yeah, yeah, you're giving away our secrets.

We've seen each other in person.

Geez Louise.

That Sam guy was kind of awful, the other two, Daniel and Robert, they were great.

They were pretty good.

Pretty good folks.

Yeah.

you're great.

I did forget to uh complete the pizza order.

uh I did forget to click.

I always do that.

So what was I can't remember the name of the person.

Rodney Norman, Rodney Norman.

I'm going to share screen just a little bit.

won't, I won't, I only play one quick video, but Rod Norman is this individual right here.

You see from his scraggly face, comedian, actor, and philosopher.

This is a, I love it.

I'm giving a plug to this guy and I think we'd all really appreciate him.

He does these really short, quirky videos about life lessons, like embrace the ridiculous,
embrace the ridiculousness of life and enjoy it to its fullest.

He has a video in conclusion.

I have no idea.

He has a, he's a comedian.

So he has uh a bit of him doing standup for two minutes straight saying absolutely
nothing.

And it's the greatest opening of all time.

ah How to tell if you're stupid part one.

uh Spoiler warning.

If you are carbon based light form, you are already stupid.

So that's great.

uh Also, I do want to point out this guy's transformation.

I'm going to do some of his oldest, his oldest videos.

This is what he used to look like.

And he totally changed his shtick and kind of changed how he is.

He's more like just a bumbling philosopher now.

But I do want to play one quick short video here.

Let's see if I can get them.

Just to kind of give everyone a vibe of what this guy looks and feels like.

And let me just make sure when I click share, does it gonna share the audio?

It should.

Daniel will let me know if that's true.

Let's see this one right here.

Stop worrying about stuff.

Let's see Rodney Norman's lovely insight on stop worrying about stuff.

Just stuff like that, right?

I love that on multiple levels because one he does have a point and two Telling someone
who's not doing stuff like that that repeating cycle will terrify them.

That's very funny

want to play this one more.

If you feel like a failure, you need to hear this.

I love how his videos always have like have like a very inspirational quote, but as you
can probably imagine, there's there's something funny behind the surface.

And I can keep going on, but mean,

I love this guy's content because here's the thing we had an episode recently about, well,
Daniel and I were talking about, you know, the foibles of self-help and how much I do not

like the self-help industry.

I can get behind this stuff because it's short to the point.

Here's the truth of the matter is you're nothing special.

Don't worry about it.

Life's great.

You can choose to love life.

You can choose not the power still in your house.

And he does it in a funny, comedic manner.

I'm giving a plug to this guy.

I love him.

His name's Rodney Douglas Norman.

book would do, Like he just saved you 10 pounds.

it's kind of like, the episode was very powerful for me because I realized a few years ago
that self-help books just do not work with me.

I don't.

I don't get them like with regard with the exception of Marie Kondo, but that's like a
very different thing.

Like that's about cleaning a room, which you know, but yeah, yeah.

But if you watch her program, she's the most delightful human being I've seen on
television like.

Robert, you're saying something powerful, which is a lot of minimalists have weaponized
what Marie Kondo has said.

And she's like, no, that's not what I meant at all.

I meant literally ask yourself the meaningful question.

Does this spark joy?

And if it does keep it, that's it.

That's all I, that's all I want you to do.

I don't believe in minimalism.

She said that I don't believe in it, but minimalists, all those gurus out there have tried
to say, Marie Kondo was the first minimalist.

No, she wasn't.

No.

Yeah, like the way I see it, minimalism is great if you like doing it.

It's not something you should like it.

It upsets people.

I can see people who are like, I've got like, I love this thing.

Do I need to own it?

Maybe, maybe I shouldn't actually get rid of it.

It's like, get rid of if you want, keep it if you want.

Like, I think like there was a thing a while back where Marie Kondo was like, like, I
think a book.

lover was like, he saying we should throw away books and she's like, I actually have a
huge collection of books, like, just keep the ones I love.

Yeah.

Now I'm glad you're saying the self-help books don't work for you.

And I would argue they don't work for 99 % of people.

um They're not really supposed to.

There's this phenomenon Robert of when you are, I'm going to use the word intellectual, I,
I'm whatever that means.

But like if you're an intellectual, what intellectuals like to do is they like to learn
things and that's their form of procrastination.

So if I'm an intellectual,

and I want to learn something but I'm afraid of doing it, I'll buy a ton of books and read
up on it and it will make me feel like I'm making progress, but you're not.

ah

it's kind of like, it's the same way that, for example, somebody who decides, I'm going to
get into skiing now, I'm going to buy all the skiing stuff, I'm going to get everything

and does not ever go skiing.

It's kind of like getting the books, reading the books and being like, maybe I need more
books.

I don't know enough about the subject.

That's, yeah, that's that I feel.

Yeah, yeah.

And Daniel and I have talked about this a lot, but like, there's just a real value in
magic of just go do the thing.

Who cares if you know how to do it?

You'll learn along the way.

Um, I'm not a big, I used to be that person, the studious person of like, okay, I want to
learn this new thing.

I'm going to get my instruction manual.

I'm going to take the course.

I'm going to learn it from front to back every way.

A, if I'm able to get through it, which has been a handful of times, I actually know less
than the person who didn't.

do any of that stuff and just dove in and tried it a bunch of times.

I know less than they do.

B, more times than I don't get through it.

Cause I'm just bored.

I'm like, when do I get to do the thing I want to do?

No, before you that, you gotta do this one step, then this step, then this step, then this
step.

Like, no, no, no, just let me, let me, as we say, fuck around, find out here in
Philadelphia.

Let me make a ton of mistakes and just figure it out.

if you can still do it even after making a bunch of mistakes

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I endorse that with everyone in whatever way you can.

Like obviously if it's a life-saving thing, like don't do that with medicine.

you can't, if you're a neurosurgeon, you gotta like, you you actually have to study for
that.

But you know, in any hobby, anything that gives you passion, joy, just, just, just fuck
around, find out, see what happens.

It's actually interesting because over the last few weeks, been doing, I don't want to
steal any thunder from Daniel, but Daniel has an amazing artist for fight stick artwork.

And I have a brilliant fight stick that Daniel and I worked on together.

But I was doing a drawing and I was like, I'm learning how to use Copic markers and I want
to use them with pencil.

I want to do some inking.

I spent two weeks just leaving the picture on the floor being like, I know I can't ink it
yet.

Maybe I shouldn't ink it.

And then just yesterday I was just like, fuck it.

And I did some inking of my my little buddy's there.

That's awesome.

You've been working on that piece for a long time.

it's you just do it.

It's fine.

And it like at the very worst, I will mess up the drawing and have to do it again.

That's not that's that's a fun thing.

I think that's what people get stuck on.

The fear of having to do it again if you mess up.

Well, guess what?

If you have to do it again, it's going to get better the next time and the next time and
the next time and the next time.

em I'm not an artist per se, but I do music and I write a lot.

And I've said this many times.

There's no such thing as good writers.

There's only good rewriters.

Your first draft sucks.

It's supposed to suck.

Just get the words out.

Then you can clean it up, rewrite it as many times as you need to.

think...

um

There's an author I like, John Green.

I think at one point he said he had like 486 drafts of one of his novels.

Like he just rewrote it 486 times.

And that's all he does.

So go out there, do the thing.

memorized by now.

He's probably got the whole book memorized.

detail memorized and he probably knows every single sentence and why it's there and why
it's not there, which is incredibly powerful.

Right?

I mean, I can't say that for some of the things I've written.

Some things I'll get back to it months later, Robert, and I'll be like, why did I write
this?

Did I write this?

I don't even recognize this anymore.

But he probably at that point remembered everything he wrote.

Yeah, I've been there myself as well.

I like, it was writing is I haven't written for a long time.

And that's something I want to rectify.

But yeah, it's like, I will write something, I will do the draft, then leave it and then
come back to it and be like, why am I writing this?

Yeah.

And then, uh, only because it's circling the algorithm, I can see it in people's feeds,
but like Walton Goggins, the actor, he's been giving like acting advice and it's a very

quick spiel.

He's like, look, I can give you all the advice you need right now.

It's free.

It takes five minutes.

Here's what you do as an actor.

You read the script 250 times and then you give yourself up to an imaginary set of
circumstances and that's acting.

That's it.

