This episode is brought to you by Your Clockwise Week—a personalized weekly structure built around your actual life, not an ideal one. If your week feels full but not fitting, you can learn more at mikevardy.com/yourclockwiseweek.

This latest edition of our monthly PM Talks series dives into a topic that underpins nearly everything we do: trust. From trusting the moment you’re in to trusting the systems you build, Patrick Rhone and I explore how this single word quietly defines the way we live, work, and connect.

In this conversation, we move from the personal—trusting ourselves, our instincts, and our attention—to the societal, exploring what happens when trust erodes in our institutions, technology, and even the tools meant to make life easier.

Six Discussion Points

• Why trusting the moment enhances presence—and how presence strengthens trust.
• How trust manifests in everyday choices, like buying a car or managing a calendar.
• The connection between simplicity, minimalism, and building trustworthy systems.
• Why democracy, money, and even productivity all rest on unseen foundations of trust.
• The difference between a trusted system and your trusted system.
• How patience, presence, and attention preserve trust over time.

Three Connection Points

• Patrick's blog post on trust
• Watch The Big Short and/or Margin Call
• Listen to Episode 596: Curiosity | PM Talks S2E3

Trust isn’t static—it’s something we build, test, and sometimes rebuild. Whether you’re trying to trust your tools, your timing, or yourself, I hope this episode helps you see where trust already lives in your life—and where it might need a little reinforcement.

If this episode resonated, I’m exploring ideas like these more deeply in my upcoming book, Productiveness. You can follow along as it takes shape at mikevardy.com/productiveness.