Probably good and bad, right? What should you answer if someone you dont know asks you that? The normal thing would be to focus on the good stuff. But please dont miss the opportunity to include the bad.

Openness about bad things is showing vulnerability. Vulnerability is a catalyst for trust. Trust is foundational for everything we do with others in life. Also in doing startups.

Trust is foundational in human relations because we need it to know that people wont stab us. Also, we know that after building trust the good stuff comes: being heard, being seen and feel acknowledged. These sort of things. You also cooperate faster with trust, because you dont have to double check the intentions or if youve understood things correctly. Trust is important to us because we know how bad it feels to be disappointed. How it feels to be vulnerable and someone not listening, or if they share your secrets with others. So we build trust gradually, one positive interaction at a time. Therefore it makes sense to fill these interactions with as much trust building stuff as possible. But not too much.

Oversharing with new people can be bad. Probably because people can misunderstand what you say. They can think you are crazy.

We build trust in many ways, and doing trustbuildy-things in situations that matter score more points than in easy situations. In situations where its hard to do the right thing. This is why words dont mean as much as actions, because actions are harder.. Thats also why doing the right thing in high pressure situations score higher than in easy situations. 

One way of building trust is showing vulnerability, like sharing bad things that happened in the weekend. We all know that life is hard, so when someone just shares the good things we know they are lying. At least avoiding the truth. And you cant trust people that lie. Also, being vulnerable creates common grounds. Your life is hard, mine is too. Most people dont admit that bonding fact. Its like being from the same home town but not reaping the bonding benefits from it. Me being vulnerable also gives you something “on me”. Thats giving you power. Power is valuable, so im giving you value. This does two things, it creates reciprocation and they want to give back. If they give back it creates a flywheel back and forth where even more trust is built. Also they just generally may appreciate things of value. 

Its a balance. But like most people are eating a bit too much these days, i think we also are taking too much time in building trust. We could eat less and build trust faster.