And he asks Anthony Hopkins, he asks other famous actors, they all say the same thing.

Just read it 250 times.

That's it.

That's all you gotta do.

Just read it.

Don't necessarily memorize it, but by that point you probably will 250 times.

And then just give yourself up to other circumstances.

If the director gives you a note and says, hey, do this, do that, just do it and you're
done.

That's it.

it's just a case of doing the thing that reminds me have either of you seen this based on
a hierarchy Murakami book?

Have you guys seen the movie drive my car before?

I saw the trailer and I want to see it.

It looks phenomenal.

there is, uh I'm not to spoil anything, but there is a, like one of the themes is learning
lines for a play.

And it, I, like, it's in the first few minutes, but he basically says, just say the lines
in a very boring, flat way.

And he gets upset when someone tries to act, he's like, no, boring, flat way.

The, where that goes.

is I don't want to say anything about it but it's it's a very enjoyable film well it's
also it's also very like it's a quite it's got some harrowing moments in it as well like

it's a it's a really good film it's a very fun film it's also not a fun film

That's a funny thing we say when we say, I watched this film.

I saw this thing and it wasn't fun.

like, isn't everything supposed to be fun?

And what I mean by everything, I don't mean the subject matter has to be fun, but like I'm
literally playing imaginary with a screen in front of me and I know what's in front of me

isn't real.

So even if it's harrowing, it's still supposed to be fun and entertaining.

part is how you take it and how you react to it.

And I would say that's a film that has, like, I also say, like, I think I've read the
short story and the short story, like, just did not reach me.

This movie is its own thing.

I think the director is making a new, has made a new film that's in the Japanese film
festival, the Tokyo film festival or something.

Yeah, well I definitely want to check that movie out.

I saw the trailer, it looked phenomenal.

I definitely wanted to watch it, but I got the sense from just the trailer it was gonna be
a heavy, heavy watch, so I definitely want to be ready for that.

in so many ways.

One thing this director does really well as well is brings multiple different languages
into their films.

em And like, I think the new film has like people speaking in English, French and
Japanese.

So it looks cool.

all right, pretty cool, pretty neat.

But if you're listening, shout out to my friend Caleb, actually, who just was like, you
need to watch this film.

And he just sent me a link to Mubi where I could watch the film.

And I was like, thank you.

awesome.

Well thank you for sharing that Robert.

I know you're really liking the episode right now and I want you to keep watching it
because these guys are great.

But if you want to be part of our super secret club, the Club Zero Dot Club, come check
out our Patreon at patreon.com slash zero dot media.

to not only get our episodes earlier, but also get longer episodes with Patreon specific
content and bunch of extra cool features.

If you have any doubts about the value of our Patreon, let's go ahead and listen to an
official endorsement from one of our most beloved Patreon supporters, Robert himself.

so every Monday, I, they do a fantastic thing where they broadcast the episode live on
Patreon.

Sometimes I can't catch that, but I will always look forward to every Monday.

My favorite time is taking some time out to listen to the podcast or and watch the
podcast.

Sometimes I play Slay the Spire, but I consider that the second screen.

That's the second screen entertainment, not this.

But yeah, I,

Like the extended episodes are great, but not only that, like the fact that you get to
experience the episode early.

I'm a, I'm a freak.

like to listen to watch the episode, then listen to it again on Wednesdays.

Like just because I roll like that, but that extra content is great.

Being able to get the episode on time, but more importantly, even if you didn't get any of
that funding, this podcast is, is worth it because Daniel, John and Sam like put.

a lot of effort into this, they put their time into it and you can feel like you can just
feel like that energy and that energy deserves to be met with energy, you know.

All right so with all that stuff out of the way I want to talk about our main topic today
and it might just so happen that I had you in mind when I was thinking about this topic

and I wanted to kind of talk about this a little bit.

I want to talk about trust, what trust means in 2026 and what it means for all of us as
human beings but let's kind of go back a little bit.

So for those who don't know that my listeners and viewers that don't know who I am I'm a
leadership consultant, I'm a public speaker, I'm an executive coach.

I get to talk to leaders of all kinds across the country, the United States, as well as in
Europe.

uh And trust is really important to me.

It's important to the social sciences.

It's important to everyone that knows a thing about trust.

And when I think about today, in an age of uncertainty, information amidst misinformation,
algorithms feeding us tons of data that we didn't ask for thanks to information stored on

internet cookies that, you know, from years ago, we've long forgotten.

I think we've forgotten about trust.

Generally speaking, think we've forgotten the value of it.

Now, rather our default has turned from generally being open to trust to not trusting
anyone or anything at all.

We don't trust the information given to us.

We don't trust our colleagues.

know, Robert, you and I met via a channel called Discord and I was talking to someone
lately and they say they don't trust any of their Discord friends.

They're just people to spend time with but they don't trust any of them.

They would never do that.

Because as far as they were concerned, it...

Yeah.

I've met honestly some of the best friends I've ever had on Discord, yourself included and
Daniel.

It's like, I cannot imagine doing the same if I didn't trust the people on it.

in some capacity, right?

And yet it's a pretty common theme I'm seeing all across the board.

uh There's this idea that trust is quote unquote earned.

You earn trust, you it's not, you you gain my trust because you've earned it.

You've been awarded it, right?

And I think this hurts us in a lot of really big ways.

It keeps us apart rather than banding us together, which we at Zero Dot believe that's
when we are strongest.

It tribalizes us.

It prevents us from really meaningful relationships and good conversations.

um

as well, isn't it?

gatekeeping.

And I mean, obviously from my hemisphere, also, it, we know it, caps our performance and
it caps our, our ability to be efficient as leaders in that space, right?

You know, Robert, I'm thinking about this.

I've said this story before, but I'll say it again.

I'm teaching a workshop and at some point I asked the question about trust and I say, what
is your metric for knowing when you can trust someone?

I asked that question, you know, what what's your mechanism for knowing when you can trust
someone and most time when I asked that question most people they pause they listen they

think about it they don't have quite an answer because most people don't think about this
but one time I taught this and I asked that exact question and Robert I'll never forget it

without any hesitation there was a guy in the back he's sitting like this he's got his arm
crossed like this and he said without hesitation four years

That's so wild.

up laughing, but he was serious.

I'm like, four years, what do you It takes four years for you can trust anyone.

Four years.

New employee comes in.

I don't trust him for four years.

Right.

It takes a while.

Right.

uh And so I asked for his rationale.

Like, okay, cool.

You've got a metric.

So four years, what does that mean to you?

says, well, if I haven't met you before, I don't know anything about you.

And I figured it takes about four years for me to understand you in terms of how many
mistakes you've made and how you.

are willing to show up every single day and do the work and do everything well.

And after about four years, it takes four years to learn my job, by the way, so you can't
just like go do whatever you want to do willy nilly.

By about four years, if you've made it that far, okay, you've earned my trust.

So then I ask the next question.

Okay, so how does that person feel knowing that they're not going to have your trust for
four years?

And he said, well, I don't tell them.

And I said, well, here's the thing about human beings.

We're really good at sniffing that stuff out.

really good at figuring out, Hey, Robert, I get the feeling Robert doesn't like me or
trust me or there's something funny about it.

They will get a feeling.

They'll get a vibe from that.

And this is, yeah, exactly.

Something's going to seem off.

then because of that, the question is what performance are you leaving on the table?

What, what are you lacking in terms of efficiency and just cross team collaboration
because you're not willing to this person trust.

And that started making the person think.

here's the thing, like everyone else was laughing at this guy because they thought he was
ridiculous.

He was serious.

He'd been doing this for 30 years and he just, he just had learned the crap that if you
trust people too preemptively, you get hurt, you get smacked.

So don't do it anymore.

I mean, when when I hear that, like when I initially heard it, my thought was, I think
this person's been hurt or burnt in the past, and hurt people hurt people.

And it's kind of that idea that, like, it's quite sad and tragic, really, because in
saying that he is hiding this metric for if he trusts you or not.

He is not being trustworthy in their eyes if they know he's hiding something.

that's a great observation.

You're absolutely right.

uh And you know, I, what ends up happening is I referenced the Harvard Business Review.

So Harvard Business Review, they're their business forward, but they always do a study of
some kind about like leaders and trust.

