Trust Falls

So, a week ago I stood outside for 3 hours doing various activities with people in my leadership theory&practice class. One of the mini-activities was doing the trust fall, which in my mind is really boring. We all chose people of similar sizes to pair up with for the fall/catch.

Yesterday, we were discussing the activities, and the teacher asked us to raise our hands if we felt that falling was harder, and then he asked us to raise our hands if we felt that catching was harder. The class was split almost 50/50. He told us that every year he noticed that it was split like that. He said he had a hypothesis: if you feel that falling is harder, it is about control. If you feel that catching is harder, it is about responsibility.

And then he told us that he used to do extreme trust falls where the person stands 5 feet into the air on some platform.

our sense of control, our sense of responsibility...which one causes us more stress to lose/fail at?

Are we more afraid that we will let someone down, or that someone will let us down?

We also discussed yesterday the top reasons for getting promoted and the top reasons for getting derailed. There were 2 slides full of reasons why people get derailed: low performance, insensitivity, over-managing, overly ambitious, poor staffing choices, betrayal of trust, unable to be strategic, arrogance, skill deficiencies, etc. We discussed all of these. And at the end, he said "there is hope". because all of these except one can be overcome.

Which one can't be overcome?

Betrayal of trust. He said: if you lose trust in a company, you should just get out.

Therefore, he said, never sacrifice your integrity.

Isn't it good that we believe in God who never fails? He keeps His word. His promises endure forever.