There is an old saying that you can’t help someone unless they want to help themselves. It’s a truth that too often faces me when I’m working to help people see and realize a bigger vision for their lives. It could be a woman trying to gain financial independence, a student trying to finish college or

a business owner trying to save or grow their business. Through the newspaper business and its community role, I work with a lot of Hispanic people who usually know what they want but don’t trust their own judgement to make decisions needed to achieve their goals. Or they’ve lost their motivation because of the trust issue – trusting themselves or trusting others. Either way, if someone can’t make a decision or choice, they can’t take action towards their goals.

Trust is such a big issue in the Hispanic community: too many of us have been taken advantage of by people we thought we could trust and so we don’t know who to trust. But the most important thing that we’ve lost is the trust in ourselves – trust that we can make the right decisions and faith that we can really get what we want.

How do we learn to trust our own judgement? Through the lessons we learn from experience (doing things, taking action), the knowledge we gain by informing ourselves about business, finances, health, etc., and the self awareness we develop by always questioning our own actions, attitudes and beliefs (being honest with ourselves). Ultimately, we can’t put the trust issue on other people – the trust issue is in your hands.

Also, we have to accept that there will always be people who won’t be honest with us – recognizing and accepting this fact of life is part of being a self-directed adult. Our goal or attitude then is not “I’ll never get cheated again”, but “I’ll do my best to avoid dishonest people and I won’t let my lack of trust stop me from taking action.”