And they just released something December 2nd, 2025.

The article is, most employees don't trust their leaders.

Here's what to do about it, right?

And here's the truth.

I spent a majority of my time working with up and coming leaders and managers and so
forth.

And I espouse the

the need and want to trust people, to show them the value of building and repairing trust.

And the good news is, Robert, as this should not surprise you, there's legitimate data
that backs up the need and want for leaders to develop trusting relationship with their

employees.

We're talking like 186 % more engagement from your employees who feel like they have a
trusting relationship from their boss.

Another scary stat, in the workplace globally, only 40 % of employees feel like their
leader cares about them.

That's a horrible stat, but...

Yeah.

186 % more engagement from employees who feel like they have a trusting relationship with
their boss.

186, that's practically double.

And the way I frame it, Robert, is the way I look at it is, okay, if you don't engage with
your employees, you're only getting half of an employee now.

So if you've got 20 people in your team and you're paying for that, you're paying for 20,
you're only getting 10, maybe 11 people.

Wouldn't you want to get all 20 of your people on board?

And this is true across all social sciences, every engagement survey across the board.

You get less call-outs, you get more productivity.

And most importantly to me, Robert, and I think to you, you get more fulfillment and
happiness from everyone.

Like knowing like, if I'm working in a company and like there's two bosses and one of them
is, you know, like kind of trusts people and kind of cares a lot.

and it shows and the other one's like, yeah, do this, this and this and then just randomly
calls you in because you've messed up something he didn't tell you was a problem.

I'm gonna choose like, and I'm gonna love working for the person that cares because it
shows and that passion spreads.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's a great call there, Robert.

know, I espouse the word sometimes of Simon Sinek, who is quoted in saying, you know,
there's two different types of leaders out there.

There's a type of leader that says, hey, Robert, your numbers have been down three months
in a row right now.

If we don't bring this up, I can't say for certain what's going to happen.

Or there's a leader that says, hey, Robert, your numbers have been down three months in a
row.

Is everything OK?

I'm worried about you.

I'm concerned about you.

and it's the people that ask that question, they genuinely care.

And it's important to like, you trust people who care, you know, if someone like, you
know, if like, if someone just makes it very obvious that they don't care about the topic

you're discussing, you're not gonna, you're not gonna think, oh, yeah, I'll talk to them
some more.

Okay.

Right.

No, I mean, you're, you're good.

Your fight or flight is going to be triggered.

You're going to see this person as a threat.

They're here to attack you, fight you.

Every human being on this planet thinks they're the protagonist, the hero of their own
story.

So if you are coming at them, they're just, they're just not going to be super receptive
to that period.

End of sentence.

Um, so the good news is when I talk to people and I get paid to talk to people across the
country and I, I convinced them of this, they see the value and they, they, they do want

to make it an effort to build more trusting relationships.

was able to win over that guy with his arms crossed.

who thought you had to spend four years and like, let's shrink it down to two, maybe like
six months.

Like just get, just make that time window smaller because as we're going to find out, you
know, a lot of people think trust is just something that organically happens.

And I vehemently defy that.

think trust is a choice.

Trust is an action.

It's a behavior you decide to make.

That's yeah.

think that it's good shrinking that time because even if they shrink it down to six to two
years, they're going to realize a lot quicker that trusting people is good and they're

going to shorten that time next time, feel.

You got to just get them into that door of making that choice, you know?

I love that.

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

My secret, Robert, is this, and you probably know this about me.

I try to trust people immediately.

I try almost immediately.

I don't know anything about you.

I'm going to give you my trust.

I just do it.

And one thing I also love is that you are very willing to give someone a second chance.

it, you know, I see you do it I'm like, I'm going to do more of this.

And I tell you what, makes, it makes life more fun.

You know, like, like I, in my life, I, there are very few people I have had to cut out of
my life.

And there are few where I thought I'm going to come back to this person later, you know.

But in giving, and that's after several second or third or fourth chances, in giving
someone a second chance or the benefit of the doubt, I have become friends with people

that I have just clashed with at first.

And it's been great.

Yeah.

I mean, that's a really powerful sentiment.

And what I love is that you're saying is because of my actions, you're being influenced to
do it.

And that's how trust works too.

Like if you see other people do it and you're more incentivized to do more of it and
everyone gets to kind of infect each other with the trust bug, the trust virus we'll call

it, right?

It's a good virus.

It's a good one.

I promise.

It's not that paint-licking needed.

Yeah, it's a good one.

We promise.

So the good news is the people I get to talk to, they're on board with it.

I'm able to convince them.

The bad news, and this makes, I'm not happy to say this, but it's my honest opinion and we
here at Zero Dot do believe in always being honest.

The bad news is even if they, all the people I talk to do what they say they're going to
do, even like 1 % of them, I'm not sure they have a shot.

And what I mean by that is they might have already lost.

Yeah.

the systems we have that have been set up for you, me, everyone else in between set us up
for mistrust for one another, while the efforts we can do might be valiant, they're

probably going to ultimately fail.

You know, where's my phone?

Supercomputer in your pocket, right?

I have a supercomputer in my pocket.

I've got social media.

I'm more connected to anyone than I've ever have been.

But the way social media works is it doesn't give for really good personal relationships.

There's not that there's not

opportunity for trust and Because we know of all the misinformation campaigns that are out
there I won't get too much into that it just people are just less trustful than they've

ever have been and so I think the system the the cards are stacked against us uh But
here's the thing even though I think they might fail ultimately I still think it's still

it's gonna be okay, and I think even if Net worth they got the cards stacked against them.

I think that's still enough uh

it just takes like, you know what?

If they try to trust someone and it's broken, just takes them trying again and trying
again.

And eventually it's going to take with someone somewhere.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so today for our topic, now that I've gotten through that intro, I want to offer
everyone a different view, a different way of looking at this.

Because if we all go down swinging, so be it, we lose, but at least we tried.

But at the same time, I think if we just change our lens, just a little bit of a tweak, we
have the benefit of opening up ourselves to brand new possibilities.

And to steal from our good friend, George Lucas, we might even have a new hope.

Ha ha ha funny funny funny George Lucas.

I'll take that ad revenue money now um Yeah, it was a $10,000 plug right there for mr.

George Lucas.

Just kidding.

He doesn't own Star Wars anymore It's actually Disney.

We're actually owned by Disney Corps.

Did you know that?

I mean, what isn't?

it's kind of like, I mean, like, yeah, kind of anything that you love entertainment-wise
is owned by one or two companies, but it's not the companies, it's the people that make

it, you know, that's at end of the day, you like the people involved, not necessarily the
IP ownership.

Yeah, yeah, you know what?

Daniel and I were just talking about this and it is so weird because this relates to be
like, Allegiant to a corporation and not think about the people.

You know this about me, Robert, like I get really into the weeds of like who makes the art
that I love, who are the people that made it, what were the tools?

And like, I think A, corporations do it on purpose.

They try to hide that from you.

So you get in love with their brand, right?

But like,

That's another topic from the time, but like, I really think we should all just spend a
little bit of effort figuring out who are the people that made the things that I love and

how can I follow their work wherever they go, whether it's with this company, another
company, et cetera.

Cause it's the people that make things are beautiful, not big mega corporations, no
offense Disney.

But if you want me to change my answer, Disney, $10,000 will do it.

10,000 kidding, kidding.

I don't sell that cheap.

It's more like 50,000, 50,000 anyway.

Yeah.

Don't rip yourself off.

But with that said, let's backtrack a little bit and let's imagine ourselves going back
thousands of years, know, the pillars of who we are.

We were cavemen, right?

We were in small tribes.

We hunted, we gathered.

Our tribes were basically our families, right?

The world was incredibly harsh.

Famine and death was always nearby.

We had threats from everywhere.

If we came across another tribe, we'd quickly use all of our senses, of which we have
five, unless you're Bruce Willis and you have a sixth one, use all of our senses.

you have Spider-Sense.

That's right, seventh one for Mr.

Peter Parker there.

To try to determine if they were a threat.

If they were, we would just kill them and take their stuff.

If not, we might still take their stuff because stuff is limited, right?

This stuff is limited quantities and we're always, we don't have enough stuff.

When the world is in scarcity, fight or flight takes over and so, and that's what we do as
creatures.

