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I've heard about your marble jar theory. So, I got a jar of marbles. I saw that.
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Could you explain to me your theory? This is how we teach trust. Where do I get my information? Ellen's in fourth
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grade, my oldest. She comes home from school. She slides down the door into a heap, sobbing. Oh my god, Ellen, are you
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okay? Are you hurt? What's going on? Something hard happened. She shared it very confidentially with one or two of
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her friends. They had told everybody in her class, all 30 kids, everybody was laughing and pointing and making fun of
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her. And she said, "I will never trust anyone again." And my mind was damn straight. Noting person. You trust your
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mama and that's it. That's not the right thing to do, right? You want a kid who can develop trust with others. So I
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said, "Trust is really hard." She said, "I don't understand it." I said, "Trust is the marble jar. Every time you share
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something with someone that's confidential and they don't share it, they get a marble." when you want to
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share something really private and personal, you look for a friend whose jar is full of marbles. Do you have any
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marble jar friends? And she said, "Hannah and Lorna." And I said, "Why? They've got big marble jars that are
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full." And I said, this was why it was crazy. Tell me something they do to earn marbles. Oh, well, like if I get to my
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tray late at lunch and there's no place to sit, Laura will scoot over and give me half her seat and I can sit at the
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table. And then the other day when I had streped throat, Hannah was worried about
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me. So remember her mom called and said, "Hannah's worried about Ellen. Why wasn't she at school?" But then the
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biggest thing that Hannah did was the other day and Opa, my parents, came to my soccer game and Hannah looked over
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and goes, "Oh my god, your ma and Opa are here." And I said, "Why was that a big deal?" And she goes, "Because
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everybody's divorced and remarried and I've got four sets of people." And she remembered their names. And what was
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shocking to me is that Ellen was conveying that these marbles were being earned on
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these very small. She knew my grandparents' name. She gave me a seat to sit at. She checked on me when I was
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missing school. Trust is built slowly over time, a marble at a time. And that's how that's how we teach trust to
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the most senior leaders in Fortune 100 companies. Leaders believe that in the middle of a crisis, you can just look at
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your people and say, "Trust me, here's what we're going to do." And it means nothing to people. What matters is the
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leader that walks past you in the morning and says, "Hey, good to see Stephen. How's your mom's chemo going?"
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Marbles. Marbles. Then when the crisis happens, you don't need to say, "Trust me." You just need to say what's on your
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mind. They trust you.