One of the greatest opportunities for us all to improve our trustworthiness lies in the self-orientation variable of the trust equation. Fortunately, there are specific things we all can do about that.

I was talking to a friend/colleague just the other day who recently lost her father after many years of illness. It’s always so hard to know what to say in these moments, and I reached back to lessons shared from Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg after her husband’s unexpected death. Given all the turmoil in our world, and, in particular, the disasters befalling the U.S. in recent weeks, I thought a re-post was called for.

This week got off to a rocky start with the realization that my computer, which had been coughing and sputtering for several days, was officially on life support. So I scrambled to deal with this major productivity hit while of course muttering multiple times to myself, “Will it matter a year from now?”

I recall the time I ran for a seat on the condo board of what was then a brand new community. I lost. In front of about 60 people. Looking back at what worked and didn’t about my little platform speech (I had three minutes to pitch myself to the group), I see three important lessons about trust-building to tease out of my defeat.