Slowly and surely tribes expand, partnerships arise, nations are born.

And then borders are drawn and the choice to distrust anyone that doesn't match our vision
of who we are all because of fear, right?

Fear is the strongest motivator in all of our brains.

It's toxic, but it can also help us survive.

Fear of what you'll take away from us if you cross our borders, what you'll take away from
us if you assimilate, if you take over from us.

There's hatred and greed in there, but at its core, I think it's always fear.

Speed along now to the modern era post-World War II.

First world countries such as United States have access to more food than any other time
in history.

Transportation, thanks to the automobile technology and railroad industry is becoming
easier.

Education is a priority for nations.

Yet, I don't know if you guys notice, still war persists.

As the great Ron Perlman has said, war never changes.

But that should only be on the front line, right?

You know, obviously war is going to happen, but for us little simpletons, our civvies as
we call it, civilians, uh that shouldn't be an issue.

except yet even within our safe borders, I'm seeing strife and war and distrust despite
having access to the most amount of information any single generation has ever had,

despite having relatively speaking the best healthcare, even though we can say it sucks,
it's still better than it used to be.

Despite the fact the world produces enough food to feed 10 billion people, Robert, 10
billion people per year.

We have 8 billion, by the way, so that's a surplus of 2 billion.

Around 11 % of the entire global population faces hunger.

due to distribution issues and about 14 to 17 % of food is lost or wasted.

I will never forget working in a deli in a grocery store and literally watching every
single night throwing out what would otherwise be pretty good food that someone could use

because it was like a week before expiration and the grocery store owner would say, well,
no one's going to buy it.

So let's throw it out anyway.

And it did not make sense for them to give it away to people that might need it because I
would have been a liability for them.

So let's just get rid of it.

Yeah, yeah.

It always I remember I used to work for a Japanese confectionery shop and the delicious
mochi would be like put in a bag and the bag would be taped up because they didn't want

anyone to access it outside of the shop.

um Luckily, I helped put a stop to this.

was like, look.

I'll take some home, this person will take some home, this person takes some home.

It's fine.

And we ended up taking it home.

Ah, okay.

All right.

Well, hey, at least they, at they did that for you, right?

uh I've seen it where they don't let anyone have it because it's a whole market thing,
right?

They want to make sure they own it.

And if you can't have it, we're going to throw it away.

So you can't have it anymore.

And there's that reliability, why is there afraid that someone will sue them as well?

Yeah.

One can see, I mean, from all this, like we should be more trustworthy of ourselves and
our neighbors, but thanks to social media, a lot of us are, if we have more, a lot of us

are not as trustworthy as we could be, but thanks to social media, we actually are
somewhat trustworthy.

Like Robert, you, me, Daniel, we know that we have more in common with each other across
the pond than our own oligarchs in our own, you know, systems of government.

Yeah.

otherwise they like to tell us we're different, but we're more like than they want us to
Despite the best foundation we've ever had the cards are stacked against us It seems the

world does not want us to trust each other It would seem to fit our survival instincts to
be wary of others and yet I see it a different way And so this is what I offer to you

Robert my friend three little things about trust.

How are you building trust?

How do you sustain trust and how do you repair trust?

I think if we all understand just those three elements and make it an active part of our
daily life, I think the world becomes a better place.

So want to open up to you, my good old friend Robert.

What are some of the ways in which you've been successful in building trust, either with
someone you don't know, somebody you don't know as well, maybe a total stranger?

What has worked for you, my friend?

I think for building trust with someone, I think the most important thing you could do is
just show you're there for someone.

And being there for someone doesn't mean that you're gonna be with them 24 hours a day,
because that's impossible.

For me, I'm very slow with like replying to messages.

It doesn't even mean I'm gonna be able to reply to your message tomorrow.

However, what it does mean is I can put aside the time

to hear you out, to hear what's bothering you and not judge what's bothering you.

I think that that's a very important way to create trust with people.

Not judging them.

Not judging.

That's really powerful, Robert.

It is hard!

It's like, I mean, I will be like, yeah, you're talking with someone um and, you know,
they tell you about uh a problem, but then they mentioned like just something that's one

of the things that you hear and you're like,

Oh, that's that's, know, be like, it's not about me.

Who cares?

Who cares what I think?

Hear them out.

Hear their problem.

Yeah, no, that's, that's huge.

Not judging people is really, we're really good at judging people.

Like just human beings just like to do this a lot.

We believe that our experience is the only lived experience.

ah I'll tell you one of the things I was taught early on that I keep reminding myself of,
because I have, we all have a natural tendency to judge, but if we can, absolutely.

It's an intrusive thought.

If I can shift it to how can I perceive this person, not judge them?

How can I be aware of their situation and give assumption of innocence on all sides, but
not judge them?

And I always check myself on that because I, I get judgy.

I do.

Sometimes someone will, I'll be trying to give someone some space and they'll tell me
what's going on.

And they'll just say that one thing as you were implying Robert.

I'm like, and I go, why the fuck were you doing that?

Well, no wonder you're suffering.

This is in my mind just starts spiraling.

And I go, no, this person does not need to hear that.

And also I don't know their whole story.

Right.

I mean, like from a video games perspective, you know, you have that person who is, you
have that person who's upset about their, m their rank going down.

And I could be like, it's an imaginary number.

I don't care, but it's not about their rank going down.

They have something else going on that's upsetting them.

This is the trigger for it.

I want to hear them out and just not judge them for that.

right.

Yeah.

And because we're all on team human, right?

You you just kind of did this beautiful thing where it's like, you know what?

This emotional response you're having, it's a response and there's something else
underneath the surface, right?

And that's how it all manifests.

And that's huge.

I love that you give people space.

And I think that's one of the greatest things we can do when we build trust with people is
give people space, the place to breathe and kind of be who they want to be and not judge

them.

I love that element and Robert, and I can say from our

and the many times we've talked and chatted, you do a marvelous job doing that.

But I love that you're honest and saying, it's hard.

It is hard.

hard.

you know, it's, it's, it's, so hard because we all have things that just like, we hear
them and we get like a little bit annoyed.

And like, like, like, for example, okay, you're talking to someone and they are there,
they're like,

Oh, I don't know if I should pursue this thing.

And I'm really interested in it, but there's a lot of issues.

And then you're like, what's the thing?

And they're like, AI.

And you're like.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Okay, okay.

But it's not about me.

It's at the end of the day.

And it's about the person and, you know, like, I'm not going to judge someone like they
could have a very ethical use for AI.

And I know I'm not a fan of AI.

But you know, who cares what I think at this point, I want to hear my friend out.

And you ask the thought provoking question of just like, okay, so what's stopping you?

Right?

What's stopping you?

What's, what's in your way right now?

What would be the worst thing that were to happen if you started it today?

What would be the worst thing?

And then in, in your imagination right now, what would be the best win case scenario?

What would that look like for you?

Right?

And just be a coach for that person.

Just be like, Hey man, I support you.

I'm cool with that.

Yeah.

mean, you know, it's, unless they're like, I'm thinking of murdering someone, then you're
like, oh, don't do that.

when they say things like that and it seems, yeah.

No.

For my listeners out there, I made a loud noise.

For my viewers, I was like, no, don't do that, right?

By the way, Robert, we have a running side gag joke where we have listeners and we have
viewers and the viewers see one thing and the listeners hear another thing, right?

I was going to like, I was going to participate in this and wear a very cool jacket and be
like, Oh, listeners, can't hear you can't see the cool jacket.

But I'm like, wait, let me eh I just wanted to wear my jumper business more comfortable.

I got this from like a secondhand store.

I wore it to the shop yesterday and I

who can't see anything, it's a peacock costume with multi colors in it.

Orange and green and purple.

No white or red at all on that jacket.

At all.

of jacket as well is like a Yokosuka jacket.

Yokosuka is the place in Shenmue.

And you see people wearing those jackets.

They're referred to as Skajan, which is short for Yokosuka, and Jan is short for jacket.

those are called Skajan and they are very cool in my opinion.

being honest.

He actually told you what it looked like.

I was being a jerk, but it's fine.

That's just how this works.

That's how this works.

I'm dressed all in white, by the way, for my listeners that I can't view my channel right
now, but you'll totally, yep.

Andrew WK cosplay.

