That day, my best friend and I walked into a beautifully decorated beauty salon, ready to get Botox injections.
When the nurse held up the vial with the original English label and showed it to us before turning and entering the operating room, a silent farce of a "switch" suddenly played out uncontrollably in my mind - could the vial we had confirmed be secretly replaced behind the curtain?
This thought made me feel absurd myself. But why would I think like this?
The cracks in the trust behind the anti-wrinkle injections
Later I understood: it was due to a lack of sufficient trust.
Over the years, I have changed several medical beauty institutions, but I have never developed a true "attachment" to any of them.
“Botox” injections for wrinkle removal from the United States has been a time-tested product, and 50U is sufficient for the forehead. However, on that occasion, the nurse strongly recommended 100U, saying, "It can cover the entire face and the effect will be better."
A few months later, the drooping eyelid caused by the excessive injection finally recovered. （And for 50U, it only takes 2 weeks, and it won't exceed 1 month）. It was only then that I accidentally learned that the 50U dosage of the injection was out of stock at that time.
This is just a small example of medical beauty services.
Looking around, from education and training to fitness courses, from financial products to daily consumption, incidents where one accidentally falls into traps occur frequently.
It seems as if we are living in a world that constantly requires verification and constant questioning.
Deposits and withdrawals from the "Trust Account"
This reminds me of Buffett's words: "People just don't want to get rich gradually."
For businesses, it is easy to make quick profits in the short term, but what they lose is the long-term trust of their customers. Once a trust crisis occurs, the cost of repairing it is extremely high.
I have been a fan of Apple products for over a decade. It's not just because of the products themselves, but also because of the predictable experience, transparent rules, and closed ecosystem.
It has built a complete "trust system" - you know when the next iteration will come, how services will be obtained, and how problems will be solved.
In fact, true brands or institutions are all managing a "trust account".
- Every honest and unexpectedly positive experience is a deposit;
- every concealment and excessive promotion is a large-scale withdrawal, until the account goes bankrupt.
From "Simple Choice" to "Choice Anxiety"
Remember when we were kids, going to the store to buy a bottle of soy sauce or a bottle of vinegar was an extremely simple task.
The familiar face behind the counter and the two or three familiar brands on the shelves constituted all the choices.
Nowadays, when we walk into a supermarket, we are confronted with an overwhelming variety of soy sauce products on the shelves - organic, zero-added, ancient brewing methods, imported... Each one is beautifully packaged and each one promises uniqueness.
We open our eyes wide, compare them repeatedly, but we become even more confused.
There are more choices, but trust has decreased.
When Trust Crisis Shapes Business Models
Recently, we often come across terms like "one-person company" and "building a personal IP".
We were once taught to emphasize teamwork, but now we are strongly encouraged to pursue individual success.
This shift might be one of the important drivers behind it - the trust crisis.
Many companies invest heavily in training new employees. After a few years, those who have developed their skills become independent and start their own businesses. This cycle repeats.
So, business owners start to think: Instead of nurturing teams that might leave, why not become the "one-person company" ourselves and take charge of everything ourselves?
Is this a business model born out of trust loss? If so, it might be a bit sad.
In an era of change, seeking reliable "partners"
We live in an era of change. "Lack of trust" might be one of the characteristics of this development - with abundant resources and endless choices, the cost of distinguishing truth from falsehood has also soared to unprecedented levels.
When I traveled in Cambodia in 2011, I was worried that the driver might take a detour. But my classmate who had lived there for many years laughed and said, "They haven't learned how to deceive yet!" At that moment, I was speechless.
Since the trust crisis is a product of the development of this era, we can only accept it and look for our own survival wisdom within it:
- The more experiences one has, the more knowledge one acquires. Every "tragic encounter" is a learning opportunity, making us more astute and better at protecting ourselves.
- Focus on establishing your own trust screening system. Find those brands and partners that are willing to accompany you for the long term and grow together with you, just like I did with Apple - there are actually many such companies, but it takes time to discover them.
- Simplify choices and deepen relationships. Instead of wandering among countless unfamiliar brands, it's better to establish deep connections with a few trustworthy ones.
Once we find it, life will instantly become lighter.
We can free ourselves from endless comparisons, verifications, and anxieties, and focus the precious energy saved on our careers, passions, and the truly important people in our lives.
- Investing is entrusting wealth to a company;
- consumption is entrusting your body, time and quality of life to a brand.
Throughout our lives, we are always seeking the right person to entrust ourselves to.
Trust, in this era, is indeed both expensive and cheap.
- Expensive because building it requires years of steadfastness;
- cheap because destroying it only takes an instant of betrayal.
But precisely because of this, those trust relationships that can withstand the test of time are all the more precious.
-----
The concept of "gradually getting rich" mentioned in the text is not merely an investment principle; it is also a profound business and life philosophy. It reminds us that whether it is managing a brand, building trust, or personal growth, true value needs to be accumulated gradually and incrementally over time through consistent and correct actions.
If you are interested, you can read further about
or "
".