Dr. Darryl Stickel

And, you know, I was tired all the time, struggling to pay attention, struggling to learn.

And so there was this feeling of helplessness and hopelessness and loss that gave me real empathy for people who were struggling.

And when I started to recover,

I moved to Victoria, which is on Vancouver Island, just off the west coast of Canada.

And I was going to school there, and I'd be on the bus, and complete strangers would just sit down next to me and say, I'm really having a hard time.

And so I wanted to understand what it was that drew people to me, that allowed them to feel open and comfortable with me.

And so...

I started working with families in crisis and troubled teens and working on crisis lines, trying to hone those skills and come to a better understanding of what it was that was driving that.

And at the same time I was going to school, right?

Like I was, I did an undergraduate degree in psychology, a master's degree in public administration.

And while I was working in native land claims in British Columbia,

They would ask me these deep philosophical questions like what is self-government or what will the province look like 50 years after claims are settled?

The last question they asked me, Nick was how do we convince a group of people we've shafted for over a hundred years?

They should trust us.

Wow.

And I thought, man, that's a good question.

Wow.

And so I went to Duke, uh, wrote my doctoral thesis on building trust and hostile environments.

And had the good fortune of having two of the world's leading academics on the topic of trust on my committee at Duke.

One of them showed up the year I did, the other one showed up the year after I did.