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Donald’s No Trust in Others Cost Him Bigly — Us Too.
“I am proudly putting America first, just as you should be putting your countries first”
They were words from this American President at the 75th year celebration of the United Nations. Well, it’s true that the US has always put itself first and at a guess other counties have done likewise. But, Donald’s first was different. It was a selfishness that seldom wins at an intimate person-to-person level or in the global world of nation-to-nation. The vital building block is trust — without this, valuable relationships don’t form or are not maintained.
I was brought up with a guy called James Wattie. He was a particular favorite with my mother. She reached for his green peas and canned spaghetti when in a fix to feed us hungry kids. James was a very successful New Zealander who owned not only food canning factories but in my young mind practically everything in the country, including “Rising Fast” — a race horse and winner of the Melbourne Cup. It turned out when James died that he didn’t have much of a pile after all. What he did have however were mountains of trust which he had steadfastly built up over the time I was growing tall — or at least tying to. It was trust in people who in turn trusted him. This was his “where-with-all” to build what he did.