Trust is NOT Served with Your Degrees

☕ I Thought Degrees Would Make People Trust Me

For years, I thought my problem was authority. I looked young. Ridiculously young. No matter how much education and experience I had as a teacher, people assumed I knew less than they did before I ever opened my mouth.

Sometimes I would make a suggestion in a meeting and watch it disappear into the void. Then ten minutes later, an older person would say the exact same thing. Suddenly it was brilliant.

I wish I could say that happened once. But, no. It happened constantly.

So I did what a lot of ambitious people do. I went chasing credentials.

I earned an MBA in Global Management (like an International MBA). Surely that would make people listen.

Nope.

Then I earned a Master of Arts in Educational Leadership (MA- EDLD). At that point I had over a decade of classroom experience, leadership experience, and an administration internship under my belt. I had written curricula for two counties already and had two student teachers under my belt.

Surely NOW people would see me as an authority.

Nope.

Little did I know, I was collecting evidence that authority and trust are not the same thing.

☕ What Actually Made People Trust Me

The irony is that people eventually did trust me. Just not because of the letters after my name. I don't eben use them anymore (except maybe they're on my current LinkedIn profile?).

• They trusted me because I listened.

• They trusted me because I solved problems.

• They trusted me because I helped teachers figure out technology.

• They trusted me because I sat with frustrated parents and worked through solutions for their kids.

• They trusted me because I showed up repeatedly and consistently.

The trust was built one interaction at a time. Not one degree at a time.

☕ The Same Thing Happens On Social Media

This is where I see business owners getting it wrong all the time. They think trust comes from:

☕ credentials

☕ certifications

☕ experience

☕ awards

☕ titles

Those things can support trust, but they do not create it.

Trust is created when people repeatedly experience you.

• When they hear how you think.

• When they see how you solve problems.

• When they understand what you believe.

• When they observe how you treat people.

• When they see consistency.

That's why brand voice matters. And that's why visibility matters.

People are not evaluating your résumé. They're evaluating whether they trust you.

☕ Authority Followed Trust. Not The Other Way Around.

This took me years to learn. I spent a long time believing that if I could just prove I was qualified enough, people would trust me.

The opposite turned out to be true. People trusted me when I stopped trying to prove myself and started serving them. When I stopped collecting credentials and started having conversations. When I stopped worrying about appearing authoritative and focused on being useful.

It turns out my authority in the space was contingent upon me being fully me. And that's still true today.

That last line is the mic drop. Not because it's inspirational, but because it resolves the entire story:

Young teacher → degrees → frustration → realization → social media lesson.

And it gives trust a very different angle than the typical "know, like, trust" garbage everybody else writes about.

☕ How will you demonstrate your authority in your space?

The primary way you can build solid trust, authority, and credibility is through making videos in your social media.

I suggest starting with a hook (from or inspired by this list), then giving your response to the hook.

And don't hold back! You MUST lean into who you are. If you're not authentic, people will think you're fake, and you'll mess it all up. Yes, the opposite of what you thought.

Every time you try to be pretty and polished, people just see you as faking your personality. I mean, isn't that what you're doing?

The lesson here is to show up as who you are completely. The consequences are BAD if you don't.

☕ Here are HOOKS you can use to start your videos or your posts that speak to your authority:

• I thought my credentials would do the heavy lifting. They didn't.

• People started trusting me when I stopped trying to prove myself.

• The thing that built my reputation wasn't what I expected.

• My expertise didn't change. The way I connected with people did.

• I spent years collecting qualifications when I should have been building relationships.

• The turning point wasn't another certification. It was better conversations.

• Nobody hired me because of the letters after my name.

• The more I focused on helping people, the less I had to convince them.

• Trust grew faster than authority ever did.

• I stopped trying to sound credible and started being useful.

• People don't remember your résumé. They remember how you made them feel.

• The best marketing I ever did was solving someone's problem.

• Being right wasn't enough. People had to trust me first.

• I thought experience created trust. Consistency created trust.

• My reputation was built one conversation at a time.