Brett Crozier's Surf When You Can and the Trust Facet (A1)

Brett Crozier, the Navy captain who lost his command after fighting to protect his crew during the pandemic, wrote Surf When You Can as a set of lessons on leading and living with integrity. One of them lands on a plain view of other people, on a page of lines from the book: "We might have different visions, come from different cultures, and be products of vastly different upbringings, but in the end our similarities far outweigh our differences." That charitable, benefit-of-the-doubt read on people is, in the Big Five, one facet.

A charitable read on people is the Trust facet

That facet is Trust (A1), under Agreeableness, the degree to which you assume others are basically decent and well-intentioned rather than approaching them with suspicion. Crozier's line runs on high A1: the working belief that under the surface differences, most people are just trying to get by and can be met in good faith. A high scorer extends that benefit of the doubt readily and finds common ground quickly. A lower scorer holds back, reads intentions more warily, and may see Crozier's optimism about people as naive rather than wise.

What keeps the line from being a platitude is that it comes from a leader who had real reason for cynicism and chose the other read anyway. Trust, in his telling, is not blindness to difference but a decision about where to place your attention, on the shared ground rather than the gaps, which pairs with the sensitivity to what other people are carrying. For a lower-A1 reader the usable move is small and testable, entering one interaction assuming good faith and noticing what it changes. Cynicism feels like protection. Crozier's argument is that leading and living well depend on betting, more often than not, that people are worth trusting.

Read your A1 to know how Surf When You Can sits with you. If it runs high, Crozier affirms a charitable instinct you already lead with and shows it holding up under pressure. If it runs low, the book is the gentler challenge, a case from someone burned by the system that seeing the common ground is a strength rather than a soft spot. The differences are real and easy to see. Crozier keeps pointing at the larger thing underneath them.

Read the book: Surf When You Can: Lessons in Life, Loyalty, and Leadership from a Maverick Navy Captain by Brett Crozier.

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