Trust is only earned in a deeply personal way–it cannot be garnered and granted by someone else.
See “The Gullible and Bernie Madoff” at Neil Senturia’s The Baby Blog. Senturia, a well-known Southern California entrepreneur and consultant, argues that “every gullible act occurs when an individual is presented with a social challenge”. Put another way, it’s a Groucho Marx thing: Madoff’s most raving fans were investors he at first ignored; if he and his organization had asked them to join “the club”, the investors would have ignored him.
