Earlier this week I attended a conference for work, where I learned a lot about marketing. Brand. Key messages. Identity. Campaign. I’ve got a little street cred now and am down with the marketing lingo. I could even tell you what a ROI is without having to google it.

I joke, but learning how to market is essentially learning how to change the way you think. Or rather, marketing forces you to think about things in a different way. For me, this is both a good and a bad thing. On the one hand, my brain is expanding—I can feel it stretching, and I have to say, it feels damn good. On the other hand, who the fuck wants to think like a salesperson? I can’t help but feel a little dirty when I get excited about a well-executed brand.

But, hey, it’s a dirty world and a girl’s gotta pay the rent.

In any case, at one of the sessions I attended, the speaker explained that in order to “defeat the competitors for your donors,” you have to earn the trust of your audience. (Really? In order to get people to give me money, they have to trust me? You’re fucking kidding me. [I should mention here that most of marketing is telling people what they already know, but packaging it as something new.])

To illustrate what he meant by “trust,” the speaker pulled out the following equation:

                             Trust   =   credibility x intimacy
                                             _______________________

                                                          risk

If the risk is greater, he explained, credibility and intimacy have to be greater, too.

Though I never liked math all that much, according to my best friend Lizzi, I am a quantifier. I don’t always know what she means by this, but when I saw the equation and immediately started applying it not to my job, but to my life—more specifically, my love life—I got it. How wonderful would it be, I thought, tuning out the rest of the lecture, if trust was as simple as an equation?

It’s a known fact, within certain circles, that I’m always getting in my own way. I create problems where there are no problems. I complain about life being hard, and sometimes it is, but most of the time I’m simply making it harder for myself. After three years of therapy and a lifetime of self-analysis, I’ve concluded that, aside from my parents, the majority of my issues revolve around one word. Any guesses? Yep, trust. As in, I can’t do it. I can’t completely trust others, and I sure as hell can’t always trust myself.

So I quantify. And seek out equations to quell the anxiety of never trusting.

If a = b and b = c, then a = c translates into: If he used to call me twice a day and now only calls me once a day, then he no longer likes me and thinks I’m ugly. When x is negative, y is positive translates into: The more I like him, the less he will like me. And so on.

I love my equations. They simplify the loud spinning mess inside my head. They allow me to justify my assumptions. He doesn’t like me! It’s mathematically proven! They make me feel like I’m in control of my life and my feelings. They give me answers when there are no answers. They are black and white and not even a little bit gray.

Of course, life is not business, even if we are bombarded with 5,000 marketing messages a day. Unfortunately, to get to trust you have to leap. For me, at least, trust = faith. You do it because you feel it. Because you allow yourself the room to get there. Because at some point you let go of the equations and believe, really believe, that no matter what happens, despite your worst fears slinking their way into reality, you’ll be okay.

I have a new article up at Sirens Magazine about (what else?) unemployment, specifically among the overly-educated female population.

It’s not a particularly happy subject, but I do try to give it a more hopeful slant.

Let me know if I succeeded.