My daughter loves to go the dentist. She’s had more than her fair share of cavities (bad genes) and fillings that fall out. But she’s fearless in that chair, her little feet dangling just over the edge of the seat.

The dentist once told her to close her eyes so none of the “sleepy juice” he was going to squirt in her mouth would get in her eyes and make her fall asleep. She didn’t have a clue that he had a ten inch needle full of Novocain behind his back. She later said, “He pinched me when he put that sleepy juice in my mouth, but at least it didn’t get in my eyes!”

In her eyes, squeezed shut though they were, he kept his promise. She has no need to know about the finagling that went on behind the scenes.

Ms. Jones doesn’t care if you lose a few margin points fixing freight damage on her dining room table. She’s blithely ignorant of the hoops you jump through to deliver to her door on time. She expects you to be there when you say you’re going to be there and to do what you say you’re going to do. The final outcome is all that matters when she decides if she can trust you.

Does she know what you’ve got behind your back? Do you make her feel your pain? Or do you just deliver what you’ve promised, each and every time.