That's it.

You'll have to watch the episode to see if I'm lying or not.

And if so, go in the comments and say, Sam is a liar.

And I'll know exactly what you mean by that.

Yeah.

my replica Neo Geo has a very cool looking...

I do not like this.

This is the worst thing I've ever seen.

It says whack.

wait.

It should be cool.

It's not.

So I usually just put a plushie over it.

Comfy to sit on.

That's what's important.

So giving people space, that's important.

You know what I like to do, Robert?

I like to ask people for their ideas and insights, even when I'm, I kind of don't want to
hear them.

I say, no, I do.

Let me ask the person in the back of the room, what are your ideas on this?

I want to get you involved in this conversation.

I want you to know that I care about you and I treat you equally like everyone else.

And we talked about this before, but I'm a big believer in

speaking last, like letting them talk first and speaking last as much as you possibly can.

I love your way of kind of giving people that what I call a trust builder.

These small itty bitty little ways you can show people you want to build trust with them.

It's like, think like, deep down, yeah, as you say, everyone sees themselves as the main
character.

Everyone wants to be the good guy.

Most people, if you give most people the benefit of the doubt, they want to do something
good.

And your friend who's looking at AI, they are looking at ways that it can help people
rather than ways that it can exploit people because they're a good person and you know

that.

Yeah, yeah.

And then on the other, I'm sorry.

no, no, no.

And while I might not be able, I might not understand a way that it can be used to help
people.

What do I know?

I, nothing, you know.

Not much, nothing gets hurt by asking a question.

Just ask questions, you know?

In fact, that's usually my litmus test of if I'm asking questions and the person gets
angry, I'm like, what's going on here?

I'm just asking questions.

I don't know.

I wanna learn more, right?

If this, yeah, it's like, so the last like uh I, so we're like replica Neo Geo in the
back.

I love fighting games.

Okay.

Now this, the Neo Geo is by a company that has disappointed me quite a lot in the last few
years, SNK.

The people involved, great people working on the games, but the people like

that are funding them.

Not so good, not so good.

But I was, one of my friends wanted to play a game by this company, City of the Wolves,
which is a game that I really tried to like.

I really tried to like it.

You might remember, I remember we played it, Sam, and I was kind of kidding myself about a
few things.

was like, oh, this isn't so bad.

But my friend was like, do you wanna play it?

And I was like,

I don't want to play it.

And they're like, Oh, why?

I was talking about all the reasons I didn't like it and why I didn't want to play it.

I'm like, no, there's something else is the problem here.

And I'm like, guys, I'm really sorry.

I think I'm in a bit of a bad mood today.

I, you know, I really, if you guys like the game good, it's just not for me.

Like, but the challenge is someone says, Hey, I'm upset because I want to get stronger at
this game.

don't get this game.

I don't say, fuck that game.

I say, you know, tell me more.

Sure, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah, and uh listeners of our podcast and viewers know that somehow, even when we bring on
a guest, we are all fighting game fans.

We love the fighting game genre, right?

They really do, they really do.

But I think you know, Robert, that in all the ways we can build trust, that's good, but
then you gotta do the hard part, which is sustain trust, because you have to keep it up.

And one of the easiest ways we can do this,

By easy, mean simple, but it's not easy because it's hard and it's scary.

You have to be willing to be vulnerable.

You have to be willing to show people your inner self, how you're thinking, how you're
feeling, show your weaknesses, show your strengths, show your lessons learned, all that

good stuff.

I'm seeing, I'm seeing, it's interesting.

I'm seeing people do a lot of this, but not from the place of building a trusting
relationship.

More like, I want to share my story because I'm not getting enough attention for XYZ
reason.

Let me share you my story, right?

And those are two very different things, but like, yeah.

there there is, you know, that there is that person that wants to like, you know, has had
something genuinely, like quite bad happen to them.

But they share a quite a weird time that doesn't really track with what else they're
talking about.

And it kind of feels more like they were waiting for their turn to say that rather than

you know, they wanted to talk to you about it.

Or like, you know, sometimes it's sometimes things happen, you know, sometimes something
you really need to talk about something and it comes up to the surface.

You know, but sometimes people just, yeah, people want to share it so they could say their
piece.

Yeah, there's also, it's a sort of revocation of like the TikTok culture.

And one of the things Daniel and I, I'm so proud of for both of us, and I know John would
say the same thing.

There's this thing called like the monetization of life.

Like, let me share with you all of my inner thoughts all the time.

Let me get views, let me get likes on stuff.

And Daniel, myself and John don't believe in that.

Like, ah, real life should be real life.

And it's not going to be glamorous and it's boring, but like when we show up to do our
work, it's what we do.

Right.

And so,

I think a lot of people think that's what life is, like just constantly blasting and
showing that stuff and like, ah, that's not quite what I mean by sharing and being

vulnerable.

Being vulnerable is when there's a problem you're trying to solve.

Or Robert, when you come to me and say, Sam,

I'm really distraught about this company SNK and what's going up at top.

really is, making me feel unsettled.

I can do one of two things.

wow, okay.

That's funny.

I could do one of two things.

I could say, Robert, I know what you're talking about.

There's nothing we can do about it.

So we just have to keep moving on.

And do you have no say in the matter?

So either put up or shut up.

Or I can say,

I think it's a great thing that's happening with this bigger, larger company and what
they're doing and how they're treating their employees and how they're owned by the Saudi

Arabia prince.

I think that's fantastic.

I could do the toxic positivity thing or I could shut you down or I could say.

Yeah, Robert, I'm having similar feelings.

I'm also struggling with this.

Pause a beat and just share that because what human beings want more than anything else is
to know that we're together, that we're not alone.

And the other options that I gave before basically just told you, Robert, you're wrong for
feeling how you're feeling, how dare you, and you're not like me.

And that's one of the...

One of the things I want us to step away from as much as we possibly can, know, Robert,
I've had the privilege of talking to so many people of different backgrounds and different

ideologies and different thoughts.

And when I get to the root of them, most of us are the same.

have programming to tell us a certain thing.

Like we think we're different, but when I ask the universal questions of, do you care for
your family?

Do you want a roof over your head?

Would you help your neighbor if you saw them struggling?

And they all say yes to this.

Then we're kind of all the same.

I remember when I was an English teacher in Japan, like, I like to think I have a really
good understanding of, well, I mean, you can't understand the whole culture, but I like to

think I have a relatively good understanding of the Japanese culture as an outsider to it.

But there was a phrase, you're you, which is like, it's having energy reserves.

And...

I thought I knew what that meant, but I didn't because one of my favorite students, really
great guy, said something like, I used to read Haruki Murakami and other writers, but I

don't have the you for it anymore.

I don't have the reserves for it anymore.

So I just read Jeffrey Archer because he talks about real life topics.

I got so annoyed.

I didn't express it in rage.

was like,

What do you mean you don't have the reserves?

Like, and like, I remember I got very annoyed with it.

But I thought, no, this is about me.

It's not about him.

I'll move on.

But he came back the next week and he was like, Robert, I think I explained myself the
wrong way.

So I noticed you were a bit shocked when I said that.

And I think what I meant was that I just don't have as much time to...

read too many books and I just really like Jeffrey Archer's books and they're addictive to
me at the moment.

It's not because it's, not, and I'm like, that's really cool.

I get it.

Don't worry.

And like, maybe I didn't quite understand the Japanese word.

yeah.

You speak to, speak to people like, like if I've just gone in and been like, oh, what, why
do you not have the energy reserves?

Like what makes you not have the energy reserves?

He has a family, he's working hard, know, and like, you know, he still appreciates books
and likes the books he likes, but he just reads a bit less.

Yeah, yeah, Robert, you're speaking a truth here about em

human beings are just, we are bad at expressing ourselves.

We need to express it's important, but we don't always say the right things.

And sometimes myself included, I get upset when you're not expressing yourself quote
unquote correctly.

And that's, that's not a failing.

It's just more of a, an observation of like, I should just be happy.

The person's willing to express, ask those exploratory questions, figure out a little bit
more and then move on with my day.

Instead of getting so hung up on the fact, wait, wait.

Like for instance, Robert, the thing that I get so hung up on is when people use the word
hate a lot.

I hate this.

I hate that.

I'm like, do you know what hate means?

