Can your teen be trusted?
Do you remember the first time your trust was broken?
And the last time?
If you’re like me, just thinking about it makes you crunch your face and tighten your palm into a fist. Your eyes narrow in anger.
But here is the twist: you aren’t just annoyed with the person who broke your trust; you are furious with yourself for letting them do it. And that makes you hate that person a tad bit more, because they have made you feel foolish in your own eyes.
Trust is tricky
Yet, trust is exactly what we seek.
When Rose from Titanic meets Jack at the bow of the ship, he tells her to take his hand and close her eyes. He asks a simple question: “Do you TRUST me?”
“I TRUST you,” she replies.
That single moment sets the foundation for their legendary story.
Trust isn’t just the cornerstone of romance; it is the absolute foundation of every human relationship:
Doctors need their patients’ trust so patients will confide the raw, uncomfortable medical truths necessary for a correct diagnosis.
Lawyers view a client’s trust as their most serious asset; if a client doesn’t trust their counsel, they withhold information, completely handicapping the lawyer’s ability to defend them.
Influencers and Celebrities guard their audience’s trust fiercely. If they break it with a bad endorsement, their credibility takes a fatal beating.
Strip away the titles, and all of us are constantly vying for the trust of the people around us.
If people do not trust us, they will not work with us. Period.
Trust trumps everything
It even trumps quality and qualifications.
When you meet someone in a professional setting, what is the first thing they ask?
“What do you do?”
Have you ever wondered what they are actually asking? They don’t just want to know your job title.
They want to know who you really are, what you want from them, and whether or not you are trustworthy.
At all times, we are viewed through trust-colored glasses. Our minds naturally want to believe in things, but we also carry an ancient, self-protective mechanism that makes us fundamentally suspicious of others.
So… how does your teen measure up?
Just thinking about it can make a parent sweat. It’s not just about your teen being liked; it’s about their credibility. It is mind-boggling to realize that everything we take pride in—our teen’s grades, achievements, and technical skills—can become totally irrelevant when stacked against something as intangible as trust.
But there is good news. Trust is a skill. It can be earned. And the secret to earning it lies in a very unexpected place.
Meet our “weak” superheroes
Wait… weak superheroes?
Yes, weak superheroes: Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man.
It is their profound weaknesses that connect us to them.
It is their flaws that make us trust them.
We are captivated by their ordinary humanness, not their superhumanness.
Deep down, we are fascinated by how they fight the odds—not because they are perfect, but despite the fact that they are fundamentally broken.
Superman is an alien god, yet he constantly craves basic human belonging.
Batman has infinite billions, yet he lacks control over the psychological chaos around him.
Spider-Man can stop a speeding train, yet he cannot seem to get his personal life together.
We relate to their struggles.
Our hearts go out to Peter Parker dealing with the distress of seeing Mary Jane date Harry, Bruce Wayne dealing with the suffocating guilt of failing to save Rachel Dawes, and Clark Kent feeling entirely lonely while surrounded by a world of people.
That vulnerability makes us connect with them on a personal level.
They motivate us and help us deal with our own mess because they mirror our reality. We don’t admire them because of their powers; we empathize with them because of their imperfections.
The Power of Imperfection
Can I tell you a little personal story?
When I was in my twenties, I was unabashedly myself. I was entirely willing to let go of who I should be in order to just be who I was.
Because of that, I had zero fear. I would pick up the phone and cold-call or email absolutely anybody. From the heads of massive consulting firms and managing partners of top law firms to board members of nonprofits and editors of leading newspapers, I landed informational interviews with the absolute who’s who of New York City.
That fearlessness opened up incredible professional opportunities. In fact, every single one of my major projects came through those cold connections.
This might sound like a calculated, polished strategy, but it wasn’t.
It was incredibly easy precisely because I was so raw and inexperienced that I didn’t know what it meant to try to look perfect.
I was just me.
I was willing to invest in relationships without immediate expectations, I was completely okay with being turned down, and I wasn’t trying to pretend to be something I wasn’t.
I didn’t realize it then, but I recognize it now:
Our vulnerabilities make us real.
In a world obsessed with artificial perfection, when people see genuine imperfection, they lean in. They trust you.
Allow your teen to be imperfect.
Have you ever wondered what makes Oprah Winfrey one of the most powerful and influential people on the planet? She isn’t just a brand; she is a kingmaker. If she endorses a product, it sells out overnight.
Why? Because the world trusts her implicitly.
And she earned that trust by having the remarkable courage to reveal her vulnerabilities.
She has always been an open book about the painful, unpolished episodes of her life.
If the most successful communicators on Earth build trust through vulnerability, why are we forcing our teens to hide theirs?
Forget the finesse
It is time to embrace your child’s flaws—even their vulnerabilities. Allow them to share the stories of their struggles. Let them admit to the challenges they face.
In a desperate attempt to seem perfect to colleges, employers, and peers, teenagers often scrub away the very essence of what matters.
They lose what makes them beautiful. They lose what makes them them.
The irony is that we are entering a world where artificial intelligence can help anyone create a polished version of themselves instantly. A teenager can now generate a perfect résumé, a flawless essay, or a carefully crafted personal statement in seconds. But trust has never been built on perfection. It has always been built on the small signs that there is a real person underneath.
Don’t fret over their flaws: it’s entirely futile.
As a student of literature and film, I’ve always believed in the power of the flawed protagonist. There is a “fine madness” that grips great writers and artists.
But as I built a career in the real world, I realized it isn’t just the artsy types who are fabulously flawed—anybody who achieves anything remarkable is imperfect in one way or another. Look at the histories of Steve Jobs, Estée Lauder, Winston Churchill, or Thomas Jefferson. The list goes on forever.
The flaw itself is never the problem. If your teen learns to own their flaws with self-awareness, the world won’t judge them; they will praise them for it.
When a young person stops pretending to be perfect, they become instantly less suspicious.
They become human: someone who isn’t flawless, but is entirely capable of achieving great things if given a chance.