I walk into a room and light it up. I get people laughing, usually within a minute. It is the one social skill I have never had to work at.
What I did not realize for a long time is what I am actually doing while that happens.
Inside a few minutes I know who in that room has nobody. I know who is having a bad day and covering it. I do not decide to do it and I cannot switch it off, and when I find that person I go and stand with them.
That is the answer to a question this book has been circling for a hundred and something pages, which is why a marketer would become this preoccupied with trust.
It is not a market position. I did not arrive at it by looking for a gap.
It is that I have spent my whole life watching what happens to people who are not being seen properly, and a business that cannot be understood, cannot be found, and cannot be verified is the same thing happening to a company. Somebody built something good and nobody can tell. That is the part I cannot leave alone.
The years I spent preaching taught me the mechanics of it. The rest of it I have had since I was six years old, arranging friends for a sister who did not want them.
That is what is actually underneath the argument. A book about trust written by somebody who will not tell you what he cares about is a book about technique.