Like hate means like, like despise with everything in your soul.

And all you're really saying is you don't like it.

That's, that's a totally different thing.

But I get triggered by that when people use the word hate, like it's nothing like hold on,
hold on.

uh

I, I, I'm like, you know, I, yeah, it's like, I've been guilty of it in the past as well.

I'd be like, Oh, I hate this.

I hate how they react to this.

And it's like, really, like, I think over the last, maybe 10 or so maybe more years, I'm
starting to learn that yeah, hate is much worse.

And it's much more insidious.

You know, it's not, it's not about like,

Like it's not about being upset that somebody ignored you in the hallway, know, it's
really dark stuff, you know.

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But again, language is a funny thing and everyone has different definitions for the stuff
and it's good to kind of check ourselves again, trying to be a, uh, be a bastion of trust,

you know, letting people express how they want to express, asking those questions.

Always a good thing.

Um, maybe think of, think I've said this story before, but I'll say it again.

Maybe think of, uh, a trainer I had a physical trainer.

Um, nice enough guy, you know, he, he had to hit.

background in like biomechanics and like kinesiology.

So like he knew his stuff and I had told him what my goals were, which was to work on my
shoulders because my shoulders are both screwed up and we're working on stuff and working

on stuff and working on stuff and man, Robert, these workouts were kicking my butt.

Like these were like two and a half hour long workouts.

They took up all my day.

I'd be cooked all day.

And I was like, Hey, I'm having a hard time.

These workouts, because like I teach and stand up for a living and like

I can't go to these things like already spent and exhausted.

I need to find some balance.

And he kind of gaslit me a little bit and saying, no, you're not gonna make real gains if
you don't do it this particular way.

I'm like, okay, I guess I'll keep doing it.

And then after a while I came across some social, some like YouTube videos, sort of like
other ideologies of how to train.

And I said, hey, have you ever heard about this one content creator, this one video?

Let me send you the video right now in our chat.

I want to take a listen to it and tell me like, does this make sense?

Cause it sounds like his idea is to train less and that might help me out a bit.

I'll never forget this Robert.

He said, Hey Sam, um, that's kind of a long video.

Can you tell me exactly where in the video you want me to watch so I can answer your
question best?

I bet that drove you up the wall.

video was seven minutes long.

It was seven minutes long.

And he said it was kind of a long video.

He didn't have the time to watch the whole thing.

And I'm like, well, it's the whole video.

It's the whole, I didn't send you like a two hour long video.

I sent you a quick little seven minute video.

And then he basically said, yeah, that stuff's been going around the algorithm a bit.

It's all wrong.

I'm like, okay.

Now, funny aside, I don't know if it's related or not.

but literally the next day he gets fired and I get a new trainer.

I have no idea if it's related or not.

Have no clue.

though that that is interesting.

But like, I wonder like, if like, you know, if he watched it, I wonder it might have had a
completely different outcome.

I have no idea.

Now I have a great trainer.

He's a great guy.

I do 25 minute workouts every single day and they're perfect for me and they do what they
got.

way more sustainable than two two hour ones.

Like I can't even imagine a one hour one.

Well, you know, our producer Daniel loves longer form workouts and I think those are
fantastic.

It's just for what I'm currently doing with my work and everything else.

I can't spend two to three hours in the gym cooking myself to death.

And then, okay guys, let me talk to you about leadership.

Ow!

Yeah, and funding takes a lot.

takes a lot.

I also Yeah, so Daniel, I remember actually, I really liked your way of going about the
gym.

So you're like the gym is your place where you get various things like it's your social
place.

And it's your place where you can relax.

And like, yeah, having that longer session to do that.

I really like the idea of that.

it's not in fact, before this before this m recording session, I just come back from a big
session at the gym.

em It's, I don't mind the longer workouts because it's, it's not just my place to work
out.

Like it's, it's provides me with multiple things.

Like you said, it provides me with a social space.

It provides me with somewhere that I can go and

kind of be away from everything and just like getting to the zone and it's somewhere that
I can take care of my health.

It's a lot more to me than just the place where I lift weights.

And so in that sense, it doesn't feel as bad to me to have a workout go long because I'm
getting multiple sources of goodness from the gym.

I'm so glad that you get this source of so many things.

uh I remember like, there was a, I came down to Birmingham again, I think like last year.

And I think like,

or maybe the year before that.

And I remember I met with Daniel and like, think you had been working out quite recently
and I could just see the positive effect it had been having on you.

was just, the aura was just coming out, you know?

Oh, the aura.

got like that Dragon Ball Z glow around me, the Super Saiyan glow.

Yeah.

But no, it's, I totally get why people would like shorter workouts.

And the thing is, if my schedule were to change, then I might not be able to do the longer
workouts.

Like he said, it might just tuck me out so much that it means that I can't.

give what I need to give to the other things that I need to do.

So I'm enjoying it while I can.

relishing it while my life structure allows for it to be the way that it is.

The other thing that might've made me not like these longer workouts, Daniel, I'm assuming
when you took breaks in between your sets, like you took as long as you needed before you

felt good to do it, right?

My trainer was like, no, minute and a half for each one, minute and a half, don't take any
longer.

And I'm like break necking through it.

I'm doing like 26 different exercises.

I'm getting cooked.

I'm like, ugh.

Bye

A minute and a half is like, that's nothing.

I knew it was wrong, but he was the scientist, so I was following his lead on it.

I am a full staunch believer of take as long as you need in between each set, recover as
much as you can, make sure each set feels the best it possibly can.

That's my pro, non-expert opinion to anyone listening or watching right now.

And then like the though you were doing something that was really tough for you came from
a place of respect and trust, you you you trusted.

Yeah.

wrong in every way, but I will trust you.

uh

and that's the thing with trust.

Sometimes it sometimes I like this.

I don't think trust ever backfires.

I do think sometimes people do things that hurts that hurts the trust.

But I don't think trusting them is a mistake in the first place.

I love that you think that because I have a similar ideology.

I don't know that it doesn't or does backfire, but I've never regretted trusting someone.

Yeah, it's like because

me, even if it really did do damage, I'm glad I made the choice to trust.

It's okay.

And also it's like, haven't really thought about it this way, but like in the past when
someone breaks, had broken my trust, I would be harder myself for, for like, for trusting

them.

But now I think, you know, I didn't actually do anything wrong.

you know, I trusted them and was nice.

It's unfortunately they weren't ready for that trust.

And uh,

right?

I I've had relationships that fell apart.

I gave them all the trust that I could and they chose a different path and I could easily
go, well, I shouldn't have trusted that person.

No, I'm glad I did.

I'm glad I gave them a shot, you know, and if they ever come back and we want to try
again, I'm more than happy to do it.

And that makes my life so much easier.

uh It's painful, it's hard, but for me, I find it worthwhile and the sciences say it is.

One of the things I want to say about sustaining trust is that vulnerability piece.

And I know Daniel's talked about this quite a bit and we got to be sensitive to this.

And anyone that has ADHD has to be sensitive to this.

Sharing is important.

Oversharing can be dangerous.

It's because once you overshare, you now make the conversation about yourself and that's
not what anyone wants.

Right.

And I know a lot of people are sensitive to that.

So the model I typically say to people when you want to share something really important,
tell a quick story, a three sentence story.

What's the situation?

What are the actions you took?

What was the impact and then get out.

And if they have more questions for you, feel free to expound on it, but just do that
quick.

Hey, one time I was in a similar situation and, um, I didn't know what we were going to be
doing.

Uh, but I trusted a good colleague.

had some great conversations and that colleague became a mentor and we got out of it.

Okay.

And I'm grateful for that quick situation, ask a situation task, action and result.

That's the easiest formula to follow to give people good strategic share principles,
vulnerability.

And if they want to have more information, if you ask me follow up questions, I'll be
happy to tell you more, but just get in, get out without giving people the whole long

story, especially if you want to save yourself.

Yeah, I mean, you wouldn't want to burden them with a whole seven minutes.

uh

be a whole seven minutes, man.

Whole seven minutes.

I think it was six minutes and 58 seconds.

yeah.

Yeah.

man, actually prefer longer videos on YouTube.

I think if something's not 20 minutes, kind of like, I'm like, make it longer, make it.

