Trust – The Greatest Form Of Wealth, In Business and In Life
If there is one thing that life and business have taught me in my personal, professional and spiritual travels, it is that you cannot build anything of lasting impact – a relationship, a business, or an institution – without trust.
It is the glue that cements love. It is the objective of all contracts. And it is the product of duty and responsibility.
Trust is so valuable because it is the bridge between the past, present and future.
It gives us confidence in what lies ahead because it is tied to the consistency of what came before, and is rooted in the reliability of our present reality.
Of all of the chapters in my new three volume book series, The Entrepreneurial Secret: Starting A Business Without A Bank Loan, Collateral or Revenue perhaps the most intriguing and provocative is a chapter in ‘Volume 1: The Political Economy,’ “The Secret Of Kinship Systems and Group Economics” which connects the prospects for success of today’s entrepreneur, with the past history of how immigrant ethnic and religious communities have developed and prospered as a result of their savings practices. These cultural traditions for pooling money – whether the Partners of Jamaicans; the Gae of Korean immigrants; the Aktsiyes of the Jewish community or the Esusu of the West African community – all revolve around the principle that one’s word is their bond and that in unity there is strength, as the sum of the group is greater than the individual parts.
So is the success of these institutions in financing talented entrepreneurs based upon the group finding the most trust-worthy entrepreneurs with the best ideas?
No.
It is not the character of the person receiving the monies that is the most important attribute in the arrangement, it is, rather, that there are others in the group who are willing to guarantee that the person will make good on the loan or investment. The beauty of the arrangement is that even if a person has poor credit, and a past full of mistakes and errors, their interest in maintaining good relations with those who are willing to vouch for them, is sufficient for the larger group to trust them with their money.
The group understands that peer pressure, and the desire for solidarity and the maintenance of unity within a society can substitute for personal failings and offer an alternative way for people to ‘trust’ one another.
Over the holidays I was blessed to lead a group discussion of my nuclear and extended family about these principles and histories, and had the honor of having my Mother – raised in Jamaica – as a star witness, explaining in detail how the savings culture works in Caribbean tradition.
Some of my family members – born in America – had never heard this before and were amazed to learn that any group where trust exists, could immediately work out arrangements to back one another financially.
Specifically, I pointed to three areas where these principles could be applied: lifting family members out of poverty; providing start-up capital for business ventures; and funding the education of young family members. One individual afterward remarked, “…hearing the conversations reminded me that we have so many resources just within the family circles!”
One of the greatest effects of slavery, particularly on those enslaved in the United States of America, is that it stripped us of this greatest form of wealth – trust which is the key to tapping into the ‘many resources just within the family circle,’ as my family member put it. As I explain in my book, when one considers that family and friends are usually the second or third greatest source of financing for start-up businesses, one can see how devastating the destruction or breakdown of a family can be – and even worse, the lack of trust that extends beyond the nuclear family structure and into the broader community.
This is why I advocate that all of us who are members organizations and groups that are primarily little more than cliques, excuses to party, or casual in nature, find ways to gradually reform them and transform these institutions into kinship systems, where traditions and principles of group economics can be practiced. 
These don’t have to be based on blood-ties. In fact, some of the greatest units accomplishing good in history have been women and men who were united for a common cause but who were not related by blood.
Religious communities, fraternities and sororities, professional and trade societies, sports teams, ethnic groups and even street organizations (so-called ‘gangs’) have what it takes to develop and use trust as means to support one another in positive ways.
As long as there is respect for and accountability to a third-party, a process, a common set of beliefs, or a teaching or philosophy, any group can develop the accountability and rules that are necessary to form a small economy among themselves.
I saw this at work, and participated in it, when I served as General Manager for Wu-Tang Management, helping to coordinate the affairs of the multi-platinum group, Wu Tang Clan. Because everyone involved was either a family member, childhood friend, had respect for the leader (RZA), or respected universal principles that were part of a Teaching, we were able to accomplish what other groups couldn’t and haven’t since in the music business.
In business and life, trust is not everything, but without it you have nothing.
Cedric Muhammad is a business consultant, political strategist, and monetary economist and is author of the book, The Entrepreneurial Secret: To Starting a Business Without A Bank Loan, Collateral Or Revenue. He is a former GM of Wu-Tang Management and currently a Member of the African Union’s First Congress of African Economists. His Hip-Hoppreneur ™ column can be read each week exclusively at AllHipHip.com. Cedric can be contacted via e-mail at: cedric(at)cmcap.com
