To start this pierce I wanted a nice positive quote about ‘trust’. Jumping on Google I thought this would be easy, that the perfect quote would pop of the screen, instead I scrolled, and I scrolled, and I scrolled through quotes that YES were about ‘trust’ but not positive and in no way representative of the experience I am about to share.

It was a hot Thursday when my plane touched down in Houston, Texas. Adjusting my watch to local time and grabbing my bag from the carousel I then made myself to the taxi rank where a tall dude greeted me. This guy had a smile so big that it connected his ears together and as we drove into this new city we shared stories of dreams and life – because why not. Quickly our differences were united through our similarities and I really liked this guy. The next day I arranged for the same guy to pick me up to return me to the airport for my connecting flight onto Orlando. Florida.

As I popped up the handle to wheel suitcase he asked “when will you be back Cam? Can I pick you up on your stop over going home?” sure thing, that would be awesome! By this point I was left thinking there’s no other form of transport for me in this city, even if an Uber was cheaper this guy had ‘Awesome Factor’ and I was committed. A week passed and as promised the taxi driver was there to pick me up from the airport. As he’s driving me to my hotel he tells me of his financial pressures and asks me if I can prepay the next days return fare to the airport. At this point I cringe, it’s a bit of money, I’ve spent little time in the back of this guys car, I really barely know him.

However as a keynote speaker I barely know any of my audiences but with a desire to communicate, form connection and build rapport comes a mutual trust, this allows me to take them on a journey and when they ask favors of me I do what I can to serve. Maybe my driver is just like someone from the audience, maybe here I trust his journey, trust the communication, connection and rapport… and that’s what I did… was it the right thing to do? You bet! there he was the next day, bang on time and I have a new friend, his name is Ladi.

In this world we can look to build trust slowly or make friendships quickly, we can leave our professional tools in our jobs to make money or we can embrace them in personal lives to make memories, we can miss the familiar or embrace the unknown and while YES it can always be gamble, a win is a win and sometimes they make a world of difference.

Kintsukuroi comes as a result of something that has been broken, that when we see the likes of a broken bowl, broken cup, broken heirloom we have some choices;

We can throw it out and lose all the history, expertise and memories that it held

We can glue it back together with PVA but look at it knowing that it’s not as ‘perfect’ as it once was

Or we can stick it back together with liquid gold (this is kintsukuroi), making it stronger, more valuable, more awesome than it ever was to start with.

Sometimes we feel broken, sometimes we feel so together, sometimes we have bad days, sometimes we have good days, and whatever the circumstance in whatever to situation how we decide to be put together is our choice.

Last month I was presenting in an incredible arena to 400 + people, the atmosphere was electric and I wanted this to be perfect. As I got into my flow and clicked to my first slide I saw it is the wrong one, and so was the next one, so was the next one, and the one after that. In the minutes before getting on stage there had been a technical breakage with my slides. The question to myself (and only to me) as I continued to speak was ‘how do I now piece this together’?

I reached my equivalent of liquid gold, I called on my history, expertise and memories to create the ‘perfect’ result and much like my bowl people didn’t notice the breakage, they saw something that spoke to their desires and resulted in a standing ovation.

2019 is now upon us is an excellent opportunity to reflect on our lives and see how we are putting it together, what’s made us stronger, more valuable, more awesome than we were a year ago? And what are the things that help us stick together what may be broken.

Humor: If we take things too seriously we miss the comedic moments that can never be forgotten and possibly never seen again.

Perspective: Life doesn’t have to be ‘perfect’ to be awesome.

Knowledge: Knowledge is power, it gives us confidence and the more we know about our world, our jobs, our people, the more we can we all flourish.

As we transform from one year to another we can create something new, something beautiful, something truly awesome from what is already with us.

Good luck and enjoy your awesomeness.