I think I'm with you on that one.

honestly, I just like good videos.

Like don't give me a video that's five minutes of intro, get right to the point and let's
get to the meat of it.

my new litmus test, cause we've talked about this on the business side of the podcast is
like on YouTube, you can click the summarize button and AI will summarize it for you.

If your video is good, I won't want to summarize it.

If your video is like chalked with crappy intro nonsense and all this

click baiting nonsense.

And I'm like, but I'm, I'm interested in what you have to talk about quick summarize.

that's what you have to say.

I go to the 10 minute mark.

There it is.

Okay.

We're done.

Now, if the summary just makes no sense, that means that you're about to be in for a good
time.

true, that is true.

Fun fact, Robert, if you watch our podcast now on YouTube, I believe we have found a way
to subterfuge the summarize button.

You cannot click summarize anymore on our YouTube videos.

And because what we found was people were clicking on summarize and not watching the
episodes, which is not what we wanted.

So we put a quiz on each one.

It's a simple, dumb one question quiz, and that replaces the summary option.

You can't click summarize anymore.

That's awesome.

Now, for my one person that's listening that actually liked the summary, I know that you
don't exist because you don't listen to us, but by one person that does, I'm sorry.

yeah.

For more information, look to the quiz.

Look to the quiz, right?

Yeah.

And so, uh, as we sunset things, there's the building of trust, sustaining of trust, and
then probably the most important part, Robert, repairing of trust.

Cause last I checked, you're a human being and I'm a human being and Daniel's human.

We're all human beings, right?

So because you're human, you're going to break trust.

It's just going to happen.

I mean, and sometimes it's due to circumstances.

Sometimes it's due to neither side getting the full picture.

You know, it happens.

Like, I mean, I'm sure I've done it, you know.

comes from things you didn't intend to happen, but it just kind of happened, right?

Happens all the time.

my worst is scheduling two things at the same time by accident.

My God, how many times that has happened to me?

I just, I just tell people I'm going to schedule this with something else by accident.

need to check my diary these days unless I know I'm free.

I actually prefer less notice to more because more is like, I'm more likely to mess things
up.

That might be why I gave you three months notice for this particular showcase, right?

Oh yeah, and I think I missed five different things that are happening now.

Like, oh, I think it might be my wedding day.

But when people talk about broken trust, they think it's irreparable.

You can't repair it, but you actually can.

In fact, relationships become stronger after you've repaired them 99 times out of 100.

And we all are about to break someone's trust.

It's just a matter of whether we recognize when we might've done it.

Good trustworthy people recognize when they might've done something to break trust.

So the example that I use, Robert, is...

Do you call it highways in the UK?

Driving on the highway?

The motorway.

So let's use the word motorway.

You're on the motorway.

Let's say you're driving and you take a 30 minute commute to work every single day.

You've done it so many times, you're kind of falling asleep at the wheel.

You're thinking about the errands you got to do when you're done work.

You're thinking about the groceries you're thinking about.

You got to pick up the kids from XYZ thing.

And there's the turn and you're just about to miss it.

So you swerve into the turn lane.

I guess for you it's this way, whatever way you want to do it, right?

Yes, yes.

And as you do it, you cut off a couple of cars and you might do a little wave behind like
the backseat like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Right.

And you think to yourself, I'm a good driver.

I like normally never do this.

I'm sure that person knows better yet the person you just cut off, what are they thinking?

that they're swearing at you that they are.

Yeah, because they don't have the context.

They like, and the, the highway code is the only thing that is, is, has put that trust in
place.

And if someone breaks it, yeah.

yeah, and I have a whole spiel about our entire highway motorway system and how we placed
the onus of all of us to drive two metric ton vehicles at lethal speeds and the only

guardrail is a little white line in the middle of the road.

Oh boy, so glad that's in place.

do the hard shoulder in America?

Yes, we do.

Yeah, I've always been like fascinated by that term.

It's so weird.

When can-

A hard shoulder employs the existence of an easy shoulder.

Yeah, where's the soft shoulder at?

Where's the?

Where's the soft shoulder?

The soft squishy shoulder.

Where's the padding?

when you play bowling for the first time, they put those bumper pads.

Where's that?

That'd be nice.

Yeah, to get that nice bounce.

Boom, boom.

No, we don't get that, of course.

um So with that, I offer to us, if you've broken trust, it's not the end of world.

You can still fix it.

But here's a cool power move.

Reach out to someone when you don't know yet if you've broken trust, but you suspect you
might have.

And that's the greatest thing.

Like, hey, Robert, I realized I said something the other day and I didn't mean to say that
to you.

I didn't mean to come off this way.

Like the story you gave before about the person, I might not have articulated what I
wanted to do the way that it was.

And you might have said it was totally fine, and it probably was, but the fact that they
made the gesture to try to repair trust says everything.

Yeah, that was uh very like what Shinji he that's that's his name, an absolute gentleman.

I he was great.

I actually taught his like I taught his whole family.

I taught him his wife, his daughter.

They're lovely.

But yeah, like it was because he had the emotional intelligence to know that I might have
been upset by it.

And although I was professional about and I've moved on, he was like, just between you and
me as a person.

I said this, I probably meant this, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that meant a lot, right?

Cause what did I say?

that was like, it was, you know, I had my favourite students in Japan were the ones that
just treated me like a human being, you know, it makes a difference.

Again, 40 % of employees don't believe their manager cares.

I mean, that's just the workforce.

Imagine just showing that you care about someone, showing that reach out is huge.

um And I can say it's some of my best friendships I've ever had have, there've been some
pretty bad blowups we've had.

And I'm like, there's no way we can repair trust, but we made the effort, we did it and
we're stronger because of it.

um I've spoken about my marriage to my fantastic, incredible and amazing wife.

There were some dark times in our relationship.

There were times when

are we gonna make it?

And we did, and now we're stronger than ever because of it, and I'm super grateful for
that.

So it is possible.

just wanted to shout out to Chris.

Every time I've always been a delightful time meeting Chris.

a delightful human being.

Yeah, she is.

She's way smarter than me too, which is the best part because I get to pretend like I'm
smart here on the podcast, but like she's the actual the brains of the operation.

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

tell you like what like the, I remember when we were in Birmingham and like she was like,
I like your badge on your bag.

uh the badge on my bag is a frog with the bisexual flag.

And I had come out as bisexual in that year and meant an immense amount that someone
noticed that.

So thank you, Chris.

you know, and

you know, I get that that really, like, really moving moment, you know, that that's the
kind of thing that creates trust, though, it's like, you notice something cool about

someone.

And, yeah, you know, that's all it takes.

It's, yeah, like, just noticing things, you know, it's important.

commenting on things of which you have power over, Like the articles of clothing, the
things you have on your badge, the choices you have made with yourself aesthetically-wise,

commenting on that, shouting that out, that's huge.

I remember like uh some of the worst compliments I've ever received.

ah I remember once was a friend who like he said to me, you know, you're shorter than I
realize you have the air of a tall person.

And I'm like,

the time as another fellow short person, all the time.

I've just said, I wasn't thinking about my height.

I am now.

know, and like he meant well, but like, you know, today when I was at the store, I see
someone wearing a cool jumper.

I love your cardigan.

It looks, I wish I had one.

It looks sunny outside, but respect.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I mean, it's the great stuff, right?

Yeah.

Us, short kings, as they say, um, me, especially I'm virtual a lot.

So when I get to, I'm working with people virtually, and then I meet them in a first and
like, Oh, wow, I thought you were like six foot five.

I'm like, no, I'm short.

it's like, I've always thought that it's funny, actually, I didn't really think or care
much about my height until I met some friends when I was in Japan who were expats.

And one was from America and one was from Scotland.

And well, not that that's important, but they kept like the...

uh

One of them was very short, one of them was very tall and the short one cared so much
about his height and it kind of spread to me.

It's like, I don't care so much now because it's like, you know, it doesn't matter.

Really.

I have a dear friend who's tall.

He's 6'3".

6'3", which hold on, my UK friends, let's get that into...

Yeah, I'm like numbers, yes.

you see, that's strange because I work in feet.

I work in feet and inches despite, yeah.

Whenever someone says like, I'm so and so centimeters tall, I'm like, that means nothing
to me.

See, for me, this makes perfect sense because I checked my giant robot height in the
metric system.

