There are some people in this world who you can trust with your life, others who you wouldn’t trust with holding your own soft drink in their hands. It’s an unfortunate fact of reality: there are a lot of con-men and con-women out there and it really is in your best interest to avoid them. It’s too bad that even I myself have made that mistake of putting my trust into someone I never should have from the beginning. It cost me a lot of grief, stress, and loss on so many different levels. I almost lost a very good friend because of it. It’s hard to imagine what life could have been like if I would have never even met this person. A lot better I’m sure. I made a bad business decision to extend partnership with someone who thought could be trusted when things should have been left well enough alone as they were beforehand. No Mike, this is not about you! You know who you are.

When it comes to any kind of business relationship, there are three basic rules to follow:

1. Be careful who you get into any type of signed agreement with.
2. If it cannot be seen, felt, heard or proven it cannot be trusted.
3. Always trust your gut instinct with doubt, even if it doesn’t sound like the best idea. Sometimes things are just too good to be true, and the people promising them to you fall short stop of a bad used car salesman.

I know this is a short excerpt but I just wanted to share some brief words of wisdom that I have learned in my struggles for the past year and a half. It’s common sense indeed, but we’ve all fell victim to con artists, scammers and cheaters, and I know I have. A lesson learned. In order to stay ahead and succeed you need to know who is the good, bad, and the ugly. I know I have learned a valuable lesson.