I’m into the second module of Veritus Group’s Making an Effective Donor Ask. I could rave about so many things about it, and perhaps I will in another post. Today I want to talk about self-trust, though.
When I turned 30, I spent a lot of time trying to figure myself out and really own my voice. It’s when I launched this blog. Took on the altMBA and more. I started to be less timid about using my voice. Since having my daughter, I feel like that process of rooting into who I am has gone into warp speed.
I haven’t been able to articulate it very well until I was reading an article this evening as part of my course on The Role of Trust in Major Gift Fundraising. It outlines the process we need to go through in order to have the trust that is required to sustain a relationship with a donor over multiple years and multiple gifts. Note: this self-trust as the foundation of a relationship, goes across pretty much any relationship in your life.
Guess where it started? Self-trust. It’s based on Stephen Covey’s book – The Speed of Trust. This states that the development of self-trust goes through the following path.
- It starts with integrity – being a person that is authentic, congruent and self-aware.
- It moves to intent where your motives contain genuine concern for people, purposes and society; where your agenda is to seek mutual benefit, not just yours, and; where your behaviour integrates motive and agenda in how you actually behave.
Light bulb. All of the work that I’d been doing since I turned 30, was centred on building self-trust. Basically exactly as outlined above by Mr. Covey. Becoming a Mom has caused me to ground even further in being authentic and self-aware. I strive to show up that way for my daughter and she’s the greatest motivation and accountability.
It’s so thrilling to finally be able to name what it is that is giving me the confidence to show up at home and at work with such clarity and sense of purpose. I also love that it gives me something to keep checking back against to ensure that I keep building up my self-trust.
p.s. It’s the first time I’ve written in forever (8 months). I’m just shy of two months of my daughter’s second birthday. I remember my sister telling me that around that mark you start to get more of yourself back. I think I’m starting to understand what she meant.
Being a Force for Good 