I know from my Japanese character guides, I know the height of the Yu-Gi-Oh characters,
you know?

centimeter heights mean nothing to me and I also don't weigh myself in kilograms either.

m I weigh myself in stone.

See, stone really confuses me.

I am...

and I don't know why I've latched onto those specific measurements, but like, yeah, I
measure things in feet and I weigh things in stone.

So you measure things in what we call freedom units, freedom units.

Yeah, we're so free.

judging down back as we speak, the guy or if it's

No, I'm charging in three.

Yes, yes, that's uh...

notation so much, but yes, I'm charging in three or one defensive or offensive crouch.

uh So six for three is 190 centimeters.

Just so anyway, I'm just saying that he's a taller fellow.

uh He is so fixated on the fact that I'm shorter than him and he's so fixated that he's
taller than everyone else and he likes being tall and he brings it up a lot of

conversations.

And I'm like, why do you care so much?

I'm not thinking about what's, what's so important.

And we, we talked to someone once here on the podcast or no, I remember talking to someone
and they, admitted like height is really important to me.

It is important that I'm taller than other people.

It is, it is a part of stature.

And so I can't imagine you Sam being so short.

You must hate yourself.

I'm like, what?

What?

I didn't, I didn't.

Like, I, uh, it's, like, like, I wonder as well, was that drilled into him?

Was it like the idea that, that like, I have this going for me even if I don't have other
things?

Now I could say, uh, one fun fact about me and both of you have met me.

So you might be able to say yay or nay on this.

I've had people tell me that they think I'm taller than I am like actually in person,
like, Oh, you're only five, six.

You look like you're like five, eight.

I'm like, I'm five, six.

And the reason is, is I stand straight up and I don't cower.

I don't crouch.

I don't do any of that stuff.

I've had a lot of people tell me that.

So, I mean, I think the way you carry yourself means a lot more.

Um, only offensive crouch.

Yeah.

I don't

I want to offend you when I'm crouching.

Don't we call that tea bagging?

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, I mean, rock what you got, um, and show you care about people.

And again, when you want to call out someone, something about someone call out something
that they have control over.

Uh, my father is guilty of this and I call him out every single time he's an older
gentleman and he gets away with it because he's a cute older gentleman.

But he'll say, if he sees a young lady comes, Oh, you're so gorgeous.

Hello, gorgeous.

He'll just comment on that stuff and they laugh it off and it's fine.

Like dad, don't do that.

call out like their earrings or their hairstyle or their choice of clothing.

Mm-hmm.

that, you know?

And I bet it's like for someone who is complimented for their appearance, they're like,
man, but I went through all this trouble to pick out this earring and nobody cares about

this, you know, for example.

Yeah.

I've always found it uncomfortable when people comment on my physical physicalness.

Like, oh, you're so handsome.

I'm like, okay.

If we were in a different culture, I would be ugly, right?

It's all about culture in our society and like what we decide is handsome, not handsome,
whatever, you know, that kind of thing.

But yeah, so I mean, those three things, building trust, sustaining trust.

and repairing trust, I think if every person just spent a little bit of time working on
those three things, not only would the world be a better place, not only would we have

more trusting relationships, I think we'd all be a lot happier.

Because I'm a pretty happy guy, let me tell you.

um

yeah, I think as well, like, accountability is important, like, just be like, Yeah, I
fucked up.

Like, fucked up a lot.

You know, we all do.

It's like, we wouldn't be people would be robots if we didn't.

I've said it before, say it again.

think the strong, two greatest sentences in the English language are, I was wrong and I
don't know.

And if you have the ability to say those things, that is incredibly powerful.

For sure, for sure.

actually, I've come to like, you know, sometimes when you realize you're wrong, it does
take some getting used to and it can be a bit hard sometimes.

But ultimately, I always like being wrong about stuff.

Like, it widens my horizons and broadens my horizons.

And like, I've been wrong about a lot of stuff, you know, and like, I...

I for years, I thought I didn't I thought I detested Street Fighter four.

And just because of a lot of bad memories I had in the past with it.

And then I came back to it and I'm like, it's actually quite fun.

Nice.

Yeah, it's always nice to challenge our preconceived notions about things.

It's always nice to give ourselves room to try things again and again and again and you
never know what you might walk away from.

Yeah.

Well, Robert, before we start sunsetting things, is there anything you want to say?

Anything any any other further topics you want to talk about before we start wrapping up
the the primary episode before we get into the Patreon episode?

It's actually quite funny about sundowning because it maybe might take another hour or so,
but the sun will come down um in the UK.

um and I'll get a bit less natural light soon.

Oh, I'll get a bit less natural light soon.

literally sundowning on your face.

first of all, um, I w I want to shout out John who I, who, you he's, he's, uh, he's
fighting the good fight.

Um, but I, know, uh, John, I owe you a game of street fighter five.

and yeah, I hope you're doing well, buddy.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you again.

Um, and I also want to shout out an organization I volunteer for, which is Oxfam.

It stands for Oxford.

Famine Relief, and it's a charity which works on preventing hunger across the world,
providing clean drinking water to people across the world.

And it means a lot to me, this organization.

I also want to shout out, it was mentioned on a previous episode, but Feed America, I
think is a very important, especially when America is...

50 different places, at least 50 different places, you know.

And I know for a lot of people in the UK, people in the UK have preconceptions of what
they think America is like, no, you don't know, you don't know.

There's a lot of people, it's a big place.

like, you know, just think about hunger everywhere, really.

There are, even in parts of the UK, there are impoverished people, you know, the,

The poverty line is a real thing, you know, and we don't need any more lines dividing us.

we don't.

Well thank you Robert for donating your time to them and volunteering but also thank you
for that plug that's huge.

So one of the things that Zero Dot is we want to make sure that we give people resource to
do something about it.

So again check out Oxfam, their official website is you can do the Oxfam America website,
can do oxfam.org, it'll take you to the international website and literally you can donate

some funds if you literally have nothing else to spare but a couple bucks you can click a
one-time donation uh contribution to them.

Every single dollar counts, everything helps, and we want to make the world a better
place.

So thank you for that.

And if you can't afford to donate, just pop into the shop.

You might find like a book that you like.

I mean, I actually got like, I think this is a book that I would never have considered any
other time.

It's like, it's like about kind of starting how when you start a business, the hardest
part is the middle, but you can apply this to a bunch of stuff.

Like, em and it's just lots of like.

kind of no nonsense stuff for like just continuing where in the middle.

I wouldn't class it as a self-help book.

It's actually helpful.

and it doesn't class itself as a self-help book.

It classes itself as like, it's an educational resource, but like the fact you could take
stuff from it and like, just remember like, one of the things it says is that like, when a

lot of people are in the middle of something,

like some people like to use toxic positivity to to kind of encourage themselves but it's
best to be realistic because you like you need to like if something is bad you need to say

it's bad and and feel it and you could share that feeling with your other employees or
your other friends and you could really grow together

Yeah.

And just a shout out from what they're literally the Oxfam website literally says this.

14.3 million people around the world benefited directly from their programs last year.

727,000 people participated in their gender justice programs last year and projects and
4.7 million global citizens like all of us took actions last year in campaigns for social

change.

Robert, you're one of the 4.7.

So I'm giving you a round of applause.

Thank you so much, sir.

thanks very much.

like, it's very fun to work there and chat with people and I love it.

It gets me out of the house.

It's been great for my mental health and it's teaching me all kinds of stuff and it's fun.

That's great, awesome.

Hello, just jumping in quickly to give a thank you to our paid Patreon members.

In no particular order, they are Robert Rustant, David Rivera, William Kirk, JP, Aid, and
God of Grunts.

Thank you so much, everyone.

Really appreciate your support.

I'll let you get back to the episode.

Well, folks, that has been another episode of the Zero Dot Podcast.

I'm Sam.

This has been our lovely guest, Robert.

Thank you so much for being on the show, my friends.

It's been an absolute pleasure.

Until next time, you know where to tune in to find out more about Team Human and just
collect our energy reserves until next week.

Come check us out at thezerodotpodcast.com.

You can also find us in all places where all podcasts are aired from Apple podcasts to
Amazon Music to Spotify and everywhere in between.

Until next time, folks.

See ya.